Jul 2, 2010

Toshiba launches Core i notebook with 16h battery life

Only in Japan for now

TWO THINGS THAT rarely go hand in hand when it comes to notebooks is battery life and performance – well, weight also plays in somewhere here – but it seems like Toshiba has gotten one step closer to solving this with its latest 13.3-inch dynabook RX3W that was announced in Japan today. Toshiba has combined a standard 35W Core i processor with a light weight chassis and up to 16h of unplugged usage, that’s what we’d call a good compromise.
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Jul 1, 2010

Shotgun-Wielding Balmer Escorts ‘Kin’ Behind the Woodshed

nVidia hugs Tegra and cries softly

It seems that Verizon’s rabid pet wolf was able to sink its teeth into Microsoft’s ‘Kin’ phone not even two months after Arlis traded in his prized horny toad, $49.99 and a home-cooked meal for the privilege of owning one.  This unfortunate turn of events prompted Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer to don his executioner’s mask and place a 12-gauge slug between the eyes of the hydrophobic phone series.  When asked to comment on the sudden death sentence, we couldn’t quite make out his reply due to all the laughter and bad music coming from the Apple camp across the street, but it sounded something like, “developers, developers, developers, developers…”
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Jun 30, 2010

Asus Eee PC 1215N gets official

Of sorts

IN THIS DAY in age it seems like companies are relying a little bit too much on social media to get their message out and Asus has announced its Eee PC 1215N on facebook, yet there’s no mention of it on Asus’ website. The latest addition to the Eee PC family features a dual core Atom D525 processor an Nvidia ION 2 graphics which makes this 12-inch “netbook” a rather interesting offering.
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Jun 29, 2010

Cisco announced Android tablet for business users

8h battery life, 1.5lb, Atom powered

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, but Cisco has announced a tablet of its own that’s powered by an unspecified 1.6GHz Atom processor, 32GB of flash memory and a claimed 8h battery life. Considering that Cisco has managed to squeeze this into a 1.5lb (520g) package is pretty impressive, but is this really the business tool we’ve all been waiting for that’ll make us more productive?
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Jun 28, 2010

Texas Instruments USB 3.0 host controller almost here

Other key parts ready today

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS HASN’T been in a hurry to bring its USB 3.0 products to market, but it now appears that the company is getting ready to start rolling out its first few products. Today TI announced the availability of a USB 3.0 physical layer transceiver called the TUSB1310 which is targeting a wide range of devices such as smartphones, portable media players, navigation devices and digital still and video cameras etc.
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Jun 25, 2010

iPhone 4 Black-Balls Right Handed Porn Seekers

…or should that be blue?

APPLE INC., ESTEEMED purveyor of glass-covered shiny objects, has launched its latest salvo against the pornography industry with the release of its new “retina-display” packing iPhone 4.  The all new fingerprint collector has the highest pixel-density of any phone to date, offering a 4X improvement in areolic-clarity compared to previous models.  The appeal of this feature is immediately apparent, however Lord Steve-o has built in a special surprise for his right-handed lackeys.
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Jun 25, 2010

iPhone 4 has reception problems

Whatever you do, don’t touch the side of the phone

LO AND BEHOLD, Apple’s new baby, the iPhone 4 isn’t more than a day or so old in terms of retail availability and there are already reports of problems with the signal. Despite Apple’s new “magic” antenna design, the web is full of complaints from people that are having reception problems with the iPhone 4. The solution to the problem is actually rather simple; don’t touch the lower left side of the phone.
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Jun 22, 2010

Toshiba working on boosting SSD write speeds to 4.2Gbps

Using a boost converter

WITH THE INTRODUCTION of SATA 6Gbp, SSD drives got a much needed, faster interface, but it appears that we’ve hit another “wall” when it comes to performance of SSD drives, at least higher density drives. SSDs with more than 16 NAND Flash memory chips on them will have power issues in the near future which prevent them from reaching optimal write speeds. The good news is that Toshiba is already working to solve this problem with the help of a Japanese research group headed by Ken Takeuchi.
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Jun 22, 2010

Acer Aspire TimelineX finally launches stateside

Thin and powerful, yes, it’s possible

IT’S TAKEN ACER a good few months to get the Aspire TimelineX series of notebooks to the North American market, but for anyone wanting a thin and light, yet powerful notebook with decent battery life for an affordable price, then this is what you’ve been waiting for. Acer is offering models ranging from 11.6 to 15.6-inches with a selection of Core i processors and even discrete graphics in some models.
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Jun 22, 2010

CULV notebook pricing in free fall, getting replaced

Notebook manufacturers favours full fat CPUs

CULV NOTEBOOK PRICES started falling a while back and in Taiwan “high-end” models with SU7300 processors have been sold at what must be close to cost from less well known notebook manufacturers such as ViewSonic. Now the big brand names are following suit and we should see this price and stock dumping take effect in other markets as well within the near future.
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Jun 17, 2010

Toshiba launches 128GB NAND Flash memory chips

Yes, that’s GB, not Gb and it’s in a single package too

MOST SMARTPHONES ARE still only shipping with a measly 512MB of storage memory at best, there are exceptions, of course like Apple’s iPhone and a couple of devices from Samsung to mention a few. However, Toshiba seems set on getting more storage memory into our mobile devices, as the company has launched 128GB e-MMC compliant NAND Flash memory chips today.
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