AT&T Announces MMS Coming to iPhone on September 25th

AT&T today released more information about the upcoming MMS service for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. AT&T said in the press release:

We know many of our iPhone customers are eager for an update on our rollout schedule for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). We’ve been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches – and that launch date is: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. MMS will be enabled through a software update on that day.

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Nokia Reveals X3 and X6 Music Centric Phones

Nokia introduced two new music centric mobile phone X3 and X6 at Nokia World. The X6 features 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash. The S60 5th edition based phone comes with 32GB internal memory, quad-band GSM/EDGE, tri-band WCDMA, WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS and micro-USB port. The full HTML browser on the phone supports Flash Lite 3.0 and Nokia Ovi application suite for downloading music/video, messaging and other Internet based services.
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Panasonic Debuts Micro Four Thirds DMC-GF1 Camera

Panasonic debuted the new DMC-GF1 Micro Four Thirds camera, which it claims is “the world’s smallest and lightest digital interchangeable lens system camera with a built-in flash”. The GF1 is 35 percent smaller than earlier G models and is even smaller than recently announced Olympus E-P1.
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Cult of Mac: More Evidence That Snow Leopard is a Touchscreen OS

Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac has posted an article arguing that the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard is designed to run Apple’s upcoming tablet. He talks about various parts of Mac OS X that Apple updated and are now more touch friendly. The first feature he points out is Expose in the Dock, which reveals all the open windows in an application when you click and hold the application icon in the dock. He further adds that Stacks is even more convincing with bigger icons and fat slider for scrolling up and down.
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Will Steve Jobs Give Keynote Speech at September 9 Event?

Yesterday, Apple confirmed the rumored September 9 media event and as soon as the rumors about the music event were confirmed by the invitations, the blogosphere jumped to a new discussion – will Steve Jobs do the keynote presentation on September 9th?
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Canon Unveils New High-End EOS 7D Digital SLR

Canon today officially announced the much-rumored EOS 7D digital SLR. The new camera features 18-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, dual DIGIC 4 processors, 8fps continuous shooting and full HD video recording. The EOS 7D comes with 19-point cross-type AF sensor offering a range of manual and automatic settings including Zone and Spot AF to track and capture subject quickly and accurately. The EOS 7D also incorporates new Focus Color Luminance metering system that intelligently measures focus, color and luminance across 63 zones.
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September 9th Apple Media Event Now Official

Apple has sent out invitations for September 9th media event, which will be held at Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco at 10:00 AM Pacific Time / 1:00 PM Eastern Time. The invitation states, “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it” a reference to Rolling Stones song “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” clearly indicating a music / iPod related event.

Report about Apple’s plan for Wednesday, September 9 event was first published by All Things Digital and was later confirmed by other websites. It has been rumored that Apple will introduce new iPod touch, iPod nano and iPod classic with integrated camera, and iTunes 9 with social networking features at September 9 event. We will be doing a live coverage of the event on September 9th at 10:00 AM PST / 1:00 PM EST on live.techztalk.com.

First 24 Hours With Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Apple released their new operating system Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard past Friday. The first thing I did on Saturday was to install the new OS and take it for a spin. Before starting the installation, I made a disc image of my hard drive in case something goes wrong. The installation process was the easiest I have ever seen for any software. In fact, installing an IM client on your system is harder than installing Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

I installed Snow Leopard on two systems 13-inch unibody MacBook and a 20-inch iMac. Installation process was very simple, just click continue after inserting the disc, agree with license terms and enter your password. After which it's time to sit and relax till installation is completed. By default, Snow leopard keeps your data and preferences intact while upgrading your system. It took about 44 minutes for MacBook to complete the installation process, whereas the iMac took just 23 minutes. In my opinion the reason behind this time difference was amount of data on the systems – iMac had just 44GB and the MacBook had 161GB, plus the iMac had less than 30 applications while the MacBook had over 65 applications.

After installation, the most notable thing on the MacBook was that the available free space on the hard drive had gone up from 140.77GB to 161.74GB and the used space had gone down from 161.79GB to 157.37GB. I believe three factors contributed to this increase in available hard drive space: one Apple is now using decimal system (base 10) compared to binary system (base 2), which means a 320GB hard drive will show 320GB of total available space; second factor was removal of legacy support (Power PC) like Rosetta technology; and the third factor is refinement of over 90 percent of the OS code making the overall size of OS smaller.

I observed that the overall system performance was faster, for example Mail and Safari opened in less than three seconds, iChat video started without any lag and application switching was really fast. Graphics were very smooth for Expose, Stacks and Spaces. System restart took just 41 seconds compared to about a minute previously and booting up after a shutdown took just 32 seconds.

Most of my applications worked perfectly except two iStat and Cyberduck. Developers for both the applications say that they will launch a Snow Leopard version soon. All the applications were faster than Leopard, even Microsoft Word, which was reported to be slower on Snow Leopard was quite fast in my experience. Based on my first 24 hours with the new OS, I would say that Snow Leopard is the best OS upgrade I have ever done and it is worth more than the $29 I paid.
[Via TechzTalk]

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Application Compatibility List

If you are like me, you can’t wait to get your hand on Snow Leopard on Friday. However as always installing new OS can create some problems with old applications that are not supported by the new OS. It is already known that some of the old printer drivers won’t be compatible with Snow Leopard. Apple has published a list of printer and scanner software that is compatible with Snow Leopard. For applications wikidot has posted a list of applications and their compatibility status with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
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Snow Leopard Defaults to 32-bit Kernel

Apple has advertised Snow Leopard as full 64-bit operating system, but by default Snow Leopard loads 32-bit kernel, despite running 64-bit applications. Users can boot into 64-bit kernel by holding down the “6” and “4” keys during boot time, but once they restart the kernel will switch back to 32-bit. There is no permanent GUI option to make 64-bit kernel default except on X-Serves that by default boot into 64-bit kernel.
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Rumor: Apple Developing 13-inch and 15-inch Tablet Models

Gizmodo is reporting that a 100 percent reliable source says “Not only Apple may be working on a 10-inch tablet, but also in 13” and 15” models, one running Mac OS X”. The source added that two touchscreen prototype made with aluminum were in a factory in Shenzuen, China. Both the prototype looked like bigger iPhones and one is running Mac OS X 10.5. However, Gizmodo’s source didn’t know whether the units were built for demonstration purposes or as preproduction units.
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Review Roundup: Apple Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Apple will start shipping their new operating system Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard on Friday August 28th. Apple says Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. Apple engineers refined 90 percent of more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X, and all the system applications like Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari are rewrite in Cocoa with 64-bit support. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed. Snow Leopard update only supports Macs with Intel processors.
Below we have added links to ten best Snow Leopard reviews posted online:
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Nokia’s Maemo 5 OS Based N900 Now Official

Nokia today announced new N900 handset that uses open source Linux based Maemo software to deliver PC-like experience on a handset-sized device. The new Maemo 5 software allows users to have dozens of application windows open and running simultaneously while taking full advantage of the cellular features, touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard.
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Augmented Reality App Metro Paris Subway Released for iPhone 3GS

Augmented Reality (AR) is all the rage in mobile application development these days. AR combines the camera, Internet and GPS on a cellphone to give information about the surroundings. Metro Paris Subway is the first augmented reality app released for the iPhone and it works only on the latest iPhone 3GS as it requires digital compass to function properly.
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White MacBook Getting Design Update Soon

AppleInsider is reporting that “13-inch portable are presently undergoing an industrial design overhaul that will see them reemerge in the coming months with a slimmer, lighter enclosure and restructured internal architecture to boot.” The refresh is meant to solidify white MacBook as the base of Apple’s notebook offerings.
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Sony Reader Daily Edition Launched with 7-inch Touchscreen and 3G Network Support

Sony today launched the third member of its e-reader family – the Reader Daily Edition with 3G connectivity. The Reader Daily uses AT&T’s 3G network to access Sony’s eBook store, similar to how Amazon Kindle works. The seven-inch touchscreen with 16 levels of grayscale provides for intuitive navigation and comfortable layout of content. The Reader can be used in both Portrait and landscape modes. It can store up to 1,000 eBooks on internal memory and features SD card slot for adding more memory.
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Steve Jobs Entirely Focused on Tablet Project

Wall Street Journal is reporting that after returning from a liver transplant in June, Steve Jobs is entirely focused on a new tablet device. People familiar with the situation told WSJ “Since his return in late June, the 54-year-old has been poring almost all of his attention into a new touch-screen gadget that Apple is developing. Those working on the project are under intense scrutiny from Mr. Jobs, particularly with regard to the product’s advertising and marketing strategy.”
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Google Answers FCC’s Questions Related to iPhone Google Voice App

Along with AT&T and Apple, Google also responded to the questions put forward by FCC in matter related to rejection of Google Voice application for iPhone. Earlier this month, FCC asked Apple, AT&T and Google what role they played in rejection of Google Voice application from Apple’s App Store for iPhone.
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Nokia Enters Computer Market with Booklet 3G Netbook

Mobile phone market leader Nokia today joined the PC world by announcing Nokia Booklet 3G netbook with 12 hours battery life. Booklet 3G has aluminum chassis, it weighs 2.75 pounds and is about 0.8-inch thick. The Windows 7 powered netbook uses Intel Atom processor and offers connectivity options like 3G/HSPA and WiFi.
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Apple Announces Mac OS X Snow Leopard Shipping on August 28

Apple today announced that Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard would go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users for $29.
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