FocuSoft Tech Blog |
- Video: Creative Zii EGG 3D gaming demo
- 16” HP Pavilion laptop
- Nokia N97 ‘Mini’ gets pictured in the wild?
- Pre-ordered Viliv X70s delayed to August 11, new customers might have to wait till September
- The Targus Universal wall power adapter
- Greenpeace takes a break from issuing reports to vandalize HP corporate HQ
- Runco’s 5 New Plasma TVs
- The Hangover: AOL Gives Time Warner’s Quarterly Results A Headache, Again
- Apple’s Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far [Apple]
- HP reportedly beginning production of new 10.1-inch, 11.6-inch netbooks / ultralights
| Video: Creative Zii EGG 3D gaming demo Posted: 29 Jul 2009 01:03 PM PDT
Now that the gang at Creative have ‘fessed up to the Zii EGG first seen at the FCC earlier this month, we imagine we’ll be encountering this bad boy quite often over the coming months. If you need your StemCell Computing fix right now, we have a video that showcases the newest developer platform running a racing game in all of its accelerometer-packing, 3D OpenGL ES-enhanced glory. Peep for yourself after the break. [Via EpiZENter, thanks Michael]
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video Video: Creative Zii EGG 3D gaming demo originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Posted: 29 Jul 2009 01:00 PM PDT
High definition is being brought in for the displays of more laptops all of the time, it allows the user to watch video in crystal clarity, so you can imagine how great surfing the web is going to be. Unlike a lot of laptops, this one has been designed to a minimalist standard rather than going over the top with too many unwanted or unused functions.
Product Features 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium T4200 Dual-Core Processor 3 GB RAM (4 GB max) 320 GB Hard Drive, LightScribe dual-layer DVD Drive Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit, SP1) 16-inch screen, Intel GMA 4500M graphics (up to 1319 MB total) Processor, Memory, and Motherboard Hardware Platform: PC Processor: 2 GHz Intel Core Duo System Bus Speed: 800 Number of Processors: two RAM: 3000 MB RAM Type: DDR2 SDRAM Hard Drive Size: 320 GB Manufacturer: Portable Type: Serial ATA Ports and Connectivity Modem: Fax / modem Cases and Expandability Size (LWH): 14.88 inches, 9.9 inches, 1.72 inches Weight: 9 pounds Priced at $556.99 Source [Amazon]
16" HP Pavilion laptop brought to you by: LaptopPimp.com 1 – Featured Laptops, 16″ Laptops, 2 – Laptop Reviews, 3 – Laptops by Size, display, hd, hp, HP Laptops, minimalist, New Laptops, pavilion Related posts
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| Nokia N97 ‘Mini’ gets pictured in the wild? Posted: 29 Jul 2009 12:42 PM PDT
 We’ve already heard talk of a Nokia N97 Mini (or Mini N97, if you will) from folks who should know what the situation is, and it looks like things have now gotten more interesting still, with some seemingly legitimate pictures of the rumored device finding their way to us that show it out and about with its bigger brother. As you can see above and in another pic after the break, the device is slightly smaller and slightly slimmer than the regular N97, and it’s also received a few subtle design changes, particularly on the back, where the camera has lost its sliding cover. Could it be real? Almost certainly — either that, or it’s a tremendously talented KIRF — though we’re not sure we understand the business justification for a new version of the N97 that isn’t small enough (or different enough, for that matter) to hold its own spot in the lineup. Not much more to go on than that, unfortunately, but you can pretty safely move this one up a notch on the ol’ Rumor-o-Meter. Continue reading Nokia N97 ‘Mini’ gets pictured in the wild? Filed under: Cellphones Nokia N97 ‘Mini’ gets pictured in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Pre-ordered Viliv X70s delayed to August 11, new customers might have to wait till September Posted: 29 Jul 2009 12:32 PM PDT
 The way we hear it, there are plenty of Viliv fans out there disappointed that Dynamism missed its promised delivery date for pre-ordered X70 units this week. The retailer says that component shortages are responsible for the delay and is now hoping to deliver by August 11, but there’s worse news: new orders aren’t expected to ship until September 2, turning what was once a fashionably late arrival to US shores into a rather embarrassing month-long delay. [Via Pocketables] Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs Pre-ordered Viliv X70s delayed to August 11, new customers might have to wait till September originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Targus Universal wall power adapter Posted: 29 Jul 2009 12:00 PM PDT
A universal wall power adapter comes in very handy especially for travellers who do not want to take all of their original equipment away with them. This device will work with most of the latest laptops from HP, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, IBM, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Fujitsu.
Product Features Compatible – Includes 10 interchangeable laptop connectors which support all major brands of laptop computers* up to 17 Smart – Automatically adjusts to meet the specific power requirements of your laptop Compact – Small, lightweight adapter with convenient carrying pouch is ideal for travel Flexible – Includes AC power cord for standard wall outlets; ideal for powering/charging laptops in the home or office Safe – Built-in over/under and short circuit protection to prevent laptop computer damage Technical Details Brand Name: Targus Model: APA63US Priced at $69.99 Source [Amazon]
The Targus Universal wall power adapter brought to you by: LaptopPimp.com adapter, Laptop Accessories, Laptop Batteries, Laptop Chargers, Laptop Hardware, power, targus, universal, wall powered Related posts
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| Greenpeace takes a break from issuing reports to vandalize HP corporate HQ Posted: 29 Jul 2009 11:59 AM PDT
 As readers of this site know, Greenpeace has quite an active sideline in rating (and berating) technology companies that generate excessive toxic landfill. In fact, we’ve seen so many of these reports that we almost forgot what the organization does best: chasing down whaling vessels, trespassing, hanging banners, and generally bedeviling polluters in the name of Mother Earth. And now, after repeatedly calling out HP for using PVC and hazardous chemicals in its devices, the group has taken matters into its own hands — specifically, by slipping into the company’s Palo Alto headquarters and painting “hazardous products” on the roof, in really big letters, with non-toxic children’s paint. Congratulations to the activist group for finally finding a way to spread their message to low-flying pilots in the San Francisco Bay area! One more pic after the break. [Via Switched] Continue reading Greenpeace takes a break from issuing reports to vandalize HP corporate HQ Filed under: Misc. Gadgets Greenpeace takes a break from issuing reports to vandalize HP corporate HQ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Posted: 29 Jul 2009 11:53 AM PDT
For those who don't know what OPAL does (which included me before I wrote this article), it uses the best imagery for "deep blacks, impressive brightness, and contrast ratio". It can reduce surface light reflections on the screen, which is distracting to viewers and from image quality. I'm sure there are those who don't know what DHD 3 is either, which also included myself. Runco's DHD 3 uses Vivix III 1080p processing with VirtualWide and VirtualCinema aspect ratios. It can enhance all digital and analog signals to near high-definition quality, matching output resolution, sync types, and output formats to prevent "double scaling". Of course, the prices of these are not exactly affordable to the average consumer, but here they are in case you can afford them. By the way, I believe that all of these models are available now, so check out the Runco site for more details. • CinemaWall XP-OPAL50 – $6,999 Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews. [ Runco's 5 New Plasma TVs copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
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| The Hangover: AOL Gives Time Warner’s Quarterly Results A Headache, Again Posted: 29 Jul 2009 11:30 AM PDT
That’s three AOL mentions in three sentences. Clearly, Time Warner is happy to let everyone know that it will only have a couple more quarters of dealing with that division’s nosedive. How bad was AOL this quarter? Revenues dropped 24%, to $804 million, versus the year-ago period. The service saw a 21% decrease in advertising revenues, attributable to both display and search ads on its own sites, as well as on third-party sites using its platform. And the loss of dial-up subscribers continues to hurt the company. It lost over a half million in this past quarter, and some 2.3 million from the year-ago period. Revenues from subscriptions declined 27% from the year-ago period. In preparation for the AOL spin-off, Google recently sold back its 5% stake in the company, at a $700 million discount from its initial $1 billion investment. However, thanks to the search deal over these past several years, it looks as if Google was much closer to break-even on the deal. And while AOL’s numbers were awful, Time Warner’s print and film divisions hardly fared better. The print division headed up by Time, saw a 26% decrease in ad revenue from the year-ago period, and an 18% decrease in subscription revenue. Meanwhile, the film division was hurt by the slide in DVD sales. While movies like The Hangover exceeded expectations at the box office, those profits were wiped out by DVD numbers being down across the board. Highlighting The Hangover in the results is interesting. One could say Time Warner’s experience with AOL these past several years after the $164 billion mega (or perhaps “drunken”) merger in 2001 (remember, it was AOL that actually bought Time Warner at the time), has been similar to The Hangover. Based on the repurchasing price Time Warner paid for Google’s AOL stock, AOL is now worth less than $6 billion. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Read more:
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| Apple’s Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far [Apple] Posted: 29 Jul 2009 11:30 AM PDT
Until this past week, Google’s been the most privileged developer for the iPhone outside of Apple itself. I mean, Google Maps and YouTube come baked into the phone. Hell, Google even gave the iPhone voice search—a more powerful version, no less—before it delivered the feature to its own OS, very obviously using private APIs that would’ve likely resulted in a swift kick in the ass for any other developer. Yet here we are, Apple has rejected not one, but two Google apps that would deliver major new features to the iPhone, for reasons that are so obviously tripe it’s insulting to even our non-exceptional intelligence. A Google Latitude app would confuse us? Really? Because it would “use Google to serve maps tiles”? Wait. Isn’t one of iPhone 3.0’s major new features that it can use Google Maps inside of other applications? So like every app can use Google to serve maps tiles. I admit, though, Latitude is a really big word. What does it even mean? That is pretty confusing. Maybe they should call it, like, Google Stalker. What happened with Google Voice is worse. Google didn’t elaborate on the reason Apple gave for rejecting its official Google Voice app six weeks ago—and presumably, Google had more success wringing it out of Apple than most developers. Hours before Google broke the news, the developer of GV Mobile—a solid third-party app for Google Voice—said that it was being pulled from the App Store for “duplicating iPhone features.” Then every other Google Voice application was silently killed too. Even though, reportedly, Apple’s Phil Schiller personally apologized when GV Mobile initially ran into problems getting approved months ago, and it’d been sitting pretty in the store since then. Oh, and there are tons of other apps that duplicate the functions of dialing and sending text messages. John Gruber at Daring Fireball says Google Voice was nuked by AT&T, “it’s that simple.” It’s not the first time AT&T’s put a hit on apps: NetShare, the tethering app was yanked (though it clearly never should’ve been approved in the first place), and Skype and SlingPlayer streaming were crippled so that they only worked over Wi-Fi. The difference between those situations and this one is that in those cases, there was, at least nominally, a greater good for users: Limiting those apps protected people from the possibility of AT&T’s fragile, already busted-ass network completely collapsing under the weight of millions of phones streaming tons of data. And, you can still actually use Skype and Sling apps, albeit in a slightly constrained manner. Google Voice, on the other hand, poses no such mortal danger to the network. It only uses a tiny bit of data at the very beginning of a call to set it up, and text messages sent through the service would be infinitesimally small scraps of data (not to mention, there are other immensely popular apps that already send text messages as data). You still use your AT&T voice minutes when you’re on a call using Google Voice. And, for whatever reason, AT&T’s fear is about Google Voice on the iPhone, since the app is available for BlackBerry on their network. The situation crystallizes our worst fears about Apple’s dictatorial App Store. Users aren’t being protected from bad things or from themselves here. Even though it seemed ridiculous to us, when apps with objectionable content were blocked or booted before the ratings system was in place, it was in the interest of some paradoxically lazy but over-protective parent somewhere out there. But the only thing being guarded is some ephemeral long-term interest of AT&T against the devaluation of phone numbers and the ability to easily use any phone at will. Not only is Apple hurting users in the service of AT&T by denying them innovative new features, they won’t even bother to come up with a good excuse. If they’re going to lie about it, they could at least make the rationale believable. To truly get a sense of the chickenshittniess on Apple’s part, Just read this account of the conversation VoiceCentral’s developer had with Apple when they were told their app was going to be pulled from the store. It’d be hilarious if it didn’t mean a developer got screwed. It’s obvious Google’s not happy about it either—and not just because Google exec Marissa Mayer’s deleted tweet pointing to a satire piece about Google deleting Apple from its search results, since it “duplicates a lot of the functionality of other sites.” If everything was copacetic Google wouldn’t tell the world Apple shut down their applications. (And if the alternative web apps were all that great, Google wouldn’t make native apps to begin with.) Whatever the causes, there is now definitely a rift between Apple and Google. It’s a sobering reminder of what Apple’s total control over the iPhone platform really means. For the first time, it’s denying people exciting new features and possibilities, without even a semblance of benefit or concern for users. Maybe it’s a catfight with Google. Maybe AT&T finally found a clause in its contract that didn’t make them Apple’s bitch. Either way, it’s just depressing. A year after we said we still need the iPhone app black market, nothing’s changed. To wit, GV Mobile’s available on Cydia right now. We know the App Store is Apple’s exclusive domain, and playing in their space has its tradeoffs, but the implicit trust is that whatever Apple does that might seem ridiculous or weird, it’s ultimately trying to create a better experience for users. That’s just not the case here, taking the App Store approval process beyond cryptic and infuriating into something that’s actually toxic for users. Since it’s crossed that line, our App Disapproval Watch starts now—it ends when Apple finally cuts this crap out.
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| HP reportedly beginning production of new 10.1-inch, 11.6-inch netbooks / ultralights Posted: 29 Jul 2009 11:26 AM PDT
 This is about as early and unofficial as it gets, but DigiTimes is reporting that HP has contracted Quanta to begin production of an apparently all new 11.6-inch netbook in August, and another new 10.1-inch before the end of the year, which SlashGear rightly speculates could well be CULV ultralights rather than standard “netbooks.” That’s further bolstered by the fact that HP has separately contracted Inventec to build a revision to its current 10.1-inch netbook at the end of September. It’s not all netbooks and ultralights for HP, however, as Quanta has also landed a deal to produce some new 15.6- and 17.3-inch laptops, while Compal will be handling HP’s new 13.3- and 14-inch enterprise notebooks. [Via SlashGear] Filed under: Laptops HP reportedly beginning production of new 10.1-inch, 11.6-inch netbooks / ultralights originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Runco has recently released five new 1080p plasma monitors to their line, which are the first to feature the company's own OPAL (Optical Path Alignment) Technology as well as the DHD 3, "the most advanced video processor controller to date". 
Time Warner released it![2b01d19abdshosed.jpg Apples Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far [Apple]](http://www.focusoft.biz/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/0be19b77b9shosed.jpg.jpg "Apples Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far [Apple]")
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