Author: Andy Merrett
Dell to release smartphone, bored analysts suggest
Let’s face it, it’s all a bit quiet in the technology world after the shock of running around Macworld and CES so soon after the festive overeating, so it’s not surprising that a few new speculations are surfacing.
Take the possibility of Dell making its own smartphone. That notion’s been around since almost the same time last year and has now resurfaced.
An analyst with Kaufman Brothers, Shaw Wu, says sources indicate that a Dell smartphone “is closer to reality than before”…
Over a decade of web archives blocked by Demon's overzealous "dirty old men" filter
Yet again it seems that systems designed to block out illegal/deemed objectionable content have gon into overdrive and blocked a huge chunk of the Internet, including the company itself.
If you haven’t discovered the Wayback Machine before, it’s a massive archive of what’s been published online since 1996. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that, amongst that hideously large (but interesting) archive will be some material that some deem inappropriate. This seems to have triggered Demon Internet’s IWF-inspired filters to block the entire archive, including pages of — yep, you’ve guessed it — Demon and its owners Thus Internet, plus the IWF…
Introducing the virus that farts at you, fool
Programming computer viruses must be a fairly mundane job at times, which is why I’m not surprised that some have decided to inject a bit of humour into their work.
According to customer calls to Panda Security, there are some new bits of infectious code becoming installed on PCs that either hurl insults — repeatedly calling the owner a fool — or else make squelching or farting noises.
One customer, who clearly has an extensive knowledge of what it sounds like when body parts are removed from foodstuffs, said that the noise was similar to “taking a foot out of jelly”…
EU's knee-jerk anti-plasma campaign could lead to total ban and more sensationalist tech headlines
Everyone knows that, in general, large TVs consume more electricity than small ones, but it seems that EU bureaucrats are just turning themselves on to the idea of banning plasma TVs because they’re not energy efficient.
The yawn-inducing title attributed to plasma sets is “the 4×4 of the living room” (I reported this over at HDTVUK two years ago) because it’s easy to lump them all together as electricity guzzlers.
Sweeping generalisations reported in the mainstream press include such gems as “they use up to four times as much electricity and are responsible for up to four times as much carbon dioxide as traditional cathode ray tube sets.” The clue is in those two words — “up to” — which, just as when applied to your flagging broadband connection, can cover a huge range of values…
Creative launches Vado HD pocket camcorder in the UK
Creative has finally brought the high definition follow-up to its Vado pocket camcorder to the UK.
The Vado HD offers 720p filming at an unspecified frame rate (though to be true 720p it needs to be at least 24fps – it’s probably 30fps) as well as VGA (YouTube friendly) recording at 30fps.
It’s constructed using a wide-angle glass lens and comes with a 2x digital zoom (yes, digital: pixellation city here we come). Its 8GB of onboard memory should let you shoot around two hours of HD footage, or eight hours at 640×480/30fps…
CES 2009: LEGO-inspired kids gadgets coming soon courtesy of Digital Blue
One of the quirkier stories to come out of CES this year was the partnership between Digital Blue and LEGO which will see a number of kid-centric gadgets produced with the iconic plastic brick look.
This isn’t build it yourself, unfortunately, so don’t think you’ll be able to buy a box full of LEGO pieces, a CMOS sensor, LCD and a few buttons and create your own digital camera. It’s just the look, rather than the actual coloured blocks, but that’s probably just as well as it would be pretty irritating to drop said camera and have it break into a hundred pieces…
Ballroom-dancing robots attempt "YMCA", get stuck at "C"
Just when you thought it was safe to come out from behind your sofa now that Strictly Come Dancing is over for another season, along come some pesky robot-programming software from Q4 Technology that could see our metallic companions take to the dance floor.
Go-Robo Choreographer and Go-Robo Studio are creative and educational software titles allowing enthusiasts to teach WowWee robots to do more important things than farting about in dangerous locations pretending to do useful stuff.
Much better to dress them up in gowns and get them dancing…
Unseen Android-based HTC better than Palm Pre, mobile exec claims
HTC could soon be about to rain on Palm’s parade if the boasting of an executive from Australian telco Telstra is any indication.
Apparently, the new Android-based handset is “better and more functional” than the touchscreen Palm Pre with Palm Web OS just unveiled at CES.
CES 2009: Panasonic launches three new Blu-ray players including one with VHS!
Panasonic announced its latest line of Blu-ray players. The DMP-BD60 and DMP-BD80 offer all the latest features you’d expect from a decent player, including full high definition audio format decoding, upconversion of standard definition DVDs, VIERA Link and 24p processing, as well as VIERA Cast which allows access to Amazon’s video-on-demand service.
There’s also P4HD (Pixel Precision Progressive Processing for HD) which gives a superior picture by processing over 15 billion pixels per second, PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus, and 96kHz surround re-mastering of audio…
CES 2009: Samsung reveals huge range of new LCD and plasma HD tellies
I knew that not long after reeling off LG’s massive line of new HDTVs then along would come someone else with lots of TVs to brag about.
That’s Samsung.
Here we go, then, with the latest high definition TVs from the South Korean technology giant.
First on the list is the new 8000, 7000, and 6000 Series of LED HDTVs which boast better environmental credentials and over 40% less energy usage to LCD TVs of a similar size. Fortunately, Dan’s already done a sterling job reviewing these tellies so I’ll move on to Samsung’s other new displays…
