2006 August - SlashGear

Archive for August, 2006

Daily Wrap-up for 08/28/2006

By Vincent Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 2 Comments

nokia concept phone 1 I love Monday mornings! It seems like all the best news is saved up to run on Mondays. A hi-res image of the highly anticipated SIRIUS Stiletto portable satellite radio surfaced as well as a retail spec sheet. The Blackberry Pearl 8100 retail box surfaced as well, along with dates. CrunchGear scored some juicy, but not so earth shattering specs of the Treo 750. And finally, Google Apps is official. Lastly, the winner of Nokia’s design competition created one hell of a concept phone (image on the right and video below).

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Video: HTC Artemis Pocket PC Phone Featuring GPS and Trackball

By Vincent Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 No Comments

The trackball featured on the HTC Artemis Pocket PC is extremely unique. This implementation is the first I’ve seen on any handset or PDAs (that I can recall). Thanks to Bengalboy’s brief video, we get a glimpse of how the Trackball works. In a nutshell, this is a quad-band handset with features like GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, EDGE, microSD slot, and a moderate size 1250 mAh battery. It’s ashame HTC left out the QWERTY keyboard.

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Philips READUS Prototype Flexible E-Paper Reader

By Vincent Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 No Comments

Philips READUS Prototype Flexible E-Paper Reader

Get ready to be impressed because this is the first ever real working prototype of an electronic reader based on a flexible e-paper. The READUS is essentially a 5-inch screen that runs at 320×240 pixels that rolls up just like a scroll. The screen is by E-Ink Corporation, and basically uses power to change the state. The display uses very little power and is easy to read at night or even bright daylight. When you’re done reading, just roll it up.

http://www.slashgear.com/videos/READUS.flvPhilips READUS Prototype Flexible E-Paper Reader

Philips READUS [TechEBlog]

Windows Vista May Cost an Arm and a Leg

By Vincent Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 1 Comment

18847s windows vista i 709166 Not only have we been waiting, and waiting for Windows Vista to hit the stores, there’s info that lead me to believe upgrading to Windows Vista Ultimate edition would cost roughly $449USD and 449 CAD. Wow! Now this could be incorrect since the prices did become available through a fluke in the Microsoft Canada Page. Lets all hope that these prices will drop “some” as it gets closer to launch.

FULL versions (all prices Canadian)

Windows Vista Ultimate $499

Windows XP Professional w/SP2 $429

Windows Vista Business $379

Windows Vista Home Premium $299

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Sierra Wireless introduces AirCard 597E EV-DO Revision A ExpressCard

By Francis Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 No Comments

AirCard 597E brings new form factor and features to the company’s flagship AirCard product line

August 28, 2006

Vancouver, British Columbia – Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR – TSX: SW) today announced the introduction of its ExpressCard product line, with the upcoming AirCard® 597E wireless wide area network card for EV-DO Revision A networks. Built for notebook computers with ExpressCard expansion slots, the AirCard 597E will be fully compliant with network operator requirements and will offer user-friendly features such as Assisted GPS (aGPS) location based services; a robust, fixed antenna design; and an external antenna jack for flexibility and improved reception in fringe coverage areas or for specialized applications. The AirCard 597E is expected to begin shipping in the first quarter of 2007. ExpressCard models for HSDPA networks are expected to follow later in the year.

ABI research estimates that adoption of the ExpressCard standard for PC card slots will be significant in 2007, shipping in 45 percent of laptops sold, up from 10 percent in 2006*. Sierra Wireless will also continue to produce AirCard products in the Type II PC Card form factor to serve the established base of notebook users with PC Card slots. For those with PC Card slots who wish to purchase an ExpressCard product in anticipation of an upcoming notebook upgrade, the company will offer an ExpressCard-to-PC Card adapter accessory.
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Philips TSU960 Pronto Professional Is the Mother of ALL-Remote

By Vincent Nguyen on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 No Comments

UPDATE 09072006: Philips Pronto Professional TSU9600 Flash Presentation and New Pronto Line

The Pronto mega remote is not your household regular old remote control. The TSU-9600 features everything from a 3.7-inch VGA (640×480 pixel) touch screen display, PC macro downloads, voice recognition, IR and wireless extenders. It’s expected to be announced at the CEDIA Expo in a few short weeks, so check back for updates.

Philips TSU960 Pronto Professional Is the Mother of ALL-Remote

In Living Color: Photo of Philips Pronto Professional [via RemoteShoppe]

More Bad PS3 News: GPU Clock Speeds Cut

By Benjamin Nied on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 3 Comments

In yet another round of bad news for Sony and hopefuly PlayStation 3 owners everywhere, Sony has had to hack away at one of the upcoming console’s key features; the GPU clock speeds. NVIDIA’s RSX graphics processor, which was originally set to run at 550 MHz (for the processor) and 700 MHz (for the memory), has seen its speed cut down to 500/650, representing an 8% drop in the GPU’s overall speed. While, at first glance, this drop seems negligible, it’s just one more thing bringing down the power of Sony’s new “super” console.

PS3

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Motorola Announces the ROKR E2

By Staff Editor on Tuesday, Aug 29th 2006 No Comments

Singapore, 28 August 2006 — Motorola has launched in Singapore the Motorola ROKR E2 – the newest member of the company’s ROKR family of music-optimized mobile handsets. Designed for the music enthusiast who wants to carry one device, ROKR E2 lets you take hundreds of your must-have music selections with you – and delivers a world-class wireless communications experience.

Delivering a powerful mobile music experience, the Motorola ROKR E2 lets you switch seamlessly between phone calls and music play lists simply by touching a button. Based on a Linux operating system to enhance speed and flexibility, ROKR E2 also features a robust MP3 player compatible with a variety of different audio formats – making this mobile handset a powerful example of what it means to be “the device formerly known as the cell phone.”

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SIRIUS Stiletto Hi-Res Pics and Product Sheet!

By Vincent Nguyen on Monday, Aug 28th 2006 No Comments

You’ve heard enough of my rants and rave about the soon to release SIRIUS Stiletto. Up until now, we have nothing more than blurry images to drool over. Blurry no more, thanks to SSG for the high-resolution image of the SIRIUS Stiletto and GSI for the official reseller sheet with information about the two Stiletto models (100 and 10), the Starmate4 and Stratus receivers.

Stiletto 100 and 10

Just a quick recap, the new Stiletto 100 and 10 will ship in September and October, respectively. Both models offer the same touch-sensitive wheel, easy-to-read color display screen, 100 hours of MP3 and WMA files for the Stiletto 100, WiFi, two lithium-ion batteries, one large and a slimmer version. The full-size battery allows four hours of live satellite radio listening and up to 20 hours of pre-stored-content listening, while the slim battery has only half the listening time. Damn, that was a mouthful. Any questions?

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Will The Oddest Looking DAP Stand Up Please?

By Vincent Nguyen on Monday, Aug 28th 2006 2 Comments

vibez 3sides w klein 1jpg1 The “Vibez” player by Trekstor, is perhaps the weirdest looking HDD-based player you’ll encounter. It’s a clever way to stand out from the crowd – but is it enough? How it looks is only skin deep, so specs and features also play key roles determine its future success. That being said, lets check out what’s under the hood.

You have your choice of a 8GB or 15GB HDD version, a smaller TFT color display (176×132), Ogg Vorbis and Flac support as well as DRM9/10 compliance (do we really care?), and the usual MP3, WMA, and WAV. The removable battery allow for up to 20 hours of usage on a single charge, an FM tuner card, and wired remote control. There’s also support for viewing JPEG, create play lists on the go, and you can even configure the menu button similar to the Rio DJ. Click over for more detail images.
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