(1 votes, average: 7 out of 10)
Loading ...Video: Inside Dell’s all-day Latitude laptop
Dell announced the new Latitude notebook lineup – including a breakthrough 19-hour extended battery life and the upcoming “always on, instant access” Latitude On technology – via Webcast on August 12.
Watch Computer World Canada’s video coverage of the media briefing held at Canoe Restaurant in Toronto, ON…
(3 votes, average: 5.33 out of 10) Loading ...Telus switching to GSM?
The rumour surfacing now is that Telus wants to switch to a GSM network from its current CDMA net. There’s good reason to think about it; the rest of the world is predominantly GSM. Telstra in Australia is shutting down its CDMA network to move to the GSM standard in April. SIM cards are handy. Your phone will work overseas (more revenue). Overseas phones will work here (more revenue).
(I’ve never understood why, when most of the rest of the world went GSM, two of the three carriers in Canada elected to go CDMA. We’re just contrarians, I guess.) Read the rest of this entry »
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(Rate This Article) Loading ...Intel leaves One Laptop behind
It is with tear welling in eye that I note Intel has severed ties with One Laptop Per Child, a project to deliver cheap laptops to children in developing countries, a development that really should shock no one.
With both hulla and ballou last July, the chipmaker and OLPC announced Intel was joining the board of the project and would work with OLPC to develop cheap laptop technology. Never mind that OLPC was already pushing the XO, an AMD-based laptop, nor that Intel was offering a competing computer, though at twice the price, in the Classmate.
It’s ended in tears and recriminations, with Intel citing “irreconcilable differences” and OLPC chair Nicholas Negroponte rumbling that Intel never put anything into the relationship. They just couldn’t stay together, even for the children’s sake (cue sappy music). Read the rest of this entry »
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(Rate This Article) Loading ...Update: PIN your data key
A couple days back, I wrote about a USB data key from Corsair that’s secured by a personal identification number (PIN). I promised then to turn it over to our IT squad to see if they could extract data from the key without using the pin.
Well, they’ve had at ‘er for three days now, disassembling it, poking and probing, and it seems to be watertight (though not literally, like the Survivor USB key). It seems the key draws power from a battery within, not from the USB port on a computer, and it’s soldered in. They’ve concluded they can’t get at it without destroying the key. So chalk one up for Corsair.
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(Rate This Article) Loading ...PIN your data key
Every once in a while here at Cool Tools Central, an oddly shaped package arrives, completely unsolicited. After listening very carefully to ensure it isn’t ticking, we open it it. It’s like Christmas every day, but without the socks.
Our latest little surprise came from the people at Corsair, who take USB memory keys and do things to the design that make you go, “I wish I’d thought of that.” A few weeks back, Corsair sent us the Survivor, a USB key housed in an aircraft-grade aluminium tube that gave us hours of entertainment trying to disprove its claims of indestructability.
The new package contained the Flash Padlock, an ingenious idea that protects your data with a PIN number. And if it’s half as secure as the FedEx package it came in, which took two strong men, a pair of scissors and about 15 minutes to open, then it’s, well, pretty secure.
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...Vanity, thy name is LG Shine
So, off to trendy downtown T.O. hotspot Lobby (corporate slogan: “No, you can’t come in dressed like that”) for the announcement of the new lineup of cell phones from Rogers for the holiday season. It’s a rough life, this being forced to eat Kobe beef sliders and wash ‘em down with raspberry mojitos, but someone’s gotta do it. Read the rest of this entry »
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(1 votes, average: 10 out of 10) Loading ...iPhone impersonators and the landscape of Web design
Telus and HTC launched the HTC Touch smart phone at a downtown Telus retailer this morning. One’s coming in for a full review shortly, but I had some hands-on time with it at the launch, and I must say … well, it’s a smart phone.
It’s not explicitly positioned as an iPhone competitor, but it’s implicit. David Neale, chatting after the launch, referred to the iPhone as “opening the floodgates” for similar devices. Read the rest of this entry »
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(1 votes, average: 8 out of 10) Loading ...A handset with a stunning feature
I was getting a little jaded with the mobile device scene this week. Nothing new, nothing original, nothing revolutionary. (It says something about the industry when you expect a revolution every week.) Nokia sent along the new 6070 handset, and though I haven’t given it thorough investigation — that’ll have to wait for next week — it just seems like a well-spec’d tri-band handset.
Yawn. We’ve come to expect new features every iteration of the mobi, and after messaging, integrating video cams, calendaring, Web browsing, e-mail, well, what’s left to jam into your cell phone?
Then, devoted technophile Kathleen Sibley brought my attention to this: The Stunster. Read the rest of this entry »
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(8 votes, average: 9.13 out of 10) Loading ...ZTE D90: Heavy texting
We have the new ZTE D90 mobile phone in the office for a test drive, courtesy of Telus and ZTE. I’ve mentioned in this space that at its launch, it gave the impression of a heavy texter’s dream. So how’s the performance?
To review: The D90 has a Fastap keypads, meaning alpha characters are squeezed in between the number keys. You don’t have to press number keys multiple times to change letters, which is a pain in the back of the front in text-centric situations like entering e-mail addies and contact information and, well, text messaging. I’ve hated previous iterations for their clutter, but the D90 is a different animal. Read the rest of this entry »
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(3 votes, average: 6.33 out of 10) Loading ...Paying the iBill
Schadenfreude isn’t really my bag, but after suffering through roughly a kajillion iPhone news releases, articles and analyses, I got a chuckle out of what appears to be the first pothole on the iPhone highway, even though it’s service provider AT&T Wireless with egg on face.
Apparently, the bills are huge. Not expensive. Just really, really long. New York Times blogger David Pogue’s bill came with pages and pages documenting Every. Single. Data. Transaction, almost on a kilobyte-by-kilobyte basis.
The opus sent to Pogue, however, was apparently not as magnum as that sent to graphic designer and blogger Justine Ezarik. Watch her open her iBill — all 300 pages – on YouTube.
E-billing, anyone?
On a completely unrelated note, here’s an experimental use of the Windows shutdown tone that bears looking into.
