Tag: World

Acer smartphone confirmed, to be launched on Feb 16

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Rumour that Acer is to launch a smartphone has been spreading across the net for a while, but it’s just become official. Acer will launch its phone on February 16 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It probably won’t look anything like our artists’ impression to the right, complete with PC ports on the side.

What we do know is that Acer designed it with the help of E-TEN – a smartphone company that Acer acquired last year, and that it’ll run Windows Mobile. Which is a shame – it’d be nice to see an Android beast. Pricing, availability, specs and all sorts of other details will likely be announced on Feb 16, and when they are, we’ll tell you them.

(via BGR)

Related posts: Acer shows off new 10.1-inch Aspire One netbook | Acer intros S1200 HD-capable video projector

Duncan Geere Mobile phones

Internet population hits one billion, or 15% of world population

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Internet stat-tracker ComScore has just announced that it reckons that world internet usage topped 1 billion in December 2008, 14.9% of the estimated population of the world in July 08. Asia-Pacific, including China, sent the most users, followed by Europe, followed by North America. However, the USA comes second in the ranking by country, with the UK in fifth.

Interestingly the stats don’t include access from public computers, like Internet Cafes, or access from mobile phones. In reality, therefore, the figure’s likely to be considerably higher. 77% of the world uses Google to search, which is a massive figure, and Wikipedia is fifth in the most-viewed-websites list, with 27% of the world visiting it. Facebook sits in seventh.

Press Release (via TheNextWeb)

Related posts: Female players now make up about 40% of the MMO population | EU mobile phone subscriptions now outnumber population

Duncan Geere Internet

Asus develops 'world's fastest smartphone' – the P565

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Smartphones aren’t usually rated by their speed – they usually get reviewed on how bloated their set of features is. Unfortunately, that bloat can really slow phones down – I know that when I tested out the N96 it crawled compared to my zippier N95. Asus, however, has just launched what it claims is the world’s fastest smartphone – with an 800MHz processor.

I remember back in the day (though surprisingly not that long ago) when that was a chip in a zippy PC, perfectly capable of playing Quake III, when paired with a decent graphics card. That said, it’s probably not going to be as zippy as an old Pentium III, due to its much smaller form factor.

Duncan Geere Mobile phones

If the world could vote in the American election, who would they pick?

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Given that the American presidency is the closest thing we’ve got to a “President of the World”, people around the globe care dearly about who gets elected to the White House. If you’re stuck in another country without a vote, you can only pray that the independent voters of America choose to endorse the same candidate that you like.

To give you some sense of participation, however, a website’s sprung up to try and find out who would win the election if the entire world could vote. It’s called, appropriately, “If the world could vote!”…

Duncan Geere Polls, Websites

Keep your eye on the destruction of the planet with the Real-Time Global Disaster Alert Map

How are you feeling? Feeling good? Happy? Good, well go look at something else.

Feeling terribly depressed? Just watched ‘Zeitgeist the Movie‘ and think the world is going to hell in a teacup? Well, excellent. Join me, and read on…

The world is a big place, and no matter how often you read the papers or watch the news, you have no idea exactly how big the scale of the problems that exist at anyone time around the planet really is. Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Biological Hazards, Chemical accidents.. all these things are happening somewhere on the globe right now and unless you have access to the Thunderbirds mission control computer on Tracy Island, then you’re completely ignorant of them all.

Well, you were. Not anymore. Because EDIS, a non-profit emergency services organisation in Hungary, has provided us with a free-to-use online map compiling all of the world’s reported disasters in continually refreshing real-time. The perfect thing to look at and fret over.

Ryan Weir Internet, Science, Websites

Shiny Video: London's Guinness Book of World Records' gaming character costumes attempt


This morning I waved my gamer-geek credentials high in the sky from London’s Millennium Bridge, where the Guinness Book of World Records staged an event, attempting to gather together the most people in one place dressed as game characters.

Take a look at the video above for some choice costumes, including the twenty-odd strong group of school kids dressed as Mario (one of them shouted out to me, as I was also dressed as Mario, “Mario! we’re your sons!”), Crash Bandicoot, Sonic the Hedgehog, a chilly-looking Lara Croft, Final Fantasy’s Rikku plus a whole lot more.

You’ll be pleased…

Katherine Hannaford Gaming, Video Reviews