XP Gets Another Reprieve
It’s the operating system that just refuses to die. According to Engadget Microsoft has given the venerable old XP another extension that will see it carrying on until 2011. Before you get too excited, though, this applies only to the XP downgrade option, available on PCs sold with Windows 7 pre-installed. Now pay attention, it’s all rather complicated. Apparently this move follows complaints from business users, worried about Windows 7 licensing issues. Basically companies buying new Win 7 PCs before April 23rd next year will still have the option to downgrade to XP, to help them with the transition, but after April 23rd the only downgrade will be to Vista, which obviously isn’t much help to XP users wanting to make the change. Confused? You will be…
Live Photos of Nokia 6790
The Nokia Mako was spotted into the wild only a week ago, when most of AT&T’s roadmap for 2009 surfaced on Engadget, and the handset already made it into a series of live pictures that BGR has recently published.
Nokia 6790, codenamed Mako, comes to the market with a sliding QWERTY keypad and with 3G capabilities, and it seems that it will be heading towards AT&T’s lineup in a slightly different design than what anyone would expect from a Nokia mobile phone. Even so, there are a lot of features that remind us of any other handset coming from the manufacturer.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the new Nokia Mako will not come to the market as a high-end device, as one would expect, given its looks, but, BGR says, it rather fits in line with mobile phones like the Samsung Propel, LG Xenon and Pantec Matrix. Read more
World’s Smallest Camcorder
Over the past 30 or so years I’ve written ‘World Smallest Camcorder’ so many times that it’s set in Word AutoComplete. Here’s the latest, it’s from Shenzen AEE Wireless Technology and it’s called, rather confusingly, the ‘Mini DV’. In fact it has nothing to do with the camcorder tape format of the same name, it records in AVI format on Micro SD cards.
Whether or not it is the ‘World’s Smallest’ is open to debate but it is teensy, measuring just 55 x 20 x 118mm and it tips the scales at just 50g. Up front there’s a fixed focus lens and behind that a 2 megapixel image sensor, image resolution is 640 x 480 at 30fps. Power comes form a rechargeable Li-Ion battery that lasts for up to 2 hours. Read more
Is Your Keyboard Bugged?
No, not that sort of bug, we’re talking about the type that gives you nasty infections. If your keyboard is anything like mine it’s probably crawling with gems, but that doesn’t matter, they’re my germs and we’ve got used to each other. One place where germs are unacceptable is in hospitals, where doctors can carry all sorts of nasties around with them, tap in your details on a keyboard, and then the next person to use it picks them up on their fingers, you get the picture. Read more
Rogue Robots Ruffle the Rozzers
Engadget reports from Denmark that one of those clever robot vacuum cleaners managed to set off a house alarm. Devices like the Roomba scuttle about the house, sucking up crumbs and fluff, but it seems one forgetful owner forgot to switch their’s off when they went out. Heat or movement triggered the house alarm’s passive IR sensor and bells start ringing at the local cop-shop, who duly despatch a couple of uniforms to see what was occurring. Clearly this isn’t going to go down well with the boys in blue and my guess it won’t be long before they, or their owners will be issued with Asbos, or tags
Top 10 Xbox 360 Hacks
Geeks love getting the most out of their gaming consoles. I hope you would agree that the Xbox 360 is the best gaming console on the market. I recently purchased an Xbox 360 so I have been looking into what I can do (I know, kinda late). With that being said, I would like to share my top 10 hack finds so far.
1. Turn your Xbox 360 into a Laptop – Like soldering? Engadget takes us through the steps of turning your Xbox 360 into a portable laptop. How. Cool. Is. That. Read more
Microsoft Blue Track Says Goodbye to Laser
Although Microsoft is not breathing a single word in relation to an event it has cooking for September 9, 2008, under the slogan “Say Goodbye to Laser,” leaks from its partners are managing to paint a more complete picture. As it has been speculated, the new technology, which will be unveiled in the second week of the coming month, has been incorporated in a mouse. The Microsoft Blue Track mouse, featured in the adjacent images, reportedly sports a LED in combination with wide angle lenses, instead of a laser diode. In this context, despite the attempt to build anticipation with consumers, the Blue Track mouse is by no means reinventing the wheel. Read more
