GreyedOut Magazine

2010-03-24T11:01:00.002Z

The website is finally here, check it out GreyedOut Magazine.

We will be closing down this blog site within 2 weeks

Toshiba's TG02

2010-02-16T08:28:00.002Z

The replacement to the TG01, the TG02 is 9.9mm thick with a 4.1-inch capacitive WVGA touchscreen, 1GHz processor, and3D menu running Windows Mobile 6.5.

The Samsung wave

2010-02-16T06:48:00.002Z

The Samsung Wave is the first phone to include Bluetooth 3.0. its fot a reasonably impressive list of specs, like, 802.11n WiFi, TouchWiz 3.0, the company's own Bada mobile OS, and a 3.3-inch "Super AMOLED" display. other specs are a 1GHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, accelerometer, 2GB or 8GB of internal storage space, a microSD expansion slot, multi-codec support for DivX, XviD, MP3 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound and 720p recording / decoding. It'll be available worldwide starting in April.

Sony Ericssons new Xperia X10 mini and X10 mini pro

2010-02-16T06:41:00.002Z

The X10 iterations run Android 1.6 with a speed of 600MHz. its also got quad-band EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 2GB microSD card. Sony Ericsson is also introducing "Timescape", which is feature that enables all your communications with contacts to be accessed in one place making it simple to access to call history, Facebook, Twitter, messaging,

Google hosting workshops for Nigerian students

2010-02-15T18:23:00.005Z

Follow the link for more details G-Nigeria day 2010

Video: Windows mobile series 7 features

2010-02-15T15:52:00.001Z

Microsoft introduces Windows phone series 7

2010-02-15T14:27:00.004Z

Official Press release:

Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Series

New phones designed for life in motion to debut at holiday 2010.

BARCELONA, Spain - Feb. 15, 2010 - Today at Mobile World Congress 2010, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the next generation of Windows® Phones, Windows Phone 7 Series. With this new platform, Microsoft offers a fresh approach to phone software, distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that bring to the surface the content people care about from the Web and applications. For the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile phone, exclusively on Windows Phone 7 Series. Partners have already started building phones; customers will be able to purchase the first phones in stores by holiday 2010.

"Today, I'm proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. "In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences."

Designed for Life in Motion

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft takes a fundamentally different approach to phone software. Smart design begins with a new, holistic design system that informs every aspect of the phone, from its visually appealing layout and motion to its function and hardware integration. On the Start screen, dynamically updated "live tiles" show users real-time content directly, breaking the mold of static icons that serve as an intermediate step on the way to an application. Create a tile of a friend, and the user gains a readable, up-to-date view of a friend's latest pictures and posts, just by glancing at Start.

Every Windows Phone 7 Series phone will come with a dedicated hardware button for Bing, providing one-click access to search from anywhere on the phone, while a special implementation of Bing search provides intent-specific results, delivering the most relevant Web or local results, depending on the type of query.

Windows Phone 7 Series creates an unrivaled set of integrated experiences on a phone through Windows Phone hubs. Hubs bring together related content from the Web, applications and services into a single view to simplify common tasks. Windows Phone 7 Series includes six hubs built on specific themes reflecting activities that matter most to people:

People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. It also provides a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one step.
Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone 7 Series also brings together a user's photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person's entire picture and video collection.
Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer's avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.
Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user's PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video. Users can turn their media experience into a social one with Zune Social on a PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers. The playback experience is rich and easy to navigate, and immerses the listener in the content.
Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.
Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world's leading productivity software to the Windows Phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents. With the additional power of Outlook Mobile, users stay productive and up to date while on the go.
Availability

Partners from around the world have committed to include Windows Phone 7 Series in their portfolio plans. They include mobile operators AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, and manufacturers Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC Corp., HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm Inc. The first phones will be available by holiday 2010. Customers who would like to receive additional information about Windows Phone 7 Series and be notified when it is available can register at http://www.windowsphone7series.com.

To watch the full replay of Steve Ballmer's press conference at Mobile World Congress, and to experience Windows Phone 7 Series through an online product demo, readers can visit http://www.microsoft.com/news/windowsphone.

Nokia symbian S3 UI

2010-02-15T10:40:00.000Z

Main one submarine cable nearing completion

2010-02-14T06:41:00.002Z

The Main One Cable Company has announced the commencement of the final laying of its high capacity fibre optic cable from Seixal, Portugal, through the coast of West Africa to Ghana, and Nigeria.

The cable, which goes live in June 2010, is bringing the much-expected international capacity into a region whose explosive growth in tele-density in recent years has been blighted by sub-optimal global connectivity.

"We are pleased to achieve this major milestone within project timeline," said Fola Adeola, Chairman of Main One Cable Company. "We remain focused on delivering the project on schedule."

Main One, in November 2009, successfully completed the installation of the shore ends of the cable in Lagos, Nigeria, Accra, Ghana, and Seixal, Portugal.

The commencement of the end-to-end laying of the full stretch of the fiber optic from Portugal, signposts the final stages of the ambitious project.

"Now that the 7,000 kilometre trunk of the cable is being installed, we are pleased that our efforts over the last 18 months are coming to fruition," said Funke Opeke, Main One CEO.

The Main One Cable Company is wholly owned by African investors - African Finance Corporation, Nigeria; Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund, South Africa; FBN Capital, Nigeria; Skye Bank, Nigeria and Main Street Technologies, Nigeria, which is the project sponsor.

source allAfrica.com

Microsofts evouse concept mouse

2010-02-14T06:28:00.001Z

An orange powered apple

2010-02-14T05:48:00.000Z

The Ovi Orion concept Nokia phone

2010-02-08T17:35:00.001Z

Video: Brief report on the HP Slate

2010-01-30T06:26:00.000Z

Video: Hands on view of the Apple iPad

2010-01-29T10:50:00.001Z

Thinkpad Edge Product tour

2010-01-29T10:25:00.003Z

Specifications:

- Dual-core processors
- Windows® 7 operating system
- Gigabit Ethernet, WWAN with GPS, 802.11bgn WiFi, Bluetooth and WiMAX connectivity options
- Thin and light with a 13.3″ widescreen
- Spill-resistant keyboard
- Up to 7.8 hours of battery life
- Enhanced multimedia and HD audio
- Low-light-sensitive Web camera
- Three USB ports (1 powered), 5-in-1 media card reader and HDMI

Lenovo's Thinkpad X100e

2010-01-29T10:19:00.002Z

It wieghs the same as some netbooks and looks just like one,with its small footprint and 11.6" screen, but under the hood, this is no ordinary netbook, in fact it isnt one. Not with device specifications like a 1366 x 768 display, an AMD Athlon Neo processor, support for up to 4GB of RAM, up to a 320GB hard drive, optional 3G and GPS. check out the product tour below.

Is the iPad a tablet pc? or an ebook reader?

2010-01-28T15:10:00.004Z

The iPad is being debated everywhere at the moment, the whole world now knows or will get to know about this product soon enough. But, lets look at it a bit closer, exactly who is this product for. It has been likened to a giant iPhone, it does run on the iPhone OS and is designed to look just like one. So there's the question, is it a PC? Can it match most basic and inexpensive netbooks? Well, here's a list of some problems you'll face when this is compared to an average netbook.

• No integrated USB ports
• No card reader
• Non-removable battery
• Non-expandable memory
• No integrated camera
• Displayport
• No Ethernet Port
• No mains power cable included

Ok, so there is are adapters for both a card reader and USB port, however they do not come out of the box and are an additional cost. Other available peripherals are

• iPad Keyboard Dock
• iPad Dock
• iPad Case
• iPad Camera Connection Kit
• iPad USB power adaptor

You will certainly need a couple of these addons, especially as there is no usb port and typing on the glass could prove difficult.
I also find it a bit weird that it needs to be plugged to your laptop or desktop to be charged. Also since it doesn't come with a usb port out of the box, you'll have to sync your files to it, using itunes, making it feel even more like just a PMP than a PC.

So, if its not a tablet PC, what is it? An ebook reader perhaps?

Well its certainly being touted as one and that does seem like the target niche. Its got a beautiful, large, colorful screen, but actually its backlit, shiny glass surface would make elongated reading periods difficult. E-ink displays have now become the preferred interface for ebook readers. At the $500 entry price, which is without the 3g connectivity, which comes at an additional $130, the iPad is actually more expensive than say the kindle or the nook. Although this is the category most online sites are ready to place the iPad, is it worth it, at that price when compared to other ebook readers?

The answer, well its not exactly a PC and its not exactly an ebook reader. Its just another another device for media interaction, you can browse the internet, watch videos, listen to music, read your ebooks, use the various apps and play games as well.

Yes, you can do these things, but remember the iPad can not multitask, so you can only use it for one application at a time. Again another sign that this isnt meant to be a PC.

So, to conclude, its a nice tablet thingamajig, many people would go for it because its an apple product, but personally, i still dont get it.

-Chiedu Ifeozo

The Apple iPad

2010-01-28T08:50:00.005Z

After years of speculation and independent designers renderings on the internet. The iPad has finally landed. Introduced as apples latest creation by Steve Jobs, many have waited anxiously to see what apple would come up with.

In 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions, the iPad comes with a 9.7" screen and weighs about 0.68Kg, It runs on a 1.0Ghz processor specially designed by apple and uses the iPhone OS. Battery life is rated at 10hrs and about a month of standby, other specifications are wifi connectivity, Bluetooth, microphone, speaker and an accelerometer. 3G connectivity is an optional upgrade that'll cost an addition $130. other options are a keyboard dock, which connects to the iPad in potrait orientation, as seen above, 1024x768 VGA out and 480p support through dock adapter cables, and a camera attachment kit for importing photos from a camera by usb or through an SD card reader.

Managed by iTunes, and running iPhone apps, the iPad is similar to the iPhone. Although the every iPad comes unlocked, enabling it to be used across the globe, it uses the not yet so popular micro GSM sim card, and there aren't any international deals with telecom operators yet, more announcements are expected about that.

One important factor for a lot of people will be the price for the iPad, and how it compares to what we already have available. The iPad starts at $499 ( N75,000) for the base unit with 16GB, $600 (N90,000) for the 32GB and $699 (N105,000) for the 64GB model. When the 3G connectivity is taken into account that makes the most expensive package, $829 (N124,350) which is the 64GB and 3G combination.

Microsoft introduces a special edition Microsoft office 2007 software package for Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria

2010-01-19T09:14:00.002Z

A welcomed development has seen microsoft introduce a special edition of its popular software package for the Ghanaian, Nigerian and Kenyan public.

At the press briefing in Lagos recently to introduce the software into the Nigerian market, Mr. Adefolu Majekodunmi, Business & Marketing Organization Lead for Microsoft Nigeria said, "Microsoft understands the underlying issues of affordability and availability of software in Africa and continues to support programmes that increase access for the underserved. Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007 for Africa is just one of the ways in which Microsoft responds to the needs of our environment. The fact that the package is fully installable on up to three computers ensures that everyone who needs the essential software applications for work, study and play has access." Majekodunmi said that "the intention of the software company is to drive genuine usage of technology across the country and other African countries."

Also Microsoft and its distributors confirmed that the Office Home & Student for Africa is already available for sale in Nigeria and that its versions in local dialects such as in Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo is expected to be in the market starting from next year.

At N6,500 or $43, microsoft is hoping that it'll be able to persuade more users to stick to genuine software packages. i cant speak for the other countires but piracy has become a really big issue in the Nigerian market. We'll have to wait and see what happens now, but the introduction of this package certainly shows microsofts intent and it is an indication that they are trying to do something about it. The question is whether the public would buy the idea.

- Chiedu Ifeozo

Additional source - The Gaurdian

The Asus NX90 designed by Bang and olufsen

2010-01-15T13:48:00.005Z

The Asus NX90 is a serious contender for the most luxurious multimedia laptop, well thats if you still consider this beast of a device as still just a laptop. Designed by the award winning Bang and Olufsen chief designer David Lewis, this laptop with its sharp edges and sleek curves is full of style in the true B&O tradition. the NX90 scores a first, its got an external speaker that surrounds its glorious 18.4" screen, this elegant aluminium monster has a large keyboard with two touch pads place on both sides of the keyboard. The 18.4-inch widescreen is fully sheltered in glass with full HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolutions. Specs wise, the new ASUS NX90 Bang & Olufsen bundles an Intel Core i7-820QM Quad core processor, an Nvidia GeForce GT 335M graphics card, 12 GB of DDR3 RAM, E-SATA, and HDMI-out to connect it to your HDTV, USB 3.0 support, Nvidia GeForce GT 335M graphics card, dual hard drives, and a slot-load Blu-ray drive. The NX90 isnt currently available but it should start shipping sometime in march for around $2,500 or N390,000.

-Chiedu Ifeozo

Lenovo's Lephone to be released in China

2010-01-15T10:19:00.003Z

Lenovo recently announced a new smartphone called LePhone specifically for the Chinese WCDMA market. It has got a 3.7-inch 480x800-pixel resolution display and a completely touch-based interface for navigation, no physical buttons have been added to the design. im not entirely sure thats a good idea, but it does have an interesting proprietary 9-pin dock connector that lets you latch on an optional external keyboard.It also boasts a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 3.5mm headset jack, 3G data, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, plus a 3.0-megapixel camera and camcorder. The LePhone runs a specially customized version of Google's Android operating system, which Lenovo is apparently calling the OPhone. It has integrated Twitter and Facebook applications. A representative from Lenovo has said that it has no plans to release it in the U.S. market or any other countries but China.

- Chiedu Ifeozo

what do $1,350 headphones look like?

2010-01-15T09:49:00.003Z

The ultimate ears pro 18 headphones are certainly for enthusiastic audiophiles with a pile of cash burning a whole in their pocket. This beauty features six drivers in each earbud. two each for bass, mids, and treble, along with a four-way crossover and a three-channel design that keeps the low, mid, and high frequencies isolated and delivered with a rich tone in your ears. there certainly is a lot you can get for its price tag at N209,000 or $1,350, imagine losing one of these on the bus or taxi, but i would love to get a chance to use these headphones some day, just for a few minutes of audio bliss :-)

Starcomms unveils voice chat service

2010-01-15T06:03:00.002Z

Starcomms Nigeria, recently unveiled a social networking voice chat service for its subscribers. The service, called Afritalk, will enable customers to relate by voice with other people who are not on their phone list, the idea is that this would help their subscribers extend their span of influence and make connections with people who share similar interests as they do. With afritalk, startcomms subscribers can call their afritalk friends through a unique ID, without revealing their true identity.

- Chiedu Ifeozo

Nokia's sugar powered concept phone

2010-01-15T05:49:00.003Z

Nokia has teamed up with designer Daizi Zheng to come up with this weird and wonderful, sugar fuel cell powered phone, in a cylinderical form factor. just pour in some coca cola, fanta or lemonade into it, and its good to go. they also claim that a single can of the fizzy stuff can last longer than the everyday lithium ion batteries. i think its an interesting concept but soft drinks should still be for drinking in my opinion, lol.

- Chiedu Ifeozo

The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid

2010-01-14T11:15:00.003Z

At the CES event this year, Lenovo certainly didnt hold back at all, they introduced many new devices and one of the more intresting devices is the Lenovo ideapad U1 hybrid. Its an 11.6" laptop with a retractable multitouch screen and it certainly earns its tag as a hybrid, with 2 operating systems and 2 processors for 2 situations. When the screen is locked into its upright position in the laptop's chassis, it's powered by a CULV Intel Core 2 Duo processor and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. But when the screen is pulled from its shell it morphs into a Qualcomm Snapdragon powered-multitouch slate with a 16GB SSD that boots Lenovo's customized Skylight Linux interface. its been pegged for a june 2010 release and is suspected to cost around $1,000 or N150,000.

- Chiedu Ifeozo

Glo broad access brings high speed ADSL broadband to Lagos

2010-01-14T09:04:00.003Z

Globacom, the second national carrier for Nigeria, recently introduced its Glo broad access service, a high speed ADSL broadband internet connection based on its fiber optic transmission cable that it has been working on for a while now. with this service they are also expanding their telephony line to included fixed land lines and an always on internet package.

The honourable Minister of State for Information and Communications, Alhaji Aliyu Bilbis last week, in Lagos said Globacom , Nigeria 's national telecoms operator has proven that it is a reliable partner in the achievement of the cardinal objective of President Umar Musa Yar'Adua administration's 7-point agenda through the launch of Glo Broad Access, According to the minister, the launch of Glo Broad Access shows Globacom's commitment to Yar'Adua's 7-point agenda to comprehensively establish and revitalize infrastructure in prime sectors of the economy.

Bilbis further observed that Globacom has now changed the face of fixed line telephony in a way that will accelerate rapid economic growth in the country with the launch of its Broad Access service.

The minister said that he was moved by the innovation and urged other networks to emulate it by launching their own fixed line services.

"Glo is known for its commitment to innovation. The benefit of a fast internet platform and fixed line which Glo has now brought to Nigeria cannot be overemphasized because it will make enormous contributions to the rapid growth of the nation's economy.

"While the GSM sub-sector has grown rapidly over the last eight years, fixed line telephony has remained largely undeveloped. We have no doubt that Glo is now positioned to lift the fixed line sub-sector", he said.

Globacom's Group Chief Operating Officer, Mohamed Jameel said that Glo Broad Access is revolutionary because it offers Nigerians the benefits of truly fast broadband internet, stable and distortion-free voice connections, video conferencing and even cable television through Glo wired lines installed in their homes and offices at a very low cost.

- Chiedu Ifeozo

additional sources :
allAfrica.com

Zuckerberg: 'I am a prophet'

2010-01-12T22:59:00.000Z

Facebook genius foresaw today's no privacy 'norm'

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that he is a prophet, declaring that he had foreseen that people will soon have no qualms about displaying every minute detail of their private lives on the internet.

Zuckerberg revealed his gift during a staged interview with Michael Arrington at the TechCrunch awards this weekend.

Critics have slated the social networking site for burying privacy controls, highjacking its users' data and allowing advertisers to farm Facebookers to help them flog tat. Oh, and eroding an generations' respect for their own and other people's privacy.

However, this has obscured the true genius of Zuckerberg and his crew. In fact, rather than facilitating the erosion of privacy in the name of commerce, Mark simply looked into the future, and built a company that could take advantage.

The fact is, Zuckerberg said, that people want to share everything, and they want to share it on the internet. That is the "new norm", and he saw it coming.

"People have really gotten comfortable sharing more information and more openly and with more people."

"That social norm is something that something that evolved over time and we followed."

Older companies had been hamstrung by "conventions" and their legacy systems, Zuckerberg said. On other hand, he had magically peered into future, from his "dorm room at Harvard", and constructed a company that would be ready to facilitate this brave new open future when it arrived.

"We thought this would be the social norm and we went for that," he declared.

Which presumably means all those run-ins with privacy campaigners, regulators etc., were just bumps on the road, as Mark worked to realise his vision of a world where everyone shares everything. With his clients.

Still, it makes you wonder. If Zuckerberg really has this gift of second sight, wouldn't it have just been easier to place some kind of accumulator bet on the world series? Least that way no-one would have had to see pictures of him lounging around the pool.

By
The Registry

Behind the Magic of Avatar

2010-01-11T05:11:00.007Z

Weta Digital used more than 2,000 HP BladeServers to render the special effects in the blockbuster hit

By all accounts, the motion picture Avatar is a huge success.

People everywhere have been captivated by the film’s dazzling special effects. Critics have raved that there has never been another movie like it. Ticket sales worldwide have already surpassed US$1 billion.

And HP technology played a key role in the film’s production.

Weta Digital, a special effects studio in Miramar, New Zealand, was responsible for bringing to life the beautiful and mesmerizing virtual world of the planet Pandora. And Weta’s computing core ran on 2,176 HP ProLiant BL2×220c Blade Servers.

A recent article published by Information Management noted that this added up to more than 40,000 processor cores and 104 terabytes of RAM.

World’s largest rendering facility

Prior to 2008, Weta had been an IBM site, and our local HP New Zealand team worked closely with our Houston-based BladeSystem team to promote the ProLiant BL2x220 as an innovative platform for the studio.

Following the implementation of HP equipment, the Weta site has grown to become the largest rendering facility in the world. It now has a backlog of studio work and will be delivering leading-edge movies for years to come.

Powerful performance

The HP ProLiant BL2×220c BladeServers used to render Avatar provide industry-leading power efficiency and performance at an affordable cost.

Customers have praised the product for creating a “stable and scalable environment,” and noted that it “makes virtualization work fantastic.” In addition, customers have said it enables them to reduce their energy usage and associated carbon footprint while not compromising performance.

The HP team worked extensively with Weta Digital to run the system at optimum power efficiency, resulting in dramatic power and cooling savings.

Through water-cooled radiators, closed rack space, and passive rooftop heat exchangers, the data center stayed cool while running full time and often at full capacity, with no air conditioning. The cooling cost was equivalent to that of turning on a few electric water pumps.

Raves for Avatar

To date, in addition to breaking records at the box office, Avatar has been nominated for nine Critics Choice Movie Awards and four Golden Globe awards, including Best Picture. Critics have also given the film high marks and praise:

“For years to come, it will define what movies can achieve.”
Time Magazine

“An ambitious, fully immersive cinematic experience.”
Washington Post

“Avatar's shock and awe demand to be seen. You've never experienced anything like it, and neither has anyone else.”
Los Angeles Times

“What spectacle! Avatar is dizzying, enveloping, vertiginous ... I ran out of adjectives an hour into its 161 minutes.”
New York Magazine

“Combining beyond-state-of-the-art moviemaking with a tried-and-true storyline— and a gamer-geek sensibility... the movie quite simply rocks.”
Philadelphia Inquirer

What did you think about the movie??

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

2010-01-10T15:16:00.002Z

"It’s Google’s autistic approach to relationships," one senior phone exec told me this week. "They don’t know what hurt they’re doing, and they don’t care."

It’s nothing personal, guys. Today, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, who thought they were Google’s closest partners, will begin to understand how, say, copyright holders have felt for some time now. For the first time, I suspect, they’ll be enjoying that recurring tingle of amazement and disbelief that (as Chris Castle explained here), Google would even try and pull off such a stunt. It took EMI Publishing six months to realise that Google had claimed digital rights to its songs, for example. But even if the decision to shaft its closest Android partners and biggest customers is an aberration, a one-off, a fling that Google will later regret - then the size of the parties involved means it’s going to have lasting repercussions.

Even before Google started competing with it head on this week, the mobile industry was already wary of the Mountain View Chocolate Factory, and its inclination to hoover up every morsel of service revenue. Now complaining about that may be a bit hypocritical, you might think, if you look at how much of a transaction operators such as Docomo have traditionally retained, and how much they want to keep now. But look at the alternative, Google told the networks and device makers. That Mr Jobs doesn’t leave anything on the table. And besides, we Do No Evil.

Wakey wakey, networks

If you’re scratching your head wondering what the big deal is, then I suggest you do a quick news search on the number of stories containing the phrase ‘Google superphone’. Imagine how this looks to a punter. There are over a dozen Google phones. Only one is a real Google phone. Only one is a Google superphone. And you can only get that from Google. Won’t Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Acer and Samsung be feeling pleased today? Sony Ericsson’s X10 has a fairly identical spec (plus Sony branding) or better – but it’s not a ‘superphone’. And not the ‘real thing’.

If you thought there was a level playing field, you’ve been mugged. If you’re looking for a differentiator, similarly, you’ve been mugged.

As we discussed earlier, there may be some semantic wiggle room for Google – but it’s a Bill Clinton defence. Andy Rubin not only questioned the definition of sexual relations but also what ‘make our own hardware’ means (phnarr!). Maybe even what ‘is’ is. So despite nods and winks to the contrary, Google is now selling a Google-branded ‘superphone’, alongside its Google ad programs and Google-created software platform.

This is no surprise.

If networks are surprised that Google can turn around and shaft them – then they can’t have been paying close attention to company strategy in recent times. They certainly weren’t reading El Reg, where we’ve been joining the dots for you for years. The evidence was already abundant that Google envisaged a value chain without operators or ISPs. In Google’s vision of the future, there are no $80bn-a-year turnover giants like Vodafone. Instead, masts are merely a dumb transmission network, most likely operated by a monopoly incumbent (such as Arqiva for UK TV and radio), which must be regulated (out of necessity) by an equally dumb transmission network regulator.

With the value of copyright also reduced to zero, (the other arm of Google’s mighty lobbying effort is to kneecap creators and rightsholders,) then the only internet company that could possibly make money would be Google - since it would be the only internet company.

Good, honest lobbying

Google has lobbied for this for years now; it's also why Google has its own private internet. Googlenet already carries 10 per cent of the net’s traffic internally, and this is a testbed for replacements for the open protocols we use today such as http and dns. And it sure as hell isn’t neutral. Google has no obligation to open this to anybody else. The huge data centres are simply the physical manifestation of the private internet – like the vast ventilation towers at each end of the Holland or Rotherhithe Blackwall Tunnels.

So Google stoked the bogus ‘net neutrality’ scare (directly writing legislation for the European Parliament, in one instance) which handicapped the network operators' ability to monetize their network fairly (by say launching a VoD service) ensuring that Google’s own private network (exempt from neutrality rules) becomes more valuable. Neutrality was the Global Warming scare of network world. ManBearPig may not exist, but it's amazing what you can get legislated if enough people think it does.

Google has ceaselessly lobbied for spectrum reform, too. In both cases it’s used sockpuppet groups such as ‘FreePress’ and PublicKnowledge, and its hand-picked academic network, typically legal departments with large debts to the Chocolate Factory.

When you went into partnership with the Loompas – were you feeling lucky?

Winners and Losers

In terms of who loses and benefits I offer this short list to get you started - you can complete the rest. The first couple are easy to fill in. The first comes from the executive who offered me the autism perspective. He also reminded me that it’s less than two weeks since ‘the sermon’ by Jonathan Rosenberg. Remind me, what’s open about Google now?

Another casualty for the same reasons, is surely the Open Handset Alliance itself. It’s odd to read how:

Each member of the Open Handset Alliance is strongly committed to greater openness in the mobile ecosystem. Increased openness will enable everyone in our industry to innovate more rapidly and respond better to consumers' demands.

‘Innovating in the open’ now means ‘getting ready to shaft you behind closed doors’.

As for the winners, Apple suddenly doesn’t look so bad. Operators hate being told what kind of subsidy they may offer, and chafe at the control freakery. But at least the iPhone is a surefire hit, it drags in the punters. None of Google’s models – either demiphones or Superphones – have shown they can. And Apple’s terms are much less onerous than a year ago.

Nokia and Symbian should be beneficiaries, but for operators Symbian is too much of Nokia’s pet project. Handset manufacturers have spent a decade getting out of Symbian projects and for many this is the last time they’ll do so. Also thanks to Nokia’s neglect, nothing Symbian now has to offer is competitive with the iPhone. It isn’t up to date.

One of the most puzzling tech business stories of the last ten years is how Nokia surrendered its smartphone lead and reacted like a rabbit in the headlights when the game changed. Nokia talks about ‘democratising’ the smartphone, simply because it’s own models are cheaper and ship in higher volume than the market leaders, who pocket the profits. Well, the Trabant democratised travel in the GDR, providing mobility to non-party members. It’s not a good analogy to make.

I expect to see more interest in the operators’ own hobbyhorse, the Limo Foundation, which is a Linux stack backed by the big networks plus Samsung – although anybody can sign up to make a Limo phone. It was fear of Google that propelled Vodafone to use Limo for the 360 phone so heavily promoted over Xmas. And while Limo does not provide iPhone or Pre-quality slickness, networks may see it as a low risk investment. No danger of Nokia or Google pulling a fast one.

Right now only RIM and Apple are making money from this mobile data caper, and the operators delude themselves if they think they do more than come out evens. They’ll fancy their chances even less now that Nexus has reminded everybody that Google sees Networks and ODMs as a temporary (and disposable) part of the equation.

From
The Register

Google Nexus One: Web meets Phone

2010-01-10T15:04:00.004Z

On 5th January, Google announced its mobile offering. But while Google may make a better job of trumpeting its entry into the branded phone market, the Nexus One will never be as successful as the iPhone.

That conclusion was based on the idea that Apple would get two things wrong: It would piss off operators by diverting their revenue streams, and refuse to accept the operator shilling in the form of a handset subsidy. Google will get both of these points right - though even that won't be enough to make the Nexus One an iPhone competitor.

Back in 2006, Apple's lack of experience with operators proved its advantage: Steve Jobs pushed far harder than anyone else would have dared and the operators proved far more flexible than expected. They showed themselves willing to hand over revenue, advertising dollars and (ultimately) customers in exchange for a little Cupertino cool.

Later even Apple had to accept handset subsidies, along with the operator control that came with them - thus we get an MMS client, and careful control of VoIP applications.

Google has experience working with operators - it's been more than a year since T-Mobile launched the G1 - so the search giant has had plenty of time to work out what operators want from a handset, and thus what they'll subsidise.

And Google's business model isn't a threat to the operators, unlike Apple's, so in theory the Nexus One should be sure-fire winner with operators. That explains T-Mobile's rumoured $350 subsidy on the $530 price of the Nexus One, which pushes headline price below the $199 Apple is asking for a (subsidised) iPhone 3GS.

Price is important, but marketing is even more so, and (quite remarkably) Apple managed to get the operators to pay for much of their advertising. The exclusive deals Apple signed with operators committed them to extensive advertising spends, and it's hard to imagine that Google will have struck anything similar. But no-one knows more about advertising than Google, with Google also being ideally placed to ensure that there's no confusion when someone is searching the internet for the latest Android handset.

Google's phone, of course, won't be exclusive. That wouldn't be the Google way, just as applications can be bought through the Android Marketplace but can also be bought elsewhere. That's very nice for geeks who care about such things, but for the majority it makes it more complicated, and today's mobile-phone buyer cares more about simplicity than freedom.

So the Nexus One will be a moderate success, bringing in a little revenue for Google and serving as a reference platform for Android developers who will flock to get one spurred on by effective on-line advertising. But the general public will continue to buy the iPhone until Google comes up with some sort of killer feature to take away Apple's crown.

By
Bill Ray

10 Things You Must Do With Your New Windows 7 PC

2010-01-08T14:52:00.007Z

If you got a new Windows 7 laptop for Christmas, you are truly in luck. I believe Microsoft got it right with this one after failing horribly with Vista. But here are 10 things you need to get the most out of it.

1. Take a Spin Around the New Interface: Still glassy, glossy and damn near glittery, the Windows 7 interface is actually a major progression for Microsoft: It's not just easy to use, it's a whole new paradigm with the revamped taskbar and Aero Peek making multitasking with multiple windows more natural than ever.

2. Turn Off Everything You Don't Need: While Windows 7 is missing some odd things, like a mail application, the flip side is that you can turn off pretty much every major feature you don't want. Internet Exploder 8? Gone. Windows Media Player? Poof. And if you're used to tweaking the crap out of Windows, you still can—a lot of the old tricks, like for manipulating context menus, still work.

3. Move All Your Crap from Your Old Machine: Windows 7 actually has pretty decent built-in powers for moving all your crap from your old and busted PC to your new pride and joy, though you need to download Windows Easy Transfer separately onto XP if you're pulling stuff from that.

4. Master All of the New Keyboard Shortcuts: Why deal with flipping around a mouse or scribbling on a trackpad when you do the same thing in a tenth of a second with a keyboard combo? The Start key (oh sorry, Windows key), which I've always neglected as a useless monotasker, is supremely useful in Windows 7, as the underpinning for a metric ton of keyboard shortcuts.

5. Get It to Play Nice With All of Your Gadgets: The good news about Windows 7 is that, unlike Vista, most of your gear that worked with your computer a couple years ago with Windows should still work. And newer gear interacts with Windows in a fancy new way with a big ol' splash graphic and easy access to all the stuff you'd wanna do with it. While even simple things, like adding a second monitor, are more straightforward now, here's a device-by-device breakdown on getting everything to touch Windows 7 appropriately.

6. Share Stuff With Your Other Computers, 'Cause It's Easier Now: The networking UI hasn't just gotten a facelift to make it more accessible, it's actually easier to use with HomeGroups—join a HomeGroup, and all of the stuff you want to share with other computers spreads like herpes to the rest of the HomeGroup, no arduous networking required. Also, network in general—like with Macs—seems to just work better with Windows.

7. Stream Your Music and Videos Everywhere: Connecting your PC to a TV sounds so 1999. Well, you might not know this, but your Windows 7 PC is a badass music and video streamer, DVR, photo viewer, video aggregator and everything else you'd want out of a multimedia box, all thanks to Windows Media Center. The living room PC is legit now. Not to mention Play To, which beams music (and video and photos) to any compatible device on your network, no setup required (really!). All it takes it a right-click, and those Sonos speakers on the other side of your house will magically start yelling the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

8. Upgrade Your Netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium: If you got a Windows 7 netbook, there's a good chance you got stuck with the artificially gimped out Starter edition, which sucks. The cheapest way to fix this is to buy Windows 7 for $30 using a valid .edu email address, then follow our guide to installing Windows 7 on any netbook.

9. Set Up Some Network Storage: A fresh computer is a fresh start—meaning it's a perfect time to start a new life with fully networked storage for backup, especially if you're using your machine as a DVR with Windows Media Center. (But skip on faster drives.) One awesome option? A Windows Home Server machine, which can do backups and stream out media to all of your computers.

10. Remote Control It From Anywhere with VNC: While diving deep into the system and futzing with your network at the same time, you might as well set up a VNC server so you can control your computer from anywhere, whether it's to pull files or schedule downloads.

That's all folks. Share your own tips and tricks in the comments!

1999-2009: How Broadband Changed Everything

2010-01-05T16:27:00.001Z

2009 has started to pack up its belongings and get ready for its journey into the history books. As such it’s time to slow down and spend more time with our respective families, and to reflect on things. I, like so many others, have been reflecting not only on the year that’s drawing to a close, but the decade.

From 1999 to 2009, the world changed dramatically. We destroyed an unprecedented amount, and yet thanks to technology, built an unprecedented amount, too. Indeed, like a man obsessed, I cannot help but look at our modern lives through the lens of broadband. Thanks to that technology, the world today is more closely knit than ever. From 9/11 to the Asian tsunami to the election of Barack Obama to the terror attacks in Mumbai to the uprising in Iran, broadband enabled us to experience such global events together.

All of which has made me think about the epilogue of my book, “Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist.” Despite the tale I recounted, I was very optimistic about the technology. After all, it was the players who had let the game down — as they almost always do. I still believed in the promise of seamless connectivity, that broadband would prove to be a platform that would usher in a new era of innovation. As I wrote back then:

Despite the current crisis in the broadband business, I am a lot less despondent today than I was starting work on this project…Like its predecessors, the radio, railroad, airline and automobile bubbles, the broadband bubble will be a distant memory…Sure, the industry will suffer for a couple of more years, but by then entrepreneurs — the very essence of the American capitalist system will figure out a way to use that bandwidth. Steve Jobs of Apple Computer wants us all to exchange digital photos and videos; that will consume some bandwidth. Some say that a new era of grid computing will dawn…It’s a start!

Those were brave and somewhat foolish words, given that at the time the industry was in disarray due to corporate scandal, and there were miles and miles of pipes with no data to fill them. I was writing about a long list of companies in 1999 that don’t exist anymore, among them @Home Networks, the first cable broadband provider; Rhythms NetConnections; Northpoint Communications and the Concentric Network. My own first broadband connection came to me earlier that year via Bell Atlantic, a Baby Bell that would eventually morph into Verizon. I paid $70 for a 384 kbps DSL connection.

The House That Napster Built

It’s easy to forget that it was the magical beauty of Napster, the then-illegal music-sharing service, that spurred many of us to sign up for DSL and cable broadband connections. Napster’s popularity made it clear for the first time that broadband was a platform, no different than, say, Windows or the PlayStation. That’s because it allowed for new applications to be developed and run on top of it, applications that consumed bandwidth — and in turn, driving demand for even more of it.

The demand for broadband, of course, has since soared. In the U.S., for example, we started the decade with a couple million connections but are going to end it with more than 80 million. While the growth of new connections has started to slow, by 2014 the total number of connections will top 96.4 million in the U.S. alone. Globally, according to some estimates, there will be close to 700 million broadband users by 2013.

But since for many people, such numbers are too abstract to be meaningful, let’s just look back at the decade that was in terms of companies and the products and services they brought us that have become fundamental to our everyday lives.

That Thing You Google

We’ll start with Google. Little more than a pesky little upstart in 2000, it has been the single biggest beneficiary of the broadband boom. Not only did it turn the Internet into a strategic advantage, but it managed to bottled that lightening on its first try. Because broadband connections allow us to search for anything, anytime, and actually find what we’re looking for, thanks to Larry and Sergey, we soon started to forget about directory services such as the one offered by Yahoo.

The more broadband spread, the more people used Google and as such, changed their Internet usage behavior from that of hoarding bookmarks or consulting directories to searching, starting with the phrase: I’m Feeling Lucky! Of course, Google is now a $191 billion company, its corporate vow to “Do no evil” now somewhat hollow-sounding.

My Top 10 Broadband-based Apps/Devices

1. Firefox
2. Google
3. Skype
4. Hulu
5. Facebook
6. WordPress.com
7. Twitter.
8. Flickr.com
9. iTunes
10. Google Talk

Bonus Pick: BitTorrent

At the same time, I find it absurd that so many companies blame Google for their woes. It’s not Google that has so little regard for esteemed brands, but the distribution platform — aka the broadband network. This truly democratic quality is why Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were able to start peer-to-peer Internet telephony service Skype, which has single-handedly destroyed the long-distance voice business.

I Want My NewTeeVee

And let’s not forget YouTube, which turned every minute into prime time and the entire planet into an audience. Or that ultimate lovechild of broadband and television, Hulu. We’ve largely replaced our real-world relationships with Facebook pokes and Twitter updates, and most of us now own either an iPod or an iPhone (or both!). All have made for a broadband-enabled life. In the meantime, a new era of grid computing, known as cloud computing, has begun, courtesy of Jeff Bezos’s amazing house on the hill, Amazon.com.

Of course, the very flat and democratic Internet has also destroyed aging business models practiced by those that failed to learn one simple truth: packets eventually end up at their destination.

By
Om Malik

LED Dress Monitors Pollution

2009-12-23T09:24:00.006Z

This dress below monitors pollution and displays a health warning based on local air quality. A carbon dioxide detection unit and microprocessor are linked to hundreds of LEDs which have been woven into the dress.

The lights pulsate based on the local carbon levels– the faster the pulse, the more dangerous the air conditions. While this concept may not be practical enough for mass production, we feel that environmentally conscious fashion like this is certainly progress in the right direction for the creative world. [diffus]

9 ways to increase the security of your laptop while on the road

2009-12-23T07:50:00.001Z

Use these 9 tips to learn how you can keep your laptop more secure when you're on the road.

1. Avoid using computer bags
Computer bags can make it obvious that you're carrying a laptop. Instead, try toting your laptop in something more common like a padded briefcase or suitcase.

2. Never leave access numbers or passwords in your carrying case
Keeping your password with your laptop is like keeping the keys in the car. Without your password or important access numbers it will be more difficult for a thief to access your personal and corporate information.

3. Carry your laptop with you
Always take your laptop on the plane or train rather then checking it with your luggage. It's easy to lose luggage and it's just as easy to lose your laptop. If you're traveling by car, keep your laptop out of sight. For example, lock it in the trunk when you're not using it.

4. Encrypt your data
If someone should get your laptop and gain access to your files, encryption can give you another layer of protection. With Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 you can choose to encrypt files and folders. Then, even if someone gains access to an important file, they can't decrypt it and see your information. Learn more about how to encrypt your data with Windows XP, encrypt your data with Windows Vista, or encrypt your data with Windows 7.

5. Keep your eye on your laptop
When you go through airport security don't lose sight of your bag. Hold your bag until the person in front of you has gone through the metal detector. Many bags look alike and yours can easily be lost in the shuffle.

6. Avoid setting your laptop on the floor
Putting your laptop on the floor is an easy way to forget or lose track of it. If you have to set it down, try to place it between your feet or against your leg (so you're always aware it's there).

7. Buy a laptop security device
If you need to leave your laptop in a room or at your desk, use a laptop security cable to securely attach it to a heavy chair, table, or desk. The cable makes it more difficult for someone to take your laptop. There are also programs that will report the location of a stolen laptop. They work when the laptop connects to the Internet, and can report the laptop's exact physical location. One such tracing program is ComputracePlus.

8. Use a screen guard
These guards help prevent people from peeking over your shoulder as you work on sensitive information in a public place. This is especially helpful when you're traveling or need to work in a crowded area. This screen guard from Secure-It is just one example of a screen guard you could use.

9. Try not to leave your laptop in your hotel room or with the front desk
Too many things have been lost in hotel rooms and may not be completely secure. If you must leave your laptop in your room, put the "do not disturb" sign on the door.

How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo..

2009-12-21T14:44:00.009Z

It was a confident - some might say complacent - Microsoft that entered the decade.

Microsoft was the PC. Such was its grip on the desktop and laptop ecosystem that it could force OEMs to ship its browser by threatening to cut off access to its operating system.

In quick succession between 2000 and 2001, Microsoft shipped Windows 2000, Windows XP, Office 2000, and Internet Explorer 6; delivered its answer to Java with .NET; and made a radical departure by moving into hardware to take on games-market leader Sony with the Xbox.

Almost immediately, Microsoft paid the price for its confidence. When the internet changed the world, it became clear that the software Microsoft had refined on the desktop and server was not suited to the new world of the online openness. Windows, Outlook, and IE were slammed - and hard - by wave after wave of malicious worms.
They hit millions of systems, taking down everyone from anonymous individuals sending email to databases in nuclear power stations.

Next, Microsoft stumbled over what was supposed to be its core competency: building a new Windows. In 2004, it went back to the drawing board on a version of Windows it had been building since 2001: Longhorn. When Longhorn finally shipped as Windows Vista, it was late and so hated that partners didn't support it, customers wouldn't use it, and Windows XP remained the default choice on peoples' desktops.

As the decade progressed, the PC itself - the bedrock Microsoft bet its business and vision on since the 1970s - was surpassed by a new generation of computing platforms that excited developers and users. People became obsessed by netbooks and cell phones, while consumer goods and even cars became computing platforms.

Meanwhile, for OEMs, developers, and startups, the choice was no longer a straight one between either Java or .NET. At least in that battle, Microsoft had a 50/50 chance of winning. But the Noughties became the decade of open source and Linux.

AJAX, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python fuelled a renaissance in development. They didn't come with a pricey or restrictive license.

At times, Microsoft's management didn't help the company. Its internet and mobile strategy were always on the back burner to the PC. By 2009, Microsoft was spending furiously to close the gap on Google's huge ads and search market share. Late in the day, it promised a version of Windows Mobile to match Apple's iPhone - a device chief executive Steve Ballmer had laughed off in 2007. The sobering truth was that in two years, the iPhone had robbed functional but boring Windows Mobile phones of valuable market share.

The IE Debacle

The internet and mobile were sins of omission. But with IE, management actively shot itself in the foot. In 2003, Microsoft announced that there would be no more standalone versions of IE and that you could only get IE with Windows. It was the height of arrogance from a 90-per-cent market-share winner.

That decision opened the door to Firefox, then known only to open sourcers and geeks. In the years since, it has been downloaded by millions, eroding IE's lead. It made surfing simpler, safer, and more standards compliant. Today, Firefox stands at 24 per cent market share, while IE has hit an all-time-low of 63.5 per cent. And now that people have been released from the "must-have" IE mindset of the 1990s and found there is another way, IE faces a fresh challenge in Chrome from internet search and ads Goliath Google.

Another disaster: The introduction of a new form of licensing for Windows called Software Assurance. It charged a subscription on the basis customers would get upgrades during the two- or three-year lifetime of their SA contract. But in the end, it pushed up customer's licensing costs and - in the case of Windows - new versions were not forthcoming, breeding anger and resentment among customers. Microsoft spent years spicing SA with extras to make the program palatable and provide some perceived form of value for money.

New world, new Microsoft
As Microsoft moves out of the Noughties and into the next decade, the confidence it displayed when it entered the Millennium is gone. The certainties of the old PC world have evaporated while the tactics of Microsoft used in that world - picking a leader and spending furiously to beat them - are challenged in a world where the competition is diverse, fragmented, free, and open.

Opportunities exist for Microsoft in the next decade and the company can succeed again. It might be late to cloud computing with Azure, but most everyone is still on the start line, so it still stands a chance.

If Microsoft can convince open-sourcers it's genuine - and if it no longer lobs grenades on intellectual property and patents that poison the atmosphere - then it could harness open-sourcers on Windows and Azure. The Xbox looks like continuing to challenge Sony, which has acted with a curious inertia to Microsoft throughout The Noughties. And when it comes to rich media, Microsoft's got a winner with Silverlight as an alternative to Adobe's Flash - at least as far as .NET developers are concerned.

In other areas - particularly mobile phones, browsers and search - the missteps of the past will need to be rectified before Microsoft can move on. As for Windows, Microsoft can bask in Windows 7 for now, but one day must find new ways to persuade users to move on to succeeding editions.

One thing is certain. Microsoft will see 2010 as a chance to re-set the clock - and put a painful ten years behind it.

By
Gavin Clarke, The Register

Email From Apple cult leader......

2009-12-21T12:03:00.002Z

Apple cult leader Steve Jobs has communicated with the outside world.

As revealed by Crunchgear, Jobs recently sent an 11-word email to a longtime Mac developer who had come groveling to the cult leader after being threatened by a band of Apple lawyers.

John Devor is the CEO of The Little App Factory, a tiny shareware outfit that offers a Mac application known as iPodRip. The tool has provided iPod disaster recovery since 2003, roping in roughly six millions users, but in recent weeks, the Apple legal police suddenly decided it was time the app had a new name.

But rather than obeying the Jobsian minions, Devor took the audacious step of sending an appeal for leniency straight to the cult leader:

Dear Mr. Jobs,

My name is John Devor and I’m the co-owner of a small Mac shareware company named The Little App Factory and a long-term Apple customer and shareholder. I doubt you’re aware but we recently received a letter from a law firm working on Apple’s behalf instructing us that we had violated several of Apple’s trademarks in our application iPodRip and asking us to cease using the name and Apple trademarks in our icons.

We have been distributing iPodRip since 2003 with the aim of providing a method to recover music, movies and photos from iPods and iPhones in the event of a serious hardware failure on their Mac which leads to data loss. Our goal has been to provide the highest quality product coupled with the highest quality service in a bid to resolve some of the angst that is generated by such an ordeal; service befitting of an Apple product. In this department we think we have succeeded as we have approximately 6 million customers, many Apple employees, music artists and other notable people in society. In fact I’d argue that our customer service is the best of all competing applications in our niche as many of them are scams and frauds that leave Apple customers with a terrible taste in their collective mouths. We fear very much that tens of thousands of Apple customers looking to recover their own music and having heard of our product via word-of-mouth or otherwise, will instead find a product produced by one of our competitors, and will wind up the victim of a scam (one closely-named competitor charges a hidden monthly fee, for instance).

It is quite obvious that we mean Apple no harm with the use of the name iPodRip, or of the inclusion of trademarked items in our icons, and in fact I believe that we have been providing an excellent secondary service to Apple customers that has potentially caused you many repeat clients. In fact, we are quite aware that Apple support and store staff have recommended our software on numerous occasions as far back as 2004 so we have felt that we were doing something right!

With this in mind, we are in desperate need of some assistance and we beseech you to help us to protect our product and our shareware company, both of which we have put thousands upon thousands of hours of work into. Our company goal is to create Mac software of the highest quality with the best user experience possible. I myself dropped out of school recently to pursue a path in the Mac software industry, and you yourself have been a consistent inspiration for me.

If there is anything at all you can do with regards to this matter, we would be most grateful.

Best,

John Devor

And the leader deigned to respond:

Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

We suspect that cult followers everywhere will soon be dropping their own apostrophes.

AppleInsider reports this is the first time the leader has communicated with the outside world since a 2008 email told a MacBook user that "Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2."

My evolving lifestyle

2009-12-02T11:02:00.008Z

For the last decade, I can attest that I've grown a lot, emotionally, mentally and physically. I went from a very shy girl to an assertive, reserve and determined woman. The most inspiring part of my growth has been my lifestyle, which has opened my eyes to a lot of things. I've experienced so much through that noun "lifestyle". If I was asked 7 years ago about my lifestyle, I would have mentioned music, television shows, the encyclopaedia, books, movies and food of course. Within the space of 6 years, gadgets became a concrete part of my lifestyle. I realised my laptop had become a part of me. I sat on a bus and tried to press the Windows start button. The vision in front of me was Windows XP. This really freaked me out. I thought I was going nuts or something. While I'm at work I try to mentally summon the undo shortkey to re-arrange clothes I've just finished arranging.

old, fat and ugly

I remember when I got my first mobile phone; I was almost 14 years old. I remember the first mobile phones I set my eyes on; they were huge, ugly and black. No personalisation and portability was not even considered at all. My mummy's old phone that she planned to give to me was a Motorola. Immediately I saw it, I rejected it. My uncle gave me my first phone and it was a Panasonic. It was nice and cuter than mum's old and fat Motorola. Mobile devices started getting smaller and elegant. I can recollect quite well, Ericsson, now known as Sony Ericsson, Siemens, Philips, Mitsubishi, Panasonic and Motorola were contenders in the market then. Ericsson was the most expensive and attractive, design-wise.

my first phone

my first love

The antenna on my Panasonic came off yet I continued to use it. I didn't use it much though. I send texts with it sometimes and my parents were able to reach me on it, when I was at school or out of the house. After a year, mum bought an Ericsson phone for me. I loved his smell. He smelled brand new and yummy. His smell was very embracing. I used to smile just to wake up to him. He was short, light and cute. The colour of his screen was unique and captivating; his screen colour was cyan and translucent. I fell in love with him instantly I saw him. Not too long after I acquired him, the Nokia frenzy started. Everyone was carrying Nokia phones around. It was disgusting. Ringtones and wallpapers were introduced and everyone with Nokia mobile phones was purchasing ringtones like food. Nokia, wallpapers and ringtones became some sort of crowd mentality. I was excited about the introduction of personalisation. it meant i could now assign different ringtones for my received texts and my voice calls, but I was disgusted with the bandwagon effect that Nokia started.

"Nokia is a very powerful phone..." - Someone told me. "Yeah, sure! I never said it isn't."

Motorola always have edgy with innovative design

I would just rather have a phone that is different, compared to that of everyone in my class. I became a huge fan of Ericsson, my dad loved Motorola, whereas my uncle is a major Nokia groupie.

do u remember him?

I dumped the black and white Ericsson after two years and went for Motorola. I used the Christmas money I got from my uncles and dad to buy it. It was the very first gadget I saved up for. He was far better than Ericsson. He was colourful and interactive. He gave me more personalised content. He came with an integrated VGA camera; the picture quality wasn’t so great though. I loved his flip-style and his smell. I cherished him for a while. I used him to text a lot and reach friends. He was my first "cannot-do-without"; if I left him at home my day wouldnt be whole. I always had him with me. I let him hit the ground a couple of times. He had scars from his many falls. I cannot recollect exactly what happened to him. Maybe it is because it was too painful, so I erased it from my memory.

Nothing last forever

Dad gave me another Motorola; He was a lot sleeky but fragile. I had to handle him with care. He was sexy though. I must admit, although our relationship was a very short one, we had a wonderful time together; his camera quality was a bit better and he was more interactive. One day, I was in a rush to get to the train station and I was getting a lift from Mum. While I was trying to lock the house, because that ugly brother of mine refused to do it, my "hello Moto" dropped and split into two. The screen and the qwerty pad split and I couldn't revive him. It was not sad but just inconvenient. I had to get to an important lecture, I was in my final year and I could not miss that lecture. I wondered how I would reach people. Mum loaned me one of her phones for the day. It was a Samsung; I'm not a big fan of Samsung because I was biased. It's either Motorola or nothing.

a day wtih Samsung

music like I've heard it before

That same day I went to purchase a new phone after lectures. I bought a Sony Ericsson, I was so excited to be reunited with my first love. Even though he had a longer name now, he had gotten better. His screen reminded me of my first Ericsson; it was small, unique and vivid orange in colour. His screen colour blends with black and orange body exterior. A year later, I went to visit my cousin in the States and lost him somewhere between Michigan and Ohio. When I came back home my dad bought an exact replica of him for me. Yes, I chose him again and this time as my Christmas present. He's my pet; he's under my pillow right now. We've been together since 2007. He gives me music, pictures and a lot of interaction. I cannot say much about the camera, not up to bar. He's designed for music not for photography. He has some slight mental problems though, the software that came with Sony Ericsson phones around the time he was purchased has issues. He freezes and refuses to switch on sometimes. He's fine now though. I just don't trust him, he's unreliable. I might have to let go of him soon. He has competition.

Sleek

He messed up one time when I needed him the most. I was travelling back home and I needed a phone so I decided to be a bit more open-minded and change brand. I wanted HTC but HTC products were not available in stores, I had to buy it online. I had no time to wait on delivery so I settled for a Samsung Tocco which cost me almost 400euro. The Samsung is fanciful, light, portable and 3G. I had to let go of my 2.5G phone but I kept him as back up, like I mentioned previously, he's under my pillow right now. It's been a year now and Samsung Tocco is doing great; the camera is very nice. Sometimes it freezes because it's a touch-screen phone but it doesn't go crazy like iPhone. Samsung Omnia has wireless connectivity support but Tocco doesn't. Samsung Omnia is only available online, time really forced my hand when I was purchasing my Samsung phone.

Robust and ubiquitous

Anyway, I've got a Nokia now. YES, I've got a Nokia E71. My very first Nokia. He's lovely, robust and very useful for business. I'm more open-minded about brands now but I still dislike crowd mentality; that is why I don't own a Blackberry phone. I don't own an iPhone because I'm simply anti-Apple. I only use iTunes but someday I might buy a Mac Book Pro. Maybe!

disappearing computer

Mobile generations have come a long way; very soon we will be offered 4G, i.e., 4th generation of cellular phones. 4G will surpass 3G, 2.5G and below. Are you ready for what 4G brings? Don't wait and see, check out the trends. Apple is already talking about iPhone 4G. Mobile technologies have become a way of life for my generation and upcoming generation. Even the previous generation are learning to adapt. Technology is not just an innovation, it is a LIFESTYLE.

Latifa Ayoola

Apple's new magic mouse

2009-10-22T09:34:00.002+01:00

advertised as the worlds first multi touch mouse, the magic mouse looks like a beauty to behold, this brief video, explains its many functions.

The new Apple iMac : all in one pc

2009-10-21T13:22:00.002+01:00

click here for specification and features

The Nook : Barnes and Noble's new e-book reader

2009-10-21T11:29:00.002+01:00

Its called a nook, which kinda sounds like a book, and if you love e-books, this certainly deserves a good look. Barnes and Noble joins Sony and Amazon in the e-book reader market, which is still not high on the popularity stakes. these days ebook readers play mp3 files, audio books, and have wifi connectivity, but still the price tag prevent first time buyers from giving it a try. However, I want a nook, and i believe it will get folks reading books again. i have always believed that the publishing industry had to develop and evolve with the digital times. there are still worries about piracy and the small businesses and publishers that would be affected by the gradual move to a digital format, but i feel books would still be around for a while, and there will still always be those that like the smell of a new book. for now, publishers need to work on e-strategies to take advantage of the digital age and still remain profitable.

here's a look at the nook.

Windows 7 : New features explained

2009-10-21T11:18:00.002+01:00

The new Windows Operating system will be released this week, as the whole worlds heaves a sigh of relief, from the disappointments of the Vista OS. Windows 7 promises a definite improvement, and is highly anticipated. News reports even say that it is currently outselling the Harry porter books on pre-release. here is a video detailing what to expect from the new OS and explaining some of its features.

What happens when you smash a PS3 slim into a 46" Bravia TV?

2009-10-21T11:12:00.003+01:00

Well, you can watch the clip and find out. The marketing guys over at Sony Australia have come up with the ad for a promotion they are running. All i can say, is that's just crazy! maybe there's something else going on, maybe this isn't real afterall, please tell me it isn't!

Blackberry Storm 2

2009-10-15T07:17:00.000+01:00

Zune HD grand tour

2009-10-14T09:15:00.003+01:00

Creative Zen X-Fi 2

2009-10-14T07:15:00.002+01:00

Dyson's new fan is bladeless?

2009-10-14T06:59:00.002+01:00

Its called the Dyson multiplier and its advertised as a bladeless fan. well, actually there are blades, but you wont find any visible ones. The blades are actually hidden within the cylindrical bottom enclosure, and the air that it produces is then channeled up and pushed out of the circular ring giving the effect of a bladeless fan. its a gimmick that im sure the folks at Dyson would hope they can pull off, and so far they're relying on the beautifully simply design and bladeless tag-line. but then another thing to worry about is the price, this kind of uber cool device rarely comes cheap, perhaps due to it novelty value. it'll cost you $300 or N48,000 for the 10" model and $330 or N52,800 for the 12" model. Is it worth it, i believe certainly not, and more importantly i wonder how effective a bladeless 10" fan would be.

would you be getting one?

Nokia Booklet 3G specs

2009-10-14T06:15:00.002+01:00

Nokia Booklet 3G full specification

* Ovi Suite 2.0
* Nokia Music for PC
* Ovi Maps
* Social Hub – keeps track of your social software feeds in one spot and serves as a SMS sender
* Nokia software updater
* Weight (max) 1250 g
* Dimensions (max) 264 x 185 x 19.9 mm
* Intel Atom Z530, 1.6 GHz
* Intel Poulsbo US15W, fanless design
* RAM: 1 GB, DDR2, 533 Mhz, soldered down
* HDD: 120 GB, 1.8”/5mmH/SATA, 8 MB cache, 4200 RPM
* 10.1”, 1280×720 pixels, glass window
* 16 cell, 56.8 Wh, Li-Ion prismatic, removable design
* 802.11 b/g/n, 2T2R
* BT 2.1 + EDR
* Inbuilt 3G modem (data calls only). Different variants: WCDMA: 850/1900/2100 or WCDMA 900/2100 or no modem.
* All modem variants have GSM and GPRS
* Assisted-GPS
* 1 x HDMI 1.2 out
* 3 x USB 2.0
* 1 x headphone out (OMTP 3.5 mm) – with OMTP headsets also functions as audio in
* 1 x DC-in
* 1 x SD card reader
* 1 x SIM / USIM slot
* 1.3 MP front facing camera with integrated microphone
* Frame keyboard
* 2 physical layouts: US (78 keys, 17 mm pitch, 1.8 mm stroke) and UK (79 keys, 16.7 mm pitch, 1.8 mm stroke)
* Accelerometer
* Nokia Booklet 3G
* BC-1S battery
* AC/DC power adapter
* Quick setup guide and warranty instructions
* Headset WH-205
* USB charging multi-cable CA-126
* Operating System: Windows 7 Starter Edition, Home Premium or Professional
* MS Office Small Business 60 day trial
* MS Internet Explorer 8
* HDD protection utility, Hotkey utility , Knock Control utility, Power Profile Switcher, Battery Life utility
* Nokia Update Manager
* Ovi Suite
* Ovi Maps Gadget
* Social Hub
* F-Secure Internet Security 2010 trial

Blackberry Bold 2

2009-10-14T06:06:00.000+01:00

Dell Latitude Z "unveiled"

2009-09-29T18:23:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-15T10:08:00.005+01:00

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

2009-09-15T09:48:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-15T09:20:00.005+01:00

download here

Zune HD promotional video

2009-09-14T16:58:00.001+01:00

HP's Mini is Nvidia ION Powered

2009-09-10T02:03:00.001+01:00

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

2009-09-10T02:00:00.001+01:00

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)

2009-09-10T01:57:00.001+01:00

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

2009-09-08T10:15:00.000+01:00

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

2009-09-06T19:34:00.001+01:00

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

2009-09-02T14:27:00.000+01:00

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)

2009-09-02T14:24:00.001+01:00

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Nokia Introduces The X6

2009-09-02T14:17:00.001+01:00

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

10 Basic Things I hate about Windows

2009-08-29T02:51:00.006+01:00

Ever wake up and ask yourself why you are presented with some crappy software or operating system (OS) that makes your working-life miserable? Yes, I've been waking up to Vista for the past two years and it's not even funny. Do you ever wonder why nerds hail Linux or Unix? Well, Linux/Unix is designed for people who for example, hate to be prompt every time on how they need to use their system. Be warned Linux might not be for you because I won't want you to use the RM command to completely delete your whole archive or documents. So here are the things I hate about Windows, especially Vista.

1. I hate it whenever it asks me if I want to "continue". For goodness's sake I did ask Windows to open that application for me, why must I press one more button to open an application!

2. I hate when it suddenly rolls back to the default settings and you can't find any of your files. I panic for a minute because I haven't backed up that very day but I always get my files back.

3. I hate it when it suddenly crashes on me, especially when I'm in middle of scripting, programming or writing a very crucial report. I learnt to backup and save constantly.

4. I hate the useless error messages. E.g. Delivery manager has stopped working!

5. I hate the fact that I've to have an anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-adware all on one OS.

6. Microsoft Office…I cannot count how many times I've specified that I require spell check for only Queens English (Ireland).

7. I hate restoring the system to a previous state. I hate blue screen errors too!

8. I hate repairing and reinstalling corrupt drivers (most times they are caused by spywares and adwares!).

9. Oh yes, my vista didn't come with a "RESTORE CD" or "DRIVERS INSTALLATION CD". They put it on my system and expected me to save it onto a CD or an external drive.

10. VISTA SUCKS…sometimes I just want my XP back but hey I do have XP on my desktop and it has it own issues too.

These are just basics; I don't want to even go into technical details. Windows is a nut case. Just like a life partner, you cannot do with them and you cannot do without them. Even if you go and get yourself a Mac, some day, you will need Windows. Mark my words or ask my twin, SK. I'm dedicating this piece to him and all the Mac lovers out there.

Winks,

Latifa Ayoola

Mac OS X - Snow Leopard [Coming Out August 28]

2009-08-26T13:08:00.002+01:00

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

11 Things You Need to Know About the PS3 Slim

2009-08-22T12:47:00.000+01:00

Sony's slimmed-down PS3 is a cute little ugly duckling, and not without its concessions. From fewer USB ports to an over-priced vertical stand, and its removed "Install Other OS" feature, here's what you should know before picking one up.

I actually might buy a PS3 Slim myself. I like that the matte finish is more scratch and fingerprint resistant, even if it comes over as a little retro Chinese knock-off. In the same vein, these 11 considerations may not affect how you plan to use the Slim but knowing is half the battle, right?

1. Available September 1, Prices Already Dropped (North America)

If you prefer your PS3 fat and glossy, the existing 80GB model has now dropped to $300 that's how much the new 120GB PS3 Slim will be in September. (The current 160GB PS3 has also been reduced, to $400.)

2. You'll Probably Want the Stand

The Slim isn't really stable enough to balance vertically without its stand. Problem is, the stand is sold separately, and at $24, seems over priced. You also won't be able to pick one up until 2 days after the PS3 Slim first goes on sale. Expect to eventually see third-party alternatives in a Skittles-rainbow of colors.

3. Hard Drive Upgrades

As we've mentioned, FCC records indicate that Sony may also have plans for 150GB and 250GB versions of the 120GB PS3 Slim. Either way, it only takes one screw (now located under the front, instead of the side) to swap in your own SATA laptop hard disk (and doing so won't avoid the warranty).

4. PS3 3.0 Firmware Not Initially Pre-Installed

That's because it's released on September 1, the same day the Slim goes on sale. So to get the 3.0 Firmware goodness, you'll need to sit through a software update out of the box. Sony says it'll preinstall 3.x in later units. Sounds fair to me.

5. It Won't Play Your Old PlayStation 2 Games

That won't be returning," Sony's John Koller recently confirmed. Likely not a big deal unless you've got a massive collection of PS2 titles that you don't want to part with. If so, the launch PS3s with hardware PS2 Emotion Engine are your best bet (for greater compatibility), but the second-generation 60- and 80GB models will also play PS2 games using software emulation.

6. No Linux for You!

In its infinite wisdom, Sony has removed the "Install Other OS" feature (Settings -> System Settings -> Install Other OS) and official Linux support along with it. The current 80- and 160GB PS3s support Linux, but Sony's cut the cord on the Slim because it wants to "standardize" the OS. Counting down to open-source hack in 3, 2…

7. No On-Off Switch

The Slim has no on-off switch at the back, so now relies on the standby power button at the front. Both the power and eject buttons are no longer touch-style; they've been changed to physical buttons.

8. No Media Card Reader

No surprise here: PS3s haven't had media card slots for ages. Why not just stream photos from your laptop to the PS3 wirelessly, or copy them to a USB drive? Speaking of which…

9. Two USB Ports, Not Four

Not what we had hoped for, but again, not surprising. Not only is this a slimmed-down model, but all third-generation PS3s have only 2 USB ports (and skip the media card reader).

10. Bravia Sync

Connect the PS3 Slim to a Bravia Sync-capable Sony HDTV (via HDMI) and you'll be able to control the XMB interface with your TV remote. The TV will even automatically power down the PS3 when it gets turned off.

11. It Plays The Same PS3 Games!

Slim or not, it's still a freakin' PS3 and will play the same PS3 games and Blu-ray movies you throw at it! Plus, the smaller 45nm Cell chip helps it consume less power, and may potentially even be a little faster.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Microsoft Zune HD

2009-08-21T17:04:00.004+01:00

The Zune HD from Microsoft enters the ring to challenge the ipod, and dare i say it, it does pack a mean punch, i've never owned a zune or felt the need to own one, but with the zune HD i just might be changing my mind.

• Built-in HD Radio™ receiver. Allows you to listen to higher-quality sound than is available from traditional radio channels, as well as access additional programming through HD2 and HD3 multicast channels from many of your favorite local FM radio stations at no extra cost.

• HD video output capabilities. Supports HD video playback from the device through a premium HDMI A/V docking station (sold separately) directly to an HD TV in 720p, making it easy to enjoy better-than-DVD-quality video on your own big screen at home.

• OLED touch screen. Allows you to easily flip through music, movies and other content. The 3.3-inch glass screen and 16:9 widescreen format display (480x272 resolution) offer a premium viewing experience.

• Built-in Wi-Fi. Allows for browsing, streaming or downloading new music from Zune Marketplace.

• Internet browser. Full-screen Web browsing, optimized for the multi-touch screen with zoom-in and zoom-out gestures.

• Accessories, at home and on the road. Zune HD and AV Dock charges and syncs players while playing supported 720p HD videos on HDTVs. Play HD Radio, music and podcasts from your Zune HD device through your car stereo using the Zune Premium Car Pack.

Chiedu Ifeozo

PS3 Slim Vs PS3 original

2009-08-21T16:43:00.006+01:00

Office Mobile comes to Nokia smartphones

2009-08-17T09:28:00.000+01:00

This rumor has been circulating around for a while but now it is as official as it gets: Microsoft Office Mobile is coming to Nokia smartphones. This and other mobile productivity and connectivity solutions are the direct result of the global alliance between the two giants, which was announced today.

No, Nokia don't have any plans of making a Windows Mobile device any time soon. As of today the two companies will start working together on the design, development and marketing of diverse productivity solutions. Target users of the new products will be the corporate users who will appreciate them most. So, it's not a surprise that the first products to incorporate them will be the members of the renowned E-series.

This might sound strange at first to some but a second look at the written above reveals that this alliance does not only plan to bring the Microsoft Office Mobile to the Symbian powered smartphones (in fact, Quickoffice already does it quite successfully), but also to add new and useful mobile professional solutions.

As of next year Nokia should start shipping the Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones with plans to widen the range of apps in the future.

So, what can we actually expect from that alliance? Here is a clue:

The ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents on more devices in more places with mobile-optimized versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote

Enterprise instant messaging and presence, and optimized conferencing and collaboration experience with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile

Mobile access to intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft SharePoint Server

Enterprise device management with Microsoft System Center

With the over 200 million Nokia smartphones sold worldwide it's not a surprise that Microsoft decided to start this alliance namely with the Finns. And as far as Nokia is concerned, its still young service Ovi will now have a strong reinforcement with Microsoft by its side.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Nvidia Tegra HD Mobile CPU Devices

2009-08-15T17:04:00.002+01:00

Tegra-Based Portable Media Players

NVIDIA brings the ultimate visual experience and exceptional battery life to the new Zune® HD player. Enjoy 720p HD video playback and output, Web browsing, vivid photos, and days of music playback. The NVIDIA®-powered Zune HD puts portable perfection at your fingertips. Learn more.

TEGRA-BASED MOBILE INTERNET DEVICES (MIDs)

NVIDIA and its leading ODM partners unveiled revolutionary new

Tegra-based mobile Internet devices (MIDs), including Tegra netbooks

and tablets, at Computex 2009.

The NVIDIA® Tegra™ computer-on-a-chip is the first solution for mobile Internet devices to offer visual computing for high-resolution displays while using so little battery power that 10 hours of HD video playback or Web browsing becomes a reality. Powering rich, always-on Internet, up to 1080p HD video playback, Flash acceleration, and intuitive 3D user interfaces
all while delivering up to 5x the battery life of the competition Tegra delivers the experiences that today’s mobile consumers demand.

Only Tegra can deliver HD Internet and exceptional multimedia capabilities to mobile devices that can go days between charges.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

NVIDIA / icon incar Tegra based digital instrument cluster

2009-08-15T16:56:00.001+01:00

Posted by Smokie

Nvidia Tegra HD Mobile CPU (Videos)

2009-08-15T16:28:00.002+01:00

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Unconfirmed: Dell Android-Based Phone Announcement In China "Within Days"

2009-08-13T01:07:00.000+01:00

TechCrunch is reporting "thin" rumors from China this morning that would suggest Dell long thought to be weighing a mobile phone play in that market is all but prepared to announce a mobile phone in that country sometime this week.

The phone is rumored to run Android, but whether it actually launches this week or is merely announced is still unknown.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington admits the evidence is "extremely thin" in post this morning, but also goes far to support his source, saying that they and other sources used to break news in the region in the past are "spot on" with their information. The source also reports the phone could be "iPhone like" with a touchscreen and no physical keyboard.

No price, hardware shots or any other information is available at time time, so you might watch to catch a wink and wait for the inevitable morning fireworks.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Sony Laptops Have Hardware Virtualization Disabled, Can't Run Windows 7's XP Mode

2009-08-13T01:05:00.001+01:00

A user backlash began after Sony confirmed it deliberately disables hardware virtualization (required for Win 7's XP Mode) on all current Vaio laptops, due to security concerns. Now the company has said it will enable it "on select models."

This, even though the laptops use Intel Core 2 Duo processors with Intel's Virtual Technology (this, or AMD's equivalent are needed to run Windows XP Mode). Set to be included with Windows Pro 7 or above, many users have been looking forward to XP Mode because it allows software designed for XP to run without breaking like it might in Vista.

Over at the Windows 7 blog, Sony's Senior manager for product marketing, Xavier Lauwaert, responded that the company had:

…received very little if any requests to enable VT technology up until very recently.
In addition, our engineers and QA people were very concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code that could go very deep in the Operating System structure of the PC and completely disable the latter.
For these two reasons we have decided, until recently, not to enable VT. However, with the advent of XP Virtualization, there is impetus for us to relook at the situation and I can share with you that we will enable VT on select models.
Though, I fear to say that the Z series will not be part of our VT-enabling effort. Indeed, we will focus on more recent models.

Some good news: There are online guides that claim to run through re-enabling hardware virtualization on Vaio laptops that use either a Phoenix BIOS, or the Insyde H2O UEFI framework (like the Vaio Z).

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Nokia N86 8MP Digital Camera / Cell Phone

2009-08-09T03:21:00.000+01:00

Overview

Every detail of the metal-framed Nokia N86 8MP is thoughtfully designed with photography in mind, including 8 GB of internal memory for up to 4,000 images. Like any high-end digital camera, the memory can be increased with an exchangeable 16 GB microSD card. The device also offers a bright OLED screen with scratch resistant hardened glass, easy photo management, full sync capability with a PC and TV-out support for slide shows.

Shipping with the latest version of Nokia Maps and full Ovi integration, the Nokia N86 8MP gives a personal dimension to photos and videos. People can share their location with personal content like geotagged photos. The Nokia N86 8MP comes with a built-in compass, along with an integrated 3-months license for full voice and pedestrian navigation so that happy snappers don't lose their way when capturing life through the camera lens.

Multimedia features:

The Nokia N86 8MP, with its integrated kick stand, is ideal for watching videos and playing games. Each Nokia N86 8MP can play up to 25 hours of music on one charge which can be enjoyed with the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-214 also announced today. People can build a personal music collection from the millions of tracks and playlists available from the Nokia Music Store, where available.

Photos:

Video:

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Ovi by Nokia... Your Life Connected

2009-08-09T02:48:00.004+01:00

Ovi by Nokia is the brand for Nokia's Internet services. The Ovi services can be used from a mobile device, computer (through Nokia Ovi Suite) or via the web (Ovi.com). Nokia focuses on five key services areas: Games, Maps, Media, Messaging and Music. Nokia's aim with Ovi is to include 3rd parties, such as operators and third-party services like Yahoo's Flickr photo site. With the announcement of Ovi Maps Player API, Nokia has started to evolve their services into a platform, enabling third-parties to make use of Nokia's Ovi services. It has some significance in that Nokia is moving deeper into the world of Internet services, where head-on competition with Microsoft, Google and Apple Inc. is inevitable.

Nokia Account

Nokia Account is the Single sign-on (SSO) solution for Nokia's Ovi services and other Nokia services. Today it works as the account also for e.g. Nokia Beta Labs and Nokia Sports Tracker.

Nokia Ovi Suite

Nokia Ovi Suite allows Nokia mobile users to organize and share their photos and PIM data between their PC and their handset. It is the next generation of Nokia PC Suite and eventually Nokia Ovi Suite will become the only computer application offered by Nokia. Current commercial version of Nokia Ovi Suite is 1.1. A beta version of Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 is also available. A Mac OS X compatible version is expected soon.

Ovi Sync

Ovi Sync allows you to sync your contacts, calendar events and notes to ovi.com. The service can be used as a way to backup your data or to edit it in your computer to then send it back to your phone. There is no auto-sync yet.

Ovi Store

The Ovi Store was launched world wide in May 2009. Here, customers can download mobile games, applications, videos, images, and ringing tones to their Nokia devices. Some of the items are free of charge; others can be purchased using credit card or through operator billing in selected operators. The content in Ovi Store is sorted into the following categories:

Recommended
Games
Personalise
Applications
Audio & video

Ovi Store offers customers content that is compatible with their mobile device and relevant to their tastes and location. Customers can share recommendations with their friends, see what they are downloading, and let them see the items you are interested

For content publishers, Nokia offers a self-service tool to bring their content to the Ovi Store. Supported content types include: J2ME, Flash applications, widgets, ringtones, wallpapers, themes, and more for Nokia Series 40 and S60 devices. Nokia offers a 70% revenue share of gross sales, net of refunds and returns, less applicable taxes and, where applicable, fixed operator billing costs.

Ovi Maps

Main article: Nokia Maps

With Ovi Maps customers can browse places from all over the world, plan trips, search for addresses and points of interest, and save them on Ovi. To use Ovi Maps in a standard web browser, one need to have Macintosh OSX computer with Safari 3, or Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, and Internet Explorer 6 or 7, or Mozilla Firefox 2 or 3.

If the Ovi Maps 3.0 application (formerly known as Nokia Maps) is installed to your compatible Nokia mobile device, you can synchronise places, collections, and routes between Ovi Maps and your mobile device.

Using Nokia Ovi Suite or Nokia Map Loader on Microsoft Windows XP or Vista, users can download and preload map data and navigator voices to their mobile device. This allows customers to save time and money with when less data is required to be downloaded over-the-air.

Ovi Mail

Ovi Mail is an easy-to-use email address designed for access from your Nokia mobile device and can also be accessed from compatible desktop browsers. The beta phase started on December 2008, and is also available for all Ovi users from 20th of February.

The web mail works with standard browsers such as IE 6, IE 7, Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 and is currently available in 15 languages - US English, UK English, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Bengali, Filipino (Tagalog), French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal) and Spanish (Spain),

Currently over 35 different phone models with S40 and S60 -platform support Nokias new mail service. According to its website Ovi Mail is a leading mobile email service in Indonesia, South Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil and India.

Ovi Share

Ovi Share is a media sharing website. Originally called Twango the site allows the upload and storage of photos, videos etc. Users can upload media direct from their nokia mobile phone through the share online 3.0 application or can alternately use their PC.

Ovi Files

Ovi Files is an enhanced and re-branded version of the Avvenu "Access and Share" service, which Nokia purchased in December of 2007.

Ovi Files allows users to remotely access files on their Windows PC and Macintosh computers from any web browser or browser enabled mobile device. Files also facilitates sharing/sending of files. With Ovi Files users can choose folders and files they want to be always available and Ovi Files automatically keeps an up-to-date copy stored in a secure, 'Anytime Files' 10GB online storage locker for access, even while their personal computer is turned off.

Ovi Files was made free of charge in July 2009.

Nokia Music Store

Nokia Music Store allows purchasing of music directly on a mobile device or via PC. Download of Nokia Music software for PC is available from http://music.nokia.com/download

The store is currently available in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, United Arab Emirates, & United Kingdom with more countries launching regularly.

When you buy a Nokia Comes With Music device, you get unlimited free music downloads from millions of tracks from the Nokia Music Store for your PC & Mobile. Yours to keep even after your subscription ends.

Nokia Comes With Music is currently available in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, & United Kingdom.

N-Gage

Main article: N-Gage (service)

The N-Gage 2.0 platform has been integrated into the Nokia N73, Nokia N78, Nokia N79, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia N82, Nokia N85, Nokia N93, Nokia N93i, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N96 and Nokia 5320 mobile phones. Early in 2008, an updated version of the mobile gaming platform (including its online component - the N-Gage Arena) is going live, according to Nokia. The service worked in the past only with Nokia's N-Gage mobile game consoles, but the company said it will soon work with other devices too.

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

BlackBerry Curve 8520 (aka Gemini): Ahead of the Curve

2009-08-02T14:40:00.000+01:00

Overview:

Picking up the 8520, you know it's a BlackBerry Curve. Despite the visual changes and addition of the optical track-ball-pad, it maintains that user-friendly feeling and form factor of the Curve 8300s and 8900 in hand. And the whole package works well. I was scared to say goodbye to the trackball, but took to the optical sensor within a few minutes. And though I'm not sure what processor is in there, the OS experience is much improved over the Curve 83xx (if it's the same processor, the additional memory must make a world of difference?!). While I'm more of a fan of high-end specs on gadgets, I could actually see myself leaving my Bold or Curve 8900 or Storm or 9630 at home some days and carrying around the 8520 just to enjoy the experience. It also makes me excited for what we'll see from RIM in terms of their upcoming higher-end devices. If this is the look and feel of their base model device, then I'm thinking we should be wowed by their next generation of high end devices.

Form Factor:

I personally really like the design approach Research in Motion has taken with the BlackBerry Curve 8520's form factor. On the front, they've extended the LCD protector / covering / shiny stuff (don't know what the actual term for it is but I'm sure you know what I mean) both up towards the top of the device and down over the buttons and right to the keyboard. Subbing out the trackball for optical trackpad, this combined gives the 8520 a more modern and sleek look. Though the Send / End / Menu / Back keys are still clickable, they are combined into one piece (the white lines are slightly ridged up so you always find and hit the right command). The rubber coating on the volume buttons and convenience keys also makes them seem more a part of the device itself. Along with the camera flash, another BlackBerry feature notably missing from the 8520 form factor are charging contacts - I guess there won't be a BlackBerry charging pod for this one. Come to think of it, you probably won't skin this device either since it sort of comes pre-skinned with it's rubberized body (no charging pod, no need for skins... lends well to the theory of this being a prepaid play).

All in all, it's a more unified design philosophy which I have a feeling may hold up better to wear and tear than previous BlackBerry smartphone designs.

Optical Trackball:

There are a couple of other smartphones on the market that use a similar optical trackpad for navigation, and I'm happy to say that RIM's implementation of it on the Curve 8520 seems to be pretty smooth. You can watch the video above to see it in action. Just like the standard trackball, you can adjust the sensitivity of it under Options > Screen/Keyboard. With the Audible Roll setting on Mute, I was a little tripped out by the lack of noise while navigating. With no tactile/audible response, you're really forced to look at the display to see just how far you've moved. I turned the audible roll onto Click, and from there felt immediately more at home. For navigating the OS and doing things like web browsing, the optical sensor works well. I guess it is an eight-way pad, as I could scroll diagonally while web browsing. And it does "click" down, like a regular trackball, for making selections. So far, the only place where I've found myself having a bit of difficulty with the optical input is playing BrickBreaker. I think the traditional trackball is probably better for quick, accurate motions. Though practice does make perfect. I've heard sweaty fingers and being in bright, bright light can cause issue with this kind of an optical input, but I haven't experienced any issues yet. All in all, so far it's a thumbs up from me. And with no moving parts, it should prove more durable than the traditional trackball.

Media Buttons:

New to the Curve 8520 are dedicated media player buttons, located at the top of the device. While there's no dedicated lock key on the 8520, holding down the Play / Pause button for two seconds does put the device into standby mode.

Display:

The Curve 8520 features a 320 by 240 resolution display. I left all my older BlackBerry devices at home when I came out to Orlando for WES, so unfortunately while writing this don't have an older device to compare to (will follow up next week with direct comparisons). I can say that while the display shows a decent picture and video, it is definitely a step down if you've ever used the Bold, 8900, Storm or 9630. And where you really lose out is in web browsing. 320 pixels just isn't enough these days for those of us who like to browse the web on our smartphones.

Other Stuff:

Be sure to click the images above to zoom in on the photos (I've left some descriptions beneath) and get a better look. You'll see the keyboard is much like the 8900's (which is kind of like the 8700's) but with a slightly different bottom row. There are actually two notification lights. The battery door doesn't feature a latch, but is sort of gently pried off. It is easy insert and remove microSD cards into the media card slot (also underneath the battery door) and you don't need to remove the battery to access it.

Video:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

First cut is the deepest…My First Love, my C. P.

2009-07-31T11:26:00.006+01:00

I remember him with his sexy, strong, shiny and dark body. Immediately as our eyes connect, I knew I found him. In him I found all the specs I was looking for. I looked up at Dad and said, "I want ". So we went to collect him and head home. Not too long, he made me panic and completely ruined my weekend. I had anxiety issues. It felt like the world was going to end. I had deadlines I need to meet. All my work was on him. I didn't have backup plans. He costed me more than I planned for. I had to get him special accessories; things that should have been built in him.

He gave me backache, heartache and headache. I invested so much of my time in him. I relied on him. Each time I've an important milestone he lets me down. I kept forgiving him yet he never changed. I've tried to hold on. Every time I plan to walk away from him, my workload holds me back. So I kept going back to him. There was a time he refused to light up. I discovered his power was weak. So I took him to the engineering lab and tested his volts. He wasn't returning the right one. I took him back to them. They said they have to send him away for awhile because he was not responding at all. I argued he's only weak at lighting up but they won't listen.

Compaq Presario V500 series

So he went away for a month. I had to spend hours in the lab in order to get work done. I get home at midnight exhausted. It made me wonder why I ever chose him. He was supposed to ease my stress. Yet he kept adding to my stress. When he finally returned and I took him home. He completely messed up. So I went back to them and they listened to me this time. They sorted his weak point and he lighted up. No, the drama didn't stop there. He went down with blue screen errors. He crashed on me in middle of important projects. He taught me how to use "crtl+s" and code simultaneously. A slow "he" for this crazy nerd chick just don't make any sense.

It has been over two years now since we parted. Yes, I took the plunge and walked away. I stowed him away in a remote place. Few weeks ago I retrieved the bag where I kept him. I wasn't even tempted to look at him, so I dumped him out there and left for three weeks. Now, I'm planning to bring him out. Maybe I should fix him or let him rot. He costed me 1700 grand, a PCMCIA card, a bluetooth usb, 4 burnt generic chargers (3 of them blew up), 5 years insurance (my dad insisted on it; complete waste of money and time), expensive calls to HP support/insurance company and a lot of anguish. His charger alone weighted 2 kg. I learnt from him to always check charger's size before purchasing anything.

Sony Vaio C Laptop Series

I now have a new boyfriend. His name is S. V. and we have been together for over 2 years now. He's white, sleeky and sexier than C.P.! Yes, we have our ups and downs. Nothing is perfect. He has driver issues but we are coping. With the help of my WD external hard drive, life has been sailing smoothly. I'm planning to dump him soon. I don't know if I will just get with another lovely S. V. or go for another. So far so good, I've not cry over my S. V. meanwhile my C. P. made me cry so many times. In fact he made me cry too many times. I'm still thinking about his case; maybe I will forgive him and revive him but he and I are so over.

Ever had a device that drove you nuts?

Latifa Ayoola

The smallest and mightiest PSP system yet

2009-07-26T20:41:00.001+01:00

Introducing the smallest and mightiest PSP® system yet. Download rich, immersive digital gaming or the best movies and TV shows saved directly to the ample 16GB hard drive. Browse the incredibly deep lineup of PSP gaming and movie content on the PlayStation® Network. Use built-in Bluetooth support to connect a wireless headset and utilize Skype to talk with friends. But best of all, show off your content via the ultra-crisp 3.8 inch LCD screen on the most portable PSP system yet.

Go Bigger: 16GB flash memory

Go Smaller: The most portable PSP® ever

Go Digital: The most immersive portable games, anytime, anywhere

Go Versatile: Games, music, movies, internet and more

Go Anywhere: Your content, fitting your lifestyle

The PSP®go System includes:

* PSP®go System (Available in Piano Black or Pearl White)

* USB Cable

* AC Adaptor

Premium Peripherals for the PSP® go

* Composite AV Cable

* Component AV Cable

* AC Adaptor

* USB Cable

* Single Cradle (For charging and USB data transfer)

* Protective Filter

* Low-end case/pouch

* Mid-range case/pouch

* High-end case/pouch

* Memory Stick Micro (M2) 2GB and 4GB

* Wired Headphones

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

My Google...My Privacy

2009-07-23T10:16:00.002+01:00

I'm a big Google fan. In fact I'm a google addict. I had to force myself to remove my Firefox's Gmail notifier. Gone are those days where I used AskJeeve to research for journals and etc for my debates. Google search engine completely changed the game for search engines. For a computer science undergrad, Google is a dream come true. Whenever you are given those crazy programming assignments and you need examples or Java tutorial, Google is your friend.

The Google-mania took over to the extent that we now use the word "google" as a noun and verb. Even the Google “people” begged us not to use it as a verb but it cannot be helped. Google search engine completely "run-down" AskJeeve, Yahoo and etc with technology such as PageRank. Searching the web has never been the same again since the arrival of google.com in 1997. They make our searching experience breathtaking. They continue to expand and improve. Now we have Orkut for social networking, Google Document, Youtube (yes, they own Youtube. They bought it.), iGoogle, Google ads, Gmail, etc. They immersed Google into our lifestyle.

Sometime around 2004/2005, two of my classmates sent me Google mail invitations. Then, Gmail was launched as an invitation-only and it offered 1GB storage capacity which put HOTMAIL to shame. We (the nerds in my class) were all excited. We dumped hotmail like a piece of rag and all went Gmail-crazy. We rejoice because we no longer need to delete mails in order to retrieve new mails. Hotmail had force us to delete important mails or save them in remote places such as Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft Outlook is not ubiquitous at all. This means you practically have to carry your laptops around in order to retrieve an old mail.

Anyway, Gmail became the future of electronic mailing system but Google won't stop there. They brought us personalised Google known as iGoogle. If you never tried iGoogle (http://www.google.com/ig) before, please do so. iGoogle enables you to personalise your Google account. Yes, you must own a Google account for you to be able to make full use of iGoogle. With iGoogle you can have weather forecast, Gchat, Gmail mail notification, jokes of the day, news RSS, the Google search engine etc, all on one page.

Alas, there is a bad side to using iGoogle. Whenever you log onto iGoogle with your Google account, Google stores every search query you used via their engine. In order for Google to show a more personalised search results, they must know what you like hence they store what you search for. This is the way every personalised recommendation systems work. In order to give better search results and high performance, the system must know an awful lot about you and your surfing pattern. Now, doesn't that scare you? Doesn't that make you wonder what else they use such information for? Don't you want to know who they share such information with?

Welcome to the web 2.0 and its privacy issues. I've stopped using my iGoogle for years now. Google has too much control over my internet-lifestyle. I use their mailing system, their video portal, their blogging portal and etc. There has to be some limits to the amount of information they have about me. I refused to merge my Google mailing account with my Youtube account but hey, that doesn't mean I'm not being watched. Youtube also provides personalisation hence it knows what I love to watch, what my favourite clips are and etc.

To push the envelope, Google introduces Chrome OS which is not your ordinary yet-another-web-app. I won't go into too much details about Chrome OS, for more details read about it here (http://greyedoutmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/07/ten-computing-tasks-you-wont-be-doing.html). One main point I want to pull out is the file system Google provides for Chrome OS. Isn't it bad enough that we have Google Documents that stores our files online? Sure, this is ubiquitous. We can now access our files anywhere, anytime. With Chrome OS, we can save file locally in a traditional way. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want them to know what kind of files I've stored locally? Isn't it bad enough that they know who I mail, what I watch on Youtube and etc?

Adaptive personalisation is part of the fast and improving technology in this century. Take Google Desktop, for example. You can search your computer instantly and jeopardise your privacy. Yes, to Google once again. Furthermore, it slows down your computer… I don't know what Google are really up to. They are still very vague with this Chrome OS. All I know is that I cannot let technology completely take over my privacy. No matter how much I love technology, there has to be some limits.

Latifa Ayoola

Nigerian 3D Animation clip - The O twins

2009-07-23T08:15:00.002+01:00

visit fusion media for more info

Sony Vaio TT series

2009-07-23T07:23:00.003+01:00

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor SU9400 (1.4GHz, 3MB L2 Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate

Series Features: 4GB RAM, 256GB Solid State Drive, Blu-ray Disc™ playback/recording, Bluetooth®, HDMI™ out, noise canceling headphones and premium carbon fiber casing

Samsung S9110 wristwatch phone unveiled

2009-07-23T02:57:00.001+01:00

Samsung announced the S9110 - the world's thinnest wristwatch mobile phone. Sporting a decent (for the class that is) feature set, the fully-touch operated Samsung S9110 is the next device that will try to make all you James Bond dreams come true.

Launched as a direct competitor to the LG GD910, the Samsung S9110 is almost 2mm slimmer, standing at the pretty acceptable 11.98mm. It also packs a larger 1.76" touchscreen and matches its Bluetooth connectivity and speech recognition features.

The Samsung S9110 also puts Outlook sync support to the table but unfortunately lacks the 3G support of the GD910. Well, we guess even with the advance of technology they still had to leave something out to make the S9110 so slim.

The lack of 3G not only means there's no high speed data on the thing, but more importantly - there will be no video calls support. Now that's a bummer, where's the fun in a wristwatch phone that doesn't allow video conferencing?

The Samsung S9110 should be able to offer a built-in speakerphone instead in case you really prefer talking to your wrist rather than using a Bluetooth headset. A scratch-resistant glass take cares of the protection of the little fella's pretty face.

The body of Samsung S9110 is crafted from stainless steel, while the strap is made from leather, giving it some pretty stylish looks.

The Samsung S9110 will hit the shelves in France this month for an estimated price of 450 euro.

Photo:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

QWERTY-enabled Nokia 6760 slide

2009-07-23T02:33:00.000+01:00

Nokia Surge went on sale a couple of days ago and now we hear about its European brother - the Nokia 6760 slide. The main update that the 6760 has got concerns its camera, which now has 3 megapixel resolution instead of 2MP. The lack of carrier branding pretty much rounds up the rest of the differences.

Nokia 6760 Slide

The Nokia 6760 slide, just like the Nokia Surge is a Symbian-powered, side-slider with a full QWERTY keyboard and 3.6Mbps HSDPA. There's quad-band GSM support and the local connectivity is covered by Bluetooth, microUSB and a 2.5 mm audio jack.

Nokia Surge

The AT&T Navigator is replaced with Nokia maps and the phone is packed to the brim with messaging software. Nokia Messaging, Google Talk, Windows Live IM are there right out of the box and the 6760 slide will give you easy access to social-media favorites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

The feature list of the 6760 is completed by 128 MB of internal memory, expandable by up to 8GB through the microSD card slot (2GB one provided), as well as FM radio. Standby time is the respectable 500 hours with 5 hours of talk time.

The Nokia 6760 slide will be available in Q3 2009 for 199 euro before subsidies and taxes. Initially it will only be available in black, with red and white versions coming soon after that (though not everywhere it seems).

Video:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to get kinetic scrolling, widgets

2009-07-23T01:44:00.000+01:00

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is getting a firmware update, which will introduce some new, quite welcome features - an enhanced homescreen, kinetic scrolling in some menus as well as improved camera performance and response time.

Update: The homescreen will be modified to resemble the one on Nokia 5530 XpressMusic rather than that of the N97 as we reported initially. We are sorry for the misunderstanding - we got our wires a little crossed on this one.

The kinetic scrolling update is only partial at this stage - it will be applicable in the homescreen, the Contacts list and the web browser. The update is surely more than welcome but we cannot help but feel that it will make the UI on the 5800 even more inconsistent.

Imagine this - in some lists in the Nokia 5800, you use kinetic scrolling, in others - dragging, which requires a two taps to activate an item, and in icon-based menus use just one tap. Worse still - sweeping your finger upward in the Contacts bar will make the list scroll down, while in another menu that still uses the old dragging logic - it will scroll up.

Another benefit of the upcoming firmware update would be the improved response time and camera performance. When this update will be available for the 5800 XpressMusic remains to be seen but it'll should be shortly after the launch of its younger sibling - Nokia 5530 XpressMusic. According to the source the latter will come with all the new features straight out of the box.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Excalibur, the Unmanned Vertical-Takeoff Aircraft, Makes Its First Flight

2009-07-22T23:32:00.001+01:00

A new unmanned combat aircraft could soon wing its way to the battlefield and land with the precision of a helicopter. The Excalibur recently completed its first flight to demonstrate those abilities using a hybrid turbine-electric propulsion system.

The unmanned aerial system (UAS) could pack a 400-pound payload of four Hellfire missiles, and also deliver weapons or other supplies to warfighters deep in rough territory. Its design allows it to have a maximum speed of 460 mph, but also have the ability to loiter overhead at just 115 mph.

"It was a flawless first flight with a crisp takeoff and perfect landing," reported John Langford, president of Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation. "In flight, the hover stability and heading control performance were excellent."

The company has been developing Excalibur for the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate and the Office of Naval Research, and it's not hard to see why those armed services would be excited for a hover UAS. Excalibur's vertical takeoff and landing ability comes from a tilting turbojet with a 700-pound thrust, along with three battery-powered lift fans.

As Aurora announced the flight of the half-scale demonstrator this week, Aviation Week covered the sneak-preview test flight that took place on June 24 at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland.

Excalibur represents a new type of tactical UAS that could join the growing swarm of unmanned aircraft already on the battlefield. Wired notes that the U.S. Air Force recently released a report that contemplates a future without any human pilots, and the Air Force Academy recently introduced the first basic course on flying unmanned vehicles to cadets.

Such robotic aircraft have also found growing use in civilian life, ranging from city law enforcement to scientists wanting to hunt down Burmese pythons from the air. But for now, check out what the next generation of drone can do.

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Your Next Touchscreen Might Bulge With Inflatable Buttons

2009-07-22T21:34:00.000+01:00

Latex overlays inflate to provide the tactile sensation of pressing a button

It seems increasingly rare to see a new gadget these days without a touchscreen. However, touchscreens' versatility is both the technology's biggest strength and its weakness. We've lost the tactile memory we associate with our television remote controls or old cell phones, where we knew and could feel exactly where the buttons we needed were without bothering to look. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are trying to combine the benefits of both, by adding a latex overlay on top of a touchscreen that inflates to create a tactile surface.

The process, as demonstrated by CMU's instructive video, shows that, not only can buttons be fashioned out of latex, but shape and dimension can be added to screen images. Also, the screen can gauge the amount of pressure applied. Complex shapes can be made, too, all while maintaining multitouch capabilities.

In addition to ensnaring those last few tactile-minded users who prefer BlackBerries to iPhones, this technology could come in handy on screens in cars, where visual attention should be focused more on the road than on the GPS screen. Or it could perhaps be enhanced to incorporate Braille for blind people that would otherwise be left behind by touchscreen advancements.

Video:

Source: Smokie's Wrintting Pad

Ten Computing Tasks You Won't Be Doing With Chrome OS

2009-07-22T21:11:00.000+01:00

Here's why most users won't be making a total switch to Chrome OS any time soon

When Google pulled the lid off of Chrome OS last week, most of the tech world rejoiced. Our suspicions were correct! Death to the desktop OS! Yay Web 4.0! (or whichever version we're on currently!).

But as I pored over the official Google post on Chrome, and then over the hundreds of articles providing instant analysis of the announcement, I realized just how scant the facts and details were. So, I called Google for some background and got some interesting answers. The company is still being cagey with specifics, but there's one thing for certain: death knells for Microsoft and Apple are exaggerated. Here are ten copmuting tasks that Chrome OS, as it is currently understood, won't do better than your traditional desktop PC.

Granted, Chrome OS is still little more than a twinkle in Google's eye. Details are scant, especially from Google themselves, and what it is and how it will work are two things still very much in development. But judging by what we do know now, Chrome will provide a very different experience than what most users are accustomed to currently. Here's how:

1. Save Files Locally in the Traditional Way

According to Google, absent will be the familiar file-handling schema of a traditional OS--by which I mean folders and a desktop. As Google suggested in its blog post, these are vestiges of the pre-web era. Chrome OS and Chrome the browser will be one in the same, and everything you do on a Chrome-based machine will occur inside of the Chrome browser. The OS is the browser. So, forget the filesystem as you know it.

Instead, access to documents and files will probably look a lot like Google Docs does now, with storage of everything in "the cloud." You access them only through Web apps (finding them via an internal Google search, not through poking around a version of Windows Explorer or Finder). But, this raises a lot of questions: What happens when I'm offline? Will I lose all access to all of my files, or will a Google Gears-like interface exist for offline access? And if so, how will new local versions get re-synched to the cloud? But wait a minute, Google said no local file system for users' files! Confusing! We'll just have to wait and see how they figure this out, but as of now, we know Chrome OS will not be based on a traditional files-and-folders desktop. So if the thought of losing that gives you the shakes, Chrome may not be for you.

2. Run Desktop-Based Applications

There will be no third-party apps to install on Chrome OS--well, not in the traditional sense, at least (seeing a pattern here?). Applications will exist on the Web and be run solely inside of the Chrome browser, which means every web app that already exists is also already a Chrome app. So, will you be able to run Photoshop on Chrome? You'll certainly be able to run the webified 'lite' version already available on Photoshop.com. Whether or not the full version will ever be browser-based is completely up to Adobe (and the limits of current web-based programming languages), not Google. The same goes for iTunes, which it's safe to assume won't be headed to the browser any time soon. In its stead, I expect others to step up with web-based media management apps that will duplicate iTunes functionality and maybe even improve upon it.

But, there are some problems to consider here. Because apps exist in the browser, there will be no inherently common GUI to Chrome like we're used to with traditional OSes. The way we open documents, the keyboard shortcuts, the look of the windows and tools could wildly from application to application. What's more, your data will be scattered all over the place. In a traditional OS, I have my pictures folder, my music folder and my documents folder, and I can use whatever application I wish to open these files. On Chrome, I'll presumably only have access to documents specific to each app. So, if I'm creating, say, a birthday invitation in Google Docs, how am I meant to insert a photo that's managed by the Photoshop web app?

Of course, Google could (and almost certainly will) solve these problems--a formal web-app SDK will surely provide at least some semblance of GUI standards, and it's not too difficult to imagine a cloud-based "G-Drive" storage repository, accessible from every Chrome app. But the desktop app as we know it will not exist.

3. Run CPU-Intensive Apps

Don't expect to be running Final Cut Pro, Maya, Pro Tools or other processor punishers on Chrome any time soon. With most of the computing power of a Web app actually residing on a server as opposed to the Chrome device itself, imagine how much bandwidth and time it would require to render a segment of video-never mind having to continuously upload and download multi-gigabyte files. It's just not realistic. Well, Google says, netbooks aren't designed for these kinds of tasks no matter what operating system you're on. True. But, Chrome is only just starting out on the netbook. The company said in its own blog post that the OS would eventually make the leap to the desktop. And, people use desktops for a lot more than surfing the Web.

Google's response to this dilemma is an interesting one, though one that's still a long way off. It's called Native Client, an open-source Google project that allows developers to run C and C++ code in the browser through a plug-in. Instead of having access to the sliver of processing power the browser normally gets to play with, Native Client gives web-based apps access to the full power of the user's processor, paving the way for full-fledged photo and video editing on Chrome someday down the line.

4. Frag

Forget exterminating Nazi zombies in the all-new Wolfenstein game coming to the PC in August. With little more than a glorified browser at your fingertips, Chrome gaming will be relegated to little Flash (and soon HTML 5) diversions such as Bejewled and poker. I suppose some iPhone-quality games aren't out of the question either. We may get some beefier 3D treats someday with the help of some future iteration of the Native Client plug-in, but for the foreseeable future you'll need a Windows partition to get your game on. Then again, those feeble little netbooks aren't really up to the task in the first place, are they?

5. Work Offline

Of course, a Web-based OS requires an Internet connection. Without one readily available, your new Chrome netbook will be a useless brick of plastic and silicon, right? Google's current official response to this conundrum is essentially "But, how often are you not near an Internet connection?"

To a certain extent, Google is right. Between increasingly ubiquitous Wi-Fi hotspots, 3G data networks and wireless Internet on airplanes, web access is all around us. But hold on a second. You can't count on having an Internet connection all the time. And, what about folks in developing countries, or rural areas in which 3G is non-existent and which the cable company could care less about? Sure, Google Gears allows you to work in the browser offline, but only in a limited capacity. To do anything useful, you'll eventually need Web access.

This makes it a strong likelihood that the initial Chrome OS netbooks will be sold with a cellular data plan contract, like many netbooks are already.

6. Have All Your Hardware Work Seamlessly

Up to now, Google's hasn't had to stress too much about system-level headaches such as hardware compatibility, and while I expect a lot of device drivers will be supplied by Chrome's Linux undercarriage, it's hard to imagine exactly how your iPhone, digital camera, printer, scanner, writing tablet, Bluetooth devices (you get the idea) will all tie seamlessly into a browser-based system. An iPhone or iPod might get mounted as a drive, but how will it sync and what will it be syncing to? A digital camera might call up Picasa in the browser, but what if I use Flickr instead? What are the chances my two-year-old wireless Lexmark printer will function? What happens when I try to play a DVD? Google insists it's working hard on the issue of device drivers, but take it from Microsoft: It's a horror show.

7. Multitask Like You're Used To

Broadband upload speeds, particularly for cable subscribers, are famously atrocious. For the majority of users who spend most of their online time downloading or streaming photos, music and videos, it's not much of an issue. But what about when your media is going the other way?

I upload photos to my Flickr account in the dead of night, otherwise my broadband connection slows to such a crawl I can barely get anything else done. Uploading photos, working on Google Docs, downloading a large file and surfing the web all at the same time? Forget about it. Now, imagine you're using Chrome and you're constantly uploading and downloading files to and from the cloud. Upload speeds being what they are today pose a significant hurdle to multitasking on Chrome. And, let's not forget that broadband providers have been experimenting with bandwidth caps recently. If all of your data resides online and you're continuously pulling it down and pushing it back up again, imagine how expensive that will get.

8. Get Tech Support?

When Gmail was still in beta (for the last six years, up until, fortuitously, the Chrome announcement), Google didn't have much of a responsibility to the user. It's a free service, and a beta one at that. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. If ever there was a Gmail outage (and I've experienced many), there wasn't much you could do except wait around, read hundreds of tweets from users griping about the outage, and trust that Google was fixing the problem. Once I did actually send an email to Google during an outage, but I never heard back. I didn't expect to.

Chrome OS is different, though. You think you feel stranded now when your email goes down? Imagine your entire computer, and all of your files and contacts are suddenly completely inaccessible. A "We're Working On It" message is no longer going to suffice. Alongside Chrome, Google had better also launch 24/7 phone and email support.

9. Maintain Strict Control Over Your Privacy

I've written about Google and privacy in the past [http://www.popsci.com/grouse/article/2008-10/can-i-have-my-ssn-back], so I'm not going to go into too much detail here. But, with Chrome, the amount of personal info Google has access to is absolutely unprecedented. If you already use both Gmail and Google search, the company knows who you are, who you know and what kinds of sites you visit. If you use Google Maps, Calendar or Docs, the company knows where you are, where you're going, what you're doing and what you're working on. By using Chrome, you're tying all of this information into every single little thing you can imagine using a computer for. And these days, that's just about everything. Scary.

10. Ditch Your Current Desktop OS Entirely

A lot of folks took the announcement of Chrome as a direct swipe at Microsoft. Some couldn't help but label the new OS a Windows killer. But, let's calm down. First of all, I don't think Chrome intends to replace Windows--at least not in the short term. I think it intends to snap up a rather small group of adventurous users who realize they don't need a hulking desktop OS for the majority of their day-to-day computing tasks.

Secondly, Windows 7 has been specifically built to be lightweight with the next generation of netbooks in mind, and by the time Chrome surfaces, Windows 7 will have already been on the market for 9-12 months. Third, let us not forget the droves of people who returned Linux-based netbooks last year after taking them home and realizing they missed Windows. Never underestimate people's fear of the unknown.

So, what's Chrome? It's something different, and to use it will require getting used to doing things very differently than you do now. If there's one thing to take away from the announcement, it's something Bob Sutor, IBM's VP of Linux and Open Source said to me in a conversation earlier this week. "It brings into sharper focus the fact that much of the work people do today is on the web. But on the same token, it brings into sharp focus the fact that a lot of work people do is not on the Web."

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

Robot Rides Motorcycles Efficiently, Terrifyingly

2009-07-22T00:54:00.001+01:00

Let me introduce you to Flossie, the creepy motorcycle-driving robot. She will drive through scorching heat and freezing cold without a complaint. She will shift perfectly every time. She will haunt your dreams.

Flossie was constructed by Castrol to be used in lubricant testing for just about any motorcycle. Flossie allows testers to monitor how lubricants function over time in a variety of situations, with Flossie the one constant, shifting and riding the bike perfectly each time. The most disturbing part of Flossie's design is that she learns, all by herself, how to get a feel for each bike and how to ride it. To what end, might you ask? Well, the obvious answer is: to become self-aware, evolve, and enslave us all.

In the video below you get a view of Flossie in action. The video ends ominously by calling Flossie "a safe rider". Let's hope we don't regret those words.

Video:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Intel Updates SSD Line: A Little Bit Faster, A Little Bit Cheaper

2009-07-22T00:32:00.000+01:00

It's been about a year since Intel's quick-but-pricey Intel's X-series SSDs started the market, so it's about time for refresh. And hey, look: It's a fresh pair of 34nm X25-M drives! (Spoiler: They're almost exactly like the last ones.)

Intel's got a lengthy spiel about how performance has been improved, albeit slightly, by the new fabrication process (they claim a 25% decrease in latency and slightly higher read/write performance), but the core of this upgrade, and the main benefit of switching to 34nm, is a lower price.

Looking again to Intel's claims, there's been a 60% decrease in price for the 80GB and 160GB models compared to original launch prices, which is strictly speaking correct. Thing is, neither of the drives have sold for anything near their initial prices for some time now, so although the new versions, priced at around $225 for the 80GB and $440 for the 160GB, will be more affordable than their predecessors, they won't be budget drives by any means.

It's been a year, so a capacity hike would've been nice. Without that, this feels like a transitional product-a necessary manifestation of solid-state storage's slow crawl toward affordability, if not something many people will be ready to buy. Accordingly, I expect the second generation of 34nm drives to be awesome, so please, be awesome.

Source: Smokie's Writing Pad

BlackBerry Desktop Manager coming to Mac in September

2009-07-20T23:57:00.000+01:00

Mac users, rejoice -- well, the BlackBerry users in the lot of you, anyway. RIM's been infamous over the years for all but ignoring Mac support for its devices, throwing out the occasional bone like Media Sync, but they're now going big with a full-fledged Desktop Manager supporting Mac OS 10.5.5 and above when it launches... sometime. The big sticking point right now is that RIM isn't talking about an availability date, all we know is that it'll happen some time in September -- but when that date comes, you'll have a suite that's able to sync iTunes, add and remove apps, perform firmware updates, create backups and restore from them, and manage multiple BlackBerrys at the same time. Nokia, maybe you guys want to take note here?

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

The Fastest SSD ever

2009-07-20T23:00:00.000+01:00

This might be old news but i just though i should share it.

The last time i check, Mtron claimed to be the fastest SSD ever. For those who do not know, SSD stands for Solid State Drive & it is a big flash drive d size of a regular computer HDD (Hard Disk Drive). Its got no moving parts unlike regular HDDs makin them more power efficient for laptops as they claim to pose more access speed & longer battery life for mobile users but at a price. On the average, an SSD will cost between $400 to $1000 depending on capacity. The capacities are usually in the range of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and/or 256GB. 512GB are a sight for sore eyes... if you ever get 2 find any.

Anyways, The Pro 7500 series SSDs from Mtron are said to have a read speed of up to 130MBps and a write speed of up to 120MBps through a SATA II interface in capacities from 32GB to 128GB.

It's great that they're speedy but what is the point of speed when they are so expensive that no average man can afford one. Wake me up when the prices drops... lol

Photos:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

ExpressCard 2.0 standard, Faster & Better

2009-07-20T22:49:00.001+01:00

A final spec has been promised for over a year now, but the PCMCIA folks have just now finally settled on the long-awaited ExpressCard 2.0 standard which, among other things, incorporates the new SuperSpeed USB spec to allow for faster transfer rates. In real world use, that should translate to transfer rates up to 5Gbps, or roughly 10 times faster than the previous ExpressCard 1.2 standard.

Otherwise, you can naturally expect full backwards compatibility with existing ExpressCards and, as PCMCIA hopes, even more products using the format in the future now that it has all that extra bandwidth, although it seems Apple didn't get that memo... lol

Photo:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Facebook for Blackberry v1.6

2009-07-20T22:37:00.000+01:00

New to Facebook for Blackberry v1.6

Device Requirements:

Become a fan:

Source: Smokie's Writting Pad

Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle

2009-07-20T22:25:00.000+01:00

It's a bit of a shame that the range is so limited, as the bike is a far more welcoming chariot than the Zero S. That great looking seat isn't particularly wide, but it is plush and comfy, and the large pegs are in a forward position that leaves you upright and your knees extended. We were a little worried about them getting caught on a cobblestone when we were doing a little carving on the rough alley streets, but their comfort makes up for any lack of cornering clearance. It's a little bit cruiser compared to the competition's little bit moto.

Sadly our test ride was again in the throes of NYC traffic, but we found a few back streets and alleys and even corners to explore, and were happy with what we experienced. The suspension soaked up the roughest of bumps without launching us out of the seat, as mentioned above the brakes kept us safe, and a quick twist of the throttle left every other bike in our wake -- so long as it was pedal-powered, of course.

The lack of power and torque makes the bike a much smoother experience than the slight jerkyness we experienced on the Zero. Here you're gently whisked away from a stop with no hesitation or lurching, and keeping up with traffic is no problem at all. Throttle response is good at any speed -- any speed under 50.

Video:

Photos:

Source: Smokie's Wrinting Pad

2009-07-20T09:15:00.000+01:00

Specification:

Video
Format(s) Supported : MPEG4 SP/ASP, AVC Baseline (up to QVGA 30fps, 384/768 kbps)

General Specifications
System Requirements : Internet Connection via Wireless LAN1, USB port (Hi-Speed USB recommended), Personal Computer with pre-installed Windows operating system. Operating Systems11: Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Basic/ Home Premium/ Business/ Ultimate, Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition/ Professional Edition/ Media Center Edition 2005/ Media Center Edition 2004/ Media Center Edition (Service Pack 2 or later required for XP versions), Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional (Service Pack 4 or later). Operations are not guaranteed for all the recommended Computer environments mentioned above.

Weights and Measurements
Dimensions (Approx.) : 5 1/4 x 27/32 x 2 5/8in (130.8 x 20.7 x 64.6mm)7 (excluding protrusions)

Weight (Approx.) : 6.8oz (193g)7 (including rechargeable battery)

Hardware
Camera : 1.3 Megapixel with macro mode

Keyboard : Backlit slide-out QWERTY keyboard

LCD : 3.5 WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) with Touch Panel

Microphone : Built-in and one-touch answer remote controller

Speakers : Built-in

Power
AC Power : Adapter DC IN 5.2V

Battery Life (Approx) : Up to 6 hours Internet calling6, Up to 20 hours music playback6, Up to 7 hours video playback6, Up to 6 hours Web Browsing6

Battery Type : Removable Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Battery 3.7V 1200mAh

Operating Conditions
Operating Temperature : 5 to 35 C (41 to 95F)

Audio
Format(s) Supported : MP3, WMA, AAC, ATRAC®

Pictures:

Video:

Source: Smokie's Wrinting Pad

The New PSP Go (Video)

2009-07-20T03:29:00.000+01:00

Source: Smokie's Wrinting Pad

Intel’s PAN WiFi to Compete With Bluetooth

2009-07-20T03:21:00.000+01:00

Intel along with a wireless startup will be demonstrating a new Personal Area Networking (PAN) technology based on WiFi (802.11x) this week. The WiFi-spinoff technology, developed by Ozmo Devices (Palo Alto, California) will allow short range, high bandwidth communication to several Ozmo-enabled peripherals at once.

That is like being connected to multiple Bluetooth devices at once, but instead of Bluetooth it would be 802.11x WiFi. That would eliminate the need for Bluetooth devices, and according to analyst Johnathan Gruber, PAN technology "will definitely be a threat to Bluetooth technology."

Ozmo based devices are slated to be released sometime in 2009 and will include Ozmo enabled headphones, keyboards, stereo speakers and mobile phones.

The Ozmo transceiver is basically a WiFi transmitter that consumes the same amount of energy as a Bluetooth chipset, making it a competing standard to Bluetooth PANs. Intel is set to release software for Centrino based laptops sometime in the future, allowing interoperability between existing Centrino WiFi chipsets and the new PAN Ozmo-based devices.

The demonstration will be held this week at the Computex Tradeshow in Taipei.

Source Smokie's Wrinting Pad

Twittering or Fluttering

2009-07-15T20:32:00.004+01:00

The madness will never end. I've been meaning to blog about this for a while now. I just got the opportunity. The nerds are ruling the world. If we say something is cool everyone believes us; we just need to polish the whole concept and sell it. Most times what we do benefits the society and our environment. Meanwhile some other stuffs we tell you is cool is completely useless and a means to get lots of capital in our bank account. Hehehe. Evil right! Don't blame the nerd for creative minds.

Let's see how the whole web 2.0 took over our lives. You have blogs that you cannot keep away from. Then social networking showed up. We have myspace addicts, hi5 addicts, beboers and finally facebookers. Normally every age ranges have some specific social network designed for them but now with facebook, everything has flipped. My Ma, aunty, uncles are all on facebook. I'm still waiting for my Da to join. My only consolation is ma just joined for the heck of it…she doesn't use and she's not on my friend list. Don't forget your super cool search engines…my favourite of all Google. Google is now taking over everything. It has its own social network, mail, blog, video hosting, etc. Then you have the cool bookmarkers, you have your personalised online booksellers and everything-sellers, etc.

Everything is now e-whatnot. Cool! We are in computer age. By 2020, we will be able to undo and redo our wardrobes with a click. That will be awesome! Hehe. Roight, what's up with Twitters? I guess someone really like facebook status box and they decide to create a special widget that will enable you to just update your status every other minute. Everyone is so into it…I deliberately deleted my account when I joined Twitter last year. I hate what everyone is into. I don't follow the bandwagon effect. Twitter is actually more useful to people who has blogs, or something reasonable to inform their readers or followers about. It can be equivalent of rss or blogger's follower. I don't know why everyone, especially people who don't understand its use are crazy about it.

My sister joined it recently and she won't let me breathe. She was practically stalking Cristiano Ronaldo on his twitter page…seating behind her computer all day waiting for his next update. Jobless girl; wasting her holiday on twitter and Ronaldo. It's probably not Ronaldo's real twitter. He might not even be on it. That's what twitter is going to do to your life…it will become a stalker tool… I decide to try it and see what privacy and security options it offers. I can keep my page private hence only those who I approved of will receive my updates. Then I also saw an option, I can ask the system to nudge (via mobile SMS) me if I don't update in an hour. Why do I have to update every other minutes? Sure, it's my choice to do as I like but hey, a lot of people are updating every minute! According to my sister some tell you when they eat, drink and even visit the loo. What the heck??

Even though you might approve of people who read your updates, sometimes your closest friend could be your worst enemy. So tell me why, would you want to inform them off everything you do everyday. If you need to lament about something that is grand or you want to let your readers know about a new blog update, product etc, that is fine. Don't be walking about with your iPhones and Blackberry informing everyone about every steps you take and every things you do. You are just jeopardising your security. It is not bad enough that you are stuck on facebook and you are trying to avoid identity-theft. The more information you leave on the web, the easier it is for hackers to learn more about you; for id-thief to know about you and for stalkers to trace you.

Now to make matter worst…Flutter is trying to over-take Twitter….and I'm sure everyone soon everyone will move on to the next best thing. The bandwagon effect resume all over again...Twitter is not a necessity. If you really need it…use it wisely and use productively.

P.S. I'm now twittering…hehe. I might not use it much though…only to let you know what massive project I'm into…and whatnot. Don't expect to read about my relationships, sleeping habits, my meals and whatever. If you are interested…follow me on https://twitter.com/uniqueLati.

Latifa Ayoola

The new Nike+ sportband

2009-07-14T15:22:00.003+01:00

The New Nike+ sportsband looks pretty cool and is certain to catch the eye of many. it looks comfortable and attractive with its two toned strapped, and brighter screen when compared with the older Nike+. as with the older model, the Nike+ can work on its own or be paired with the nano, touch, or iphone and at $59 ( perhaps around N10,000) it is a good buy, for the fitness fanatics out there.

read Nike's press release note here
and the review by boing boing

The Truth about Laziness and Technology

2009-07-14T15:18:00.004+01:00

Cartoons by Andertoons

There is an ongoing misconception that technology is for the business-oriented and agile individual. Now I can understand why this notion is wide spread but unfortunately, it is so very wrong. Yes, you can now receive emails on the move, teleconference with people from all parts of the globe and so on. But the truth of the matter is that the primary reason for developing these conveniences is because some very important higher ups couldn’t be bothered to turn on their computer to check their emails or travel thousands of miles to say a few words to people that – a) they don’t know and; b) probably don’t really care much for beyond their productivity.

I know what you are thinking. “He’s just saying this to provoke debate and yada yada yada” and you know what… you’re right. But my argument does have some merit. Look at the remote control, this is the fourth greatest invention by mankind (I’ll fill you in on the top three later) and you just know that the inventor was thinking to himself “Oh God, this show is rubbish, must change channel but can’t reach tv. Oh if only there was a way to do this without the tedious getting up part” and the rest is history.

My second gadget is the Microwave. Another ingenious appliance that was designed by someone (I’m guessing a guy), who felt that cooking was just a few steps down from planning a space mission. Why worry about getting the right cooking utensils, ingredients, and all that measuring and timing? Just push one or two buttons; wait a few minutes and dinner is served.

The mobile phone. I can make my case with this device alone. Once upon a time not too long ago, humans invented the telephone. Now this has made a lot of people very happy and been widely regarded as a good move. People could talk to each other across great distances and lie about the state of their lives or what they were doing without worrying about body language and other tell tale signs (incidentally this is one of the reasons video calling has not taken off yet). Then people started to get grumpy as they began to realise that the phone had strikingly similar problems to the tv i.e. they had to get up to use it or go into a booth if they were outside. This led to the development of the cordless phone and eventually our modern day mobile. Now as if this evolution wasn’t proof enough of our inherent laziness, the people began to wonder if they could make other stuff mobile, or better yet, make them mobile and then cram it into their phone while they were at it.

The result of all this wondering is that today your mobile phone can do everything short of bathing and sleeping with you. A lot of us are now so attached to them that in life or death situations, some might save their phone before other people. I am not saying that I’m one of them but I will have to consider if the person has been good or naughty first.

Before I sum up, I would like to give a honourable mention to some gadgets/tools that could have strengthened my case even further if this was a dissertation. The car (in fact all forms or transport from the horse to the aeroplane) because everything beats walking; the calculator for making maths slightly tolerable; the digital watch; shoes without laces; clip-on tie (for obvious reasons); and many others.

I will conclude this entry with a quote from the author Robert Heinlein for two reasons. 1) Because I obviously can’t be bothered to think of a better one and; 2) It sums up my sentiments about technology perfectly with regards to progress.

“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”

Fawaz Hamodu.

Q&A : Ebuka's Gadget Life

2009-07-13T20:27:00.005+01:00

Ebuka Obi-Uchendu was born and raised in Edo state, Nigeria. Prior to appearing on Big Brother Nigeria, he worked as an attorney. Amongst his numerous interests and endeavors he is also a columnist for Thisday newpapers, where he writes a very entertaining weekly column titled "Contrast".

Q: Do you remember your first phone?
A: Of course i remember my first phone! It was an Ericsson T29. I bought it off my elder brother and it didn't last 2 weeks with me. My baby (at the time) nephew threw it in hot oil when i wasn't looking. It hurt so much cos it was a flip phone and those were a big deal then... I bought a weird little Trium phone after that and used it for a year!

Q: What 3 gadgets are impossible for you to live without
A: I'm not huge on gadgets but i'll almost commit suicide if i don't have my two phones, laptop. That's 3 right?

Q: Iphone or Blackberry and why?
A: I own neither even though i believe they both serve their purposes. But if i had a gun to my head, then maybe a BB. I think that there are many more ways to get music on the go but not so many quick and cheap ways to keep in touch like the BB helps do.

Q: Mac or windows and why?
A: Windows for now. Getting a Mac very soon though. Who would not want a Mac?

Q: Top 5 Naija music on your ipod/mp3 player
A: Top 5 Naija songs? Hmmm...
Osondi Owendi by Flavour and MC Loaf;
Jeun Soke by Wande Coal;
Strong Thing by Banky W.;
Igwe by MidNight Crew and
Never Felt by Shank ft D'banj.

Q: Twitter or facebook and why?
A: Twitter. I feel a lot freer there and communication is better. I'm not restricted to saying how i feel by just updating my Facebook status. Twitter is definitely more interactive. I love it.

Q: What is your favorite gadget that you own
A: My laptop definitely. It's nothing fancy. It gets the work done and i can't help but love that fact. I do most of my work on the internet so without this laptop, oh boy! You might as well take my right toe as well...

Q: What is your favorite gadget that you would love to own
A: There's too many to just pick one. I have a list...