Archive for 2009

By January 19, 2009 Read More →

Microsoft set to unveil new Windows Mobile services

According to Neowin, Microsoft is planning to unveil three new mobile services at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next month. The software giant is allegedly aiming to move your mobile data into the cloud and rival Apple’s MobileMe service. The three services will be called Skybox, Skyline and the already well rumoured Skymarket. Microsoft is also expected to unveil Windows Mobile 6.5 at the MWC. Little details are available on the 6.5 upgrade Neowin tell us that those leaked 6.5 screenshots we saw previously are genuine concept shots for the honeycomb web start menu. More after the break.

Posted in: Phones
By January 19, 2009 Read More →

Acer Introduces 23-Inch Display with Sensor Touch

Not much news coming from the regular sources at the moment, looks like many manufacturers are holding off until MWC in February but I did get this little nugget earlier today. However, not as exciting as I first thought as looking at the press release title I expected it to be a touch-screen display, however however SensorTouch simply refers to a touch sensitive control for adjusting display settings. Disappointing perhaps but still sounds like a excellent monitor!

image

Take a look at the press release below which also talks about a new range of Aspire desktops:

Acer today announced the slick new Acer 23-inch widescreen display and Acer Aspire desktop PC line-up for customers in the United States. The Aspire desktops range from several compact models to an aggressively designed, power-packed gaming system.

Featuring a new form factor, the Acer H233H bmid 23-inch display offers cinematic quality with sleek styling. This new display provides excellent picture quality, boasting a 16:9 aspect ratio for maximum HD support, a high contrast ratio and fast response time. The glossy black bezel adds an extra design element that looks attractive in any home or office.

The desktop PC line features the compact, yet powerful Acer® Aspire X3200, X1700 and X1200 small form factor (SFF) PCs outfitted with 3 to 4GB of memory. The newest member is the Aspire X1700, which boasts an Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor and 4GB DDR2 memory, for extremely fast system response.

“The new 23-inch display offers users the best HD support available with a sleek new form factor and advanced features, making it ideal for a variety of viewing needs,” said Stephanie Eggert, Senior Manager, Retail Desktop Product Planning for Acer America. “Boasting NVIDIA® GeForce® G100 graphics with DirectX 10 support, the new Aspire X1700 delivers stunning performance in a compact chassis. The powerful processor and graphics combination on our SFF desktops and Predator gaming PCs infuse games, movies and photos with rich, lifelike images.”

Sleek Display Provides Cinematic Quality for Entertaining and Productivity

Combining form and function, the Acer H233H bmid 23-inch widescreen high-definition LCD display offers consumers superb high-definition picture quality in a sleek design. The display also features SensorTouch technology, a touch-sensing solution with effortless settings for one-touch convenience. The LED illuminated controls replace the buttons that are standard on many displays. These intuitive controls maintain the product’s streamlined look, while automatically sensing contact with the lightest touch.

Whether playing games, watching movies, creating digital content or working, the Acer H233H bmid provides excellent visual quality. It delivers the maximum level of HD support with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 1920×1080 resolution, making it ideal for viewing the latest high-definition video, movies and digital content.

To further enhance visual performance, the Acer H233H features a 40,000:1 contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness and a 5ms response time. It also offers 160-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles for an improved viewing experience. Additionally, the display supports VGA and HDMI as well as DVI (with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) for viewing digital movies, digital photos, PC files and copy protected content.

To boost the visual experience of movies and games, the Acer H233H bmid also comes with two premium speakers for high-performance sound.

Feature Rich, Compact Desktops

For ease and practicality, the Aspire X1200, X1700 and X3200 SFF desktops as well as the Aspire Predator gaming PC are designed with the card reader, audio jacks and ports located conveniently on the front of the chassis to provide easy access. The Aspire X1200, X1700 and X3200 towers measure just 10.4-inches (H) x 4-inches (W) x 14.4-inches (L).

Newest Model: Aspire X1700 – Power-Packed SFF

Packed with power and performance, the newest model in the line, the Aspire X1700 features an Intel® Pentium® Dual Core Processor E2200, which enables users to enjoy crystal-clear digital media, create advanced graphics, and handle productivity tasks with ease and speed. The 4GB DDR2 memory provides ultra-fast system response, critical for multitasking and power hungry applications. Integrated NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics enhance multimedia performance with support for the latest DirectX games. Connect directly to an external LCD or flat-screen TV with HDMI for crisp, high-quality visuals and high-fidelity audio using only one cable.

With nine USB 2.0 ports and a multi-in-one card reader, users can easily bring multimedia devices together. The huge 640GB SATA II hard drive (2) provides enough room to store a vast library of music, movies and games. Watch movies and burn DVDs and CDs with the SuperMulti Drive. With Labelflash™ technology, personalize CDs by laser burning unique, high-resolution transparent images directly on the label side of discs right after they’re burned.

Gaming PC: Radical Design, Ready for Combat

The Aspire Predator G7710 desktop PC series was designed to fire up gamers with its aggressive design, performance and price. This striking gaming rig pushes performance limits. It boasts a very powerful Intel i7-940 processor, a whopping 6GB DDR3 memory and an entire terabyte of storage for housing even the most graphic intensive games and movies. It’s also outfitted with a cutting-edge cooling system and RAID 0, 1, 5, 1+0 modes for keeping data secure. Action packed, this feature-rich machine comes armed with accessories, including a specially designed gaming mouse and a multimedia keyboard with keys that light up for play in the dark.

 

Posted by: Matt

Posted in: News
By January 19, 2009 Read More →

Verizon’s Wireless Extender femtocell coming next week

logo_lgLike many people I would really like to drop my landline phone, but I have terrible reception in my home. If I could get a reliable signal in my living room I would  cut the cord in a hot second. Starting January 25th Verizon has a solution for people like me. Verizon’s wireless extender is set to drop January 25th. A femtocell is a tiny cell relay station that connects to your home’s internet connection, and will give you great reception over 5000 square feet ( 465 square meters).  Sprint already has a similar device called Airave, that costs an additional $15 a month, but that is about half the cost of a phone line from the cable company. So far only CDMA femtocells are available, and the devices are only 1xRTT data (CDMA’s EDGE equivalent).
No pricing information is available for Verizon’s service, but if it is inline with Sprint’s service, it should be well worth it for people who need a little help with reception in their home.

Source: Engadget

Technorati Tags: ,,
Posted in: Phones
By January 18, 2009 Read More →

Can Nokia make it in America?

nokia_logoNokia is the world’s largest mobile phone maker, the world’s largest smartphone maker, and according to one accounting, the world’s largest computer maker, but there is one locale that Nokia can’t seem to gain a foothold. World wide Nokia has nearly 40% market share, but in the good ole’ USA they barely crack 7%. What makes the American market so hostile to Nokia? I think it is a combination of factors that keep Nokia from gaining a prominent position in America. With America using a combination of GSM and CDMA technologies, only half the US market is available to Nokia since they don’t really make many CDMA devices. Nokia also fought a fierce battle with Qualcomm for most of this decade which prevented Nokia from making devices with US 3G built in. Those two factors kept the hottest Nokia S60 devices out of American hands until recently.

Posted in: Phones
By January 18, 2009 Read More →

Nokia N97 coming to the UK in March?

F21D0817-EB58-463D-9AA7-89DDCB787322UK online retailer Play.com has the Nokia N97 up for pre-order with an availability  date of March 31. Nokia’s new flagship phone includes a high quality camera, touchscreen input (though it is disappointingly a resistive touchscreen), and a sliding qwerty keyboard. This release is for the European variant, a North American version is promised to come a few weeks after the Euro version is released. Nokia, like all mobile manufacturers, are notorious for letting release dates slip. So take this with a grain of salt.

Source: Symbian-Guru

Technorati Tags: ,,,
Posted in: Phones
By January 18, 2009 Read More →

Palm Pre to be Vodafone UK exclusive?

image Vodafone could be Palm’s official carrier partner for the Palm Pre in the UK, according to the latest rumors.  While unconfirmed by either the carrier or Palm themselves, a member of Vodafone’s customer service team has revealed that they are “in early negotiation” regarding the Pre, although “nothing is solid”.  The device in question could be the first GSM 3G HSPA Pre available, given that Sprint’s version of the smartphone uses CDMA EV-DO Rev.A.

Posted in: Phones
By January 18, 2009 Read More →

We are back

image Well what a weekend, a failed wordpress 2.7 update and backup caused us no end of problems but thanks to the amazing skills of J Doss the site is now back online. Still needs some work on the theme but everything has been recovered. Apologies for the inconvenience. We should be back to normal very soon.

Posted in: Site Announcements
By January 18, 2009 Read More →

Win an XBOX 360!!

Remember I mentioned that we had some really cool competitions coming up in January? Well here’s the first one!

A little OT background: I recently did some work for a company called Click On Plastics. The company specialises in industrial grade plastics (Like PTFE, PEEK and Nylon products) and they needed some help setting up their online store.

Having set their site up for them they asked me for some promotional ideas. In a rather tongue-in-cheek way I suggested that they give me an XBOX 360 to give away on our site and to my surprise they agreed!!

So in association with clickonplastics.co.uk we are offering you the chance to win a fantastic Xbox 360.

xbox360

Our usual competition rules apply. Simply send us your name and email address along with the answer to the competition question below using our normal contact page and including XBOX in the subject. One entry per person please, but feel free to get your friends and family to enter too!

Competition question: ‘In terms of plastic products, what does SRBF stand for?’

For the answer to the question you may want to head over to the clickonplatics website.

The competition will run for a month and then we’ll randomly pick a winner from all the correct entries.

EDIT: Competition is now closed, we have a winner!

 

Posted by: Matt

Posted in: Competitions
By January 17, 2009 Read More →

Lastolite Studio Cubelite review video

I frequently get asked about the photos that we use in the reviews here in tracyandmatt, seems that some of you are curious about the equipment and method that we use to take the shots of the review devices.

I thought the easiest way to show you would be to record a video of my setup as well as a bit of a demonstration/review of my new Lastolite Studio Cubelite that I recently started using.

Lastolite Studio Cubelite review

The Lastolite Studio Cubelite

 

As I mention in the video, I used to use an inexpensive light cube that I bought from eBay. The results aren’t bad, 90% of the photos on site were shot using the cube and my Canon DSLR camera. But I wanted something a little better which is why I ended up with the Lastolite setup. I am certainly not a professional photographer but I am keen to do the best I can so hope that you find these tips useful.

 

Lastolite Studio Cubelite

 

Lastolite have two sizes of Cubelite, a 70cm version and, this the 100cm version.

The Studio Cubelite™ is the ultimate solution for product photography and takes our highly successful Cubelite™ concept even further. It allows for control of the light from below and all other directions allowing the photographer to give products that floating look with no shadows if desired. The tensioned diffuser fabric means the reflections on even the most reflective surface are kept to an absolute minimum, whilst the generous front opening can be closed to mask reflections from the camera/operator as well. The patented design also allows you to control the light from underneath by pointing the source up or down into the base unit giving different light distribution effects and creating graduated backgrounds if required.

 

DPP_0602 DPP_0605

Basic Sample Photos

 

 

By January 16, 2009 Read More →

Hotfix for the HTC Touch HD

image Well we don’t know if this is good or bad, yet another hotfix for the HTC Touch HD after last weeks double fix. A positive look and we say well done HTC for getting these out fast and frequently, on a negative, why has this device got so many problems. Anyway this hotfix addresses a problem when you use the Camera function to take a picture in a dim environment with super fine quality, sometimes the image will display extraneous (noise) pixels in the viewfinder mode. It’s not a mechanical (LCD) fault but only an intermittent display problem in view finder mode. It does not have any impact on the picture quality or other display functions. If you encounter this problem, please download this hot fix to enhance the virtual viewfinder mode. More details and download link after the break.

Posted in: Phones
https://www.ukmeds.co.uk/surgical-face-masks