It's Official: Microsoft To Provide Browser Choice In Europe To Avoid Fines
Who knows if this whole "end of an ordeal" has anything to do with the current season, but it looks like the European Union is in the giving mood. Today, the EU announced that it would be dropping the pending charges against Microsoft regarding its decision to force Internet Explorer upon poor, lost European Windows 7 buyers. If you'll think back, the EU was putting pressure on Microsoft for months to give users a choice when it came to selecting their browser.After lots of work and a few rejections, it seems
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LaCie's Rikiki Is World's Smallest 2.5" External Hard Drive
If Apple holds the crown for best looking laptops, we're pretty confident LaCie holds the crown for best looking hard drives. The company made famous for taking standard storage drives and converting them into objects of desire has just pushed out their latest device, and yes, it's a looker. The LaCie Rikiki is a real tongue-twister, and furthermore, it's one of the smallest HDDs that have ever been announced by the outfit.LaCie claims that this is the tiniest 2.5" HDD on the market, measuring just 110cm thick
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Agama Introduces Four New Gaming And Bluetooth Mice
Can't say we've ever heard of Agama, but it's not like the world doesn't need yet another peripherals and accessories provider, right? Just before the kick-off of CES 2010, Agama has decided to make a pre-Christmas splash in the market with the launch of new mice that feature high-precision sensors tailored for gamers and professionals. The range features four new mice: The M-300 Retractable Mini Notebook Mouse super mini size (74mm) and retractable cable make this mouse easy to store ($10.99 MSRP), the M-500G
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Sony Ericsson Goes Green With Elm & Hazel Handsets
Sony Ericsson added two new handsets and a Bluetooth handsfree unit to the manufacturer's earth-friendly GreenHeart portfolio. The new Sony Ericsson Elm phone, the Sony Ericsson Hazel phone, and the VH700 all use recycled plastics, are free from hazardous chemicals, use a low power consumption charger, and feature minimized packaging. The GreenHeart project is designed to help Sony Ericsson reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2015. Sony Ericsson hopes to make all of its accessories 100% GreenHeart compliant by
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WD Gives You Up To 11% More Space With Advanced Format
WD (Western Digital) is starting to use a new hard disk drive format that enables 7-11% greater capacity on hard disk drives. The disk expansion technique is known as Advanced Format. This technique takes advantage of changes in the industry in drive sector sizes and consolidates overhead information to free up additional space for data storage. As a result of Advanced Format, a 1TB drive could potentially gain more than 100GB in capacity. Other drive manufacturers are also adopting Advanced Format to squeeze
Read More ...
VIA Launches Nano-Powered EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 Boards
VIA Nano Processor Readies VIA EPIA Boards for Next Generation Embedded Applications and Windows 7 Technologies VIA EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 boards featureVIA Nano processor for advanced multimedia performance in next generation embedded applications Taipei, Taiwan, December 15, 2009 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms,?today announced the latest VIA EPIA-M800 Mini-ITX and VIA EPIA-N800 Nano-ITX boards. Featuring the 64-bit, high-performance VIA Nano processor,
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What, Was It URL Shortener Day Or Something?
It must have been World URL Shortener Day yesterday. First came the news that Facebook has been testing a URL shortener, fb.me. Then Google announced the arrival of Goo.gl. And though it wasn't as flashy as the first two pieces of news, those paying attention saw that URL shortener powerhouse bit.ly announced a new Pro version that allows users to create custom shortened URLs. Let's face it. Some URL are so long and cumbersome that there's no way to even read it to someone over the phone or shout it across the
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Gefen's 4x1 KVM DVI DL Switcher: Only Pros Need Apply
KVM switches are one of the most underrated PC accessories on the market, hands-down. Not too many average consumers need one, but they are a miracle-worker for those with multiple machines and screens. Gefen is looking to step up the tried-and-true KVM with the introduction of the next generation 4x1 KVM DVI DL Switcher, which is actually far less complicated than its lengthy model name would lead you to believe.The new version of the device supports the connection of one display using either single or dual
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Giving and Using iPhone this Holiday Season
iPhone is an Internet and multimedia enabled smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. iPhone is more than just a phone. It combines three devices in one: a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device. See, hear, play everything that entertains you on one really great iPhone.
Part I. Taking iPhone as a gift
Christmas is coming, and sometimes the stressful search for the perfect Christmas present for family and friends. If the people on your list are into gadgets, you'll be sure to give iPhone as a gift this oliday season.
People who will love the iPhone
* College students. If you've got a child in college, they've got a cell phone (which you're probably paying for) and might have/want an iPod. Why not combine the two?
* Movie fans who watch a lot of video may want great battery life offered by the iPhone.
* People on the go - with a phone, music player, and always-on Internet access, the iPhone is a terrific tool for someone always out and about.
* Game lovers. With the App Store, the iPhone has a library of terrific mobile games.
iPhone 3GS – the perfect choice of gift
The iPhone 3GS is the new hottest gadget since its launch. It takes the second-generation iPhone 3G as its base and adds fine-tunings and a few major new features for video recording, voice control and giving you a storage of up to 32GB! The major changes to the iPhone 3GS come in the areas of performance and media. The 3G S performs much faster than the 3G, with Apple claiming an overall two-fold increase in speed. One other nice feature that's been tacked on the video tool is video recording and editing. You can grab and cut video in-phone without having to offload anywhere else. Well, it’s clear that iPhone 3GS should be a perfect gift choice for the gadget-lover on your holiday shopping list.
Part II. I just got an iPhone ... Now what?
OK, you're the proud owner of a fancy new iPhone. Not only is the iPhone a great holiday gift, it's also a very useful mobile device. You're really going to enjoy it. You may be asking yourself, though, where do I begin? Even if you've had an iPod in the past, the experience of setting up and using the iPhone is a bit more involved. Below you'll find most useful in the early stages of activating and using your iPhone.
Unlocking and activating iPhone
In order to being using your iPhone, you have to activate it using iTunes or PwnageTool. Though George Hotz has finally come up with Mac version of BlackRa1n jailbreak on Oct. 14th, 2009, BlackRa1n requires you to update your iDevice to OS 3.1.2 and then jailbreak it. PwnageTool, on the other hand, creates a custom firmware which preserves your Baseband from updating so that you may unlock your iPhone later if you want to. iFunia's iPhone column gives the step-by-step guide on iPhone activation with PwnageTool to get you started using it right away!
Syncing iPhone and iTunes
Once you've activated your iPhone, you'll be forwarded to the sync management page to manage iPhone syncing and content. The iPhone will automatically begin syncing your phone with the contacts, calendars, web bookmarks, and email accounts it finds on your computer. You can choose to accept whatever it finds or you can customize what gets synced. Music, podcast, movie syncing does not happen automatically the first time you connect the iPhone to iTunes. As such, you have to specify what you want to sync and then resync. The iPhone can also sync its photos with your iPhoto library. When you're done chosing all your settings, click the sync button at the bottom right to resync the iPhone with iTunes and all your content will be in place.
Getting holiday video and DVD movies onto your iPhone
Besides enjoying iTunes movie on the go, you will surely take some video and collect big DVD libraries this holiday. Video converter and DVD Ripper software can help you convert video – DVDs, TV shows, video clips – from their native formats to a format that will be supported by iPhone on Mac, including Snow Leopard. There are many programs such as Handbrake and iFunia DVD Ripper Pro for Mac can do this, ranging from free to those that cost $20-$40. They vary in output quality, so try a free download and then make the right choice.
Here is a step by step guide about how to rip DVD movies to iPhone MP4 format(Take iFunia DVD Ripper Pro for example), you could draw inferences about other cases from one instance.
Step 1. Download iFunia DVD Ripper Pro for Mac, install and run
Step 2. Select the titles you'd like to convert
A movie DVD usually has several titles. The shorter titles on the DVD are usually the video backgrounds used in the DVD menu screens and DVD extras like movie trailers. Unless you are a graphic artist, you probably don't want to convert these titles.
* Movie: If you are ripping a movie, the longest title is usually the main feature.
* TV Shows: If you are ripping a DVD containing TV shows, you should see a list of several titles all about the same length.
Step 3. Edit videos: crop, trim, add special effects or add watermark
Wanna add a personalized watermark on the output video files? You may add a text watermark or an image logo using iFunia DVD Ripper Pro for Mac. Just select the titles/chapters you'd like to add watermark, then click the button 'Edit' to open video editing window. If you want to crop DVD movies or add some special effects, click the first two tabs.
Step 4. Change the output settings to convert videos with best quality
In the Destination-Setup section of the interface, choose the right preset for your iPhone device in the Convert-to drop-down menu. You can also change the output settings to make the video look the best on iPhone. Here I set the output video format to 'iPhone MPEG-4 (640*480) Video (*.mp4)', Video Codec as 'H.264', Resolution as '640*480', Bitrate as '768', Frame Rate as '30', Audio Codec as 'AAC' by default.
Step 5. Start converting DVD movies
Now you may click the big button "Start" to begin converting DVD movies onto your hard disk. The Convert progress bar shows you how much of the convert process is completed. Once the convert is complete, iFunia DVD Ripper Pro will place on your Mac a new version of your movie that will play on the iPhone. Double-click the new file and play it to make sure it looks as you expect.
Transfering video from iPhone to computer
This holiday, you will surely play with video recording feature from iPhone 3GS. You may prefer getting videos over to your new Mac and viewing the video at full quality, rather than compressed / monkeyed with for YouTube. To import videos quickly from iPhone 3GS to a Mac, first connect your iPhone to your Mac with its USB (sync) cable, and launch the Image Capture app, choose where to download videos or pictures to, and then click Download. You can also import 3GS videos via the iPhoto app, simply connect your iPhone 3GS to your computer and open your photo management program. Import photos in your normal way. Coming along with the still photos will be your video.
Well, there's a lot more to learn when iPhone comes to more advanced use, of course, but the things above are what you're likely to need to know in the first days or weeks of having a new iPhone. Take advantage of the great gift and spread some cheer this holiday season!
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WD Gives You Up To 11% More Space With Advanced Format
WD (Western Digital) is starting to use a new hard disk drive format that enables 7-11% greater capacity on hard disk drives. The disk expansion technique is known as Advanced Format. This technique takes advantage of changes in the industry in drive sector sizes and consolidates overhead information to free up additional space for data storage. As a result of Advanced Format, a 1TB drive could potentially gain more than 100GB in capacity. Other drive manufacturers are also adopting Advanced Format to squeeze more capacity out of existing hard drive technology.As WD explains, there are three basic methods to increase the capacity on a hard drive: increase the bit density with Advanced Formatting, increase the number of tracks per inch, or increase the number of disk platters. Since boosting bit density takes advantage of space that's already available on every track of a hard disk drive platter, WD chose this route.
WD explains how Advanced Formatting works:
Each [hard disk] track is composed of a series of sectors. Currently the user data on the media is stored in 512 byte sectors. The storage industry is improving this legacy architecture by changing the size of the sectors on the media to store 4,096 bytes of data rather than 512 bytes of data.As an additional benefit, Advanced Format can increase data integrity by providing a more efficient error correction scheme using longer ECC code words. This improves error correction by 50% according to WD.
Each sector has a gap, Sync/DAM (lead-in) and error correction information. Legacy architecture is very inefficient for ECC (Error Correction Code). It requires lots of overhead to support multiple blocks of ECC.
With Advanced Format technology we can remove Sync/DAM blocks, inter-sector gaps and 8 separate blocks of ECC, and gain approximately 7-11% in disk space.
WD's Caviar Green drives, which are available in capacities up to 2TB, currently use Advanced Format. WD expects to offer additional models and capacities in the future. Advanced Format is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Mac OS X; it's not optimized for Windows XP or older operating systems. For users with older operating systems, WD's Align software utility can be used to align partitions on the Advanced Format drive to ensure it provides full performance for certain configurations.
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Sony Ericsson Goes Green With Elm & Hazel Handsets
Sony Ericsson added two new handsets and a Bluetooth handsfree unit to the manufacturer's earth-friendly GreenHeart portfolio. The new Sony Ericsson Elm phone, the Sony Ericsson Hazel phone, and the VH700 all use recycled plastics, are free from hazardous chemicals, use a low power consumption charger, and feature minimized packaging.The GreenHeart project is designed to help Sony Ericsson reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2015. Sony Ericsson hopes to make all of its accessories 100% GreenHeart compliant by 2011.
Sony Ericsson Elm
The Sony Ericsson Elm and Sony Ericsson Hazel phones feature a 5 megapixel camera, noise shield technology, and the ability to back up your personal information over the air on Sonyericsson.com. The phones also provide easy access to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Both phones work with Google Search, Google Maps, and Wisepilot and provide turn-by-turn navigation with aGPS.
“The Sony Ericsson Elm and the Sony Ericsson Hazel phones offer consumers a green choice without compromising on features or fun. These mobile phones also give consumers a better voice quality experience with Noise Shield, Clear Voice and Intelligent Volume Adaptation. Both phones offer an easy-to-use social networking experience featuring the Widget Manager application, which allows users access to their social networking page via the stand-by screen and quickly switch between different social networks.†said Fortunأ© Alexander, Global Marketing Director at Sony Ericsson.
Sony Ericsson Hazel
The Bluetooth Noise Shield Handsfree VH700 offers dual microphone Noise Shield technology to help eliminate background noise. Thanks to Intelligent Voice adaptation, Sony Ericsson claims you'll hear every word everywhere you go. The unit can connect to two phones simultaneously.
The Elm and the Hazel support GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 and HSPA 2100/900. The Sony Ericsson Elm phone will come in Metal Black and Pearly Rose in the first quarter of next year. The Sony Ericsson Hazel will be available in Superior Black and Passionate Rouge finishes in the second quarter. Pricing has not yet been announced.
The Bluetooth Noise Shield Handsfree VH700 will be available in Black, Silver/White, Pink/White, and Red/White in the second quarter.
Bluetooth Noise Shield Handsfree VH700
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What, Was It URL Shortener Day Or Something?
It must have been World URL Shortener Day yesterday.First came the news that Facebook has been testing a URL shortener, fb.me. Then Googleannounced the arrival of Goo.gl. And though it wasn't as flashy as thefirst two pieces of news, those paying attention saw that URL shortenerpowerhouse bit.ly announced a new Pro version that allows users to create custom shortened URLs.
Let's face it. Some URL are so long and cumbersome that there's no wayto even read it to someone over the phone or shout it across the room.When you're linking to an image on a page in a subdirectory, the URLcan go on for approximately 12,000 pages, it seems. So even beforeTwitter, there was a call for tinyurl.com (which, incidentally, allowedyou to customize your shortened URL) and its many imitators. Neweriterations, however, give you serious analytics to go along with theshortened URL, so they've become essential devices in measuring trafficand where it came from.
The rise of Twitterfrom geek to mainstream status has made them even more essential, andearlier this year bit.ly introduced j.mp, which just may be theshortest URL shortener on the planet. StumbleUpon has its own - su.pr;Digg does, too - digg.com, with the post-slash portion always startingwith a "d" before the series of letters and numbers.
Bit.ly's analytics give you information on where the clicks came from,including AIR apps. Su.pr suggests the best time of day for you toshare its links via Twitter and/or Facebook. Digg's simply tells youhow many views you've had (Digg's shortener is a bit different from therest as its primary purpose is to bring new traffic to Digg.com - ifyou're not already signed in to Digg, clicking on the link will takeyou to a Digg page rather than the article page with the frame at thetop.
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What's interesting about these new shorteners is that Facebook and Google are the Big Boys.
Facebookis the largest social networking site in the world, with more than 350million subscribers (more than the population of the United States,according to the U.S. Census Bureau). It's not providing analytics yet,but if it decides to do that, it could automatically become thedefault. So many people on Facebook are not big users of Twitter orother applications where shorteners are used. Some may not even beaware that URL shorteners exist. If they start using the Facebookshortener because it's there, it could become a monster in the fieldalmost overnight. Also nice: Any Facebook link can be shortened just byadding "fb.me" where "www.facebook.com" is - so http://fb.me/HotHardware takes you automatically to http://www.facebook.com/HotHardware, for example.Of course, until Facebook starts providing analytics, people who areusing bit.ly and similar services aren't going to make the jump.
As for Google,the 'Net behemoth has made few missteps to this point. Despite itsgargantuan size and the massive amounts of data about ordinary peoplethat it has control over, it has a pretty good reputation and mostpeople like the company. If Google were to somehow merge the shortenerwith Google Analytics, which already is the top free analytics tool forbloggers, it could easily take over. It also is only available onGoogle URLs for now anyway.
But for now, bit.ly is the default URL shortener on Twitter, which iswhere the largest number of people are using the shorteners. With anapp like TweetDeck, for example, you don't even have to press a buttonto shorten if you don't want - it can be set up to auto-shorten anyURL, and unless you change your preferences, bit.ly's what you'll get.So the company's decision to give paying users the ability to customizeis shrewd. Instead of a publication such as the New York Times brandinganother product through its shortened URLs, for example, the companycan create a shortened URL base of "nyti.ms," which would make it moretransparent to the end user where they're clicking through to evenwithout the new anti-shorteners that have sprung up, such as"untiny.me" and "real-url.org."Read More ...
1st detailed pictures of Intel H57 based Asus P7H57D-V EVO
1st detailed pictures of Intel H57 based Asus P7H57D-V EVO
http://www.teknofrikik.com/2009/12/asus-p7h57d-v-evo/4/
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VIA Launches Nano-Powered EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 Boards
VIA Nano Processor Readies VIA EPIA Boards for Next Generation Embedded Applications and Windows 7 Technologies
VIA EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 boards featureVIA Nano processor for advanced multimedia performance in next generation embedded applications
Taipei, Taiwan, December 15, 2009 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms,?today announced the latest VIA EPIA-M800 Mini-ITX and VIA EPIA-N800 Nano-ITX boards. Featuring the 64-bit, high-performance VIA Nano processor, these new embedded boards bring advanced digital multimedia performance to the next wave of embedded devices on forthcoming Windows 7-based technologies. VIA Nano Processor & VIA VX800 Media System Processor
Devices based on the VIA EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 leverage the performance enhancements of the VIA Nano processor, offering an improved user experience with advanced human to machine interaction and a visually stunning multimedia experience through the latest HD codecs and media streaming technologies. Specific applications include the latest media-centric designs in digital signage and advanced information, ticket and kiosk machines.
"By selecting the VIA Nano processor for the VIA EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800, we've managed to build on a successful product line and address the needs of the market as we move in to 2010," said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "These new board designs will help facilitate the gradual transition toward technologies that are creating a new breed of graphically sophisticated and digitally vibrant devices." 
The VIA Nano processor is based on the 64-bit, superscalar 'Isaiah' architecture, boasting as much as a four-fold performance boost over VIA C7 and VIA Eden processors while remaining within a similar thermal envelope. The VIA EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 represent an easy upgrade path for current system and device designs based on VIA EPIA-M700 and VIA EPIA-N700 boards.
The key to the outstanding multimedia performance of both the VIA EPIA-M800 and VIA EPIA-N800 lies in the VIA VX800 unified chipset. The VIA VX800 features an VIA Chrome9 IGP for DirectX 9.0 3D graphics, up to six-channels of VIA Vinyl HD Audio and the VIA Chromotion video engine, providing advanced hardware video acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9 and VC-1 video, plus a VMR capable HD video processor.
The VIA EPIA-M800 Mini-ITX board
The VIA EPIA-M800 is powered by a choice of 1.3+GHz U2250 or a fanless 1.2GHz U2500 VIA Nano processor, making it suitable for a wide range of applications including performance-intensive and mission critical applications.
The latest display technologies are supported via a front panel DVI port with pin-headers for an additional DVI or HDMI port through a daughterboard. Support for 18-bit TTL signal output as well as a digital video input is available through pin headers supporting CCIR-656/601/ transport stream video. An S/PDIF connector is also supported.
Storage includes both an IDE port with a shared Compact Flash port, 2 SATA II ports and up to 6 USB 2.0 ports, two through onboard connectors. Connectivity comes in the form of dual Gigabit LAN ports on the high speed PCI-Express bus. The VIA EPIA-M800 can withstand a wide temperature range from 0-60oC.
The VIA EPIA-N800 Nano-ITX board
The VIA EPIA-N800 Nano-ITX features a 1.3+GHz U2250 VIA Nano processor and the VIA VX800 media system processor. Measuring only 12cm x 12cm, the VIA EPIA N800 features onboard VGA, USB, COM and Gigabit network ports to help reduce system foot-print size and eradicate cluttered cabling for improved air-flow and enhanced stability in always-on systems.
Aimed at compact digital display and signage applications the VIA EPIA-N800 offers VGA and a multi-configuration, 24-bit, dual channel LVDS transmitter, enabling display connection to embedded panels. As well as two onboard SATA connectors, expansion options include a Mini-PCI slot, with additional COM and USB ports and PS/2 support available through pin-headers. The DRAM slot has been relocated to the bottom side of the board for easy access and maintenance from system design perspective.
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