Month: July 2009 (Page 11 of 13)

      Sony Enters the Netbook War

      July 7, 2009 /

      The Sony Vaio W.Sony senior vice president Mike Abary once called the netbook market “a race to the bottom.” Apparently it’s a race his company intends to join (and quite possibly lose if they stick to that price). Today Sony announced the Vaio W – their very first netbook at a very un-netbookish price.

      First the specs. The Vaio W runs with the netbook standard 1.6GHz Atom processor, 10-inch screen, 160GB HDD, and 1GB RAM. In the details you’ll also get Bluetooth support, an ethernet jack, a wireless card, some USB ports and (I really like this one) an SD slot that reads Memory Sticks! I know it’s unreasonable, but I really fear that every new Sony computer is just going to stick us with a Memory Stick reader. Glad they keep proving me wrong.

      The Vaio W makes one other “improvement” over many of the netbooks today. The W screen abandons the 1024 x 600 resolution for a 1366 x 768 display, meaning the text on your already limited screen just got smaller. Not bad for people with decent eyesight. Could be trouble for the rest of the world.

      And then there’s the price. The Vaio W comes in at a whopping $500. Okay, so it’s not much more than the top-of-the-line (does that even work with netbooks?) models from Dell and Asus, and it does get that nifty SD slot (oh right, all Eee PCs have one of those), but $500 is getting to be a little pricey for a barebones PC.

      If price doesn’t bug you, though, you’ll have your choice between white, pink, and, ahem, chocolate brown. If I were you I’d be looking elsewhere for my netbook, but maybe that’s just me.

      Computers, News

      Boston to Release iPhone App for Municipal Complaints

      July 6, 2009 /

      Is Boston ready for complaints from iPhone users?Managing a city’s complaints can be tough business, even if you just think of the volume. Then there’s sorting through the complaints to see which are valid, which to prioritize, and which can be completely ignored. Most cities have implemented some sort of nonemergency hotline designed to handle the massive numbers of calls and complaints about potholes, downed trees, and wayward neighbors setting their trash out a day early.

      Boston is adding a tech-forward method for complaint managment with an iPhone app called Citizen Connect. According to the Boston Globe, the application is the first of its kind, allowing citizens to snap photos of local problems, an overstuffed public trash can, for instance, and send those photos back to City Hall for review.

      One of the features that has mayor Thomas Menino excited is GPS positioning. The application makes use of the iPhone’s GPS to pinpoint a problem’s location, making it much easier to address the issue. After submitting a complaint, users will receive a confirmation number. If the problem persists, they can refer municipal employees to the original complaint.

      The city plans to pay Connected Bits, a New Hampshire firm responsible for designing the program, $25,000 for a year of support and assess whether the benefit is worth the cost. I’d imagine it’s worth at least that much, something Connected Bits might be likely to notice themselves. As a first-of-its-kind technology, the east coast developer is probably anxiously awaiting positive reviews.

      The application also has potential to start some hilarious tech wars. Imagine neighbors snapping shots of every minor ordinance violation on one another’s property. The influx of information could be overwhelming for a city complaint system that’s likely already under a lot of stress.

      Citizens of Boston are already crying foul, claiming the announcement is just another election year promise, not likely to come to fruition. The city claims they’ve already submitted the application to Apple for approval. The application will be free on release.

      What do you think? Would you use this sort of system if your city had one? Is this just going to create an army of overzealous, iPhone-toting watchdogs? Sound off in the comments.

      Apps, iPhone, News

      Nokia Denies Android Project

      July 6, 2009 /

      Is Nokia ready for Android?This weekend sparked (get it…like sparklers) rumors that Nokia, the world’s top cellphone maker, was abandoning Symbian for a new project. The phone, code named “Rachael,” was said to be designed to run Android. Unfortunately, Nokia denies that claim.

      It really is a shame, considering Nokia is one on a very short list of manufacturers capable of competing directly with the iPhone. What they need, though, is a consumer-friendly operating system like, you guessed it, Android.

      Speaking of the rumor, a Nokia spokesman said, “”Absolutely no truth to this whatsoever.” He followed up with, “Everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.” Doesn’t get much clearer than that.

      Source: Reuters

      Mobile, News

      Deleted Pictures Persist on Social Networking Sites

      July 5, 2009 /

      Facebook and MySpace.Most everyone has seen or heard of social networking sites affecting privacy in crazy ways. They’ve cost people jobs, ended countless relationships, and in the best cases, resulted in some bruised pride. As more people get hit, more users are choosing to remove questionable content from their pages, but the content’s not necessarily gone.

      Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng put recent findings from Cambridge University researchers to the test with some unsavory results. Turns out your deleted pictures may not be as far gone as you’d like.

      Jacqui tested Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Flickr with the same method. She deleted pictures from each site on May 21st and then watched the direct links for six weeks. Twitter and Flickr were both good, truly deleting the pictures after a hard refresh. MySpace and Facebook didn’t fare so well. Direct links from both sites still produce the “deleted” images, some six weeks after they were pulled.

      Moral of the story? Continue to censor your drunken impulses, particularly with regard to the pictures you upload.

      Websites

      iPhone 3GS Breaks AT&T Sales Records

      July 3, 2009 /

      iPhone 3GS in black and white.Apple and AT&T took more than two months to sell the first million iPhones. The iPhone 3GS matched those numbers in just three days, making it the biggest sales weekend for AT&T, ever. AT&T celebrated the milestone with…a company wide memo. Yay?

      We still don’t have any hard and fast numbers on the 3GS, and we won’t really until Apple releases their quarterly earnings information. AT&T said they sold “hundreds of thousands” of phones through pre-orders, but there’s still no official word from either camp.

      Here’s the full text of the memo:

      iLaunch day 2009 was one for the record books, as AT&T customers scrambled to get their hands on the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet.

      Here’s a look at some of the milestones we achieved:

      * Best-ever sales day in our retail stores
      * Second-largest traffic day in our retail stores
      * Most transactions processed via our IT systems in a single day
      * Most upgrade eligibility checks in a single day
      * Largest order day in att.com history
      * Largest features sales day in att.com history

      On this year’s launch day, iPhone sales exceeded sales recorded on 2008’s iPhone launch day, Black Friday 2008 and Dec. 26, 2008–all heavy-volume sales days. In fact, this year we surpassed 2008’s launch day sales at about noon Central time, and sustained our previous peak hour record, also set in 2008, for 11 straight hours.

      Source: AllThingsD

      Apple, iPhone

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Gadget Teaser

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑