IBLOG SPACE

Acer has been saying for a long time that it has plans to be number one in the global PC market. Most of us have just taken that as boasting, which companies are apt to do considering how far down on the list Acer has been in the past. Acer isn’t just boasting though, Gartner has released the shipment numbers for the PC industry for Q2 and Acer is serious. Acer took the number two spot on the list with 13% of the PC market globally compared to 17.4% for HP in the top spot. When you look at the growth numbers, it’s clear that Acer is very serious. Acer grew its market share by 31.6% compared to the same quarter of 2009 while HP only grew 12.3%. The third place firm was Dell with 12.4% of the market. Lenovo was fourth with 10%, and Asus rounded out the top five with 5.2% of the market. Overall PC shipments for the quarter were up 21%.

SilverStone has been making computer cases for years and has a history of making some very nice cases. The company is back with its latest small form factor case called the Sugo SG07. The machine is built to use Mini-ITX mainboard and has a 600W PSU. The PSU is 80 Plus Bronze certified and has a single +12V rail. The case was designed with a special VGA fan duct to allow the chassis to keep the video cards cool and to run long cards up to 12.2-inches long. The chassis also supports up to 400W thermal envelope video cards that are overclocked. The cooling prowess of the chassis is attained by using a gigantic 180mm fan, which is larger than the Mini-ITX mainboard the case uses. The area for the CPU cool accommodates units up to 117mm high and a pair of storage drives are supported in 2.5-inch size or a single 3.5-inch drive. Pricing on the chassis is unknown.

Digital picture frames are fantastic devices. They make it easy to show off all of those images that you take with your digital camera and camera phone. If you use a connected from that is online like the Ceiva frames they are even more useful. Ceiva has announced an app for Android smartphones called Ceiva Snap that allows the user to shoot a picture with their Android device and then send the photo directly to their Ceiva photo frame that is connected to the internet. That means you can snap a picture of the kids at the beach in California and send the photo directly to mom in New York in seconds. This is perfect for people who want to give a digital frame to a family member or a friend that isn’t tech savvy for loading the thing themselves. This app would be perfect for that new Droid X and its nice camera.

Synology has announced its latest network-attached storage offerings, the standalone DiskStation DS411+ and the rack-mounted RackStation RS810+ and RS810RP+. Targeted at high-end home users or SMBs, the new products prioritize speed of data access: Synology reckon owners will see average 112MB/sec read rates and around 106MB/sec write rates in RAID 5 configurations. All three models have four 3.5-inch drive bays and support various levels of RAID configuration. The DS411+ runs an Intel Atom D510 processor and sucks up 60.5W during use, while the RS810+ uses 68W; both support wake-on-LAN, HDD hibernation and power scheduling. Meanwhile the RackStation RS810RP+ gets a second, redundant power supply. Both it and the RS810+ support hot-swapping of drives, can have their 1GB of standard RAM expanded to 3GB, and have modular motherboards for easier maintenance and repair. Of course, as well as backup there’s web hosting functionality – each unit can host up to 30 different sites simulta

I mentioned back in May that iBUYPOWER had launched a new small form factor gaming PC called the LAN Warrior II. The gaming rig uses a portable chassis and a mATX mainboard. The company has announced that it has updated that new PC with better liquid cooling. The machine now gets a 92mm radiator liquid cooling solution to help it run even cooler. The machine also can be had with a pair of ATI HD 5970 graphics cards and up to 12GB of DDR3 RAM. Buyers can opt for AMD AM3 socket machines or Intel Core i3/i5/i7 machines using LGA 1156 or LGA 1366 Core i7 parts. Pricing starts at $749 for the updated rigs. The small machine can support four-way CrossFire and SLI video card solutions.

It’s not just the iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G that have seen an iOS update; both flavors of the iPad have also been treated to a new version of their software, too. Not iOS4, sadly, but iOS 3.2.1 which brings with it various bugfixes together the most important of which is to address dodgy WiFi connectivity on the Apple slate. There’s also the addition of Bing to the options for Safari’s search clients, as we’ve seen in iOS4, and which will no doubt continue to fuel speculation that Apple are looking to reduce their reliance on Google. Meanwhile there are fixes for PDF attachments in Mail, video playback that could occasionally suffer freezes, and improved reliability when using the VGA adapter. As ever, the iOS 3.2.1 update for iPad WiFi and iPad WiFi + 3G is available via iTunes, and should be offered the next time you plug your tablet in to sync. No word on what it does to jailbreaking the slate, so if you’re more keen on unofficial third-party apps and multitasking than you are having

Magellan has outed its latest hand-held GPS navigators, the eXplorist outdoor series. The Magellan eXplorist 510, 610 and 710 all have a 3.0-inch color touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, are waterproof and ruggedized. Photos are automatically geotagged and can be accompanied by voice notes. As for the PND functionality, preloaded is the company’s World Edition map which includes a complete road network for the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia, as well as water features, urban and rural land use, and a realistic shaded relief background. The 710 throws in Summit Seriestopographic mapping and Magellan’s City Series turn-by-turn map for road directions. All models have 16hrs of battery life, programmable hardware keys – which can be set to trigger the camera or other features – and, on the eXplorist 610 and 710, a 3-axis electronic compass and a barometric altimeter. The Magellan eXplorist 510 is $349.99, the eXplorist 610 is $449.99, and the eXplorist 710 is $

Nanovision’s MIMO range of USB companion displays are no strangers to the pages of SlashGear, and we’vereviewed our fair share of them over the months. Standing proudly on the test bench today, though, is the company’s biggest to date, the 10-inch touchscreen iMo Mini-Monster . A titan among USB secondary displays (and a Tinkerbell among regular LCDs), the iMo Mini-Monster promises the same ease of connectivity as its smaller siblings but with the same resolution as a 10-inch netbook. Worth the $259.99, then, or has Nanovision overestimated exactly what consumers want from their companion LCDs? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut. Physically the iMo Mini-Monster looks a little like a basic tablet, with minimal screen bezel surrounding the 10-inch, 1024 x 600 touchscreen display. On the back there’s a hinged stand that flaps out to prop the screen up, while the ports are recessed at the side. Nanovision quote a 400:1 contrast ratio and 350cd/m2 brightness, and the whole th

Apple’s promised iOS4 update has been pushed out for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G. iOS 4.0.1 apparently “improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display,” after Apple discovered they had been using the wrong calculations. Previewed earlier today in the iOS4.1 developer beta, the update is expected to make the iPhone’s signal meter more accurate, but not address the hardware issue experienced by iPhone 4 owners where holding the smartphone in a certain way can significantly impair antenna performance. Apple’s solution for that remains to be seen; the company has arranged a press conference tomorrow morning at 10am PT – which we’ll be liveblogging at http://live.slashgear.com/ – to discuss the iPhone 4, but given no hint as to what exactly they’ll be covering. At least two analysts have suggested a hardware fix may be in the works.

Gather around the campfire, children, as we tell you a story from or youth. You see, back in our day, we carried around PDAs driven by Palm's operating system (no, not that one). Primitive and bulky by modern standards, sure, but if there's one aspect we remember most fondly -- or at least most vividly -- it'd be Graffiti , the shorthand writing system for your stylus-based text entry. And guess what? You can now bring that same frustration enjoyment to Google Android. Available now via Market, the free, OS-wide keyboard alternative comes care of Access, who gained the rights to Graffiti following the Palm / Xerox settlement from way back in 2006. The future is the past as remembered by the present, or something like that -- download away.

Alright, we know that playing with the Firefox 4 beta has been a full-time job for you Mozilla fanboys and girls out there, but let's try something fresh on for size, shall we? Firefox Home has finally been whisked into the App Store on news that Apple gave it the green light, meaning you can now sync your bookmarks and open tabs between your desktop and your phone. Some of us can go a few minutes without browsing the web in the off chance we're away from our PCs... aw, who are we kidding? No we can't -- and neither can you, so you may as well grab it if you're using Firefox and an iPhone.

We're having a hell of a time believing this, but BusinessInsider's Dan Frommer is citing "a source familiar with the negotiations" as saying that RIM, Google, and Apple -- yes, Apple -- were all in the mix for Palm at one point or another as the bidding war went on earlier this year. We all know how that story ended up playing out, but prior to HP's winning bid, RIM allegedly made a generous offer and could've ultimately come away with the prize had it not failed to re-up the bid (and may have even reduced it, looking at Palm's SEC filings) after HP made its move. For its part, Google apparently made some not-too-serious moves, primarily in a perceived head game with Apple. Speaking of Apple, the company was said to be in it primarily for Palm's sizable patent portfolio -- but is claimed to have also been interested in keeping the platform alive, possibly in an effort to compete in the physical QWERTY market where the iPhone has not. Of course, if yo

For whatever reason, Nokia's Dutch outpost is showing off a Nokia C6 variant that's been up-spec'd to 8 megapixels with dual flash, a 3 megapixel bonus over the existing model -- a phone that still isn't widely available in all markets. This kind of has a whiff of something Nokia would do; they've done it in the past by gently massaging the N85 into the N86, for instance, but so soon?

We'd already seen an HTC Desire with North American 3G hit the FCC, and it looks like we now know exactly where it's headed -- Telus has just announced that the phone is "coming soon" to its network. What's more, the carrier has also confirmed that the phone will be equipped with a 3.7-inch Sony Super LCD screen instead of the regular AMOLED display that's in short supply. Otherwise, the phone is the same Android 2.1-powered, Snapdragon-based, Sense-skinned device we've seen all along, which is hardly a bad thing -- unless you're waiting for a Desire HD, that is.

We suppose this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but we're still disappointed to see that HTC has pulledthe version its Sync app that had been posted late last week with support for sideloading of Android apps on AT&T's Aria, seemingly by mistake. Given that the new version of Sync had never been accompanied by an over-the-air firmware update to enable non-Market app installations from the phone itself, this seems to totally confirm what had been suspected all along: it was nothing more than a mix-up, and AT&T hasn't approved any sweeping changes in its branded Android philosophy. Considering the excitement and buzz this whole thing generated, we can still hope AT&T has a change of heart, of course -- but in light of everything we know, we certainly wouldn't get our hopes up.

We didn't have a ton of details on the so-called HTC Ace when it turned up in a leaked roadmap last week, but a fresh set of rumors are now suggesting that the Ace is actually the Desire HD , which will reportedly pack a number of HD-esque upgrades over the standard Desire. That includes a larger 4.3-inch WVGA screen -- no word if it's AMOLED or SLCD -- and an 8-megapixel camera with 720p video recording. Other rumored details include Android 2.2, 4GB of internal storage, the same 1GHz Snapdragon as the current Desire and, perhaps most interestingly, talk of a " unibody aluminum design." Unfortunately, the rumors still don't include any actual images of the device,

oday Tapbots, makers of iPhone utility apps Pastebot and Convertbot, have released their latest application, Calcbot for the iPhone and iPad. The $0.99 app [iTunes link] is great looking, highly functional and works beautifully on both the iPad and the iPhone. It has also been fully optimized for the iPhone 4. To help promote the app, Tapbots has teamed up with the MacHeist guys and their company tap tap tap to try to make the release a little more viral. What’s the viral marketing plan? Free software. If you go to the special MacHeist page for Calcbot, you’ll see an option to get Socialite for Mac for free. Simply share the news about Calcbot with your friends on Facebook and you’ll get a full license for Socialite from Realmac Software for free. Socialite is a really solid social media client for Mac OS X that lets you manage Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Digg and RSS feeds all from one app. This is an interesting way to promote a new mobile app release and we’re curious to s

How do you get bloggers, fans and random Internet folks to make your campaign go viral? Namecheck them in a personalized monologue delivered by a shirtless man, of course! That’s right, everyone’s favorite topless dude, Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa, has been tweeting just-for-you-vids to a bevy of Internet folk all day. The Old Spice Guy is undoubtedly one of the most beloved commercial characters in recent memory — he’s like The Most Interesting Man in the World, but young and apparently unable to stay fully clothed. He burst on the scene back in February and his videos quickly went viral on YouTube. Well now he’s apparently taking awesomeness to a new level — or the ad execs behind his campaign are, rather. He seems to have heralded the deluge of vids with a tweet: He then proceeded to send out vids via Twitter to bloggers who have written about him in the past, YouTube commenters, random folks asking random questions on Yahoo Answers, and various and sundry people who have

You can now opt in to a Creative Commons license for videos you upload to hosting service Vimeo, giving you more precise control over where and how others can use your work. Vimeo announced its support for Creative Commons in ablog post today, saying that it’s doing this to make it easier for people to borrow, build upon and redistribute Vimeo videos without contacting their creators. Each time you upload a video, you’re given a choice between the six major Creative Commons licenses: Attribution, Attribution Share Alike, Attribution No Derivatives, Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike, Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives. Descriptions of each are provided in Vimeo’s FAQ and at the Creative Commons website. You can also choose one when modifying an existing video. Vimeo rep Dalas Verdugo was careful to note that these licenses don’t have any impact on the old rules for embedding users’ videos, and Marketing Director Deborah Szajngarten told CNET that you’ll soon be able to

Real-time comment and reaction platform Echo has just released a new feature for its Echo Pro customers: A real-time recent comments widget. The widget, which can be integrated into practically any website with a few lines of Javascript code, pulls in comments and reactions to posts from across the web. That means, in addition to seeing a real-time sampling of recent comments on a site, it also pumps in data from Twitter, Digg and other social networks. What’s nice about this approach to real-time reaction data is that publishers can customize what content appears and from what sources. For instance, a publisher can set up a site-wide recent comments widget which would show all site activity across the web, or it can keep the widget focused on a particular section. Furthermore, the types of comments that are filtered in can also be customized. If you want to bring in comments on the site, but not reactions on Digg or RT’s on Twitter, you can do that as well. Comments are displayed with