Dell Latitude Z "unveiled"

We saw the Dell Latitude Z leaked earlier this year, but Dell has now made it official.

The Latitude Z model is Dell's latest stab at the ultraslim notebook category, pitching up against the MacBook Air, and Sony and Samsung's X series models.

A 16-inch 16:9 display with a resolution of 1600 x 900 (although a higher resolution option will be available), sits on the slim frame which has been lovingly designed.

The pre-production model that we got our hands on was powered by and Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 1.4GHz processor, with 4GB RAM and a 60GB SSD, although a 128GB SSD version will also be available.

Dell has paid attention to detail here, with nice touches like an external battery indicator, backlit keyboard and embedded in the bezel are touch-enabled controls for things like volume and media playback.

Despite the relatively large chassis, there is no optical drive built-in. The battery (sitting between the hinges at the back) will come in 4- and 8-cell options, with Dell estimating 4 or 8 hours respectively.

But is it a little too late with HP's Envy recently stealing the crown as one of the prettiest high-end notebooks around?

Photos:

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

HP's Envy Laptops

HP Envy 13
* Size: 32 cm x 21.5 cm x 2.05 cm mm
* Weight: 1.7kg
* Display: 13-inch
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo SL9400 1.6GHz
* RAM: 3GB DDR3
* Storage: 250GB hard drive + SuperMulti 8x DVD writer
* Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 512MB dedicated
* Battery: 4- or 6-cell
* Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 a/g/n WLAN
* Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

HP Envy 15
* Size: 38 cm x 24.4 cm x 2.65 cm mm
* Weight: 2.35kg
* Display: 15.6-inch
* Processor: Intel Core i7-720QM 1.6GHz (Nehalem powa!)
* RAM: 4GB DDR3
* Storage: 320GB 7200 RPM hard drive + SuperMulti 8x DVD writer
* Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 1GB dedicated
* Battery: 6-cell
* Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 a/g/n WLAN
* Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Lenovos new multi touch Thinkpad X200 tablet and T400s laptop

Personalizing Productivity on the PC with Touch

Users can now interact with their ThinkPad PC in a more personal way with multitouch screen technology. Designed for highly mobile users, the optional multitouch screen ThinkPad X200 Tablet caters to individuals in fields such as sales, health care and education. Already supporting one finger touch, these users can now use two-finger touch to perform a variety of gestures, including pinching, zooming, tapping and flicking through documents, web pages and photos instead of using a mouse.

The high performance ThinkPad T400s laptop serves professionals in engineering and design. Now these users can manipulate four fingers on the ThinkPad T400s laptop's optional multitouch screen to not only replace the mouse but transform the way they work. They can now use four fingers to manipulate objects, move images with two hands and even have another person touch the screen to collaborate simultaneously. As new multitouch applications are introduced, there will be new possibilities for using multitouch screen laptops.

Using advanced capacitive touch, the screens are sensitive and responsive to even the slightest touch of the finger. Lenovo also optimized the firmware to help compensate for slightly imprecise taps on the screen, such as when closing a window or navigating the Start menu, helping make navigation easier for Tablet users. To combat fingerprints, an anti-fingerprint coating helps keep smudges at bay and the screen clean. The multi-touch screens also allow users to enjoy ultra long battery life with up to nine hours on the ThinkPad X200 Tablet.²

With upcoming ThinkPad X200 Tablet models supporting the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, these mobile users can also take advantage of improved predictive text over previous operating systems, improved handwriting recognition in more languages and formula input features for math and scientific equations.

More details on the ThinkPad T400s and X200 Tablet are available at www.lenovo.com.

Adding a "Touch" of Simplicity to Touch Screens

Touch screens are designed to make interaction with a PC natural and intuitive, however, often users must switch between touch screen gestures and pressing hardware buttons. Lenovo designed SimpleTap, a ThinkVantage Technology, to enable uninterrupted use of people's touch screens by giving them access to hardware-based functions that may be more easily accessed via touch input. For Tablet users, that means staying in tablet mode longer while on-the-go, saving time and being more productive.

To use SimpleTap, simply double tap anywhere on the screen to launch the application. A clean and efficient gridof colorful and transparent square tiles, inspired by the classic 15 Puzzle, opens on top of the work beneath and allows users to choose several hardware-based functions including: turning on or off the wireless radio, ThinkLight and microphone, previewing the camera, enabling mute, adjusting the volume or screen brightness, locking the screen or putting the PC to sleep. To exit SimpleTap, just tap once anywhere on the screen to close the grid and continue working. As a quick access interface, SimpleTap allows users to get in, perform a function and get out quickly.

Designed to be highly customizable, individuals can create their own tiles to enhance their personal productivity. For example, a sales professional could create a tile that launches a sales presentation with just the tap of a finger. A health professional could similarly create a tile that pulls up a patient's medical information instantaneously. Or a consumer could quickly access his or her favorite website. Users can arrange the tiles however they choose by dragging and grouping them together, and designed to be fun to use, the tiles can even be flicked around the screen.

Click here to see a video demonstration of SimpleTap and here to read more about the design and inspiration behind the application.

Brightening Tablet PC for Outdoor Light

To further extend tablet computing outdoors, users can now choose a super bright outdoor screen that displays images even in direct sunlight. For field engineers, sales professionals, students and others who work outside, outdoor viewability is critical. The new optional outdoor screen on the ThinkPad X200 Tablet offers excellent viewability with a bright 400 nit screen, low 1.2 percent reflectivity and wide viewing angle. Coated with a thin anti-reflective layer, the screen provides crisp and bright images that can easily be seen indoors or outdoors. Mobile workers can also stay productive with the Tablet's all day battery life.

A photo of the ThinkPad X200 outdoor screen compared with a standard screen can be viewed here.

Zune 4.0 Software released

download here

Zune HD promotional video

HP's Mini is Nvidia ION Powered

Specs of several upcoming HP notebooks have been dug up by Web-sleuths, including info on a Mini 311 netbook. It looks like it may also have an Atom N270 processor, 1GB memory, 160GB hard disk, and a six-cell battery.

Various Mini 311 flavors are now listed on HP's support site, and the specs above are already listed on a Dutch shopping engine. Another Dutch retailer also lists HP's upcoming CULV-powered Pavilion dm3 (11.6-inch) and dm1 (13.3-inch) notebooks, along with the big 18.4-inch, mobile Core i7-equipped Pavilion dv8.

It's likely the batch willl arrive in the U.S. next to Windows 7 on October 22, but the possibly XP-powered Mini may even hit before then. I'm also interested to see how the Mini 311 fares against the the Ion-powered Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (12.1-inch), and Samsung N150 (11.6-inch). Time will tell...

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Facebook Finally Gets Around to Releasing That Android App

What have there been, like, three whole iPhone versions? Android's late official Facebook app has shown its iconic little face in the App Market and it's actually sort of surprising.

Instead of just porting over the interface or at least the interface concept from the recently-released Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone, they've given us an Android-specific UI. Not that it's particularly Android-y; it's just different. The front page panels on the iPhone app have been replaced with a simple view of your feed, while the rest of the functions come by way of menu-accessible shortcuts, which require pressing a hard button.

Those other features include direct photo uploads, big fat "Like" buttons and, though I couldn't get this one working, a phonebook function that gives you instant access to 125 of you chosen friends' phone numbers. It's a slightly less intuitive approach than the iPhone app or even to a certain extent the web interface, but it's a far sight better than any of the third-party apps already in the market, many of which tried to pass themselves off as official, and some of which even had a nonzero (!) price. Facebook's official app, luckily, is free, and in the market now.

UPDATE: So, Phandroid's noticed a few odd things about this app: Despite the developer being listed in the Market as "Facebook," the developer's email address is a suspicious Facebook.Android@gmail.com, and the associated Facebook app-as in, for the website-says it was not developed by Google. Could we have an impostor here? That would explain the new design philosophy, and the lack of a few major features (messages, anyone?), but that the fact that it is a fairly polished app.

Photos:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700 (aka Onyx)

Here's the first official shot of the 9700 (codenamed Onyx), T-Mobile's first 3G BlackBerry, which could arrive as early as November. T-Mobile says it'll support UMA Wi-Fi calling (as part of the carrier's HotSpot@Home service), visual voicemail, and corporate email.

T-Mobile also confirmed that it will have TeleNav GPS Navigator and Amazon MP3 store pre-installed. The Bold 9700 still hasn't been made official by RIM, and T-Mobile didn't preview much more info. However, the assumed specs of the much-leaked device are listed below

• New Trackpad
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• UMTS/HSDPA
• 480×360 resolution screen
• Wi-Fi (802.11g)
• OS 5.0
• QWERTY keyboard
• 3.2 megapixel AF camera
• Bluetooth

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Africa: Glo 1 Will Boost Africa's Economic Growth - Adenuga

Abuja — The search for bandwidth capacity for reliable telecommunications services in Africa got a major boost over the weekend as Glo 1, the multi-million-dollar international submarine cable of national operator Globacom, landed in Lagos.

At exactly 10.50am, Alcatel-Lucent officials handed over the Glo 1 submarine cable to Globacom, signaling the birth of a new era in telecommunication in the country.

The 9,800km-long cable from UK through Mauritania, Morocco and 16 West African countries with dedicated extension to New York, was anchored at its Landing Station at Alpha Beach, Lekki, Lagos

(click here to continue reading this article)

PS3™ system software update

The PlayStation®3 system software update may include security patches, new or revised settings and features and other items, which will change your current operating system. We encourage you to check this page from time to time for software updates and to always maintain your system to use the latest version of the system software.

An update to the PS3™ system software was released on September 1, 2009. You can use this update to upgrade your system software to version 3.00.

Screen Shot:

Download Now

Notices

• Do not perform updates using any data other than the official update data provided by Sony Computer Entertainment over a network or on disc media, and do not perform updates by methods other than those described in the product documentation or on this site. If an update is performed using data from another source, by another method, or with a PS3™ system that has been altered or modified in any way, the PS3™ system may not operate properly and may not be able to install the official update data. Any of these actions may void the PS3™ system warranty and affect your ability to obtain warranty services and repair services from Sony Computer Entertainment.


• The system software included within this product is subject to a limited license from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Refer to http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-eula for details.


• This update is for customers who own PS3™ systems sold in North America. DO NOT update your PS3™ system through this website if you purchased your system outside North America. There is no guarantee of proper operation with other models sold outside North America.


• If your PS3™ system software version is 3.00 (or later), you do not need to perform this update. To check the version of your system software, go to (Settings) > (System Settings) > [System Information]. The information is shown in the [System Software] field.


• This system software update includes all features contained in previous versions.


• Depending on the software title or feature in use, you may not be able to play without first updating the system software.


• Depending on your PS3™ system software version, the screen images and icons appearing on this website may differ from the actual product.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Nokia World 09

We're counting down the days to Nokia World 09 and we hope you'll be joining us here on Conversations throughout this exciting event!

This year's Nokia World will take place September 2-3 in Stuttgart, Germany. Attended by bloggers, operators, developers, media, publishers and more, it's our largest event of the year. Two days full of announcements, speeches, demos, discussions, networking…and maybe a little partying too.

The entire Conversations crew will be in Stuttgart throughout the week bringing you full coverage from the Nokia World 09 show floor. Here's a rundown of what we have in store for you…

Behind The Scenes (Video):

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Nokia N97 Mini (Video)

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Nokia Introduces The X6

the X series, Nokia aims to distance its all-around phones from the music phones. The two first phones in the new lineup will be the Nokia X6 and X3. The Nokia X3 is the first S40 based phone to offer the Ovi Store, while the Nokia X6 is a full-fledged smartphone powered by Symbian S60 5th Edition.

The Nokia X6 will be selling for 450 EUR before taxes and subsidies, but then you'll also get 32GB of internal memory (no microSD slot for memory expansion), a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, the S60 OSS Web Browser with Flash Lite 3 (for YouTube access) and three games (Spore, D Mix Tour and Asphalt4). You can find even more details of the Nokia X6 here, revealing that the all-touch phone will get a 3.2-inch widescreen display and an accelerometer for display rotation.

Although it looses the XpressMusic brand, the Nokia X6 is still very much capable of music and video playback. In fact, the large internal memory and the 3.5mm headphone jack in combination with the on-screen Media Bar should provide a pretty good solution for multimedia fans. Will it match Apple's iPod solution in the iPhone? If you want to listen to music while using other aspects of the phone, then yes. However, if managing your multimedia files in an exceptional way is a must, then no. Using a 1320 mAh battery, the Nokia X6 also claims up to 35 hours of music playback.

The OSS Web Browser found in S60 5th Edition should also make the Nokia X6 a pretty powerful browsing tool. The browser looses the Mini Map functionality from S60 3rd Edition, but it's still the same Webkit engine rendering Web pages and Adobe Flash Lite 3 enables you to play YouTube videos directly from YouTube's site. Since the Nokia X6 also boasts a 5-megapixel camera with VGA video recording capability, it should also be a good phone for uploading your own material directly to YouTube, Flickr etc.

Like most Nokia smartphones, the Nokia X6 will get the full range of Ovi services, including the new Ovi Store, Ovi Maps 3.0 and Nokia Music Store. Actually, the Nokia X6 will in some countries be sold with the "Comes With Music" option, though Nokia recently announced that it'll delay the launch of Nokia Music Store until 2010 in the U.S. Beyond Ovi, the Nokia X6 will offer Mail for Exchange, Nokia Email, SMS and MMS messaging.

The Nokia X6 will be shipping in the fourth quarter of 2009, and will get an estimated retail price of EUR 450 before taxes and subsidies.

Photos:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad