News

Vista Named ‘Best of CES’ 2007

Windows Vista operating system has been selected by the editors at CNET as a winner of the “Best of CES 2007” award in the computers and hardware category at the 2007 International Consumer
Electronics Show (CES). Windows Vista, scheduled to be broadly available on
Jan. 30, 2007, was honored for enhancements and innovations that provide
users with an experience that is easier, safer, more entertaining and
better connected, at home or on the go.

“It is a great honor to have Windows Vista declared one of the best
products at this year’s CES,” said Mike Sievert, corporate vice president
for Windows(R) Client Marketing at Microsoft Corp. “We are in outstanding
company here at the show, and this award is an indication of what customers
can expect when they are able to experience Windows Vista for themselves
later this month.”

The development of Windows Vista is the result of an unprecedented
collaboration between Microsoft and its customers and partners. The product
was designed with the help of millions of testers worldwide, including 50
families from seven countries taking part in the Life with Windows Vista
program. The feedback gathered from this testing was invaluable to the
product development, and Windows Vista is better because of it.

In preparation for the Windows Vista launch, thousands of PC manufacturers and
system builders across the globe are preparing to deliver new PCs designed
to run the new operating system. By Jan. 30, more than 1.5 million devices
will have the Works with Windows Vista logo and more than 2,000 products
will be Certified for Windows Vista, helping make Internet and networking
connections, home entertainment and business tasks faster, easier and more
secure. Many of those products are on display at CES, including two Windows
Vista-based PCs — the HP TouchSmart PC IQ770 and the ASUS W5Fe
SideShow(TM) Notebook — that were the other two finalists for the Best of
CES award in the computers and hardware category.

The Best of CES awards, which are produced and judged by CNET,
recognize the best products at 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show
in 10 categories, plus a Best of Show.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Microsoft, Vista, CES, Cisco, Tracy & Matt]

Orange comment on iPhone

Everyone is talking about Apple’s iPhone today and it would appear that Orange are no different. The following statement was released in reaction to the iPhone announcement:

“Today’s launch of Apple’s iPhone is another example of how the world of entertainment technology is converging. It reinforces our belief here at Orange that we shall see many more similar moves in the future. We have already seen our own Music Player service grow rapidly in the last year to average 100,000 single downloads per month, with over 500,000 tracks to choose from currently. Apple’s entry into the market will no doubt stimulate even further interest in mobile music services.”

I do find it quite amusing that Orange have (tried to) put themselves in the same bracket as Apple saying that they are at the forefront of this new technology. I’m sure that there are many out there that would disagree. Comments anyone?

Thanks to MSMobileNews for the Orange release heads up.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): iPhone, Apple, OS X, Orange, Tracy & Matt]

Eten Glofiish M700 offer – save £25 – reminder

Just a quick reminder fo you all that our friends at Clove Technology are still running the discount offer for the Eten M700. You can save £25 when you purchase an Eten Glofiish M700 from Clove using the voucher code below.

The ETEN Glofiish M700 is now available on the Clove website.

To take advantage of this brilliant offer all you have to do is type TM25PNOV07 into the voucher box on the order form once you have selected to buy the Eten M700 and £25 will be deducted at the checkout stage. Take a look at theEten M700 on the Clove Technology site.

This really is a good offer and, as far as we know, this is still the cheapest Glofiish M700 in the UK and we are offering you £25 off to boot!!

This offer is just for our readers and is now valid until the end of January 2007.

Overview
Compose and send e-mails, SMS message or create and edit documents on the move with the Eten M700. The Glofiish M700 is a compact Windows Mobile 5 device featuring an integrated sliding keyboard, Quad-band GSM/GPRS with support for EDGE, SiRFStar III GPS Receiver, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi 802.11b/g and 2.0 mega pixels camera. With all these features you only ever need to carry one device, to stay in contact by phone, accessing the Internet, managing documents, appointments and contacts, and taking quality pictures.

GPS navigation is also possible with the Eten M700, due to the integrated SiRFStar III GPS receiver, ensuring that this is truly an all in one device.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, ETEN M700, glofiish, E-TEN Glofiish, Clove, Tracy & Matt]

Apple iPhone announced at Macworld

After months (perhaps years!) of speculation Steve Jobs finally and officially announced the Apple iPhone during his speech at Macworld.

“iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.”

Apple iPhone Specifications

Specs are also said to include touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the sensor when it’s close to your face, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quadband GSM radio with EDGE. A partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email.

Said to be selling in the US as a Cingular exclusive for $499 on a two-year contract, 8GB for $599. Ships Stateside in June, Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008.

Check out the full details on engadget or the official iPhone site.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): iPhone, Apple, OS X, Cingular, Tracy & Matt]

Worlds smallest USB Bluetooth Dongle

Newton Peripherals, the developer of the revolutionary MoGo Mouse™, today announced the MoGo Dapter™, a breakthrough in Bluetooth™ adapters that makes it easier than ever for millions of laptop users to use Bluetooth-enabled wireless devices.

The MoGo Dapter is the world’s smallest Bluetooth adapter, specifically designed for “road warriors” and other mobile computer users. Newton Peripherals’ engineers designed the Dapter, miniaturizing and encapsulating the patent-pending technology so that the adapter simply plugs into any free USB port and virtually sits flush, without protruding like standard adapters. In doing so, the Dapter delivers “set it and forget it” Bluetooth functionality, eliminating the current requirement of unplugging and carrying a bulky adapter when traveling.

The MoGo Dapter will be available in the second quarter of this year from a worldwide network of authorized resellers, at an MSRP of $49.99 See the product page HERE.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): Bluetooth, MoGo, MoGo Dapter, Tracy & Matt, Newton Peripherals]

Pioneer announce Blu-ray combo drive

At the International Consumer Electronics Show today, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. announced the new BDC-202 combination Blu-ray Disc® BD-ROM computer drive with enhanced DVD and CD writing and reading capabilities. The newly designed Pioneer drive offers playback of BD-ROM discs allowing users to view Blu-ray Disc high definition programs directly on a properly configured computer. The Pioneer BDC-202 can play multiple Blu-ray Disc formats, as well as provide high-speed reading and writing of DVD and CD formats.

With a focus on BD-ROM playback, the new Pioneer combination computer drive will be a significant contributor in the emergence of the Blu-ray Disc format for both professional and consumer use on computers. In addition to BD-ROM playback, the BDC-202 allows users to access and transfer A/V and data files rapidly to DVD and CD.

With up to 50GB of storage capacity, the Blu-ray Disc format allows for copious amounts of high definition video and audio content on a single disc, including advanced interactive features and extensive bonus materials. The BDC-202 drive allows computer system builders to provide a cost effective playback solution for advanced Blu-ray content as well as DVD and CD recording and playback.

The Pioneer BDC-202 combines fast DVD and CD recording speeds with enhanced BD-ROM playback to the delight of audio video enthusiasts who now have the capability to view recently released film titles directly on a computer for times when they are not in a home theater environment.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Pioneer, BLU-RAY, CES, Tracy & Matt]

SanDisk launches 32Gb Solid State Disk

SanDisk® Corporation today introduced a 32-gigabyte, 1.8-inch solid state drive (SSD) as a drop-in replacement for the standard mechanical hard disk drive. Initially aimed at enterprise users as the first step toward mass consumer adoption, SanDisk SSD offers field-proven durability to keep mobile PCs working in the toughest of conditions and improves the overall user experience.

Previously, large capacity flash-based drives had been used primarily by the military, aerospace and telecom industries, which demanded high performance and reliability under challenging environmental conditions. But now the declining cost of NAND flash memory has made SSD a viable and economically attractive alternative to existing technologies in a wider variety of applications, including mobile PCs aimed at enterprise and consumer users.

“This is an important milestone for SanDisk in our relentless quest to create new large-scale markets for flash storage solutions for consumers in the personal computing space,” said Eli Harari, SanDisk CEO. “The 32-gigabyte SSD that we are announcing today represents the fifth generation of flash-based solid state drives developed by msystems, which we recently acquired. The 32GB SSD has been made commercially viable through SanDisk’s technology leadership coupled with msystems’ tremendous experience and IP, which are captured in the high-performance, low-cost system controllers that distinguish this product.

“Once we begin shipping the 32GB SSD for notebook PCs, we expect to see its increasing adoption in the coming years as we continue to reduce the cost of flash memory. When these SSD devices become more affordable, we expect that their superior features over rotating disk drives will create a new consumer category for our retail sales channels worldwide,” said Harari. It is projected the SanDisk 32GB SSD will cost around $600 in the first half of 2007, he added.

Using NAND flash enhanced by SanDisk’s patented TrueFFS® flash management technology, SanDisk SSD delivers two million hours mean time between failures. With no moving parts, it does not need to spin into action or seek files in the way that conventional hard disk drives do. These characteristics, combined with SanDisk’s advanced flash management technology, make it possible for SanDisk SSD to deliver excellent performance compared with hard disk drives and competing solid state drives.

The SanDisk SSD announced today achieves a sustained read rate of 62 megabytes per second and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second for a 512-byte transfer – more than 100 times faster than most hard disk drives. Taking advantage of this performance, a laptop PC equipped with SanDisk SSD can boot Microsoft Windows® Vista™ Enterprise in as little as 35 seconds. It also can achieve an average file access rate of 0.12 milliseconds, compared with 55 seconds and 19 milliseconds, respectively, for a laptop PC with a hard disk drive.

Another advantage of SanDisk SSD is its extremely low power consumption rate compared to the hard disk drive: 0.4 watt during active operation versus 1.0 watt. This is particularly important to extend the battery life for the benefit of enterprise road warriors. These results enable new operating systems, such as Microsoft® Vista™, to provide mobile PC users with a superior overall system experience.

“There has been a huge increase in demand for NAND flash memory over the past few years from consumer devices such as digital cameras, MP3 players and mobile phones,” said Robert Gray, analyst with IDC, based in Framingham, Massachusetts. “There are dramatically higher bit capacities and lower prices, so the technology is now well positioned to be the foundation for new generations of potentially disruptive solid state drives. Enterprise mobile PC users will find the high performance and low power consumption especially attractive,” he added.

SanDisk SSD 1.8-inch 32GB solid state drive is now available for original equipment manufacturers. It is the first in a range of solutions that SanDisk will be offering to bring flash to the mainstream mobile PC market.

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): MP3 Player, SanDisk, Solid State Disk, SanDisk SSD, SanDisk Sansa e270]

JAVOedge New Year Sale!

JAVOedge is happy to announce our new years sale! Got that iPod, Smartphone, or other mobile device you wanted for Christmas? Time to protect this special gift with JAVOedge products!

Simply visit JAVOedge and add any items you wish to purchase to cart. Enter the coupon code below in the Coupon Reference field and click the “Find Coupon” button to apply the discount.

Coupon code: JAVO30NEWYEARS *case sensitive*

Our PDA, Smartphones, Pocket PC, BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Motorola Q, Cingular, T-Mobile, HTC, iPod Nano and PSP accessories are companions for your new gifts!

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, JAVOedge, Tracy & Matt]

Happy New Year!

Tracy and I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

We are looking forward to another successful year. We’ll also have some announcements for you shortly!

Matt

[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, New Year, Tracy & Matt]

HTC 2007 Device Roadmap

HTC’s 2007 device roadmap appears to have been ‘leaked’ and found it way on to the Russian site HPC.ru

The roadmap lists 4 new devices:

HTC Kaiser The HTC Kaiser is an updated version of the HTC P4350 (Herald) and has the same form factor. In terms of technology it is actually a slightly modified and advanced TyTN, which will include a built in GPS receiver in addition to the same QVGA-screen, the support of 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a powerful processor (400Mhz). It’s thought that the Kaiser is HTC answer to the Eten GPS-enabled devices. HTC Elf The HTC Elf is regarded to be the same class of device as the HTC Herald however the Elf will be a cheaper entry level model and will not include 3G connectivity nor will it have a sliding keyboard. It will also have a slower (200mhz) processor. One thing it will have is funky touch sensitive keys! HTC Wings The HTC Wings is basically the same device as the HTC Vox but will also include 3G connectivity and a GPS receiver. HTC Erato Finally there HTC Erato which is clamshell design thought to be an updated STRtrk which will also include a GPS Receiver. Source: HPC.ru Matt [Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, HTC Elf, HTC, HTC Wings, HTC Kaiser, HTC Herald, HTC Erato, Tracy & Matt]