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Dell, Microsoft Team on Product Red PCs !

Red-PC

Dell and Microsoft are teaming up to release a Product Red computer, donating up to US$80 for every one sold to fund AIDS-fighting drugs in Africa.

Dell will start selling two (Red) laptops and one desktop running Microsoft Windows Vista on Friday. The two companies will donate US$50 for a laptop and US$80 for a desktop to the Global Fund, which finances health programs in Africa.

(Red), founded by U2 singer Bono and Bobby Shriver, works to develop co-branded products with companies such as Motorola, Apple and Gap, which then donate a portion of the proceeds for antiretroviral drugs.

Microsoft said it expects “several hundred thousand” (Red) Dell PCs to be sold in 2008. The PCs, designed in part by Bono, will have a distinctive red casing and the Windows interface will feature a red background and sidebar.

“My job is to put some poetry in the machine, put some funk in the machines,” Bono said in an interview with Reuters.

(Red) has raised US$53 million for the Global Fund since it was founded in 2006. Bono, who expects to exceed that figure in 2008 alone, said the organisation lost some potential partners after a critical article in Advertising Age questioned the effectiveness of the campaign.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who provided some of the seed money for (Red), defended the group, saying it has saved lives that would have otherwise been lost.

“I guess you can criticise even life-saving activities. I don’t know how, but if somebody has a better idea than (Red) to save more lives, we are all ears,” said Gates in an interview. “I put it in the category of a creative use of capitalism.”

Gates, Dell and Bono are expected to announce the partnership formally this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The Dell products offered under the (Red) brand will be a XPS One desktop and XPS M1330 and M1530 laptop computers. The products will sell for the same price as regular Dell models.

The computers will go on sale Jan. 25 in the U.S. and then the product will be available in 30 countries on Jan 31

Source: itnews

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Numark and iPod

Numarak

 

 

Numark is known for some extremely fine music equipment with specifications directed toward the DJ market segment. With Apple and the iPod being today’s trendy and premier way to cart your music around, Numark has come up with quite a few devices that cater to the iPod / DJ junkie – and one of their latest devices is a turntable called the TTi.

Although music can be downloaded easily enough via the net and iTunes, what about those golden oldies on vinyl that you’d love to have updated into your device? Numark has considered this query and their solution is in the form of the TTi turntable that includes a Universal Dock for the iPod, USB audio interface, a metal platter and a pitch control.

One of the prime features with the TTi turntable is that users can easily transfer old vinyl collections to an iPod directly. The included software bundle archives records directly to the user’s iTunes Library for transfer to CD or any MP3 player. The software also reduces noisy pops and clicks inherent on some old vinyl recordings.

Owners of iPod (Classic or 5th generation) and iPod Nano (2nd or 3rd generation) can record from vinyl directly to an iPod without a computer. People with other iPod models can transfer captured vinyl recordings to their iPods by using iTunes to transfer the tracks after recording.

 

Source: numark

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Seitz Launches 160 Megapixel Digicam

Seitz

Swiss company Seitz Phototechnik has just launched a whopping 160 megapixel digital camera. While most high-end D-SLRs can shoot images that size up to 24 x 36 mm, this monster can go up to 60 x 170 mm, which frankly is a helluva lot more. But you kind of guessed that when we mentioned the 160 megapixels, didn’t you?

 

You need to be really serious about the kind of pictures you’d want to shoot with the Seitz 6×17, since it’s around 18 inches wide and weighs close to 10 pounds. Oh, and it also costs $44,414.

 

The 6×17 Digital employs a digital scanning back made by Dalsa. Scanning cameras employ a linear light sensor detector similar to that used in flatbed scanners; it moves across the field of view to take the photo rather than using a two-dimensional sensor that captures the entire scene simultaneously. It’s a good way to get high resolution, but it comes at a cost: it takes a single second to take a full-resolution 7,500×21,500-pixel image.

 

The official site also gives you the option of buying a tablet PC with the Seitz 6×17, which makes sense considering the size of each full-res image would be close to 900 MB.

 

The official site also gives you the option of buying a tablet PC with the Seitz 6×17, which makes sense considering the size of each full-res image would be close to 900 MB.

Source: tech2 

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6x Optical Zoom With Your iPhone !!

6x_iphone

The iPhone may stand out in many ways, but not when you come to its simple 2 megapixel camera. But it seem there may be a way to up that with the Conice 6×18 Zoom Attachment.

 

The device comes with a lens that appears to be as large as the iPhone itself. It comes with a plastic casing with a slot for the lens attachment. What it does (besides weigh down your iPhone considerably by another 4.69 ounces) is provide the camera with 6x optical zoom for those distant shots.

 

It’s available though DealExtreme and is priced around Rs 580 ($15) but I’m not sure if you’ll be able to get them.

Source: tech2 

 

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iPhone v1.1.3 Hacked

Iphone

The latest craze with iPhone lovers is the v1.1.3 update that’s making techies’ brain cells pop with the kind of features it’s brought to the device. Of course, hackers would no doubt make it their life’s ambition to crack this version too… and what do you know, they have!

Hackers such as Jonathan Zdziarski (who brought the NES emulator to the iPhone) managed to jailbreak the iPhone without having to mess around with the hardware. Before Zdziarski came along, there was a hack that unfortunately required hardware manipulation.

If you’re an iPhone noob, ‘Jailbreaking’ involves cracking the iPhone so that it will allows users to install third party applications that are not official. It allows full read/write access to the file system of the iPhone, which opens it up to manipulation for various purposes (and not just running third party apps).

You can take a look at the hacking via the YouTube video these guys have so graciously put up. Most of the other iPhone sites seem to have lost the video altogether.

Source: tech2

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HP Blackbird 002 Alpha Desktop!!

Hp_blackBird

HP has introduced a new enthusiast level machine; the Blackbird 002 Alpha. This powerful new desktop is based on Intel’s Penryn Core 2 Extreme QX9650 quadcore processor. Graphics processing is handled by a pair of Radeon X2900 video cards with 1GB of video RAM. The system also packs in 2GB of system memory, a 160GB 10,000 rpm hard drive, a 16× combo drive, a 15-in-1 memory card reader, and a 16× DVD-RW drive.

The system also features an Ageia PhysX 100 Series PCI-E accelerator card to boost hardware acceleration in supported games. The system CPU is cooled with a liquid-cooling solution that comes factory-sealed to prevent leakage.

“We’re thrilled to offer gamers the speed and strength of the new Intel architecture,” said Rahul Sood, CTO of HP’s global gaming unit, in a statement. “The HP Blackbird 002 was designed to redefine the gaming experience and delight even the hardest-core user. Intel’s new technology helps us to continue to deliver on that promise.”

The Blackbird 002 Alpha comes with Microsoft Vista Home Premium and sells for a starting price of $5,499 (for the base model).

Source: tech2 

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First Android Prototype!!

Android

 

A La Mobile is a small software developer dedicated to Linux-based platforms and open source technology. However, it was today that this virtually unknown start-up began to make history, as the small company unveiled today the very first suit of applications based on the brand new Google-endorsed operating system, Android.

The company chose to install its applications on a smart mobile phone made by HTC, the Qtek 9090. The suite of applications includes a Google browser, Google maps, an audio player, a phone dialer for making voice calls, calendar, games, camera, contacts manager, notes, calculator, and others. A La Mobile claimed this is the first Android prototype and it has plans to pitch the suite to mobile phone makers.

A La Mobile also said that the prototype it unveiled on Monday proved that Google’s Android can deliver on its promise of making it easier for cell phone users to get access to all kinds of applications on their handsets.

HTC, the company that created the first smart phone to host Android, is one of the 34 companies in Google’s Open Handset Coalition. However, A La Mobile is not part of the Coalition

Source: usatoday

 

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Many laptops are lighter than MacBook Air

MacBook Air

Apple’s new MacBook Air may be the thinnest laptop on the market, but it isn’t the lightest.

The Air, which Apple announced at the Macworld conference earlier this week, is a super-thin three-pound laptop. It will be available by the end of the month for $1,799.

But Toshiba, Lenovo, Fujitsu and Sony are just some of the companies already making laptops that weigh less than the 3-pound Air. Toshiba’s Portage R500 starts at 1.72 pounds, while Lenovo’s ThinkPad X61 is 2.7 pounds.

The Air “is really similar to a product that we came out with four years ago,” says Sony Senior Vice President Mike Abary

To save space, computer makers cut features. The MacBook Air doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive or an easily swappable battery. Some models of Fujitsu’s Lifebook P1620 come with a battery half as powerful as is standard. The Sony Vaio TZ has an 11.1-inch screen, compared with 15.4 inches on larger Sony models.

Source: usatoday

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Olympus Stylus 790 SW

790 SW

It’s a decent-looking camera that weighs less than 5 ounces also it is available in several other colors.

Olympus took several measures to shield the camera from harm. There’s a floating internal circuit board. The housing for all internal components was cast from one mold, as opposed to several separate pieces riveted together. That reduces the likelihood, Olympus says, of small breaches or fractures. Seals and gaskets are waterproof. And there’s a water-repellent lens coating.

What’s more, the lens is less likely to suffer damage because it doesn’t protrude, as lenses on many other cameras do. Even so, Olympus oddly sells a $15 optional silicone skin to protect it against bumps and scratches.

Important score! the 7.1-mega pixel model produced perfectly fine, if not exceptional, results. The camera did inadvertently snap at least one picture after hitting the ground, but as with any digital camera you can instantly dispose of duds.

Stylus has several useful features common to digital cameras nowadays, including image stabilization (to protect you from the shakes) and face detection (for properly focusing on your subjects’ mugs). It also has a fairly standard 3X optical zoom and more than two-dozen different shooting modes.

Still, some features are missing. I wish the camera had an optical viewfinder rather than making me frame the shots on its 2.5-inch LCD display, which is difficult to make out in direct sun. But I can’t hammer Olympus too hard, because a lot of other point-and-shoots are designed these days without a viewfinder.

I had other quibbles: I’m not crazy about the placement of the zoom controls on the upper portion of the camera’s back side. I’d prefer the controls to be on the top. The on screen menus could be more intuitive.

And Olympus (along with Fujifilm) continues to use a small proprietary memory card type called xD rather than the more universal Secure Digital, or SD, cards.

I heard a slight issue with shutter lag, the time it takes to capture an image after snapping a picture. The lag was a moment longer than on my compact Canon digital camera. That’s a problem when you’re trying to get your kids to pose.

The battery could also last longer. Olympus says you’ll get about 200 pictures on a charge, but battery pooped out after less than half that. It takes about five hours to charge the battery again.

Overall, the Stylus 790 is an excellent choice for people who tend to be hard on their high-tech gear. Though not bulletproof, it’s a good-looking and reasonably priced camera that should more than survive the rigors of an active lifestyle.

Source: usatoday