Acer Planning MID/UMPC, Kindle Rival To Battle Tablet Revolution
Look out, guys--Acer is on the move! That's the message being spun by a computer company on the rise, and judging by the numbers, it honestly looks like Acer is poised to shake-up a market place long dominated by the likes of HP, Dell and Lenovo. A recent Forbes article has taken an interesting in-depth look at Acer, a company that doesn't receive nearly the recognition or respect it deserves in the mainstream. Currently, Acer's market share is only behind HP in terms of total units shipped (based on Gartner
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Targus Slims Down Charger Lineup, Gives Good Idea To Everyone Else
What could the world use more of these days? Well, that's a loaded question now that we think about it, but still, it's tough to deny that longer lasting batteries could be an excellent answer. In lieu of that, we suppose newer, smaller chargers will have to suffice. This week, Targus is announcing their lightest, most compact chargers for laptops, netbooks and other mobile devices such as smartphones, cell phones, iPads, iPods, MP3 players, and portable game players. They're marketed at travelers and those
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Apple Could Buy ARM, But It's Not Going To
Heard the latest? The stock world is abuzz over the rumor that Apple might purchase ARM Semiconductor. The rumor apparently began in London and was fueled by the combination of Apple's recent spectacular quarter and the fact that English accents sound so darn sophisticated. The train of logic goes something like this:Apple has built its own custom SoC (the iPad's A4)Apple had a great quarterARM is the industry leader when it comes to designing low power processors for handheld devicesApple will buy ARMBritish
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Asus MS238H LCD Monitor Review
While we tend to get worked up into a frenzy over the latest DX11 graphics cards and get deep into the latest multi-core processor releases, displays get comparatively little bandwidth here. Maybe it's because it is much more difficult to definitively quantify which monitor is better than another using a standard benchmark. As a result, testing displays can be a subjective affair that is often far from conclusive. Although some reviews are helpful, shopping for a display is
Read More ...
DisplayMate and Diamond Collaborate on Unique Docking Stations
With a little help from DisplayMate, Diamond Multimedia has come out with a new display adapter the company promises will make easy-work out of attaching additional displays to laptops and desktops. Diamond's BVUMD3 USB HD Display Adapter Plus, as it's called, supports DVI or VGA interfaces and features high quality digital imaging up to 1600x1200 and 1920x1080, while also allowing users to mirror or extend the display in any directions. "DisplayLink’s DL-165 USB virtual graphics chip has enabled us to
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ReZap Charger Brings New Life To Standard Dead Batteries
Earth Day was this week, and it seems that it was a much bigger deal in 2010 than in year's past. Maybe it had something to do with those tons of gallons of oil spilling off of the Gulf of Mexico (we're sure the Earth loved that), or maybe this is just what happens when everyone gets on the "green" bandwagon. Either way, PC Treasures and Digital Works Australia are definitely fans of the holiday, and they have joined forced not to bring back Captain Planet, but to bring the ReZap Battery Engineer to North America.
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YouTube Joins the Movie Renters Club, Store Now Open
If a proprietor approaches you about funding his brick and mortar movie rental venture, turn around and run in the other direction just as fast as you can go. Accuse us of overreacting if you will. but we're calling it folks: the in-store movie rental business is dead. Deceased. Six feet under. Pushing up daisies. However you want to put it, the point is the time for streaming video is now, and while your local mom and pop video store has probably already withered away, we have to wonder how long Blockbuster
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Nokia Delaying Symbian^3 Rollout, Not Dealing Well With Smartphone Competition
It's a tough world out there for anyone attempting to compete with HTC, Apple, Samsung and LG in the smartphone sector. Even for Nokia, who has held the overall market share lead from a worldwide perspective for years now. Overseas, Nokia phones are everywhere, but they're becoming less and less common to see in America with other smartphones grabbing the bulk of the mind and market share. Recently, Nokia released the company's latest quarterly results, and most of the news wasn't exactly rosy. The outfit cut
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Paradigm Shift Introduces Ultra-Cheap 5" Color E-reader
The e-reader market has experienced quick growth over the past couple of years, but even today, only a couple of standouts are well-known. Amazon's Kindle is easily the most well-recognized e-reader out there, with most every other one riding shotgun at best. But what the influx of lower-end, lesser-known e-readers has done is drive down prices overall, and for those who don't really care about branding or access to Amazon's specific e-book store, that's great news. Also, the impending boom in Tablet PCs has
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Socle To Introduce Android-Based Tablet PC In Second Half Of 2010
There's a pretty good way to see when a certain trend has hit mainstream, or even mass saturation. Mostly, it occurs when companies you've never, ever heard of are joining a bandwagon. Remember when the iPhone launched? Just a few months later, every phone company you had ever heard of was introduction a touch screen-based phone, and six months after that, companies you didn't know existing were doing the same. Now, the Tablet PC world is experiencing the same phenomenon. The latest Tablet revolution was sparked
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Numonyx Debuts Omneo Phase Change Memory: Wicked Fast, Wicked Small
Memory can be a complicated matter. We've got DIMMs, SODIMMs, DRAM, NAND, Flash, Error Correcting RAM, RDRAM, and the list goes on. Numonyx has been a major memory player for awhile now, and just a few months after being acquired by Micron, the company is now introducing a set of products based on the new class of memory technology called phase change memory (PCM). These new devices deliver higher performance, endurance and simplicity for wired and wireless communications, consumer electronics, PCs, and other
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HTC Walks Away From Palm Bid: Will Lenovo Bite?
Earlier in the month, it was being widely reported that Palm was being shopped around. Yes, the Palm that makes the rather successful Pre and Pixi phones, was or is up for sale. At that time, two of main potential suitors were HTC and Lenovo. HTC obviously felt like the best fit. Lately, HTC has shown that it has a penchant for creating fantastic hardware, but it has to rely on Google and Microsoft for software. It seemed as if buying Palm would give HTC the power they needed to move ahead as a standalone unit,
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Bluetooth 4.0 Officially Debuts: Low-Energy Spec Shipping In Products By Early 2011
Talk about innovating faster than the speed of a short-range file transfer. Bluetooth 2.0 and 2.1 are still standard inclusions on most shipping notebooks, but Bluetooth 3.0 has already been announced for a variety of smartphones. The biggest feature with BT 3.0 was the ability to borrow nearby Wi-Fi signals to speed up transfers when needed, but obviously that will drain more power in exchange for speed. Now, Bluetooth 4.0 is already being unveiled, far before Bluetooth 3.0 has even become a mainstay. This
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McAfee Anti-Virus Update Breaks Thousands Of PCs
If you've read any of our recent mobile reviews, you'd know that we're no fans of pre-installed security/anti-virus software. Too often, these suits are nagging, and they generally bog down a system that would otherwise run far faster. We have no issues with these applications being bundled on a disc, but having them on the HDD right out of the box is a less-than-great experience. Despite arguments to the contrary or otherwise, many corporate PCs have some sort of security suite installed. Generally, we see
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Hulu Plus Subscription Service Could Kill All-Free Implementation
Now that you've been sucked in and have grown hopelessly addicted to Hulu, it looks like you may have to pay in order to continue getting "your fix." Since its introduction, Hulu has been free to end-users. They simply logged on, selected a show, and enjoyed the stream (so long as they watched the ads). It felt somewhat too good to be true, but given the general push to consume content in atypical ways, we figured it may just be the way of the future. Now, we get the feeling that we may have made that assumption
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Microsoft Crushes It In Q3: $4.01 Billion In Net Income
When you're Microsoft, there's one thing you can do to pretty much guarantee huge revenue streams: create a new desktop operating system. The company announced their third-quarter earnings today, and if you're a Microsoft investor, you can't help but be happy. Microsoft announced record third-quarter revenue of $14.50 billion for the quarter ended Mar. 31, 2010, a 6% increase from the same period of the prior year; net income was listed at $4.01 billion, which represents a 35% increase from this period a year
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Asus MS238H LCD Monitor Review
While we tend to get worked up into a frenzy over the latest DX11 graphics cards and get deep into the latest multi-core processor releases, displays get comparatively little bandwidth here. Maybe it's because it is much more difficult to definitively quantify which monitor is better than another using a standard benchmark. As a result, testing displays can be a subjective affair that is often far from conclusive. Although some reviews are helpful, shopping for a display is
Read More ...
DisplayMate and Diamond Collaborate on Unique Docking Stations
With a little help from DisplayMate, Diamond Multimedia has come out with a new display adapter the company promises will make easy-work out of attaching additional displays to laptops and desktops. Diamond's BVUMD3 USB HD Display Adapter Plus, as it's called, supports DVI or VGA interfaces and features high quality digital imaging up to 1600x1200 and 1920x1080, while also allowing users to mirror or extend the display in any directions."DisplayLink’s DL-165 USB virtual graphics chip has enabled us to offer our customers a means to connect multiple monitors to a single device, along with many other multimedia capabilities," says Louis Kokenis, the Product Engineering Manager for Diamond Multimedia. "The BVUMD3 also uses 80% less power than a discrete solution."
Some other highlights include:
- All USB powered
- Fully integrated into th Windows and Mac OSX control panel
- Easy Plug and Play installation with Microsoft WHQL signed drivers
- Supports up to six displays
- DisplayLink Certified
- Compatible with all CRT and Flat Panel monitors
- Standard and wide screen aspect ratios
- Higher performance DDR memory interface
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ReZap Charger Brings New Life To Standard Dead Batteries
Earth Day was this week, and it seems that it was a much bigger deal in2010 than in year's past. Maybe it had something to do with those tonsof gallons of oil spilling off of the Gulf of Mexico (we're sure theEarth loved that), or maybe this is just what happens when everyonegets on the "green" bandwagon. Either way, PC Treasures and DigitalWorks Australia are definitely fans of the holiday, and they havejoined forced not to bring back Captain Planet, but to bring the ReZapBattery Engineer to North America.Basically, this battery recharger does one better than most already onthe market by adding life to standard batteries. The key word here is"standard," which is being used in place of "rechargeable." Unlike mostbattery chargers, this one uses an intelligent microprocessors andsoftware that regulate the chargingprocess allowing consumers to safely recharge their standard,previously non-rechargeable batteries up to 10 times. That's prettyunheard of, and dare we say, pretty awesome.
In addition to charging standard batteries, the Battery Engineer alsocharges rechargeable batteries and includes a battery tester to informthe consumer of the charge level of any battery. Thedesign makes charging batteries foolproof since up to fourmultiple-sized batteries (AAAA, AAA, AA, C, D, 9 Volt, and lanternbatteries), can be charged simultaneously. It is the first charger ofits kind to fully and automatically detect the different types ofbatteries that have been inserted into it and proceed to use thecorrect charging algorithm to handle the custom recharge of eachbattery individually. No buttons or switches to set, therebyeliminating charging errors.
It'll ship this May for $59.95, which means you better have a lot ofstandard cells laying around to make it worthwhile. But hey, Earth willlove you for it!
PC Treasures Leads the (Re)Charge
OXFORD, Mich., April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Just in timefor Earth Day, PC Treasures, in partnership with Digital WorksAustralia Pty. Ltd., is very pleased to introduce to North Americanconsumers the ReZap Battery Engineer, an innovative, exciting andearth-friendly battery recharger that adds life to all sizes ofstandard batteries. Designed and manufactured by Digital Works, theBattery Engineer utilizes intelligent microprocessors and software thatregulate the charging process allowing consumers to safely rechargetheir standard, previously non-rechargeable batteries up to 10 times.
In addition to charging standard batteries, the Battery Engineer alsocharges rechargeable batteries and includes a battery tester to informthe consumer of the charge level of any battery. The sophisticateddesign makes charging batteries foolproof since up to fourmultiple-sized batteries (AAAA, AAA, AA, C, D, 9 Volt, and lanternbatteries), can be charged simultaneously. It is the first charger ofits kind to fully and automatically detect the different types ofbatteries that have been inserted into it and proceed to use thecorrect charging algorithm to handle the custom recharge of eachbattery individually. No buttons or switches to set, therebyeliminating charging errors.
Brian Austin, the President of PC Treasures states, "Most people aresurprised to learn that they can recharge standard alkaline batteries.With the ReZap Battery Engineer, not only can you recharge them, butyou can do so in an entirely safe manner. The Battery Engineer is agreat way to help the environment and save a great deal of money onreduced battery purchases."
PC Treasures is introducing the Battery Engineer to North Americanretailers and it will be available in May 2010 for a suggestedretail-selling price of $59.95.
ABOUT PC TREASURES, INC
Since 1998, Oxford, Michigan-based PC Treasures has been the leadingprovider of award-winning OEM software bundles to computer systembuilders and resellers throughout North America. The company hasrecently significantly expanded its product offering to include a widevariety of consumer-focused digital entertainment products, PC andnetbook accessory items, and the ReZap line of battery and portablepower solutions. PC Treasures' various product offerings can bepurchased at leading brick-and-mortar and web electronics retailersthroughout North America. For more information visitwww.pctreasures.com.
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Numonyx Debuts Omneo Phase Change Memory: Wicked Fast, Wicked Small
Memory can be a complicated matter. We've got DIMMs, SODIMMs, DRAM,NAND, Flash, Error Correcting RAM, RDRAM, and the list goes on. Numonyxhas been a major memory player for awhile now, and just a few monthsafter being acquired by Micron, the company is now introducing a set ofproducts based on the new class of memory technology called phasechange memory (PCM).
These new devices deliver higher performance, endurance and simplicityfor wired and wireless communications, consumer electronics, PCs, andother embedded application. We're told that the new embedded memoryproducts blend many attributes associated with flash memory, as well asRAM and EEPROM, while delivering new capabilities in a single device.If you're wondering how this will help you, the new Omneo PCM promisesup to 300 times faster write speeds and ten times more write endurancethan today’s flash memory. Yeah, that'll help you notice a boost inperformance.
There's no specific mention of when this will become commerciallyavailable (though it's available to OEMs now), but brief descriptions of the new line are listed below.
Numonyx® Omneo™ P5Q PCM
Omneo P5Q PCM is a 90nm device delivering high-speed SPI-compatibility. The Omneo P5Q PCM combines serial NOR flash memory and EEPROM technology benefits into one by delivering byte alterability, faster programming times and greater endurance.
Byte alterability provides for easier data manipulation and software simplification by eliminating the need for erasing large blocks of data. The over-write or “no-erase†function enables engineers and designers to simplify software designs and accelerate system performance, improving the time it takes to program a device by up to 300 times. The new Omneo P5Q product is able to write up to ten times more data than flash memory by delivering one million write cycles.
Numonyx® Omneo™ P8P PCM
The Numonyx P8P PCM is the second release of the 90nm 128Mb parallel product by Numonyx. The first release was introduced in December 2008. The first version supported 100,000 write cycles. The new release has been improved to achieve one million write cycles.
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YouTube Joins the Movie Renters Club, Store Now Open
If a proprietor approaches you about funding his brick and mortar movie rental venture, turn around and run in the other direction just as fast as you can go. Accuse us of overreacting if you will. but we're calling it folks: the in-store movie rental business is dead. Deceased. Six feet under. Pushing up daisies. However you want to put it, the point is the time for streaming video is now, and while your local mom and pop video store has probably already withered away, we have to wonder how long Blockbuster and Hollywood video can maintain a brick and mortar presence.Earlier this week, news broke that Hulu is flirting with a subscription based service called Hulu Plus, which will deliver more extensive content for a $9.95 monthly subscription. Perhaps more appealing is YouTube's quiet rollout today of its online video rental store.
That's right, you can now rent from a fairly wide variety of flicks on YouTube. Prices range from $0.99 to $3.99, which is handled through Google Check-out, and you have up to 48 hours to watch the rented title. This isn't a totally new venture for YouTube -- the streaming service experimented with select Sundance Film Festival movies earlier this year -- but it is the first time YouTube has jumped into the online rental business with both feet.
Check out the store here, which includes movies like "3:10 to Yuma," "Brothers," the "Saw" series, and a whole bunch more. Anyone plan on renting anything?
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Nokia Delaying Symbian^3 Rollout, Not Dealing Well With Smartphone Competition
It's a tough world out there for anyone attempting to compete with HTC,Apple, Samsung and LG in the smartphone sector. Even for Nokia, who hasheld the overall market share lead from a worldwide perspective foryears now. Overseas, Nokia phones are everywhere, but they're becomingless and less common to see in America with other smartphones grabbingthe bulk of the mind and market share.Recently, Nokia released the company's latest quarterly results, andmost of the news wasn't exactly rosy. The outfit cut their profitoutlet for the key phone unit, and it also lowered some phone prices ina bid to remain competitive in a space that is quickly putting Nokiabehind it. Many analysts have even said that the iPhone has put Nokiain a position where it could never really compete at the high-endsmartphone level, leaving just the mid- and low-range sectors tocompete in.
Another blow for Nokia is the delay of the next generation of theirSymbian software, Symbian^3. Previously, Nokia stated that it would beready for smartphones by Q2 of this year, but now, it won't be readyuntil Q3. That's after the next generation iPhone will purportedlylaunch, leaving Nokia in yet another awful position. Too little, toolate? Or maybe it's time for Nokia to throw in the smartphone towel andsimply focus on their bread-and-better, the low-end candybar, overseas.
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McAfee Anti-Virus Update Breaks Thousands Of PCs
If you've read any of our recent mobile reviews, you'd know that we'reno fans of pre-installed security/anti-virus software. Too often, thesesuits are nagging, and they generally bog down a system that wouldotherwise run far faster. We have no issues with these applicationsbeing bundled on a disc, but having them on the HDD right out of thebox is a less-than-great experience.Despite arguments to the contrary or otherwise, many corporate PCs havesome sort of security suite installed. Generally, we see this as a goodidea--a virus getting around the office could seriously mess upproductivity, so it makes sense to protect an office full of PCs fromone rouge worm. McAfee is a pretty well-known brand in the anti-virusspace, but after this gaff, we think quite a few companies may beconsidering a switch to Norton or some other company. Why? Becausethousands and thousands of PCs are now not functioning, and it's allthanks to a McAfee software update.
Reportedly, an update to the company's anti-virus program caused afalse positive to freak Windows XP machines out, with continual rebootshappening without any fix in sight. Currently, it seems that the issueis reserved to corporate machines, with consumer versions of thesoftware being safe from the turmoil. The scary part is that there's noeasy solution. A machine that reboots continually cannot possiblydigest a new software update, so it seems that every single brokenmachine will have to be addressed by a professional individually.McAfee confessed that they were looking into the issue and would "takemeasures" to prevent it from happening again, but the damage has beendone. Hospitals, schools, police forces and even Intel were turnedupside-down by the issue, and we're still waiting to hear how affectedmachines will be fixed.
To say that McAfee has a mess on their hands isn't even scratching thesurface, and frankly, we have even more ammunition now to show thatthese programs aren't necessarily the best option for smart PC users.
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Microsoft Crushes It In Q3: $4.01 Billion In Net Income
When you're Microsoft, there's one thing you can do to pretty muchguarantee huge revenue streams: create a new desktop operating system.The company announced their third-quarter earnings today, and if you'rea Microsoft investor, you can't help but be happy. Microsoft announcedrecord third-quarter revenue of $14.50 billion for thequarter ended Mar. 31, 2010, a 6% increase from the same period of theprior year; net income was listed at $4.01 billion, which represents a35% increase from this period a year ago. Needless to say, Windows 7seems to be driving things rather significantly, and it's all in theright direction.Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft, was obviouslypleased with the results: "Windows 7 continues to be a growth engine,but we also saw stronggrowth in other areas like Bing search, Xbox LIVE and our emergingcloud services. Our record third-quarter revenue along with continuedrigor on cost management resulted in exceptional EPS growth."
When looking specifically at Windows revenue, that was up 28% comparedto this quarter last year, with Windows 7 demand deemed "strong."Today, over 10% of all PCs in the world have made the transition toWin7, making it the "fastest-selling operating system in history."What's really interesting here is the lack of talk surrounding Bing,Zune and Xbox. We know Windows 7 is the main driver here, but notessurrounding those other sectors would've been great. In fact, shares ofthe company dipped after the results were announced, signaling thatinvestors were happy (but not happy enough) about the results.
It's tough to impress these days, it seems.
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Asus MS238H LCD Monitor Review
While we tend to get worked up into a frenzy over the latest DX11 graphics cards and get deep into the latest multi-core processor releases, displays get comparatively little bandwidth here. Maybe it's because it is much more difficult to definitively quantify which monitor is better than another using a standard benchmark. As a result, testing displays can be a subjective affair that is often far from conclusive. Although some reviews are helpful, shopping for a display is best done in person, to get a better feel for image quality, aesthetics, form factor, etc.Today we're taking a look at a monitor that's part of a new trend sweeping the display market. No, we're not talking about 3D technology. The Asus MS238H is the first LCD monitor we've tested that features LED backlighting. This is basically the same technology found in the HDTV arena which makes displays thinner and lighter than ever before. LED back lit displays are so slim, they can be hung on walls like picture frames, eliminating the need for the heavy duty mounts that standard LCD products previously required. Furthermore, the MS238H sports a 23" widescreen layout, 1920 x 1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, 2 ms response time, and ring shaped stand that distinguishes it from every other monitor available. As an added bonus, this TN display panel carries an affordable asking price, and should make this monitor an intriguing option for mainstream consumers. But enough with the hype. Let's find out if the MS238H is a worthy candidate for your next upgrade purchase.
Asus MS238H LCD Monitor Review
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Apple Could Buy ARM, But It's Not Going To
Heard the latest? The stock world is abuzz over the rumor that Apple might purchase ARM Semiconductor. The rumor apparently began in London and was fueled by the combination of Apple's recent spectacular quarter and the fact that English accents sound so darn sophisticated. The train oflogic goes something like this:
- Apple has built its own custom SoC (the iPad's A4)
- Apple had a great quarter
- ARM is the industry leader when it comes to designing low power processors for handheld devices
- Apple will buy ARM
British Investors: Ruining your carpet since 1895
This ironclad reasoning has boosted ARM's share price a respectable five percent, from $14.87 at the market's open Thursday morning to $15.63 as of 1 PM today. Upwards of five million stock shares have been traded in the past 24 hours; even the idea that Steve Jobs might want your company is enough to get investors salivating these days.
It's an interesting idea, but ARM's own CEO, Warren East, evidently thinks it's unlikely to happen. "Exciting though it is to have the share price pushed up by these rumours, common sense tells us that our standard business model is an excellent way for technology companies to gain access to our technology," Warren said. "Nobody has to buy the company."
Given Apple's love of secrecy that's exactly what you'd expect ARM to say, but in this case East has a point. An Apple acquisition would be a logistical, legal, and possibly even a regulatory nightmare. Right now, ARM is a neutral company that designs microprocessors. Dozens of companies, including NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Texas Instruments, license ARM's processor architectures and build products that compete against each other.
If Apple bought ARM it would throw the entire arrangement into disarray. No matter how open Apple pledged to be, there's no getting around the fact that it would be designing the chips its competitors' used. Even if the company kept all current licenses intact, OEMs would be forever worried that Apple might surprise them with license changes or better CPUs it designed for its own personal use. It's not as if the company has a problem changing license agreements at the drop of a hat, after all.
East is right when he says the idea doesn't make much sense. Analysis of the A4 has revealed that it's almost certainly an ARM Cortex A8 built by Samsung on 45nm technology (the iPhone 3GS CPU is a 65nm processor). When Apple went to the trouble of customizing their own processor by purchasing PA Semi, they apparently did so to trim off needless blocks of I/O their chip didn't need and thus save power. There's no reason this arrangement can't continue; ARM's licensing terms explicitly allow its customers to attach or detach whatever additional control logic hardware they need.
It wouldn't surprise us if Steve did opt to design his own chip architecture, but it would be a complex, multi-year effort that would almost certainly need to be revised several times before it clearly surpassed ARM's existing designs. Until such time as this occurs, Apple can get everything it wants from ARM already, minus an enormous amount of hassle.
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Avatars and Signatures
I was changing around my signature and avatar and for some reason this morning I noticed that there are no signatures or avatars site wide on the forums. However, the avatars are showing up on the comments for articles. I checked through my settings, and nothing seems to have been disabled, so I'm wondering if there's an issue with the site.
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