Archive for the 'Wireless' Category

Apple announces the iPhone

Published on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 in Apple, Internet, Software, Technology and Wireless. 2 Comments

I think perhaps for most of us this was the most expected announcement made by Apple at MacWorld. With all the buzz flying around, and no solid facts. Though Kevin Rose apparently spilled the details a lot of people were holding his story credible, but it isn’t all true. In fact, most of it is wrong. At the MacWorld keynote, Steve Jobs, explained how they had to keep this a secret for over 2 and a half years. However they managed that, I am truly amazed. The full specs and details are listed below.

Single front button
3.5 inch widescreen display, 320 x 480 at 160dpi
2 megapixel camera
iPod dock connector
Accelerometer to detect the changed between landscape and portrait mode and adjusts the screen accordingly
Proximity sensor to turn off the display backlight when you are holding the phone to your head, which saves battery life.
11.6 mm thick
Syncs with iTunes
GSM/EDGE
802.11b/g WiFi – Switches seamlessly between WiFi and EDGE whenever you are in/out of coverage
Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR and A2DP
Cinglar only (US)
Visual voicemail – shows a list of your voicemails like you see a list of emails
Error correcting with the on-screen keyboard
Gestural interface
Apple Mail
Safari
iTunes with intergrated CoverFlow
Google Maps
Widgets
Free Yahoo! IMAP email service to all iPhone purchasers
5 hour video battery life
16 hour audio battery life
Runs on Mac OS X*

The 4GB costs $499 and the 8GB $599, which includes a two year contract. It starts to ship in June for the US, 4Q 2007 for Europe and for Australia they see it in 2008 (ouch).

*Though Apple lists the iPhone to run OS X, and what Steve Jobs said, it has been confirmed by an Apple Rep that it will not allow you to install OS X applications. This is a big blow to the device, at least in my opinion. Why would Apple, and Steve Jobs, specifically highlight the fact that it runs OS X when in actual fact, it is a truncated version of OS X, probably incapable of running fully featured applications. This has irritated many people, including myself. Will you not be able to run any applications at all from it, or will Apple release some sort of optimiser to iPhone-ise exisiting applications? From what I know, you will be able to add your own Widgets, or exisiting ones that you can download for the Dashboard.

What are my thoughts on the iPhone? Well I like it. I thing the design is amazing, not just the user interface, but of the phone as well. The ideas that have been incorporated are truly unique and visionary. Apple really has set the bar high this time. What I am annoyed about is not only the lack of 3G, instead uses EDGE (2.5G, Enhanced GPRS), but the fact that it is only coming out in the 4Q of 2007 here. Though I already have my K800i, which is one amazing phone, I don’t know if I could give it up for the iPhone. Though it’s PDA-esque features are nice, what would I do about applications like GPS software (I use TomTom on my PDA) and other 3rd party software I have come to love and enjoy, especially with the news that you can’t install your own applications. The price as well is intimidating. I currently don’t use my phone enough to warrant a Pay Monthly service (I use Pay as you go), but with the 2-year contract, the base price, as well as a monthlu plan that will have to have an unlimited service (how could I not use Safari while on the go?) Not only that, but what service provider will we get out here in the UK. I don’t want some crappy provider like Vodafone or O2. I hate them, I do, more so than Orange, which have the world’s worst customer support.

Scratches? Don’t even get me started, with a massive 3.5 inch screen, this is destined for scratches. You would have to buy a protector/shield for it as well, which is not free, and there is none out there on the market yet for the iPhone. The proximity sensor is truly inspirational, and who else but Apple would come up with something like that. It is nice for Apple to incorporate an accelerometer to switch between the landscape mode and portrait mode in the OS, as well as other functions. I have something similar in my Canon PowerShot A540, which automatically changes the orientation based on how you are holding it. Well done Apple, you have once again succeeded at making me want I product I cannot afford, nor cannot get my hands on until 3/4 of a year later.

Engadget has a lot of photos taken during the keynote, of the iPhone and its interface, as well as fully explaining the demo Steve Jobs gave. You can check that out here.

Quick Update

Published on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 in Apple, General, Technology and Wireless. Closed

I guess you have all heard of the iPhone (no, not the Linksys one, the one made by Apple) and the iTV being rebranded to Apple TV. Or if you haven’t you must be living under a rock. Anyways, I just wanted to say, that I will be making posts on them, with my thoughts (obviously ), however, I couldn’t make them yesterday as I was busy studying for the Biology exam I had today. It went quite well, but I have a Chemistry one tomorrow, and a Physics exam on Friday. I hate exams packed together like this, especially so soon after Christmas. I hate revising during the Christmas holiday.
I did, however, somehow, manage to follow most of the news, and I had the #mwsf2007 IRC channel in the background. A quick note about it, I did feel a bit dissapointed, with the fact that a 2 hour long Keynote, only covered 2 products. It didn’t even touch Leopard (which I was really hoping) — I know this is no WWDC, but still. I was surprised at there not being any actual Mac announcements, as in no computer updates/bumps. Shame.

My Macworld 2007 Predictions

Published on Monday, January 1, 2007 in Apple, Software, Technology, TV's and Wireless. 4 Comments

apple logo

I have finally gotten round to write a prediction list. This one is for the upcoming Macworld 2007 Expo that is happening in San Francisco on January 9 – 12. So what do I think big Stevie will announce, well here they are:

iWork and iLife ’07 – This one is a definite. Every year Apple announce the release of a new version of their iLife and iWork suite, and every year it has been at Macworld. I think largely iWork will remain the same, except (hopefully) a spreadsheet application will also be intergrated. Maybe called ‘Numbers’ (as the old rumours have put it). iLife will get upgrades, but nothing too major.
Detailed iTV information – I think this one is also a definite. More specific information about the iTV; such as it’s actual name, as I hardly think Apple would keep such a name. I couldn’t imagine the legal battles that would ensue from the UK’s ITV TV channel, and maybe Elgato with their eyeTV software (not same spelling but it is a homophone). Other information such as its actual price, maybe a HDD inbuilt with PVR — a feature I’m sure many people would love — functionality, maybe a 802.11n wireless. Release date will be soon, if not the same day.
Leopard ship date – This will most likely be announced, maybe available to buy quite soon. A lot of people have been waiting for this, including me, and I will most likely be getting it. I don’t care that it will probably have bugs, and some software will be incompatible, I want it! I just hope that my mac mini can handle it ok. It seems to have been under a lot of pressure lately, and has begun to slow down some bit, even with a 1GB memory upgrade.
iPhone – But it won’t be called the iPhone — Apple will user some other name, because of Linksys’ iPhone. It seems that everyone has been talking about it, and a lot of people want it, even though not a peep has come out of Cupertino at all. Kevin Rose seems to think it will happen with his inside information, 4GB and 8GB, flash memory, slide out keyboard, maybe touchscreen. I personally don’t want one. My current SonyEricsson K800i works just fine for me. It has a fantastic camera, nice big screen, plenty of memory, and works with my Mac — effortless syncing.
iPod revisions – It’s been ages since Appl last updated the iPod , so it’s about time. Nothing too major, maybe making it thinner/smaller, slightly longer battery life, and a software update for some enhancements. I don’t expect a widescreen ‘video’ iPod at all.
iTunes 8 – Or maybe a smaller update, but I think Apple will have HD content. This is the year of high-def (for the second year running ) and with Apple’s high-def trailers, I think Apple will jump aboard the ship and have high-def movies from Disney.
Core 2 Duo Mac mini – I think Apple will keep one Core Duo just for the pricing scheme, however you will be able to buy the updated Core 2 Duo Mac minis. A similar thing happened with the MacBook. It’s bound to happen.

I think that’s most of it. There will be a one more thing, however I think it will be the iPhone, or maybe Apple actually announcing the early availablity of Leopard. Just maybe…

SonyEricsson Bluetooth Watch: Review

Published on Friday, December 29, 2006 in Noteworthy, Technology and Wireless. Closed

For Christmas we decided to get our dad the new SonyEricsson watch (made by FOSSIL). In more than a few not so unobvious ways he pointed out that he wanted the black version, and it was damn hard to find. I looked everywhere on the internet and I couldn’t find one that actually had it in stock. Or so I thought. On SonyEricsson’s online shop, they said that they had it in stock, which I was quite surprised at, and the price was cheaper than anywhere else (which surprised me even more). The key thing is it arrived before Christmas. It was great to see my dad’s face at Christmas, because he thought that we wouldn’t be able to get one.
I took some post-christmas photos of the unboxing, it didn’t seem fair to take photos while my dad opened his present . All of the following is based on my dad’s opinions of the watch.

The actual box of the watch (not the packaging), is designed like a real watch, so you can stow it away safely. It is really versatile and looks really sleek. The watch itself is extremely cool, and not surprisingly it is only compatible with selected SonyEricsson phones. However the phone does excel at what it does, as it displays the name of the person who’s calling the user as well as being able to play/pause the music being played on the phone, and skip a song. What is extra special, is the the watch can display accented characters (ie, á and é), which is important, as we are Hungarian and a lot of names have accents in them.
A feature, which my dad pointed out, is that if you have a bluetooth headset also paired with the phone, you can chose to accept the call, and the voice is forwarded to the headset. This means the watch doesn’t interfere with the headset, and you don’t need to even touch the phone. It also needs to be pointed out that although the watch itself is relatively heavy (~150g) it doesn’t feel heavy at all when it is on your hand, and you really don’t notice that extra weight. The digital time and date on the watch is received from your phone, so you don’t need to enter that in manually.

You can head over to my Flickr page to check out all of the photos of the watch, as well as the certificate card that comes with the watch to show that you own a genuine SonyEricsson watch.

The Logitech MX Revolution: Review

Published on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy, PC, Technology and Wireless. 5 Comments

Score: (4/5)

Sadly this isn’t the Nintendo Revolution. It is however a brand new, and fantastic mouse! It’s fast, responsive and uses a laser. The best feature though, not including the fact that it’s cordless, is its scroll wheel. This is a unique wheel which can do both the normal ‘click to click’ mode and a free scroll mode. The free scroll mode allows the wheel to spin on its own for easy navigation where you have lots of pages. It truly is very ergonomic. You can also change it so that after a certain speed, it will automatically change from click to click, to free scroll mode. I use this all the time, and I love it!

I have been using it for around a week now, and is much better than the Mighty Mouse. I got rid of it after the scroll wheel failing me, and after trying to fix it numerous times (and replaced by Apple once, after which it worked for a while). I have configured the thmub button to turn on expose, and the forward and back buttons move through the tabs in Safari. The supposed ‘search’ button I didn’t have a need for, so I re-routed it to skip to the next new news item in NetNewsWire. When I press down on the scroll wheel, it triggers the desktop in expose. One minor annoyance, is that you can’t actually set Expose functions. You have to set it to a key (ie, I use F8, and F10) which you then change in OS X’s Keyboard System preferences pane to activate Expose, or whatever you want it to do. This does have the added benefit, that in any application, you can customise any of its shorcuts to a button. Another neat feature, is that you can customise these settings on an per application basis. So one click may trigger forward tab in Safari, but that same could activate the Cut tool in Photoshop, or something similar.

Click on to read the rest of the review, or to see the unboxing photos, go to the flickr page.
Continue reading ‘The Logitech MX Revolution: Review’

Gaming News in Review: Part 1

Published on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 in Gaming, Microsoft, Movies, Noteworthy, Technology and Wireless. Closed

the wii house

While I was unable to post during the last two weeks, there has been plenty of gaming news floating around, so be prepared for a awfully long post.

New Halo 3 Info: 1up.com have revealed lots of new information about Halo 3. There will be three different editions of Halo 3, a standard, a collectors and a Legendary edition. New brute weapons, Spike Rifle and Spike Grenade. The Mongoose ATV, like the Warthog, however there is no turret. A new assault riffle as the starting weapon, Bungie hope to improve the tactics of the game, so it is more fair. Save multiplayer, and single player gameplay videos and watch them again. The left and right bumpers are being used as the reloading buttons for your weapons, so what happens with the X button now? [link]
PS3′s SIXAXIS controller is completely disassembled to reveal its innards. A layer by layer documentation takes you through the motion sensing parts, the non-replaceable battery, and the rest of the gadgetry. [link]
The Wii house of fun in London. SPOnG managed to take a look around Nintendo’s secret house which is kitted up with Wii gear, for the press. They took lots of photos and described their experience with the various games and such. Photo shown above. [link]
70GB Hard drive for the Xbox 360 spotted. While the photo could be a fake, the most likely explanation is, Microsoft wants you to be able to store those Movie and Video downloads somewhere (currently for the US only, more in the next post) The video marketplace allows you to download various movies, tv shows and short films, some in HD, which obviously needs plenty of space. [link]
Sony fanboys hijack the Nintendo Wikipedia entry and cover it with “nintendo sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1″, for a mere few minutes, until the Wikipedia admins notice. “In the short moments before Wikipedia admins could get the correct page back up, the assailant successfully misled several would-be Nintendo fans to assume the company had gone out of business, then deciding to ‘switch teams.’ [sarcasm]” [link]
Engadget get down to business, and get hands on with their final production unit of the Wii. Plenty of high-res images of the unboxing, the console and all its accessories. What more could you want? [link]

I split down the post into two separate articles. It’s probably more helpful for the eye.

Xbox 360 could get DivX support

Published on Thursday, October 12, 2006 in Gaming, Microsoft, Noteworthy, Software, Technology and Wireless. Closed

360 divx

A Dutch Xbox 360 fan site (X-life) is reporting that Microsoft will be officially supporting the DivX and XviD formats within two months. This means that no 3rd party software will be needed to stream XviD and DivX files to the 360, and presumably, it also means that XviD encoded DVD’s will also be able to be played on the 360. However this is just a rumour so far, as it has not been confirmed by anyone else. The following excerpt, was translated from Dutch, during a Microsoft retailer training session.

After the event I had a short talk with the host and asked him whether there’d ever be support for DivX and Xvid playback. Much to my surprise, he started telling me that Microsoft is working hard to implement this and a firmware update is expected within 2 months allowing you to play DivX and Xvid directly on the 360.

Links for 03/10/2006

Published on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 in Apple, Gaming, Microsoft, Noteworthy, Shorts, Technology and Wireless. Closed

The shorts for Tuesday 3rd October 2006 are:

PSM3 Magazine get their hands on the PS3 – Fast, quiet, heavy and a dust magnet (above) [link] [video]
Zune Wireless basically worthless – You can’t connect to the internet via it’s WiFi or sync to your computer via its WiFi [link]
Microsoft Unbox Zune for CBS’ camera with blatant marketing speak – “brown is the new black is the new white” [link]
DVD Jon has reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay technology and is licensing it to companies [link]

Nintendo and Wii News Roundup

Published on Sunday, October 1, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy, Software, Technology and Wireless. Closed

A lot has happened over the past week, and I’m sorry I couldn’t post, but I have had a lot of work at school, and the server was down for a while. Posting on week-days will probably continue to be sparse, but I will try and post as often as possible.
Getting to the topic, there have been various developments in Wii news So I thought I’d do a roundup.

Wal-Mart in the US could be passing Wii demo units because they are thought to be unsafe to use. They think that the game could cause bodily harm because of the akwardness of the Wii-mote. [link]
The Opera browser for the Wii will be free to download until July 2007. Users of Nintendo Wii systems will be able to download Opera for free as a promotion until July 2007 through the Wii Shop channel. As of July 2007, Opera for the Wii will be downloadable for a yet undetermined number of Wii points. The browser supports flash, AJAX, Wii-mote navigation and Web 2.0 graphics. [link]
Nintendo could be facing plastic shortages so games for the DS could come in cardboard boxes. Customers in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg are affected by this, but it may stretch to other parts of Europe, and the US or Japan.
The new cases will be the same size as the plastic DS cases. They’ll also have a small explanation saying that only the case is different and that everything else is the same. Those who desperately want a plastic one can call customer service and get it in late December.
The following games will come in cardboard boxes; Super Mario 64 DS, Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends, Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends, Nintendogs Labrador & Friends, Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Tetris DS, Nintendogs: Dalmatian & Friends, New Super Mario Bros. [link]
(Above) A Flickr user has found a picture of what seems to be a press shot of the Wii-mote with what looks to be card/plastic packaging. This may be the final packaging of the Wii-mote, but as other users have pointed out, it looks exactly like dummy units given out at Nintendo’s Japanese Wii Conference. [link]

Core 2 Duo iMacs have 802.11n?

Published on Monday, September 25, 2006 in Apple, Noteworthy, Technology and Wireless. Closed

According to a poster in the MacRumors forum, who goes by the name Peace, the new Core 2 Duo iMac apparently has a 802.11n chip built in. Well at least, Vista ‘recognises’ the ‘chip’ that is supposedly there that it is a Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter. The poster does stress that he did not fake it, and though people have been doubting the authenticity of the photo, another photo was posted. This depicts a an actual iMac in the photo, with Windows Vista clearly seen in the image.
I think this is real, as there would be no point of faking a photo like this (unless someone has too much free time on their hands). However, it doesn’t show up in OS X, because I think that Apple wants to wait until the standards for .11n have completely been settled. With all the pre-n stuff around, who knows what will be compatible with each other. It also eludes as to whether Apple will introduce a new Airport Extreme Base Station, which has 802.11n, even if it is pre/draft-n. It’s a shame Apple didn’t release any new MacBook Pro’s which could support this, and maybe have Core 2 Duo’s as well. An interesting thing to note though, is during Stevie’s keynote at the showtime event, when iTV was announced as having 802.11 wireless, without specifying the protocol. This could mean that the iTV could have 11n connectivity.