IBLOG SPACE

He has played a myriad of characters through his career in Bollywood, however he is best suited for the darker characters he plays, and he is doing just that in Ra.One . The film starring the King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan, will have Arjun playing the bad guy. But for this role, the model turned actor had to undergo a styling change. The actor was spotted wearing a cap at the Raajneeti press conference on Saturday. Apparently, is it said that Arjun will be sporting a bald look in the film with a temporary tattoo on his neck. Giving a hint about his latest look was the man himself on twitter saying, "Feeling light headed...no pun intended..thanks to the director producer...can't give out too much. Sounds random, but then u need access. 1" We guess bald is the new beautiful for this Bollywood hunk known for his mane.

It is and has always been a reminder to the rest of the world that Indian politics - seen here as the fast track to wealth - is a no-holds-barred affair. The problems are many. It's a self-perpetuating cycle of corruption that has carried over since the days of the British Raj and beyond. But then again we question ourselves - What is politics? It's the question which has no answer because it was never a question. Politics has become a part of our daily life. It has infiltrated our minds to such an extent that anything we do or have done seems all politically correct because the two pillars of political correctness are: Intractable ignorance and a steadfast refusal to face the truth. So what is politics then, I repeat. The answer is loud and clear: It is 'Money' which is soon followed by 'Power', then 'Corruption'. It's all that we need to stay alive today. But as the famous Will Rogers quotes, "Politics has become so expensive t

Early this morning, there was quite a lot of frenzy in cyberspace as Karan Johar unveiled the first look of Dharma Productions' forthcoming film I Hate Luv Storys (IHLS) on the popular social networking site Twitter. The first look has the Gen-Now pair of Imran Khan and Sonam Kapoor looking super cool. Since most of the people involved with the film (including director Punit Malhotra, producer Karan Johar, actors Imran Khan & Sonam Kapoor and music directors Vishal- Shekhar) are super-active on Twitter, there was but naturally a lot of tweeting, re-tweeting and commenting going on about the first look of IHLS . Says Karan Johar who has been getting a lot of good feedback for the first look, "Thanks for all the feedback on IHLS!! It's the twitter family film with @1mrankhan @sonamakapoor @punitdmalhotra and me...all twitteractive" While a lot of industry folk seemed to have liked the first look of IHLS , we would like to know what you - the jan

I am waiting for Barbara Mori in the lounge of the newly built serviced apartment somewhere in Juhu Versova area. It's velvety and dark. And I suddenly see the publicists of Kites running up and down to try and fix a big problem - None of the air conditions in the apartment were working due to some technical problems. There is something about Mori that makes me forget my manners. "Could you let Barbara know I'm ready to fan her?" I was serious. I mean, how often do you get a chance like this? Half an hour of waiting and fixing the problem, I was escorted into her private suite. When I enter, my eyes try to search for her but find her manager instead. Within thirty seconds, the mystic beauty arrives. When Barbara enters the room, she takes it. It crackles with her arrival. She is alone, no entourage, no assistant, and no publicist. Walking slightly oddly, taking tiny steps with her legs a little too close together; she sinks to the velvet beside me. &

The Xperia X10 , one of the big mindshare-grabbing devices of the smartphone world, made us wait a cool six months between its November announcement and wide retail availability in April. One of the secret hopes while all that waiting was going on was that perhaps SE would surprise us and upgrade the dusty old Android 1.6 base installation to a fresh and creamy Eclair (2.1) or even a frosty Froyo (2.2) treat shortly after launch. Time to lay those dreams to rest, dear friends, as Sony Ericsson has come with an official schedule for upgrading the firmware on the Xperia X10 and its X10 mini and X10 mini pro siblings, which places the Android 2.1 delivery in the fourth quarter of 2010 -- and knowing the company that probably means closer to Christmas than Halloween. All we can say is you'd better really like that UX platform a great deal, because it'll be the only thing you'll be seeing for quite a while on Sony Ericsson's Googlephones.

Samsung still hasn't managed to get the Wave or any other Bada handset to market yet, but it's doing the right thing by offering developers the software development kit first. Granted, with a planned June release Samsung isn't managing the same sort of massive lead-time that Microsoft has with its Windows Phone 7 SDK, but a few weeks of pressure-free coding are better than none. The first public SDK for Bada was just made available yesterday, and inside developers will find an Eclipse-based IDE, a phone emulator, and tutorials. You can get it all for yourself at the source link below, but make sure you get your reading glasses out before clicking through. You'll need to agree to not one, not two, but four separate sets of terms and conditions before you can get this 606MB download flowing, and a fifth before it'll install. Oh, and it's all C/C++ based, so if you've been living in the merry land of Java and C# lately you'd better brush up on pointer de

Seagate have announced their third-generation of portable hard-drives, the Seagate GoFlex Storage System , which debuts a system of interchangeable connection adapters that can be used to turn a regular USB 2.0 HDD into a USB 3.0, eSATA or FireWire 800 drive. Meanwhile there are a selection of special cables and docks, which can add automatic backup functionality (using Memeo technology), network connectivity, HD media playback or desktop dock convenience. Base drives range from 320GB to 2TB, and can be bought either as a starter pack complete with a USB 2.0 GoFlex adapter (from $99.99 for 320GB to $199.99 for 1TB), as the drive alone (from $89.99 for 320GB to $189.99 for 1TB) or as a Pro version offering a faster, 7,200rpm HDD and onboard encrypted backup functionality ($139.99 for 500GB; $189.99 for 750GB). Meanwhile there’s a GoFlex Desk model ($129.99 for 1TB with USB 2.0; $199.99 for 2TB with USB 2.0; save $10 on each if bought adapter-free). All the drives are Windows and OS X

With over 1m iPads sold, it’s looking like Apple’s tablet gamble has paid off. Ironically the milestone was reached on the same day that the iPad WiFi + 3G debuted, the 3G-enabled version of the touchscreen slate that promises to set you loose from WiFi hotspots. After the cut, check out the SlashGear review, complete with MiFi benchmarking and some surprising battery findings. For the most part, the iPad WiFi + 3G (which from now on we’ll just refer to as the iPad 3G for the sake of brevity) is identical to its WiFi-only sibling. Both have the same capacitive touchscreen display, slimline aluminum body, iPhone OS 3.2 and either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash storage. We’d recommend reading our iPad WiFi review for a full overview of the strengths and shortcomings of the Apple tablet, since here we’ll be concentrating on what sets the iPad 3G apart. You could argue whether the most noticeable difference between the iPad WiFi and the iPad 3G is the extra cost of the 3G modem on your walle

Novatel Wireless’ MiFi 2372 has been making headlines today after reports surfaced claiming the Bell Mobility version of the portable wireless hotspot had been recalled over safety issues. We’ve just got off the phone with Rob Hadley, Novatel’s CMO, to clear up exactly what happened, and as you might expect the actual story belies the hyperbole. According to Hadley, only two incidents of user-induced damage have been recorded – the Novatel labs suggest that one MiFi 2372 owner used a knife or other sharp object to open the battery compartment, while another used “excessive force” and damaged the battery due to over-compression – and, since damaged lithium ion batteries can overheat, the company decided to redesign the battery door assembly so as to make it easier for customers to remove. The incidents, Hadley says, are “very isolated” and there have been “zero reports of any harm” caused by the battery damage. Contrary to speculation that the MiFi units could explode, Novatel says the

Alright, it’s another Android tablet from a manufacturer you’ve probably never heard of before, but at least this one has a vaguely interesting background support plan going for it. Rather than just slapping Google’s OS on an OEM slate and calling it a day, Nigerian firm Encipher Limited are hoping to use the 7-inch slate to push their cloud computing services, such as Exchange, cloud-storage and backup, hosted desktops and VoIP. It’ll also be positioned as an ereader rival to Amazon’s Kindle. So far so good, but there are some obvious shortcomings. For a start, there’s only a 400MHz processor keeping things churning, and only 16GB of flash storage. Android 1.6 is a disappointment too – we’d have liked to have seen 2.1 – and while the HDMI port is a nice addition, we can’t imagine the Encipher tablet will be powerful enough to cope with Full HD. There’s some indication that the specifications might not be 100-percent final, but we can’t see something as key as CPU changing last mi

Intel have been showing off their Light Peak technology again, demonstrating the 10Gbit/sec connection as integrated into a new laptop by pumping out two simultaneous HD streams to a nearby HDTV. The system used a specially adapter USB cable which paired the regular electrical wires with optical cabling, while the screen itself required a separate decoding box since it lacked the necessary Light Peak port. As for the laptop, that gets a new 12mm square chip that converts the electrical signals into light pulses. According to Intel’s chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, while 10Gbit/sec may be the headline figure – and that’s simultaneous in both directions – there’s theoretically no limit to the sort of bandwidth Light Peak could actually provide. “We expect to increase that speed dramatically,” he told PC Pro, “you’ll see multiple displays being served by a single Light Peak connection. There’s almost no limit to the bandwidth – fibres can carry trillions of bits per second.”

It’s been a little over a month since ASUS made their Eee Top ET2010 range official, and the 20-inch multitouch all-in-ones have finally made it to shelves. Fresh to the UK today, the ET2010 range consists of two main models, the ET2010PNT and ET2010AGT, each of which has two versions. The PNT units use Intel’s Atom D510 CPU and NVIDIA Ion graphics, while the AGT units get AMD’s Athlon II X2 250u and ATI Radeon HD 5470/5471 graphics; all have a 500GB hard-drive, 2GB of RAM and a tray-loading DVD burner. The 1400 x 900 display uses an optical touchscreen technology that supports pinch-zooming, and the whole unit measures 1-inch thick. Connectivity includes gigabit ethernet, WiFi b/g/n, a multiformat memory card slot, multiple USB 2.0 ports, HDMI input and audio in/out. The ET2010PNT-BN024E and ET2010AGT-B015E each have two 2W speakers, while the ET2010PNT-B038E and ET2010AGT-B027E have three 2W speakers (we’re guessing they add in a subwoofer) together with being wall-mountable. Pr

Evernote is one of the more useful apps out there, and the company has just announced that it’s passed three million registered users. Some of those are using the app on their iPad, but going by a GottaBeMobile interviewwith CEO Phil Libin, the company could find themselves taking on one of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ biggest tablet beliefs: that if you reach for a stylus, it’s a failure. According to Libin, Evernote are considering “full” digital inking capabilities on the iPad and iPhone versions of the software (along with the Android app), and in the meantime are adding in basic inking and sketching abilities. “Libin said that the main problem iwth the iPad and iPhone is they don’t have a stylus. This relegates inking to quick notes or annotations. With sketching, users will be able to draw on notes, add shapes or draw quick diagrams.” GottaBeMobile Should they decide to go ahead with full handwriting recognition, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Evernotealready runs the ritePen

Hot on the heels of TomTom’s new Star Wars voices for their PND range comes Nokia’s alternative: the ability to record your own voice prompts for the Ovi Maps Navigation app available free for multiple Nokia handsets. Fresh to the Ovi Store – as a free download, no less – Own Voice for Ovi Maps asks you to record 53 different speech prompts and then bundles them together into a custom voice pack. Not only can you use that voice pack yourself, but they’re shared on Nokia’s new Own Voice site so that others can download them too (we’re guessing you can keep them private as well). It’s a brilliant idea, and it might just put custom voice prompt vendors out of business. Of course, if you’re friends with James Earl Jones you could always get him to record some Nokia prompts and save the £7.95 TomTom are asking. Alternatively, prepare for April Fools Day 2011 by recording a load of incorrect directions to install onto your friends’ phones, telling them to go left when they should turn r

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that it is now offering extended protection plans for the PS3 and the PSP. The catch is that the plans have to be purchased while the machines are under the original warranty. The PSP has a couple different plan options with one covering shipping and repairs for defects at $29.99 for a year and $39.99 for two years. The PSP also has the same plan with the addition of Accidental Damage protection covering crack screens from drops. The plan with accidental damage is $39.99 for one year or $49.99 for 2-years. The PSP plans cover both the PSP Go and PSP-3000. The PS3 plan is offered for a year for $44.99 and a two year plan is $59.99. All of the plans will be available starting this month.

Panasonic has announced that it has updated a couple of its ruggedized Toughbook computers. The updates include new processors, memory and more mobile technology. Among the machines getting updates are the Toughbook CF-52 semi-rugged notebook and the Toughbook CF-T8 tablet-alternative notebook. The CF-52 gets a new Intel Core i5 CPU at up to 2.53GHz and now gets 2GB of RAM and a 250GB shock mounted HDD. The machine also gets a new range of wireless connectivity options including the Gobi 2000 multiple carrier mobile broadband modem, WiFi, and Bluetooth. The CF-T8 is now running Windows 7 and gets an Intel Core 2 CPU at 1.6GHz and a removable 250GB shock mounted HDD. The Windows 7 OS can be downgraded to Windows XP and the machine has Bluetooth. Like the CF-52, the T8 can also be equipped with a Gobi mobile broadband modem.

Iomega has unveiled a new storage device aimed at the small business needing data protection with network attached storage, but without a full time IT staff. The new storage array is called the StorCenter ix12-300r. The device has 12 drive bays and can be filled with up to 24TB of storage. The device supports iSCSI block-level access and allows for simultaneous multi-protocol file access. The device is aimed at use in email, database apps, and a backup target. The StorCenter ships with EMC Lifeline software and is compatible with video cameras for surveillance systems. JBOD and RAID6/1/10 are supported as well. The device is available with 4TB of storage for $4999.99.

We already know all there is to know about the new Asus Eee 1005PR having heard about the machine a while back. The main thing we didn’t know about the new netbook was when exactly we could get our hands on one here in the States. Asus has now officially announced that the 1005PR is available to purchase at major retailers. That means you can get it both online and in some retail stores. The 1005PR sells for $399.99 and in case you somehow missed the other coverage of the machine I’ll run down the basic details below. The little netbook has a 10.1-inch LED backlit screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768. It uses the Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator BCM70015 for HD video. It also features WiFi, Bluetooth, HD audio, 11 hours of battery life and the Super Hybrid Engine from Asus. The processor is the Atom N450 and it has 1GB of RAM and 250GB of storage.

Silicon Power has officially unveiled its new memory card for recording HD video on cameras and camcorders. The company chose to strap the memory card with a strange name of Full HD Video Card making sound like computer hardware rather than the memory card that it is. The device is a SDHC Class 6 memory card that features Content Protection for Recordable Media and ECC to help ensure that the video is protected when recording. That is important if the video you are recording is something you want to keep. The SDHC card is offered in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities. The 32GB card can record up to 320 minutes of video in fine mode or 480 minutes in normal mode. Pricing is unannounced at this time.

NVIDIA’s mainstream and entry-level versions of the Fermi-based GeForce GTX 470/480 will arrive in July and August respectively, according to graphics card manufacturers who have been whispering to DigiTimes, with a new GeForce GTX 460 expected to debut in June 2010. The mainstream model will use NVIDIA’s GF106 core and the entry-level will use the GF108; pricing, we’re told, is a little higher than early predictions suggested, coming in at around $180 for the GF106 and $100 for the GF108. Meanwhile the GTX 460 will use the new GF104 Fermi core, a 40nm chip believed to offer up to 256 shader cores, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit memory bus. That will be aimed at the mid-market keen on the existing GTX 470/480 cards but dissuaded by their relatively high price tags, and is expected to be priced at around $299. NVIDIA themselves have declined to comment on any of the new products.

Apple’s iPad may be an early sales success, but it’s still polarising opinion between those for whom fingers are the be-all and end-all, and those who prefer the precision of stylus input. Nobody represents that split better than Steve Jobs and Bill Gates; the Apple CEO recently said that if users had to reach for a stylus then a touchscreen device was a failure, while the Microsoft chairman has described the iPad as “a nice reader” but reiterated his preference for a “mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard.” It seems he’s not alone in that; according to a recent Gates interview, he revealed that Microsoft “has a lot of different tablet projects” including prioritising content creation rather than consumption. “ Microsoft has a lot of different tablet projects that we’re pursuing. We think that work with the pen that Microsoft pioneered will become a mainstream for students. It can give you a device that you can not only read, but also create documents at the same time.” Bill

Samsung are tipped to be readying a 7-inch Android tablet for release in August, with the so-called Samsung S-Pad using one of the company’s Super AMOLED displays. The company haspreviously confirmed its tablet plans; this new leak suggests there’ll be 3G and WiFi connectivity, together with a partnership with Korean carrier SK Telecom, but there’s no sign of the rumored 4G access. Meanwhile there’ll be a desktop dock similar to what’s offered for Apple’s iPad, though Samsung have said that they envisage the tablet will have far more connectivity than its Cupertino counterpart. Major Korean bookstore Kyobo Books are tipped to be powering an on-device ebook store, while the Samsung Apps store will provide extra software. Of course, it’s not the first time Samsung have dipped their toes in the UMPC waters, having been a headline partner with Microsoft on the “official” UMPC project. No word on what sort of price tag the Samsung S-Pad might carry.

ABC have updated their ABC Player for iPad app [iTunes link] to support 3G streaming, after it was discovered in the aftermath of the iPad WiFi + 3G launch this past weekend that the app would only allow for WiFi connections. The limitation, ABC had said, was down to “a variety of business and technical considerations,” with the latter likely being down to Apple’s rules on low-bandwidth video streaming modes for 3G access. That rule says that software looking to stream video over a 3G connection to an iPhone OS device must offer a “low resolution” mode of no more than 64 Kbps “when network conditions demand it”. Likely intended to limit network impact from multiple high-resolution streams, the end result has been surprisingly poor quality video over 3G in the iPad’s YouTube and Netflix apps. It remains to be seen how ABC have managed their own video quality settings in this updated version of the Player app; we’re seeing reports that on reasonable AT&T connections the picture is

As bizarre press photo choice go, we can only speculate what was running through the addled minds of T-Mobile USA when they picked this touching feathered scene for the newT-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide. Are they suggesting the well-rumored handset is ideal for protective parents looking to keep in touch with their offspring? Or is the myTouch 3G Slide itself the new baby: monochrome and slightly odd looking? Metaphor aside, the myTouch 3G Slide is the latest Android smartphone to T-Mobile’s network, running OS 2.1 on a 3.4-inch HVGA touchscreen together with dualband 3G UMTS/HSPA, WiFi b/g, quadband GSM and Bluetooth. There’s also a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for easier text entry, though T-Mobile have also preloaded the nifty Swype keyboard for faster on-screen input. Alternatively, a new “Genius Button” automatically triggers the Android voice recognition system, or reads your SMS messages out loud. The Genius Button shares front-panel space with an optical joystick, and the whole th

Eye-Fi have managed to do – if not the impossible – then then unlikely: make camera storage fun. The new Eye-Fi Pro X2 is an 8GB SDHC memory card that promises to wirelessly transfer your photos and video to your home or work computer without demanding you mess with cables and card readers. It’ll also upload shots automatically to Facebook, Flickr and other online galleries, together with geotagging them, and it’ll do it faster too thanks to WiFi 802.11n and a new chipset. Still, is it worth $149.99? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut. The Eye-Fi concept is simple: instead of just fitting flash memory into an SDHC card, squeeze a WiFi radio in there too, and allow the card to connect to wireless networks and instantly offload whatever photos and video you shoot. The first-gen models had a relatively small quantity of storage and WiFi b/g support; this third-gen Eye-Fi Pro X2 packs 8GB and 2.4GHz WiFi b/g/n for faster transfers. The X2 line is also the first from the com

Owners of Apple’s new iPad 3G are discovering that not all video streaming is created equal. While the software on the cellular-enabled tablet is the same as that on its WiFi-only sibling, playback through Netflix and YouTube is significantly lower in quality when streamed over a AT&T 3G connection rather than via WiFi. The reason,we’re told, is that Apple implemented low quality stream rules for the HTTP Live Streaming functionality in iPhone OS, intended to minimize the impact on the 3G network. “You must include a low quality stream of no more than 64 Kbps for your app to resort to when network conditions demand it, along with the higher quality streams you want to deliver to your customers when the network can support it.” Apple That, in combination with the larger iPad display, makes for a disappointing viewing experience. Other apps, such as ABC’s Player, lack 3G support altogether, only allowing for streaming over WiFi. It’s a good reason to buy a MiFi-style portable ro

RIM are the latest company to be connected with a potential iPad-rival tablet, though going by BBLeaks’ information you probably shouldn’t hold your breath for its arrival. According to an unnamed source, they’re claiming RIM are working on a BlackBerry tablet codenamed “BlackPad” or possibly “Cobalt”, that will be smaller and thinner than the iPad but have “full BlackBerry OS compatibility and functionality.” That’s not, they hint, the same as running BlackBerry OS as we currently know it, and it seems there’s plenty of time for RIM to polish up an alternative better suited to a larger display. BBLeaks don’t expect it to arrive anytime in 2010, and in fact they’re predicting it will make its debut at WES 2011, in roughly twelve months time. Of course, there’s no evidence beyond their source, but it would surprise us if RIM weren’t at least looking at the possibility of a tablet in their future. As we’ve seen with Microsoft’s Courier, just because a company pumps research, money and

The iPad is already a good gaming platform with the wealth of apps for the iPad and the iPhone that are available. The most popular video game in the MMORPG genre is World of Warcraft. WoW may have been around for awhile, but it still is hugely popular. WoW fans may be wishing that they could play the game on their shiny new iPad and some pictures of just such an occurrence have turned up online. WoW is streamed in these images to the iPad using Gaikai online gaming service. The Gaikai service lets you play games within a browser using server side streaming tech. If you are intrigued be the possibilities this streaming tech brings you can sign up for a private beta invitation. The big question right now is exactly how the iPad is working with the service since Gaikai typically uses Flash and that’s obviously no happening on the iPad.

Amazon knows with the iPad on the market and a glut of other eReaders that are equally as cool as its kindle on the market today the big factor in choosing a new device might just boil down to the price of books. Amazon has been fighting with major publishers over how to price digital books and that fight has been ugly. Amazon was selling new release digital books for $9.99, but when the iPad landed, it was offering new releases at a higher price and put pressure on Amazon to raise prices in its own digital store. Amazon earlier this month announced that it would be suspending the sale of digital books by Penguin and Hachette over the pricing war. Amazon is intent on forcing the $9.99 price tag down Penguin’s throat though and since it can’t do that price on digital books, it has cut the price of some of the publishers hard cover books to $9.99. Publishers still maintain that a $9.99 hard cover cheapens the value in the buyers mind. Whatever, this price war is about profits and has not

Long gone are the days where consumers combed the latest ads and the web to find one of the rare Wii game systems they could buy. Many who had the Wii early in its life had to wait in lines just to get one. Today you can walk into any electronics store and buy one whenever you want. Nintendo is finding that the popularity of the Wii is waning and profits are slipping. To get more folks interested in the Wii again Nintendo is changing things up a bit with a new black color and a new bundle. Every new Wii will now ship with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort along with the MotionPlus accessory. The MSRP for the new bundle is the same old $199.99 price point making the Wii an even better value. The new bundle will land on May 9 so hold off a few days if you are about to buy.

Apple could soon be the subject of antitrust investigations, if rumors of an inquiry by either the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission turn out to be true. According to the NYPost, both watchdogs are currently negotiating as to which will take responsibility for looking into Apple’s recently tightened iPhone OS development platform rules, which basically made it mandatory for coders to use the Cupertino company’s own SDK rather than cross-platform-friendly tools. The changes came about with the new iPhone OS 4.0 SDK , with the terms of Apple’s developer agreement amended to deny access to private APIs as well as prescribe which languages can be used to create apps: C, C++ and Objective-C. The change also meant that third-party tools such as the Adobe Flash to iPhone compiler in Flash Professional CS5, MonoTouch and Appcelerator are also banned. Such tools would allow developers to code apps that more readily ran on various platforms, not just on the iPhone, iPod to

Desk lamps have been around as long as there have been desks. They may have started as oil lamps or candles, but eventually they went to light bulbs and today many of them use LEDs for their energy savings. A new desk lamp has debuted called “The Most Talented Light” or tLight for short. The tLight is the next generation for lamps and sheds some light on your desk for working and it can charge some of your gadgets as well. The tLight can charge the iPhone and iPod along with many of the most popular notebooks needing up to 70W of power. The LED bulbs used in the lamp make it green and last a long time. The LED module consumes only 3W of power. The lamp comes in eight different colors and is available globally for $89.

Nokia’s N8 certainly seems to be creating some hype for the Finnish company, and we can’t imagine that’s going down too badly at Nokia HQ. Currently being picked over is the N8’s ability to hook up to an external hard drive and access its files – something that we actually knew from the spec sheet back on the day of the N8’s launch, since that detailed the USB on-the-go support - together with rumors that a 32GB N8 is planned together with the 16GB Nokia announced. SaudiMac got a chance to play with a prototype N8 (and what looks like retail or close-to-retail packaging) over the weekend, and one of their shots – which appears to have been since taken down – apparently showed 32GB printed on the box. Meanwhile arch-insider Eldar Murtazin tweeted earlier about there being both an N8-16 and an N8-32, rather than just the single version we’ve heard of so far. Meanwhile FinestFones have been digging through the N8’s user manual (as posted to the FCC [pdf link]) to check out the USB Hos

Remember the atracTable , the alternative to Microsoft’s multitouch Surface tablet first demonstrated all the way back in October 2008? At the time Atracsys was tentatively offering to build the hardware to order; now, having sold their technology to Sony, there’s a full scale commercial launch promised, with Pocket-lint being told thatSony “is going to indutrialize a 35-inch atracTable in order to compete against the Microsoft Surface.” The atracTable’s 35-inch Full HD display is larger and higher-resolution than Surface, and like the Microsoft table it can recognize objects placed on it and react accordingly. However, Atracsys have also worked with Sony to integrate two Sony ISS XCD-V60 cameras, which together can track movement and shapes in 3D space. The company reckons it’s precise enough not only for gesture control, but to figure out the age, gender and even mood of the user. Target audiences still seem to be retail, gaming, industrial or medical, so you probably shouldn’t ho