IBLOG SPACE

Just a couple of days ago, Asus took some time at PEPCOM to announce a plethora of new hardware, ranging from netbooks to PCs. And while the announcement did well to let people know what was coming, Asus wasn’t very clear on when each piece of new technology would find its way to the market, let alone where in the world they would be launching. If the Eee PC 1015PEM is any indication, then it looks like we won’t have to wait long to start seeing the other announcements popping up. The company’s latest Intel Atom dual-core 10.1-inch netbook comes with plenty of options for those who want to show off their favorite color. You can choose from white (pictured above), black, red, or blue. Inside, you’ll find a 250GB hard drive, a battery life that Asus suggests should last you upwards of 13 hours, and Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter Edition for your Operating System. You’ll also find 1GB of DDR3 RAM. The 10.1-inch display is LED-backlit, and has a resolution of 1024 x 600. The trackpad is

I have a big soft spot for Dell 30-inch screens, I have used Dell’s original 30-inch screen since the thing came out and never regretted my choice. Dell has announced that its newest 30-inch screen is not shipping called the UltraSharp U3011 . The screen has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and up to 100,000:1 dynamic. The panel has a response time of 7ms that will prevent ghosting and other issues in fast motion video or video games. The screen has a brightness rating of 370cd/m2. The viewing angles are 178-degrees horizontally and vertically. The screen can reproduce 1.07 billion colors. The pixel dot pitch is 0.251 and it comes with a stand that tilts, swivels, and is height adjustable. The screen has lots of connectivity with a VGA port, dual DVI-D with HDCP, and dual HDMI inputs. The screen can be ordered now for $1499.

The tablet market is so hot right now thanks to the iPad that the tablets are selling in droves. The bad thing for most companies is that the Motorola iPad is one of the few tablets on the market right now. There are a number of other tablets set to land soon and one of the tablets that were expected in time for holiday shopping was from Motorola. The bad news for shareholders and fans of Motorola gear is that the tablet will not make it in time for the holiday season. Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha has said that the tablet won’t land until early next year. He stated at a conference, “We want to make sure that any tablet that we deliver is competitive in the marketplace, and I think all of us will make sure that we will only deliver that when that occurs. Hopefully, that’s early next year.” The move may have something to do with the fact that Motorola has bet much of its business and growth on Android devices and done well with the strategy. Google has said that it doesn’t think Android F

MSI has announced a couple new notebooks including the new GX660 and the GX660R . The machines are very similar to each other with the same form factor and style with different hardware inside the chassis. The GX660 is a lower performance version of the two. Inside the black chassis with the red trim the GX660 has an Intel Core i5-450M CPU, ATI Radeon 5870 Broadway discrete graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD. The screen is 15.6-inch TFT LCD and the machine has dynamic premium speakers for its sound system. MSI also crams a USB 3.0 port inside along with a 720p HD webcam and HDMI output. The GX660 starts at $1449.99. The GX660R is very similar with the smear style and the same 15.6-inch screen, but it gets a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and uses the same video card. The main difference is that the GX660R has an Intel Core i7-740QM CPU, 6GB of RAM, 640GB HDD, and a Blu-ray drive that the lesser machine lacks. Both rigs have WiFi and Bluetooth. Pricing for the GX660R starts at $1749.99.

Apple’s 27-inch LED Cinema Display has finally gone up for sale, after being revealed all the way back in July. Priced at $999 – and listed as shipping within 1-2 weeks – the new Cinema Display runs at 2560 x 1440 resolution and has a Mini DisplayPort input and an integrated 49W 2.1 speaker system. There’s also a three port USB 2.0 hub, all powered, and a MagSafe cable to rejuice your MacBook while you work. The USB connector, meanwhile, not only runs the hub but the iSight webcam, microphone and audio system. Not cheap, but a 27-inch IPS panel running at that resolution was never going to be, and we know there are plenty of MacBook, Mac mini and Mac Pro users out there who’ve been hungrily waiting for this aluminum and glass monster to drop.

Imation has been making storage solutions of the corporate world like Zip drives and other devices for a long time that are still used by a lot of small businesses to back up their data. One of the more recent of Imation’s backup solutions is the RDX solution. The RDX system looks like a tape drive but the cartridges offer much more storage than your typical tape can offer. Previously the highest capacity cartridge for the RDX system was 750GB. Today Imation has announced that it has a new 1TB capacity cartridge for the RDX system that greatly expands the storage capacity. The RDX cartridges will sell for $149.99 to $599.99 each. Each of the cartridges is a ruggedized 2.5-inch hard drive cartridge and the docking station has USB and SATA connectivity. The RDX system ships with Retrospect backup software and that software supports encrypted data with 256-bit AES encryption.

Technically speaking there is a butt load of iPads in the hands of consumers all around the world today. With the sheer number of iPads on the market already and the number of iPads, being built each month is stands to reason that the demand for accessories is very high as well. Scosche has unveiled a cool new case for the iPad that will protect it from bumps and scratches and helps the user to prop the iPad in a more comfortable position for working on whatever it is the user wants to do. The iPad case is called the foldIO and it adds little bulk to the device. The foldIO props the iPad in several different positions so that the user can get a comfortable angle for typing, video watching and other tasks. The case can be purchased now for $49.99 and it comes in carbon fiber and leather textures.

Olive has several Olive HD media streamers on the market today that are all very nice and have tons of features, but those cool features come at a high cost. The last Olive media server I talked about was the 4HD back in November of 2009 and that thing carried a price of $1999. Olive has announced a new music server that is the lowest cost music server in its line with a price tag right under $1000. That is still a lot of green for a music server, but makes the 3HD about half the price of the older solution. The new server sells for $999 and has a 24-bit/192kHz DAC. The device stores a ton of music with a 500GB AV HDD inside the chassis. That is enough space for almost 5000 HD tracks or 1500 CDs in their original quality. The server has four layers of noise isolation for the HDD for quiet operation and it has a CDRW drive built in to import music directly to the HDD and burn CDs if you want the music you put onto the machine on a disc. It has 16/20/24-bit rates and supports WAV, FLAC,

Further details about the flexible epaper display Sony demonstrated at their recent dealer convention have emerged, and there’s good news and bad. According to The Digital Reader‘s sources at the company, the monochrome panel wasn’t an in-house creation but in fact loaned to them by E Ink (who supply Sony with the displays for their current Reader range). Unfortunately, Sony claims to have no solid plans at present to actually use the E Ink screen in a commercial device. In fact, according to TDR, “ it would best be described as something Sony would like to do rather than something Sony will do.” Still, we’ve a feeling that even if Sony don’t make the jump, one of E Ink’s other customers – and there are plenty, seeing as they currently supply the vast majority of ereader manufacturers with devices on the market – likely will.

After its brief demo on-stage at IDF 2010 earlier this week, Dell’s rotating Inspiron Duo netbook/tablet has stepped out for a slightly longer preview. The company is still keeping most details – and the prototype hardware, for that matter – close to its chest, refusing to discuss battery life or pricing, but at least we now have some close-up video of that slick converting mechanism. Video after the cut NetbookNews, jkkmobile and UMPC Portal all spent some time with the Inspiron Duo, and the general opinion is tentatively positive. The thick bezel and potential heft throw up warning flags, but people are finding the form factor appealing and the dual-core Atom N550 processor looks to be capable of gaming, even.

Putting Android where it isn’t expected has become something of a hobby for the open-source tinkerers, and we’re quite impressed to see Google’s OS slapped neatly onto the ageing hardware of a Palm Tungsten C . The PDA was launched back in 2003 and has a mere 400MHz processor together with WiFi b; Dmitry Grinbergthought that was a suitable challenge, and has managed to get Android 2.1 running. This initial install is based on pre-built binaries, and apparently runs with some noticeable lag thanks to the Tungsten C’s minimal RAM. Grinberg is hoping to speed things up by building his own ROM; currently the Palm is dual-booting, with the Android install on an SD card and loaded using a custom PalmOS app. Unfortunately, while the Tungsten C doesn’t exactly have modern specs, the list of things that the Android install can actually use is even shorter. There’s no WiFi, Bluetooth or sound support right now, but he’s hoping to fix that with future versions.

Acer might not be a name we generally associate with HDTVs, but that could be changing according to industry sources in Taiwan. DigiTimes is reporting rumors of Acer’s continued push into the Acer Smart TV segment, including further set-top boxes and integrated HDTVs. The company took to the stage with Intel earlier this week to launch its Smart TV STB, based on the chip company’s CE4100 media processor and running Microsoft’s new Windows Media Center Embedded OS. Acer expects to launch its Revo 2 STB early in 2011.

Intel has confirmed that the supposed HDCP master key – which can be used to unlock the anti-copy protection used on Blu-ray and other media – is legitimate, with company spokesman Tom Waldrop saying that he expects a DRM decoding chip to be the next challenge facing the content production industry. ”We have tested this published material,” Waldrop told PCMag, “[and] it does produce product keys … the net of that means that it is a circumvention of the code.” HDCP is the encryption and handshaking technology Intel developed to secure the different components used with digital media hardware, to prevent like-for-like copies being made. It relies on each piece of hardware being HDCP compliant (and thus not allowing for duplication or non-encrypted distribution); if one component isn’t, the whole chain is shut down. Intel don’t expect a software product to use the “forty times forty element matrix of fifty-six bit hexadecimal numbers” the master key comprises, though they’re not counti

Facebook UK has pushed out its version of Places, the location tagging service that was switched on in the US last month and in Japan earlier this week. The social networking site now allows UK users to “check in” with their cellphones, optionally showing up in a “People Here Now” section for their current location. After facing legions of privacy advocates before, Facebook UK are also coming out the gate with plenty of arguments as to why users of the site shouldn’t be worried. That includes more granular control over who can see your position and what location data is stored, extra privacy for minors and – most importantly, perhaps – whether or not your friends can check you in.

The day started with the Wall Street Journal reporting that the CEO of Best Buy Brian Dun shared that the iPad was cannibalizing Best Buy’s laptop sales by a shocking 50%. They day ended with Samsung announcing that their Galaxy Tab 7 inch slate will be available on all four major wireless carriers here in the US in the coming month’s. Samsung is the first of what I expect to be many major consumer brands launching tablets with carrier support over the next 6 month’s. Smart phones and soon to be Super Phones may be the fastest growing category in the industry but tablets are certainly the hottest trend I am seeing right now. With the latest comments by Best Buy’s CEO you can see why so many in the industry have their eyes fixed on this space. What I am interested to watch as it relates to these tablets and others is how the carriers position these devices at retail. As consumers begin to look and consider alternatives to the iPad it is point of sale positioning that may make or break

In our wrap-up, we mention that choosing between Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s upcoming (to the United States) Galaxy Tab tablets would be something you would need to figure out on your own. Simply put, the User Interface, hardware, and pricing all play a major part in what products we buy, and that’s no different when it comes to something like a tablet. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t give you a ton of pictures comparing the two devices, as well as a bit of our own insight. One of the first things you’ll notice, is the size. The iPad’s 9.7-inch display, sized up against the Tab’s 7-inch version is drastic in comparison. If you were to just pick up the Tab and play around with it, you might be perfectly comfortable with the display size, even feel like it’s more than enough. However, at 9.7-inches, the iPad’s display is obviously what you’ll want if you plan on watching a lot of media, or you just feel like browsing the Internet on anything other than just under 10-inches isn’t worth y

We just heard that the Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet device from Samsung was heading to every major wireless carrier in the United States, and sure enough we just got confirmation from T-Mobile that this is indeed the case (not that we didn’t believe Samsung, of course). The Galaxy Tab for T-Mobile will be the first mobile tablet for T-Mobile’s Android offerings. As for the features, there’s everything we’ve already covered: you’ve got the Samsung Media Hub, which will feature plenty of movies and TV shows. You’ve also got the social networking applications that everyone knows and loves by now. The tablet will launch with Android 2.2, feature full Flash Player 10.1, and will have a 1GHz Hummingbird processor under the hood. There’s no word on pricing quite yet, and there’s no exact date provided by Samsung or T-Mobile quite yet. But, the Magenta carrier is saying that the tablet will be launched by this holiday season, which means you already know where your Christmas money

Flash Player on your tablet device may be something you look forward to, or you may not care all that much. If you do care, though, and you’ve been waiting to get your hands on a tablet that features full Flash Player 10.1, then it looks like the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab may be just the option for you. Samsung has just gone ahead and let everyone know that the Tab, the new Android-based 7-inch tablet from the company, will feature the full Flash experience. While the experience may have been not all that stellar on smaller devices, like smartphones that feature Flash, the Tab, with its 1GHz Hummingbird processor, may be an option for those who want to experience video, as well as games. The larger display meas you’ll have more room to manipulate titles, as well as play games that make full use of the touchscreen. Playing games like a tower defense title will be easier on the Tab. Check out the media hub application in action on the Samsung Epic 4G, to whet your appetite for now.

ViewSonic is on a roll with their tablet creations. Having just seen the ViewSonic ViewPad at this year’s IFA, and noticing that it dual-boots Windows and Android, we’re shocked to see that this other 10-inch display tablet isn’t that. In fact, it doesn’t even dual-boot Operating Systems. Instead, it angles for a more pristine Android 2.2 approach, all of which you’ll enjoy on a ten-inch display. The feature list doesn’t stop with the mobile Operating System (OS), though. Also inside, you’ll find NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor, and 1GB of RAM. The resolution of that display is 1,024 x 600, and you’ll find ports for both USB and HDMI. Bluetooth 2.1 is on board, as is integrated 802.11 n WiFi. There’s a 1.3MP camera on the back of the tablet, and you’ll find plenty of space with the 16GB of storage on board. And yes, NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 is inside, too. The tablet is reportedly able to play back 1080p media without a problem, so all you HD fans out there should be pretty pleased with that aspec

Video games have evolved since their debut all those years ago. While there are some obvious exceptions to the rule, the general principal behind the video games of today’s day-and-age is telling a story. Cutscenes may not be the favorite way to do that, but if the developers can make them engaging enough, they certainly do attract the eye. For example, the cutscenes within StarCraft II are some of the best to date. And while the visuals may not need to be breathtaking, as long as the story gets across in an enjoyable way, thousands of gamers out there will sit idly by and watch as the story develops before them. Activision wants to take advantage of that. Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision’s Blizzard, stood in front of a large crowd at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in California yesterday, and told those listening to him that he believes if his company were to strip out the hour and a half or so of cutscenes from StarCraft II , th

It’s been over a year, as of this writing, since the original version of Always Innovating’s Touch Book started making its way into customer’s hands. Immediately following that, early reviews seemed to be all over the place. From people enjoying not only the concept, but also the hardware and software, to people who were basically displeased with everything. But, the good news must have sunk in at Always Innovating, because the company has just made known their next “version” of the Touch Book, known as the Smart Book. And they’re definitely treading into some creative waters. Like the Touch Book before it, the Smart Book features a netbook-like body, but features a detachable display which can function as a tablet, all on its own. The Smart Book takes it up a notch, though, by offering you a removable mobile device. The device will let you surf the web, run applications, and even make VoIP calls if you want. The keyboard actually hides a USB to HDMI, which will let you connect to a l

Microsoft just officially announced their brand new Arc Touch mouse , but it looks like that’s not the only peripheral the Redmond-based company is hard at work on. If this leak from Russian website TheVista.ru has any merit, then it looks like Microsoft is getting ready to add another gadget to their Metro line-up. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of details to be had at this point, but the listing does give us a couple of noteworthy bullet points. The first of which is Microsoft’s usage of BlueTrack technology. Offering up the reliability of a wired mouse, but giving it to you in a wireless package. What’s also interesting, thanks to that BlueTrack tech and the fact that the mouse is rumored to only launch for $20, it would make this Metro mouse the cheapest of the BlueTrack lineage. As you can probably tell from the image, the mouse is built to be for both right- and left-handed folks. Which means that it will probably catch the eye of a few people out there. No word on color optio

Rumors about Sony’s next-generation PlayStation Portable (PSP) may have gone quiet for a little while now, but that doesn’t mean they’re over and done with. Looking back, we’ve heard how Sony plans on reinventing the PSPmodel altogether, and then we heard that touch controls could find their way onto the back of the device, confusing plenty of people out there. But, even further back, we had heard that Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) were being passed around to developers in the video game world, with some quieter voices saying that the device itself was finding those same hands. And now, it looks like those previous rumors may have been true. In an interview with Industry Gamers , Netherrealm Studios’ Executive Producer Shaun Himmerick let it slip that his development house actually has a PSP2 in there, and that they’re currently “looking at the engine.” The device was named specifically, and considering we have no reason to believe he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, it looks

Scoreboard Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 1.4/5 1.2/5 0.9/3 0.6/2 0.5/2 Total Viewers (million) 4.72 5.53 4.57 2.22 1.57 The season premiere of ABC’s 20/20 topped the ratings on the last Friday of broadcast TV “summer”. Its 1.9 adults 18-49 rating was up 46% from last Friday’s 1.3 rating for the Barbara Walters special 20/20 last week. The show helped put ABC at the head of the adults 18-49 ratings overall for the night. Here’s some additional information from ABC: “20/20” (10:00-11:00 p.m.) The season premiere of ABC News’ “20/20” won the 10 o’clock hour and stood as Friday’s No. 1 program in Total Viewers (7.0 million), Adults 18-49 (1.9/7) and Adults 25-54 (2.4/7). In fact, the ABC newsmagazine qualified as the No. 1 regular television show in its time slot with Adults 18-49 for the 10th time in 11 weeks. In addition, “20/20” ranked as Friday’s top newsmagazine, topping NBC News’ 2-hour “Dateline” (8:00 – 10:00 p.m.) by solid margins in Total Viewers (+11% – 7.0 million vs. 6.3 million