Month: March 2008

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New Stretchy Circuits. Electronic Brain Will be Coming Soon!!!

Chip-strech

Normally fragile and brittle silicon chips have been made to bend and fold, paving the way for a new generation of flexible electronic devices.

Completely integrated, extremely bendable circuits have been talked about for many years but have not been demonstrated before

The complex devices consist of concertina-like folds of ultra-thin silicon bonded to sheets of rubber.

Writing in the journal Science, the US researchers say the chip’s performance is similar to conventional electronics.

The stretchy circuits could be used to build advanced brain implants, health monitors or smart clothing.

source:bbc

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Watch TV Using SlingPlayer in your Mobile

slingPlayer

Sling Media say that using their set up, any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via a PC or Mac, as well as UIQ on Symbian OS, Symbian S60, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile-based smartphones anywhere you can get an internet connection (3G cellular or Wi-Fi).

This is because Sling Media has announced it is to release SlingPlayer Mobile for UIQ worldwide this summer and expects the new version of SlingPlayer Mobile for S60 to be available this spring – and – good news for N95 owners, its existing SlingPlayer Mobile for S60 on Symbian OS will soon support Nokia’s N95 8GB. BlackBerry compatibility is expected soon too.

Sling Media expects to support the following UIQ handsets at launch and will continue to expand handset support thereafter: Sony Ericsson P1i, P990i, W960i, W950i, M600i and Motorola MOTORIZR Z8. Slingbox customers have to buy SlingPlayer Mobile application for a one-time charge of $20.

source:sling

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New KF300 Slim Fashion Phone by LG

 KF300

LG finally revealed the mysterious LG KF300 – a name tag that surfaced not long ago without any further information available. As it turns out, the LG KF300 is the GSM variant of the CDMA-only LG SV300 Wine phone.

The KF300, to be brutally honest, while it looks slim and sleek does give off a bit of a girls-only type vibe. And that’s not a bad thing ladies. It’s a flip phone with a 2.2-inch QVGA display on the inside and a 1.3-inch TFT screen on the outside. The external screen has a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and the inside has a 240 x 320 pixel resolution with 256K colors. It’s quite the feature rich phone with a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus to boot, Bluetooth, microSD card support, an FM radio as well as a media player. The KF300 will also support EDGE / GPRS. From the images you’ll also see that there are also a few shortcut keys located right under the screen. It also has a five way nav-pad and rather large keys which is surely a good thing.

The LG KF300 will be available in black and pink. Unfortunately there seems to be no price tag associated with the handset yet.

source:gsmarena

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Photoshop for Free, New Web Version Introduced

 photoshop express

The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop today launched a basic version available for free online.

San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. says it hopes to boost its name recognition among a new generation of consumers who edit, store and share photos online.

While Photoshop is designed for trained professionals, Adobe says Photoshop Express, which it launched in a ”beta” test version, is easier to learn. User comments will be taken into account for future upgrades.

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

Many kinds of software are available for use online in a trend known as ”software as a service,” or ”cloud computing.” The earliest were e-mail programs, but they now include services to create and manage content and even whole operating systems. And they don’t require time-consuming upgrades because they’re maintained by the service provider.

Google Inc. provides a host of such services, as do Microsoft Corp. and others.

”This is the battlefield where Adobe and Microsoft and Google are going to fight some pretty big battles,” Maher said.

Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that’s in the works.

source:tech2

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Motorola Inc in Trouble? “Split in Motorola”

Motorola

Motorola Inc. announced plans to separate its struggling handset business from other operations Wednesday, forming two separate publicly traded companies after months of agitation from frustrated investors.

The suburban Chicago-based cell phone maker has been under pressure from billionaire investor Carl Icahn for changes meant to revitalize its cell-phone business. The cell phone unit has seen its sales and stock price plummet with the company unable to produce second act to the once-popular Razr phone.

Motorola said the handset business will operate separately from another company that will encompass its home and networks business, which sells TV set-top boxes and modems, and its enterprise mobility solutions, which sells computing and communications equipment to businesses.

Last year, the company pulled back from developing markets, cut 7,500 jobs and CEO Ed Zander resigned.

A flock of executives have left the company this year, and more cuts and changes are likely as the new management team scrambles to retain control in the face of a revived threat from Icahn.

Icahn, who has been steadily increasing his Motorola position, disclosed in a filing this month that he now owns 142,362,000 million shares, or 6.3 percent – up from 5 percent a month ago.

Wednesday’s announcement came two days after Icahn sued Motorola, seeking documents about its executives and its cell phone business.

 source:tech2

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Windows Mobile 6.1 Releasing Soon

Win Mob 6.1

Microsoft will announce the much-rumoured refresh to its mobile phone operating system, Windows Mobile, on 1 April 2008.

An improvement over Windows Mobile 6 released in February 2007 the new version, unsurprisingly named 6.1, will be a stop-gap measure to keep both consumers and industry happy until the launch of Windows Mobile 7.

Leaked screenshots of 6.1 have already done the rounds in the blogosphere, and show the system has been simplified with the screens displaying less mess than the Vista-inspired version 6.

A new look with new fonts, new homescreen and new features such as a task manager and copying and pasting in Internet Explorer all bode well for users of Microsoft’s OS for handhelds.

source:pocket-lint

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Yahoo, MySpace & Google Have Agreed to Form The OpenSocial

OpenSocial

Yahoo, MySpace, and Google have announced they have agreed to form the OpenSocial Foundation in order to “ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web.”

OpenSocial, launched by Google last year, is a common set of APIs for applications across multiple websites that will allow for cross-platform widgets.

The companies say that Yahoo’s support of OpenSocial and role as a founding member of the new foundation are “landmarks” for the rapidly growing specification which will now offer developers the potential to connect with more than 500 million people worldwide.

This move could be seen to put pressure on non-members, such as Microsoft and Facebook, to sign up.

The OpenSocial Foundation will be an independent non-profit entity that will be in place by July 1, 2008.

 source:pocket-lint

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New Lumix DMC-FX500 with Touch-screen and Joystick by Panasonic

DMC-FX500

Panasonic recently announced the Lumix DMC-FX500 — the company’s first digital camera with a 3-inch touch-screen LCD – also featuring a 25mm ultra-wide-angle Leica DC lens, 5x optical zoom and 10.1 megapixels.

The FX500 features a dual control system using touch-screen and joystick operation, the ability to record high definition (HD) video and advanced intelligent auto (iAuto) technologies.

Panasonic’s iA (Intelligent Auto) mode is an advanced system of technologies that engage automatically, so the user does not have to change any settings. Maximizing the iA mode, users can go a step further and easily set auto focus and exposure by simply touching the screen.

The Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FX500 will be available in black and silver models for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $399.95 in the US by May 2008.

 source:tech2

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World’s Fastest Blu-Ray writer ‘6x max’, Introdused by LG

LG-Blu Ray

LG Electronics is officially announcing the launch of a Blu-ray writer that has Blu-ray writing speed of 6x Max.

This is an IDE device that can be mounted on any existing Desktop PC. While a normal CD has a storage capacity of approximately 700 MB, a double layer Blu-ray can actually store up to 50 GB of data.

LG maintains that approximately 35 Bollywood movies can be stored in one Blu-ray Disc.

R Manikandan, Business Group Head, IT Division, LGEIL said, “LG has been world’s No.1 in Optical Drives for 9 continuous years by leading the technology and speed innovation. By launching this world’s fastest Blu-ray writer with a 6x max write speed, LG again leads the pack. We believe in offering the best products to our consumers and this Blu-ray Writer is a step forward in the same direction.”

The LG Blu-ray writer is available in the market at an approximate of 780$.

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4Gb DDR2-1066 aXeRam Introduced By Transcend

aXeRam

Transcend has introduced its 4GB aXeRam Extreme Performance DDR2-1066+ dual-channel memory kit designed specifically for overclocking in the Indian market. This kit includes a matching pair of 1066MHz tested and verified 2GB DDR2-1066+ modules, which provide dual-channel memory bandwidth of up to 17GB/s. The 240-pin unbuffered DIMMs included in the kit are each made of 16 high-quality 128Mx8 DDR2 DRAM chips.

This new product also includes support for Enhanced Performance Profiles (EPP), which allow users to automatically configure EPP-enabled motherboards with aggressive memory settings for better memory and system performance, especially when using dual video cards.

The Extreme Performance kit carries a 3 year warranty. However the price of the product is not known as of right now.

source:tech2