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SlingPlayer 2.0 public beta goes live

The public beta for SlingPlayer 2.0 is finally released and gives you a chance to get to grips with it. This will be welcome news for eager fans ever since it was announced last year at CES 2007, but the player will be without one of its big features, Clip+ Sing.

I guess not all features will make it into the beta after all, so it looks like only the local DVR features are present, so you’ll be able to test out the new 60-minute buffer and EPG which is still exciting.

Other minor changes to the player include a tweaked UI, and the removal of Slingbox Finder Ids in exchange for user accounts, Skin supported has also been dropped.

At the moment, it only runs on Windows, but expect more announcements on this software soon. To read more details on SlingPlayer and view a video of it in action, follow the link below.

Source: Read

Acer Aspire One UMPC, MSI Wind and HP iPAQ 214 News

Today we have some updates on the Acer Aspire One UMPC, MSI Wind and HP iPAQ 214. Expansys have the MSI Wind in stock and it features a 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of memory, 80GB hard drive, XP Home, 1.3MP camera and finished in black.

Still in constraint expansys have managed to get their hands on a limited number of the MSI Wind Notebooks. Living in the new age of the internet, users need to have an effective internet connection for professional and personal use. MSI offers the new Wind Notebook to meet the demands of modern people, by providing a lighter and more convenient notebook computer with a longer battery life. Weighing approximately 1 kilogram, this makes it ideal for outdoor use (view more details here).

Acer Aspire One UMPC is also in stock with the new Atom processor (an Eee PC killer). There has been a lot of attention around this particular UMPC - and it is finally here! The Acer Aspire One UMPC competes in the ASUS Eee PC and MSI Wind space, and has an 8.9-inch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, Linux operating system and WiFi connectivity. Now only £234.99 on expansys.

HP iPAQ 214 Pocket PC is a highly-popular PDA with a large 4-inch screen and Windows Mobile 6. The HP iPAQ 214 also has an SDIO slot for adding memory or SD accessories like barcode scanners! Now only £189.99 after claim (expires 31 August 2008). View more information here.

IBM warns Linux Desktop Developers not to copy Windows

IBM bosses have sent a warning to Linux Desktop Developers; they have told the open source community to make Linux like a desktop OS for consumers and businesses. What they mean by this is “Not to Copy Windows.”

Bob Sutor, Vice President of open source and standards at IBM was at LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco. He told the attendees there that the open source community has to make Linux as popular as Operating Systems used on desktops for both consumer and business users.

In the conference Sutor said “Stop copying 2001 Windows. That’s not where the usability action is.”

Yesterday we reported that IBM was joining forces with three major Linux distributors Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat, to come up with a Microsoft Free PC by 2009.

All four companies have agreed to provide hardware partners with the software needed to build these desktops. IBM carry a lot of weight when it comes to the Linux community, this is because they put a huge amount of investment into the program.
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Asus S101 Ulitmate Eee PC could rival Macbook Air

We have known for some time that Asus are to launch the ultimate Eee PC called the S101. It seems that Asus do not want this Ultimate laptop top be associated with their Eee PC notebooks.

The boss of Asus thinks that the S101 might just be a rival to Apple’s Macbook Air. When he showed of the new notebook, he re-enacted the Apple Macbook Air launch by pulling the Macbook Air from an envelope to show off how thin it is.

There will be two models in the Asus S101 range, one will have a 32GB SSD and will cost $699 and the 64GB SSD version will cost $899.

Both have a 10.2-inch LCD screen with LED backlit. Both notebooks are powered by Intel’s Atom processor.

Asus will have a hard time trying to shake of the Eee PC name from the S101 range. As for the whole rival thing for the Macbook Air, well I will let you be the judge of that.

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HP Compaq 6820s 2GHz 17-inch Widescreen Notebook

The HP Compaq 6820s does not rely on silly gimmicks to make this a great notebook, HP have decided that going for a conservative design was the way to go. The laptop itself can handle itself in this modern age of computing, but the lack of extra features makes it a little tough to sell.

The weight of the laptop is very impressive; just 3kg which is great considering that it has a 17-inch screen. One great sell though has to be the battery life, around 191 minutes, perfect for those business users.

The HP Compaq 6820s comes with a 2.0GHz Intel Celeron 550 Processor and 2048MB of RAM. The notebook comes with a 160GB hard drive as well as a dedicated graphics card from ATi, allowing complex multimedia presentations run smoothly.

The notebook comes complete with Windows Vista Basic Operating System and a DVD/CD-RW combo LightScribe DVD±RW SuperMulti with Double Layer optical drive. The HP Compaq 6820s 2GHz 17-inch Widescreen Notebook has three USB ports as well as SecureDigital Multi Media Card.

Woot are currently offering this laptop for $529.99.

Review: ASUS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Card

Ultimately, the 9800 GTX+ is just an overclocked 9800 GTX and an overclocked GTX+ is a 9800 GTX overclocked even more. ASUS’ decision to offer an overclocked GTX+ from the word go seems to be a good idea as it helps it stand out a bit more from just a regular GTX or an overclocked GTX.

There isn’t really a whole lot to say about the card; it’s going to come in at a good price while offering some good performance. It’s going to fill in the gap that’s present between the GTX 260 and 9800 GT since 9800 GTX stock has become quite limited.

The only problem at the moment is the card is quite hard to get a hold of. While there was an official date for the lifting of the NDA, there was never really any word of when the stock was going to be arriving on store shelves. It seems like stock is beginning to show up at places and over the next few weeks we should see more and more stock.

While samples of the card are going to get out to websites around the world, everyone is really beginning to focus on the HD 4870 X2 which is just around the corner. The positive press from the HD 4800 series already on the market means that people are very keen to know what the new HD 4870 X2 is going to offer over the top GTX 280 from NVIDIA.

At the end of it all, the 9800 GTX+ TOP is a good performing card which should show up at a decent price level. It would have been nice to see stock earlier, but that’s not ASUS’ fault. We’re not sure if it was a matter of limited cores or getting rid of the original GTX that slowed the release of the card down, but the good news is it’s coming very soon now.

Let us know what you think of the ASUS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Card.

Please visit TweakTown for the 17 page review.

Adobe Flash Player Download Warning: Malware Disguised

This is a warning to all those that are getting flash player downloads; Adobe fake flash player downloads could leave you with serious consequences, especially leaving you with malicious payloads.

You need to know that Malware is being disguised as a Flash Player download, Adobe responding to malware versions of “flash player” downloads that are being posted on community sites like twitter for example, have posted the following caveat on their site.

There has been coverage from the security community of a nasty worm on many popular social networking sites that is using social engineering lures to get you the user to install a piece of malware, and according to reports the worm posts comments on these such sites that includes links to a fake site. If this link is clicked and followed, users will be told that they need to update their Flash Player. The installer, posted on a malicious site, of course installs malware instead of Flash Player.

WARNING: DO NOT download Flash Player from any other site unless it is adobe.com, and we mean any piece of software such as Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Reader etc. Twitter’s security people are working on a fix right now.

Read the full rundown on Information Week

Delta Air Lines Wi-Fi offer: Is the price right?

Delta Air Lines are looking into offering customers broadband wireless internet access on its entire domestic fleet, they are hoping to get this all running by next summer. We already know that Continental Airlines had previously announced its plans to offer a similar service across a majority of its mainline fleet.

There are several other airlines looking at doing the same thing by offering or planning on offering a similar service, of course on a limited number of flights than Delta and Continental.

Delta who is based in Atlanta said that it would offer to sell Wi-Fi service to customers travelling throughout the continental United States, they are currently working with Aircell who is an airborne communications provider, and its plan is to install the network on Delta’s domestic airline fleet of over 330 aircrafts.

Now the question is “Is the price right? If the flights are 3 hours or less the new service will cost $9.95, flights over three hours the service will cost $12.95.

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Video explaining Mozilla Labs Aurora browser concept

Mozilla Labs has released a video which explains all you need to know about their Aurora browser concept. Mozilla hope that by launching this video, it will help to inspire people to take an active part in what is being described as the future of the web.

Mozilla Labs hope that they are able to provoke the thought of this new browser concept; they would like to facilitate discussion in designing the new direction of Firefox as well as other Mozilla projects.

The video has been created by Adaptive Path and Mozilla Labs. When watching the video, you will get to see how the Aurora browser looks and works. The concept browser uses OS X, this uses a dock-like and drag and droppable interface.

We could be watching the future of Firefox; so far I like what I have seen. The look is futuristic with objects fading away which lay further back in the past. I do worry when a concept looks this good, it will just be one of those things that we never end up seeing.

Check out the Mozilla Labs Aurora browser concept video below.

IBM says Windows free computing by 2009

IBM have said that they want Windows free computing, this is something that they are working on with three major Linux distributors, Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat.

They aim to achieve a Vole-free personal computing world by 2009 however; this is a tall order. All four of these companies are in collaboration with each other and are working on the development of a PC which will come pre-loaded with Linux, IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS), Lotus Notes, Symphony and Sametime.

Consumers as well as independent software vendors will then be encouraged to develop applications that will run on this new PC. This will be done via Lotus Expeditor; this is a software framework which is based on the open source Eclipse programming model.

IBM Lotus Software vice president, Kevin Cavanaugh has said “The slow adoption of Vista among businesses, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux.”

It seems that more and more PC customers are asking for a computer that does not have any Microsoft software in it. It looks as though IBM has listened to them; let us hope that this collaboration works and all four companies can come up with something that consumers have been waiting for.

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Finally a Logitech diNovo Edge Mac Version

There is no denying that one of the sexiest Bluetooth keyboards has to be the Logitech diNovo Edge. This however has only been available for Windows users that is until now. There is now a Mac version.

Now Mac users will be able to get their hands on this keyboard that has a smooth circular-scrolling track pad, with its orange-backlit keys along with its slick dock / charging cradle.

There is nothing new on the Mac version of the Logitech diNovo Edge, although the price is now a little lower, but $159 is still a lot to pay.

I have always had one problem with this keyboard though, the Caps Lock key. Logitech go through all the trouble of designing the diNovo to look as sleek as possible and then they go make a mistake like this.

With standard keyboards you have a gap between the Caps Lock and the A; this stops you from accidental presses. On the Logitech diNovo Edge there is no such gap, so you might put the Caps Lock on by mistake.

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Better Streaming: Sonos Zone Player Z90, ZP120 and BU150:

Sonos has recently announced their new products; Sonos has not announced hardware for a while now so we are taking note on these new ones. They have just announced the Z90, ZP120 and BU150 bundle.

The Z90 will set you back $350, ZP120 $500 and the BU150 bundle will be $1,000, the bundle will include both devices and the same original controller.

The main difference between them is that they now support SonosNet 2.0, which basically uses MIMO to double the wireless distance between nodes. The ZP120 is the amp-enabled aluminum-clad flagship model and is much lighter in weight which now leaves it a lot smaller than its predecessor; it will still be capable of driving 55W of sound.

Sonos are also giving us the 2.6 version of its desktop software which will index much more music than before giving a whopping 65k tracks total, it will also gibe new and existing users $200 in free music from sites like eMusic and Livedownloads.

Check out more images over on Engadget.

Steve Jobs: Mistake launching MobileMe and iPhone 3G together

Following on from Peter’s article this morning I thought I would say a little more. MobileMe from Apple has had it fair share of problems since launching and of course it is bad enough to read many readers criticisms about MobileMe but from Steve Jobs it is surely mind-blowing.

We like his honesty, Ars Technica had an internal Apple email that Steve Jobs sent out to their employees showing details of his displeasure that MobileMe was “not up to Apple’s Standards.” It indeed needs both more time in testing, and a piece-by-piece launch, rather than attempting to launch it as a “monolithic service,”

So ok Steve Jobs has said

“it was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” which is an admission that perhaps Apple had bitten off more than they could chew. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.”

That is a very good point when you think about it, they launched the Apple iPhone 3G, MobileMe then the iPhone update, and then came the App Store plus the recent 2.0.1 firmware update, we believe Apple are doing far too much to quickly and they should concentrate in giving us anything they have working properly, but it seems they want to push out as much as they can even if it works or not.

Do you think Apple is doing too much too soon?

Intel Larrabee Chip Update

We learned yesterday that Intel is to launch something new to the graphics market by 2010. The product is codenamed Larrabee and will be all set to go head to head with some of the other big names in graphics cards.

Not much is known at the moment about Larrabee however: Intel will address that at SIGGRAPH 2008 on 12th August. Intel will give us an update and more details about Larrabee, while there they will describe some of the features and its capabilities.

Many are saying that it is a mistake to say that Larrabee is a GPU, but Intel does claim that it can do it all. We will just have to wait until Intel gives us more information and show off Larrabee.

Intel will find it hard to make a dent in ATI and NVIDIA’s market place, as they own about 98 percent of the graphics market. Intel does have something going for them though, deep pockets and great resources.

What do you think we should call Larrabee, a GPU or a GCPU? That stands for capable processing unit, bit of a mouthful though.

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Lenovo versus Asus Eee PC with IdeaPad S10

Looks like Lenovo would love a piece of the action and this is exactly what they are going to get, this is the Lenovo versus Asus Eee PC with the stunning IdeaPad S10; and the winner will be?

Lenovo has always been a popular brand and they are becoming one of the major laptop players to enter the very fast-growing netbook market, welcome to the launch of the IdeaPad S10 with a starting price of $399.

Asus are the ones that gave us the Eee PC with a 7-inch screen which launched in the UK for around £200 and it proved to be so popular Asus gave us ones with bigger screens like the 10-inch Eee PC 1000.

When it comes to ultra-mobile-PCs the market is getting crowded, well looks like Lenovo wants to be a part of that crowded market. The Lenovo Ideapad S10 will be available in two configurations.

Priced at $399 (£200) or $499 (£250) that is obviously dependant on hard drive capacity and RAM allocation, one has 512MB of memory and an 80GB hard drive and the other has 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive, it comes in either black, white or red.

Both models however are based on Intel’s Atom processor, features LED backlit 10.2in screens, runs on Windows XP and includes 4-in-1 multi-card reader and two USB ports.

Liu Jun, senior vice president, Consumer Business Group, Lenovo said:

“As rapidly as the technology changes, today’s consumers are looking for mobile products that feature the best of basic computing functions in an extremely compact and affordable form,”.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 will be available from October, not too sure on the UK launch dates as of yet, we will keep you posted.

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Steve Jobs admits MobileMe mistake: Apple has to learn

Looks like Steve Jobs has had to eat humble pie as he admits that launching MobileMe early was a mistake. He said that it was not up to Apple standards and that they need to learn from this.

Steve Jobs decided to send an email round to Apple employees, in the email it went on to say that launching MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store was a mistake. Jobs felt that MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.

Apple has also said that the early launch of MobileMe clearly shows that Apple still has a lot to learn about the Internet Service.

Apple did add that they will defiantly learn from this mistake; it is nice to hear that a company as big as Apple can still admit when they have made a mistake. This is something that we do not hear from other companies, such as Microsoft.

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Micron next-generation RealSSD: P200, C200 SSDs much faster

Micron has announced their updated line of SSDs from their RealSSD range. These new storage devices are based on the slower more cheaper MLC NAND process technology.

These new 2.5-inch SSDs go up to 256GB, while the smaller 1.8-inch versions have a capacity of 32GB to 128GB. These new drives come in two variations, enterprise-class RealSSD P200 and the client-focused RealSSD C200.

Both models offer a much faster performance over older models, making application open much quicker.

Companies such as Micron know that the slimmer and faster the hard drive the stronger hold they will have over the market. The launch of the RealSSD P200, C200 SSDs is a step in the right direction for them.

You have to ask yourself just how small these SSDs are able to go; only time will tell on that one.

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Toshiba Portégé M800: Like an Apple MacBook face

The Apple MacBook is one of the stylish laptops around and with many Apple products, they get copied. This is the Toshiba Portégé M800 and while it’s not a clone, you may think the MacBook has had a facelift.

The Toshiba M800 has a 13.3-inch screen and a glossy pearl-white finish - sound familiar?

The Portégé M800 features: an Intel Centrino 2 processor, Intel GMA graphics, a 1.3-megapixel camera, 320GB hard disk, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a DVD SuperMulti drive, Vista Home Premium and the 13.3 inch screen comes with WXGA TruBrite for a crystal clear display.

When you look at these features you would never expect the M800 laptop to cost just £749, but it does. Currently we have no date for launch and only know it’s in the third quarter of 2008.

Would you pay less for a laptop that looks like a MacBook with more features or do you like the real deal?

Visit toshiba.com or view more Toshiba news.

Will Intel Larrabee Details change gaming history?

Not sure if you have heard about Intel releasing details about a brand new chip which is going to be aimed at the gaming market, but we will let you know what we know already.

Apparently the new chip will be aimed at the gaming market which we all know is already dominated by giants NVIDIA Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Santa Clara-based Intel has said that the technology is code-named Larrabee and should be available as soon as 2009 or possibly 2010.

At the moment Intel is now offering quad-core processors but plans on offering eight-core processors based on its Nehalem architecture, Larrabee is expected to have 12 to 48 such calculating engines.

Santa Clara-based NVIDIA are selling chips with 240 processors and Sunnyvale-based AMD has one with 800 processors.

Intel is revealing their information about its brand new chip just ahead of Siggraph 2008 show which will bring an around about 30,000 computer graphics and interactive technology professionals to Los Angeles from six continents.

Will Intel Larrabee Details change gaming history?

Source - Read

Hands-on Review: ASRock P43 and P45 Motherboards

First off, we talk about the ASRock P45R2000-WiFi. In all, it’s a board that while having all the bells and whistles you could want, some of them come at a price. This for instance is the dual memory support. While great for the up-graders in us, the placement of the power connectors suffer; not good at all for over-clockers.

The other major gripe is that if you want to use eSATA, you have to run two cables from the bottom of the board to the top left of the board. This not only gives you two less SATA ports internally, but again, you’re getting more cable clutter. With digital switching readily available, why wasn’t this used? - Or better yet, a two port SATA controller to run the eSATA system independently?

Last on the list of complaints is again the lack of digital switching for the PCI Express slots. If you want to use Crossfire, you have to use an old style paddle card that splits the bandwidth.

The P43R1600Twins-WiFi board, while almost a mirror image of the P45R2000-WiFi, it lacks Crossfire support. So this is eliminated for dual GPU users unless you settle on a HD 3870X2 or HD 4870X2 (when it arrives). Next; again due to the dual memory controllers, you lose out on power connector placements. And the routing of the SATA cable to run the single eSATA port means more cable clutter and the loss of one internal SATA port.

Read the full 17 page review over at TweakTown