News Archive for 09/11/23
Choose an article from the archive listing on this page or refine your selection using the controls in the gray box below.
Choose an article from the archive listing on this page or refine your selection using the controls in the gray box below.
Buffalo Technology has introduced the DriveStation HD-HXU3, a new series of external hard drives featuring USB 3.0 interfaces. The high speed connection option is claimed to support transfer rates of up to 625MB/s, beating USB 2.0 and even FireWire by a considerable margin. Users can still connect using the current USB standard, however the transfer rates drop to approximately 480Mb/s.
Klausner Technologies has expanded its patent litigation efforts with new lawsuits aimed at Motorola and RIM, according to the Associated Press. The company claims both handset makers have violated its patents relating to visual voicemail technology. Although Motorola is said to license the technology for many of its phones, Klausner claims the Cliq handset utilizes the patented system without permission.
Google co-creator Sergey Brin followed up the introduction of Chrome OS with hints that the new operating system may eventually merge with Android. While the two are currently separate in most ways, the executive suggested the two could unite simply because smartphones and notebooks increasingly share common traits. He pointed out that both have Linux at the root and WebKit for their browsing engines.
HP this afternoon revealed mixed results for its quarter ended in October. The company's net earnings climbed 14 percent year-over-year to $2.4 billion, but its revenue dropped by 8 percent to $30.8 billion in the same time frame. It credits the profit boost to cost-cutting measures but saw its revenue drop across the board in every category, including the Personal Systems Group that handles its common PC business.
Sony on Monday introduced a new range of digital voice recorders with MP3 music playback capability. The ICD-UX200 and ICD-UX300F have a built-in, flip-out USB connector for easy transfer of files and can double as thumb drives for transferring other types of files. In the LP mode, the 4GB ICD-UX300F can record 1,072 hours worth of audio.
Mimo introduced what it touts as the industry's lowest priced auxiliary monitor on Monday, the 7-inch iMo Pivot Touch. It has a display with 800x480 resolution, 350cd/m2 brightness and a 400:1 contrast ratio. It can act as a secondary display for desktop computers, or as a standalone device, displaying digital photos and videos.
As promised, Nintendo will soon begin offering a paid video service in its home market of Japan. While free content has been available in Japan since May, users will now be able to access popular TV programs that include Sesame Street, Pocket Monsters, Pokemon and Nintendo's own educational programming.
Spotify on Monday launched a Symbian app for its streaming music service. Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, among others, use the Symbian operating system in the majority of their devices, potentially opening up the service to millions of new users. Spotify Mobile is already offered for the iPhone and for Android handsets.
Quickly turning around its pocket camcorders, Creative today added a third-generation Vado HD to its range. The new model carries a slicker design but more importantly addresses the image and audio quality that's sometimes been an issue for these cameras: it has a new sensor with better light sensitivity and manual exposure. A stereo microphone output gives it much cleaner input.
Samsung has announced it will soon replace the existing STORY Station range with a a new STORY Station Plus external hard drive line, add a new 2TB model and update the entire range with the inclusion of an eSATA interface. Compared to the original STORY drives which only have a USB 2.0 connection, the new 3.5-inch STORY Station Plus drives have the ability to transfer data at a 3-gigabit per second speed, or about six times faster than the outgoing models. A USB 2.0 port remains for wider compatibility.
Google today gave Android a further edge by porting Google Maps Navigation to Android 1.6 phones. The update gives the T-Mobile G1, myTouch 3G and some international devices support for the turn-by-turn navigation system that was previously limited to the only Android 2.0 device, the Motorola Droid.
AT&T today countered efforts by Sprint, Verizon and Virgin Mobile in mobile data by adding the Data Connect Pass as an alternative to its subscriptions. The packages give occasional travelers the option of using 3G through a USB stick or similar device without having to commit beyond what they need. It also avoids unnecessary overage fees and lets users top up for the amount of necessary time if they run out of bandwidth before the usage period expires.
Intouch has released what it calls the first Internet-capable digital photo frame, the 7-inch IT7150. Apart from its ability to playback photos and videos, the frame can connect to Internet radio stations, weather information and social networking sites thanks to its Wi-Fi connection. It also carries an 800x480 resolution and a touchscreen that brings a virtual QWERTY keyboard.
Despite being more than a month away from the public, Intel's Core i9 (Gulftown) platform has already been tested and is shown to be potentially as fast as its design implies. The move from four to six cores has translated into an almost perfectly linear increase in speed for those apps that can use multiple processors. In tasks such as 3D modeling and video encoding, a 2.8GHz Core i9 is found by PCLab to be roughly 50 percent faster than a Core i7 at the same clock speed.
The economy has bounced back quickly enough that the computer business will have seen a slight boost this year, Gartner said in a study published on Monday. The analyst group estimates that shipments will have overall climbed 2.8 percent in 2009 to about 298.9 million computers. It marks a sharp reversal from a forecast as late as September that had computers sinking 2 percent. A recovery of the sort is credited mostly to strong sales in the summer and "modest" anticipated growth in the summer.
TomTom on Monday said two of its navigation devices will be offered at deep discounts at Walmart as part of Black Friday sales. This includes the ONE 125 SE and XL 325 SE. The former has a 3.5-inch touchscreen while the latter uses a wider 4.3-inch touchscreen. Otherwise, many share the same features, including preloaded US maps, the ability to speak out street names and a folding Go EasyPort mount.
Apple devices now represent exactly half of all smartphone traffic on the Internet, AdMob said today in its report for October. The iPhone has gained 10 percent of absolute share since August to reach 50 percent while Symbian has fallen again to 25 percent. Apple has identical share in the US.
The LG X120 netbook introduced early this year will soon be available in US, exclusively at RadioShack, the computer maker announced on Monday. LG's first netbook for the country sports a 10.1-inch LED backlit display with a 1024x576 resolution, Intel's 1.6GHz Atom processor and 1GB of RAM. The 160GB hard drive is preloaded with Windows XP, not Windows 7 Starter, and users can quickly access the web, photos, IM programs and an MP3 player through LG's Linux-based SmartOn interface without waiting for the operating system to boot.
Verizon today finally set out a launch for the Samsung Omnia II on its network. As confirmed in a leak, the Windows Mobile 6.5 flagship will reach the carrier's stores on December 2nd and should sell for $200 on contract, though only after a $100 rebate. The new edition also brings support for Visual Voice Mail, VZ Navigator and V CAST media apps.
Data Robotics started the week off with two major upgrades to its Drobo external drives. The Drobo S adds a fifth bay that gives it even more room (up to 10TB) and dual-drive redundancy that lets owners lose two drives at once without facing actual data loss. It further brings the first use of eSATA to give primarily Windows-based PCs a fast alternative to the normally more Mac-friendly FireWire 800 and universal but slower USB 2.0 ports.
Dell's Mini 3i is shipping to China with a possible unfair competitive advantage against the iPhone. The Android phone should be available by the end of the month through China Mobile's retail partners and later through Dell's own site. As expected, it will drop 3G and Wi-Fi due to the government-backed carrier's preferences but will still have a 640x360 capacitive touchscreen, GPS, Bluetooth and microSDHC storage.
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
