Notion Ink 19 is to begin shipping its hybrid display ‘Adam’ tablet according to a report on the company’s official blog.

Customers from the USA and EU who have previously placed an order on the Notion Ink website will be the first to receive the device. As expected, they will get the device before the end of January. The first orders were placed in the middle of December.

The Adam tablet is based on the Android 2.2 and is equipped with a 10-inch diagonal screen. The Adam’s hybrid display is produced by the PixelQi company. .

The tablet’s users themselves will be able to disable the LED backlight. In this case, the image will be brought on the screen owing to a special light reflecting layer. The light reflecting display will be able to function in bright sunlight.

With a disabled backlight LED, the device can work offline in book reading mode for around 40 hours. With a disabled Wi-Fi module and in video mode the device will work for up to 15 hours. By comparison, the iPad’s battery life lasts for a maximum of 10 hours.

Notion Ink is selling 6 models of the Adam. Prices for the Adam start at 375 USD. For models with a hybrid screen prices start at 499 USD.

Google has introduced a new website indexing system called Caffeine. According to Google’s blog, the new index makes search results 50 percent more accurate as compared with the previous version.

Caffeine will have the largest volume of Internet content of all the other indexing systems used by the search engine previously. At the same time, Google reports, the index will be updated faster than before. Therefore, users will see links to new sites in their search results faster than before.

The blog also explains that the previous version of the index consisted of several layers which were updated periodically, with each layer being refreshed at different rates. The new index will analyze internet sites on a continuous basis in small fragments.

The total volume of the Caffeine database exceeds 100 million gigabytes. Several hundred thousand gigabytes of new data added to the index.

User testing of the new system began in 2009 and continued through November of last year.

Apple’s iPhone is currently the absolute leader in the mobile devices segment in the USA. Its principal rivals BlackBerry, Android and Palm have still a long way to go to reach their successful competitor.

BlackBerry recently had a bigger share to iPhone’s but lost it as RIM devices are business oriented, and ordinary users would rather give preference to multi-function iPhone, Android or Palm. Due to the fact that the prices on smartphones have gone down, average users now have an important part to play in the competition between giants for users of apps.

After its latest reincarnation, Palm looks quite convincingly, yet not convincingly enough for a decent share on the market. At least, for now.

Android is the likeliest possible iPhone’s killer due to Google making a strategic step towards encouraging all market’s vendors to create and promote its OS. Anyone for a slice of Apple pie?

Consequently, the market faces active distribution of Android devices. Every vendor gladly receives, customizes and promotes the popular OS. What is more – it is free. Android is an open freely distributed OS, which is its principal advantage.

Having a good strategy is half the battle though. Users are very unlikely to want to make a purchase following only market surveys.

Apple’s iPhone is currently the unquestionable leader in terms of design and usability. Android’s developers aren’t sitting on their hands either. Their product is soon to become model, and the variety of forms of the device with this OS will satisfy different demands. However, Android is still to run this race.

On the other hand, Android is targeting developers of third-party apps in terms of technology. This is clearly seen in its multitasking. Chatting on Skype with a single-task iPhone and reading the mail at the same time is not only inconvenient but simply impossible! iPhone shuts down an application once a new one is started. This is a major drawback.

The new iPhone OS 4.0 supporting multitasking is to appear in the summer with the emergence of a new iPhone. This will be a justified though tardy Apple’s solution. By that time the number of Android based apps will have grown drawing the attention of consumers who will be unable to miss them. Even now HTC Hero, Motorola Droid and Google Nexus One being already on sale, outstrip iPhone in technical characteristics and have almost reached it in design and usability.

Gartner analysts are right to say that Android is to win the game by 2012, yet the time will show how absolute that leadership will be.

http://mashable.com/2009/11/16/iphone-vs-android/