News: December 2006 Archives

Samsung have announced a laptop dock that can squeeze an entire month of power in a single fuel cell cartridge. Although most laptops aren't quite that efficient with their power, this is still impressive.

Samsung claims the 650Wh/L energy density is roughly four times that of competing offerings, and that the noise level has been reduced to that of a normal notebook computer, which had apparently been a large obstacle to commercialization. Samsung is also prepping a mini version of the fuel cell which uses around a coffee cup's worth of fuel, but can still power a laptop for over 15 hours. Safety standards are still in the works for the new tech, but it looks like Samsung is rearing to go, and they're planning to launch this dock at the end of 2007.

image shown is not the samsung fuel cell - see the real one here

While those compact photo printers are all well and good, they don't really compete with the incredible amount of teensy tiny in this new MPrint MW-260 from Brother. Fortunately for them, they do something useful, while MPrint can only churn out black & white A6 papers of questionable value.

We're sure the enterprising businessman or resourceful secret agent could find a use for the thing, especially with Bluetooth, IrDA and USB connectivity, and compatibility with PCs and several flavors of Windows Mobile. The printer measures in at 160x210x18.5mm and weighing 500g. It is PC, Pocket PC 2003/2003 SE and WM 5.0 compatible, has a 300x300dpi resolution, and prints at 20ppm.

Link: MPrint (Brother USA)

There's no better way to celebrate the one hundredth birthday of broadcast radio -- or to completely enrage your sibling by rendering that brand new cellphone useless -- than to craft your very own FM jammer. Branching out from the many other jammers we've already seen, the Wave Bubble touts itself as being a 'self-tuning, wide-bandwidth' rig that doesn't require a spectrum analyzer, and can 'jam many different frequency bands' all in a pocket-friendly enclosure. Powered by an internal Li-ion cell, this bad boy provides self-tuning via 'dual PLL,' and you can manually enter new frequencies to vex by simply plugging it into your PC's USB port and inputting the data when prompted. It can purportedly provide up to two hours of jamming on dual bands (such as 'cellphones') or four hours on single bands such as 'cordless phones, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.' Additionally, the output power ranges from 0.1-watts (high bands) to 0.3-watts (low bands), and the handy device sports an approximate range of about 20 feet with 'well-tuned antennas.' Of course, you aren't apt to find this for sale anywhere considering the fit the FCC would undoubtedly throw, but if you consider yourself a master of the DIY craft, be sure to tag the read link for some in-depth pedagogy.

Link: Official Site

Got some beer bottles that need holes in them, but need to do it silently? The Gauss GP-219 is an electromagnetic pistol that uses a PIC microcontroller, dual coils with 'precision pulsing', twin infrared sensors and even a laser sight to silently fire steel projectiles. Powered by an NiCd battery pack, this bad boy also features a bar display to track capacitor bank charge progress, battery and fault LED indicators.

It's actually pretty effective too...

Video: Beer Bottle Destruction

Although there have been a fair few remote controls for Windows Vista and XP Media Centre Edition, Royal Philips have launched a large range of their own.

These range from a more standard style remote (RC1974501/00) with the huge number of buttons up and down to its slightly upgraded counterpart, the RC1974502/00, which appears to be the same, except with backlighting on the keys. The third version of the family, the RC1974603/00 also has backlighting, but adds 'advanced IR learning,' although we're not really sure what makes it more advanced than a remote with standard IR learning. However, the top model of the family includes an RF receiver and transmitter, just in case you need that extra range. Beyond that, there's also some PC-card remotes that'll jack in with your laptop, but the best one out of all of them is the TINO SRM7500/xx -- this larger model comes with its own built-in LCD so that you can navigate and control music playback without turning on the screen of your home entertainment center. Plus, its got them learnin' smarts too, so it can show those other remotes who's boss.

There is no word on when this will be available nor how much it will cost.

See our sister site VistaSector for the latest information on Windows Vista.

US politicians have proposed a national wireless broadband network for use by emergency services at times of crisis.

The system, put forward by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would be built with private companies. The proposal is a response to the communication problems highlighted during the 11th September attacks and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At the moment the various US safety agencies use a patchwork of different communication systems to stay in touch.

'Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to hear local public safety personnel recount their experiences on the ground during the tragic events of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,' said Deborah Taylor Tate, commissioner at the FCC in a statement.

'Their eyewitness accounts underscore how important it is that our nation's first responders have access to reliable and redundant communications in the event of an emergency, and how much remains to be done before those tools are available.'

Opera announced that it'll release a trial version of a browser for the Wii gaming console. It'll be available on the 22st of December.

Users who download the browser get the opportunity to activate the 'Internet Channel' in the Wii menu, that way, they'll able to surf on their Wii. The Wii-remote will work as mouse and with an on screen keyboard you'll be able to type some text too. The final version will be released in March 2007. It'll be free for download till June. After June you'll have to pay 500 Wii-points.

By releasing a browser, Nintendo hopes to retrieve more people who'll buy the Wii. They hope that the Wii will be seen as an entertainmentcenter, and not only a game console.

Check out their wicked cartoon too!

Samsung has launched a new phone, carrying their latest piece of technology, an optical joystick. Moving your finger above the joystick of the Samsung V960 will move a cursor on the screen. Samsung is pretty sure this new technology will make an end of the 4-way joystick which common cellphones have.

Next to moving a cursor, the optical joystick is also able to detect mouse-clicks. That way it'll be easy to navigate through menu's. The phone will be available in Korea before the end of this year, but how much it'll change of owner isn't known yet.

The V960 also includes a 'Smart Lighting' feature that automatically controls the brightness of the LCD screen and keypad. By using the 'Smart Lighting' feature, users are protected from eye strain and will minimize power consumption for increased efficiency.

Thanks to a solution of Artic Cooling, PowerColor will introduce their new passive cooled graphic cards, based on AMD's ATi Radeon X1950 Pro and the X1950XT, in the first months of 2007.

Using 4 heatpipes, and a a huge cooler (which takes in an extra slot), the X1950 Pro will do his work about 4 degrees Celsius cooler then the stock cooler. How good it'll perform on the X1950XT is still unknown. The Pro will be roughly $10 higher, pricing of the XT wasn't mentioned.

Intel will launch the Core 2 Quad, its third four-core processor, in January, continuing its efforts to stay ahead of AMD on the next-generation processor family. The chip for high-end desktop PCs will be launched during the CES trade show in Las Vegas. The new chip follows the quad-core Xeon 5300 for servers and Core 2 Extreme QX6700 for gamers.

Quad-core chips can handle complex tasks faster than single-core chips by using multithreaded software to break each job into smaller pieces, then computing them simultaneously. The chips are most popular with users of servers and workstations running programs like digital media creation and high-end gaming.

The founders of Skype are close to launching a global broadband television service promising viewers, content owners and advertisers “the best of the internet with the best of TV”.

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, who sold their online telephony business to Ebay for $2.6bn last year, have invested part of the proceeds in developing the service, which has the codename The Venice Project. It will offer “near high-definition”, programmes supported by advertising, with tools for users to personalise their channels or discuss programmes with others.

Mr Friis said peer-to-peer technology used by the service, which exploits networks of personal computers rather than central servers, would make it possible to serve “tens of millions of users” while overcoming content owners’ security concerns. Programmes would not require digital rights management protection, said Fredrik de Wahl, the project’s chief executive, because “the bits and bytes being collected on your computer are fragments of a stream”.

Toshiba has launched its new high-definition DVD player in Europe, marking the start of a battle for living room domination.

The electronics firm wants consumers to use their HD-E1 DVD system rather than the rival Blu-Ray format. Blu-Ray is being backed by electronics firms Sony, Samsung and Panasonic as well as a number of film studios. The tussle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is similar to the 1980s war between VHS and Betamax video, anaysts said. Toshiba has forecast 500,000 worldwide sales of its HD-DVD player by March 2007.

According to reports, Sony is planning to launch an online video download service in 2007.

The FT and WSJ say the service, which is being developed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, will allow users to download movies onto their PC and store them on MemoryStick memory cards for the PSP. Sony is also working on a service that would allow downloads directly to the PSP. Sony has already tried to expand the PlayStation Portable's uses to movies - it first offered movies on UMDs, but this hasn't caught on.

Amazon and existing movie download sites like Movielink and CinemaNow are in talks with Sony to use the service, and Sony have not yet commented.

Google is on the move. The internet giant has held talks with Orange, the mobile phone operator, about a multi-billion-dollar partnership to create a 'Google phone' which makes it easy to search the web wherever you are.

The collaboration between two of the most powerful brands in technology is seen as a potential catalyst for making internet use of mobile phones as natural as on desktop computers and laptops.

Executives from Orange flew to Silicon Valley in California for a meeting at Google's headquarters, or 'Googleplex', to hold preliminary discussions about a joint deal. The companies believe that they have an affinity as brands that are perceived as both 'positive' and 'innovative'.

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