IBLOG SPACE

Hollywood has come up with so many movies on memory loss, while Bollywood too has had its share of films which depicted the protagonist losing his memory, GHAJINI being the most recent example. But what if someone robs your memory? Quite an interesting thought, isn't it? One of the advantages of having a GenNext director is, he's ready to take risks, ready to tread the untrodden path, ready to go where no one has been before. But there's a disadvantage too: Visuals and technique take precedence, while story takes a backseat. PRINCE has a terrific first half, where technique and content go hand in hand, but technique overpowers the content in its post-interval portions. What surprises you is that PRINCE is penned by the writer of RACE [Shiraz Ahmed] and like RACE, PRINCE too has several twists and turns every 15 odd minutes. But the twists and turns are a mixed bag here - captivating at times, not captivating at some places. More on that later! On the brighte

Creative have announced their latest range of PMPs, the ZEN X-Fi Style and ZEN Style, kicking off a new “Pure Audio” campaign in which the company look to be pushing their sound quality in an attempt to stave off the iPod. The ZEN X-Fi Style packs a 2.4-inch TFT LCD display, TV-output and X-Fi DSP, while the smaller ZEN Style gets a 1.8-inch TFT LCD, longer battery life (up to 32hrs audio) and smaller capacities. The ZEN X-Fi Style comes in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB variants, each with FLAC support, an FM radio, voice recorder functionality, integrated speaker and an RSS reader. There’s also an alarm, calendar and a battery good for up to 25hrs audio playback or 5hrs video. Creative expect them to go on sale at the end of this month, priced at S$159.00 (US$114) for the 8GB, S$199 (US$143) for the 16GB and S$249 (US$179) for the 32GB. As for the ZEN Style, that will come in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities, with alarm, calendar and voice recorder as the ZEN Style 100, together with – on the ZEN

By now you’ve heard about the ongoing war between Adobe and Apple. You’ve probably heard about it even if you live under a rock. It’s everywhere, and as we expected, it didn’t die down after the launch of the iPad. In fact, it seems to be getting worse after the announcement of iPhone OS 4.0. Especially when folks started navigating through the fine print and legal documentation, and we started to learn that Steve Jobs and company had begun a far stricter implementation of the rules for their SDK. More importantly, they tied the noose around Adobe’s figurative neck a bit tighter. At its most basic level, Jobs doesn’t want Adobe powering any applications on his new devices, such as the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. Even if Adobe’s CS5 product, Flash Professional, allows for developers to compile and package their finished product in a format for iPhone OS, Apple doesn’t want any part of it. If a developer tries to submit an application developed in that format, they will actually violate

If you’ve read our Apple iPad review, you’ll have seen Fusion of Ideas’ StealthArmor skin for the tablet. Differentiating themselves from rivals by virtue of their carbon fiber film technology, the adhesive panels also get a significantly higher price tag too, so is it worth it? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut. As we said in our GelaSkins review earlier, adhesive skins make a lot of sense when it comes to the iPad. Bare, the tablet is sturdy but definitely prone to scratches, particularly the brushed aluminum back panel, and we can certainly see owners looking to avoid that. Cases, however – especially Apple’s own – add bulk and detract from the iPad’s distinctive, slimline profile. Meanwhile, skins are also an opportunity to differentiate your iPad from everyone elses’. StealthArmor, Fusion of Ideas tell us, is based on an adhesive film intended for automotive use and is apparently good enough to resist rock and asphalt impact during racing car trials. The likelihood

There’s a lot of Palm fans out there. Even more so, there’s a lot of webOS fans out there. And yes, there’s even a few Palm Pre and Pixi device fans out there. There’s no way of getting around that, ladies and gentlemen. Just like there’s iPhone and Android fans. They exist, and their voices are pretty loud. But that’s not going to stop the truth from barreling forward. And, the truth is, sadly, that Palm isn’t doing too hot. So, obviously, there’s all sorts of talk about Palm being bought, acquired, or otherwise gobbled up by some other company. Today’s no different. While there’s been all sorts of rumors out there, like RIM or Google buying up Palm, of the more recent findings we’ve heard Lenovo might have some interest in purchasing the company. Right now though, there are grumblings of HTC staking some interest in the house that built webOS. According to the report, Peter Chou — CEO of HTC — has been sitting down in some high-interest meetings at CTIA, discussing how the smaller ph

The iPad numbers are growing, and with the reviews explaining why that’s happening, we completely understand. And if the recent reports of the tablets being sold out at Best Buys are any indication of what’s really happening out there, then this story from CNN about the iPad selling for oodles and oodles of money is no surprise to us. It’s not like it’s the first time, either. When there’s barely any stock, especially of an Apple product, then the demand goes out of this world. And with it, the price people are willing to pay. This report tells a nice little story, really. It’s about a group of Hong Kong residents who devised a great idea: fly to the United States, find those scarce iPads, buy them all up (which consisted of 200 units), and then return to Hong Kong and sell them for a remarkable amount of price. These WiFi-only models, which sell for $499 here locally, went for a resounding $800 per unit in Hong Kong, which, obviously, makes for a very nice return. Is this a bad thing

If you haven’t already picked up a Zune HD, perhaps now would be a good time. Unless, you’re a fan of a different kind of Personal Media Player. In any event, Microsoft has just pulled the curtain off their granddaddy of the lineup, officially making the 64GB model available for purchase. But, hopefully you’ve been saving your hard-earned pennies, because it’s going to cost you. Not that it’s not worth it, necessarily. After all, the Zune HD is a great PMP, if not one of the best on the market, and having the extra space to fill up makes it all that much better. Especially if you’re using that Zune Pass like you should be. Plus, there’s also the fact that Microsoft just released that 4.5 update. Which, if you’ll remember, brings more codec support, smarter DJ mix on your device, and the ability to browse the Zune Marketplace right from your TV. A whole bunch of updates, actually, to make sure that when you do pull the trigger on this bold purchase, you’re well taken care of. If you’re

One NVIDIA GTX 480 graphics card is potent; two are impressive and three, in SLI setup, is probably overkill for all but the most avid (and deep pocketed) of gamers. So, what do you call four GTX 480 boards in a single machine? CyberPower Inc. have apparently been experimenting with the EVGA GTX 480, showing a new quad-card rig on their Facebook page. There isn’t much in the way of detail beyond the photos themselves, but the setup is based on an EVGA X58 Classified 4-way SLI motherboard. The $499 ‘board has a full seven PCIe x16/x8 slots and will take up to four of the company’s GTX 400-series video cards. What we’re still left wondering about is any sort of benchmarking figures, together with just how CyberPower plan on cooling the cards. We’re hoping there’s a considerable liquid cooling system on its way, since otherwise you could happily roast a small suckling pig above its toasty surface.

Has Sony’s PS3 update opened an unexpected can of refund worms? According to one member of the NeoGAF forums, Amazon UK paid him £84 after he complained that his original 60GB console – which was well out of both Sony’s warranty and Amazon’s own 30-day guarantee – was, after firmware v3.21 was installed, in contravention of European Directive 1999/44/EC. The law states that goods must be fit for the purpose that a seller advertises them as suitable for, and in removing the “Other OS” functionality Sony have inadvertently broken it. When faced with the evidence, Amazon refunded 20-percent of the purchase price of the PS3, regardless of whether the “Other OS” feature – which allowed you to install another platform on the console – had actually been used or not. Amazon themselves have foot the bill, but it’s unclear what sort of repercussions this might have on Sony should the entire European PS3 market decide to demand a refund.

Viewsonic have outed their own duo of ereaders, eschewing color display frippery for some good old-fashioned monochrome E Ink panels. The Viewsonic VEB 620 and VEB 625 each have a 6-inch display – complete with touchscreen layer on the VEB 625 – together with 2GB of onboard storage and an accelerometer for automatic page rotation. There’s also an SD card slot for augmenting the storage, and the VEB 625 throws in WiFi connectivity too. Mobileread reckon they can see some sign of 3G too, though if it’s there we’re missing it (and so is Viewsonic’s spec page). Battery life is rated for up to 8,000 page turns on the VEB 620 and 6,200 on the VEB 625; that’ll go down if you take advantage of the MP3 playback functionality, of course. Both models are apparently already on sale in Europe, priced at £175 ($269) plus tax for the VEB 620 and £205 ($315) plus tax for the VEB 625.