SlashGear

HTC Dragon has been in testing at Google for weeks; release imminent?

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 18th 2009 No Comments

Things have been quiet on HTC's Snapdragon Android plans since CEO Peter Chou squashed talk of an Android-based HD2, but that hasn't stopped "senior Android guys" from carrying around such a handset for at least the past few weeks. According to TechCrunch, the so-called HTC Dragon or HTC Passion is expected to hit shelves very soon, and will likely be thinner than the Motorola DROID or the Apple iPhone 3GS together with including Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon chipset.

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ATI Radeon HD 5970 5 TeraFLOP graphics card debuts

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 18th 2009 No Comments

You can’t doubt AMD’s commitment to marketing speech: the company is describing their new ATI Radeon HD 5970 as the “fastest graphics card in the world”, and from glancing at the specifications it certainly looks potent. The Radeon HD 5970 – which we saw leaked in recent weeks – packs DirectX 11 support, dual Cypress graphics processors for up to 5 TeraFLOPS of power, and the potential for twice that if you hook up twin HD 5970 cards using CrossFireX. A single card can, thanks to Eyefinity, create a 7,680 x 1,600 workspace across three displays.

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Official Google Phone confirmed for early 2010?

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 18th 2009 No Comments

Ever since Android was first vaunted, people have been asking for an official Google Phone; however the search giant has always said it was only taking the lead in software, not hardware. Now, according to TechCrunch’s sources, that’s all going to change: they claim that an official, Google branded handset will drop in early 2010, with the company dictating every element of hardware and software to put together their own interpretation of today’s smartphone.

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Nokia Nseries to all run Maemo not Symbian by 2012

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 18th 2009 No Comments

Maemo – as on the Nokia N900 – is still more of a geek’s paradise than a consumer-ready platform, so we hope the development team responsible for it will be working hard over the next couple of years. That’s because the Maemo marketing team have let slip that, as of 2012, Maemo will replace Symbian as the OS for Nokia’s entire Nseries range of handsets.

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Dell Adamo XPS 9.9mm ultraportable goes on sale today

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 17th 2009 No Comments

Dell have finally pushed the Adamo XPS out of the door, and for a whopping $1,799 you can take home a 9.99mm thick ultraportable. With the Adamo XPS, actual computing is only a minor part of the story: it seems Dell have gone for showmanship instead, with their touch-to-open latch and distinctive hinged-keyboard.

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Can Anything Replace Windows XP As the Best Netbook Operating System?

By Joanna Stern on Tuesday, Nov 17th 2009 6 Comments

As someone who has been running Windows XP as a primary operating system for the past eight years and has seen more netbooks with the dated OS in the last year or so, I was probably more excited about the arrival of Windows 7 than Twilight fans are about the upcoming release of the vampire packed New Moon movie. However, the last two netbooks I have gotten my hands on run the lower-end and feature-missing Windows 7 Starter edition. Although it pains me to admit it, I miss the rolling green mountains and blue skies of Windows XP.

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Archos 5 Internet Tablet gets firmware update; Mini Dock demo [Video]

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 17th 2009 No Comments

It’s been a rainstorm of Archos 5 Internet Tablet newness over at UMPC Portal today, with our friend Steve Paine taking delivery not only of the Archos 5 Mini Dock but the latest firmware which has also released today, v1.3.07. Together they’ve taken the Android-based Archos 5 even closer into MID status: USB host support means that you can plug a full-sized keyboard and mouse into the Mini Dock’s USB port, while the new firmware now supports full-screen YouTube HD playback together with outputting that content, via HDMI, onto your TV.

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Video demo after the cut

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Umazone UMA-ISO automatically mounts your DVD images

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 17th 2009 1 Comment

Japanese accessory manufacturer Umazone have outdone themselves with a hard-drive caddy that will likely strike a chord with anyone doing regular software installs. The Umazone UMA-ISO looks like a regular 2.5-inch HDD drive enclosure; however it also has a small display and, on the side, a jog wheel, which can be used to flick through ISO CD and DVD images stored on the drive inside. Once selected, plugging the UMA-ISO into a host computer is pretty much the same as dropping the original disc into a CD/DVD drive.

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Hermés 8 Day Spiral Boule Clock: a blob of expensive, pointless extravagence

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 17th 2009 No Comments

As vaguely pointless but nonetheless desirable knick-nacks go, the Hermés 8 Day Spiral Boule Clock has to rank pretty high up on the list. A 1kg ball of magnifying-effect optical crystal, white gold and a total of 231 parts, the Spiral Boule is wound by twisting the two halves, while a single button on the base switches it into time-setting mode.

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OLED and solar-panel lights promise Earth-friendly simplicity

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 17th 2009 No Comments

We all love a sandwich, but how often does your sandwich light up from power it has collected itself? If you're chowing down on a prototype from the Florida Energy Systems Consortium then it might just do that (though probably not tasting particularly good in the process): they're working on the idea of layered OLED and solar-cell panels, which would capture sunlight during the day and recharge a back battery plane, before lighting up at night.