News Archive for 08/03/11
Choose an article from the archive listing on this page or refine your selection using the controls in the gray box below.
| MacUpdate Weekend Sale | :This weekend MacUpdate has slashed prices on Painter 12 and Painter Lite. Painter 12 retails for $429, but has been reduced by 54% to $199. Painter Lite has seen a 58% price cut from $69 to $29. Hurry, because these deals are only available until May 19th 2013. |
Choose an article from the archive listing on this page or refine your selection using the controls in the gray box below.
Puretracks, with labels Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, EMI, and various independents under its belt, is offering a new DRM-free mobile music store and service for BlackBerry smartphones from Research In Motion (RIM). As the latest company to take a stab at Apple's music download dominance, the new music service competes directly with Apple's WiFi iTunes store for the iPhone and iPod Touch and will work with the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve and BlackBerry 8800 series smartphones. Using compressed DRM-free AAC/AAC+ file formats, Puretracks Mobile Edition will be unveiled March 12 at the South By Southwest (SXSW) event in Austin, Texas. A full version of the mobile music service is expected to launch at CTIA Wireless April 1.
A version of the Optimius mini three input pad with touch input and a wireless link is in development, Art Lebedev says in an update for his self-titled studio. While still in the early planning stages, the new device would move from use of three, isolated OLED keys to just a single touchscreen. The advancement would not only make the devices simpler but potentially allow for more than three input zones or screens depending on the design, the Moscow designer adds.
The European Commission has approved the contribution of €99 million in French funding to a potential Google competitor, writes Agence France-Presse. The Quaero search engine project represents a collaboration between 23 different companies, including France's Thomson; it has not, however, so far found enough funding to get started, as its costs in the next five years are projected to be €199 million. The Commission itself has expressed doubts about Quaero, saying it "is not spontaneously underpinned by the market owing to divergent interests within the consortium and to uncertainties regarding the project's chances of success."
The first full in-flight Internet access since the end of Boeing's Connexion service is coming in the spring, according to a GigaOM report. Now titled gogo, the service developed by AirCell will allow browsing and other common Internet tasks over a modified version of a EVDO Revision A cellular connection (used by Sprint and Verizon) to supply a 3Mbps Internet link shared by the whole cabin through Wi-Fi. By compressing the data sent across the network, each user gets a connection closer to 2Mbps, gogo claims.
As a result of having received approval from the European Commission, Google is now formally announcing the completion of its acquisition of DoubleClick. The deal, worth $3.1 billion, will make the combined company the largest web advertiser in the world, beating even the combination of Microsoft and aQuantive. Google says it is now beginning to establish practical plans for the absorption of DoubleClick, which should be fully executed "by early April."
Canada's Nortel is deploying a new network technology, one which it claims will at least quadruple the current bandwidth of most telecom companies. Reuters notes that while most companies are able to handle 10Gbps on their networks -- enough for 1,000 HDTV channels -- Nortel's new optical scheme supports as much as 40Gbps, without dramatic upgrades to a network. With enough investment, Nortel suggests, companies may be able to boost throughput to 100Gbps.
InFocus unveiled its flagship home cinema projector Tuesday, the IN83, capable of reproducing full HD sources on screens or wall up to nearly 17 feet high. The new product also sports HDMI 1.3 inputs for Deep Color support, in addition to the 5,000:1 native contrast ratio, which can be boosted to 15,000:1 via an integrated iris.
Acer will reveal a new concept design for a notebook PC tomorrow, the company has announced today. The computer builder is short on details but says the debut will represent a "worldwide launch" for the new style, suggesting a major update rather than a minor change to an existing design. The introduction is likely to involve the company's new 16- and 18.5-inch media notebooks, both of which will include extra-wide 1080p displays as well as a Blu-ray drive.
Despite Intel's aggressive plans to roll out its Centrino 2 mobile platform in June, the company is now set to push back processors suitable for the MacBook Air and for gaming notebooks by as much as three months, a leaked roadmap shows. Contrary to some early expectations, the June release will only focus on processors for the most common notebooks. Two high-performance Core 2 Duo chips at 2.53GHz and 2.8GHz will consume the same 35 watts of power as most current processors; three power-optimized processors at 2.26GHz, 2.4GHz, and 2.53Ghz will be more efficient at 25 watts but share most of the same features as their more demanding siblings, with only a reduction from 6MB to 3MB of Level 2 cache affecting the bottom two models.
Sanyo has debuted a new business projector, the LP-XW60. The system is described as one of the "smallest and lightest" of its type, having such little weight that it can easily be carried with one hand. It is also designed to be easy to set up, with an automatic keystone feature that adjusts the projector's alignment on uneven surfaces. Images can be anywhere from 40 to 300 inches in size, requiring distances from a screen between 3.6 and 32.9 feet.
Several Motorola phone updates may have been revealed prematurely through a YouTube video, according to reports. The clip appears to be an official promotional video, which while focusing heavily on "lifestyle" images and marketing buzzwords, also depicts several phones not already on sale. Among these is a phone making a reference to the company's collaboration with Kodak, which first bore fruit with the camera on the ROKR E8. The new device may be an anticipated five-megapixel cameraphone.
Wal-Mart will not restock its shelves with the Everex Green gPC or any of its successors, most of which run the Linux-based gOS operating system, the mega chain announced Monday. Citing lack of interest from customers, the store will continue offering the Linux-based gPC, its successor the gPC2, and the Everex CloudBook laptop on its website but will phase out the product from its retail locations. Buyers in this area are simply not asking for this kind of computer, the company says.
Unusually announcing a phone for a carrier ahead of the carrier itself, LG has stepped forward with the unveiling of the Glimmer, leaked flyer and reveals a design which is positioned as the best of both worlds. While a 2.8-inch, finger-driven touchscreen is normally the only interface for the phone, a slider reveals a full number pad underneath. The Glimmer is now known to have a microSD card slot that holds up to 4GB of AAC, MP3, and WMA music as well as related video formats. LG's familiar Flash-based software from the Viewty remains on top of the device.
The European Commission today fully approved Google's proposed buyout of DoubleClick, all but ensuring the completion of the unprecedented move. The acquisition has been previously approved by the US Federal Trade Commission and received its blessing from the European agency in the belief that a combined Google/DoubleClick entity would not block out competing ad networks. As neither company has directly fought for similar business, the union of the two companies also won't create a monopoly, the Commission argues.
Microsoft today hoped to translate the visuals of Windows Vista into a new pair of keyboard and mouse sets. Though they work with most any USB-equipped computer, the Wireless Laser Desktop 7000 (shown) and wired Digital Media Keyboard 3000 are styled after the Aero Glass interface found in Microsoft's own operating system and incorporate shortcuts designed for the platform. The 7000 includes shortcut keys for Favorites in Vista on the ergonomic keyboard itself along with a Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 that has a button usable for task switching through Flip 3D (also reusable in other operating systems).
The Fox and NBC-Universal joint project Hulu will leave its private beta stage tomorrow, the companies revealed on Tuesday. The web-based service will soon allow all US residents with high-speed Internet access to stream TV shows and movies over Flash for free through dynamic ads that appear at key segments; in a new version, users can even pick which ads they see, Hulu's operators note. On its official debut, the service will also add TV shows produced by Warner Bros. and will have both NBA and NHL highlight reels as well as full-length historical NCAA basketball games.
Taiwan display maker AU Optronics today revealed what it says is the world's first truly wide-aspect, full HD 24-inch flat-panel display. The LCD adopts the same 16:9 ratio of many HDTVs and is capable of a native 1080p resolution. While shorter than the 1920x1200 resolution of existing 24-inch computer screens, the wider display makes it better-suited to widescreen movies with the image filling more of the available space. The new design is also half as thick as the taller displays: where a conventional display would measure 1.38 inches deep, the new implementation is just 0.55 inches. Combined with a narrow bezel, this allows a same-size display in a much smaller space.
SanDisk this morning quickly ended leaks by releasing the Sansa Fuze, the company's particular take on the same small, widescreen player formula as the third-generation iPod nano. Much shorter than the Sansa View, the Fuze has a small 1.9-inch screen but still includes a full jog wheel and the newer music and video playback features, effectively replacing the outgoing E200 series. In contrast to most devices in the category, however, it also sports a microSDHC slot: users can add as much as 8GB or more to the storage of their existing player if they run out of space or want a permanently rotating collection of music.
Apple is sending worrying signs that it hasn't ordered any significant amounts of the NAND flash memory it needs, say some of its Asian manufacturers. Although the company bought as much as $1.3 billion in memory over 2007, it hasn't started large orders since 2008 began and is effectively forcing its suppliers to sell flash below cost due to oversupply. Even the MacBook Air, which needs a large 64GB of memory for its solid-state drive, isn't enough to help clear stock due to its high price and low volume, according to the reports.
Network Headlines
Most Popular
Sponsor
Recent Reviews
Brother HL-3170CDW LED Printer
We've mentioned before that we are far from a paperless society. For now, at least, there are tasks that require a piece of paper for ...
HTC One
It is hard to overstate just how critically important the HTC One is to the Taiwanese company’s fortunes. Despite its alarming decline ...
Samsung Galaxy S 4
Samsung's new flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S 4, faces even stiffer competition than its popular predecessor. With a five-in ...
Sponsor
