BlackBerry Storm Review Roundup: Touch Magic Missing

BlackBerry Storm was the second most talked about phone after the iPhone 3G this year. The new BlackBerry was supposed to stop the iPhone Tsunami by its clickable touchscreen. But if the reviews are any indication this touchscreen Blackberry is just another iPhone wannabe and not an iPhone killer. The clickable touchscreen was the most talked about feature of the new phone and almost all the reviews unanimously agree that RIM failed to implement a very interesting concept. Below are the ten well-balanced reviews of the new RIM BlackBerry Storm 9530. Read More

Apple Releases 2.2 Firmware Update for iPhone and iPod touch

Apple today released iPhone 2.2 Firmware Update, which is available through iTunes for iPhone and iPod touch owners. To get the 246.4MB update just connect your iPhone or iPod touch to the computer and click check for update. According to the release note, the update contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following: Read More

Apple Plans to Release Mac OS X Snow Leopard in Q1 2009

Apple’s Director of Engineering for Unix Technologies, Jordan Hubbard, revealed at LISA 08 (Large Installation System Administration Conference) that Apple plans to ship Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in first quarter of 2009. He also talked about Mac OS X development and what the future of Mac OS X will be. He talked in detail about various Unix features present or modified in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Read More

Alienware Announces Area-51 X-58 and ALX X-58 Gaming Desktops with Core i7 Processors

Alienware has also jumped on Core i7 bandwagon with their new Area-51 X-58 and ALX X-58 gaming desktops. The X-58 is available with 2.66GHz Core i7-920 processor as base configuration with option of upgrading to 2.93GHz Core i7-940 or 3.2GHz Core i7-965. The ALX X-58 comes with 2.93GHz Core i7-940 base processor with option of upgrading to 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme processor. Read More

Google’s Voice-Enabled Mobile App Launched for iPhone

Last Friday, Google released information about its upcoming voice-enabled search app for iPhone. The new application is now available through iTunes for free. The voice-enabled search is actually an update to Google’s existing iPhone application Google Mobile App. The updated version now allows users to place the phone to their ear and ask any question, like where is Starbucks? or movie shows timing or which is the nearest Thai restaurant? Read More

Dell Introduces Core i7 Based Studio XPS and XPS 730x Desktops

Today, Intel officially released the Core i7 processors and all the computer makers have started to announce systems based on the new processors. Dell has launched two new systems based on Core i7 processors the Studio XPS and XPS 730x. The Studio XPS features 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-920 processor as standard, along with optional $470 upgrade to 2.93GHz Core i7-940 processor. The base configuration will be priced $949 and it will come with Windows Vista Home Premium, DVD burner, 3GB DDR3 tri-channel SDRAM, 500GB hard drive, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics and integrated 7.1 channel audio. Read More

Verizon Officially Announces BlackBerry Storm Pricing

Few days back Verizon announced that it would start shipping the new Blackberry Storm on November 21st. But at that time no information about pricing for the device and monthly services was released, well that has changed today. Verizon today announced that with two-year contract the phone would be available for $199.99 after $50 mail-in rebate. With one-year agreement it will cost $299.99 and without contract it will be priced $599.99. The BlackBerry Storm will require a Nationwide Email Plan along with Nationwide Voice plan. Read More

Asus Introduces First Smartphone P565 with 800MHz CPU

Asus today introduced their new P565 PDA phone with 800MHz processor. Asus claims that the phone is the fastest in the world. The phone is based on Windows Mobile 6.1 and uses a touch-driven user interface – Glide – an innovative touch interface designed by Asus. Asus says that the new phone posted Vsbenchmark scores almost two times that of competing products in its class. The company didn’t say what the score was or what devices were compared. Read More

Intel Officially Ships Core i7 Processors

Intel has started shipping the new Nehalem architecture based Core i7 Processors, which they announced in August of this year. Nehalem is the seventh major x86 architecture and is designed explicitly for multi-core processor architecture. Intel claims that the new processors will see significant increase in memory efficiency and overall performance, as Intel has dropped the front side bus system in favor of new QuickPath Interconnect system, which uses point-to-point link between the processor and peripherals. Read More

V-Moda Introduces Vibe II Stereo Headset for iPhone

V-Moda has introduced successor to their iPhone-centric Vibe Duo headset, the new Vibe II headphones with in-line mic. We liked the look of original Vibe headphone the new Vibe II design it too jazzy for our taste. But, V-Moda claims that the new-machined metal design is eco-friendly and will also improve audio quality. Read More

iPhone 2.2 Update Coming Next Week

iPhoneHellas.gr has posted information from reliable source stating that iPhone software version 2.2 will be released next Friday on 21st November. Apple started the beta testing of the 2.2 software update last month and there have been many reports about the above-mentioned features. There is still now word if Apple will add system wide Push support as it has promised before. Read More

NVIDIA Announces 4GB Quadro FX 5800 Graphics Card

NVIDIA announced Quadro FX 5800 – the first ever graphics card with 4GB standard memory. The card is designed for 4D modeling used in oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, designing and scientific visualization. Quadro FX 5800 has 240 parallel cores that are capable of fill rates that exceed 52 billion texels per second and geometry performance of 300 million triangles per second. Read More

Etymotic Launches hf5 in-ear Headphones

Etymotic the company known for their high quality in-ear headphones has officially launched the new hf5 in-ear headphones. Etymotic hf5 are the successor to company’s highly successful ER-6i earbuds and are the fifth generation of pure listening devices. The new earphones are smaller and have full metal body, which makes them more comfortable and sturdy. Read More

Good Omen for Google, Ballmer Dismisses Google Android

Last year, when the iPhone was announced, Steve Ballmer laughed at the phone’s cost and said it won’t appeal to business customers. Well, in first quarter of sales the iPhone took off like a rocket and left Windows Mobile in dust. Now he has dismissed Google new Android mobile operating system. Speaking at Telstra’s annual investment day, Ballmer said, “They can hire smart guys, hire a lot of people, blah dee blah dee blah, but you know they start out way behind, in a certain sense.” Read More

Apple Might Update Mac mini Soon

There has been a debate going on about Mac mini’s demise/update around blogosphere for past few months. AppleInsider is reporting that one of the mini loving customer got feed up with the guesswork and emailed Chief of Mac Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield with his concerns. He didn’t receive a reply from Mansfield, but was contacted immediately by a person from Apple’s executive care division asking him to be patient and assured him that Apple was aware of mini’s market value. Read More

SanDisk Developing 100x Faster Solid State Drives

SanDisk has developed a new file system called ExtremeFFS, which uses a page-based method that no longer ties the logical location of data on the drive to its physical space. The new file system dynamically writes and alters the position of data on the drive based on where it would be most efficient as well as the user’s own habits. The new file system improves the random write speed by 100x compared to current drives. Read More

IBM Introduces Hardware Security Device ZTIC for Online Banking

IBM says that more and more attacks to online banking applications target the user’s home PC, changing what is displayed to the user, while logging and altering key strokes. In order to foil these threats, IBM has introduced the Zone Trusted Information Channel (ZTIC), a hardware device that can counter these attacks in an easy-to-use way. The ZTIC is a USB attached device containing a display and minimal I/O capabilities that runs the full TLS/SSL protocol, thus entirely bypassing the PC’s software for all security functionality. Read More

Apple working on Software Fix for MacBook Pro Trackpad Problem

On Monday, new MacBook owners started complaining about a trackpad issue with the new MacBook, where after every 50 clicks the trackpad stopped responding. The trackpad would start working normally after few seconds. Macrumors is reporting that one of their reader also emailed Steve Jobs about the same trackpad problem and got a reply back simply stating, “Software fix coming soon.” Read More

Dell Asks Employees to Take Unpaid Leave To Prevent More Layoffs

Dell’s CEO Michael Dell has sent a memo to all the employees outlining company’s efforts to cut costs. In the memo Dell has asked employees to consider taking up to five days of unpaid leave to prevent more layoffs. The memo also calls for temporary companywide hiring freeze, the elimination of contract employees, severance packages to those who depart voluntarily and a voluntary furlough of one to five days. Read More

Olympus Launches 12.3 Megapixel Evolt E-30 Digital SLR

Olympus has announced the new midrange Evolt E-30 digital SLR with 12.3-megapixel image sensor and 11 point autofocus. The camera fills the gap between entry-level E-520 and the professional E-3 DSLR. The features on E-30 are swiveling 2.7-inch screen, 5fps continuous mode, ISO range of 100-3200, sensor-shift image stabilization, Face detection, Art Filters and new multiple exposure mode. Read More