Gadgets and New Technologies

Talk about a hefty fine. Microsoft has indeed taken it on the chin with this one, with a record fine of $1.3 billion by the European Union for what it considers unfair business practices by the giant software company.

The fine stems from an investigation that claims that Microsoft unfairly charged software competitors for wanting to develop software that was compatible with the Windows OS. Back in March of 2007, the EU disputed that Microsoft fees for sharing information software developers was unfair. In the EU, Microsoft was charging royalties of 3.87% of competitor product revenues for patents and 2.98% product revenues for communication information.

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Posted Feb 27th 2008 9:06AM by Richard LawlerFiled under: Displays, HDTVCompleting the final segment of the three-way Hitachi / Panasonic / Canon LCD mashup, Hitachi & Canon have finalized paperwork on the deal. Canon will take its 24.9% piece of Hitachi Displays, Ltd, pending regulatory approval, which should pave the way for plenty of sweet IPS-enabled panels and maybe even some OLED action in the future if anyone feels up to it. The specifics are in the read link as usual, we’ll judge the wisdom of this partnership when there’s a new HDTV on the shelf. (Read the full post about ‘Hitachi and Canon finalize paperwork on LCD partnership’…)

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PC World reviews the T-Mobile Shadow and writes, “…I didn’t like the camera’s operation. It took reasonably good-looking pictures for a 2.0-megapixel device, but I found the shutter lag frustratingly slow. When taking a picture on a city street, I’d press the dedicated camera-shutter button to initiate a shot, and by the time I’d see the image on screen, a car would appear smack in the middle of the frame. Saving pictures between shots was slow, too.” Read more about the T-Mobile Shadow. (Read the full post about ‘T-Mobile Shadow Review - PC World’…)

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What you see is what you get. Apparently, these Toshiba 815T PB phones have come in contact with the Allspark Cube from the Transformers movie and now have bodies of their own. Now all they need are guns and missiles like that one crazy Nokia phone. Apparently, this is all part of promo for a new show called Ketai Sousakan 7. To be honest, I don’t know how anyone could make a show about transforming cell phones, but how can you not, really? Especially ones with faces like those. I wonder what the plot will be about. Maybe it’s about cell phones that want to be human. Very silly, really. By the way, these Toshiba 815T PB phones are fully functional as they are 3G network enabled, and come with a 3.2 megapixel camera. (Read the full post about ‘I just had to write about this: Toshiba 815T PB’…)

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Apple claims that their new batteries which come with the new line of MacBook and MacBook Pro has been improved to provide a longer operating time before a trip to the nearby power outlet is required. According to Apple, the extension in battery life stands at 30 minutes to 45 minutes more than the previous generation when running the same Wireless Web test - with the help of LED backlighting, you get an hour’s advantage of operating time. I guess this would mean having more time to do your work when traveling while the guy next to you in economy class cusses about his lack of battery life on a rival notebook. (Read the full post about ‘Apple Claims Improvement In Battery Life’…)

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Posted Feb 26th 2008 5:43PM by Darren MurphFiled under: Desktops While one generally associates “Everex” with “bargain basement,” we can’t exactly see the incredible value in the gPC mini. Hinted at late last month, this minuscule desktop is now getting all official on us and comes loaded with a 1.83GHz T2130 processor, 120GB hard drive, 512MB DDR2 RAM, a DVD writer and Intel’s GMA950 graphics set. Furthermore, it’s packin’ gigabit Ethernet, DVI / S-Video outs, FireWire, four USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 multicard reader and audio / in out. Granted, you’ll have to deal with the gOS that comes loaded in, but hey, maybe that’s not such a thorn in some folks’ sides, anyway. (Read the full post about ‘Everex gets official with $499 gPC mini desktop’…)

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Posted Feb 26th 2008 5:32PM by Nilay PatelFiled under: Laptops HP apparently wasn’t kidding when it said it expected people to buy that hot new UMPC 2133 sub-notebook “without a thought”: DigiTimes is now reporting that the company has contracted Wistron to crank out two million units this year. That’s an astonishingly high number — almost 10 percent of HP’s worldwide laptop sales last year — and even wilder compared to the EeePC, which completely blew away expectations by selling 350,000 units worldwide last quarter, or Samsung’s Q1, which has only moved a couple hundred thousand in two years on the market. (Read the full post about ‘HP so confident in the UMPC 2133 it’s building 2m units?’…)

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Posted Feb 26th 2008 4:06PM by Darren MurphFiled under: StorageHot on the heels of a pair of roomy 2.5-inchers comes Toshiba with a duo of even smaller drives likely destined for PMPs and cereal boxes of the future. The 120GB MK1216GSG and 80GB MK8016GSG are both designed to the latest SATA 2.6 specification and also feature the micro-SATA connector. Furthermore, the 5,400 RPM units weigh in at just 62 grams apiece and feature 8MB cache and a 489 Mbits/sec data transfer rate. Per usual, pricing on these buggers remains a mystery. (Read the full post about ‘Toshiba intros 80GB, 120GB 1.8-inch hard drives’…)

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Posted Feb 26th 2008 4:38PM by Darren MurphFiled under: Misc. gadgets We’ve seen some fairly sinister alarm clocks in our day — ones that fly around, nearly make you go deaf and “explode” if you don’t get up in time, for starters — but this DIY creation is definitely lobbying for top honors. The Turing Alarm Clock, which has admittedly been making the rounds of late, starts making racket just as any other alarm clock when the time comes, but rather than letting you smash the snooze button, it forces you to answer math questions with varying levels of difficulty before quieting down. Evil? Sure. Effective? You betcha. Check the video after the jump.[Via Hack-A-Day] (Read the full post about ‘Homegrown alarm clock tests your math to gauge alertness’…)

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Posted Feb 26th 2008 4:52PM by Ryan BlockFiled under: Features, Home Entertainment, Portable Audio We thought Sony showed a bit of wisdom and discretion by leaving the PFR-V1s overseas, but we were wrong. The $500 “personal field speakers” are definitely headed Stateside, and it’s just as we feared: they may sound decent enough to justify the price, but honestly, no one is going to wear these. Really, no one. Probably not even around the house, even despite the fact that they’re not really that uncomfortable. See our pained facial expression after the break.Gallery: Sony PFR-V1 WTFones ears-off Features built-in awkward humiliation. (Read the full post about ‘Sony PFR-V1 WTFones ears-off’…)

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