LaCie’s Rugged Mini external hard drive can take some abuse, can’t wait to get into your pocket

News

  • July 20, 2011 at 2:34 am

0

LaCie Rugged Mini - USB3.0 portable hard drive

The folks at LaCie are known for busting out some of the best looking external storage devices out there; and with their more recent ‘Rugged’ family of hard drives, they have also been toying with the most robust of the bunch.

Here comes the latest addition to the Rugged family, the Rugged Mini, which has been shrunk to a pocketable size while still keeping the trademark orange bumper. The latest drive, which has also been designed by Neil Poulton, is rain, drop and shock resistant, while LaCie claims that a 1-ton car can drive over it and the drive will still work.
continue reading

Official: Mac Os X Lion available tomorrow

News

  • July 19, 2011 at 4:54 pm

0

Mac Os X Lion

During today’s earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, has announced that the latest Mac OS X Lion will be available tomorrow exclusively from the Mac App Store.

Lion will be available to Mac users as a 4GB downloadable update for a $29.99 price tag. The latest Mac OS X version is bringing 250 new features including additional multi-touch gestures, full-screen apps and the new Mission Control and Launchpad — allowing better control of your desktop and applications.
continue reading

Nokia Sea Ray Windows Phone 7 smartphone strutting its stuff on video

News

  • July 19, 2011 at 3:38 pm

0

Nokia Sea Ray Windows Phone 7 smartphone

The first Windows Phone 7 smartphone to come from Nokia, code-named ‘Sea Ray’, was first showcased last month in a leaked internal video from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. Today, a new video has surfaced, demonstrating the curvy phone in its 360-degree glory.

The Sea Ray sports a design similar to the Nokia N9, which was announced in June this year. Elop had revealed that the smartphone would have a Gorilla Glass curved display and a ‘pillow-shaped’ design.
continue reading

How to: Pre-download a map area in Google Maps for Android

GuidesNews

  • July 11, 2011 at 7:42 am

4

Google Maps 5.7 for Android - Download map area

One of our biggest frustrations with Google Maps for devices has been that you couldn’t set the application to pre-download a specific area, city or country. So, if you were travelling to, let’s say France, with no data access — unless you opted to enable very costly data roaming — what you could end up looking at was a not-so-helpful blurry image, like the one below.
continue reading

Sony will cease production of MiniDisc Walkmans

News

  • July 10, 2011 at 4:43 pm

1

Sony MiniDisc Walkman

Sony has announced that, after almost 20 years, it will terminate production of MiniDisc Walkman portable media players (PMPs) as of the coming September. It has however promised to continue to support the format by producing MiniDisc media. Sony will also continue making bookshelf stereos with a MiniDisc slot.

The MiniDisc format, which was introduced in 1992, saw mixed success in the US and Europe but was hugely popular in Japan. Sony’s format was poised to replace the analogue cassette as a re-recordable media format. MiniDiscs also featured a protected surface, unlike CDs prone to scratches format, and better anti-skip protection.
continue reading

Skype for Android with video chat official for some, unofficially for Galaxy S II, HTC Evo 3D, Thunderbolt, Sensation and others

GuidesNews

  • July 1, 2011 at 7:37 am

40

Skype for Android with video calls

Skype released yesterday a new version of its Android app, v2.0.0.45, which brings much awaited free Skype-to-Skype video calls over 3G or WiFi.

Unfortunately, although everyone can download the updated application, official support for video chatting is restricted to the Google Nexus S (excluding the US Google Nexus S 4G), HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo and Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro, at least for now.

It didn’t take long though for the Android modding community to fiddle with the installation APK file and allow support for more handsets. You can find the modded files and installation instructions after the break.
continue reading

Olympus announces three new Micro Four Thirds PEN compact cameras

News

  • June 30, 2011 at 6:39 am

0

Olympus new PEN cameras: E-P3, E-PL3 and E-PM1

Great news for all Micro Four Thirds (MFT) camera fans; Olympus has just announced three new cameras for the world’s favorite compact interchangeable lens system. The new PEN compact system cameras feature an updated 12.3-megapixel Live MOS Image Sensor combined with a TruePic VI Image processor that should allow you to capture images at ISO’s up to 12,800.

Olympus is claiming a reengineered autofocus system–we’re glad they’ve been paying attention–full 1080i HD video recording, re-designed user interface and of course a variety of Art Filters.
continue reading

HTC Sensation death grip, part 2: a simple touch

News

  • June 26, 2011 at 12:53 pm

1

HTC Sensation 'death grip' simply by touching

Our initial tests showed that, by holding the HTC Sensation with both hands, Wi-Fi signal drops or can even be lost completely. Although holding it with both hands, as demonstrated, is very normal, our tests do not fully show the extend of the ‘death grip’ issue for HTC Sensation.

So we thought of doing another test, this time by simply touching the top side of the HTC Sensation, to show how easily Wi-Fi reception drops without even gripping the phone.
continue reading

Fujifilm FinePix X100 gets firmware update to v1.10

News

  • June 24, 2011 at 4:54 pm

0

Fujifilm FinePix X100 camera

If you are one of the very lucky owners of the FinePix X100 camera, or are considering to buy one, you’ll be happy to know that Fujifilm has made available an updated firmware for the very capable camera.

The FinePix X100 features a large APS-C sensor, super-sharp fixed focal length lens, in a compact, very solid and very beautiful body. Nonetheless there have been some qualms regarding the usability of the camera and Fujifilm is addressing a number of these issues in this update.

Firmware v1.10 brings a total of 22 fixes and add-ons; with the list of fixes/additions after the break together with a link to download the firmware and a how-to update the camera guide.
continue reading

Nokia N9 claims ‘fastest image-capturing phone’; we test: HTC Sensation faster still

News

  • June 22, 2011 at 12:17 pm

8

Camera latency comparison - HTC Sensation comes out first

As we’ve had some nightmarish experiences with phone cameras in the past we were very pleasantly surprised by the camera shooting speed of the HTC Sensation while we were testing it. So after reading the following today on Nokia’s official blog, pared with the graph above, regarding the new Nokia N9 camera we wanted run own comparison.

From Nokia’s blog:

Jens continues from here to explain the speed of the camera.
Jens Wilke: Once you press the on-screen camera key, the image is taken immediately. It’s the fastest image-capturing phone on the market. In order to take a photo, a series of events must occur: the camera is turned on, viewfinder is ready, focus on the subject and the image is captured. On the Nokia N9, this all happens in 2.6 seconds – much faster than our competitors. The HTC HD7 does all this in 8.3 seconds, the Samsung i5500 Galaxy 5 takes 5.8 seconds and the Apple iPhone 4 does this in 3 seconds. We’ve made sure the camera experience is as smooth and as fast as possible.

continue reading

Intel adds three new ‘mini’ Sandy Bridge processors; heading to the MacBook Air refresh?

News

  • June 21, 2011 at 4:29 am

0

Intel Sandy Bridge CPU size comparison -- it's tiny!

Intel has added to its Sandy Bridge (2nd generation Core i7 and i5) processor line-up three new ultra-low voltage (ULV) processors with a thermal envelope of just 17 watts–that is, power efficient processors to help battery life and keep heat down.

The new ‘yummy’ crop of tiny processors should be heading to ultraslim laptops; like the MacBook Air line, which is up for a refresh. In fact the 11.6-inch MacBook Air’s small frame can manage around 17 watts of heat dissipation.
continue reading

HTC Sensation death grip: it’s real and it’s annoying

News

  • June 19, 2011 at 5:23 pm

0

HTC Sensation death grip

We’ve been reviewing the new HTC Sensation smartphone and spending quite some time with it over the last few weeks, and although it’s a fantastic device, we’ve run across a rather frustrating hardware issue.

While holding the phone in a specific, though common manner, Wi-Fi signal strength drops or can be lost completely. Said ‘death grip’ happens when you touch or cover the top side of the phone (close to the 8MP camera); i.e. where the Wi-Fi antenna is located.
continue reading

Nintendo Wii U announced – HD games and touch-screen controller

News

  • June 8, 2011 at 4:43 am

2

Nintendo Wii U Controller

Nintendo has announced the successor to the popular Wii gaming console, named ‘Wii U’. No, Nintendo isn’t trying to put as many vowels in a row as possible, it’s putting the “you” in the “we” silly. The new console is set to launch in 2012 and will, at last, offer high definition gaming with up to 1080p HDMI output. What Nintendo’s calling revolutionary, is the new 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen controller.

What we know about the new console is that it will be backward compatible with existing Wii games and that it will still offer some of the same controls (i.e. Wii Remote and Nunchuk). Wii U games will apparently come on new proprietary 12-cm high-density optical discs and offer HD visuals with up to six-channel audio through HDMI.

continue reading