HTC S740 – Dual Keypad Smartphone

HTC has come out with a design which others have not dared to try. A dual keypad one with a normal keypad on the top like any ordinary phones and the slider opening up to unveil a full scale QWERTY keypad.
The only awkward thing we notice in the phone is the screen when used with the full-scale keypad. It just doesn’t fit. When using a QWERTY keypad you need a complete display to view emails and other things but due to the 12-keypad on the front this is not possible.
The data connectivity offered by the HTC S740 is faster than 3G coming up to over 7MBPS. The phone weighs around 140 grams and measures 116.3 x 43.4 x 16.3 mm with a 2.4 inch QVGA display. Normally we would expect a VGA display but due to the small scren size we will have to settle for QVGA. Other features like Wi-Fi which has become customary in all new phones along with 256MB of inbuilt memory, 3.5mm audio jack, and Usb 2.0 port.
The S740 comes with a Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system running on Qualcom MSM7225 , 528 Mhz processor. The phone is WCDMA compatible along with HSDPA and GSM capable. There is GPS and AGPS navigation along with a FM radio built-in.
This HTC smartphone is scheduled to be released in mid September 2008 and could retail for $550 without carrier subsidy.

160GB PS3 and PSP coming in October

Details on the new PlayStation 3 have been revealed officially by Sony today. Among the announcements was the crucial release date of 31st October 2008. This launch date is for Europe only, it will hit the streets in the US in November. We could see the new 160GB PS3 coming to India only in 2009.
The new technology in the PS3 includes the wireless keypad which enables you to type on it.
On the other hand the new PlayStationPortable will come with a built-in microphone and an anti-reflective screen.
"Consumers also are utilising PS3 as an entertainment hub for their digital media, placing content such as their entire music collection on the hard drive," said Jack Tretton who is the head of the America Sony gaming division.
The 160 GB PS3 will cost about 450 Euros, and close to $500 in the USA. The PSP will be launched at an introductory price of $200.

Will bookworms get their teeth into the Sony Reader?

Outside the British Library the slim volume in my hands could mark the beginning of the end for slim volumes. It is the Sony Reader, the electronic book that hits the British market this week – and the gadget that, if the publicity is to be believed, could kill off the book as we know it.

All this will be of some interest to the British Library, which houses 30 million books and counting (adding an extra 300,000 every year).

If the Sony Reader represents the future of books – slim and sleek and rather beautiful in a geeky, gadgety kind of way – the British Library represents the past and present of books, old and dusty and possibly somewhat dog-eared. They’re not really going to get on.

“Yeuuuch,” said Valeria Cummings, making the sort of face that suggests she’d just eaten something unpleasant. Books are Miss Cummings’s life – she spent 31 years working at the British Library and is an inveterate book buyer, with 5,000 at her home in North London (proper ones, with spines and covers). It is a fair assumption that she won’t be the first in the queue for the £199 Reader when it comes out on Friday.

“I wouldn’t want to read it in bed, because it isn’t comfortable,” Miss Cummings, 70, said. “And I wouldn’t want to read it in the bath because that would be entirely wrong. If you dropped it in the bath it would do terrible damage.”

To the iPod generation, the Sony Reader probably comes across as a technological triumph.

It is roughly the size of a paperback, has a leather cover (or is it fake – and in the digital age, does anyone care?) and comes with 200 megabytes of memory, enough to store 160 books of average length. That may not make much of a dent in the British Library stacks, but it would probably satisfy even the most voracious bookworm for a year or two.

More capacity can be added by using memory cards, and owners can buy more “e-books” by downloading them from the Waterstone’s website – the joy of one-click purchasing, perhaps, or a woeful substitute for the pleasure of wandering into a secondhand bookshop and finding an unexpected gem.

“I’ve just found three marvellous books on Freemasonry and an interesting one on Jews in London,” said Miss Cummings excitedly to her friend and former colleague, Stephen de Winter. “They’re from a very nice little bookshop in Upper Regent Street.”

Even dusty old diehards find it hard not to be seduced by Sony’s glossy little gadget. “It’s very pretty,” Miss Cummings conceded. “Very nice.”

Sony is pleased with it, too – not least for its display technology, called electronic ink or “e-ink”, which means that it uses power only when the reader turns the page. This means that, in theory, a single battery should have enough power to turn 1,680 pages.

Because the Reader is not backlit all you need to read the screen is ambient light, just as with conventional books, so that, unlike a conventional computer screen, it is possible to read it in bright daylight.

Even readers with poor eyesight are accommodated by a button that enlarges the type size.

Waterstone’s bosses, who have managed to beat Amazon to the British market – their rivals have been selling the Kindle device in the US for several months – are feeling pretty pleased with themselves, too.

Toby Bourne, the company’s category manager, said: “We are very impressed with the Reader and think our customers will be, too. We’re working with publishers to develop the best range of e-books we can – classics and new bestsellers.”

Whether it will persuade people to convert from books is a question that remains unanswered.

“There’s nothing that will ever replace reading a real book in an armchair,” Mr de Winter said. His friend looked at him askance: “I lent you a book on travel in Montenegro once,” she said. “You left it on the back of a lorry.”

Not advisable with a £200 Sony Reader, perhaps.

Pay-as-you-go iPhone

— A pay-as-you-go version of 3G Apple iPhone that frees consumers from long-term contracts with O2 will go on sale on September 16

— It will cost £349.99 for the 8-gigabyte version and £399.99 for 16 gigabytes, but does include unlimited data downloads for the first year

— The pay-as-you-go version is available on any of O2’s pre-paid tariffs, from £10 top-up a month, plus the price of the phone

— O2 has exclusive rights to Apple’s handset but when it was introduced last year, some people balked at the 18-month contracts

— This year Apple allowed O2 to offer the iPhone free on contract, from £45 a month over 18 months for the 8-gigabyte version

Source:  TIMES ONLINE

ASUS Launches World's First OC Version for EN9500GT Series

Taipei, Taiwan, July 29, 2008 – Fulfilling user demands for a graphics card that delivers excellent graphical performance boosts and exceptional cooling, ASUS, worldwide leader in graphic card production, has today introduced the world’s first overclocking version of the latest NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT GPU – the ASUS EN9500GT TOP/DI/512M graphics card. With this superlative variant, users will enjoy 103% performance boosts for gaming experiences. In addition, almost all of the EN9500GT Series models will come with the exclusive Glaciator Fansink to keep GPU temperatures up to 13ºC cooler than reference designed boards.

Enjoy Doubled Graphics Performance
As the world’s first overclocking version for the EN9500GT chipset, the ASUS EN9500GT TOP/DI/512M delivers GPU, shader, and memory clock performance boosts from 550MHz up to 700MHz, from 1375MHz up to 1750MHz, and from 1600MHz up to 2016MHz respectively. This creates elevated performances that raises the EN9500GT TOP’s 3DMark Vantage High Preset score – from 689 to 1401 – to an astonishing 103% improvement in speed when compared to any other reference designed board*. With such unprecedented performance, gamers will feel an adrenaline rush while gaming – only with the ASUS EN9500GT TOP/DI/512M.

13ºC Cooler with Exclusive Glaciator Fansink
The ASUS EN9500 Series utilizes a new generation Glaciator Fansink that is specially designed to effectively dissipate heat away from the graphics card. Much like real-life glacial storms, the Glaciator Fansink quickly transfers heat away from the GPU to lower temperatures by a whopping 13ºC in comparison to reference design boards**. Besides this extreme cooling capacity, the Glaciator Fansink is also ultra quiet with operating levels of only 25dB – almost imperceptible in a quiet room; and caters to users who require maximum cooling without excessive fan rotation noise.

Unprecedented Rock Solid Quality from ASUS
Keeping in line with ASUS’ Rock Solid promise for quality, the EN9500GT Series comes equipped with several solutions to ensure delivery of top quality graphic performances. With the EMI shield, 66% EMI Interference can be reduced for more stable signals***; while DIP Spring Chokes lower temperatures by 5~10°C in comparison to traditional Toroidal Coil Chokes. Additionally, the LF PAK MOS guarantees more efficient power and less heat production; and on top of all this, Japan-made polymer capacitors lower power loss for more stable operations. In this way, users will be able to enjoy extreme performance and have peace of mind over their product lifespan – only with the ASUS EN9500GT Series.

Note:
* Performance Configuration
PCI-Express 16X:
MB: Maximus Extreme Rev: 2.00 BIOS: 0802
CPU: Intel Core™2 Extreme 3.00GHz (QX9650)
Memory: 2048MB (DDR3 APACER 1333 1024M*2)
HDD: WD SATAII 300 1600AAJS
DVD-ROM: LG DVD-GSA-H55N
Overclocking capabilities may vary when using different cards
The 3DMark Vantage score was obtained using High Preset
** Testing Platform
CPU: P4 3.0G
M/B: P5B Deluxe
RAM: 1.0G
O.S.: Windows XP
Test Program: 3D Mark ’03 (repeat GT4/Mother Nature)
***The DDR3 version of EN9500GT models come with the EMI shield

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Nikon Coolpix P6000 Comes in September

Nikon Coolpix P6000 Comes in September — linkThe Nikon Coolpix P6000 is a camera which knows GPS and geotagging besides taking photos. And it will surely shoot some decent photos at 13.5 megapixels wouldn’t you say? Pictures will be embedded with altitude, longitude and latitude which will let you geotag pictures with a third party program. There’s also a LAN port which will let you quickly transfer photos to myPicturetown or your computer. Here are some of Nikon‘s Coolpix P6000 features: 4X wide angle lens 2.7-inch LCD Optical viewfinder Optical image stabilization ISO 64-6400 (Auto ISO up to 1600) Pop-up flash Nikon’s Best Shot Selector SD/SDHC support The camera will cost you just $499 when it arrives, but it’s certainly worth it. [Link to story]