News Archive for 08/10/23
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NEC has unveiled the first display in its MultiSync P Series of LCD monitors, the 22 inch P221W. The new LCD monitor offers 1680 by 1050 pixel native resolution, while presenting 96 percent of the AdobeRGB color gamut for image or video editing that requires color precision. The integrated 10-bit color look-up tables are programmable if corrections are needed. The P221W offers a slightly wider viewing angle of 178 degrees from the S-PVA LCD panel.
Microsoft has announced its financial report for the first fiscal quarter of 2009, which ended September 30th, showing a revenue of $15.06 billion, operating income of $6 billion, and net income of $4.37 billion. Although the revenue gained roughly nine percent from the same period last year, when expenses are taken into account the net income shows an unimpressive two percent increase. The company highlighted strong sales of its enterprise software and Xbox 360 consoles.
A J.D. Power study released on Thursday has revealed that the percentage of salespeople aid during a buyer's purchase of a wireless service or handset has been decreasing since 2006. At the same time, the survey measured overall customer satisfaction based on four factors, each with a different weight or importance associated with it. Sales staff was first with 51 percent of the weight, store display was at 17 percent with store facility and price/promotion close behind at 16 percent each. Based on these factors, Verizon was tops, scoring 715 out of 1,000 points, with Alltel not far behind, at 710. T-Mobile was third with 696 points, AT&T had 691 points and Sprint Nextel was last among the major carriers, at 669. The industry average was 698.
The Archos Internet tablet, introduced earlier this summer, is now available for the first time via a wireless provider, France's SFR. The device is the Archos 5 3G+ and includes a 5-inch touchscreen, built-in access to 3G wireless data networks and Wi-Fi. Included with the device is a 30GB hard drive, the smallest of the range that also offer 60GB, 120GB and 250GB capacity disks.
According to a Thursday report, the previously promised Flywire system from Belkin that would deliver HD signals wirelessly in home theater set-ups has been delayed. The news follows similar announcements from Monster Cable and other interconnects manufacturers, with the companies citing bugs as reasons. Belkin, which promised to beat Monster Cable to market with a CES debut this winter, said the perfected system will be released by the spring of 2009 instead.
The Samsung Propel handset, announced last week, is now available for purchase at wireless provider AT&T. The Propel features a sliding 2.2-inch screen and front panel that reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. The phone is meant to be a messaging device, with a dedicated shortcut button to make text, instant or e-mail messaging quick. The Propel can roam across the wireless voice and data networks in a large number of countries thanks to its dual-band 3G support and quad-band GSM radios.
AVerMedia on Thursday introduced the AVerTV Hybrid TVBox 11, which offers users the ability to receive over-the-air HDTV signals, either analog or digital, as well as serving as a multimedia hub. It allows users to connect a host of high-definition source devices to their monitors or projectors, as well as their standard-definition TVs, and can turn their PC monitors into HDTVs thanks to its hybrid TV tuner. The TVBox 11 has an ATSC and Clear QAM digital cable tuner in addition to analog TV, enabling DVI and VGA monitors to display the content.
Earlier this week in Korea, Samsung demonstrated a working e-paper display, or more accurately, a color active matrix electrophoretic display (EPD) and the world's first to use carbon nanotubes. At 14.3 inches, it is among the largest e-paper displays in existence. Developed in conjunction with Unidym, which created the carbon nanotubes for the prototype, the display is energy-efficient and doesn't require backlighting while remaining highly visible under direct sunlight. As with other e-paper displays, images are retained on the screen without requiring energy to constantly refresh it.
Plans to implement iPhone data tethering have been held back by AT&T's concerns for its network, an as yet unverified rumor floated by MacBlogz claims. The site refers to a purportedly reliable source at AT&T who appears to corroborate an earlier report that Apple is discussing using the iPhone as a pseudo-modem with the provider but is primarily encountering opposition over AT&T's fears for its network, which has reportedly remained unstable due to the sheer load of iPhones and other 3G devices saturating its service.
People should not be too impressed by sales figures for the iPhone, argues a Microsoft executive. Robbie Bach, who operates the Entertainment & Devices Division which produces Windows Mobile, says that while Apple's quoted shipments of almost 6.9 million iPhones are certainly impressive, the true test of the product will be if it can maintain sales momentum over the long term. The fact that Apple outsold chief rival Research in Motion in the last quarter is not as important as it might initially appear, Bach notes.
Dell on Thursday announced it will partner with Universal Music Group to offer buyers of certain Dell computer systems pre-loaded music bundles to help them start their music collections. Each bundle will contain 50 or 100 DRM-free tracks that can be played on any digital media player or burned to a CD. The bundles start at $25 and so cost about half the price of current digital audio track. The content will be instantly accessible when buyers power up their Dell computers for the first time, saved in the widely used MP3 format and so not trapped to any one program or portable music player.
The UIQ variant of Symbian is on its way out, according to comments made by company executive Patrick Olson at the Symbian Smartphone show earlier this week and transcribed by AAS. The official says the mobile operating system "didn't make it" and characterizes it as an offshoot with a definite end, effectively pointing to the end of the platform as a whole.
Intel on Thursday demonstrated a new cooling process that could solve the increasing problem of hot outsides on notebooks. Similar to the process used for cooling the surface of a jet engine, the semiconductor giant has produced a laminar jet airflow system that actively pushes the hot air away from the bottom of the case, rendering it cool enough to sit on a lap without overheating the notebook owner's legs or having to rely on bulkier active cooling.
New processors designed by ARM will soon find their way into netbooks, says the company's director of mobile solutions, Rob Coombs. ARM is more commonly associated with the low-power processors used in many smartphones, including Apple's iPhone. ARM is working on a successor to its ARM11 architecture, dubbed Cortex-A8, which Coombs notes should be fast enough for both smartphones and netbooks. Some individuals are "playing around with gigahertz speeds," Coombs claims.
HP's Vivienne Tam netbook concept is turning into a production model, the company and Glam have confirmed through a teaser page for the mini PC. Now due to ship in December, the Vivienne Tam Edition is already known to be larger than the Mini-Note and will carry a 10-inch screen along with its designer outer cover; new in the teaser is word that the system will use an Intel Atom processor rather than the VIA C7-M which has been the Mini-Note's sole choice since it was introduced earlier in the year.
Logitech on Thursday announced the release of its newest gaming peripheral, the Wireless Guitar Controller Premiere Edition for Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 gaming consoles. The guitar is designed to replicate a real instrument and sports a wood neck, a rosewood fingerboard, metal frets and a gig bag. It also represents the frist device in an upcoming line-up of premium peripherals for the Guitar Hero game series that are targeted at frequent players or avid musicians who want a similar experience.
Phones using Samsung's full-screen TouchWiz interface will finally reach the US in an official capacity soon, the company acknowledged today. Where the interface was previously available on Asia- and Europe-only devices like the Omnia and F480, the company now plans to introduce "several" devices to the US between late 2008 and early 2009 that carry the touchscreen software. The platform centers around a widget tray that can be customized with shortcuts to complete apps like a browser or media player as well as small, quick features like clocks.
A previously hinted-at Facebook music service could be true after all, a claim made by VentureBeat suggests. Previously discredited, a now supported rumor asserts that the social network is allegedly planning to team up with a partner such as iLike, imeem, Lala or RealNetworks' Rhapsody to offer a way of at least streaming full songs over artist pages or those friends who bring up songs in the regular Facebook news feed. The service would potentially let users buy downloads, though whether this would involve the partner or simply linking to a third party such as Amazon or iTunes is unknown.
At the PhotoPlus Expo on Wednesday, Sony Electronics introduced two new digital photo frames to its S-Frame range, including the 8-inch DPF-D80 and the company's first 10-inch frame, the DPF-D100. Both sport 800x600 LCD screens and are the first Sony frames with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Compared to a 16:9 ratio, photos appear larger thanks in part to the elimination of borders.
The new MacBook Pro could be enabled to take advantage of current and upcoming GeForce 9400M performance features through a simple update, NVIDIA tells Gizmodo. At present, Apple's implementation of dual graphics processors is limited versus Windows counterparts as it runs only one chip at a time and requires users to log out and back in to switch between the two. A driver or firmware update, however, is said to possibly enable the power side of Hybrid SLI in Mac OS X and would switch automatically between the GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT as users revert to battery power or plug back in.
Intel will release a significant update to its current Montevina-era Core 2 mobile processors in the spring as a final push before the switch to Core i7 technology, according to a leaked roadmap. The chipmaker is expected to launch a 3.06GHz, regular power Core 2 Duo known as the T9900 and give users an alternative to the same-speed but more power hungry Core 2 Extreme; a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo P8800 would give users a faster, low-power (25W) alternative to the 2.53GHz model available today.
Samsung on Thursday said it has struck a deal to offer Netflix movie streaming on its Internet-capable devices, starting with its more recent Blu-ray players. Both the BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 can apply a software update that lets them use their built-in Ethernet connections to access an existing Netflix instant viewing queue and play any selections directly from the player itself. Like a similar LG offering, Samsung's front-end will play standard-definition movies and also allows viewing synopses and rating movies from the remote.
AMD on Wednesday unveiled the ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card, offering users a lower-cost DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL platform, combined with several of ATI's high-definition video and audio technologies. AMD asserts that the card offers many upscale features at usable frame rates, such as full screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering; it cuts down on performance from the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 by reducing the number of stream processors from 800 to 640 but without compromising on the 256-bit memory bus or other features.
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