News Archive for 09/03/10
Choose an article from the archive listing on this page or refine your selection using the controls in the gray box below.
| Exclusive Deal | While supplies last, save 40% off over 40 iPhone 5 and iPhone 4/4S cases and chargers as well as Samsung S III cases at Kensington.com. Use coupon code 'SAVE40%' at checkout to receive this exclusive discount. |
Choose an article from the archive listing on this page or refine your selection using the controls in the gray box below.
Finnish company EKS has introduced the Otus, a DJ controller featuring an array of fully-mappable buttons, knobs and sliders. The device also offers an illuminated 7.5-inch jog wheel with physical and virtual sensitivity adjustments, along with a capacitive touchpad. The controls can be doubled using a colored layer-selection switch, with support for two virtual decks.
The Samsung A877 is set to launch on March 29th from AT&T, an anonymous source told PhoneDog. Although the rumor cannot be confirmed, press images and detailed specs were also provided. If true, the handset will feature a 3.2-inch WQVGA AMOLED touchscreen that could provide improved color contrast and brightness compared to typical LCD screens. A slide-out QWERTY keyboard is available for messaging, while a 3-megapixel camera supports geotagging.
Google and Cisco are among the top companies being considered to be entered into the Dow Jones industrial average index, bumping GM and Citigroup, whose shares have recently dipped below $2 and threatened their status as blue chip stocks, or sure things in the investment world, says a Monday report. They are not alone, however, as Apple, US Steel, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Aflac and Northern Trust are other candidates, as chosen by Reuters. Likewise, analysts believe Citigroup and GM are just the most likely companies to be replaced from the Dow index. Four other stocks listed on the Dow have fallen to below $10.
At a press conference in China, Sony Ericsson unintentionally showed slides of as-yet-unreleased and unannounced handsets, including the T707, codenamed Elle, as well as the M610. The pages reveal the T707 is a quad-band GSM and dual-band UMTS/HSPA handset and is due to sport a 2.2-inch display. Storage will come from a 1GB Memory Stick Micro card, while the operating system will be OSE from Enea. There is still no word of when the T707 will launch, although it is expected to be fairly soon and in at least five colors.
At CeBIT in Germany last week, Erich Chen, the head of ASUS' European branch, said the company's engineers will be ready to present a working model of an Eee PC netbook with the Android operating system in just two months, or much earlier than originally planned. Last month, ASUS announced an Android netbook will be available by the end of the year. The engineers face the challenge of incorporating the operating system, which originated and is optimized for use in touchscren smartphones, into the relatively large screens of a netbook.
Microsoft could be giving Windows Mobile 6.5 a hidden feature that lets it run web-like widgets, according to a source. The unnamed contact for Unwired notes that, somewhat like Apple's Mac OS X Dashboard widgets, the mobile OS will let users run mini apps based on HTML, JavaScript and images that would use the Internet Explorer rendering engine. It would give Windows Mobile small web apps that let users check information or perform some tasks without launching the browser or going further than the home screen.
A slimmed-down version of Acer's Aspire One netbook was spotted late last month, and now the FCC has passed the netbook through its testing, according to a filing. While the netbook remains unnamed, some FCC documentation is referring to it as the Acer Aspire One 530, though this could just be referring to a possible use of Intel's 1.6GHz Atom Z530 CPU instead of the usual N270 or N280 as it goes against Acer's usual naming conventions.
Intel today confirmed that the GN40 chipset for Atom chips should be capable of playing 1080p video. Talking to Fudzilla, the semiconductor firm says the more advanced graphics acceleration in GN40 can decode most common bitrates of the full HD resolution without the stuttering and frame rate drops of the current 945 chipsets used with most Atom-based netbooks and nettops. However, Intel also warns that the video hardware isn't capable of fully processing the full output of Blu-ray, which has "significantly higher" bitrates as high as 24Mbps for the video as well as extra layers like picture-in-picture commentary.
Lenovo adds two entry-level ThinkCentre desktop PCs Lenovo on Tuesday announced that, in light of the recent economic downturn, it began offering two new, smaller, lower cost business PCs in its ThinkCentre line. To this effect, the A58 will be re-tooled and is meant for small to medium business users, while Lenovo believes the refreshed M58e will appeal to mid and large companies with its low energy consumption. Both feature low purchase prices as well as the long-term costs of maintenance and management. To this end, Lenovo includes a Rescue and Recovery tool to help recover and restore files independently of what Windows itself offers.
Hitachi this afternoon said it had pled guilty to rigging the prices of its LCD panels and agreed to pay a $31 million fine. The agreement with a US District Court in San Francisco finds that Hitachi held meetings with Dell that illegally set prices for computer LCD displays by agreeing to prices in advance and artificially adjusting the actual quoted prices to match the target. Hitachi's move effectively let the company set its own prices independently of the market between April 2001 and March 2004.
A-DATA has rolled out a high-speed solid-state drive line intended as a drop-in update for notebooks. The 300 Plus series takes advantage of a new memory controller to maintain constant 250MB per second read speeds as well as 160MB per second while writing data. It also has an uncommonly large 64MB cache to keep the system fed with information even in characteristically slower sequential reads.
NVIDIA has announced the launch of its GPU Ventures Program on Tuesday that aims to identify, support and invest in start-up companies that are writing software to take advantage of the graphics chipmakers' parallel processing tools. The company already showcases the innovative work of some of these GPU-based software developers on its GPU Venture Zone. With this program, NVIDIA is hoping to identify future software developers that aim to take advantage of GPUs to help in computing tasks via creating applications for specific tasks. NVIDIA's own CUDA and PhysX programs are meant to utilize the GPU for some of the same, but the graphics company is seeking partners to help grow what the company believes is the next level in computing.
Sanyo on Tuesday announced the introduction of its newest projector, the PDG-DHT100L, to its comprehensive projector lineup. The single-chip DLP projector features a native 1920x1080 resolution and is the brightest in its class, at 6,500 lumens. It has a Dual Color Wheel that can be changed by the user for increased color reproduction at the cost of brightness. What's more, the DHT100L has a dual lamp system that lets users operate it non-stop, even in the event one of the 330W HP bulbs should fail.
Two more parties have entered into legal settlements involving visual voicemail, Reuters observes. Though predominately associated with Apple and the iPhone, the technology -- which allows people to listen to voice messages selectively -- is said to have been patented by Judah Klausner, who has in turn sued and settled with parties such as Apple, Skype and Verizon. Among the latest companies to settle is LG, which today entered into an arrangement with Klausner Technologies, in which it will license visual voicemail for phones such as the current Versa.
HP may be exiting the business of dedicated GPS devices if evidence collected by GPS Review bears out. An unnamed contact from HP has said that the company is dropping all its iPAQ devices where navigation has been a central feature, such as the iPAQ 310 Travel Companion. The statement is reportedly backed up by a support document that claims HP is shutting down its iPAQ website, where users go to register and update their navigation hardware; as of press time, the site remains active and points to the shutdown notice as premature.
Palm today said it would up the number of shares involved in its stock resale plan from 18.5 million shares to just over 23.1 million. Each share will have a going price of $6 and should boost Palm's revenue in the deal from its original $49 million to $83.9 million. Elevation Partners will still get $49 million to buy another 8.2 million shares at the same price as for the public deal.
Agilent at a conference in Tokyo today said that a test-ready version of the USB 3.0 spec will be ready in June. The standard gives computer and component makers a reference point for building hardware and should let these companies build parts that can be checked for compatibility in the second half of the year. Final USB 3-capable computers and peripherals should be ready by 2010.
In the wake of Mobile World Congress, Samsung today has revealed a pair of touchscreen phones meant to bring touch into the mid-range. The S5600 leads the entries with 3G over a 7.2Mbps HSPA connection, a 3-megapixel camera with smile detection, and a 2.8-inch, 240x320 touchscreen. It carries Samsung's now-familiar TouchWiz interface for widget-driven apps and information and comes with a unique gesture lock feature that unlocks the phone to a specific app or feature by drawing specific letters.
Microsoft on Tuesday ventured into unfamiliar territory by expanding its mobile hardware to include the Notebook Cooling Base. The first such stand from Microsoft aims to differentiate itself by measuring just 1.16 inches thick and by having a curved design that can naturally fit on a lap as well as on a desk. The unit has a single, USB-powered cooling fan to actively circulate heat and should come in both black and white colors. Microsoft is launching very early and doesn't expect the Cooling Base to ship until July, when it will sell for $30.
Palm in an uncharacteristic move late yesterday submitted an SEC filing hoping to dampen expectations created by Elevation Partners founder Roger McNamee during a Bloomberg TV interview. The US document specifically singles out McNamee's claims that the Palm Pre would convert all early iPhone users and describes them as an "exaggerated prediction" that it wants to withdraw. Assertions that the OS roots of the BlackBerry and iPhone are 13 and 9 years old are also "inherently imprecise" and also taken back, Palm says.
The purported Apple touchscreen netbook has gained a minor amount of corroboration on Tuesday from sources of Dow Jones. The trading outlet echoes the earlier claims that Wintek is producing a touchscreen for an Apple computer assembled by Quanta but adds that the screen will measure between 9.7 and 10 inches diagonal, or roughly in line with existing netbook sizes. Other details are still "under evaluation," according to the unnamed sources behind the reported leak.
Dell this morning put the finishing touch on its newer-wave pro notebooks by launching the Latitude E6400 XFR. The significant overhaul improves on the already rugged design of the earlier XFR system by switching to a newer material known as PR-481. By giving the notebook the material as its main shell, the company says the E6400 can take drops from up to four feet while turned off (three feet while on) and last longer in extreme cold or heat. A special sealing approach also gives it a IP-65 rating against dust and water.
Network Headlines
Most Popular
Sponsor
Recent Reviews
MaxUpgrades MaxConnect for 2006-2008 Mac Pro
Nobody outside of Cupertino's privileged bunch knows the future of the Mac Pro line for sure. Despite Apple's reluctance to tell us wh ...
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 ...
Sponsor
