The hot news at QuickLogic today is the announcement of our new production smartphone, the Kyocera “URBANO PROGRESSO”. As our press release mentioned, the URBANO PROGRESSO uses a QuickLogic ArcticLink II VX4 device, featuring an MDDI Type II to RGB bridge, as well as VEE and DPO. Key to note here is that VEE and DPO are both activated in the phone. The phone features a dual-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 processor, Android 4.0, an 8.1-megapixel camera, waterproof casing and a 4″ OLED inch display. Another really neat thing is the phone’s tissue conductive technology, which allows sound to be transferred from the phone to your ear through your skin. The phone doesn’t have a traditional earpiece, and while I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet, I hear it performs phenomenally well in crowded, loud areas that most phones fail in.
The phone itself, especially in the copper-colored version, is stunning. You truly need to see it to appreciate it!
For a bit more information, I’ve also embedded a few Kyocera-produced videos:
The URBANO PROGRESSO is available through KDDI in Japan.
Paul-
Would a feature like “tissue conductive technology” or a phone with this feature be at all improved by CSSPs? I’m unfamiliar with how it actually works so don’t know if vibrational audio is a significant power drain but any thoughts on a potential role for CSSPs in audio?
Brian,
The tissue conductive technology used in the URBANO PROGRESSO is an invention of Kyocera that I believe is heavily reliant on ceramics inside of their design. This belief is based solely on what I’ve read of Kyocera’s publicly-available marketing materials. For this particular technology, I am not sure what we could do.
There are potential applications for audio in CSSPs, especially when dealing with connectivity solutions.
-Paul