Tag: techdigest
Philips unveil HTS8100 SoundBar Ambisound "one box" speaker system
Philips has announced its new HTS8100 SoundBar Ambisound system, which claims to give realistic surround sound from a single speaker bar.
Front and rear-channel signals are emitted by the six drivers mounted in the sound bar, enveloping the listener irrespective of their location. It doesn’t rely upon sound reflections, so listeners will get the full surround sound effect wherever they sit and whatever the size and shape of the room, providing that they’re within range of the speakers.
It's official: survey finds Brits leads European on gadget love
Research from GfK reveals that the UK is the largest market in Europe for consumer electronics, with a projected value in 2007 of €13.1bn. This compares with Germany's €12.3bn and France's €9.6bn expenditure, and despite their larger populations. We Brits…
iPhone won't run Flash or Java: is it a complete Web experience?
Apple has already made it clear that the Safari browser built in to the iPhone won’t run the Flash plug-in. Now it’s also been noted that it won’t run Java applications, either.
Because of these two omissions, Mobile Business magazine has weighed in and claimed that the iPhone won’t run the full Web.
They claim that Flash and Java are “near essential” applications – and I’ll own up and say that I’ve said similar about Flash. I’m not a huge fan of Flash, because it does its best to slow down even the most modern PC’s CPU, but I recognise that it has become a standard for a number of web applications.
Java, too, is a pain. The only Java I like is the hot, steaming variety that comes from my coffee percolator each morning. The other Java is – well – hot and steaming might describe it, but it ain’t coffee.
MPs may banish boredom and get some work done as BlackBerrys could enter Commons
A new report by the Commons Modernisation Committee has recommended that MPs be permitted to bring handheld devices into the House of Commons, so that they can work and check on emails while waiting for long, boring speeches to end.
The boredom factor may be discouraging some backbench MPs from attending parliamentary debates and leading to low morale.
Survey shows people so attached to mobile phones, a million quid wouldn't make them give up
According to the latest installment of the Carphone Warehouse's "Mobile Life" research, the Great British public are so attached to their mobile phones that they wouldn't give them up – even for a million pounds.
The results come out of depriving 24 pour souls out of their mobile phones for a week, in order to understand how they shape our behaviour.
One in three people said they wouldn't give up their phone for a million pounds. 76% said they believed it was a social requirement to have a mobile phone, while 85% think that having a mobile phone is vital to maintaining their quality of life.
Set a cookie! Blog about it! Most hated Internet words revealed
YouGov has conducted a poll of over two-thousand UK adults, on behalf of the Lulu Blooker Prize (yes, blogs from books – blooker), and found out which Internet-inspired words are hated the most.
Top of the pile came “folksonomy”, a term used to describe a user-genreated web classification system (I have enough trouble getting my head around a taxonomy, without folk messing about with it).
Second came “blogosphere”, used to describe the universal collection of “blogs”, which came third.
Dell introduce their smallest desktop colour laser printer 1320c
Dell has announced the launch of its new Colour Laser Printer 1320c, its smallest ever printer designed to fit on your desk.
Designed to replace the current 3010cn, it offers three times the colour print speed, at up to 12 colour A4 pages per minute, in a more compact design and costing £226.OI
It can also print in black and white at up to 16 A4 pages per minute. It has just two buttons to control it, and features side loading toners which are simple to fit and promise to be mess-free.
Digital TV switchover will create a mountain of electronic junk
A recent survey for YouGov suggests that the confusion surrounding the switchover from analogue to digital TV will lead to a mountain of junked TVs – equipment that could have worked perfectly well with the right digital box.
Apparently, there are 25 million analogue TVs still in use, and unless you want to switch over to high definition at the same time, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t continue to use your set until its cathode ray tube finally conks out.
Joost working on embedded support on TVs and mobile phones
Joost, the service that streams TV across the Internet, is looking at ways to get their technology into more than just your PC.
As Stuart wrote in Telly 2.0 yesterday, TV over the Internet isn’t going to reach many people but geeks if it only pipes into your PC.
Joost’s creators would like to get their content into the home TV and the entertainment centre.
Is Sky considering a Facebook deal?
According to Digital Spy, Sky is in talks with popular social networking site Facebook with a view to gaining a permanent presence on the site.
Facebook isn’t averse to advertising on the site, but the article suggests that Sky would like to do more than just run ad campaigns. They’re currently running a campaign to assess whether Facebook users are willing to interact with the Sky brand, and if so, Sky could invest further in the site to promote its services and supply exclusive content.
While many Facebook users (including me) are against the site becoming too much like MySpace, the Applications functionality could open the way for brands, particularly multimedia ones, to input their content onto the site.
