RIM have taken their Curve 8300 smartphone added in GPS and made the 8310. Adding in the server-based Vodafone Navigator software and you will never be lost again whilst watching vids, listening to tunes or checking your email on your Blackberry. Here are some of the features of the Curve 8310

• Memory: 64 MB internal flash memory; Expandable memory slot for microSD cards
• Display: 320 X 240 pixels, supports more than 65,000 colors
• Supported networks: Quadband GSM (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz)
• Data transmission: GPRS, EDGE
• Interfaces: Bluetooth 2.0, mini-USB
• GPS: Integrated GPS module
• Multimedia: 2 megapixel camera with flash and 5X digital zoom
• Push-based email

Up to 4GB of storage is available and although this is not a massive amount it should keep most users happy. Just to tempt you even more Vodafone Germany are giving away a 1GB microSD card containing the top 100 chart songs in mp3 format with each Curve 8310.

However the thing that struck me about this little sucker was the price tag of a snip under 100 euros (US$140) which doesn’t seem outrageous for a toy with all these bells and whistles. Perhaps I’m missing something here but it sounds like a bargain to me!

Looks like Bill Gates has jumped aboard the Google-bashing train once more. In an interview with the NY Times Gates stated that Microsoft were not concerned by any attempt by Google to penetrate the mobile phone software market. Microsoft currently has 10% of the market and Google have announced to be preparing to enter this arena. However rather than just say that he wasn’t worried, Gates launched a wee pre-emptive strike about the guys at the plex

They’ve introduced about 30 different products; they have one profit-making product. So you’re now making a prediction without ever seeing the software that they’re going to have the world’s best phone and it’s going to be free?”

I’m not sure to which products Bill is referring but even if they have 30 products which suck (financially speaking of course) obviously the big one is providing them with a healthy enough income to report a billion dollar profit in the first quarter this year. I just think this is Bill trying to be bullish about Google so that the MS faithful doesn’t lose, err, faith.

If Google do indeed enter into the mobile software market then I’m sure, even if their products are unprofitable, those products will be of Google’s usual quality and hopefully pricing structure! ;)

Source: Reuters

Last Thursday Microsoft announced a price cut to their HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. The player was cut by US$20 to US$179 and when combined with the price of an Xbox 360, the total cost still undercuts the Sony PS3 which boasts an integrated Blu-ray player. Thus the Xbox plus HD-DVD player add-on is currently the cheapest way to watch hi-def movies.

The price cut on the player takes effect from 1 August and included in the promo are five free HD-DVD movie titles from a selection of 15. Don’t get too excited as I’m not expecting these 15 titles to be blockbusters!

Microsoft also announced that the ‘Boys Own’ movie ‘300′ will be available at the Xbox Live Marketplace on 14 August as well as on HD-DVD. Ladies, sounds like a great combo for a birthday pressie for that special boy guy in your life, Xbox, HD-DVD player and the movie ‘300′. ;)

Source: Boy Genius

If I’m allowed to use military analogies in the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD war then inteset must be considered a ‘neutral’ participant. Their new Home Theatre Media Server releases, the Maximus and Denzel, both sport a Blu-ray/HD DVD combo drive. Good news for the consumer. The down side is that these ‘neutral’ puppies will probably set you back a pretty penny judging by the spec for the Maximus. Here’s a selection of goodies on offer in the Maximus

2 HDTV, 2 SDTV and FM tuners
7.1 Surround Sound, Dolby DigitalEX, DTS-ES, THX Audio
nVidia GeForce 8600GTS 256-bit GDDR3 memory
3 TB of storage space
Windows XP MCE 2005 Edition

Although these offerings from Inteset are aimed at the top end of the market, hopefully the combo drive option will be available in lower end HTPCs and perhaps we can declare that the ‘war’ is over. But that wouldn’t make for fun blogging, now would it? ;)

Source: electronista

And the battle rages on …

No doubt in a build up to a Christmas format war unlike any other we have ever seen, Sony have announced an ‘exclusive’ deal with Target and I quote …

Beginning this fall and continuing at least through the holiday season, Target will feature Sony® Blu-ray Disc® players as the exclusive product in the emerging category of high-definition home video systems, as well as an expanded assortment of Blu-ray Disc movies.

Sounds like a good win for Sony? Well you can still purchase a Toshiba HD DVD player at Target through their website and the exclusivity only applies to hi-def players in the retail stores, so presumably you can still get the latest movies on HD DVD in store. The main point from the announcement (full version) is that Sony Blu-ray players will be featured on aisle-end displays. Sony would have played a pretty penny for this but still a good move in the build up to the spending holiday season ahead.

So, to keep the military metaphors flowing, it’s more of an outflanking manoeuvre than a battle won.

Source: Reuters

I haven’t banged on about a mobile phone in quite awhile, mainly due to the lack of new releases post-iPhone. So I decided to have a dig around and see what I could find out about an oldy, but goody, the Sony Ericsson K750i. Although it’s been out for a couple of years now this little beauty is still as popular as ever and is currently retailing at around the US$180 mark.

The unit boasts a 176×220 res screen with 34 MB of memory plus a 64 MB card slot so room for a few tunes to blast out over the speakerphone. It’s GSM network enabled, so no EDGE or 3G network connectivity and consequently your web browsing experience will be a bit limited to say the least. There’s a 2 mega-pixel camera with video capabilities as well.

Here’s a full video review from the guys at MobileSift

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An article has appeared on the American Physical Society website concerning the spin precession of magnetic material. When a hard drive is written to the data is stored as a series of zeroes and ones, which is indicated by the polarity of an area of the drive’s magnetic surface, i.e. the area is either postively or negatively charged. To change the polarity and thus the data bit then the spin direction of the atoms in the magnetic area is changed. It was believed that this change in direction was straight-forward and almost instantaneous during a write process.

However a bofffin at the University of California, Joshua Deutsch, along with Andreas Berger of Hitachi have published the article on the APS website that suggests that the change in rotational direction of the atoms is not as straightforward as first believed. The guys have found that the atoms undergo spin precession for a few nanoseconds as they change direction. In densely packed magnetic surfaces this could cause an ‘avanlache’ effect where neighbouring atoms change their rotational direction as well. Thus the neighbouring data bits becomes corrupted as the magnetic areas around have their polarity changed due to this spin precession.

Fortunately in current hard drives a damping effect occurs which generally prevents this corruption from occurring. However as drive spin speeds increase (another factor in causing atom spin precession) and the magnetic areas become smaller to increase drive capacity the ‘avalanche’ effect will become more of a problem. It’s not all doom and gloom for drive manufacturers as Deutsch and Berger suggest that improving the magnetic surface of drives would increase the damping effect and therefore offset the negative influences.

On that note, Western Digtal have just announced the latest addition to their MyBook hard drive range, a ‘huge’ 2TB external storage unit to be priced at around US$750.

Source: ComputerWorld