Best New Technology

We don’t expect BenQ to come up with a mobile phone that could match up to industry leaders such as the iphone or blackberry, but if it wants to make its presence felt in the mobile market, it should at least come up with a mobile phone that has something innovative to offer. We’re not saying that BenQ’s newly launched C36 mobile handset has nothing to offer, by all means it has several nifty features. But how we wish it could offer something more.

Anyway, BenQ’s latest mobile handset, the C36 seems to be confused in what it wants to offer to the users. For one, the C36 is touting “a rocking mp3 player” with FM radio that can record on-air programs. It even has dual speakers for letting users share what they are listening to with their friends. Then it brags about a big 2-inch screen which is said to be perfect for viewing photos and video that users can take using the phone’s 1.3-megapixel camera/webcam. It even adds an e-book reader and photo editor to its line up of features as well as a microSD card slot for storage expansion.

If not for the 2.4 hours talk time and 180 hours stand by time listed on its data specifications, we would have mistaken the C36 for a portable media player. Good thing the data sheet also listed the C36 as running on GSM900 and at 1800 MHz. Now those are certainly mobile phone features.

This not-so-spectacular mobile phone from BenQ will be available sometime this month in the Malaysian market before it gets released in other countries in June.

Product [BenQ] Via [Akihabara News]

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Say what you like about Blu-ray emerging as the victor in next-gen high definition wars, but DVD is still here to stay - at least for a few more years to come. With the credit crunch affecting virtually everyone from top to bottom (even more so in the latter category), not everyone has the disposable income to splurge on a spanking new HDTV. This means DVDs could remain in the market for a few more years longer than expected before HD content takes over. Apple is going to seize the opportunity to release films on their iTunes Store on the same day where said films are released on the DVD format in brick-and-mortar stores after coming to an agreement with a number of major motion picture studios including 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment, and First Look Studios.

These new film releases on iTunes will retail for $14.99 (having two people watch it will mean saving money and hassle of going to the cinema, although you might have to wait a little bit longer), while older titles sell for $9.99. Sounds cheaper than DVDs of recently released films on Amazon that vary in price, ranging from $14.99 to $22.99 with the latter normally reflecting the inclusion of extra discs or supplementary material. This would definitely make the iTunes platform more popular than ever (it currently offers 6 million songs, 600 TV shows, and more than 1,500 films, 200 of which are available in a high-definition format) in my book, although I am sure that audio purists will make noise that downloads might not feature a good sound track since downloaded files are normally compressed (with good audio to go first) in order to make the file smaller.

What’s your take on this? Do you prefer to download your movies or stick to physical media? I’m all for the latter.

Source: Information Week

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AT&T will soon enable all iPhone users with AT&T phone accounts in good standing to obtain free access to WiFi hotspots at Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, UPS Stores, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and hopefully McDonald’s as well in the future. This is definitely a good thing, since it will greatly increase the usage of the iphone’s WiFi capability, not to mention helping subscribers make up their minds as to which store they’ll head to whenever they go out. With the 3G iPhone touted to be announced this summer, free WiFi access won’t be too much of a big deal then I suspect. 

After an early announcement and months of waiting, Lenovo’s ultraportable IdeaPad U110 has finally arrived. Not only can consumers order one today, but we actually have one in-house. I’ve only been able to test it out for a few hours now, but here are a few photos to get you excited for the upcoming review.

Just to get the basics listed–the system starts at $1899 and comes in both red and black. It runs a Core 2 Duo L7500 processor and has an 11.1-inch display. It has no internal optical drive, but ours came bundled with a USB one–it’s not red, but it is covered in Lenovo’s soft-touch material (found on the X300’s palm rest). Our model uses a 120GB 1.8-inch disk (no SSD option, yet) and it weighs in at about 2.3 lbs.

That’s it for now, except I can say that the notebook is incredibly cool. After spending lots of time with the X300 (which is about the same price if you account for the X300’s standard 64GB SSD) I didn’t think the U110 would be too exciting, but it’s quite interesting. It’s very different from a ThinkPad, but it still has a lot going for it. Gadget lovers will appreciate all the extra attention Lenovo paid to it (texture LCD cover, touch sensitive back-lit controls, intricate heat vents, etc.) and road warriors will really like the 11.1-inch size. As for the price and practicality, we’ll look into those in the review.

Away with the signature Transformer-toy looking black, grey, and blue Linksys router! Linksys newest line is black, sexy, and very sleek. They’re camaflouged to blend right in among your sexy peripherals and almost disappear on your desk.

The four new units range from $48.99 - $114.99 and each has a set of smart features that promise fast connection and a lot of protection (from nosey neighbors, international spies, and the freeloader who lives next-door).

Really super features include:

Sounds like the Sidekick 3 is getting a Over The Air (OTA) update to upgrade the radio firmware. Doesn’t look like anything significant or major improvements, but all you Sidekick 3 owners may see it popping up on your device soon. I assume it’s rolling out to the pioneer group first, which is basically a small (random) subset of the Sidekick 3 users. As long as that rolls out without significant problems it will start being sent out to everyone.

AVG announced that their Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0 is now available for download. This free edition combines an anti-virus and anti-spyware engine to protect users machines against spyware attacks aside from the usual viruses that threaten your computer on a daily basis. The software also provides real-time searching protection with AVG’s LinkScanner technology which was incorporated into the new AVG Security Toolbar.

An English version of the Anti-virus software will be released first, to be followed by other language versions over the next few months. The software can be freely downloaded and used only on single computers which are running on Windows 2000, XP or Vista.

Although this software may provide guaranteed security for your computers, there are some limitations since it is offered for free. For one, AVG will not offer the telephone or e-mail support that it normally gives to its commercial and business products. It also does not include the proactive safe-surfing and protection against hackers, keyloggers, spam, phising attacks and malicious file downloads coming from instant messaging and file attachments.

So, if the lack of those things bother you, you may opt to buy the AVG Internet Security suite, AVG Anti-Virus or AVG Anti-Virus plus Firewall products instead. Or you may want to try the free Anti-Virus Edition 8 first then just upgrade later on if you think the free edition could not protect your PCs appropriately. Of course being the control freak that I am, I would still suggest to get the commercial product. A few hundred bucks is worth the peace of mind that you would get knowing that your personal files and data are well protected from viruses and malware attacks.

Via [GeekZone]

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by Donald Melanson, posted May 1st 2008 at 12:18PM

We’ve heard researchers tout the many benefits of graphene before, and it doesn’t look like they’re showing any signs of letting up, with a group from the University of Manchester now boasting that they’ve made even more progress with the material that was created only a few years ago. Specifically, they’ve apparently found a way to develop graphene-based films (an alternative to the current indium-based options) more cheaply by simply “dissolving” chunks of graphite into graphene and then “spraying the suspension onto a glass surface.” What’s more, the researchers say that there are only a “few small, incremental steps” remaining before the graphene film is ready for the mass production stage, after which they say we could be seeing graphene-based LCD products within “a few years.” As you may recall, this all follows some similar developments from researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, although their method apparently “involved several extra steps,” and they weren’t making any promises about actual products turning up anytime soon.

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Filed under: Displays, Misc. gadgets

It looks like virus writers are getting a little bit precious about the work they produce. Not content with trying to infect as many machines as they can, one suite of malicious software tools now has a licensing agreement.

The license states that the code within the software cannot be used without the express permission of the author and a payment for its use. It even specifies what is not acceptable including not using it to control other botnets, reselling it as another product or dismantling the code to examine how it works. If anyone does use it without first seeking the all clear; the author threatens to report your version to security vendors along with details of how to neutralize what you have created.

Zulfikar Ramzan, senior principal security researcher with Symantec said:

We know they can’t actually enforce it, and they probably wouldn’t try … What’s funny is they put more effort into their EULA (end-user license agreement) than traditional software companies might.

The license does seem like an empty threat, however, as Symantec report the software has been distributed freely without any security vendors reporting contact with the author.

Read more at the Associated Press article

Matthew’s Opinion

I really don’t see how the writer of this software thought he/she was going to enforce a license. The threat of reporting and helping neutralise malicious software based on their code is fine, but by doing so would it not also jeopardise the usefulness of the original code?

That’s the main problem with malicious software. The creators have to work under the radar so as not to get caught, making it far more difficult to control how their work is shared. Any link back to them would end in the authorities catching up with them eventually.

I’m sure we will see other license agreements start to appear as part of malicious software applications. It will be done more for the value of the threat than anything else, but it seems not many people are going to heed what it says anyway.

Regardless of the legitimacy of the software, who really takes time to read software license agreements?

by Paul Miller, posted May 1st 2008 at 5:01AM

It’s the stuff of sci-fi and really crappy awesome horror films, but now it looks like regrowing damaged skin and limbs isn’t so far-fetched — in fact, it’s already happening. A certain 69 year old Lee Spievak lost half an inch of finger to an aggressive model plane blade, and doctors had little hope for the appendage. Lucky for Lee, his brother Alan works in the field of regenerative medicine, and sent him some powder (which lee calls “pixie dust”) to apply to the finger. Four weeks later Lee had grown back the entire finger, as good as new. The pixie dust is actually modified cells scraped from the lining of a pig’s bladder cleaned into a general-purpose tissue generator — the cells basically tell the body to grow instead of scar. Doctors have high hopes for the cells, for everything from amputees to burn victims to cancer patients. We’re just waiting until they can program these cells to grow that third arm we always wanted.

Update: These claims are being called “junk science” by some folks in the UK. We don’t know who to believe, but the claims above are certainly sensational, and the critics are right about calling this some Nobel Prize-winning research if is indeed legitimate, and therefore it’s certainly odd that this research has bypassed the mainstream of science. Dr. Stephen Badylak, who mailed his brother the cells, says “we’re not smart enough to figure out how to regrow a finger,” and credits this freaky success to nature doing its thing. Science fight!

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets