Archive for June, 2007
Media devices are requiring more and more storage space for content like photos, music and applications. Thus memory cards must keep the pace and raise the bar. And SanDisk makes exactly that by introducing the new microSD High Capacity (microSDHC) flash memory cards that provide 6 or 8 gigabyte of storage space.
“What’s more, removable cards make it easy to share content you create with friends, ‘sideload’ files from a computer, and add more storage simply by purchasing more cards. By offering capacities of 6GB and 8GB, SanDisk is poised to enable people to enjoy more photos, more map data for navigation, more videos, more games and more music, wherever they go, on any phone with a compatible microSDHC slot.”
For now they’ve sent the sample microSDHC to major network operators and phone manufacturers for testing purposes. That being said you won’t find these cards in retail outlets just yet, but producers say they’ll be out before the end of the year.
The cards make use of the new SD 2.00 specification standard for memory disks bigger than 4GB. This also means the microSDHC will benefit from the transfer speed boost that SD 2.00 brings. So if you want to brag to your friends you have more storage space than their recently bought iPhone all you have to do is wait until autumn.
Friday, June 29th, 2007 | Posted in Apple | No Comments »
I think it’s needless to say that today is the big day, the iPhone finally comes out. After long months of anticipation, waiting and suppositions now it’s time to reveal what the iPhone is really made of. Of course all the fuss created around it could backfire on Apple, as now people have huge expectations that will be very hard to raise up to.
I’ve noticed that in these last few days there was a trend of remembering “the begining” when everybody was keen on imagining what the iPhone will look like and what’s it going to do, features, specs and all that. Then the constant evolution, media craving for new details Apple was happy to give, little by little in order to maintain the hype. So little by little we’ve learned about the touchscreen, smart keypad, Safari browser, YouTuble watching capabilities and so on. Of course there was criticism too, regarding third party applications that can only be added through Safari and regarding the fact that it won’t support formats like JavaScript or Flash.
Also many feared that the iPhone will fail because many reasons, of which still stand, such as the fact that it will be coded to only be available in Cingular. But about other matters Apple cleared all fears, let’s take the keyboard for example, a feature many feared that will render the gadget useless. But the latest movie showing off the iPhone’s keyboard looks pretty good and quite functional, thus removing any doubts.
The launch itself is a huge effort from Apple and by launch I don’t mean only the distribution of iPhones but also offering support for the new product.
“With our legendary Genius Bar support, free workshops and our One to One personal training, we’re here to help customers get the most from their new iPhone.”
Ron Johnson, Senior vice president of Retail for Apple
The iPhone will become available at 6:00 p.m in all 164 AT&T retail stores in the US. The stores will remain opened until midnight and buyers will be allowed to purchase up to two iPhones at first. Also it’s said that if you want to get your iPhone today you’ll have to buy an accessory also, if you want just the phone you’ll have to wait 3 - 5 business days for it to be delivered to you.
The best part is that starting Saturday there will be a series of workshops held in the AT&T retail stores that will teach you all you need to know about your iPhone and how can you get the best experience with it. Also customers will have the famous Genius Bar at their disposal along with the new One to One program, that will take customer to a personal level.
But until then people are waiting in front of stores to get their hands on the iPhone. And when I say waiting I mean sitting in the cold weather for a long, long time. Here you can find some pictures of people waiting in line to be the first who get the coolest gadget of the century.
And last but not least there is pricing, for now you can get the 4GB model for $499 and an the 8GB model for $599. But besides that you’ll have to add carrier prices, accessories, internet access subscriptions and so on. All in all it won’t be cheap but you’ll be surprised to find out how many people think (take a look at those people waiting in line ).
And that’s the big picture on the iPhone right now, but I’m sure all that’s going to change in a few hours when we’ll get the first ‘hands on’ impressions.
Just hours before the iPhone launch Apple has released this video that shows off the much talked-about keyboard. Many have feared that is that keyboard that will be the ‘doom’ of the iPhone, but the way I see it, it looks quite Ok.
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As we all know Google just keeps coming up with new and crazy ideas, and this is one of them. So what they’ll basically do is to offer financial support to those who prove worthy. But before thinking of all the money you’ll make, there a couple of things you should know. Such as the fact that the program is only to gadget developers that meet the following:
This program is restricted to people who have developed a Google Gadget in our Google Gadgets directory that generates at least 250,000 weekly page views.
So you can obtain $5,000 grants to help you develop an existing gadget or you could get a $100,000 seed investment to help you develop brand new gadgets. And you don’t even need to reside in the US to benefit from Google Gadget Ventures (though if you want to go for the big $100,000 pot you’ll need to start a company in the US), all you need is a good idea and to be over 18.
So why are they doing this ? In their own words, to:
“help create an ecosystem where developers can spend more time doing what they love — building great gadgets”
The Nintendo Wii owners community is constantly expanding and for now it looks like it’s going to keep growing in the next period. But it seems the guys over at Nintendo want to make use of the momentum created by Wii and take the matter one step further.
I’m talking about WiiWare, of course. And you don’t have to get alarmed if you don’t know what’s it all about because it’s scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2008. What they plan to do is to create a development platform that game creators with smaller budgets can use to promote their work. This was tired before by Microsoft and Sony on their proprietary platforms but without any astonishing success. That was due to restrictions they enforced, both in the development process and also when talking about copyright issues.
“Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace”
Nintendo says they want to eliminate all that and WiiWare productions will only be limited by the imagination of their creators. This is questionable since the Wii console itself is limited. Even if not by legal means, it is limited by the hardware capabilities. But on the second thought I don’t really know if that’s such a big problem, as Wii has managed to create a loyal community of fans even if it doesn’t use the latest hardware on the market.
It was about time AOL updated their services. Although it’s the most popular instant messaging service in the US, even AOL must improve now and then. And so they did, now you can enjoy sending e-mails and IM using the same application, for free. Also AOL has launched the AIM WIMZI Widget that allows you to chat anonymously with visitors on your site.
The improvements to the mailing service were centered on offering clients a more accessible experience. So besides IMAP access they now provide POP3 access to the mail account. That makes AOL the only big mailing provider that offers both IMAP and POP3 for free ( Google only has POP3 and no actual IMAP protocol - but that can be solved with a trick) .
Speaking of accessibility, the AIM WIMZI widget allows you to get in touch with visitors on your blog or website, while you read your email or IM with your buddies, as now all the AOL services are united in one place.
As I’m sure you all know, Digg, the famous social news site was created by Kevin Rose. Many call him the wiz-kid of today’s Internet, but what’s sure is that he’s not stopping at Digg. Not so long ago he started Revision3 an interesting new project that seems to be growing into a financial success.
Now Kevin is starting Pownce, that in the words of its maker is:
“Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.”
So what exactly is Pownce ? Well let’s start by saying that it was started along with Shawn Allen, Leah Culver, Daniel Burka and, as all of Kevin’s projects, it has a certain Web 2.0 feel about it. And the purpose of the whole project is to let you share things with friends in an easier manner. Pownce is web-based ( although it has an optional desktop client) and for now you can share things like songs, pictures, links and even events with your personal network of friends. Of course users will also be able to rate items, thus creating an interesting social sharing site.
Right now, there are four basic things you can send: messages, links, files, and events.
You might send an event out to a dozen of your friends letting them know you’re hosting a party this Friday. They could easily get the event details you entered, respond with questions or comments and then quickly rsvp.
Say you had a great photo you wanted to share with all of your friends. Just add the file and all of your friends will get it right away. They’ll be able to reply and tell you if it’s cool. You could even post songs you recorded in your home studio to share with your friends.
Although this is radically different from the Digg we got used to already, I’m really curious if in time this could grow as as large as the above mentioned social news website.
Are you using Firefox on more than one computer? I certainly do, I use Firefox at work, at home and even at school, so it’s only natural that I want to be able to have the same bookmarks, settings, skins, etc. everywhere I go. One way to solve this problem is to keep track of your bookmarks online using services as Del.icio.us, but what if you want to keep your bookmarks private ? And this doesn’t solve the problem with saved passwords and other settings you can’t easily import. Or you can use some specific Firefox addons to synchronize your bookmarks, but then again that won’t help you very much.
Another answer to your problems would be to install a software like FolderShare that will keep your Firefox instances up to date. What you’ll do is configure the software so that when you install new plugins or when you modify in any way the content of the synced folder, it will do the same on all the other online installations. There are of course a few drawbacks such as the fact that at least two computers must be online for this to work, and the fact it won’t keep your browsing history (as the file used for that it’s a little hard to handle by FolderShare).
So here you have it, it’s free, it’s from Microsoft (surprisingly) and it does the job. And you think it’s too much trouble to do all that configuring just for Firefox, think about keeping your projects updated or other uses that software like FolderShare could have.
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Google’s popular Docs and Spreadsheets service gets updated. This is one feature I’ve been waiting for a long time. Namely they ‘ve added folders. Of course the tagging system is still there, what they did was to convert tags to folders. So don’t be afraid that you’ve lost all of your old tags since for now they have been converted to folders, and a single file can be found under several folders.
Other changes took place, such as improvements of the visual interface. Now it’s all new, shiny and eye-catching:
“The entire document list has been given a complete visual overhaul - new icons, more content, and better organizational controls. We know users spend a lot of time here and we aim to make it feel more like home.”
Also an interesting update was the addition of new search features that make use of the auto-complete feature. So from now on when you type a search, results will be filtered in real time so you’ll find stuff faster. Fans were requesting the inclusion of folders for a long time and all the other new features would come in handy, but I have a few suggestions of my own.
For example how about adding a search feature to Google Reader, it’s kind of funny that a search-engine based service doesn’t have a search function. I’d be glad to hear your opinions on this one.
I suppose many of you were waiting for the new version of Real Player to be released, and now it just did. First of all you can get it free from the download page over at RealNetworks. And now after you’ve checked out the software, let’s talk a little about features and what does the new version bring to RealPlayer.
I guess the biggest novelty is that you can download video files across the internet with just one click. You can search the web for files that use different formats and watch them and even burn them to DVD (if you get the RealPlayer Plus version for US$29.99). Also it seems that developers took in consideration Web 2.0, because you can share the videos you find with your friends via email. It’s not much but at least they’ve done something in this direction.
Additionally here’s a list of features, given by the developers:
– Multiple videos can be downloaded and recorded simultaneously. Users
can browse to new Web pages or close their browser while a download is
in process; the complete video will still be captured no matter when
the downloading feature is activated.
— Users don’t need to worry about the format of the video they are trying
to download. RealPlayer can capture online video in the most popular
formats including Flash, Windows Media, QuickTime and RealPlayer.
— RealPlayer automatically recognizes and will not download video content
protected by DRM (digital rights management) systems.
— RealPlayer gives users instant access to the most popular types of
video available on the Web through its “Best of the Web” collection
presented from within the application under the Real Guide tab.
— Consumers have the option of burning videos to CD with the free version
of the product, which can be played back in most DVD players. With
RealPlayer Plus, available for $29.99, users can burn video to DVD.
— Future versions of RealPlayer will enable users to transfer their
online video content to video iPods and other personal media devices.
— Mac compatible and foreign language versions of the new RealPlayer will
be available later this year.
For now the new version is still beta, so give it a try but don’t expect it to be perfect. But besides that it’s a new neat software to try if you’re into Internet movies.
