The German car giants are touting the idea of the smart car where the car becomes a mobile communications centre, enabling drivers to access all modern media services at any given time. Uncoupling from the conventional vehicle development cycles is achieved on the one hand through secure and comfortable integration of the smartphone in the vehicle, and on the other hand through the use of a consistently Cloud-based solution. Mercedes-Benz customers consequently always have access to the latest applications for comprehensive connectivity in their automobiles.

But that’s not all the intelligent car does not simply communicates with the driver alone, but also with other transportation modes and the surrounding environment in order to be able to assess all relevant information for a trip and make practical use of it immediately.

The complete windshield becomes a brilliant head-up display; the dashboard, a display band. Digital information about the actual vehicle surroundings, points of interest, friends, pedestrians and other vehicles are all presented there.

With DICE Mercedes-Benz is giving drivers a peak in to the future of driving and even though we can’t expect to see the changes any time soon it’s still an amazing glimpse of what’s to come!

Here are a few highlights we should expect this year:

Phones: There is a lot of noise about Windows smartphones this year, we can expect something big out of HTC, Samsung and Nokia. This year should bring us Quad-Core processors, LTE and higher spec camera’s and screens.

Ultrabooks: Gone are the days of big bulky power hungry laptop’s, we can expect a few big names launching some sleek energy efficient machines running the latest Intel Sandy Bridge processors and I am sure all geared for Windows 8.

Home Entertainment / Automation: I don’t think we can expect any new TV technology this year but we will certainly find bigger ones.  Keep an eye on Google with their living room OS. There will be the usual household appliance guys there too with I am sure something that will connect to your home network and even the cloud.

Gaming: We will probably not hear anything major from the big three console manufacturers this year but will definitely be showing off their new toys launched at E3 last year, however keep a look out for something on the accessory side from the independents.

Cars: CES is not a car show, but more and more technology is being included in cars and year after year we have seen the car side of things growing. We won’t expect flash looking cars with the latest body kits and mags, but inside is where we can see some big things.

We are sure to see some changes in the Tablet/E-reader, Photography and Audio markets too, I will be popping in a few posts to keep you updated.

The Gadget of the Year is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, which Stuff said took on the iPad and surpassed their judges’ expectations.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 was announced as the Phone of the Year with the judges said that the Galaxy S2 “brought the greatest arsenal of hardware weaponry ever seen on the smartphone battlefield.” Runners up in the Phone of the Year category were the HTC Sensation, BlackBerry Bold 9900, LG Optimus 3D, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, Google Nexus S and Nokia E6.

The Tablet of the Year according to Stuff is Apple’s iPad 2 which judges described as “the most complete tablet on the market.”

Apple’s MacBook Air come out tops as the Computer of the Year with the judges saying “it melds the intuitiveness of a tablet with the power of a grown up laptop.”

The Samsung UA55D8000 claimed the title of The TV of the Year. Other contenders in this category were the Panasonic TX–P4GT30, Phillips 50PFL7956T, LG47LW650T and Sony KDL–46HX923.

The other 2011 gadget of the year winners were:

• Gaming Gadget of the Year – Nintendo 3DS
• Car of Year – Range Rover Evoque
• Camera of the Year – Olympus Pen E-P3
• Sports & Fitness Gadget of the Year – Sony Ericsson Xperia Active
• Audio Gadget of the Year – Sonos Play: 3
• SAT NAV of the Year – Tom Tom Live 1000

Looking at the current crop of smartphones and tablets it is clear that capacitive, rather than resistive, is the touchscreen technology of choice. Because of its reliance on pressure for input resistive screens are plagued by inaccuracy and poor responsiveness. Resistive touchscreens do have one advantage over capacitive though – you can use one while wearing gloves.

But now, SMK Electronics and Synaptics have both developed touch screens that will allow gadget users easier usability when operating capacitive touch screen devices. SMK has developed new sensor panel structure that is noise-resistant, allowing for a clearer signal to be detected at high sensitivities. But this isn’t the first touchscreen we’ve seen that works with gloves. The range of screens designed by Synaptics also work by reducing noise but in slightly different way. Synaptics screens integrate the touchscreen controller with the display controller running the screen beneath it. This allows them to work together and avoid interference. The Synaptics touchscreens are able to detect a gloved hand or even the head of a pin!

The Synaptics screens are aimed at mobile phone, MP3 and tablet use while SMK’s have been specifically designed for dash panel systems in cars. The company believes that more and more functions will be centralised in our vehicles, where access at any time is important. The SMK panel is 6.5-inches, but can be scaled up to 8-inches.

HP announced just a few days ago that they would be spinning off their PC business, and possibly selling it. That’s big news coming from, currently, the world’s largest PC manufacturer. They seem to be following in IBM’s footsteps and cutting loose their PC hardware devisions. But why would a company throw out a perfectly profitable part of their business? Really, PC sales accounted for a third of HP’s revenue last year. That’s a big piece of the pie to just push to the side.

It seems between tablets and Apple HP doesn’t see much profit in making PC’s anymore. Calling it the ‘tablet effect’ HP’s CEO has effectively said that there just isn’t a future for traditional PCs. While, admittedly, PC sales have begun to stagnate, it doesn’t seem like reason enough to jump ship before she even starts sinking. Perhaps HP thinks they’re getting out while they’re ahead. I’d prefer they stood their ground. While I’ve never been the biggest HP fan, with them giving up, it leaves us, the consumer, with fewer choices, and sets a bad trend that other manufacturers may follow. Rather than retreating, maybe what the PC market really needs is a little innovation. Apple still makes desktops, but they’re much more appealing than most of the big boxes out there. The mac mini makes for a very nice home or office machine and even a decent little server. And as far as laptops go, well, I don’t see them being replaced by tablets anytime soon.

R.I.P WebOS

On another sour note, HP also announced that they would stop making WebOS devices. Yes all of them, no more phones or tablets. Just six weeks after releasing their TouchPad HP is retiring it. That means no more firmware updates, no bug fixes, and no reason for app developers to keep making anything for the platform.

The TouchPad was not greeted by great reviews on its release, but HP’s hardly given it a chance, not even a second edition, before scrapping it, along with everything else. It seems a little unfair for WebOS. The TouchPad’s hardware was never upto scratch, but WebOS has always been a great piece of software, it just can’t seem to find a home to match. WebOS was also plagued by mediocre hardware when it was a Palm product, HP was supposed to be the remedy when they purchased Palm wholesale last year. But they’ve given up without a fight, in what seems to be HP’s new business plan; hardware is dead weight.

HP exec’s have said that they may be giving up on the hardware, but they still have big plans to develop WebOS. Indicating that they would be looking to market WebOS to 3rd party hardware manufacturers. It seems this time HP wants to emulate Google’s approach with Android. So all is not lost for WebOS? Perhaps, but all this uncertainty has weakened the potential of this great little OS, with developers becoming disinterested and leaving Android, iOS, WP7 and BlackBerry to dominate. It’s going to be hard to break back into the market after so many false starts.

On the positive side, HP have confirmed that they will offer full refunds for anyone who recently purchased a TouchPad through them, and most retailers are expected to follow suit.

The new UI design is based around a touch interface. The old and familiar elements of the desktop are gone, the start button and even desktop icons, are all replaced by a grid of tiles. Each tile is both a link to launch a full app and a widget which displays some realtime information, right there on the desktop.

Perhaps my favorite new feature of the interface are the full screen, immersive apps. Applications now dominate the desktop when running and no longer live in poorly shuffled stacks of windows on your desktop. A simple swipe of your finger switches between apps, and apps can even be brought together, running side by side on the screen. Take a look below for yourself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another, and possibly the most interesting bit of news about Windows 8 to come out, is that it will no longer be confined to the x86 platform. Microsoft are planning to support several ARM platforms with this new OS as well. That means Windows running on desktops, tablets and phones, which demonstrates Microsoft’s vision of a unified Windows environment.

All of this can be quite daunting to users who have become accustomed to the Windows desktop. But fret not, as Microsoft are planning to release Windows 8 with dual desktops, and you will be able to switch back to the familiar Windows 7 look and feel. Actually, this decision is a little confusing, and has successfully created a lot of turmoil. Do Microsoft really want to release an OS that has two desktops?

A closer look at the situation makes you think Microsoft intend to release several different versions of Windows 8, like they have with previous editions. Mostly likely the desktop versions of Windows 8 will offer both desktops, and the mobile editions will only offer the new touch interface. This is confirmed by Intel Senior Vice President, Renee James, commenting that the ARM versions of Windows 8 will offer no compatibility with legacy apps. Yep, that means none of your old Windows apps will run on the ARM versions of Windows 8. So forget about playing any of your games on that slick looking Windows 8 slate.

Of course, what’s really driving these radical changes is competition. Microsoft has never had so much of it. With Apple and Android really dominating in the mobile market. Microsoft is a little late to the party, but they’ve definitely seen the writing on the wall and they’re betting it all on Windows 8.

iOS 5 is the next mobile operating system for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. “With iOS 5, we’ve added over 200 new features — taking a mobile operating system that was already years ahead of anything else and moving it even further ahead” is what the guys from Apple are saying, here are a few reasons why:

With Notification Center, all you will need to do is one swipe downwards on you device and instantly you will have every notification from new mail to reminders, calendar appointments to new texts, friend requests to tweet mentions and more. Most importantly you get to choose what you want to see all in one convenient place. New notifications appear briefly at the top of your screen, without interrupting what you’re doing. And the Lock screen displays notifications so you can act on them with just a swipe.

The new Camera features will have you using your camera a lot more than you used to, there will be no more fumbling around to find the camera icon as straight from the lock screen you will be able to hit the camera button and you are there. Added features include the use of grid lines, pinch-to-zoom gestures and what I have been waiting for, hit the volume-up button and the picture is yours. With Photo Stream enabled in iCloud (see related blog shortly), your photo will be readily available on all your devices within minutes.

Safari has had a make-over too. On the iPad you will find tabbed browsing, and the new Reading List lets you save interesting articles and again with the use of iCloud, they will be readily available for you to read on any of your devices.

iMessage has been dubbed the BBM killer, it is easy to see why. Any iOS 5 device connected via Wi-Fi or 3G will have this fantastic facility built in to the Messages App so you can send text, photos, videos, locations and contacts to any iOS 5 user. You will be able to track your messages with delivery receipts and the optional read receipts and see when someone it typing in return. With full synchronization across all your iOS 5 devices you will be able to start a conversation on one and seamlessly continue on another.

Twitter will have full integration in that you will be able to sign in once in settings and you can tweet directly out of Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube or Maps and tweet from any capable app as Twitter is integrated system wide. Your contacts will have a field for a twitter username and profile picture.

As Apple have said, over 200 new features, so there are plenty other improvements from photo editing to mail and calendar tweaks, PC-Free which means out of the box activation without having to plug in to your PC first, Wi-Fi sync with iTunes on demand or whenever you plug in to power, Multitasking gestures on iPad and much much more, so I will definitely be the first to upgrade come the expected upgrade this Spring.

The apple guys out there will know exactly what I am talking about, however for those who don’t know, don’t worry, let me explain.

WWDC is short for “The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference”, a conference hosted annually by Apple Inc. Every year they sell approx 5000 tickets to Apple developers worldwide showcasing what software and developments are to be expected in the following months.

This conference is a weeklong event and this year it is being held in San Francisco from the 6th till the 10th June.  Every year at the beginning of the conference they host the Keynote address. It is here where they announce what’s new. Usually Apple are very tight lipped on what is to be announced, however this year they un-expectedly dropped a couple of hints on what was to be expected. The three show stoppers this year were OS X Lion, iOS5 and the big one, iCloud.

We going to be blogging about all 3 of these major announcements right here on the blog. So stay tuned!

We can expect the latest Hollywood blockbusters and unlike other broadcasters, which broadcast weekly episodes, VOD:TV will offer the entire season of the latest series all at once, stored on your PVR for on-demand viewing.

VOD:TV will be using the same satellite as DSTV, so you will not have to buy a new, or re-orientate your current satellite dish. This will be connected to a Linux based HD PVR decoder which is likened to a  “converged device” where you can plug in an external HDD to expand the already large 500 gb hard drive, check your email, update Facebook, browse the web and chat via an instant-messaging app all via 3g with a remote control that doubles as a full QWERTY keyboard. The decoder will be equipped with uPNP network protocols, so you can stream content to supported computers and peripherals.

According to SouthTel’s Oscar Dube, VOD:TV have signed agreements with Hollywood’s six biggest studios to offer the latest movies and TV shows to subscribers. In the future Small local film producers and musicians will be able to upload their own content and they will share the revenue.

Keep a look out for VOD:TV around the 1st September,

About time. Nokia has been stumbling around in the dark for a while now, as they watched their competitors like Apple and Google steal all the lime light. Apple manufactures their own hardware, and develops their own software. This makes for fantastic devices that work really well. The success of the iPhone and the iPad can testify to this. Google launched Android and made it open to handset manufacturers. Samsung and HTC have been two of the biggest users of Android, each releasing numerous handsets in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Microsoft built Windows Phone 7 (gratefully, not on the smoking charred ruins of Windows Mobile 6.5, rather, from scratch), but hasn’t seen the same adoption by handset manufacturers that Android has seen. So essentially Microsoft has the software but no momentum.

Nokia have the lions share of the global market for feature phones. Running either their own proprietary software, or running Symbian, or Maemo, or Meego, or whatever, on the more sophisticated devices. But in a Smartphone world, the feature phone isn’t making waves. Nokia have tried to make a few smart phones, but each time they are met with very little interest in the market. Which is understandable when they’re trying to stand up to their Android and iPhone rivals, without a decent OS.

So Nokia then has momentum, but no good software to steer into the smartphone market, with.
The Nokia-Microsoft partnership makes perfect sense then. In fact, it becomes blindingly obvious. Nokia manufacture the devices (which they’re VERY good at, actually), and leverage the juggernaut momentum they enjoy, and Microsoft provide the (very capable) software, and the hordes of developers with Microsoft DevTools experience, as well as most of the online services such as App stores, media content etc etc. Boom. Instant giant smartphone player.

Oh, and there is a company called RIM that makes something called a Blackberry, but they are losing too much market-share to be relevant here…