January 2009 Archives

Boy Genius Report scores another scoop with screenshots of new voicemail functionality coming to Blackberry Bolds.

Visual Voicemail is exactly what it sounds like: a visual representation of your voicemail box showing all your messages, the length, and who they're from.

This should make it a lot easier to bypass the tedious 5 minute messages from the guy in accounting or screen out voicemail from the psycho ex-girlfriend.

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You can now order the HP Mini 2140 netbook direct from the HP site for $499 to $779.

$499 get you a netbook with a 10.1" 1024x576 display, Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g and bluetooth 2.0.

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Asus has announced a new laptop designed for gaming that features a 18.4" 1080p HD screen.

The W90 gaming laptop won't be very portable but if you have to have the best gaming performance then you should check this out: ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics that delivers a #DMark 2006 score of 15,000, up to 6GB of DDR2-800 RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up to 1TB of hard disk space, and true 5.1 channel dulby sound pumped through 5 integrated speakers and a subwoofer.

No word yet on pricing or availability.

TRENDnet has announced what they claim is the world's smallest 802.11n travel router measuring in at just 2.5" x 3.25" x 0.75".

Full press release follows.

Q; What do you get if you combine a Swiss Army knife, a 32GB USB drive, a laster pointer, and a bluetooth powerpoint remote?

A; The $399 Victorinox Presentation Pro.

via engadget

The Palm Pre smartphone got a lot of positive coverage at CES and was awarded the Best in Show award.

What makes it different from a Windows Mobile phone or iPhone? well it is the first phone to use a Texas Instruments OMAP processor, it is the first phone to use the Linux based Palm WebOS operating system, and it doesn't need a desktop sync, instead it syncs with cloud based services.

Here's the full specs.

The full specs and official site of the Sony Vaio P ultra-portable are now available, and it looks really impressive:

Windows Vista, Intel Atom Z530 processor, 2GB RAM, incredible resolution (1600x768 pixels) on a 8-inch display, SD and memorystick ports, 60GB hard drive (64/128GB SSDs optional), 4 hour battery life, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 2 USB ports, and an included dongle to add an extra USB along with VGA and ethernet ports, all crammed into a tiny 9.6" x 4.7" x 0.78" shell that weighs in at just 1.4lb.

The Sony Vaio P starts at $899 and is available for pre-order now.

Official Site

Eos Wireless have announced a new wireless music streaming solution called Eos Converge.

The system is basically a wireless transmitter (either a USB/aux transmitter or an ipod dock transmitter) that streams music to one or more receivers (and there are multiple styles of receivers from basic plug and play to stand-alone system with speakers and amplifier).

Full press release follows.

Yes that is quite a mouthful of a title and we know we gave Eye-Fi a hard time about their iPhone application, but their latest idea is a real killer:

Take a video (SD or even HD) with your camera and have the Eye-Fi SD card automatically upload it to your YouTube account. Wow!, excellent idea.

Full press release follows.

Garmin have announced a new flagship at the top of their Nuvi line of car GPS units.

The Nuvi 885t features speech recognition, lane assist junction view and MSN Direct traffic info along with other cloud-based services, bluetooth, and FM transmitter, all displayed on a 480x272 pixel 4.3 inch touchscreen.

The Garmin Nuvi 885t will cost $800 so we think we will stick with our trustworthy nuvi 760 for a while longer.

Full press release follows.

For once apple aren't on the leading edge of MP3 player technology thanks to sony's announcement of the Walkman NWZ-X1000 which ups the ante by adding an OLED touchscreen and built-in noise cancellation.

It looks good and the specs are good, so that leaves two things: price and software. If Sony gets the interface right and can sell at a competitive price then Apple has a fight on their hands.

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Sling Media has announced a player for their Slingbox TV streaming device that works on the iPhone.

No price has yet been determined and the software should be available in March.

Full press release follows.

Logitech have announced a new remote - the Harmony 1100. For $500 you get a fully customizable square remote with 3.5" QVGA touchscreen that knows how to talk to more than 225,000 devices at a range of up to 100 feet.

Logitech Harmony 1100

A photo of Sony's tiny VAIO P netbook has appeared at CES confirming the rumors of a chiclet keyboard.

We expect to get better pics and full specs later this week.

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Lenovo have announced a new all in one desktop - the IdeaCentre A600.

As standard it comes with a 21.5" 1920x1080 screen, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, ATI Radeon graphics, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and up to 1TB of hard disk space.

Full press release follows.

Everyone knew it was coming at Macworld but we all hoped one part of the rumor was untrue - the non-removable battery.

The new 17 inch Macbook Pro has just been announced and yes it comes with a fixed battery.

Everything else about the laptop sounds great - unibody design, slim and attractive, powerful processor, large hard drive, lots of memory, good graphics, 7 hour battery life, 17" 1920x1200 pixel screen, all in a 6.6lb package less than an inch thick.

photo and info via gizmodo

HP has announced their next netbook/ultra-portable PC - the Mini 2140, and we are really glad to see that HP has readopted the main differentiator that set their 2133 apart from the opposition - a higher resolution screen.

Just about every netbook out there comes with at most a 1024x600 pixel screen but the HP Mini 2140 has a "HD" option that comes with a 1366x768 pixel screen.

The rest of the specs are fairly standard (Atom 1.6GHz processor, one SODIMM RAM slot, 160GB hard drive (or 80GB SSD), wireless, (optional) bluetooth, 3 cell or 6 cell battery, 2 USB 1 SD and an expresscard slot, etc) but we think the great looks and high-res screen will make this product a winner.

more info

Eye-Fi has announced an iPhone app that just makes us ask "why?".

The concept sounds good - the Eye-Fi application for the iPhone allows you to upload photos taken with your iPhone to your computer or to any of more than 20 online photo services.

So what's the catch? the catch is you need to own an Eye-Fi card to download the application.... the Eye-Fi card is a $100-$130 secure digital memory card with built in Wi-Fi, and the iPhone is a phone without a SD expansion slot and with Wi-Fi already. Major disconnect there.

Another drawback is that the camera on the iPhone is terrible and we rarely use it so why would be buy a $100 SD card just to get functionality similar to what we can already do (in a clunkier manner) with an email attachment?

Our suggestion to Eye-Fi is to offer the application for free and make money off the annual subscription to the webshare service and to use the application to let all iPhone users know about the Eye-Fi cards they can buy for their regular cameras.

full press release

The Roku digital video player is a great little device, a $99 digital video player that streams 12,000+ netflix movies for free with any $9/month or higher netflix subscription, and now it is about to get even better with the addition of amazon video on demand.

What's the big deal? here's the big deal: the netflix titles are mostly older movies so to watch newer DVD releases you either had to use other hardware or wait for the DVD to arrive in your mailbox. Amazon has new movies as soon as they are available on DVD for 99 cents to $3.99 for a 24hr rental, so if you combine the two you can get all your movies on one tiny device.

full press release

Canon has announced 6 new standard definition and 5 high definition camcorders:

For standard definition we have the FS21, FS22, and FS 200 which are ultra-compact flash memory camcorders with 16GB or 32GB internal memory and a SDHC card slot, the DC410 and DC420 which are camcorders that write directly to DVD, and the ZR960 which writes to MiniDV.

The five new high definition models are the VIXIA HF S10 and HF S100 which have a 8.59 megapixel sensor and write to 32GB internal memory or SDHC (S10) or just to a SDHC card (S100), the VIXIA HF20 and HF200 which have a 3.89 megapixel sensor and write to 32GB internal memory or SDHC (HF20) or just to a SDHC card (HF200), and the VIXIA HV40 which has a 2.96 megapixel sensor and records directly in native 24p mode to a HDV tape.

No word yet on pricing or availability.

full press release

We're all packed and ready to head out to the airport on our way to the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

This year we set a goal of traveling without a full size laptop, and here is what we ended up packing:

A Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, upgraded with 2GB RAM and a 64GB SSD, dual-booting XP and Ubuntu 8.10.
A 320GB 2.5" USB hard drive to make sure all the photos we take are backed up.
A 100w XPower Inverter with air/car adapters.
The ever-present iPhone.
Shure earphones.
Microsoft bluetooth notebook mouse 5000.
Canon Eos 20D camera with extended battery pack and image stabilized zoom lens.
Garmin Nuvi GPS.

All of that fits easily into a Maxpedition Colossus Versipack and still leaves most of the 10" x 8" x 5" main compartment free for us to fill with books and snacks for the plane ride.

Creative seem really excited about the Zii portable media player: it sounds like Wii so it must be great, the graphics evoke green which as everyone knows is super-hot at the moment amongst marketing people, and it will change our lives........

Zii is StemCell Computing

Thank you and congratulations on the early registration.
You are now part of a privileged group that will witness the life changing event of 2009. You will be invited to join a new movement that will experience revolutionary breakthroughs.

Everything you know is about to change.

Drawing our inspiration from the intelligence of Mother Nature - who through over a billion years of evolution has designed the basic building block of life: the stem cell - we have created a stem cell-like silicon that is able to grow and multiply into different solutions and ecosystems.

With an investment that spans over 10 years, over a billion dollars and over 10,000 man-years, the world is poised to experience a breakthrough that will better lives beyond our imagination.

Even in the midst of these turbulent times, you will discover incredible recession-friendly business opportunities that enable you to thrive and prosper.

To find out more about Zii and how it can change your life, visit our booth (booth #30651) at CES 2009, or go to Zii.com from 8 January 2009 for updates.

What will it be? the greatest invention since the iPhone, or just another portable media player?

According to Engadget and Boy Genius Report there will finally be a new blackberry for Sprint customers.

Engadget describes it as a CDMA version of the Bold and BGR goes into more detail saying it will be the Blackberry codenamed "Niagara" and featuring EV-DO, 3.2 megapixel camera, 4.7 OS and aGPS.

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The latest rumor concerning Macworld is that the 17" Macbook Pro will get a revamp to match the new unibody design of the 13" and 15" models. It is also rumored that there will be a new silver-zincinternal battery that offers much longer battery life (at the expense of not being user-removable/replaceable).

We would welcome the extended battery life but there are lots of new battery technologies in the pipeline and we wouldn't want to be stuck with a non-removable battery.

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Venturebeat have successfully installed Google's Android operating system on an Eee PC and while these things are always cool from the "they installed X on Y" viewpoint we have to ask "why bother?".

Android is hyped by Google as an operating system for a variety of devices but currently it is just a mobile phone OS with a limited feature set whereas an Eee PC is a netbook designed to operate a full pc operating system. What is the point of artificially limiting a netbook capable of operating XP (or vista/ubuntu/macos etc)?

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