Author: Daniel Sung
BlackBerry Curve 8520 aka 'Gemini' (again) – leaked photos
Now, either RIM has codenamed this latest leaked BlackBerry “Gemini” because they’re supposed to come as a pair or there’s something slightly fishy and more than a little confusing now that the name has moved onto this, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 rather than the 9300.
Whatever its handle, this is definitely a BlackBerry and definitely a different looking handset to most RIM jobs. It’s Wi-Fi enabled but missing 3G like the 8900 before it but the real thing to note here is that the trackball has been replaced by an optical pad. Bad move says I. I had a look at an HP iPaq with a similar take on navigation. It completely ruined a perfectly good device. Be careful, RIM.
Otherwise, it’s a good looking full QWERTY phone in that whole I’ve-just-squashed-my-mobile-under-a-steam-roller kind of BlackBerry way, but if you’re into that then look no further. What the hell is up, though, with this lack of 3G going on with the Curves? Does it really make them that much cheaper? Really?
And while we’re here, isn’t that the same carpet used as the background for the T-Mobile G1 photo leak?
(via Trusted Reviews & CrackBerry)
VIDEO: Working Wolverine claws demonstration
Real Working Homemade Wolverine Claws – X-Men – Click here for the funniest movie of the week
Really tricky one, this. Yes, the claws are a mighty impressive piece of work. Yes, the quick release action is almost as good as the real thing and, if it weren’t for the whole retracting inside his body part, they’d be perfect. The trouble is that this guy comes across as a bit of a psycho.
Not quite sure what he has against cardboard boxes and I’m a little concerned as to what his plans are beyond destroying paper-based goods. Full marks for construction but perhaps it’s time to flog them once the novelty wears off, as in, now.
(via CrunchGear)
Storm in a twos up as RIM plans next-gen touchscreen handset
Hands up if you use a BlackBerry Storm? Yeah, I don’t see too many of you out there. I, personally, have no professional opinion on RIM’s version of an iPhone killer but a certain @Stephenfry and others ensured the handset didn’t have too hot a reception when it hit the shelves at the end of last year.
The Storm may not have been deemed an absolute failure but it’s certainly been no success. Meet anyone from RIM and I’ll wager it’s a Bold they have in their pocket.
So, that said, it should be of little surprise that BB are having another crack slaying the iPhone 3G dragon, or at least coming up with a consumer friendly touchscreen handset that everybody loves. No word on specs, dates or anything even slightly useful but we do know it’ll be a Storm of some type and hopefully one a bit higher on the Fujita scale.
RUMOUR: Apple to buy Twitter for $700m
First Facebook had a go, then the word was that Google made an offer and now the rumour is that Apple plans to buy Twitter and announce it in time for WWDC on 9th June.
The mooted price has jumped a mile from the last supposed offer of $250 million to a far healthier $700 million and according to the quote from an insider, “Apple is in late stage negotiations”.
Hard to know how much truth there is in this one. Last time it was just a meeting about advertising, apparently, so if there even is some talking between the two companies, then it could have been about a whole bunch of things. If it is about a deal, then that represents a very interesting move for what is, essentially, a hardware and software company into the world of services.
Google is fast becoming the giant of the tech world and it’s their take over of the internet that the waning Microsoft covets. Is this Apple’s first steps towards ensuring long term growth or is it just the next big company on the list to be linked with the microblogging darling. A fiver says it’ll be Twitter to buy Yahoo! next.
(via @Zee Tech Crunch)
Embiggen your iPod to 240GB and 48,000 tracks
A company in Kalamazoo called Rapid Repair has started running an iPod upgrading service. Currently, the largest pod that Apple supplies is the 120GB classic which’ll only bag you 24,000 tracks at the most – not really enough for any true file junkies out there.
What RR does is to remove the old, small Apple HDD and, unfortunately, the guarantee with it, and replace it with a much more advanced but same sized 1.8″ Toshiba 240GB storage unit. Hey presto, a doubly big MP3 player.
It’ll cost you $300 plus whatever the postage might be to Michigan and back. With any luck someone this side of the Pond will clue up to the business which is turning a very tidy 25% profit incidentally. In the mean time, Rapid Repairs are looking into Zunes and other MP3 machines. Doubtless, the original manufacturers will be thrilled.
(via Small Business)
Philips NP2900 – MP3 streaming with sound engineering
Part of me thinks that Philips is too scared to give its products proper names in case we’re disappointed with what they produce. It’s a bit of a shame really because the quite dry sounding Philips NP2900 is actually a very nice piece of kit.
What we’re looking at is an apparently well designed, well engineered £249 machine that’ll work over Wi-Fi to play streamed MP3s from your hard drive and all billions of internet radio stations too.
Better still, the NP, er, what was that number again, comes with a new Philips technology they call LivingSound which aims to expand the stereo sweet spot of the system with a series of precisely angled drivers within the four speakers and specially levelled internal amps. The plan is to broaden the soundscape as much as possible.
Naturally, it also comes with Philips FullSound tech too which aims to unruin the ruin caused by MP3 file compression at the slight expense of having to guess what the music is supposed to sound like. Perhaps not a technology for the purist but then nor are MP3s.
Available from May ’09 (this month)
Philips Ariaz and Opus GoGear Review:
Twitter bring search to its pages
Twitter has added a proper search bar to its pages now so that you, me and everyone we know can perform real-time searches as to what people are talking about. The move might actually give people a reason to go back to the main site whose overwhelming traffic goes only to the Twitter API with programs like twhirl and twibble and all other things generally with blue icons and beginning with tw.
The trouble is that are a plenty of services out there that already provide a real-time search of Twitter, so will it make any difference that the mother site has now got its act together?
If you can’t think of anything to search Twitter for, then the sidebar will display the most popular terms that people are talking about at the moment with Swine Flu and Wolverine on top at the moment. Not sure which of those I’d rather sit through.
(via Twitter blog)
.tv domain name under threat with Tuvalu sinking
Er, we could be in a spot of bother here. Techdigest.tv is in danger of disappearing. According to internet domain bagging site Godaddy, the island of Tuvalu is sinking and it’s Tuvalu to whom we owe our .tv domain name just as we owe .co.uk to the United Kingdom.
Should any country cease to exist then, according to web law, the domain must cease to exist as well. Oh dear.
Tuvalu is only 4.5m above sea level at its highest, so with climate change on the radar, it’ll be the first place to be hit badly by rising sea levels. Worse still, the island is indeed itself sinking, as Godaddy warns. Firstly, islands sink back into the sea – that’s just what they do – and secondly, there’s a large degree of compaction cause by farming methods too.
So, when it’s being attacked at both ends like that, perhaps it’s no surprise people are now being advised away from the .tv suffix, even if it does lend itself to the video form. Time to start squatting on Techdigest.something else.
(via Boing Boing)
Acer launches Timeline notebook series – video hands on
While the gentlemen from Acer were busy dropping the Windows 7 bomb, they were also launching a bunch of computers too. We were all quite excited by the prospect of getting out hands on the Revo and the bigger Acer Aspire One but, for me, they were all overshadowed by the Timeline series that had remained under wraps.
They may not have the colour of a bright happy Dell but there’s something in the matte finish on their aluminium grey chassis that gives them a proud sense of style in the flesh. Take a look.
Yes, you heard right. Each of the 13.3″, 14.1″ and 15.6″ sizes starts at £549 and finishes somewhere in the seven hundreds if I’m not mistaken. They’re all around an inch thick, nice and light and highly recommended. Do watch out though. The 13-incher doesn’t come with an optical drive whereas the others have DVD burners. I’d feel pretty good about having one of these myself, particularly as there’s plenty of room to add up to 8GB of DDR3 and the option of a dedicated GPU.
The Timelines come loaded with Vista but Acer did make brief mention oo a new product for launch around the end of Q3 that will come with the option of a free Windows 7 upgrade if you buy it before 23rd October. That will be their All-in-One touchscreen machine, which’ll be Atom powered and come in 18.5″-23″ sizes. More on that one in the coming months no doubt but, fingers crossed, there’ll be some NVIDIA Ion action on that one too.
They did show us a demo of that graphics platform at work on the Acer Aspire Revo with its Atom chip and plethora of USB ports quite happily running a fps game at low graphics. It was as smooth as we’d been led to believe.
Last up, I finally got my hands on the bigger second generation of the fantastic Acer Aspire One netbook. This time it’s blessed with 11.6 inches of screen and a full size keyboard but somehow it’s lost a little of that style.
They’re out as of today and still running XP. Even if they’re not as pretty, you’ll never suffer from finger cramp again, you’ll have doubled the battery life and you even get Dolby Pro Logic sound thrown in too. Can’t say fairer than that.
Acer Timeline
Wii Saber Blasters for Nintendo Star Wars action
There must be someone out there who’s so Wii-nuts that they buy all of these Nintendo controller accessories. So, for you sir/madam, here’s another one to chuck in your cupboard after a few months. Meet the Wii Saber Blaster from CTA Digital. The same people who brought us the WiSkab et al the other day.
They’re out from 29th May and they come as a pair just in time for Star Wars the Clone Wars: Light saber Duels and Star Wars the Force Unleashed. Each blade has a proper mirroring system in the hilt so that the IR signals from the WiiMotes can travel without a problem such that you don’t have to remove them each time you need to navigate the menus.
Three AA batteries in each will ensure that the sabers light up and then you can swish away to your heart’s content taking your TV screen, lightbulbs and each priceless piece of china with you. Contents insurance not included.
