An interesting new technology has been developed by A4Tech…a mouse without a cord and without a battery. It sucks all power from the mouse pad through what is called “magic magnetism”. What this essentially means is that the mouse is not truly wireless as it always has to remain in contact with the mouse pad to draw power. This defeats the purpose of having a wireless mouse as you are limited to the area of the mouse pad. However, this technology could become the next big thing in mousing innovation if power can somehow be beamed across the several feet between a receiver and the mouse. If this technology is developed, think of what it would be like to live a world where all wires are completely eliminated and all things are powered from the instant you take them out of their box. Could this technology be further expanded so that 3rd world nations would be able to develop without the stringing of electric wire all across the country and through the use of great power emitters? Just think.
Those of you eagerly awaiting the release of the new Ipod shuffle can now breathe. It should hit an apple store near you on Friday, November 3rd. It is available for online order right now if you really need it a day early. It runs at $79 for a 1Gb capacity. This is a nice featured device that has its own special nice looking dock since it is so small.
A company called Asus unveiled its line of laptops that are covered in leather. These laptops come in camel, black and a limited hot pink leather. Both the S6 and W6 models boast an intel core duo. The only real difference between the W6 and S6 is that the W6 loses the pink option but gains a 13.3 inch screen (compared to the 11.1 inch screen of the S6), and a more powerful core duo. Prices are still unknown but they probably will not be cheap. Who cares ? They’re sexy and they just might make you feel like a T-bird from grease.
The nVIDIA 7600 has been around for a little while now, and ATI is in the process of releasing its competition, the X1650. Neither of them are the top of the line, but nVIDIA clearly is a couple steps ahead. The cards each have 256mb of DDR (Double Data Rate) ram and they were tested against each other using benchmarking software. The X1650 barely stood up against the 7600, always being behind by a few frames per second. Both are priced at $150-200, so it doesn’t seem worth the wait to get the ATI. Especially since they are worse.
Written by ZOWWERu
Need for Speed Carbon or NFSC, as some would call it, comes out November 1st. I havent really heard much news about it, but ever since NFSMW (Most Wanted) I have been waiting. In some of the trailers one can see some truley sweet car customization and the graphics are unbelieveable. So basically if you don’t have an nVIDIA card your gameplay expirience will be drastically shrunk. Heres one of the best videos Iv’e found. (This guy is good at drifting. Looks like I’ve got some competition).
It comes out on PC 11/1 PS3 11/14 and Wii 11/19. It features a few sweet cars including Camaro 2007 concept, the Evo, Lamborghini Gallo and Murci. One downside on the game however is the lighting. Out of all the Carbon videos I have seen, its always racing in the dark which is alright but some change in scenario would be cool. Oh ya and it also features the new fastest stock car, the Koenigsegg CCX.
In addition to making a deal with the Union clothing company, Microsoft has made deals with UNDFTD and Stussy. They will have special edition Zunes that are preloaded with music and also with some very nice accessories. It all comes in a nice 5-inch aluminum case. The contents of the package are listed here. These Zunes are limited edition and, according to Gizmodo, there will only be two of them made available for each store, so they should cost a large sum of money. All of the proceeds go straight to the companies, so no charity work here.
New start menu and program file layout. Transparent windows.
New window switching (windows are animated)
I downloaded windows vista RC1 a few weeks ago to see what it is like. It took me a couple days to download (3 gb file). I installed it and my sound stopped working because the driver for my sound card isn’t “signed” by the company who provides it. I stayed up until two in the morning to fix it, and now I have to press f8 every time I start it up. It worked fine for a week or two. Then suddenly printers stop working, P2P networks start dropping me. Also it took up approximately 11 gb of my hard drive. Windows vista is basically an annoying version of XP with some GUI upgrades. The windows are transparent. And there is an alternate to alt tab which shows you an animated window and is in 3D. I would not buy vista when it comes out. It would be better to keep XP. The best idea is to get Linux or a Mac.
Written by Khwaab:
Ever been on a trip and wanted to share your music? iHome’s iHM1B speaker system is fitted for iPod nanos and allows you to play your music with no annoying wires dangling anywhere. The speakers have SRS™ TruBass settings, so you can really enjoy your music. Also, there is a plastic shield covering your iPod, but the easy access to the controls is not compromised. The speakers come with a water resistant carrying case. A major downside to the iHM1B is that it only works with the old Nano. It’s a nice product, but could make your sleek ipod nano a bit bulky.
This product is not well known by most people however in the future, with the rising importance of phones, it will become much more of a household name. As Nigel Clifford, the CEO said,
“the smartphone is poised to change the way people live in ways as profound as those caused by the Internet and PC in the 1990s.”
The cell phone market has grown extremely fast. I can remember less than 10 years ago, cell phones were the size of mini-pcs and didnt even have screens. Whereas now, with the smartphones, 3G networks, nVIDIA phone graphics, and enormous storage capacity it would appear as soon the phone may take over the iPod and perhaps even the blackberry. Most Symbian phones are not yet out in the US, but we will not be behind Europe, Japan, Korea, and China in phone coverage for long. So maybe in a couple years the name “Symbian” may be as well known as “Microsoft.”
The long awaited dashboard update is on it way tomorrow (October 31st) morning. It includes support for the new HD-DVD drive that is due out on November 7th and also 1080p resolutions. It also adds support for WMV files that can be streamed over the network, from any pc not just Media Center, or off of some portable media device. It has Zune Media Streaming(????), an auto download feature that lets you download new Xbox Live demos, and finally support for the new wireless headset. This update looks promising and provides for the future. Any one springing for the new HD-DVD drive is sure to need this update. Tell us what you think???
