IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 27/11/2009

Nokia X6 Comes With Music phone starts shipping
Almost three months after its official announcement, Nokia's top of the top Comes With Music mobile phone, the X6, has started shipping to select markets, including the UK and Finland, where it will hit stores tomorrow. Bundled with one year unlimited access to the Nokia Music Store track catalog, the new phone has quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA support, it packs a 434 MHz ARM 11 processor, 128MB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and no memory card slot.

The device runs Symbian OS v9.4 and features a 3.2-inch (360x640) touchscreen, a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, backed by dual LED flash, an accelerometer, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth and an FM radio. Moreover, it is pre-loaded with three games - EA's Spore, and the Gameloft-developed Asphalt4 and DJ Mix Tour.

"The Nokia X6 Comes With Music edition is a stellar offering, that gives music fans the power to download all the music they could ever want - quickly, easily and for free," said Ole Feddersen, vice president, smartphones, Nokia. "We are giving people a handy access to and ownership of a vast music library and a great new touchscreen device to play their music on."

Those interested can find the X6 without a plan on Nokia UK's shop priced at أ‚آ£449.

AOC unveils four new LED-backlit LCD monitors
AOC Europe took the mic earlier today to detail four widescreen LCD monitors which it will ship in January (2010), the 18.5-inch E936Swa, the 21.5-inch E2236Swa and E2236Vwa, and the 23.6-inch E2436Vwa. These four displays all have a glossy black frame and a TN panel, and make use of white LEDs for backlighting which enables them to consume less power - under 20W (E936Swa) or 30W (the 21+ models) during normal operation and just 0.4W in standby.

The four LCD feature a dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1, a 5ms response time, a maximum brightness of 250 cd/m2, and are to be backed by a three-year warranty.

The E936Swa has a native resolution of 1366x768 pixels, while its 'larger' brothers top 1920x1080. Both the E936Swa and E2236Swa boast just D-Sub connectivity, while the other two monitors provide D-Sub and DVI. Moreover, the E2236Swa and E2436Vwa have build-in speakers - 2 x 2W and 2 x 1.5W, respectively.

Raptor Gaming to release H2 USB headset next month
Raptor Gaming has now unveiled a new addition to its peripheral offer, the H2 USB 5.1 headset which is claimed to deliver a top notch surround sound experience to PC gamers. Seen below, the headset measures about 130 x 230 x 90 mm and weights 320 grams, has USB connectivity, soft earpads and a noise-canceling microphone, plus an almost 3 meter long cable which boasts a mini control unit for volume adjustments.

The H2 USB features a frequency range of 50 Hz - 20 KHz, a sensitivity of 115dB (+/- 3dB ), front, rear and center drivers with 38 mW RMS power (per channel) and a 300 mW subwoofer. The declared impedance is 64, 32 and 8 Ohm for the center, front/rear drivers and subwoofer, respectively.

Raptor Gaming will release the H2 USB headset towards the end of December with a price tag of 70 Euro.

Mozilla outs Firefox 3.6 beta 4
For those celebrating Thanksgiving and every other Firefox fan that doesn't, Mozilla has supplied a little treat in the form of the fourth beta version of Firefox 3.6. According to Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox at Mozilla, the browser's developers have done "excellent work on knocking down the Firefox 3.6 Beta topcrash list" and because of that the decision has been made for a new beta release to be rolled out.

Compared to its predecessor, this latest and probably last beta of Firefox 3.6 comes with over 140 bug fixes and is making the last preparations for an RC (Release Candidate) build which may debut as early as next week. The main highlights of Firefox 3.6 are improved JavaScript performance and startup time, support for CSS, DOM, HTML5 and the Web Open Font Format (WOFF), easy customization with Personas, and alerts for plug-in updates.

The Firefox 3.6 beta 4 has not been put up on mozilla.com yet but you can get it via FTP here.

A-Data announces speedy 633x CompactFlash cards
Taiwanese memory maker A-Data Technology has developed a new line of CompactFlash cards which are specifically aimed at photographers who want the fastest storage solution for their DSLR cameras. Known as CF633X, the cards come in 16GB and 32GB capacities, have an auto ECC (Error Correction Code) function, make use of turboMLC technology and deliver read and write speeds of up to 93 MB/s and 92 MB/s, respectively.

The fast CF633X memory cards are backed by a lifetime warranty and should become available in the near future. No word on pricing yet.

Ericsson buying Nortel's North American GSM business
More bits and pieces of Nortel Networks are moving into Ericsson's portfolio as the Swedish telecommunications company has won the bid for a number of assets of Nortel's GSM business in the US and Canada. Ericsson will pay $70 million cash for the GSM base which will help strengthens its ability to serve North America's wireless operators.

The bid for Nortel's GSM property was made by Ericsson together with Kapsch CarrierCom, the latter being set to shell out $33 million to buy GSM assets in Europe and Taiwan.

"Along with our recent acquisition of Nortel's CDMA and LTE assets, the transaction emphasizes Ericsson's commitment to the North American market and strengthens our position as a leading provider of telecommunications technology and services in the United States and Canada" said Hans Vestberg, incoming President and CEO of Ericsson. "Our Ericsson family will be once again enriched by the addition of the valuable Nortel employees."

The addition of the GSM business will see Ericsson hire about 350 Nortel employees.

GeForce 195.62 driver gets WHQL certification
One day after releasing the GeForce 195.62 in WHQL candidate 'mode', Nvidia has let loose the fully-Microsoft approved version of its graphics driver. As you'd expect, there are no major changes to be noted so we'll just remind you that the 195.62 comes with the PhysX v9.09.0814 system software, has support for the GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, and 200 series desktop cards as well as ION IGPs, and features the following highlights:

- Added GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with the new Adobe Flash 10.1 beta.
- Added support for OpenCL 1.0 (Open Computing Language) for all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
- Added support for CUDA Toolkit 3.0 features and performance enhancements.
- Added SLI and multi-GPU support for many top new gaming titles including Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, FIFA Soccer 10, and more.
- Includes numerous bug fixes.

To download the WHQL-certified GeForce 195.62 click on the links below:

- GeForce 195.62 (Windows XP 32bit)
- GeForce 195.62 (Windows XP 64bit)
- GeForce 195.62 (Windows 7/Vista 32bit)
- GeForce 195.62 (Windows 7/Vista 64bit)

Microsoft fixes SD card data corruption bug in Windows 7
Redmond's own Microsoft Corp. has this week issued a fix for a rather nasty issue that plagued the shiny new Windows 7 operating system. The problem tacked would corrupt the data a user transferred to a NTFS-formatted SD memory card via Advanced Direct Memory Access (ADMA).

According to Microsoft, the Secure Digital Bus Driver (Sdbus.sys) driver, which converts the DMA data structure of the OS to the ADMA data structure of the SD card, may set an incorrect data length in the SD descriptor table. When this happens, the data copied is corrupted and further problems could occur trying to access it.

Users of Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Enterprise, Professional or Ultimate can get the fix for the bug from this page (both 32bit and 64bit versions are available).

iiyama presents two new 27-inch ProLite LCD monitors
iiyama has this week introduced a couple of new 27-inch monitors to its ProLite family, the B2712HDS/-B and E2710HDS/-B. Both coming in black and white, the displays draw 45W during normal operation and just 1W when in standby, have a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a 5ms (2ms GTG) response time, a maximum brightness of 400 cd/m2, a contrast ratio of 1,000:1, and boast D-Sub, DVI and HDMI 1.3 connectors.

The ProLite B2712HDS/-B has a dynamic contrast ratio of 50,000:1, two 1.5W speakers and costs about $458, while the ProLite E2710HDS/-B features a 20,000:1 DCR, dual 2W speakers, four USB ports and is priced at $435. Both monitors are backed by a three-year warranty.

Lan Gear taking pre-orders for DA BOX 100 chassis
Lan Gear's hot new micro ATX PC case known as DA BOX 100 is now up on pre-order and is planned to start shipping on December 18. Seen below, the chassis measures 370 (L) x 217 (H) x 288 (W) mm, has a black anodized brushed aluminum finish, one exposed 5.25-inch bay, a removable motherboard tray, it supports full ATX PSUs, includes an anti-theft system, and is equipped with a 92mm front fan and two 120mm spinners (side and back).

DA BOX 100 is available here in the following four versions:

- Classic - Black outside, no black interior, no window, with fans @ $160
- Full Black w/t fan - 100% black (inside and out) with window, without fans @ $170
- Full Black w/t window - 100% black with fans and without window @ $180
- Full Black - "Black Heart" - 100% black with fans and window @ $180

Friday, November 27, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 27/11/2009

No comments: