News Archive for 09/11/17
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.
Mobile apps aren't an important factor in the success of a smartphone platform, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie claimed today. Interviewed at the company's Professional Developer Conference, the veteran developer tried to downplay apps as a lure and insisted that "all the apps that count" will be available on every smartphone as the time to write and port code is much shorter than on the desktop. Ozzie instead implied that it was the OS itself and its built-in features that would make the difference.
German computer maker Smartbook AG has continued to threaten companies, including EE Times, that have been using the term "smartbook." The manufacturer recently sought a restraining order against the chip maker Qualcomm. Although Qualcommm and other companies, such as Freescale, use the term smartbook as a generic reference to portable Internet-ready devices that fall between the typical classifications for netbooks and smartphones, Smartbook AG has argued that it owns the sole rights to the trademark.
Google's rumored Chrome OS release should primarily center on its first public demo of the platform, a notice tonight. An event is said due on Thursday that should include a "complete overview" of the web-centric OS, including its technical underpinnings as well as demos. It's now thought by TechCrunch that a code release is possible but that a more formal release isn't coming until 2010.
NVIDIA in a low-key move today launched the GeForce GT 240. The chipset brings performance from the mid-level to sub-$100 cards and uses the newer 40 nanometer manufacturing process to make itself a reasonable fit in budget PCs: its low energy use both helps it occupy only one slot and to run entirely off the power of the PCI Express bus instead of needing a separate power connector.
Swindon Borough Council is planning on offering free Wi-Fi to the entire population of its town by April of next year, says a Tuesday report. The UK town's 186,000 residents will not have to pay any connection charges or subscription fees for the service, due to be called Signal. The project will cost the equivalent of about $1.68 million and is run by newly formed Digital City UK Ltd, 35 percent of which is owned by Swindon's city council.
Barnes & Noble will soon accept its gift cards as payment for purchases made in its eBook store, the book retailer announced on Monday. Not only will both physical and online gift cards be accepted online, but also through Barnes & Noble's own nook e-book reader and other wireless devices compatible with the B&N eReader software.
Sony on Tuesday launched the first VAIO W series netbook for its Signature Collection, with the Holiday Sparkle. The 10.1-inch netbook sports a white exterior peppered with a decorative snowflake pattern that will appear different depending on the angle it's viewed from. Other specs of this special edition netbook remain the same as other W series netbooks, including the 1.66GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.
Acer's first Android-powered smartphone, the Liquid A1, will be out in the UK in late November, according to UK electronics retailer Clove. The phone will, as previously reported, run on a detuned, 768MHz version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon instead of the full-blown 1GHz CPU.
HP was sued late last week for allegedly neglecting a major flaw in its Pavilion Elite desktops. Plaintiff Michael Kent and owners whose systems use an Intel Core i7 processor along with Pegatron's "Truckee" mainboard, including the e9150t, e9180f, e9180t, m9600t and m9650f, have reported in HP's forums and elsewhere that the systems regularly seize up after about 30 minutes of use. In some cases, the system produces an "uncorrectable hardware error" or a "timing issue" and leaves the user with no choice but to reboot, while at others it simply freezes the display.
Microsoft today lost a lawsuit that could temporarly block it from selling netbooks and other PCs in China (registration required). A Beijing Intermediary People’s Court determined on Tuesday that two fonts used in Windows 98 SE, 2000, XP and Server 2003 weren't properly licensed from Zhongyi Electronic and that Microsoft must pull sales of any of those releases from the Chinese market. The two companies already had a license agreement but have disagreed over what it covered.
GPS maker Magellan has launched a new iPhone GPS application, RoadMate 2010. Like most such apps, the software provides turn-by-turn navigation, with features like bookmarks, lane guidance and spoken navigation cues. Aspects separating RoadMate include a pedestrian mode, and an associated "find your car" option, which marks a parking place for later return.
Origin PC on Tuesday introduced new customizable gaming PCs, with the Genesis desktop and 18.4-inch Eon18 notebook. The former can be had with a choice of processors, including a quad-core Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 975 that's been overclocked to 4.2GHz. As a gaming PC, the former can also be equipped with up to three 1GB GeForce GTX 285 video cards.
Palm may prove to be Verizon's best hope if the Droid line doesn't bear fruit, Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said in a note today. He points to contacts within the cell industry and supply chain that suggest Verizon will carry one or more of Palm's webOS phones, such as the Pre or Pixi, sometime in 2010. Sales of both the Motorola Droid and HTC's Droid Eris have purportedly been "somewhat disappointing" and may lead to Verizon using Palm to bolster its smartphone catalog.
Kingston on Tuesday announced the release of the DataTraveler Locker+ USB Flash drive series with 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption. Meant for businesses which require data security, the thumb drives won't reveal their contents without a complex password. They also thwart automated password cracks by automatically reformatting the drive after 10 consecutive incorrect guesses.
Dell today at last began taking orders for the Adamo XPS teased over the past several months. The system comes in just one default configuration and color, arriving for $1,799 with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. Contrary to earlier reports, the system will use just Intel's GMA 4500 graphics instead of NVIDIA hardware.
MOTO Development Group on Tuesday showed off its first round multi-touch casino gaming table prototype at the Global Gaming Expo 2010 in Las Vegas. Similar in concept to the Microsoft Surface, the touch table has Blackjack and Texas Hold ‘Em poker games built into it. The table has one large integrated touchscreen that supports multi-touch inputs from many players.
Dell today boasted an industry first by becoming the first to ship its computers in bamboo packaging. The Mini 10 and 10v will have boxes made primarily of the more efficient material, which regrows much faster than the trees used for cardboard and is more easily renewable. As it takes as much stress as steel, it even provides more protection and replaces not just cardboard but also the foam normally used to cushion against an impact.
A recent FCC filing reveals that a new notebook from Lenovo is coming soon, powered by a 2GHz Intel chip believed to be the quad-core Core i7-920XM. The FCC filing points to the finished product as the ThinkPad W701 and confirms this with the presence of a Wacom digitizer, which has only shipped as part of the earlier W700.
OCZ today formally launched the Colossus, its first solid-state drive line aimed primarily at the desktop. The 3.5-inch SATA II disks are designed both to fit directly into desktops without a mounting kit but also to provide performance above even some notebook SSDs. OCZ has raised its speed claims beyond early estimates and now says that the fastest Colossus drives reach peak read and write speeds of 260MB per second and sustained write speeds of 220MB per second.
Amazon today gave the green light to selling the Kindle 2 in Canada. The reader is the same international version sold elsewhere and will give Canadians the same access to the Kindle bookstore as Americans. Some Canadian publications, such as the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen, are also available in subscription form for the e-book reader.
ASUS has quietly staked out a claim to the fastest CULV-based ultraportable by adding the UL30Vt to its stable. The system takes the familiar 13.3-inch display and 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo of the original version but adds a GeForce G 210M. The gesture lets the under 1-inch thick PC handle HD video and some modern 3D but includes a switchable graphics system that optionally reverts to the more miserly Intel GMA 4500 graphics when the system is running on battery power.
T-Mobile today restored the Sidekick to its lineup after having pulled it for more than a month after the results of its major data outage. Both the Sidekick 2008 and the newer Sidekick LX 2009 are back on sale and have been price-cut in a bid to renew interest. The LX 2009 has dropped by $25 to $150 on a two-year plan, while the older model now costs just $50 on the same terms.
(Update with possible explanation) A problem autofocusing the Droid's 5-megapixel camera has been suddenly fixed according to reports from multiple users. Although it had previously had problems properly locking on to subjects at all since the Droid launch, owners at HowardForums and elsewhere now say it has suddenly started focusing properly in almost every case, suggesting a silent over-the-air fix. Some have noticed it after rebooting the phone or changing settings, but others say they did nothing that might have triggered a check for an update.
Adobe today fulfilled earlier promises and provided betas for both Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. Both are the first from Adobe to have a Flash layer that supports multi-touch input, including gestures such as pinching to zoom the window. Flash Player specifically gets H.264 hardware decoding through newer video chipsets and, initially for Windows PCs, can significantly reduce the workload on the CPU or a notebook's battery.
A new study published by SquareTrade revealed that the smaller name brand notebook manufacturers are usually more reliable than their larger rivals. Of the top nine, ASUS has the lowest tracked breakdown rate with fewer than 10 percent of its notebooks failing in the past two years. Toshiba, Sony and Apple also have better-than-average performance and are either just over or under the same figure.
Dell's Streak tablet will launch in the US with a carrier deal for 3G, Taiwan's Commercial Times newspaper said on Tuesday. The normally PC-focused builder is reportedly working "in cooperation" with AT&T to launch the mobile Internet device next year on its network. It may also not be the only model as local manufacturer Qisda is tapped for a "lineup" and not just the one device.
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
