ASUS Eee 1005PR Available for Pre-Order

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The ASUS Eee 1005PR has now gone up for pre-order. The netbook has a 10.1 inch screen and slightly differs from the ASUS Eee 1005PE model in that the 1005PR has a HD screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. A Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator is built in allowing HD content to be played back.

The netbook at Amazon costs $399.99 and is ready for pre-order now although no shipping dates have been provided just yet on site.

A list of the specifications can be found below that show what runs on the 1005PR. Some of these include an Intel Atom N450 CPU running at 1.66GHz along with 1GB of DDR2 memory and the HD graphics chipset. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Laptops

Apple iPad Flash Video made Possible with RipCode

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The story of the Apple iPad and iPhone OS not allowing flash has been going on for a while, even to the point now where Adobe are looking at taking legal action over it.

A company called RipCode looks to be the one who could bring flash to the iPad by introducing their new codek called TransAct Transcoder V6 that is designed to intercept video in the Adobe Flash based format and convert them on the fly in to a container on the iPad. This process is completely transparent to users of the iPad and will allow users to view flash content on the iPad.

The iPad is poised to further accelerate and expand the mobile video device market just as the iPhone has over the last several years. However, one of its noted shortcomings has been Apple’s lack of support for Flash video playback, given the dominant position of Flash in professionally generated entertainment, sports and news content. HTML5 has been purported to address this dilemma by introducing Apple device applications that are simply ˜thin clients’ communicating back to a web site hosting and subsequently delivering Flash files without a device-based player, but HTML5 is not yet widely adopted. RipCode’s Transactional Transcoding platform enables an alternate and immediate solution to this issue, opening up video content to users without requiring the content hoster to move to HTML5 or pre-transcode entire video libraries from Flash to an iPad-accepted container format. By transcoding the content ˜in the cloud’, it is essentially analogous to a network-based Flash to MP4 or MPEG-TS video adaption layer.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: iPad

Scosche Dual USB Charger for iPad

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

If you purchased an Apple iPad this month you might have noticed that USB charging can be a bit hit and miss on some laptops and computers. This is due to the power requirements of the Apple iPad being a little too high for what a regular USB port can output.

The requirement that the iPad has is that at least 10 watts are needed from the port. Most USB 2.0 ports are below this causing the iPad not to charge when connected to your PC. This isn’t a huge problem though as it does come with a wall adapter allowing you to charge it that way.

The Scosche Dual USB charger has a couple of different USB ports on with one of them being designed specifically to provide enough power output to charge an iPad. This gadget is part of the Revive II line that comes with an AC adapter for usage in the home as well as a car adapter to charge while on the move. [Read more…]

Filed Under: USB Gadgets

Samsung AMOLED Beam Projector Phone

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Samsung have unveiled the Samsung AMOLED Beam SPH-W9600 in to the Korean market. The AMOLED Beam is a successor to the Haptic Beam and has uses a Samsung AMOLED screen (as the name suggests) to enhance the quality of the phone and provide richer images.

The Beam part of the phones name also indicates the presence of a pico projector. The built in projector is capable of throwing an image up to 50 inches diagonal on to a nearby surface allowing you to watch video more comfortably or view photos with friends. The projector has a 9 lumen rating for brightness. When compared with the older Haptic Beam the AMOLED Beam is about 1.5 times brighter.

The touchscreen on the device measures 3.3 inches and is in a WVGA resolution. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cell Phones

Intel Atom System-on-chip (SoC) Unveiled

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Intel have announced a new version of it’s Intel Atom processor that uses a system-on-chip configuration. The Intel Atom SoC has been nicknamed Tunnel Creek and will be based around the Moorestown Atom chip.

The chip it’s self will be designed to be used in computers embedded around the home which could include home media systems, phones, tablets or perhaps even in-car entertainment and navigation systems to name a few things.

SoC allows the chip to contain the CPU it’s self along with a memory controller and graphics cores as well allowing easier integration in to devices. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Tech News

Apple iPad Going to Orange in the UK

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

We just received a press release from Orange in our inbox. The press release was quite brief and basically said that Orange in the UK, Spain, France and Switzerland will be offering dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May.

No prices have been indicated although the press release does follow a couple of other press releases today from Vodafone and Apple themselves. Apple [AAPL] earlier announced a delay of the Apple iPad internationally taking the release date from late April to late May although a date of May 10 has been given on the Apple site saying pre-orders will be accepted from that time.

Vodafone have also pretty much said the same as Orange in that they too will be offering the iPad in various countries towards the end of May. [Read more…]

Filed Under: iPad

Nokia N8 Delayed – Rumour

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The Nokia N8 was first spotted a few months back and over time we heard that an official announcement would arrive in April with a launch of the phone in May. We have now heard rumours that say the launch will be delayed.

The tip came from GSMArena who says the launch was pushed from late May to mid July. It also appears that O2 will be stocking the phone in the UK due to the tip coming from an O2 shop worker who spotted the N8 on their system. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cell Phones

Doxie Portable Scanner Preparing for Shipment

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The Doxie is a portable scanner that was first spotted back at CES 2010 in January.

The scanner costs $129 and is capable of capturing crisp scans of images which is partly due to some patented scanning technology that the company have used within the Doxie.

The Doxie is capable of scanning direct to the web allowing you to easily store documents in Google Docs and images on your Flickr account. Evernote is also available to connect to direct from the scanner allowing you to keep organised. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Computer Gadgets

Alex eReader to Ship Today

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The Alex eReader (long awaited eReader) will be shipping today according to a press release published yesterday.

The Alex eReader is a dual screen eReader device that has an eInk screen on the top side with a smaller colour LCD touchscreen on the lower side. This allows users to scan through books on the quicker screen but then read on a clearer screen to conserve battery life.

The device weighs just 11 ounces and runs the Android operating system. Support for eBooks in various formats is also included. The list indicates that EPUB, PDF, HTML and TXT formats are compatible with the reader.

The first model that will ship will connect to the book store using WiFi only. Later this year it was announced that a 3G version will be launched along with an EVDO/CDMA variant. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Computer Gadgets

Game Gripper for Motorola DROID

April 14, 2010 by 2 Comments

The Game Gripper is a device designed for the Motorola DROID/MILESTONE that allows you to use the keyboard as a game controller.

The device slides over the keyboard of the DROID and essentially moves the D-Pad that’s on the right of the DROID keyboard to a controller like D-Pad on the left side of the keyboard in a more familiar place.

As well as moving the D-Pad to the correct location, 8 buttons are also added that can be customised for playing games on your DROID. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cell Phones

Apple iPad to be Sold by Vodafone

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Gizmodo are reporting today that Vodafone [VOD] will be announcing pricing details for the Apple iPad in several countries that includes the UK, Australia, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Right now it isn’t clear if Vodafone will have an exclusive on selling the iPad, or if it will be opened up for any network pretty much how the iPhone is at the moment whereby it is available to most carriers over this way.

Pricing and data costs are not known at the moment, but we potentially could see both non subsidised and subsidised plans on the network, if Apple [AAPL] allow it. If not then expect to pay full price for the iPad and a lower subscription cost. [Read more…]

Filed Under: iPad

Toshiba Tecra M11 Launched with Core i3, i5 CPUs

April 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Toshiba have announced the launch of the Toshiba Tecra M11 range of laptops. Toshiba describe these particular M11 laptops as being built for road warriors.

The design is kind of sucky and steps away from the more sleek looking laptops we are seeing this last year, but inside there’s a lot of power going on.

The screen on the Tecra M11 measures 14 inches. It’s a HD screen backlit by LED and has an anti-glare coating on it. It runs Windows 7 Professional. DDR3 memory can be found inside along with Intel Core processors ranging from the i3 to i5. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Laptops