Intel's Medfield: Android concept Mobile & Tab is awesome

its seems like Intel finally now woke up and started to enter to the smartphone’s world with Medfield CPU.

and we are hoping that intel will bring his new mobile model in first half 2012 in CES. now here’s some main features of the intel’s Concept Model:

1-larger screen than iPad2 & enough lighter than iPhone 4S because of his plastic body.

2-Intel promised that this mobile will be faster in its range, with more power consumption.

3-can play B-Ray HD video & stream it to a LCD through Wi-Fi.

4-can take 10 snaps with its 8MP cam in burst mod in 15 snaps per second.

Intel doesn't have best record of giving power friendly mobile cpus, now has developing new phone and tab with his new Medfield CPU.

now we are hoping that intel will dominate smartphone market same as in personal computers market over the AMD and will satisfy their customers like his next gen core i series.

Apple's Thunderbolt 27inc Display

Last, and probably least, in today’s deluge of new Apple products is the Thunderbolt Display, a new 2560 x 1440 LED monitor with Thunderbolt connectivity. The 27-inch screen connect to MacBooks, just like the existing Cinema Display, but the addition of the speedy Thunderbolt I/O, it almost turns into an iMac.

The monitor has three cables. One plugs into the power socket on the wall, one sends power to your MacBook’s MagSafe port, and the third will connect with mini DisplayPort/Thunderbolt port.

This last cable not only carries the video from the MacBook, it also works the other way, giving the Mac access to the display’s three USB ports, single FireWire 800 port, Ethernet port and another Thunderbolt port, along with connections to the screen’s HD webcam and speakers.

Thunderbolt's transfer rate is 10GBps per channel. isn't enough in one I/O port?

The single Thunderbolt port will let you daisy-chain other peripherals, just like you could with old FireWire gear. Thus, the monitor can stay on the desk, hooked up to an embarrassment of add-ons, and with the connection of a single cable your lightweight MacBook Air will be transformed into a multitalented workstation. The Thunderbolt Display can costs you around $1,000.

Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) [Apple]

HTC lost to Apple in Patent case

Taipei, Dec. 17 (CNA) The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) said it has decided to review in part a final initial decision it had issued earlier this year in favor of U.S. consumer electronics giant Apple Inc. over Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp. According to a notice filed on its website Friday, after examining the final ruling and the record of investigations, the The United States International Trade Commission has decided to review the matter, as HTC requested in a petition, but will look at only one of the four patents involved.

The ruling issued by an The United States International Trade Commission judge in October found that Apple had not infringed on any of the four patents related to the technology used in Apple's iPhones, iPod and iPad, as HTC had claimed. Furthermore, Apple was found not to be in violation of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. HTC filed a complaint with the USITC against Apple in May 2011, accusing the U.S. company of stealing four HTC patents related to functions such as power management and phone dialing. The suit was in retaliation to a similar action filed by the U.S. company against HTC in March. In June, the USITC launched probes into HTC's claims and later ruled that Apple had not violated the patents, which prompted HTC to file a petition for a review.

HTC and Apple have been locked in a series of patent litigation amid escalating competition in the global smartphone market. In the complaint filed in March, HTC was accused of infringing on Apple's patents. In an initial decision, the commission found HTC had infringed two of Apple's patents. After two postponements, the The United States International Trade Commission is scheduled to issue a final decision on the case Dec. 19. There have been concerns that HTC would lose the case, which would lead the The United States International Trade Commission to ban sales of HTC products in the company's main market -- the U.S. According to Merrill Lynch, the U.S. market accounts for 40 percent-50 percent of HTC's total sales. (By Frances Huang)

Intel's Core i7-980X Launches with a Bang

Intel today launches its newest processor, the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition, which promises to be the new king of the CPU hill. The Core i7-980X Extreme Edition (codenamed "Gulftown") is Intel's first six-core processor for consumers, more specifically gamers and well-heeled multimedia professionals.
The Core i7-980X replaces the Core i7-975 as the top-of-the-line Intel processor. It costs approximately $999 per chip, which is the same price as the i7-975. (It's therefore no surprise that the Core i7-975 will be going away soon.) The Core i7-980 is truly a "drop-in" replacement, since it shares the same LGA-1366 socket as the i7-975 (and i7-920, i7-960, etc.). You should be able to use the most recent motherboards with an Intel X58 Express chipset; all you'll have to do is flash the motherboard's firmware before you install the chip. The usual suspects will have BIOS updates available on their Websites: Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Foxconn, EVGA, Biostar, etc.

The Core i7-980X has six cores and comes with Intel's Hyper-threading technology. This means it can work on twelve streams at once. This is a boon for people that need multi-processing, like graphics professionals transcoding videos, or people doing 3D rendering in software (think CGI). Like previous Core i7 systems, the i7-980X has TurboBoost, which can turn off some of the cores and give that power to the remaining cores (if, for example, your photo editing program can only address two cores). It also can "boost" all six cores above the usual 3.33-GHz specs, as long as the CPU cooler can keep up with the heat output. Intel can do this because it builds a large amount of overhead into its chip design, so that its new standard cooling fan can handle the occasional spike in thermal energy. Needless to say, this on-demand overclocking won't be constant, but most of the time a computer is waiting for you, rather than vice versa.

Another boost in performance is the result of the larger 12MB L3 cache on the processor (up from 8MB on the Core i7-975). The L3 cache is a holding cell for the data the CPU is processing, and more L3 cache means that the CPU has to access the relatively slower DDR3 memory less often. The cache will help speed up single-threaded tasks like gaming, though as seen in our testing, the choice of GPU is still more important to the hardcore gamer..

Not surprisingly, the Core i7-980X will show up on gaming PCs first, like the Maingear Shift and Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i-980X). Well-heeled gamers are exactly the type of consumer who will crave a $6,000+ system with a $1,000 processor and $1,500 worth of graphics cards. Gaming system builders have a lot of experience combining the extra overhead in the CPU's thermal envelope with liquid cooling to bump the stock 3.33GHz clock speed up to as much as 4.3GHz while running heavy loads. The overclocked processors still cool down while idle, so they're not running at full speed all the time.

So, is it worth it? Yes and no. Our performance tests with the Falcon Northwest Mach V and Maingear Shift show a significant performance bump in multi-threaded tasks like CineBench R10 (a doubling of performance from the mid-range Core i7-870). There's also a significant speed bump for the PCMark Vantage test, which is multi-threaded and measures day-to-day tasks. However gaming tests still depend more on the graphics you put into the system, with the credit going to multi-GPU systems rather than multi-core CPUs. The multimedia tests are starting to reach a plateau of diminishing returns: while the scores are still getting faster, having an ultra-fast quad core and SSDs are "enough" for tasks like Windows Media Encoder and PhotoShop CS4. Throwing two more cores at the multimedia tasks won't help at this time. Maybe they will help when Adobe releases CS5; time will tell. (story Link)

256GB USB Flash Drive from Kingston

Kingston has introduced new DataTraveler 310 USB Flash Drive with a massive 256GB capacity. This device is better than the 256GB DataTraveler 300, thanks to DataTraveler 310's faster data transfer speeds. This USB Flash Drive is available in India for Rs. 48,380 and is backed by a warranty of five years.
New Kingston DataTraveler 310 can hold up to 54 DVD worth data in its 256GB capacity. It offers read speeds of 25MB/s and write speeds of 12MB/s. While the DT 300 offered read speeds of 20MB/s and write speeds of 10MB/s. Kingston DataTraveler 310's dimensions are - 2.90-inch x 0.87-inch x 0.63-inch (73.70mm x 22.20mm x 16.10mm). This Flash Drive also features Password Traveler software. Using that software, consumers can create and access a password-protected privacy zone.
DataTraveler 310 is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X 10.3 or higher and OSes with Linux Kernel 2.6.1 or above. However, the Password Traveler software works only in Windows platform (Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000).

As mentioned earlier, this new DT 310 also supports Windows ReadyBoost feature. Windows Vista and Windows 7 Essential make use of Flash memory based mass storage system as drive for disk cache and thus can be used as additional memory.
This pricey USB Flash Drive is meant for those who're always on the move and need to take large, critical data on a tiny device. It's a miniature alternative to portable HDD drive in terms of size. (story Link)

Following a successful run with the codenamed R700 family of GPUs, which was originally released back in June 2008 as the Radeon HD 4000 series, AMD is launching the highly anticipated R800. Debuting to no one's surprise as the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series, on our test bed today we have a reference HD 5870 graphics card packing some 2150 million transistors and produced on a 40nm process.

The new Radeon HD 5000 series is said to deliver around 2x more performance than previous generation Radeon cards, and brings DirectX 11 support to desktops for the first time. Even while Nvidia is downplaying the latter, AMD sees it as a great advantage and expects DX11-capable games to start shipping before the end of the year.

Nvidia will also support DirectX 11 on future hardware of course, but the way things are going it looks as though we'll still have to wait a few months before their response to the new Radeon HD line arrives.

AMD's pricing strategy with the Radeon HD 5000 series will be quite interesting too, as for the first time in a long while the company will be looking to take the performance crown from Nvidia. Previous generation ATI graphics cards have been unable to compete with the fastest Nvidia solutions, forcing AMD to heavily discount their products in an effort to deliver better value.

In the end the Radeon HD 4850 was competing with the much older GeForce 9800 GTX, while the Radeon HD 4870 ran somewhat unopposed at $299. At this price point the 4870 delivered an impressive level of performance, though it was overshadowed by improved GeForce GTX graphics cards over the next 12 months.

The new Radeon HD 5870 is in a very different position, though. This time around it looks like AMD is not going to be forced into a pricing war as easily -- at least not yet anyway. So for now the HD 5870 makes its debut with an MSRP of $380, while the Radeon HD 5850 is also arriving today priced at around $260.

This makes the Radeon HD 5870 roughly $120 cheaper than today's undisputable performance champ, the GeForce GTX 295. It also makes it almost twice as costly as the Radeon HD 4890, however, which begs the question: is the Radeon HD 5870 really that much faster? Today we finally get to find out, as we will be comparing AMD's latest and greatest against every single high-end graphics card released over the past year. (Full Story Link)

iSlate-iGuide Tablet Rumor Turmoil

techtree.com - Earlier this month, Financial Times reported that Apple had booked Yerba Buena Center for Arts, San Franscisco for a major product announcement on January 26, 2010. Fox News confirmed this with its Apple-based source that the company is holding big event but no details about product were obtained. However, Google China's ex-chief Kaifu Lee wrote on his blog that an informed friend told him that Apple Tablet looks like 10.1-inch iPhone screen with awesome UI. Honestly, just like many others, we had enough of Tablet rumors.

As per Lee's blog post on his blog, the Apple Tablet will be iPhone-esque touchscreen bearing tablet with amazing UI, 3D graphics, virtual keyboard, video conferencing, eBooks, Internet and other functions. All this will come at sub-$1,000 price and most likely be announced on January 26, 2010. It's being said that Lee's current investment venture - Innovation Works has Foxconn

Earlier, MacRumors stated that the Apple Tablet would most likely be called iSlate for the domain acquired by Apple. And now dug up an old Apple trademark which points at iGuide Media, LLC, Delaware-based company. The iGuide Media company's trademark ownership carries signature of Apple's Senior Trademark Specialist Regina Porter.

It appears like iGuide is likely to be some service related to Apple Tablet since the trademark filing reveals computer hardware and computer software for accessing, browsing, searching, recording, organizing, storing, transmitting, receiving, manipulating, streaming, reproducing, playing, and reviewing audio, video, games, music, television, movies, photographs, and other multimedia content. (full story)

world's first 3D camera from Fujifilm

Fujifilm Corporation, Japan, one of the world's largest photographic solutions company, today announced the launch of "FinePix REAL 3D System", which it said is its groundbreaking new imaging technology.
Fuji said this is the world's first 3D (three dimensional) digital imaging system that lets users enjoy 3D images with naked eye without the need for wearing special 3D glasses. The revolutionary 3D system consists of FinePix REAL 3D W1, the 3D camera; FinePix REAL 3D V1, an 8 inch viewer on which spectacular 3D images can be displayed; and 3D Print, Fujifilm's high precision production technology that enables users to print 3D images.
Kenichi Tanaka, managing director, Fujifilm India, said, "Fujifilm believes in bringing the latest of its technological innovations to the discerning buyers in India. In accordance with our strategy to become one of the top digital camera brands in India and acquire 15 per cent market share in three years, we shall continue to introduce digital camera models that are world's first in some aspect."
"Fujifilm invented the digital camera and we continue to lead technological innovations in the imaging industry. We wish to assure buyers that when they buy a Fujifilm digital camera, they are getting the best value for money," said A. Rajkumar, country general manager (DSC), Fujifilm India.
To achieve a 3D image, it is necessary to flawlessly layer together two images. So two Fujinon lenses, renowned for their high resolution and exquisite rendering, are installed in the camera. A 3x optical zoom, deemed difficult to achieve in 3D photography because of the precision required to align two lenses, has also been achieved, said a press release.
The engine of the camera synchronizes data passed to it by the two lenses and two CCD sensors, to determine shooting conditions such as focus, brightness and tonality to instantaneously blend this information into a single symmetrical image. (full Story)

5 Million Samsung Stars Sold After it went on sale in May

Looks like the Koreans are having a ball this year. Just days after the news of LG Arena is selling over a million units surfaced, here's some more. Samsung now reports that it has sold just over 5 million units of its mid range device, the Star 5230, since it went on sale the previous quarter.
In this scenario, Samsung's target of selling over 10 million Samsung Stars seems right on track! The Star 5230 is also known as the Tocco Lite in some markets. It went on sale in May and was an instant hit, as made obvious by the sales figures. Back then, it offered a nice combination of features and price and the "privilege" of owning a touchscreen handset, without actually creating a hole in your wallet. As for the sales figures, in the first month, about 7,00,000 units were sold. June saw Samsung shipping 9,00,000 of them, while July and August brought sales of 1.6 million and 1.8 million units respectively.
The Start 5230 offers users a WQVGA display, DNSe, a 3 megapixel camera and a lot of other multimedia features in a slim form factor. (story Link)

MSI's AMD-Powered U210 up for pre-order

With no official press release in sight, the MSI Wind U210 AMD Neo-based netbook is now available stateside on pre-order. This diminutive ultra-portable packs quite a punch - offering a 12.1-inch LCD, 250GB HDD, 2GB RAM, a 6-cell battery providing up to five hours of run time and a weight of only 3.2 pounds (1.45kg).

The U210 is based on MSI’s Wind U200, but runs on an AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 1.6GHz CPU instead of an Intel CULV processor. This ultra-compact netbook also squeezes in an ATI Radeon X1250 GPU, a 16:9 HD WXGA display with 1366 x 768 resolution, WiFi b/g/n, an HDMI port and a 1.3-megapixel webcam.

Measuring just 7.4″ (18.8cm) x 11.7″ (29.7cm) x 1.2″ (3.05cm) the U210 isn’t quite as slim as MSI’s X600 Notebook we saw recently - but the width, depth and weight make for a very portable netbook indeed.

The MSI Wind U210 comes with Windows Vista Home Premium and is available now on pre-order in either white (U210-006US) or black (U210-008US) for a very reasonable $429.99 from Amazon.com.

Lenovo Moving into Theater PCs, Servers for the Home

Lenovo representatives said Tuesday that the company will enter the "digital lifestyle" category with four new desktops and one laptop, two of which expand Lenovo's reach into home theater PCs and home servers. The most interesting addition is the IdeaCentre Q700, a home theater PC designed to take on rivals from HP and others. Lenovo has paired the Q700 with the IdeaCentre D400, the company's first Windows Home Server box. Both cost $499.

Lenovo also debuted a pair of Atom-based nettops, the Q100 and Q110, which will be priced at $249 and $349, respectively. Finally, Lenovo announced the U450p notebook, which will be priced at $799. The D400 and the two net-tops are available in mid-September; all of the others are available now.

All of the products will be formally announced on Wednesday, a Lenovo spokeswoman said. The Q series, according to Lenovo, "offers a range of PC products to complement the home theater experience and simplify the living room or study."

For Lenovo, the move continues a homecoming of sorts into the consumer market. IBM, which sold its PC assets to Lenovo in 2004, had long since pulled out of the U.S. consumer market, focusing on its corporate customers and its ThinkPad strategy. Lenovo had followed that business focus until about January 2008, when the company debuted the IdeaCentre and IdeaPad and launched all-in-one PCs to boot.

The addition of the new products will make Lenovo a "well-rounded partner" in the consumer space, according to Charles Farmer, a consumer products marketing manager for Lenovo.

With the Q700, Lenovo included the choice of Intel Core 2 Duo processors (either the E5200, E5300, or E7500), up to 2 terabytes of internal storage, 8 USB ports, plus an eSATA port for external hard drives. The box supports up to 1920-by-1080 (or 1080p) video and graphics (either the Intel GMA 950 or GMA X4500), as well as 7.1-channel surround sound. The unit ships with Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. A TV tuner is optional. The Q700 runs on Windows Vista Home Premium 64.

Lenovo said it believes that the Q100 and Q110 nettops are the industry's thinnest, at just 6 inches x 6.3 inches x 0.7 inches thin. Both use the Intel Atom 230 processor, but the Q110 adds an Nvidia Ion processor, making it capable of decoding HD video and DirectX 10 graphics. In addition, the Q110 doubles the gigabyte of RAM found in the Q100 to 2 Gbytes, and bumps up the storage from 160 Gb ytes to 250 Gbytes. Lenovo is touting the Q100 as a low-power contender, pulling 14 watts while in idle and 40 watts at full operation. (full Story)

A hands-on review of the HTC Hero

A couple of months ago HTC announced a new handset called the Hero. Even though it was powered by Android, it was much different than other Android-powered phones such as the G1 and the HTC Magic in the sense that it wasn't Google-branded and also brought along a new user-experience dubbed as the HTC Sense UI.

Looking at the preview of this beauty, I was much appealed by what it had to offer and also because I got quite bored of using my iPhone, so I went ahead and purchased the HTC Hero. So here comes a detailed review:

The body of the phone is what makes it feel like it has come from heaven. It has a fully teflon-coated back which takes it to the next level of smoothness and gives the bearer a great pleasure in holding this little beauty.

Other noticeable features of the phone include, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a trackball, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera, an SD slot and a 1350mAh Lithium-ion battery.

Now there might have been some debate over whether the 528Mhz processor on the back-end makes the Hero an underpowered phone but in my say, it does not. The processor is as good, and even better than many other smartphones out in the market so it all comes down to how many apps you plan to run simultaneously. As in case of the iPhone, its only one app at a time so comparing Hero to the iPhone does not do full justice.

The OS on the phone is an up-lifted version of the Android cupcake with new icons, better navigation and the HTC Sense UI which provides up to 7 workspace screens with custom widgets and addons.

Battery-timing of the phone was what impressed me the most. It managed to survive through a complete day with EDGE turned on 24/7 on the backend and trust me on this one, no one uses EDGE like I do.

Notes to Follow

For those planning to buy this phone, here are some notes to follow:

1. Its Android, so make sure you get a preview of it before going out to purchase an Android phone for the first time.
2. Don't compare it to the iPhone since both have different classes, one has full multitasking features while the other doesn't.
3. Speed is not an issue on this phone as the rumors say, its all about how many apps you want to run in the background.

Good news is that HTC will soon be rolling out an update for the Hero that will make its UI even more fast and snappy. I would definitely recommend this phone to anyone who is tired of the iPhone and wants a change, and also to those who want to experience Android for the first time. (story with Thanks)

Apple Tablet to be available this September

Apple has always managed to keep a lot of things secret around its campus but what really isn't a secret anymore is the fact that Apple will be launching a Tablet soon.

Even though Apple has previously denied that it would ever be planning to enter the Netbook market, it still doesn't keep us away from thinking that Apple is probably working on something more catchy and innovative, that would eventually turn out to be a Tablet media device.

According to 9to5mac, the new Apple Tablet device may have already been previewed by an un-named analyst and that he predicts for it to be announced by Apple at an event somewhere in September.

The un-named analyst has also suggested that the Tablet device will be shipped in November, for a price of around $700-$800 and will focus on experiences such as Movies, E-book reading and Gaming. (with Thanks)

Sony, Best Buy Debut Custom 'Altus' Electronics

Sony and Best Buy announced Tuesday that they will partner on a new line of audio products, dubbed Altus.  The Altus line will include wireless music systems, as well as speakers and home theater products, the companies said. Most of the products are currently available for pre-order on sonystyle.com and will be in Best Buy stores in September. They will include two iPod docking systems.

The $700 ALT-SA31iR will include an iPod/iPhone docking station and two high-output wireless speakers. It will also feature an AM/FM tuner, and an S-AIR remote control with LCD display. That display will show album, artist and track information.

Its smaller counterpart, the AIR-SW10Ti, will include a compact docking station with two built-in speakers and a wireless subwoofer. It has a maximum output of 60 watts RMS and includes an infrared remote control and FM tuner. It will also be able to transmit wireless audio with other Altus and S-AIR products. It will retail for $400. Both products are available for pre-order and will be in Best Buy stores in September.

On the wireless PC front, Sony is introducing two multi-room packages.  The ALT-SA32PC includes an S-AIR transmitter that connects to your computer via USB and two high-output wireless speakers. The USB connection will stream audio from your PC to the speakers wirelessly. It will retail for $500.  The ALT-A33PC also has the USB S-AIR transmitter for wireless audio, but includes a universal receiver that will connect to other audio products via RCA outputs so users can stream to other music systems. It will retail for $200.

Altus will also feature the $350 ALT-SA34R Socket Speaker package, which includes wireless speakers that plug into any power outlet and are controllable via LCD remote. (full Story)

iRiver to launch an android based iPod Touch rival?

There are some reports circulating on the web that iRiver is developing a portable media player which will challenge the most awesome digital media player ever produced, the iPod touch. Named as K2, the gadget is expected to be launched in 2010.

According to a report on an Australian news website, K2 will run on the Android platform. The gadget will have a 3.5 inch touch screen, a built-in browser, wifi, bluetooth, accelerometer and a possible digital TV tuner. K2 is still in its initial phase therefore it is not yet clear that whether the touch screen would fully compat with the human touch or a stylus would be used. The memory capacity of the PMP has also not been revealed.

Though the Portable media player will surely not have the luxury of Apple's app store or the iTunes sync feature but still it would be a great challenge to Apple's iPod touch. Being an android based gadget, K2 will most probably have the access to the android based open source third party software.

The gadget is still a rumor and it is not yet confirmed whether it gets the approval by the company or not. If green-signaled the gadget would bring some sort of competition with Apple which would eventually result in further improvement in the newer version of Apple's iPod Touch. The Austrailian site also reported that iRiver is also working on an ebook reader and an internet tablet. (story With Thanks)

Hands On with the Thin Dell Inspiron 11z

What does the "z" in the Dell Inspiron 11z stand for? Z-height, and Dell's intent to create the absolute thinnest laptop available for that screen size.

And, as the name suggests, the 11z has an 11.6-inch widescreen and is the first Inspiron laptop to bear the "z" moniker (the "z" parade started with the Dell Studio 14z). Note that it doesn't have the "Mini" brand: Dell is not calling this a netbook, even though 11-inch netbooks like the Asus eeePC 1101HA and the Acer Aspire One A0751h are already shipping. The 11z's biggest differentiator is that it runs a 1.2-GHz, Intel Ultra Low Voltage Celeron processor instead of the more commonly found Atom. Everything else, however, smells like a netbook.

Like all Dell Inspiron models, the 11z can be customized with up to 7 colors; the one we played with was draped in Alpine White. The 11z is slightly wider than the Inspiron Mini 10v and almost as thin. It weighs about 3 pounds with a 3-cell battery (a 6-cell will be offered at a later date), which is slightly heavier than the 1101HA and the A0751h, whose frames include 6-cell batteries at about the same weight.

The best part about an 11.6-inch widescreen is that you don't have to suffer the 1,024-by-600 resolutions found in 10-inch netbooks like the Toshiba mini NB205 and the Mini 10v; the 11z, like the A0751h and the 1101HA, has a 1,366-by-768 resolution. Its keyboard, unfortunately, is not full sized like that of the A0751h. At 92 percent of full size, it delivers a typing experience touch typists can adjust to, though, similar to the 92-percent ones found in the 10v and the 1101HA. The large touchpad is like that of the 10v, in which the mouse buttons are concealed within it.

Feature-wise, it has what the 1101HA and the A0751h lack: an HDMI-Out port. This handy port allows you to stream all those downloaded videos to an HDTV (or larger display) that supports the format. It also comes standard with a 250-Gbyte spinning hard drive, which is impressive when most netbooks standardize on 160 GB. Otherwise, the three USB ports, Ethernet, and a media card reader are consistent with those of a netbook. (full Story)

Crunchpad to make a November release

For those of you who have been keeping up with the news and announcements related to Crunchpad, the Tablet PC by TechCrunch, well all we can say for now is that it is real and its coming this November. So what features will the Crunchpad boast of?

For one, its a Tablet PC with a 12-inch screen and will mainly be used for browsing the web and doing web-related tasks. All apps on the Crunchpad will be web-based and we are still unsure if it possesses any media capabilities such as watching movies or listening to music.

It will feature a custom web-kit browser which shall be running over a custom Linux OS. There will be Wi-Fi and 3G access and also one USB port to handle/transfer data to a thumb drive.

Apart from this, there is nothing that the Crunchpad can do so we hardly believe that it will be any match for the supposed Apple Tablet that is to come in September this year. The Crunchpad will be probably priced around $400. Michael Arrington from TechCrunch will be officially introducing the device at an event somewhere in August. (with Thanks)

Facebook and Twitter apps coming for Xbox Live

A new feature for the Xbox Live Dashboard was announced at E3 recently where Microsoft took the stage to show off a full Facebook integration on the Xbox Live. With this new update you can do all kinds of the social cliche stuff, like link up your Facebook friends and Xbox Live friends, and upload and share photos, or can even update your status right from your console.

Apart from this, a Twitter integration was also announced. Everything you do from your PC to keep in touch with the world can now be done right from your console.

Microsoft later on however stated that the Twitter and Facebook integrations for Xbox 360 will be individual apps instead of being part of a general dashboard update.

One of Microsoft’s marketing people, James Halton said the company is aiming for a release date around Autumn, but didn’t specify beyond that. He did although mention that say "it will be before Christmas" so there you have it, Facebook and twitter addicts can start pouncing on their consoles before this fall.

Logging onto Korea's 4G WiMAX Network

PCMag editor in chief Lance Ulanoff and I are in Korea for the week, and I spent much of the day talking about and testing WiMAX - what the Koreans call WiBro (wireless broadband.) The Korean technology is exactly what Clearwire is currently installing in cities like Baltimore, Portland, and Atlanta, albeit on a different frequency.

WiBro launched in April 2007, and it's available across the Seoul metropolitan area. That's only one city, but it's half the Korean population. KT, the service provider, said they have about 300,000 subscribers for a range of plans priced at $10/month for 1GB, $20/month for 30GB or $27/month for 50GB of usage.

The WiBro experience in Seoul shows what true, high-speed wireless could feel like if it's done right. Deep in the Seoul subway system, Samsung hooked us up with adorable, candy-colored N310 netbooks with AnyCall USB WiBro modems. We pulled down fearsome speeds:  4.3 megabits down and 1.5 megabits up while sitting still in a station, and 4.1 megabits down and 900 kilobits up while zooming along on a train. Streaming video was a snap.

The experience reminded me: it's not the technology, it's the buildout. In recent WiMAX tests in Baltimore, I got a fraction of the speed I got in the Seoul subway. WiMAX requires a solid network of well-placed transmitters with plenty of backhaul to work well. If you go cheap on the buildout, you end up with lousy speeds.

At the "W Style Shop" showroom, I also discovered that there are a lot more WiMAX devices than Clearwire or Sprint have let on about. Aside from WiMAX laptops, I saw a handheld WiMAX-to-Wi-Fi router called the "Egg," two (two!) WiMAX phones (one shown at left), a USB modem that doubles as an MP3 player, and a WiMAX powered navigation device.

The WiMAX phones were the most interesting, of course. They used WiMAX to do video calling, and "ordinary" 3G cellular to make voice calls. True VOIP over WiMAX, with the appropriate quality of service measures to make it sound non-crappy, is coming soon to Korea.

I've been frustrated with Clearwire's buildout and marketing for a while, and this just made me more frustrated. While Korea bounds into 4G with various devices, Clear is moving much more slowly. I'll have another post about Clear's most interesting device, the Samsung Mondi, soon.

Apple’s Time Capsule at 2TB

Apple has updated the storage space of what appears to be its flagship backup appliance, also known as the Time Capsule.

The Time Capsule by Apple allows users to backup the data on their Macs and PCs wirelessly and also allows them to share the storage space as a wireless drive on their Mac computers, PCs, iPhone or Apple TV.

The new model is now available for a price of $499 and offers a server-grade storage of 2 Terabytes, double the capacity of its previous model but at the same price. The old-model of the Time Capsule is now available for only $299.

It also supports the new features introduced for Time Capsules earlier this year, namely the simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi which makes the Time Capsule work on dual bands at the same time and Guest Networking, which enables one to setup a secondary network for guests and visitors. (with Thanks)