Friday, July 13, 2007

Commodore unveils lineup of US-bound gaming desktops


Unlike some companies we've seen, it appears that Commodore Gaming is actually keeping its word, as the company has just now released the final details on its lineup of flashy US-bound gaming rigs. The Cg, Cgs, Cgx, and Cxx machines progress gradually from least extreme to highly 1337, and all four can be customized to suit your every fantasy. To give you an idea of what's on tap (if you've got the coin), the Cxx packs a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 processor, twin 500GB 7,200RPM hard drives in a RAID 0 array, 2GB of Corsair RAM, DVD-RW optical drive, an 850-watt power supply, Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sound card, Windows Vista, and dual 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra GPUs to boot. As far as pricing goes, word on the street is that the base system will start out around $1,700, but we'll know for sure when these come stateside in Q3.

Timex's iPod-controlling i-Control watch hits the FCC


Chalk another one up to the rumor mill, as it looks like the leaked PowerPoint slide we saw just last month was indeed referring to an actual product. Thanks to an FCC filing, we now know that Timex is actually cranking out a Made for iPod timepiece in its Ironman series. The i-Control isn't the most handsome of watches, but it will be available in a water-resistant casing, sport Indiglo backlighting, and play nice with your dock connecting iPod. According to the documentation, users will clip an included RF transmitter into their Pod, which will allow the watch to control the volume, track, and play / pause function so long as the it's within "about ten feet" of your wrist. Of course, it still sports the same alarm, chrono, recall, and interval timer modes as the rest of its siblings, but unfortunately, it doesn't look like you'll see any scrolling track tags on this one. As expected, there's no word on price just yet, but click on through for a more detailed shot of it all sprawled out.

HP celebrates 35th anniversary of HP-35: launches 35s calculator


Feel that? That's the unexpected stir of nostalgia welling inside your dorktic-loin. Rest easy, you're not alone. In fact, that picture aroused a deeply seeded HP fanboi-ism long obscured by thick slabs of drab computing plastic and opaque printer ink. The 35s marks the 35th anniversary of the industry defining HP-35 pocket scientific calculator (and death of the sliderule) -- a first to offer basic trig and exponential functions. While HP preserved the original's reverse Polish notation, gone is the single-line of red LEDs which illuminated the childhood wonder of so many budding engineers. The new 35s also introduces an algebraic entry mode for those who find RPN entry just a bit too, well, reversed. Of course, it's fully modern with 800 storage registers, 100 built-in functions, and a large 2-line alpha numeric display with adjustable contrast. Better yet, the 35s will only set you back $60 compared to the $395 it cost back in 1972 -- that's a lot more 8-tracks for your swank Ford Mercury Capri, eh Pops?

40Gbps internet connection installed in Swede's home


While we've seen all sorts of blazing feats over fiber here lately, it's not often that such wide open bandwidth gets piped directly to a home, but a 75-year old Swede recently changed all that when she had a 40Gbps connection installed in her domicile. 'Course, this fine dame is the mum of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg, and she's hoping to somehow "persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections." The trick behind the setup is a "new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000-kilometers apart with no intermediary transponders," and just in case you're wondering, she can download a full high-definition DVD in a painstaking two seconds.

Forget the OLPC XO: India working on $10 laptop


While Nick Negroponte and the crew over at OLPC struggle to offer the XO for its original target of $100 (it now costs around $175, before factoring in support costs), India's Ministry of Human Resource Development is planning to completely leapfrog three-digit price tags with a machine that is already spec'ed at $47 and may cost only ten bucks when manufactured in bulk. With two potential designs having already been submitted by a researcher and engineering student (neither of which is pictured above) and a critical meeting scheduled for later this month, the "TDL" project seems to be well underway, and officials hope to have a product out the door within two years. India's plans for uber-cheap hardware come almost a year after the country rejected the XO as "pedagogically suspect," and several months after yet another competitor in this space -- Intel's Classmate -- was loosed on Brazil. And so the race to charge absolutely nothing for computers continues unabated, foretelling a day in the not-too-distant future when we'll be churning through PCs like daily-wear contacts.

E3 2007: id Software gives us its take on Games for Windows Live


Quake Wars won't incorporate a Games for Windows Live element, so all of the voice chat and player matching will go through id's own in-game software. It cited the fact that Vista came out three years or so into the game's development as one reason, it wouldn't make sense to shoehorn Live support in at such a late point. We were told, though, that it can see for future titles that Windows Live support could be a good thing, because by adding the various Live features as supplied by Microsoft, it means the developer doesn't have to spend the time developing those things itself. In other words, like DirectX 10, it will probably be a while before we see broader adoption of Games for Windows Live.

The Most Successful Product Intro of the 21st Century


Apple's iPhone could emerge as the most succesful product introduction of the 21st century, new research suggests.

Lightspeed Research surveyed 39,000 people on its US online panel in the days following the launch of the device on 29 June - and the research findings are staggering.

Thirty-two per cent of those surveyed who do not currently own an iPhone stated that they do intend to purchase one, with 8 per cent planning to purchase in the next three months and 22 per cent planning to purchase "some time in the future", the researchers said.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Apple's iPhone is a marvel in Business Strategy!




What is Apple doing with iPhone? Lots of fancy footwork and getting away with it! why you say? Read on:

Apple is screwing and manipulating AT&T as they did in the case of the Motorola. Do you remember what Apple did with Motorola (the phone with iTunes built into it)? I have 99% assuredness that is is the same story. Apple got a lot of money to back / pay for the R&D of the iPhone and AT&T got the exclusivity. Apple also needed this backing not just about money but also for the network that they lack and since they new that Singular will buy the AT&T name and merge together, what could be better for them? Money for R&D and once the product was ready a network to support it! Sure - good and dandy for both, right? The answer is no. It is only good for Apple. Since Apple gave a locked iPhone to AT&T. Do you think that Apple is stupid not to understand that any Browser int he word that want to function in the internet must have Plug-ins like and I quote from the same Article:

"The version of Safari running on Apple’s iPhone shows the web without Flash, Windows Media, Real Player, or Java applets. It’s not just a case of few plugins gone missing. Here’s why Apple chose to cut proprietary content from the web, and what it means for Adobe, Sun, Microsoft, Real, and other mobile makers."

\Do you really think that Apple is stupid? All the things that are not supposedly there ARE INDEED there - but deactivated or not completely implemented. All that is left for version 2.0 and the NEXT Highest bidder! LOL! You know Apple - you know that little SOB Hitler! He is sharp and he is a TRUE BUSINESS man! He knows what he is doing. He Successfully R&D an important product for FREE (someone else money) and now will improve the product with the incoming profits of the iPhone 1.0 and will build the iphone 2.0 that then will be sold the the highest bidder or may be Apple will market the 2.0 in 24 months when it's exclusivity with AT&T is ended.

As for the fact that iPhone is closed that you can not devlop for it, is another sign of this matter. Onl;y Apple will decide what goes in it and Also Apple has made the secret deal with AT&T that it will not allow huge bandwidth to be used by the users of iPhone, hence EDGE and not EVDO - Hence great WIFI so the users use their own bandwidth and not AT&T's. Look at how they have closed and locked the damn BlueTooth! You can ot even build a wireless headset for the damn phone! Very very complicated product. I bet the battery makers can nor make replacement batteries for the damn thing.

All shows the Sharpness of Apple Business model! But there is oen case that Apple was wrong about and that is the fact that they omitted Flash! A high percentage of the Webs stuff are running under Flash. But I guess that fell in the domain of bandwidth protection deal that Apple made with AT&T. Flash also, in some cases compete directly with H.264 format of the QuickTime for delivering content. Of course, H.264 is of a very much higher quality than Flash with a heavier use of the bandwidth, but Flash distributes the content much faster and encoding to flash is much faster than to H.264. still, Apple sees that as an indirect competitor and since MacroMedia was bought by Adobe, this makes matters more difficult and makes the competition much more powerful, so Apple will do anything to deal with it, including locking them out of one of the most important items to hit the market like iPhone! Apple is following MS Standard! This is the same strategy that MS followed for killing Java when Sun refused to give them what they wanted.

There are other mitigating circumstances: Apple now is competing not only with MS ont he Deaktop, but with their entry to the world of Cell phones, they are also competing with MS Mobile 5.0-6.0 as well Symbian and Nokia Open and now enters the LUNIX based Smart Phones. So OS X has a big job ahead of it, and Apple has even a bigger job ahead of itself. One OS, competing with Several on two arenas of Desktop and Smart phones.

But If apple plays it's cards right, AT&T will get fed-up inside the 12-18 months and releases the Exclusivity of the iPhone in US (Rogers in Canada), and you will see that less than 6 months after that, OPEN iPhone 2.0 will hit the market with everything open and usable by any company to develop for it; software or hardware! LoL! This is my prediction.

But as you know, Jobs has something that he is famous for: Unpredictability! We have to wait and see what this little wannabe hitler has in mind and one thing is for sure: He is NO dummy!

Conclusion:
I will not buy an iPhone (as much as I want one and you know it is a long time I wanted one) until the version 2.0. Makes sense? yes? LoL!