Human eyesight is such a limiting factor in military missions that DARPA is trying to fix it. Not with lasers; those are reserved for ships, but instead with a new infrared camera using pixels only five microns wide.
Smaller pixels mean a high-resolution image can be captured in a tinier package. There are existing miniaturized infrared cameras, but their pixels are about three times the size of DARPA's latest, and their resolution is at best half as good. The new technology has made it possible for the portable camera pictured above to do the work of the sort of long-wave infrared (LWIR) camera that till now has required a truck to carry.
‘Google Glass is a technical masterpiece’ German designer Martin Missfeldt said. He just created the graphics to show us how they work. ‘It combines numerous functions and features in a very small unit. In addition to phone and camera (photo, video), it offers Internet connection, including GPS.’
Depending on how you wear the Google Glass, the layer appears in the upper right corner or in the middle of the visual field. When the Google Glass is high on the nose, so that you can practically see through underneath, you must turn the eye up to view the image sharp.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) have found a new mechanism to transmit light through optical fibers. Their discovery marks the first practical application of a Nobel-Prize-winning phenomenon that was proposed in 1958. Assistant Professor Arash Mafi and doctoral student Salman Karbasi harnessed "Anderson localization" to create an optical fiber with a strong scattering mechanism that traps the beam of light as it traverses the fiber. The work was done in collaboration with Karl Koch, a scientist with Corning Inc.
The new iLumi, unveiled this week on Indiegogo, is an energy-efficient LED bulb that lasts for 20 years and can be controlled by any smartphone. The bulb features iLumi’s HyperLux technology, which allows it to be programmed to display millions of colors and makes it one of the brightest bulbs around. The bluetooth-capable iLumi is available in four different models and starts at $59. The iLumi ditches wires by utilizing bluetooth technology.
Stranded seamen (and women) are at the mercy of the ocean no more, thanks to LongReach from Samuel Adeloju. LongReach is a water-activated buoyancy system that can be shot out of a rocket-esque device over long distances to help drowning victims.
LongReach from Samuel Adeloju may not seem like much, but think of the current alternative of a lifeguard throwing you a plastic buoy. LongReach sounds like the better bet if you are trying to escape with your life.
Intex Technologies has launched Intex Aqua Wonder Quadcore for Rs. 9,990. We had reported about the impending launch of this device carrying a price tag of less than Rs. 10,000 earlier this month.
Intex Aqua Wonder Quadcore features a 4.5-inch capacitive 540x960 touchscreen with IPS panel screen technology. It is powered by MediaTek MT6589 quad-core processor and comes with 512MB of RAM. The smartphone has a 1.93GB of internal storage, of which 1.93 GB is user accessible. The internal storage can be expanded by up to 32GB through a microSD card.
It runs on the Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean). For camera, there is an 8-megapixel auto focus rear camera with dual LED flash and 2-megapixel one on the front. Intex Aqua Wonder Quadcore is a dual-SIM smartphone (WCDMA+GSM). Other connectivity options include 3G video calling, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth 4.0.
Google's next generation of Nexus 7 tablets from ASUS will be Qualcomm-powered and arrive this July, according to Reuters. If its sources are to be believed, Mountain View is aiming to ship eight million units by the end of the year, showing it has a lot of confidence in the upcoming model. Other leaked info claims more screen resolution, a thinner bezel and an unspecified Qualcomm CPU instead of the current model's NVIDIA Tegra 3, possibly to save power. There's no info on pricing or other specs and Google's not speaking at this point, of course -- but if it proves accurate, hopefully the two companies have learned their lesson from the current model's runaway success and will ramp production accordingly.
![Photo: Google “Glass” Headset to be Made in the United States
Google will be manufacturing its “Glass” eyewear in Silicon Valley, a move that the Financial Times hails as a “high-profile example of the return of electronics manufacturing to the U.S.” The technology giant will be working with Hon Hai Precision Industry, the Taiwanese firm better known as Foxconn, to assemble the futuristic eyewear at a facility in Santa Clara in California. Tim Bradshaw reports that only a few thousand of the devices will roll off the factory line in the coming weeks, compared with the millions of Apple products Foxconn typically cranks out in China. “Manufacturing locally will allow Google’s engineers to be closely involved with the production process and provide more opportunities for last-minute fixes and for personal customization,” Bradshaw writes. “Such moves may also blaze a trail for Silicon Valley’s resurgent community of hardware start-ups, which remain largely reliant on cheaper offshore manufacturing.”
Google announced on Wednesday that it has selected the 8,000 people who will be allowed to buy a test version of Glass.
Google announced on Wednesday that it has selected the 8,000 people who will be allowed to preorder a test version of Glass for $1,500 apiece. The company began notifying the winners on Tuesday.
[Via the Financial Times]](https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/p480x480/292239_238395206303236_1287655705_n.jpg)
Google will be manufacturing its “Glass” eyewear in Silicon Valley, a move that the Financial Times hails as a “high-profile example of the return of electronics manufacturing to the U.S.” The technology giant will be working with Hon Hai Precision Industry, the Taiwanese firm better known as Foxconn, to assemble the futuristic eyewear at a facility in Santa Clara in California. Tim Bradshaw reports that only a few thousand of the devices will roll off the factory line in the coming weeks, compared with the millions of Apple products Foxconn typically cranks out in China. “Manufacturing locally will allow Google’s engineers to be closely involved with the production process and provide more opportunities for last-minute fixes and for personal customization,” Bradshaw writes. “Such moves may also blaze a trail for Silicon Valley’s resurgent community of hardware start-ups, which remain largely reliant on cheaper offshore manufacturing.”
Google announced on Wednesday that it has selected the 8,000 people who will be allowed to buy a test version of Glass.
Google announced on Wednesday that it has selected the 8,000 people who will be allowed to preorder a test version of Glass for $1,500 apiece. The company began notifying the winners on Tuesday.
[Via the Financial Times]
![Photo: DIY cardboard rifle can fire paper pellets up to 25 yards
Paper pellets make great projectiles, just ask any schoolkid. Paper Shooters, rifles made primarily out of cardboard, can fire those paper pellets up to a distance of 25 yards, lending a degree of professionalism to a pursuit that is usually more of a hobby.
Developed by a team of designers that includes former Nerf engineers, in collaboration with Bang Creations, the Paper Shooters kit comes with all the tools needed to build the working gun. Apart from the plastic firing mechanism the gun is pretty much all cardboard, and the three varieties—Digital Ops, Golden Touch and Zombie Slayer—look surprisingly realistic (although perhaps only if you're James Bond in the case of Golden Touch).
The creators have just launched an Indiegogo campaign for £42,000 ($64,439), to satisfy the minimum order number required to begin manufacturing kits in China, and to raise additional funds for further die-cutting tools and molds.
Wired.co.uk spoke to Mike Howarth of Team Paper Shooters by e-mail about the gun. He said: "I'm an entrepreneurial 29-year-old from Manchester who loves designing new products. This is my first product—designed initially in my apartment—and has just blossomed from there into a really great piece of kit. This is my first product, although there are lots more to come!"
Each kit contains a plastic firing mechanism and skeleton, layers of cardboard "skin" for the gun that are either glued or clipped on, eight gold shells, 50 pieces of premade ammunition, a mold for making new ammunition out of paper (any soft paper will do) and a target in the shape of a zombie's head. Howarth said: "The plastic is merely a 'skeleton' (minimum amount) as it shoots wet paper ammo that the user makes themselves." The soft paper pellet ammunition fits into cartridges the shape of real bullets, and creating a cardboard gun that could handle moisture was a particular challenge.
The cartridge casings eject out of the side every time the user reloads, just like a real semiautomatic rifle. Apparently, the pellets have aerodynamic qualities similar to Airsoft rounds ("the accuracy is very good up to 65 feet [20m], then probably drops slightly after that," says Howarth), so they are actually quite dangerous if not treated with respect. It's very much for teenagers, not children, with an age guidance of 14-years-old and up. According to Howarth, "the 'gunsmith experience' is definitely the main selling point."
Also, while the kits come predesigned, "users can absolutely print their own card frame as we supply the card template blueprints via email with every kit," Howarth said. It's not quite 3D-printing an actual gun, but it's a lot safer and a lot more legal.
This post originally appeared on Wired UK.](https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/c101.0.403.403/p403x403/539208_238394106303346_736882817_n.jpg)
Paper pellets make great projectiles, just ask any schoolkid. Paper Shooters, rifles made primarily out of cardboard, can fire those paper pellets up to a distance of 25 yards, lending a degree of professionalism to a pursuit that is usually more of a hobby.
Developed by a team of designers that includes former Nerf engineers, in collaboration with Bang Creations, the Paper Shooters kit comes with all the tools needed to build the working gun. Apart from the plastic firing mechanism the gun is pretty much all cardboard, and the three varieties—Digital Ops, Golden Touch and Zombie Slayer—look surprisingly realistic (although perhaps only if you're James Bond in the case of Golden Touch).
The creators have just launched an Indiegogo campaign for £42,000 ($64,439), to satisfy the minimum order number required to begin manufacturing kits in China, and to raise additional funds for further die-cutting tools and molds.
Wired.co.uk spoke to Mike Howarth of Team Paper Shooters by e-mail about the gun. He said: "I'm an entrepreneurial 29-year-old from Manchester who loves designing new products. This is my first product—designed initially in my apartment—and has just blossomed from there into a really great piece of kit. This is my first product, although there are lots more to come!"
Each kit contains a plastic firing mechanism and skeleton, layers of cardboard "skin" for the gun that are either glued or clipped on, eight gold shells, 50 pieces of premade ammunition, a mold for making new ammunition out of paper (any soft paper will do) and a target in the shape of a zombie's head. Howarth said: "The plastic is merely a 'skeleton' (minimum amount) as it shoots wet paper ammo that the user makes themselves." The soft paper pellet ammunition fits into cartridges the shape of real bullets, and creating a cardboard gun that could handle moisture was a particular challenge.
The cartridge casings eject out of the side every time the user reloads, just like a real semiautomatic rifle. Apparently, the pellets have aerodynamic qualities similar to Airsoft rounds ("the accuracy is very good up to 65 feet [20m], then probably drops slightly after that," says Howarth), so they are actually quite dangerous if not treated with respect. It's very much for teenagers, not children, with an age guidance of 14-years-old and up. According to Howarth, "the 'gunsmith experience' is definitely the main selling point."
Also, while the kits come predesigned, "users can absolutely print their own card frame as we supply the card template blueprints via email with every kit," Howarth said. It's not quite 3D-printing an actual gun, but it's a lot safer and a lot more legal.
This post originally appeared on Wired UK.
German technology company Festo has unveiled the BionicOpter, a fully functional robotic dragonfly. It can fly forwards, backwards, hover and even fly sideways—just like a real dragonfly. Its introduction marks another step forward in robotics engineering. The BionicOpter isn't as tiny as its natural counterpart—it's approximately 19 inches long with a wingspan of just over 27 inches. But it looks a lot like the real thing with its dual pair of wings operating independently affixed to its rail thin body and slightly bulbous light blue head. It weighs, remarkably, just 175gms. Festo hasn't yet demoed the BionicOpter to a live audience just yet—thus far pictures and video posted on the company's site are the only evidence of its existence. But all that is to change as the company will be giving a demonstration of their new robotic insect at the upcoming Hannover Messe technology fair in Germany. Festo claims it has mastered the technically complex process involved in dragonfly flight. That's no small boast. The dragonfly is a master flyer—it can hover, fly backwards, even glide with no wing movement at all. Robots that can mimic such flight would have more capabilities than planes or helicopters, or even quadcopters (they can't glide when turned off). That it is able to do so with all of its "brains" (and a battery) tucked inside such a tiny little frame is truly remarkable. Its wings—made of foil and carbon-fiber—are moved by individual tiny servo-motors that allow for 90 degrees of adjustment—all controlled by a single ARM microprocessor. They can generate thrust in all directions. Flight is controlled by adjusting for wing flapping speed, amplitude and twist. The BionicOpter has 13 degrees of freedom—9 from the wings and 4 from head and tail movement. The company hasn't divulged any planned use for such a flying robot—as it presently exists, it appears it's little more than a display of technical brilliance—but, it's not difficult to see how others might tweak the design a little bit to add functionality. Adding a stinger for example, or a camera, or more menacingly, explosives or hazardous chemicals to create a very lethal weapon might not be out of the realm of possibility. More optimistically, the design appears to open the door to the opportunity of a new form of human flight—if the robot were to be made bigger, rather than smaller—perhaps it could carry a person inside.
The chief executive of one of Europe’s largest wireless carriers claims the reason sales of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone are slumping is because the price is too high. France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard told Bloomberg that European customers are beginning to focus more on prices and are holding onto their old devices longer than before. He notes that the Apple frenzy isn’t what it use to be and it is becoming more difficult to sell a $600 phone. Richard seemed to suggest that without a low-cost iPhone, the company could continue to lose market share, adding that there “are fewer early adopters, and probably with the next release of the iPhone this will be evident.”
Rumored 'Galaxy Fonblet' gets a name change, reportedly coming in 5.8 and 6.3-inch varietiesSamsung clearly sees the future in big-screen smartphones. In addition to recently announcing the 5-inch Galaxy S4, it's got the similarly-sized Galaxy Grand on the way, not to mention the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2. So what's next? According to the latest round of reports, a new line of 5.8 and 6.3-inchers.
Today's report comes from SamMobile, which has a pretty solid track record when it comes to unannounced Samsung devices. Reportedly the Galaxy Mega 5.8 (GT-i9152) will pack a 5.8-inch screen and appear from the week commencing May 27. Similarly, the Galaxy Mega 6.3 (GT-i9200) should pack a 6.3-inch screen and emerge around the week starting Jun. 17. The new "Mega" branding is apparently a replacement for the (somewhat cringeworthy) "Galaxy Fonblet" name that was being bandied about prior to MWC.
No details on internal specs are offered, but the product codes suggest neither "Galaxy Mega" device will be a particularly high-end handset. What's more, the Galaxy Mega 5.8's code suggests it may be offered in a dual-SIM "Duos" variant, like the Galaxy Grand. And the Mega 6.3's size would tie in nicely with the limits of Samsung's recently-announced game pad accessory.
So would you be tempted by a possible mid-range handset with this screen size? Let us know down in the comments!
![Photo: Bicycle “Helmet of Justice” Records Video Evidence In Case of Hit and Run
The aptly named Helmet of Justice is a video camera-equipped brain bucket that can record evidence onto a USB drive in case of a crash. Developed by software developers from Chaotic Moon, the ‘black box’ bicycle helmet was designed to help cyclists figure out what happened if they got hit by a car and prove fault if need be. The Austin firm developed the 360 degree video helmet after one of their own employees fell victim to a hit and run while riding his bike. Drivers beware – the Helmet of Justice is on the case! Chaotic Moon designer, John Poindexter was hit by a car while riding his bike and was knocked out. The car ran without helping him and Poindexter was left in a daze and didn’t even remember what happened, let alone enough details to make an accusation. Many cyclists these days have resorted to wearing head cams to have recorded evidence in case they are hit, but these cameras are bulky and one extra thing you have to remember to bring and to turn on.
Chaotic Moon set out to solve this problem by incorporating cameras into the helmet. The Helmet of Justice features seven mini-cameras located in the vents of the helmet and held in place with foam. The cameras take video at 30 frames per second with a resolution of 720×480 in 360 degrees. When an accident happends, the cameras turn on and up to 2 hrs of video is saved to a removable USB drive in the helmet, which can be taken out and plugged into a computer to see what happened. Future iterations are expected to have higher resolution cameras and sensors that can turn on cameras before the accident happens. So far, Chaotic Moon isn’t mass producing these and a one-off helmet costs $300, but they are in talks with major helmet manufacturers to license their design and software.
+ Chaotic Moon
[Via Springwise]](https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/c134.0.403.403/p403x403/480672_238383892971034_1647803830_n.jpg)
The aptly named Helmet of Justice is a video camera-equipped brain bucket that can record evidence onto a USB drive in case of a crash. Developed by software developers from Chaotic Moon, the ‘black box’ bicycle helmet was designed to help cyclists figure out what happened if they got hit by a car and prove fault if need be. The Austin firm developed the 360 degree video helmet after one of their own employees fell victim to a hit and run while riding his bike. Drivers beware – the Helmet of Justice is on the case! Chaotic Moon designer, John Poindexter was hit by a car while riding his bike and was knocked out. The car ran without helping him and Poindexter was left in a daze and didn’t even remember what happened, let alone enough details to make an accusation. Many cyclists these days have resorted to wearing head cams to have recorded evidence in case they are hit, but these cameras are bulky and one extra thing you have to remember to bring and to turn on.
Chaotic Moon set out to solve this problem by incorporating cameras into the helmet. The Helmet of Justice features seven mini-cameras located in the vents of the helmet and held in place with foam. The cameras take video at 30 frames per second with a resolution of 720×480 in 360 degrees. When an accident happends, the cameras turn on and up to 2 hrs of video is saved to a removable USB drive in the helmet, which can be taken out and plugged into a computer to see what happened. Future iterations are expected to have higher resolution cameras and sensors that can turn on cameras before the accident happens. So far, Chaotic Moon isn’t mass producing these and a one-off helmet costs $300, but they are in talks with major helmet manufacturers to license their design and software.
+ Chaotic Moon
[Via Springwise]
After years of construction, Facebook is at long last revealing its effort to build “a new home” on Android.“Today we are finally going to be talking about that Facebook phone. Or, more accurately, we are going to talk about how you can turn your Android device … into a great social phone,” Mark Zuckerberg said, kicking off the event at company headquarters in Menlo Park. “We think this is the best version of Facebook there is.”
Facebook Home, as the product is known, isn’t a phone, per se, but rather a series of customizations that replaces the look and feel of a standard Android phone with a set of Facebook apps, home screens and messaging experiences.
As we first reported in a series of articles more than a year ago, the project to create a custom Facebook phone on top of Android — code-named Buffy — has been going on for some time.
Facebook has since spent a lot of time noting that it is not building a phone — which is technically true. However, it has built the software guts of one, and it even partnered with HTC to put a hardware face on its the project.
Zuckerberg stressed that what Facebook is doing isn’t building a phone or an operating system, but rather an experience that is a family of apps that becomes your home screen on a standard Android device.
“You don’t need to fork Android to do this,” Zuckerberg said. Facebook Home will be an update on Google Play to the social network’s existing Facebook app. It will be available initially only for phones, with tablet support coming within several months.
Updates to Facebook Home will also come monthly, the company said, arguing that yearly updates such as those made to Android just aren’t frequent enough.
Zuckerberg reiterated why the company is focused on the software rather than a single phone. Zuckerberg said that a great phone might sell 10 million or 20 million units — one percent of Facebook’s total user base.
“We’re not building a phone, and we’re not building an operating system, but we are also building something that is a lot more … than an ordinary app,” he said.
Zuckerberg took aim at the app-centric approach taken by most modern smartphones, saying phones should be about people rather than programs.
Facebook isn’t the only company trying to move away from an app-centric world. Windows Phone, for example, has a People hub that focuses on all the ways that someone connects with a person and their photos and updates.
Apps, of course, are still a part of phones, so an app launcher is just a swipe away.
One particular feature should be more than just an app, Zuckerberg said, and that’s messaging. The company has built a new experience where “Chat Heads” — little pictures of your friends — pop up when a new message comes in.
Beyond the cute head shots, Chat Heads allow messaging to take place in any app, rather than requiring a user to either stop what they are doing or risk ignoring the person seeking their attention.
“It really feels like your friends are always there,” said Joey Flynn, the Facebook designer who created the messaging experience.
Chat Heads work with both text messages and incoming Facebook messages.
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Sony may have unveiled a slew of new audio products back at CES 2013, but the company has been relatively quiet when it comes to launching ones that are compatible with Apple's novel Lightning connector. That being said, it looks as if folks in the Land of the Rising Sun will soon be able to pair their current-gen iOS device with a dock from the PlayStation maker, thanks to the recently announced SRS-GC11IP. Pictured above, this little 0.8W speaker isn't loaded with fancy features like Bluetooth 4.0 or WiFi, but it does offer convenient functions such as an alarm clock and AM / FM radio -- these, of course, go along with the ability to also play tunes straight from a Lighting-ready iDevice or, with the proper RDP-NWC11 model, a new-era Walkman and many different smartphones. Whether we'll ever see the as-yet-unpriced tubular peripheral hit other markets, well, that still remains to be seen, with Sony only going so far as to listing it as "coming soon" on its Japanese website.
This concept called Nokia Twist has been designed by Tapani Jokinen & Jarkko Saunamaki for Nokia Design and Nokia Research Center. It uses nanotechnology and emotional interaction. To please a user visually and tactually Nokia twist looks transparent and flexes into all directions.
You thought the smartphone wars were bad? Just wait till the battle heats up over the smartwatch. As Samsung goes public with its plans for a wristwatch-style computer, and rumors of an Apple “iWatch” hits fever pitch, the giants of the tech world have just begun to fight. Not that companies aren’t already competing for real estate on your arm, of course. Sony released an Android-powered model last April. The Pebble watch, which raised a record-smashing $10 million on Kickstarter, began shipping in January. And let’s not even mention the plethora of fitness bracelets—Fitbit, Jawbone Up, Nike Fuelband—that are vying for a slice of an increasingly saturated market. And although Google is preparing to roll out its highly anticipated “Glass” headset, don’t count the erstwhile search engine out of the running just yet. According to a patent filed in October, Google may be plotting a smartwatch with a Wi-Fi chip, a “tactile user interface,” and a “flip-up portion.”
Whether smart watches will be as indispensable as their handheld brethren still remains to be seen.
Another patent application, filed by Apple in April 2011, offers hints of a “wearable video device” modeled after the slap bracelet of the ’80s. The filing proposes a flexible “bi-stable spring substrate” with a wraparound touchscreen for pulling up visual information, such as the order of a current playlist or a tally of recent phone calls.
One company that isn’t playing coy about its pipeline is Samsung. “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, told Bloomberg News earlier in the month. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.”
Whether smartwatches will be as indispensable as their handheld brethren still remains to be seen. (Do we really need another way to receive Facebook notifications?) As for which one will come out on top, only time will tell.
Researchers at Panasonic's imaging division have found a way to increase the sensitivity of digital camera sensors, which in turn equates to almost double the brightness in photos taken in low light conditions. But the discovery has nothing to do with the sensor itself; instead, the company's improved the color processing filter placed in front of it.
The current technique for producing a color image from a sensor involves placing red, green, and blue filters over every pixel. It works, but it ends up preventing about 50 to 70 percent of the light from actually hitting the sensor. Which is a big reason why so many cameras have poor low light performance. So Panasonic has developed a new kind of filter that instead uses color splitters to deflect light across several pixels at once. A red and blue deflector are positioned over four pixels in total, but are arranged vertically so virtually all of the light entering a camera hits the sensor.
What's particularly neat about this new approach is that it can be used with any kind of sensor without modification; CMOS, CCD, or BSI. And the filters can be produced using the same materials and manufacturing processes in place today. Which means we'll proba
It looks as though Walmart isn’t the only company that is making some moves with its online shopping delivery service as Google has announced it is starting to test its “Shopping Express” service in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company is partnering with big-name retailers like Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle and Toys ‘R’ Us, as well as local coffee shops and independent stores and will offer early adopters six months of free, unlimited same-day delivery with prices of goods reflecting how much they cost in their respective stores.
Google will be looking to price its same-day deliver service competitively against Amazon at around $69 a year, but the company is still currently working on its pricing plan for the service that may change based on data from its early testers and retailers. The process to order same-day delivery goods is said to be as easy as buying your goods, selecting a delivery time slot and waiting for one of Google’s delivery partners to drop it off. Let’s just hope they’re able to deliver your box of popcorn and Diet Mountain Dew in time for movie night, or you can expect to be entertaining some hungry and un-caffeinated guests.
Ever wondered if Microsoft improved the performance in the Windows Phone 7.8 update? It has certainly been considered, but many have naturally assumed that since the company has failed to shout about optimisations present in the latest version of 7.x, that there's little difference between 7.5 and 7.8.
Windows tutorials and resource website 7tutorials has published an in-depth performance comparison between Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 7.8. The plan was to see if there were any signs of performance improvements in the latest software version for first generation hardware. Turns out, there's barely any difference between the two, but we weren't expecting much, right?
There's no advances in hardware, with all Windows Phone 7.x devices sporting just single-core chips with 512MB as the maximum amount of RAM. Microsoft didn't have to improve performance as the overall experience of Windows Phone 7 was butter smooth. Sure, app load times are shorter on Windows Phone 8, but you're packing more powerful hardware and a different breed of Windows.
The company doesn't state that performance will be improved in Windows Phone 7.8 either, with the list of new features focusing on Live Tiles, lock screen and more. Performance is always going to differ between consumers depending on what background tasks are running and more. It's clear to see that performance gains are only experienced should a Windows Phone owner upgrade to a new smartphone running the latest version of Microsoft's mobile software. Anything new or surprising? Not at all. An easy way to look at what Microsoft has achieved with Windows Phone 7.8 would be to imagine an old car having its bodywork upgraded, but everything else remaining the same.