Archive for: April 2009
April 30, 2009
Did Acer just let the cat out of the bag? Today, the company revealed that Microsoft will be launching Windows 7 on October 23rd when it’s pre-installed on a nettop from Acer themselves called the Z5600. Apparently, the new system will start shipping by the end of September, but you’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7 if your purchase is made within 30 days of the platform’s release. Compal says they will be releasing a product before this, but it all comes before the date Microsoft officially announced. In fact, Microsoft made a goal for themselves to have Windows 7 out by early 2010. But this new information means the platform will be ready for the highly coveted holiday season. We’ll have to see how this plays out but one thing is for certain: it’s very interesting! Relevant Entries on SlashGear Acer smartphone coming Q1 2009 Acer set to release iMac competitor and 10.2″ netbook next year Acer Tempo WM6.1 smartphones coming April & May Acer Aspire 5710Z features Ubuntu preinstalled T-Mobile Android Event on Sept. 23rd: We’ll be Live Blogging
Read more here:
Acer says Windows 7 coming October 23rd
Depending on how much design work you’ve done, and what kind of software you’re using, you probably have some idea of which fonts you have installed and what they look like. If you don’t, there’s a wonderfully simple Web app called Flipping Typical that gives you a WYSIWYG heads up of all of them at once. You can type in whatever text you want to see and it will show you how it looks in each font, and the site updates in real time to reflect the changes. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to toggle on bold or italics to see what it would look like with a hint of formatting. It’s smart enough to remember what font you were looking at between sessions, so if you close the page and come back later it will come back with that formatting still intact. Most modern Web apps with font control have previews you can see before changing a font, but this app differs in showing what you have that can be used in offline programs too. I like it because it’s good for brainstorming a quick font choice, something which can become increasingly difficult the larger your font library gets. For business cards, fliers, posters, and more, this can be a simple way to cut development time down. Related: Fawnt makes font hunting easy, sexy (via DownloadSquad and Lifehacker ) Flipping Typical shows you what fonts you have installed on your machine and lets you type in whatever you want to see, showing you how it looks in each font. (Credit: CNET Networks)
Original post:
Preview all your fonts at once with Flipping Typical
iBrowz on the Omnia. (Credit: CNET) Until native RSS-reading is perfected on mobile phones, third party newsreaders are often the quickest path to keeping up on headlines. Viigo has been our favorite for Windows Mobile phones to date, but the new application iBrowz beta provides a familiar widget paradigm for subscribing to feeds, and a sharp-looking reader. Instead of assigning each subscription its own icon, iBrowz groups them by category–under news, tech, and sports thumbnails, for instance. You tap to view the bundle, tap again to see headlines for a news source, and tap a third time to open the story in iBrowz’s glossy black reader. A banner ad floats above, and pictures look crisp. Managing subscriptions from the phone is simple, but it’s even easier from your account online , where a mouse click is all it takes to add or yank a feed. While the feed functionality is there, the subscription content is weakened by the limited number of available RSS feeds. More will surely come in the future, especially as iBrowz grows its user base. Third-party developers and publishers are also welcome to add their own. However, those with a particular group of favorites may be frustrated by this modest starter crop. As with most RSS readers, you’ll also set a sync schedule. iBrowz’s ranges from every thirty minutes to once a day. There are a few extra touches in iBrowz–e-mailing a story to a friend and tab navigation to get you back to the start screen. iBrowz also does local storage for offline reading (a fact that suggests you might download it to an external storage card rather than to the device memory.) On the flipside, there’s a lot more iBrowz could do, and hopefully will, when it emerges from beta. Bookmarking comes to mind, ...
Toshiba and Fujitsu recently came to an agreement regarding a transfer of Fujitsu’s hard disk drive business to Toshbia, and both companies announced today the terms of this deal, including when it will be completed and what will take place. Toshiba Storage Device Corporation or TSDC is the new company that will take over the Fujitsu HDD efforts. The Fujitsu manufacturing plants will be called Toshiba Storage Devices Philippines or TSDP and Toshiba Storage Devices Thailand or TSDT. Toshbia Storage Device Yamagata Corporation or TSDY will take over for Yamagata Fujitsu Limited. TSDC will be taken care of all research and development while the marketing and such of HDD products will be taken care of by Toshiba themselves. By July 1st, Toshiba will have acquired an 80.1% stake in TSDC, leaving Fujitsu with a 19.9% share until December 2010 when Toshiba will take over completely. Relevant Entries on SlashGear Toshiba keen on Fujitsu’s hard-drive business Fujitsu selling hard-drive business to Western Digital Fujitsu releases 300GB 2.5-inch drive Fastest 2.5-inch hard drive from Fujitsu Toshiba and Fujitsu Wants Payback from Sony
See the original post:
Toshiba and Fujitsu hard drive agreement explained
According to a leak , Lenovo is apparently working on a new ThinkPad X200 that features a CULV processor . While this rumor is not confirmed, it would make sense since Lenovo has themselves admitted they are thinking about creating a CULV ThinkPad in the future, though they did not commit to a timeframe. The ThinkPad X200 models currently feature a SL-series Core 2 Duo processor. This has made the price go up considerably, but with a 1.2GHz Celeron M chip, the cost would decrease, as would the voltage use. The new system would also have a 160GB hard drive and 2GB of memory. Pricing is not known, nor is a release date. It may not even come to pass. We’ll just have to wait and see. But it would make sense in this economy for Lenovo to be looking to drop their price point a bit. Relevant Entries on SlashGear Lenovo ThinkPad X200: battery life ‘especially impressive’ Lenovo ThinkPad X200t Tablet PC hits FCC: UWB confirmed Lenovo considering ThinkPad netbook; IdeaPad S20 in May Lenovo X200 Tablet PC confirmed in leaked presentation Lenovo X200 new specs & photos emerge
Read the original:
Lenovo ThinkPad X200 to get CULV
The Dell Studio notebook line is known for its unique designs and numerous options provided to customers. However, the line has just been expanded once again to include even more artwork options. You can now select from over 200 designs–that’s an addition of 120 art pieces–for a truly custom notebook. It’s easy to browse your options as well, as the designs are categorized by colors, patterns, artists and the (PRODUCT) Red series. You’ll have to browse the new designs for yourself to see all of what’s available, but some of the new artists involved include Korakrit Arunanondchai, OBVLN, Deanne Cheuk and Filth. Depending on what features you select, the Dell Studio notebooks range in price from $734 to $1,184. Relevant Entries on SlashGear Dell Studio offering over 100 designs for notebooks Dell Studio notebooks launch with Blu-ray & multi-color options Dell Special Art Edition Studio notebook range: new designs Dell expands Art House series laptops with (PRODUCT) Red designs Dell Studio One 19 All-in-One touchscreen PC
See the rest here:
Dell Studio notebooks get more design options
We first heard about the Oppo Digital BDP-83 Blu-ray player back at CEDIA last year but now those select few customers that e-mailed Oppo to find out about the player will be able to purchase it before anyone else. About 350 people were allowed to buy it in February with pre-production firmware installed as a sort of beta program. However, now the 27,000 people that e-mailed the company to express their interest in the player will have their chance to buy one. The player is set to include BD-Live support, VRS de-interlacing, scaling, DVD-Audio and SACD compatibility, 7.1 channel output, a USB port, a stereo output and more. It includes a backlit remote and is expected to cost about $599, though those who pre-ordered can grab it for $499. Relevant Entries on SlashGear Oppo to develop Blu-Ray Player, Awesome Oppo Blu-Ray Player BDP-83 spotted at CEDIA Blast player from Oppo makes the iPod look fat More Update on Oppo Blu-ray player BDP-83 Upcoming Oppo Blu-ray player will be region-locked, says beta tester
Here is the original post:
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player now available for some
Intel is best known for making CPUs, but its research division continues to bring new ways for users to interact with data on the Web. Think Link , one of the company’s most recent projects is attempting to help people spot misinformation, while providing the tools to correct it. Similar to crowd-sourced typo-finder GooseGrade and SpinSpotter ( coverage ), Think Link is about bringing attention to mistakes, and inaccurate claims; be it blog posts, news stories, research papers or advertising. Where it differs is in giving users a relatively simple way to back up their claims of wrongness by linking to a reputable source, then letting others vote those ideas up ( Google search wiki style), with the best rising to the top. In other words: I make a mistake in an article, and instead of blasting me in theA Gadget Zoneor via e-mail, you can very quickly create a case against something I’ve gotten wrong with a team of fellow contributors. Items that have been disputed in Think Link show up with highlighting, and clicking them shows you the argument for and against. (Credit: Intel) The only hitch is that to view and create Think Link content, users must have a browser extension installed. They’ll then be able to see items other users have highlighted as disputed, or “interesting.” Hovering over those items that have been disputed pops up with the most agreed-upon proof of something being inaccurate, or untrue. You can also drill down to see arguments from both sides in something Intel calls the “argument graph.” This tool pulls in data from related topics on Wikipedia, as well as other Think Link items, which can help whoever is reading a dispute to see a more complete argument with both sides. What’s really, really cool about this ...
Did you pine for those missing Gmail scrollbars when using the latest version of Chrome, as I did? Pine no more, because Google said its latest developer release of the open-source browser gives them back. Chrome 2.0.177.1 is on the developer preview release channel, not the better-tested beta or stable channels, so not everyone will get it. (You can sign up for the developer or beta channels by downloading the Chrome Channel Changer , but be warned that you have to uninstall them if you want to step back immediately to the stable version.) The new version also lets people install plug-ins such as Adobe Systems’ Flash without having to restart the browser. And among other fixes is an update to the V8 JavaScript engine to get the Lala Web site working. Also, Google is continuing its Chrome marketing spree. On Wednesday, the company showed off 11 artsy promotional videos that follow in the same vein as Chrome comic book that accompanied the browser’s debut. If you’re more into the gory details, though, Google also released five technical talks by Chrome engineers on YouTube. The talks range in length from 10 to 28 minutes. A scene from one of the new Chrome promotional videos. (Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Go here to A Gadget Zonethe rest:
Google Chrome patch fixes vanishing scrollbar
Updated at 1:30 p.m. PDT with more information about possible applications for the camera. For shutterbugs who like to take pictures of fast-moving subjects, nothing beats a dSLR with high frame rates to capture precious moments like scoring a goal at a soccer game or a rally car cornering at neck-breaking speeds. However, high-end dSLRs such as the Nikon D3 can fire off at only 11 frames per second (fps). Are there other shooters that can rattle off much faster? Scientists at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a novel, continuously running camera that they claim is the fastest shooter ever. In a mere 1 second, it can capture 6.1 million shots with the shutter speed measuring 440 trillionth of a second. By using a laser that emits different infrared frequencies to illuminate the subject, each pixel picks up individual signals that are amplified to be visible. According to the scientists–who detail their research in the current issue of Nature–this technology is called serial time-encoded amplified microscopy, or STEAM for short. The study was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency the U.S. Department of Defense’s central research and development organization. One application the researchers envision for the camera is flow cytometry, a technique used for blood analysis. Traditional blood analyzers can count cells and extract information about their size, but they cannot take pictures of every cell because no camera is fast enough and sensitive enough for the job. Images of cells are necessary to distinguish diseased cells from healthy ones, but currently, pictures are taken manually under a microscope from a very small sample of blood. The new camera could go much further, helping to detect the presence in fast-flowing blood of very rare cells, like tumor cells, that might be ...
 Sims fans should have June 2nd marked on their calendars, because that's the day that the phenomenally popular simulation game's next version launches worldwide for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and iPod Touch. To whet your appetite, Electronic Arts has just announced the online components that will be available to complement the installed game: The Site: When The Sims 3 launches, the promotional Web site at TheSims3.com will be replaced by one offering community and shopping features. Players will be able to connect with each other and get gameplay-enhancing information. The site will include an exchange where players can download items and read recommendations, a place to record and share movies, and personal profile pages. The Store: Every Sims 3 game will come with $10 worth of SimPoints, which players can use at an online store to download exclusive items. After that, players can buy bundles of SimPoints for additional purchases.Game Launcher: This hub will serve as the key entry point into the online community. Use it to connect to the store and the exchange, or read Sims news. Players will also be able to download updates from here.
    
Next Page »
|
