iPhone gets VoIP and chat options thanks to Fring
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Cellphones
Sure, the iPhone is cool looking, works out a lot, and is really good at math… but it can’t do VoIP, can it? Well, yes it can — and you can, thanks to a company called Fring and a piece of ingenious software (for jailbreakers only). Using the native app, it’s now possible to place and receive calls via your WiFi connection, thus making AT&T CEOs cry like little babies. Besides doing Skype and the like, the app also lets you connect for chats via MSN Messenger, ICQ, GTalk, SIP, Twitter, AIM, and Yahoo!, which should make this an attractive package even if you don’t want to harness the raw power of IP telephony. You can get the application for free by loading up Installer with the company’s repo. Check the video after the break to see the magic happen.
[Via Zatz Not Funny!]
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Original post by Joshua Topolsky and software by Elliott Back
Microsoft completes Danger acquisition, creates new Premium Mobile Experiences division
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Cellphones
Microsoft’s just announced that its $500M buyout of Sidekick maker Danger is complete, and that it’s rolling the new team into its own unit, the Premium Mobile Experiences division. Ready to follow the chain of corporate command? PMX is under the Mobile Communications Business unit at MS, which itself falls under the Entertainment and Devices Division responsible for the Xbox and Zune. Got all that? Good. Danger’s management team won’t be directly calling the shots at PMX, though — they’ll be reporting to Roz Ho, who you might remember as the former head of the Mac Business Unit. Ho says the goal of PMX is to have people “smile every time they look at their phone,” which hopefully means we’ll be seeing a lot more Danger influence on Windows Mobile than the other way around. Still, “Premium Mobile Experiences” is an interesting choice of name, especially in the same division as the 360 and Zune — dare we dream of a Microsoft-branded consumer phone?
[Via MocoNews]
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Original post by Nilay Patel and software by Elliott Back
T-Mobile’s Shadow II revealed in spy pic
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Cellphones
Just when we were getting used to T-Mobile’s Shadow, it appears we’re going to have to make room in our pockets for its successor… the Shadow II. Picking up almost exactly where the first iteration left off, this grainy spy shot reveals that its going to be more of the same for the revamp, save for some new rounded edges and oh-so-chic reflective finish. We’ll assume the company is sticking to the plan with a slide out numeric keypad, but you never know; they could be hiding a QWERTY under there… or some kind of weird Gremlin.
[Thanks, Jason]
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Original post by Joshua Topolsky and software by Elliott Back
Lenovo’s Ideapad U110 “coming soon” to the US
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Laptops
[Via Laptoping]
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Original post by Donald Melanson and software by Elliott Back
Cizmo announces Centrino 2-based CX15 laptop
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Laptops
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Original post by Donald Melanson and software by Elliott Back
NuVo Technologies takes NV-M3 music server to 500GB
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Not content with just 160GB in the NV-M3 music server? Never fear, as NuVo Technologies has a capacious new version that packs a full half-terabyte of space and an even more astounding price tag. The June-bound NV-M3-500 handles WAV, WMA and those ghastly compressed MP3 files, and its ability to sync to a home computer means that it won’t take issue with playing back DRM-laden tracks, either. On the unit itself, you’ll find a polycarbonate, capacitive touch front panel interface with an OLED display and a smattering of ports ’round back, but we still can’t understand how NuVo landed on $2,999 as a suitable price for this thing. Nevertheless, the full release is posted after the jump for those interested.
No sonic compromises necessary with NuVo technologies’ new 500 GB music server
Offering more than triple the capacity of its predecessor, the half-terabyte NV-M3-500 enables homeowners to easily store, distribute and manage their digital music collections at the highest bit rates possible-even fully uncompressed.
Hebron, KY - April 15, 2008 - NuVo Technologies’ newest music server more than triples the capacity of its predecessor, providing homeowners the ample disk space necessary to comfortably store their digital music at larger file capacities. The new NV-M3-500 Music Server, announced today, offers 500 GB (or a half-terabyte) of storage, a quantum leap in capacity over NuVo’s still-available, 160 GB NV-M3 Music Server. Music lovers now have two compelling music server options available from NuVo.
“Digital music collections are growing exponentially, along with consumers’ desire to enjoy high-bit-rate and even lossless audio files,” said David Rodarte, president and chief operating officer of NuVo Technologies. “Highly compressed audio files are fine for portable players, but homeowners now recognize that for home theater and whole-home entertainment, only files with higher bit rates offer the sound quality they want. With the NV-M3-500, homeowners no longer need to make sonic compromises with their digital music. Every digital track in their collections can both sound great and be easily accessible in any room of the house through our new music server and our Grand Concerto and Essentia E6G whole-home audio systems.”
Using Windows(R) Media Player and the uncompressed WAV file format, homeowners can enjoy pristine, audiophile-quality playback with a bitstream identical to every bit of what they would get from a CD. NuVo engineers estimate that homeowners can store roughly 830 CDs in uncompressed WAV on the NV-M3-500. The server can also store and play Windows Media Audio (WMA) and compressed MP3 files.
NuVo music servers offer full Digital Rights Management (DRM) compliance, three source outputs, NuVoNet Communication and Windows(R) Media Player music management. The server syncs to a home PC to retrieve music files and allow playback of DRM music; the experience is akin to syncing with a portable MP3 player. The music server also can act as a source for NuVo’s Grand Concerto whole-home audio system, where, combined with other NuVo source devices such as its AM/FM, XM and Sirius tuners and iPod docks, the homeowner can seamlessly enjoy an enormous amount of personally-acquired and broadcast music in any room of the house with just the push of a button on a NuVo Control Pad. Full metadata for all tracks stored on the server is available on the Control Pad.
The music server offers a polycarbonate, capacitive touch front panel interface with OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display (similar to that of the Grand Concerto Control Pads), backup of audio files on a connected PC or on a portable player, simultaneous output of three audio streams, and instant compatibility with downloaded and subscription-based music. CDs are simply ripped to Windows Media Player on the PC and synced to the music server.
Syncing between the PC and the music server can be accomplished in either of two ways. The first is via a standard USB port connection; for situations where the PC and the server are physically remote, a “behind-the-walls” extender system can use CAT-5 to link to USB cables at either end. In addition, NuVo’s Wireless USB Syncing Device (NV-USBW, $399 MSRP) enables syncing between the PC and the music server without a hard-wired connection, providing a USB device connection over Wireless-G.
The 500 GB NV-M3-500 Music Server is slated to ship in June 2008 for an estimated MSRP of $2,999. The 160 GB NV-M3 Music Server remains available for $2,299 MSRP.
For more information about NuVo Technologies, please visit www.nuvotechnologies.com.
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Original post by Darren Murph and software by Elliott Back
HCL and Microsoft team up for “world’s cheapest Windows laptop”
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Laptops
India’s HCL is certainly no stranger to low-cost laptops, and the company is now apparently looking to expand its budget-priced empire even further, with it recently announcing that it’s teamed up with Microsoft to roll out what it claims to be the “world’s cheapest Windows laptop.” While the company isn’t exactly saying as much, the new laptop, dubbed the MiLeap H, appears to be a revamped version of the company’s MiLeap Y unit, with it boasting the same swiveling 7-inch touchscreen, an unspecified Intel processor and Intel 945 GU Express chipset, 1GB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam, built-in WiFi and, of course, Windows XP Home for the OS. No word on a release date just yet, but those in India can expect to pay 17,000 Indian rupees (or about $425) for the laptop.
[Via TechWeb/Yahoo! News]
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Original post by Donald Melanson and software by Elliott Back
Nintendo confirms: May-bound Wii Fit priced at $89.99
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Gaming
Nothing like a little reassurance on tax day, right? We already knew that GameStop was gearing up to offer Nintendo’s Wii Fit for $89.99, but now the Big N has stepped in to affirm said price point. Beginning on May 19th here in the US, Wii Fit, along with the bundled Wii Balance Board, will be sold together for a penny under $90. And for those located near New York City, you can score a sweat rag, er, Wii Fit t-shirt if you’re one of the first 1,000 to lay down a $5 deposit at the Nintendo World store between April 18 - 20. Bonus points if you run there, we swear.
[Via Joystiq]
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Original post by Darren Murph and software by Elliott Back
Psystar says rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated, still selling Open Computers
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Filed under: Desktops
So the rumors swirling around would-be Mac clone maker Psystar are getting pretty wild out there — we’ve heard everything from “Apple has shut the company down” to “Psystar is going to challenge Apple’s EULA in court” in the vacuum following the company’s site meltdown yesterday. That’s a big spread, so we hit up Psystar’s president Rudy Pedraza for some answers. Rudy was relatively cagey on the phone, refusing to answer any questions about Apple’s EULA or copyrights — or even confirm if Apple has talked with the company — but he told us that he’s got a “team” of people working on an official response and that the Open Computer (and the new quad-core Open Pro, pictured above) are still for sale. What’s more, he told us that “a few” orders placed before yesterday’s flood of interest have shipped, which means we’re curious to see if any of these early adopters actually surface in the next few days. Rudy also told us that Psystar isn’t out to infringe any copyrights or trademarks (really?), and that he has no idea how Information Week got a quote from someone named “Robert” indicating that the company was going to challenge Apple’s EULA in court. Sure thing. Rudy promised us a machine either today or tomorrow, we’ll see what happens — honestly, it seems like things are chaos at Psystar’s HQ in Miami right now.
P.S. -Remember MGM v. Grokster? In that case the Supreme Court ruled that a company that based its business around the knowing copyright infringement of customers was still liable, even if it didn’t infringe directly. Kinda shoots a hole in the “just don’t pre-install Leopard” theory, no?
Read - Psystar Open Pro
Read - Information Week (”Psystar vows to challenge Apple EULA”)
Read - DailyTech: (”Apple Kills Psystar’s $399 Mac”)
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Original post by Nilay Patel and software by Elliott Back
Alienware’s Aurora desktop storms back: AMD Phenom 9850 included
Posted by on Jan 1, 1970
Check it: AMD’s potent Phenom 9850 processor, which had a fairly impressive showing during its recent benchmarking test, has teamed up with a pair of ATI’s Radeon HD 3870 X2s to bring the Aurora desktop back on the scene. Available now and starting at just $999, Alienware’s (potentially) “value-priced” gaming rig can be equipped with one of four AMD CPUs, a liquid-cooling system, twin 512GB 3870 X2 GPUs, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a few terabytes of HDD space, a Blu-ray reader (or burner if you’ve got the cash), an optional (but totally necessary) Killer K1 gaming NIC, Ageia PhysX processor and your choice of colored enclosures. Of course, speccing this beauty into a rig worth gloating over will easily set you back four large or so, but hey, you only live once, right?
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Original post by Darren Murph and software by Elliott Back
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