FocuSoft Tech Blog |
- Leak: Full specs of BlackBerry Tour 9630
- RIM purchases Dash Navigation
- The summer of smartphone love
- Patriotic Microsoft threatens to move U.S. jobs overseas rather than pay taxes
- iRiver B30: the sexiest non-touchscreen PMP ever?
- Maingear introduces “World’s greenest gaming PC”
- Tesla to open seven new dealerships this summer
- PSP Go to come with UMD game-transfer service
- I did my part to help out radio today
- CrunchDeals: 22-inch LCD for $112
| Leak: Full specs of BlackBerry Tour 9630 Posted: 04 Jun 2009 05:32 PM PDT
Heck, there have been full reviews done of the upcoming BlackBerry. In case you missed those, or just want a handy-dandy spec list, here ya go. MobileSyrup.com dug up this info from the Canadian carrier, Bell. It's safe to say that the Verizon-spec'd model, which will be available on July 13th btw, should ship with the same stuff. Now, if we only knew the price… Read more from the original source:
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| Posted: 04 Jun 2009 05:00 PM PDT
Huh, this could work out. Remember Dash? It was that the little GPS start-up company that made the innovative PND that had a monthly subscription, but also routed you around traffic issues through the magic of the cloud. You probably never saw one in person because, well, no one wants a GPS with a monthly fee. Anyway, RIM, the makers of BlackBerrys of course, just purchased the company. Hopefully this means the two will combine forces and produce a BlackBerry with a killer navigation system. $10 says that the two companies can get something on the market before the Garmin-Asus does. They have been working for years and we still haven't seen anything on retailer's shelves. See the rest here:
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| Posted: 04 Jun 2009 04:35 PM PDT
Can you feel the tingling in the air? If you haven’t found it already,you will. This is going to be the summer of love. I am talking, of course, about smartphone love. The serenades have already begun for the June 6 launch of the Palm Pre. Next week, Apple will reveal it’s next iPhone (you know MG is going to get one). Blackberry might come out with its second Storm by summer’s end. And the lovefest will continue throughout the year with launch after launch of new Android phones as well. It will be practically nonstop. I hope you can handle it. Original post:
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| Patriotic Microsoft threatens to move U.S. jobs overseas rather than pay taxes Posted: 04 Jun 2009 04:00 PM PDT
Good for Microsoft, kicking the American worker when he’s down. President Obama means to close a loophole in the taxcode that allows corporations to "deduct… cost at a high tax rate and report… profits at a low tax rate." In other words, win-win for the corporation at the expense of the United State Treasury. You know how Microsoft’s Steve Balmer said he’s deal with the closing of this loophole? "We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S." Neat. It’s to difficult to decipher what Balmer meant here. Is he threatening to move jobs overseas altogether, putting more American workers out of work, or is he saying that Microsoft would rather move employees to some low-tax country? That is, paying for John Doe to leave the U.S. so he can work for Microsoft somewhere else. I’d have to see that to believe it. Now, I’m not saying that a foreign worker doesn’t have any less of a right to a decent life than an American one ("Americans are the only people who deserve jobs!"), obviously, but it’s so disappointing to see Microsoft, one of this country’s greatest companies, balk at mere idea of having to pay more taxes, taxes that it ought to be paying in the first place. (Closing the loophole in question could net the government an additional $86.5 billion by 2019.) Of course, Microsoft will hide behind the notion of protecting the "shareholders," while conventionally omitting that the U.S. government has to protect those shareholders as well, with a functioning military, making roads, ensuring that stop lights work, educating children, etc… all things that taxes pay for. (And now I sincerely expect to be called all sorts of nasty names, which is fine.) Read the original post:
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| iRiver B30: the sexiest non-touchscreen PMP ever? Posted: 04 Jun 2009 03:30 PM PDT
iRiver’s always had a different aesthetic from the other media player makers. The Spinn is a good example of their different industrial design, and now this B30 (though unlikely to be released here in the US), is showing that their UI is as clean and unique as their hardware. The Korean company’s devices are also extremely versatile, wearing many hats and supporting many formats — a trend I wish would catch on here in the states. Check out this little video (apparently taken on the sly) and see how tasteful “traditional” controls can look. The B30 is a sexy-looking slab (though rather thick) and its UI is a slick and squared-off. No touchscreen, unfortunately, and the screen isn’t 16:9, but hey, that’s what the Zune HD is for, right? Good-looking devices like this should be the standard; the Sansa, while it’s a decent device, is far from imaginative yet is fairly popular. Come on, people, demand more! [via Crave] More here:
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| Maingear introduces “World’s greenest gaming PC” Posted: 04 Jun 2009 03:00 PM PDT
The specs are modest: A low-end 45nm Core 2 Duo or Quad and a GeForce 9800 GT ECO running on an ION chipset, altogether drawing about 165W. You’ve got plenty of room for RAM (up to 8GB), and a regular hard drive (if you want greener, you can go with SSD). It’s got 7.1 audio and a nice shorty-tower case, plus it doesn’t break the bank, starting at $799. I’d go further and get some passive cooling in there — with no spinning drives and no fans it’d be quiet as a mouse as well as a power saver. View original here:
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| Tesla to open seven new dealerships this summer Posted: 04 Jun 2009 02:40 PM PDT
Looking to take a Tesla electric car for a spin, are ya? Lucky you, as the company will be opening seven sales centers this summer — four in the US and three abroad. You’ll be able to take a test drive in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and Miami, along with London, Monaco, and Munich. New York, Seattle, Chicago, and London will open later this month, with Miami, Monaco, and Munich coming a bit later. Full press release below:
Continued here:
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| PSP Go to come with UMD game-transfer service Posted: 04 Jun 2009 02:20 PM PDT
In all likelihood it’ll be free, although it will probably also have the kind of crippling DRM you’d expect from a system like this. Hey, at least they’re making it possible. I wonder, is 16GB going to be enough? I was speculating that while compressing game assets to make games more bite-sized isn’t a good idea, they will probably compress the hell out of in-game video and music. More:
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| I did my part to help out radio today Posted: 04 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT
It’s no secret that I think the radio business is doomed, and that "kids today" are more likely to listen to music via any number of online services—I’m part of Spotify’s U.S. beta, and aside from an unacceptable lack of Sleater-Kinney, it’s pretty great—than they are by tuning into some "local" radio station, where the program manager is a boob and the on-air talent is petrified of upsetting management. Anyway, sometime during the winter, I received a letter from Nielsen, the famous ratings company, that asked me to participate in a radio survey, helping them find out how many people listen to each radio station and when. Oh, I filled out the survey, all right. In so many words, I told Nielsen, after checking every box that said "I did not listen to radio today," that, because of the Internet, my music-listening habits, such as they are, have changed dramatically. Things like Spotify (well, at the time I filled he survey out I didn’t have access to Spotify), Imeem, YouTube, Beatport, iTunes, etc. are where I got all my music from. (And, to be honest with y’all, Usenet and What.cd.) I told Nielsen that the days of four-in-a-row-Friday, where the fourth cut is always live, are over, and that radio companies (CBS, ClearChanel, etc.) needed to embrace the Internet; the CBS Radio iPhone application is a great example of someone in that company "getting it." Now, whether or not my advice will make any difference at all, who knows. I assume some middle-management type read it, scoffed, then said, "What does this jerk know?" But at least I tried to help ‘em out, gosh darn it. Today, Nielsen sent $22 for my troubles, I think because I count as a "minority," which is so dumb but that’s how these companies think. I’ll probably spend it at Cold Stone, or, if I were in Chicago, the Ron Bennington cupcake from Molly’s. Go here to see the original:
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| CrunchDeals: 22-inch LCD for $112 Posted: 04 Jun 2009 01:41 PM PDT
If you need further proof that monitor prices, they are a-falling, here’s a 22-inch Acer for $99.99 plus $11.99 for shipping. To be fair, it’s 21.6 inches but you get a 1680
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