Apple loses US Army contract, Russian govermnent wants to ban iProducts due to security concerns

    Apple has lost the U.S. Army defense contract in favor of Android for upcoming Army-approved smartphones and tablets, as well as  for apps that will be necessary for missions.
  There have been concerns about security for Android as compared to other mobile OS but most officials deemed Android the most secure, as the Army will be able to use the open source software as they choose, likely beefing up security even more. In terms of stability and connectivity, the OS is leaps and bounds above the competition.
    During combat, the devices will likely have to have satellite  phone-capabilities, meaning round-the-clock data and voice with no lapses. The Army wants every soldier to have one of the future Android devices, to ensure they are connected during missions. A prototype dubbed the Joint Battle Command-Platform is already being tested. Apps will include "critical messaging" for exchanging medevac requests and other emergencies, and A Blue Force Tracker program to make sure soldiers know where friendlies are. Finally, the phones will be able to withstand extreme wear-and-tear  and will likely be similar to the rugged "ToughBooks" created by Panasonic.

[iPhone jokes] and tornadoes

Apple embareses itself at Computex 2011 without even showing up

    There are two reasons why Apple is always missing at world wide conventions and technology expositions; first, Foxconn makes all Apple products and apple doesn't want a Foxconn booth and second, Apple software is always behind, behind schedule, behind the competition and behind in all benchmarks that aren't ordered by Apple.

    During Computex 2011 Tweakers.net did some benchmarks on a prototype Android Honeycomb tablet, which ran on Intel x86-based version of the OS and compared the results with the current generation of ARM tablets.

    The tablet was made by Compal Electronics with Intel's new prototype and Oak Trail platform on board. The used CPU has two cores, both at 1.5 GHz do their work, assisted by 1GB of RAM. The Intel GMA600 GPU is based on the PowerVR SGX535.

Lower is better

    The benchmarks show the combination of ARM hardware versus the Intel's Oak Trail x86 platform.

   Using the SunSpider benchmark the speed of the Safari iOS JavaScript engine clearly scores last even though it has roughly the same processing power as the Tegra 2 and is based on ARM Cortex A8 just as the Playbook CPU.

    Finally Linpack benchmark, Quadrant and CaffeineMark 3 were run. The results of both benchmarks are less significant as iOS didn't even qualify for further tests, in spite of the ARM CPU.