CES Roundup – Netbooks January 16, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in CES and Macworld, Computers.Tags: asus, ces, Computers, Dell, HP, netbook, technology
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Dell’s Inspiron Mini 10 (Pic from Laptop Mag)
Well our finals are finally over, so it’s time for us to get back to “work”. A lot of things happened at CES, and we hope to give you info on the best netbooks, laptops and desktops (aka. regular computers), cell phones, as well as some general cool things we saw happen.
Let’s start with netbooks, and boy were there A LOT of these. HP, Dell, Asus (the guys who really started the netbook frenzy with their Eee PC line), and a bunch of other companies all came out with some new stuff, so read on for some of the best you should look to see in 2009!
Palm Keynote Wrap-up January 8, 2009
Posted by Nik G in CES and Macworld, Cell Phones.Tags: Cell Phones, EVDO, palm, palm pre, Pre, Sprint, technology, Touchstone, webos
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The all new Palm Pre
Arguably one of the most anticipated products/operating systems coming out of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) this year was Palm’s “Newness.”
Palm had already dropped a few hints about it, saying that we would have a phone with a full touch screen as well as a complete slide out QWERTY keyboard. They (Palm) also told us about a completely new operating system codenamed Nova that would blow the doors off of Apple’s Mobile OS X as well as Google’s Android.
These fueled anticipations coupled with the fact that, even before a failing economy, Palm was quickly dropping out of existence, and this CES was a huge chance for the company to turn things around, potentially for the last time.
And boy did they do a great job showing that they’re back and ready to compete with the iPhone, the G1, the Storm, and pretty much whatever else may come out. They delivered a new phone, the Palm Pre, and an all-new web OS operating system. Read on to learn about both!
Sony’s P Series Announced January 8, 2009
Posted by Zev Rosenbaum in CES and Macworld, Computers.Tags: ces, Computers, netbooks, sony p series, technology
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Remember a few weeks back we wrote about Sony’s new netbook? Well they’ve finally been confirmed– the Sony P Series.
Just in case you missed it, here are some exciting features of the P Series:
- The P Series will be the lightest netbook around, tipping the scales at about 1.4 pounds! Oh, and it fits into a regular mailing envelope– take that MacBook Air!
- The LED backlit screen has a 1,600 x 768 resolution, which is one of the best out there for netooks and just stunning.
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- A battery that boasts 4 hours of work time, which could be 8 if you decide to go with the optional high capacity battery.
- Just in case, it also comes with built-in GPS
- Webcam
- A one touch button for access to Sony’s Xross Media Bar interface for your movies and music and internet browsing, which you can start up without going into full Windows (this is known as a “instant on OS”, as your computer goes on in much quicker time than it would to load the regular OS).
Just a small note, this netbook will not include a trackpad but instead have a small track ball in the middle of the keyboard which can be used like a mouse.
The P Series will ship sometime in early February in the very creative colors of garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and black hues for $900 and up (way too much for a netbook in my mind– heck, you could get 2 fairly decent netbooks for the price of one of these things!), depending on your specs.
So do you think it was worth the wait? Let your voice be heard in the comments.
Info and pix from Engadget.com
First Look: iTunes Store on iPhone over 3G January 7, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in CES and Macworld, First Look/Reviews.Tags: 3g, Apple, att, Cell Phones, iphone 3g, iTunes, itunes store, macworld, Music, technology
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Well, as Chaim mentioned in his MacWorld 09 roundup, Apple today unleashed the restrictions on the iPhone’s wireless iTunes Music Store, letting you finally download songs over 3G! So me being crazy to try this out, took out my iPhone 3G and put this to the test.
I gotta say it works as advertised; I was able to download a 4 minute song in about 1 minute, and my 3G wasn’t even going at its normal speeds! (I think this has something to do with AT&T’s data/internet network going down earlier yesterday morning on the east coast, and it hasn’t fully recovered as of this writing). Anyways, the quality of the songs are the exact same as the ones on your computer’s iTunes, and the mobile iTunes Store even started selling the new DRM free tracks (see Chaim’s post) – which you can also download today.
All the songs you downloaded get transferred to your regular iTunes on the computer the next time you sync and go to File–> Transfer Purchases from “____’s iPhone”, so don’t worry about losing your newly bought tracks
Another pretty important thing worth mentioning here is that the pricing on the iPhone’s iTunes store remains the same. Unlike other carriers’ music downloading services (we’re looking at you Verizon, and AT&T with your non-iPhone phones’ $1.99 pricing per song), you’re not paying more than the standard .99 cents to download a song.
Oh, and for all you original iPhone owners: don’t worry, this works over EDGE as well, but I would recommend sticking to Wi-Fi for your downloads, as you may not have enough time to sit and wait for your song to download (downloading over EDGE is that slow).
iTunes Music Store over 3G on my iPhone 3G. Click on pic for bigger version.
(The song, by the way, is “If Today Was Your Last Day” by Nickelback, and the download is paused so I could take the pic- not because of 3G problems 
)
I still was hoping (wishing really) that Apple did more for the iPhone today (please, all I want is: a landscape keyboard like in Safari for texting, syncing with more than one computers like a regular iPod, a lil video recording, and some picture messaging. Honestly Apple, is that so much to ask?). But all in all, the “new” iTunes Store over 3G is great, and gives the iPhone yet another edge over the competition as both a music player and phone.
What you think of the new iTunes Store- both the iPhone’s new ability to download over 3G and the new DRM free songs? How the iPhone 3G’s wireless iTunes Store working for you? Let us know in the comments.
MacWorld ‘09 Round Up January 7, 2009
Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in CES and Macworld.Tags: Apple, ilife 09, iphone 3g, iTunes, itunes store, iwork 09, macbook pro, macworld
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Well, it’s January, which means Apple’s MacWorld event is here, and today, at their (last) keynote, they announced a couple of Mac related things (sorry – No iPhone Nano today folks ). For all the details on what Apple did come out with, read on!
CES, MacWorld and… Finals January 4, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in Announcements, CES and Macworld.Tags: Apple, Cell Phones, ces, finals, macworld, microsoft, palm, technology
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CES and MacWorld- coming this week!
Yup, it’s that time of year again. The new year and playoff football have begun, and CES and MacWorld — arguably two of the year’s biggest tech shows, in which many of the upcoming years gadgets are announced — kicks off this week.
A lot of good stuff appears on the horizon. Windows 7 looks AMAZING — pretty much all the good Vista was supposed to be — and should receive a lot of attention from Microsoft. All new Palm cell phones should be armed with, by Palm’s hardware standards, a great texting keyboard as well as a new “Nova OS” that should bring the Palm Software up to 2009 and not 2002. We also should be seeing all new cell phones and computers (specifically netbooks), and as far as Apple, you never know with them though we anticipate some nice goodies from their final MacWorld.
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to write about all the details right away; CES and the MacWorld both take place during our finals/midterms week. On the upside though (at least for us ), with finals means that our winter vacation is almost here!
And don’t worry, we will still give you round ups on a lot of the major things coming from these events (yes, there are some things that we find aren’t worth covering — CES is a BIG event with A LOT of stuff!) after the events are over, but don’t worry- we will have some posts daily on some of the really BIG things arriving out of the shows (such as the MacWorld and Palm conferences). We’ll keep the posting style for the round ups looking similar to last year (organized by best of each catergory) and we hope to have everything covered from both CES and MacWorld up by the end of next week– so keep checking back!
Finals June 4, 2008
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in CES and Macworld, Cell Phones, Computers, First Look/Reviews, Misc., Mp3 players and iPods, Tech Terms, Video Games.Tags: 3g, Apple, att, finals, iPhone, school, tests, wwdc
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School is almost over, but of course before we can all go enjoy our stress free summer breaks, we need to take our finals. Ours this year start this Thursday and run till Tuesday the 17, so we just wanted to let you all know that we might not be able to get as much out as possible for we do need to take these tests. Of course one of the big things we are missing in this is the Apple WWDC, and the possible intro of a new iPhone that Chaim wrote about here. So for all of you out there looking to see what new thing Apple has released you may wanna check out Engadget.com on June 9-13 when this all happens. We hope to sometime during those days summarize what went on there during the event. So keep checking back and good luck with all your finals and tests.
Ttyl,
Eli, Chaim, Charlie and Tzvi
Best new Tech from CES: Video Games February 18, 2008
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in CES and Macworld, Video Games.Tags: Alienware, ces, Computer, Dell, desktops, Gateway, laptops, ps3, Video Games, wii, xbox 360
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There were a lot of new video games and related materials announced at CES, here are the interesting ones that we saw.
For the heavy computer gamer: If you are a heavy computer gamer then CES was a good week for you. Three of the top gaming computer makers announced pretty cool new products. We’ll start this list with Alienware who announced a very nice new gaming computer screen. This is not the average screen you have at your home computer, rather its a monster curved gaming screen. This screen has a resolution 2880 x 900 (for those who don’t know what that means, let’s just say it will play you video games in very nice quality), and is over 3 feet wide. It is not out yet but is listed for the second half of this year for price unknown as of now (start saving now- this will most likely cost a lot).
Alienware curved gaming screen
