Technology, Gadgets, IT, Games

Market Capitalisation is a measure of the total worth of a company – simply the cost of a share, multiplied by the number of shares. Apple today finally overtook Microsoft as the world’s largest technology company, and the second-largest company in the US.

This is no mean feat, and it is to Apple’s credit that is has dominated the smartphone market and maintained its ‘cool’ image with a wide range of customers.

For some reason, there are still many Apple fans who see Microsoft as a big evil corporation, taking away their freedoms and stealing money. Apple is actually the bigger corporation, taking away a lot more freedom, and charging hugely extortionate prices… Read more

I’m not a great believer in big TVs or monitors, as they tend to be impractical, distracting or just pointless. However the 43 inches of curvature in the NEC CRV43 are simply sublime, and an impressive solution to a number of display problems.

It’s not all good news though. At $8000 it’s not exactly in league with a pair of normal 22-inchers, and the display is very thick (see photos after the jump), and an extremely unusual 32:10 aspect ratio. However for that size and money you get 200 nits of brightness (candelas per meter squared), 10,000:1 contrast, 0.02ms “Rapid Response,” covers 99.3% of the Adobe RGB color gamut, and packs at least one USB2.0 jack and DVI-D and HDMI 1.3 connectors.

The NEC CRV34 will be on sale in July for $7,999. Check out the tech specs and a link below…

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The Release Candidate (RC1) of Windows 7 has been around for a few weeks now, and we’ve been checking it out.

The RC1 (build 7100) has a few changes since the public beta (build 7000) from January, and is mostly tweaked and improved. Compared to other RC1 releases (especially Vista), this is an incredibly stable piece of software. It’s not quite perfect yet, so I wouldn’t recommend it to your Grandma for her first PC – but it should be absolutely fine for most users who want to try this exciting new OS out.

It’s still a lot more stable than Vista, a lot more intuitive, and seems to be a lot faster. XP still has a lot of advantages compared to both Windows 7 and Vista, but in terms of features and security, Win7 really looks like a worthwhile upgrade. Finally, people (like me) who refused to go to Vista can upgrade in confidence.

Let’s just hope that Microsoft have learned the lesson from the Vista launch, and let everyone use it from the start. A staggered initial business-only launch hurt consumer adoption, as people couldn’t even buy it if they wanted to! Also, they aren’t hyping up Win7 as the amazing next-big thing, which they did with Vista, then when it turned out to be “passable” or “adquate”, people were hurt and rejected the upgrade. Now they’re being reserved and honest, letting people figure it out for themselves.

RC1 will expire on June 1st 2010, whilst old Beta 1 installations will expire August 1st this year. Final release is expected any time in the 2nd half of this year – Microsoft say in time for Christmas shopping, and Paul Thurrot cites a precise date of October 1st.

In related news, the new branding for Windows 7 (right) was leaked out by Microsoft China during their RC1 launch event. Let us know what you think!

Check out Windows 7 RC1 for yourself here.

At PDC, Microsoft have also demoed Office 14, the successor to Office 2007, slated for release either in early 2009 or closer to the release of Windows 7.

The key new features are due to its integration with the Windows Live Mesh, which shows Microsoft is really thinking about cross-device collaboration.

• Several users can open the same document at the same time, without being locked out, and collaborate. You get a little notification saying someone else has changed this part of the document, and you can accept their change or communicate with them (email, IM, call).
• There will be web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote,  similar to Google Docs
• There will also be Mobile versions, which can also get in on the collaboration act
• The gist of this is that several home/office PCs, web browsers and phones can all collaborate on the same document at the same time, receiving and providing real-time updates to/from each other. This is a big mashup of simultaenous editing, online storage, instant messaging and whiteboarding.
• The Ribbon interface, which has proved popular in Word/Powerpoint/Excel etc is being ported to Visio and Project

This new version of office won’t be tied to Windows, nor Internet Explorer, nor Silverlight. It will work on Macs, Linux and the iPhone, in Firefox and Safari and across many other demographics.

Microsoft has said a technical preview of the Web-based Office apps will come later this year. Microsoft hasn’t explicitly said there will be a free version, though executives have said the apps will be part of Office Live, which has both free and subscription-based options.

We’ll provide more information as it comes!

Microsoft today unveiled Windows Azure – a new could-based Operating System and part of the new Azure cloud computing platform.

A previous quote from Microsoft Chairman Steve Ballmer made Azure sound unattractive, even before it had been officially announced:

“Just like Windows Server looked a lot like Windows but with new properties, new characteristics and new features, so will Windows Cloud look a lot like Windows Server.”

The Operating System is apparently just one component of the platform, which will eventually be fully rolled out alongside Windows 7. This will include geo replication, a network management model,an SOA model, and will also encompass Microsoft’s existing Live services, SQL services, and .NET services.

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Today saw the worldwide release of Apple’s new 3G iPhone. It didn’t seem possible for a gadget to get as much hype as the iPhone did when it was released last year, but the madness has continued for this second generation. We’ve had a play, checked out the features, and guaged international reaction to the new version of the ultimate gadget of ultimate destiny.

But the launch hasn’t gone smoothly. Any new iPhone needs to be activated using iTunes upon purchase, but the activation servers have been hammered and have actually been totally down for several hours now, resulting in customers being sent home with an non-activated iPhone, and unable to activate it when they get home. Some suppliers are also insisting hat iPhones are activated in-store (to prevent them being taken away and unlocked), but the activation failure means they won’t be able to take their new iPhones home after purchase.

The main difference in this second iteration of Apple’s flagship product is 3G communication, allowing significantly faster data transfer, enabling a decent web browsing experience anywhere with a 3G signal. The Americans haven’t been too bothered about 3G, since it hasn’t been fully rolled out across the pond; but here in the UK 3G is pretty much in every urban area. This has previously made the iPhone less attractive to UK customers than comparable 3G smartphones, but no longer.

So what else is new? The rear casing is now shiny black smudge-magnet
plastic instead of aluminium, which is to prevent interference with the
radio antennas inside. Maps now has GPS support, backed up with online
data and geotagging for pictures you take. Microsoft Exchange is now
supported, but not for tasks, and it seems to totally override any
other form of contact list on the phone. There’s also a new Apps Store,
a centralised repository of iPhone applications. Other minor additions
include a contacts search, view more attachments and a thrilling new
scientific calculator!

Not everyone’s wishlists for the new iPhone have been realised. Key features such as video recording, MMS capability, voice dialling, copy & paste and SMS forwarding are all missing. The inbuilt camera still tops out at 2MP, Flash isn’t supported and predictive text can’t be disabled properly. The inbuilt accelerometer can flip the screen horizontally, but this doesn’t work for all applications, and the three most writing-intensive applications (notes, e-mail, and maps) won’t let you type in landscape, meaning you still have to use frustrating single-finger prodding rather than thumb-typing.

Overall, the new iPhone 3G is a definite improvement, and is certainly the snazziest phone on the market with the best user interface I’ve seen – but it still has all the same types of flaws and left-out features of the previous iteration and other Apple products. With all the glamour and hype, it is very easy to overlook these. If you must have the latest and best gadget, there is absolutely no alternative – this is an awesome piece of kit – but the serious business users should probably look elsewhere… at least until the inevitable 3rd party software irons out the kinks.

See Also: 10 Things the 3G iPhone is Still Missing (Washington Post), Apple, O2 UK

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The LP40-TDR1 is the latest in the Humax range of HDTVs boasting a sleek new design, with integrated twin tuner digital television recorder and a massive 160GB hard disk drive.

Features include live pause and instant rewind; the ability to watch a channel or record at the same time as recording another programme as well as an 8-day Electronic Programme Guide. Read more