Apple Launches 2009 Back-to-School Promo with Lower Discounts

Apple today started its 2009 back-to-school promotion offering up to $229 rebate that cancels out price of an 8GB iPod touch with purchase of any qualifying Mac. However, if you prefer 8GB iPod nano, 16GB iPod nano, 120GB iPod classic or 4GB iPod shuffle, you have to settle for lesser rebate that will compensate the price of your selected iPod model. On the other hand, if you select 16GB or 32GB iPod touch, you will be paying $70 or $170 out of your pocket. Read More

iLounge: Next Gen iPod nano with Camera and Three iPhone Models This Year

Based on their super reliable sources, iLounge has posted that next gen iPod nano will have wider 1.5:1 aspect ratio screen compared to 1.33:1 aspect ratio screen found on present nano. Apple will decrease the size of the click wheel to add bigger screen, while keeping the overall dimensions same as present gen iPod nano. The most important new feature that Apple will add to nano is a camera behind the click wheel (little unusual, normally it would be behind the screen). Read More

When is Apple Planning to Release Touch Tablet?

Rumors about Apple working on a tablet have been around since early 2000, however, since the launch of iPhone those rumors have become louder and during past two weeks rumors have gone ballistic. Some analysts like Gen Munster from Piper Jaffray asserted that Apple would debut the rumored tablet in first half of 2010, while other analysts still maintain that we will see the new tablet this year. Read More

Lenovo Introduces Two Laptops and One All-in-One Desktop

Along with the IdeaPad S12 netbook, Lenovo also announced two laptops IdeaPad U350 and G550, and one all-in-one desktop C300. The U350 features 16:9 aspect ratio 13.3-inch LED backlit screen (1366 x 768) with processor options including 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo, 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU7200 and 1.2GHz Intel Celeron 723. The laptop will come with up to 8GB DDR3 memory, up to 500GB hard drive Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, 1.3-megapixel webcam and multi-touch trackpad. Read More

Lenovo Announces First Netbook IdeaPad S12 with NVIDIA Ion Chipse

Lenovo today announced the IdeaPad S12 – first notebook featuring NVIDIA Ion chipset and company’s first 12-inch netbook. Lenovo says that the three major enhancements brought to netbook platform by S12 are larger 12.1-inch screen, 100 percent full size keyboard and better graphics with NVIDIA Ion platform. Read More and Watch S12 in Action.

Leaked AT&T Slides Reveal Upcoming Android, Palm and BlackBerry Phones

Few slides showing key upcoming smartphones on AT&T network were leaked today. The most interesting phone on the slides was Palm Eos codenamed Castle. This Palm phone will be second Web OS based device after Palm Pre. Palm Eos will come to AT&T in late second half of 2009. The phone will have candybar form factor, 2.63-inch 320 x 400 touchscreen, 2-megapixel camera, 4GB onboard storage, quad band GSM, dual band UMTS and Bluetooth. Read More

More iPhone Rumors

Yesterday, we posted next generation iPhone rumor roundup and within 24 hours we have four more rumors to report. The first rumor is that Apple is working on allowing movie and TV show downloads directly to the iPhone and iPod touch. A blogger discovered mobile iTunes client for movies and TV shows accidentally when he clicked on iTunes ads in iPhone app TwitterFon. The ads in the app pointed to “iTunes Movies”, “iTunes Movie Rentals” and “iTunes TV”. It is likely that Apple will allow video download in next gen iPhone over WiFi network. Read More

Next Generation iPhone Rumor Roundup

For past few days iPhone rumor mill has been in full flow. It all started with report from AppleiPhoneapps.com that said next generation iPhone will ship on 17th July with up to 32GB storage, 3.2-megapixel camera, OLED screen, faster processer, more RAM and compass. John Gruber of Daring Fireball corroborated the rumors and added that with faster CPU and more RAM app launching and web page rendering speed will see significant improvement. Read More

Palm Pre will be in Short Supply Only 200K in Q3 2009

Yesterday, Sprint announced that it would release the much-awaited Palm Pre on June 6th for $199. And today, company’s CEO Dan Hesse said at an investor conference that the Pre would be in short supply initially. He said:
“We don’t intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortage for a while. We won’t be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time.”
Now unwiredview.com is reporting that Palm will only have 200,000 Pre units for whole of Q3 including launch. Read More

LTE Networks to See Faster Growth Rate than Any Previous Mobile Standard

Most mobile networks are now moving toward 4G-network technology and LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the most widely supported 4G-network standard. Pyramid Research estimates that LTE adoption will grow at 404 percent from 2010 to 2014, a pace faster than any previous mobile standard including 3G (HSPA/UMTS). Read More

Pentax K-7 Digital SLR now Official

Pentax today officially announced the new mid level digital SLR K-7 that will compete with Canon 50D and Nikon D300. The K-7 will have 14.6-megapixel CMOS sensor, magnesium alloy body, 5.2 fps continuous shooting mode, 11-point autofocus, 720p video recording and 3-inch LCD screen. Pentax claims that the body of K-7 is smaller than any other camera in its class and the optical viewfinder has nearly 100 percent field of view. Read More

iPhone to get 32GB Storage, 3.2-Megapixel Camera and OLED Touchscreen

AppleiPhoneapps.com is reporting that a source close to Apple’s hardware development team has provided them with detailed information on the specs and release date of the next generation iPhone. The website adds that they can neither confirm nor deny the rumors, but it checked the credentials of the source to the best of their ability. The next generation iPhone will double the storage capacity to 16GB and 32GB from 8GB and 16GB on present generation iPhone. The new iPhone will get 3.2-megapixel camera that will take much better and clearer pictures. Read More

Palm Pre to Ship on June 6th for $199 After Rebate

Sprint today announced pricing and availability for the highly anticipated Palm Pre Phone. The Pre will go on sale from June 6th for $199.99 with two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate. Palm Pre will be available via Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com. Read More

Review Roundup: Apple iMac (2009)

Apple updated their iMac all-in-one desktop lineup in March 2009 with faster processors and better graphics engine. Apple also made the iMac more affordable by lowering the price of 20-inch model to $1,199 and 24-inch model to $1,499. The new iMacs are faster and more energy efficient than previous generation. Most reviewers agree that new iMacs feature significant changes that result in performance boost. Below are the links to five best online reviews we found for the new iMac. Read More

Sony Debuts three New Entry-Level Digital SLRs A230, A330 and A380

Sony has added three new digital SLRs to its camera lineup. Sony Alpha A230, A330 and A380 will replace previous generation A200, A300 and A350 respectively. The A230 and A330 will have 10-megapixel sensor, whereas the A380 will have 14-megapixel sensor. Read More

Dell: Windows 7 Pricing Could Slowdown Adoption Rate

Dell is worried that Windows 7 adoption rate would be slower because of pricing, even though the beta OS is receiving good reviews.
“If there’s one thing that may influence adoption, make things slower or cause customers to pause, it’s that generally the ASPs (average selling price) of the operating systems are higher than they were for Vista and XP,” said Darrel Ward, director of product management, Dell business client product group. Read More

AT&T Claims Lead in Smartphones and Integrated Devices Market

AT&T today announced that twice as many smartphone users have chosen AT&T over any other US carrier. AT&T said that combination of nation’s fastest 3G network and nearly 20,000 US WiFi hotspots with leading lineup of iconic devices like BlackBerry Bold and Nokia E71x helped the company grow. Read More

Microsoft Positioning Zune HD as The Portable Media Player to Beat

Microsoft’s Zune effort has been a failure when compared to iPod, however, Microsoft is preparing to again challenge Apple with their rumored Zune HD portable media player. Latest rumors suggest that the Zune HD will be designed to take on Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and iPod touch. It will be a bridge between Microsoft’s Zune and Xbox platforms. Though all the information above sounds very interesting, what would Microsoft really need in its magical device to truly compete with iPod touch. Read More

Apple Rumors: New iPhone as Project Charlie in Best Buy Inventory System, and Camera on Next Gen iPod touch and nano

Phone Arena has posted an image of Best Buy’s inventory system showing three new AT&T phones with codename “Project Charlie". According to the website, the three new SKUs could possibly be new version of iPhone that Apple will announce in June. In other Apple rumor, Hardmac is reporting that future iPhone models will have exactly same shape and size, and Apple will refresh iPod nano and touch in September. Read More

Intel Reveals Details About Larrabee Graphics Processor

At the opening of Saarland University’s Visual Computing Institute, Intel revealed few details about its upcoming Larrabee graphics processor. Larrabee will use 32 x86 processor cores, each of these cores will have its own vector math unit allowing them to process very specialized tasks very efficiently. The design of the new Larrabee graphics processor will also have a pool of cache and memory interface on their edges for giving faster access to the system. Read More

Microsoft: Windows Mobile 6.5 Team Lacked Time to Polish The UI

Windows Mobile development team has admitted that they lacked time to completely polish the UI of upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5. The developer team sat for a roundtable conference at TechEd 2009 (video above) and talked about various parts of the smartphone OS like Widgets, applications development and lack of Silverlight support. Read More and Watch Video

Netbooks Saw 30 Percent Return Rate Last Year

Intel’s marketing chief Sean Maloney said at the Intel Investor meeting that some netbook resellers saw 30 percent return rate. He said the return rate was high because retail stores were selling netbooks as notebooks.
“In the first period – June, July, August of last year – there were some in the retail channels that were shipping (netbooks) as notebooks,” Sean Maloney said. Read More

Microsoft’s Zune Pass Financial Planner – Is it This Simple?

Microsoft has posted a new video called “Financial Planner: iTunes Costs A Lot, Zune Pass A Little”. Watching the video made me think, have I been spending too much by buying songs from iTunes? So I calculated the total cost of all the songs I own, and some of the songs in my library are from 1980’s when I was a small kid. The total number of songs that I have in my iTunes library is 2,348. If we calculate based on $1 price for each song the total will be $2,348 – the amount of money I spend in past 20 years on songs. Read More and Watch Video

Analyst: Android to Grow Faster Than iPhone, will it Matter?

Strategy Analytics has estimated that Android based devices will grow 900 percent in 2009. The growth will be much faster than the iPhone that will grow at 79 percent to about 23.8 million units this year. Strategy Analytics director Neil Mawstow said, “Android is now in a good position to become a top-tier player in smartphones over the next two to three years.” Read More

Amazon Offering 50% or More Discount on Various Headphones

Amazon is now offering 50 percent or more discount on various top brand earphones / headphones. Most headphones have more than 50 percent discount like JBuds J2 for $29.95. Read More

Intel’s New Xeon Processors Outperforms AMD Opteron lineup

Intel’s desktop and laptop processor lineup has been kicking AMD’s butt for past two to three years, but on the server-side AMD has been holding it own against the Xeon processors from Intel. However, Intel recently introduced their new Nehalem based Xeon processors claiming that the slowest new Xeon processor is faster than the fastest AMD Opteron processor. AMD on the other hand says that it still has better performance-per-dollar value. AMD also claimed that they have the world’s most power efficient server chips. So is AMD still a good option for servers? Read More

JD Power Ranks iPhone Top in Customer Satisfaction for 2009

Apple ranks highest in customer satisfaction, according to the JD Power 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study. The Study measures customer satisfaction with smartphones across several key factors including ease of operation (30%), operating system (22%), features (21%), physical design (18%), and battery function (9%). Read More

Review Roundup: Apple Mac mini with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

Last month, Apple updated the mini desktop lineup. The update brought latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, DDR3 memory and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics. The lower end $599 Mac mini model now comes with 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM and 120GB hard drive, whereas the higher end model get 2GB RAM and 320GB hard drive for additional $200. According to Apple, the update makes the new Mac mini faster and greener. Below are the six best reviews for Mac mini:
Read More

Mac OS X Snow Leopard to Include Screen Recording and YouTube Support

It is a known fact that Apple hasn’t announced or shown all the new features that will come in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. However, beta versions of Snow Leopard that Apple has released for developers to test have revealed few of those features. The new QuickTime X Player in Snow Leopard will receive many new features – including screen recording and YouTube support. Read More

iPhone App Store will Reach 2 Billion Mark in October

Last week, Apple announced that more than 1 billion applications have been downloaded from the App Store, the largest mobile applications store in the world. It took Apple just 9 months to reach the one billion mark selling on average 110 million applications each month or 3.7 million each day. Read More

Windows 7 Release Candidate Coming on May 5th with Windows XP Mode

Microsoft has announced that the Windows 7 Release Candidate is on track for April 30th for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The company plans for a broader public release starting May 5th. Microsoft said, after beta release of Windows 7 in January, the company has been receiving and analyzing large number of feedbacks provided by beta testers. Based on those feedbacks Microsoft has made various bug fixes and improvement to overall user experience in Windows 7 Release Candidate. Read More

WWDC will Bring MacBook Updates and New Notebook with OLED Display

9to5mac has posted information provided by their source about upcoming minor MacBook updates that Apple will announce at WWDC. The update will bring minor speed bumps and possible built-in 3G-network support to the MacBook lineup. The source also said that we would see updated Pro Apps like Final Cut Pro, Aperture, Logic and Shake. Read More

Apple Reports $8.16 Billion in Revenue and $1.21 Billion in Profit

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended March 28, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Read More

Apple iTunes vs. Amazon MP3 Store - Where can you get your songs for less?

iTunes and Amazon MP3 are the two biggest online music retailers in the market today and both the stores introduced variable pricing structure for individual songs about two weeks ago. After introduction of variable pricing I noticed that same songs were priced differently on the services. For example, “Boom Boom Pow” by Black Eyed Peas is priced $1.29 on iTunes but it is just $0.99 on Amazon. Similarly, “You Found Me” by The Fray is priced $0.99 on iTunes but it is $1.29 on Amazon. which one of the two music retailers is costlier on average. Read More

Sharp Announces Mebius PC-NJ70A Netbook with Touchscreen Trackpad

Today morning, we said that rise of notebook market will come to a halt, if innovative products are not released. Well Sharp has announced their upcoming netbook Mebius PC-NJ70A that features a touchscreen in place of regular trackpad. The 4-inch touchscreen has 854 x 480 resolution, and can function both as a regular trackpad and as a secondary sub-display. Read More and Watch Video

More Voice Control Features Discovered in iPhone OS 3.0

Sources have revealed to Ars Technica evidence of various new voice control features that will be coming in iPhone 3.0. The codename for the new voice technology is “Jibbler” and the application is actually extension of SpringBoard (iPhone Finder) application, which can result in deeper voice control features throughout iPhone OS 3.0. Read More

LG Officially Announces Viewty Smart (LG-GC900) 8-Megapixel Camera Phone

LG today launched the new LG Viewty Smart that follows the heritage of the first LG Viewty camera phone. The Viewty Smart has higher megapixel (8-mega) camera sensor, sensitivity up to ISO 1600, LED flash and multi-face detection. The camera features new Intelligent Shot Mode that automatically select one of the seven pre-programmed scenarios based on subject, background and lighting condition to take perfect picture every time. Read More

Commercial Times: Foxconn to Manufacture Netbook for Apple

Chinese language newspaper Commercial Times is reporting that Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is in running to land orders for a netbook from Apple. According to sources from the component supply chain, Apple’s netbook will become Foxconn’s major notebook shipment growth contributor in the second quarter. Read More

CPU Possibilities for Next Gen iPhone

DigiTimes has posted a list of chip and key component suppliers for next generation iPhone. The list (added below) contains almost all the components used in iPhone except the CPU. Though the list gives lot of information about the next gen iPhone, but the most important/interesting component – CPU is missing from the list. There has been lot of speculation about the CPU that Apple will use in next gen iPhone. Read More

iPhone 3.0 Screenshots Reveal Video Recording and Voice Control

BGR has posted screenshots on iPhone 3.0 beta firmware showing previously unknown features. The first image shows video recording and viewing capabilities. The text in the image says “No Videos” and “You can take videos using the camera”. This feature is only available if you change the system preference files for camera in iPhone 3.0 and is not directly accessible. Read More

Microsoft Claims 96 Percent Netbooks Running on Windows

Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc said recent data from NPD shows that Windows share of the US netbook market has grown from less than 10 percent in first quarter of 2008 to 96 percent in February 2009. Brandon claims that this sudden growth in netbook market is driven by consumers’ desire for a netbook computing environment that mirrors their full size PC. Read More

Fusion-io Claims Extremely High Data Transfer Speed in Solid State Drives

Fusion-io says that it has achieved extremely high data transfer speeds in solid-state drives on HP servers. Fusion-io and HP built a system using five 320GB ioDrive Duos and six 160GB ioDrives in a single HP ProLiant DL785 G5 server, running with four quad-core Opteron processor. The System was able to achieve 1 million input/output operations per second (IOPS). Read More

Apple’s Browser and OS Market Share Continues to Increase in March

After seeing slight drop in February, Apple’s web browser and OS market share continued to increase in March 2009. According to latest statistics from Net Applications, Apple’s Mac OS X market share reached 9.77 percent, whereas iPhone OS reached 0.49 percent and iPod touch OS reached 0.11 percent. Windows market share continued to fall and it dropped from 88.41 percent in February to 88.14 percent in March. Read More

Next Gen iPhone to Feature 802.11n and FM Transmitter?

AppleInsider has revealed that iPhone 3.0 beta firmware contains information about wireless radio that next gen iPhone will use. The firmware shows that Apple will be using Broadcom BCM4329 wireless chipset in place of BCM4325 that brought WiFi and Bluetooth support in present generation iPhone. The new wireless chipset adds 802.11n support along with FM receiver and transmitter to previous generation chipset. Read More

Microsoft Releases Second Laptop Hunter Ad

Microsoft has released another ad in their Laptop Hunters series. This time it is a recent college grad Giampaolo, who claims that he is technically savvy and wants a computer that he can customize. He is looking for a laptop that is portable, has great battery life and is powerful for under $1,500. Like the previous Laptop Hunters ad featuring a girl named Lauren, Giampaolo also first looks for a Mac. He looks at a MacBook calls it “So Sexy” and then adds “Macs are more about aesthetics than computing power.” After looking at few other laptops he finally decides to buy HP HDX 16t that weighs 7.06 pounds, has around 2 hour battery life and comes with 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T6400 processor. Is this a portable system with great battery life and powerful processor? Actually, a $999 MacBook has better processor and is lighter with way better battery life. And as an added bonus it looks way sexier than the HP laptop.

AT&T Updating 3G Network in Anticipation of Next Gen iPhone

AT&T is rushing to rollout updated 3G network as the company expects tenfold increase in traffic from new iPhone hardware that Apple is expected to release in June 2009. AT&T will be making most of its 3G network 7.2Mbps capable by May end with aim to further increase network speed to up to 21Mbps within a couple of years. Read More

Apple Orders 3.2- and 5-megapixel CMOS Camera Sensors for Upcoming Devices

DigiTimes is reporting that OmniVision has received orders for 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor from Apple for next generation iPhone. The company has also received orders for 5-megapixel sensor for another unknown Apple product that will be launched later this year. According to DigiTimes, STMicroelectronics and Aptina were the other two contenders for Apple’s camera orders but they lost the deal to OmniVision. Read More

Video: 3rd Party Apps on Palm Pre

Precentral has posted 3rd party app video walkthrough for upcoming Palm Pre. The video above shows applications like Fandango, SprintTV, Nascar, updated Google Maps and PalmOS emulator Classic. The apps on Pre are looking good and switching between applications is also fast. Read More and Watch Video

NVIDIA Demos All-in-One Tegra Chipset at CTIA

NVIDIA demoed their new all-in-one Tegra chipset that integrates CPU, GPU, Northbridge, Southbridge, memory and input/output connections on a single chip. According to NVIDIA, this ARM based component will be capable of 1080p video output on a mobile phone and powerful enough to run netbooks. However, the biggest achievement of the Tegra chipset will be that it will do all this while sipping just half watt of power. To achieve higher power efficiency NVIDIA utilized efficient processors and optimized the resource allocation. Read More

iPod shuffle Sales Raise 50 Percent with Release of New Model

NPD groups is reporting that iPod shuffle sales grew 51 percent in the week of March 21st, the first full week the third generation player was on sale. Next week iPod shuffle sales added another 10 percent rise and continued gaining momentum till beginning of April. Read More

Walt Mossberg: BlackBerry App World Buying Process Harder than iPhone

Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg has posted first impressions of the new BlackBerry App Store that was launched today morning. According to Mossberg, RIM’s store is clumsier to use than Apple’s, but it works. The selection at launch is decent, but with some surprising omissions. App Worlds selection is broad and on first day, it offers 166 games, 99 productivity and utility apps and 69 reference and book apps. Read More