Infibeam Pi2

 In July 2010, Indian company Infibeam launched the country's own ebook reader - Pi for the budget-minded Indian audience. And now, Infibeam has announced the second version of the Indian eBook reader called Pi2 (read as Pi Square). New Infibean Pi2 will let users interact with the reader through a touchscreen and will offer Wi-Fi connectivity to download ebooks or documents wirelessly. Infibeam Pi2 is available for pre-orders from here at a price of Rs. 11,999. 

Infibeam Pi did manage to grab attention of several ebook crazy Indians who desired to get Amazon Kindle to feed their eBook reading hunger. The Pi ebook reader also offered services like listening to music/audiobooks apart from support for myriad document and images formats. The new Infibeam Pi2 comes with a 6-inch E Ink Vizplex with Resistive Touch and Epson Display controller screen. The screen supports 600x800 pixel resolution with 166dpi and supports Black/White 8/16 grayscale. Thanks to the E Ink Vizplex screen, this ebook reader makes the text readable even in broad daylight. 
The new Pi2 changes the button scheme from the right side in Pi and brings it in the center with two small ones on each side of the home button. The center home button offers 4-way navigation and selection. Packing Linux 2.6.28 Kernel based OS, the Pi2's browser will let you access the web in Black/White mode. Apart from English, the Pi2 offers support for Hindi, Sanskrit and some other Indian languages. The reader will also let you choose the font size and up to 8 level gray scale. 

Internally, the Pi2 comes with 2GB onboard memory unlike the 512MB in the Pi and users one can add up to 32GB microSD card for beefing up the storage space. Apart from storing up to 2,000 ebooks, you can also store some MP3 files for enjoying music while you read. You can now download more ebooks wirelessly using the Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) connectivity. 

Packing 1100 mAh rechargeable Li-Polymer battery, we expect the battery life of this ebook reader to be a bit longer than its predecessor. There are no specific hours mentioned but when the reader is full charged, one should be able to read approximately 8,000 pages (the Wi-Fi needs to be turned off). 

Infibeam had introduced Pi for Rs. 9,999 and now the Pi2 with touchscreen as well as Wi-Fi will cost Rs. 11,999 if you pre-order. However, the introductory price of the same will be Rs. 14,999 which is almost like a good mid-range Android smartphone. The Infibeam Pi2 is expected to start shipping at the end of February.

This week the latest installment in the Tron series, Tron: Legacy (which we’vepreviously reviewed) comes out on DVD & Blu-Ray. Today I’m going to take a look at the game meant to provide a bit of a prologue to the film – Tron: Evolution.

General Information

Title: Tron – Evolution
Developer: Propaganda Games
Publisher: Disney Interactive
Platforms: Xbox 360 (Reviewed), PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, PSP, PC
Release Date: December 7th, 2010
Genre: Third-Person Shooter

Available from Amazon.com

The Premise

Prior to the events of Tron: Legacy, the player plays as Anon, a prototype monitor designed by Kevin Flynn to assist Tron. As the leader of the ISOs is about to be made co-Administrator alongside Clu by Flynn, a virus outbreak starts on the system, and Anon must get to the bottom of the outbreak as tensions between ISOs and Basics grow.

The High Points

The game does an excellent job of immersing the player into the Tron universe. Also, the controls are rock solid, particularly in the Prince of Persia-esque platforming segments. When I died while platforming, I never felt like it was the controls fault, I felt like I wasn’t doing it right, and with a little more practice I’d make it – and I was right.

Also, the idea of having a combined experience pool between multi-player and single-player is good. It encourages players to go through the game in single player, even multiple times on higher difficulties, and if a player is stuck in single player they can always go into multi-player and play a bunch to build up XP for single player.

For all the problems multi-player has with level balance, the light-cycle maps are the great equalizer. There it doesn’t matter what power-ups you’ve unlocked, if you aren’t good on a light-cycle and aren’t paying attention to your environment, you’re hosed.

The light cycle levels in the game itself are very well done, and do an excellent job at presenting a sense of speed. The few times where you get behind the controls of a Light Tank are very well done, and give a real impression of empowerment. There’s a real kick to, after dreading the appearance of Recognizers when you’re on foot or on your light-cycle because of the hurting that follows, getting in a tank and blowing them away left and right.

The Low Points

The pacing in the game is very rushed. The game goes straight from the first appearance of the virus to CLU’s coup d’etat, and CLU’s purge not too far after that. I would have preferred a more gradual pacing, with Anon’s investigation of the virus leading up to to the coup d’etat, followed by CLU stirring the pot between basics and ISOs and finally the purge.

Combat has problems with targeting enemies. I found it very difficult to set up combos on specific enemies along with lining up shots with some of the special weapons on the enemies I needed to hit with them.

The combat in multi-player doesn’t work very well. When you don’t have a highlighted target you attack nothing, and it’s extremely easy to lose your lock on a target, meaning that in turn you’re attacking nothing, and possibly getting clobbered by your opponent (or several opponents). Also, the level difference in multi-player can make a significant difference in the more traditional modes (Deresolution and Team Deresolution – Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch) – where players at level 50 tend to heavily dominate everything. Unfortunately at this point in the game’s lifespan, the majority of the players encountered tend to be higher level.

Content Notes

Tron Evolution was rated Teen by the ESRB. There is no graphic violence or nudity in the game – though like Tron Legacy it has some rather intense deaths.

The Scores

Originality: The game does not particularly exist in a vacuum. It feeds off of the plot of Tron Legacy, and also feeds into it. That said, this is a Tron game that is fairly different from all the games before it. 4 out of 6.

Story: The game’s story is executed very well, with everything flowing organically into each other, though as mentioned under Low Points, the pacing is rushed. Also, any emotional response for the characters is muted by the fact that you if you’ve seen the film, you know that Quorra and Clu will be appearing in the film, and any of the ISOs we meet won’t. 4 out of 6.

Graphics: The game looks really good. The character animations flow smoothly together, and the characters from the films look like their film counterparts. 5 out of 6.

Sound: The music in the game is a nice mix of original compositions and pieces from Daft Punk’s film score. The sound effects are very good as well, with many of the sound effects from the film. 5 out of 6.

Playability: Controls during the platforming sections are rock solid. Controls in combat, on the other hand, have some real problems, as mentioned under the low point. 4 out of 6.

Immersion: The game’s HUD is unobtrusive and intuitive, and it goes away when you don’t need it. Even dying and re-loading from the last checkpoint is quick and explained with a little screen that makes it fit in the game. Very well done. 6 out of 6.

Overall: This is probably one of the best movie licensed games in a while. 5 out of 6.

What's new in Android 3.0 Honeycomb

We got our first real taste of Android 3.0 -- "Honeycomb" -- on the Motorola Xoom tablet during CES in early January. It's a pretty big leap from the Android we know and love today, to be sure. But most of what we saw were demonstrations, video of what Honeycomb can and will do.

But today Google released a preview of the Android 3.0 software development kit -- the tools developers need to make applications. Along with the updated SDK, Google's compiled an excellent highlights package. Join us after the break where we'll walk you through the some of the major changes, and what we can expect in the coming year.

Ed. Note: Remember that this is based off a preview of Android 3.0, and things are very likely to change. We'll update when warranted.

Designed for tablets, or at least larger screens

There's been a little back and forth about this, but make no mistake -- Honeycomb is intended for Android tablets. One look at the user interface (UI), and that's plenty apparent. But it's also going to make its way onto smartphones. Matias Duarte -- the UI guru behind webOS who later left for Google -- said as much during a recent interview.

And Google makes no bones about it in the first sentence of the highlights (emphasis ours):

Android 3.0 is a new version of the Android platform that is specifically optimized for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets.

Does that mean your lowly 3.5- or even 4-inch phone won't be getting Honeycomb? Look at it this way: Anything you're holding in your hand as you read this (save for a Nexus S) is waiting on an upgrade to Android 2.3 Gingerbread -- and a good number of us are still waiting on Froyo for our phones.

Point is, when it comes to smartphones "with larger screen sizes," we're not expecting Honeycomb upgrades anytime soon, except maybe for the Nexus S. New hardware later this year is a whole 'nother matter, though.

A brand-new user interface

Holographic UI

Again, hardly a surprise, as we've seen it on the Xoom. It's being referred to as a "holographic" UI. And indeed there's very much a three-dimensional effect going on. (This is going to look way cool once 3D screens become practical.)

The System Bar

Somewhere, someone at Microsoft is going to go a little nuts over this. But Honeycomb has a "System Bar" that's docked at the bottom of the screen. With it you'll have your notifications (moved from the top of Android 2.3 and previous), system status, a clock and soft navigation buttons.

The Action Bar

When you're running an app -- say, like gmail -- you'll have an "Action Bar" at the top of the screen. That's another UI element that's very much in line with what you'll find on a desktop computer program -- or Windows Mobile, for those who can stand to think of it.

Multitasking and recent applications

Hey, multitasking isn't going anywhere. And we're getting a new way to switch from one app to another. There will be a "Recent Apps" list tucked into the System Bar. The list will show you a thumbnail of the app -- in the state that you last left the app.

Yes. This sounds very much like desktop computing to us, too.

A new keyboard

Makes sense. As anyone who's used the Samsung Galaxy Tab or some other Android tablet can attest, simply scaling up a current keyboard doesn't really get the job done.

Third-party keyboards are coming, too, as we know Swiftkey already has one in the works.

Revamped cut/copy/paste

This looks a lot like what we've got in Gingerbread, actually. Though going by a screen shot hardly will do it justice. After you've selected text, you can choose an action from the (you guessed it) Action Bar.

New Google apps

We're getting reworked "standard apps" (often called Google apps or Gapps) in Honeycomb.

Web browser

The browser switches to tabbed browsing instead of windows. There's also an "incognito" mode (borrowing from Chrome). You can automatically sign into Google sites, and sync bookmarks with Google Chrome on your desktop.

Multitouch support has been enabled for JavaScript and other plugins. That means a plugin -- say Adobe Flash -- can now detect more than one finger on the screen. Snazzy. There also are improvements for when you're viewing a non-mobile site.

Camera and photo gallery

The camera app has been redesigned for larger screen sizes. You get quicker access to settings such as zoom, focus, flash, exposure, etc. Frankly, those are improvements that we should have in Android 2.2. Let's hope that gets ported over post haste.

Contacts

A big change from Android 2.x to Honeycomb is the use of multiple panes on a single screen. Whereas you'd see a contact list, choose a contact and then have that contact fill the entire phone screen, it'll now do so on multiple panes. (Google's also called these "fragments.")

E-mail/gmail

The stock e-mail app is getting quite the makeover. And we presume the gmail app (which you see here) gets it, too. Like contacts, it'll take advantage of the dual-pane UI. You'll also be able to select multiple messages and act on them, tell attachments to sync at a later time, or use an e-mail widget.

And -- this is our favorite -- you'll be able to drag and drop items, like you see in the image above. That's new in the Android 3.0 framework and can be used in various apps

Other improvements

High-performance graphics

What's on the screen is just as important as the technology driving it. And in Android 3.0, the graphics get a major boost. Open GL hardware acceleration has arrived for 2D graphics. And for 3D graphics, there's a special renderscript that serves as an API for 3D scenes, as well as a universal shader language. That's nerdspeak for "It'll look good and be fast."

Multicore processor support

This is a big one, as dual-core processors have finally arrived. But, strangely enough, Android hasn't had true support for them until Honeycomb. And Google says that applications that are only written to take advantage of one core still can benefit from the change.

Bigger and better widgets

Widgets are getting bigger and better. You can flip through 3D stacks, have grids or lists. You can also interact with widgets in new ways, including scrolling and flipping the items within a widget.

Multimedia and connectivity

Nerdy, but important. There's new HTTP live streaming, meaning you can feed Android an M3U playlist URL and it'll know what to do with it. Most important, it means you'll possibly be able to watch Apple keynotes now. :p

There's also a new DRM -- digital rights management -- framework. That's the thing you hear about when the record labels and other publishers accuse you of stealing their work.

There also are new stereo Bluetooth profiles, so apps will be able to better interact with your accessories.

New enterprise support

This has been a big headache for a lot of you, we know. We'll just crip from Google here and tell you that "developers of device administration applications can support new types of policies, including policies for encrypted storage, password expiration, password history, and password complex characters required."

Older phones, and older apps

The good news: Android 3.0 is fully compatible with current Android applications. That's not to say you won't see updates for Honeycomb, but your favorite app should at least be functional even if the dev doesn't touch it.

But like we said at the outset: We'd be real surprised at this point if anything but the most recently announced smartphone gets updated to Honeycomb. In fact, we'd go so far to say that a dual-core developer phone might not be out of the question in the next six months. (Boy, we've got our fingers crossed for that.)

More's in store

So those are the broad strokes of Android 3.0. The APIs could still change. Features may be added or removed. We'll updated this post as necessary. But in the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy the preview Google gave us at the beginning of January.

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