Todays & Tomorrows Technology

Acer are reportedly considering phasing out their 11.6-inch Aspire One netbook, in favor of a new model in their Timeline range with the same screen size. The news, which comes from industry sources in Taiwan, suggests that the new 11.6-inch Acer Timeline will launch in June, with the netbook either discontinued or discounted to differentiate between the two models.

Lower than expected sales of the 11.6-inch Acer Aspire One have led the company to reduce orders with OEM manufacturer Quanta. One possible reason for the netbook’s poor result is the choice of Intel’s Atom Z520 processor, a low-power chip which has proved unable to keep up with the 720p-capable display credentials of the AO751.

Quanta are tipped as the manufacturer of the new 11.6-inch Timeline, though no specifications have been revealed for the ultraportable. The existing Timeline range begins at $598, and consists of 13.3-inch, 14-inch and 15.6-inch models.

HP have announced their latest mainstream notebook, the HP dv6z Artist Edition, and as you can see it’s not exactly adopted a retiring color scheme. As the name might suggest, HP pack the dv6z with media creation software, including Magix Music Maker 14, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, Painter Sketch Pad and VideoStudio X2, all running on one of a choice of AMD Turion processors.

The display is either 15.6 or 16-inches, depending on model, and there are ATI discrete graphics cards to be had too. The optical drive is a DVD burner as standard, but a Blu-ray drive is optional. Standard battery is a 12-cell pack, though HP haven’t revealed what sort of runtime can be expected.

Pricing for the HP dv6z Artist Edition starts at $949.99 when it goes on sale on Wednesday June 10th. That gets you the notebook plus a custom-sleeve, mouse and universal notebook stand. Alternatively, there’s a slightly more sober version, the HP dv6t, which drops the graphics and art software bundle plus shaves the price down to $649.

Further details regarding the Samsung GT-I8000 have emerged, and it seems that you’re looking at the Samsung Omnia II (or Omnia2; the nomenclature isn’t decided yet). Packing a 3.7-inch WVGA 800 x 480 touchscreen - that’s tipped to use an AMOLED panel - the Omnia II has an 8.1-megapixel camera with dual LED flash and VGA video recording at 30fps.

Connectivity is tipped to include 3G UMTS, WiFi, Bluetooth and miniUSB, while there’s also GPS and a microSD card slot. The UI is prompting discussion: some are saying that it’s unchanged over previous iterations of Samsung’s Windows Mobile TouchWiz overlay, while a video demo said to be of the Omnia II shows a new, cubic arrangement.

Other hardware specs include an unspecified Qualcomm processor and 150MB of internal memory. There’s also some confusion over the display specifications, as at least one source tips the AMOLED panel to support up to 16.7m colors while at present Windows Mobile will only support 65,000 colors.

Nonetheless, this looks to be an interesting follow-up to the original Windows Mobile Omnia i900. There’s talk of it being announced at a Samsung event on June 15th.

It’s had nowhere near the coverage of their S5 MID, but the Viliv X70 looks set to gain a whole lot more attention now that preorder pricing has started to emerge. Importer Dynamism is listing the X70 for $599; whether or not you think that’s good value for a 7-inch touchscreen UMPC with 6 days standby, it’s certainly well priced against the S5.

Pricing for the Viliv S5 - which has a smaller, 4.8-inch touchscreen - is also around $599. Your money gets you an X70 with an Intel Atom Z515 processor (running at 1.2GHz; the Atom Z520 1.3GHz CPU is an option) plus a 16GB SSD (compared to the S5’s 60GB HDD; the X70 can also get a 32GB SSD) and 1GB of RAM. Options include integrated HSPA and cables to hook the X70 up to a computer display or a TV via component.

While you lose out on pocketability with the X70, you gain on usable screen space. The resolution of both Viliv devices is the same - 1024 x 600 - but an extra couple of inches should make for less squinting. No word on pricing for the 32GB SSD or 32GB SSD/3G models, nor when any of them will begin shipping.

If you’ve been thinking about an iPhone 3G and can’t see yourself tempted by the specifications of the freshly-announced iPhone 3G S, now is the time to buy. Apple intend to keep the 8GB iPhone 3G on sale alongside the iPhone 3G S, so as to “extend their audience”, and to do that they’ve cut its price from $199 to $99. Effective today, you can pick up a brand new iPhone 3G 8GB for under a ton; interestingly, the AT&T press release says that “options are available to purchase [the iPhone 3G 8GB, iPhone 3G S 16GB and 3G S 32GB] without a 2-year contract”, though doesn’t go into details.

If you’d rather the larger-capacity 16GB iPhone 3G, then you’ve still got a chance to pick one up with a sizable 50-percent discount. AT&T are selling the handset for $149 (with a new two-year contract), though because it’s “end of life” and Apple do not intend to keep it on sale alongside the 3G S, you’ll need to act pretty fast before stocks run out.

All well and good, but if you’re currently in the grip of an AT&T contract - not just for the iPhone 3G, but for any device - then the prices for the Apple smartphones aren’t quite so appealing. The 8GB iPhone 3G is $299 for those still mid-contract, while the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3G S are $399 and $499 respectively.

Of all the software brought out to demonstrate the developing capabilities of Apple iPhone OS 3.0, the most interesting has to be TomTom’s turn-by-turn navigation app. Both a software app and an accompanying car kit were announced, complete with Points Of Interest (POIs) and both 2D and 3D mapping.

There’s also portrait and landscape modes, with the mapping automatically rotating to suite. TomTom have given the app a night mode, which changes the colors to low-glare alternatives, and the car kit will support the iPhone in both orientations.

The kit also supplies power to the iPhone, and can be used to “enhance GPS data” presumably with some sort of integrated GPS antenna of its own. Meanwhile it also has a speaker and microphone for hands-free calls. We don’t yet know how much software or car kit will cost, though something tells us it won’t be all that cheap.

If the prospect of an iPhone 3G S doesn’t appeal, and you’re quite happy with your iPhone 3G or iPod touch, you’ll be pleased to hear that as of June 17th iPhone OS 3.0 will be available. Apple demonstrated the new software update today at their WWDC 2009 keynote, and while much of it was a rework of the original OS 3.0 launch, there were a couple of surprises (plus upgrade costs). Headline features include tethering, “Find My iPhone” and speedier Mobile Safari.
Tethering means that iPhone owners will be able to connect their handset up to their PC or Mac and use its 3G connection to get online. Both Bluetooth and USB hook-ups will be supported, and no specific software is needed. According to Apple, 22 carriers have announced support for tethering as of OS 3.0’s June 17th release, though frustratingly AT&T does not appear to be one of them.

Find My iPhone is a location service available to MobileMe subscribers, and allows a lost or misplaced iPhone to be tracked by GPS. It can then be instructed to make a noise - even when set to silent - or display an on-screen message; if properly lost, not just misplaced, the iPhone can be remotely wiped.

As for Safari, that gets 3x faster JavaScript and the same HTTP audio and video streaming as in QuickTime X. Autofill uses contacts information and stored passwords to fill in forms, and there’s also HTML 5 support including video and audio tags.

Apple also announced that iPhone users will be able to rent and purchase movies on their handset, together with audiobooks, and download them across the 3G network. iPhone OS 3.0 will be a free upgrade to original and 3G iPhone owners, while iPod touch owners will be charged $9.95 for the upgrade.

JVC has revealed their UX-LP5 today and it’s a little bit different. This sound system is a Hi-Fi and features an iPod dock that can flip down whenever you want to put it to good use.

The device has a video output as well, so you can watch videos stored on your iPod for viewing on a nearby connected television. Also including is an audio input on the front of the device for easy connectivity.

Additional features include a total power output of 70 watts, an AM/FM tuner, a CD player, a USB port, MP3 and WMA compatibility and more. So, if you’ve always wanted a Hi-Fi that could play your MP3s, you’re now in luck. You can get the JVC UX-LP5 now for $149.95.

We’ve known it was coming for some time now, but Apple have officially announced Mac OS X 10.7 “Snow Leopard” at their WWDC 2009 keynote today. Set to be priced as a $29 upgrade for existing Leopard users, Snow Leopard - which will only run on Intel-based Macs - brings with it faster performance, Microsoft Exchange 2007 support, QuickTime X and OpenCL support.

While the GUI of the Apple Finder looks the same, underneath it’s had a full rewrite in Cocoa; that makes it faster - Apple say 90-percent of the OS has been refined - with icon previews faster, animations improved and trash emptying quicker, among other things. Expose has been integrated into the Dock; you can show the active windows of any one app by clicking and holding its icon in the Dock.

Thumbnails have been improved, with browsable PDFs, playable videos and deeper Stacks which can handle content. PDFs also have better text selection, while QuickTime X supports color sync, hardware acceleration, HTTP streaming and compatibility with any server based on the HTTP standard. The UI of QuickTime has had a makeover too, with controls and borders fading away to leave only the video content itself. Simple video edits can be made directly in the QuickTime window, by dragging the ends of the clip region, then exported to MobileMe and shared.

Exchange support brings Mail, iCal and Address Book up to speed with Exchange 2007 servers, autodiscovering the server via just your email and password and then synchronizing. Spotlight searches through Exchange messages, and all the existing folders, to-do and note items are brought over too. Invitations and room availability is also supported, and you can schedule a meeting by dropping a contact into iCal.

Snow Leopard also brings support for multi-core systems and true 64-bit, with a new “Grand Central Dispatch” for dealing with multi-threading and new system-wide APIs and an object-oriented framework. Apple demonstrated this with Mail, which under Snow Leopard uses fewer threads when idle and improves responsiveness. All of Apple’s core apps are now fully 64-bit. Graphics, too, have been addressed, with OpenCL: that delivers hardware abstraction, c-based language, automatic optimization and numerical accuracy, and is an open standard that all the major GPU companies have signed up to.

Pioneer has released three brand new A/V systems for home theater buffs that sport support for the iPod and iPhone. The new models are the VSX-819AH, the VSX-919AH and the VSX-1019AH, all of which actually improve your digital audio files’ sound quality.

All three feature Advanced Sound Retriever tech, which allows for dynamic sound. Plus, Auto Level Control makes sure all the tracks are played at the same level. The interface shows full color graphics including album art.

It also uses Auto Music-Mute if your iPhone is plugged in and you receive a call. You can get all three models now for prices ranging from $299 to $499, which considering the feature set, isn’t too bad.

It wasn’t all hardware at Apple’s WWDC 2009 event: Safari 4, the company’s browser, finally came out of beta, and Phil Schiller saved some fighting talk for all web rivals. According to Apple, Safari 4 is 7.8x faster than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, and passes all 100 of the Acid 3 tests while IE8 languishes behind at 21/100.

Safari 4 is also more crash-resistant, thanks to a new way of handling plugins. According to Apple, plugins are the number one cause of browser crashes; by splitting them off as a separate process, should the plugins fail the browser itself will continue to run.

Other changes include Cover Flow review of the browser history and full Spotlight search. Safari 4 is available to download now, for Leopard, Tiger and Windows systems.

NEC has made two new LCD displays available in the U.S. today to match the recent release of similar models in Japan. The LCD2490WUXi2 and the LCD2490W2 both sport 24-inch screens and feature IPS panels.
These displays have a much better image quality than TV or PVA screens and allows them to show 96.7% of the sRGB color space. Professional graphics editors could definitely make use of these.

Other features include auto-brightness, 12-bit color lookup tables, ambient light sensors a 320cd/m2 brightness, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, VGA and DVI inputs and more. a SpectraView color calibrator comes with the LCD2490W2 display as well. You can get both models by the end of the month for $1,099 and $1,299, respectively.

Apple has updated its MacBook Pro range, announcing a new 15-inch MBP with a built-in battery that is apparently good for up to 7hrs of runtime. It also drops the ExpressCard slot of the previous model and replaces it with a far more user-friendly SD card slot. Meanwhile the 17-inch MacBook Pro gets a price cut to $2,499, while the 13-inch MacBook now graduates to the Pro line with integrated 7hr battery among other things. Full details after the cut, plus a big price-cut for the MacBook Air.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,699 with a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, a 250GB hard-drive, SD card slot and 7hr non-user-accessible battery. Then there’s a $1,999 model with 2.66Ghz processor, combination GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT graphics, and a 320GB hard-drive. Finally, the $2,299 model boosts that to a 2.8GHz processor and 500GB hard-drive. The battery is apparently good for around 1,000 recharge cycles. All three notebooks are shipping today.
As for the unibody 13-inch MacBook Pro, that comes in two standard configurations. $1,199 gets you the 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, a 160GB hard-drive and SD card slot (there’s no ExpressCard slot). $1,499 steps that up to a 2.53GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and a 250GB hard-drive. Options include up to 8GB of RAM and up to 500GB hard-drive; standard are a backlit keyboard and FireWire 800 port. It’ll be available today.
Finally, the MacBook Air gets a new price point with significant discounts. $1,499 gets the 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics and a 120GB hard-drive, while $1,799 gets the 2.13GHz processor and the 128GB SSD. The SSD model is, in fact, $700 cheaper than it was previously.

If having your run of the mill Bluetooth headset is not enough for you, then you might be interested in the BT2080 from Jabra, which actually features a built-in LED lights for easy battery life and pairing detection.

The whole idea of a Bluetooth headset is to make your life easier by keeping your hands-free to do other things while taking those all-important phone calls. But this latest Jabra headset strives to make your day even less complicated with the addition of an on/off switch that’s separate from the volume and answer controls.

The LED lights positioned on the side of the device also make it easy to see how much battery life is left and if it’s properly paired with your phone. It has an expected battery life of 6-hours for talk time. You can get the Jabra BT2080 in southeast Asia soon and in the U.S. shortly thereafter for $39.

VIZIO announced today that they will be releasing a whole slew of new HDTVs this year as a part of their XVT- and M-series lines. The XVT-series can expect the addition of six new models while the M-series will get several more.
The XVT-series is set to get the 32-inch SV320XVT and the 37-inch SV370XVT. Both models are 1080p and feature a 120Hz refresh rate. Larger sized models will be available as well including the 42-inch SV421XVT and the 47-inch SV471XVT. Both of these are 1080p as well and include a 240Hz refresh rate plus USB video inputs and Smooth Motion technology. Two 55-inch models will also be available including the VF550XVT, which will have 1080p with 120Hz refresh and the VF551XVT, which will have 1080p with 250Hz refresh.

New M-series models are also set to be released in three sizes that range from 22- to 55-inches. All will be 1080p with a dynamic contrast ratio of up to 50,000:1. VT models will look like wooden picture frames and the VL has the JAVA color VIZIO has made famous. You can expect the SV421XVT and SV471XVT models in July for $1,200 and $1,500 and the SV320XVT and SV370XVT in September for $750 and $850. The M-series might be released later this month or in early july for $350 up to $1,800.

Apple have announced the iPhone 3G S, a super-fast version of the iPhone 3G where the “S” stands for “Speed”. Packed into the same casing as the existing 3G model, the 3G S has a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus, auto white-balance and the ability to record VGA resolution video at 30fps. It also supports 7.2Mbps HSDPA, network depending, and has a faster processor that, Apple say, makes everything on-average twice as fast.



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Specifically, messaging is 2.1x faster, games are around 2.4x faster, Excel is 3.6x faster, Javascript is 3x faster and the NY Times loads 2.9x faster. Battery life is rated at 5hrs 3G talktime, 9hrs WiFi internet browsing, 10hrs video playback, 30hrs audio playback, or 12hrs 2G talktime.

Videos are saved in with photos in the Pictures app, and can be played, edited and sent by email or MMS. There’s also a built-in digital compass and Nike+ support, while Apple have also boosted hands-free usability by introducing a voice control mode. Holding down the home button calls up a new voice control menu, which allows voice dialing together with control of iTunes. You can instruct the iPhone 3G S to play certain tracks, play “more tracks like this” and ask for a verbal confirmation of what music is currently playing.

The iPhone 3G S will go on sale alongside the iPhone 3G 8GB, which has a price cut - effective today - to $99 in the US on AT&T. The iPhone 3G S arrives in US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and UK on June 19th; in the US, it’ll be priced at $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model.

Olympus’ E-P1 Micro Four Thirds camera has shown up in the wild, complete with a a 17mm f2.8 prime lens. Details regarding the camera are scant - in fact these images are pretty much all we have to go on - but it’s suggested that Olympus will release the E-P1 in July this year.

The Micro Four Thirds system was created by Olympus and Panasonic, as a way to fit DSLR sensors into a smaller chassis. Not all the cameras are going to be as retro as the E-P1, though; back at PMA we spent some time with the thoroughly modern Panasonic DMC-GH1.

Seeing as it’s tricky to envisage exactly how large or how small the E-P1 is from a single photo, jdhodges.com put together a comparison shot. Click on the image below for a full-size version.

Over 50,000 people may have taken home a box just like this at some time over the weekend, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Paul Cooster. While Palm and Sprint are yet to comment regarding first-weekend Pre sales, analysts have tentatively pegged the figures as ranging from 35,000 to 60,000, with shortages of the smartphone having a significant impact on numbers.

It feels like we’ve been waiting a long time for the HTC Touch Pro2 to arrive, though really it was only announced back in February at Mobile World Congress. The flagship smartphone - which packs a 3.6-inch WVGA resistive touchscreen, 3G HSPA, WiFi b/g and a full QWERTY keyboard - is the second half of HTC’s two-part Touch refresh, along with the Diamond2, and you can see our video unboxing after the cut.

First impressions of the HTC Touch Pro2 are good; it’s a solid, weighty phone (the full specifications say 178.5g) and not exactly small at 116 x 59.2 x 16.65mm, but it feels well made and sturdy. The metal screen bezel is a nice design element, though we’re glad to see the rear panel is matte rather than the fingerprint-grabbing gloss of the Diamond2.

Software is the usual Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro - with a 6.5 upgrade catered for with the requisite buttons - together with HTC’s TouchFLO 3D UI. That’s had a neat upgrade to deal with the Pro2’s horizontal orientation when the keyboard is out, and of course includes the People-Centric tweaks we appreciated on the Diamond2. The keyboard itself is tactile and has an impressive amount of button-travel considering the size; we’ll be battering away at it some more before giving our final opinion. Until then, enjoy the unboxing video and short demo below!

Storage may not be as glossy or as exciting as a new netbook, MID or Smartbook, and as such we didn’t see as much hard-drive coverage from Computex as we did mobile devices; still, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some deuced impressive hardware lurking at the show. OCZ brought along their Colossus, a 3.5-inch SSD-based drive which boasts 1TB of capacity and sustained read/write speeds of 265MB/s.

It does that by using a RAID-0 setup inside, managed by a JMicron RAID controller and a pair of Indilinx controllers which each control the flash memory. Unlike 2.5-inch drives, the Colossus isn’t going to be much use for notebooks and small-form-factor PCs, but for performance computers it offers the speed of a solid-state drive with the capacity you’d typically rely on a traditional platter-based HDD for.

As ever, there’s a catch, and that’s unsurprisingly the price tag. We’re not entirely sure when the OCZ Colossus 1TB SSD will reach the market, but the company expect it to be priced between $2,500 and $3,000. A cheaper (relatively speaking) 500GB version will also be offered.

Acer subsidiary Gateway have been showing off their all-in-one touchscreen PC, and with a multitouch-capable 23-inch Full HD display it’s certainly no slouch. Unlike touchscreen nettops, the Gateway ZX6800 packs an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and DDR3 memory, and runs Windows 7.
Storage is courtesy of a 3.5-inch SATA-II hard-drive, with capacities varying according to model, plus there’s a discrete graphics card (unspecified), hybrid TV tuner and integrated speakers. Connectivity includes WiFi a/b/g/n, gigabit ethernet and what looks to be an ExpressCard slot.

No word on where we’ll be seeing the Gateway ZX6800 released, though it’s likely to be a European product. Pricing, too, is unconfirmed, but we wouldn’t expect it to come cheaply.

Panasonic have announced US pricing and availability for their HDC-SD10 and HDC-TM10 Full HD camcorders, which we first caught sight of last month. The two models are each described as “the world’s lightest HD camcorders”, as long as you’re only looking at AVCHD models anyway, and record in 1080p to SD/SDHC cards and, in the case of the TM10, an internal 8GB of flash storage.
In addition to HD there’s also an optical image stabilizer, 16x optical zoom and Face Detection. Both also have Intelligent Scene Selection and Pre-Rec, and are controlled by their flip-out touchscreen displays. There’s also AF/AE Tracking, which can ensure a moving subject is kept in focus.

Up to 32GB SDHC cards are supported, which in the case of the TM10 gives a total of 40GB capacity. The Panasonic HDC-SD10 will be priced at $549.95 while the HDC-TM10 will be priced at $599.95. Both will arrive in the US in September.

After rumors back in April that HP were planning to launch a 3D laptop courtesy of NVIDIA’s GeForce 3D technology, now comes word that Acer are planning their own 3D rival. According to Campbell Kan, VP of Acer’s mobile computing business unit, the 15.6-inch Aspire 3D laptop will arrive at the end of October 2009, and require stereoscopic glasses in order for the 3D effect to be viewed.

Initial uses for the visual technology will include 3D movies and gaming, and Acer will preinstall software that, it claims, is capable of taking 2D footage and converting it into 3D. The hardware has been jointly developed with Wistron, though beyond that Acer have given no suggestion as to whether it will use NVIDIA’s system. However it’s worth noting that Wistron were the OEM tipped to supply HP’s 3D laptop.

Since the machine will run Windows 7, Acer are declining to comment further on any more details until the OS has been released. However they did confirm that they are working on a version which does not require 3D glasses; that, though has “quite a few technological obstacles to overcome” says Kan.

Sony’s PSP Go! might be a masterpiece of miniaturization, but it’ll bring with it a shrinking feeling in your wallet, too. Set to land in the US on October 1st, the all-digital companion to the existing PSP-3000 will not only cost nigh-on twice as much as its bigger sibling, but require all new accessories thanks to a sneaky change of port type.


Rather than using a mini USB port, as the PSP-3000 does, the PSP Go! has a new, multifunction socket on the bottom of the handheld. That keeps down space, of course, but it also means that accessories existing PSP owners already have won’t work with the new console.

Sony, unsurprisingly, are lining up a range of PSP Go! accessories - including AV cables, USB cables, AC adapters, wrist-straps and screen protectors - that will play happily with their new gadget, but that’s no use to the people who have already spent significant amounts of money on PSP-3000 add-ons. The company’s own GPS module and chat keyboards won’t work, and neither will hundreds of third-party accessories.

Forgive me if my Pre and iPhone 3GS lusts wane a little, I’ve just seen NTT DoCoMo’s latest super-phone, the Fujitsu F-09A. Packing a 3.4-inch sliding and rotating touchscreen, 8.1-megapixel camera with autofocus, smile-detection and high-speed FOMA and 3G GSM connectivity.
The F-09A is also perhaps the first phone to include an integrated exercise monitor, tracking physical activity and working with the handset’s GPS and compass to track progress and offer mapping. Integrated TV can be watched in widescreen by rotating the display by 90-degrees.

There’s also Bluetooth and a full internet browser, media player and the usual NTT DoCoMo treats that Western users can only dream of. No word on how much it will cost when it arrives in Japan on June 10th.

JVC have announced that their GD-32XI - the world’s slimmest 32-inch LCD display - will go on sale in Japan come August. The screen, announced back at CES in January, measures 6.4mm at its thinnest point, and is capable of displaying 1080p Full HD video.

The GD-32XI has a contrast ratio of 4,000:1 and brightness rating of 400cd/m2. It reportedly manages 100-percent coverage of sRGB colors and 90-percent of Adobe RGB, while cutting the number of necessary parts down by around 50-percent. JVC’s GENNESA image processing tech is also onboard, to reduce motion noise, improve color accuracy and boost still images.

Despite the slender dimensions, JVC still manage to fit a fair few ports onto the GD-32XI. As well as two HDMI sockets there are analog RGB ports, component and composite connections, an RS-232 and speaker terminals. There’s also an SD card slot and USB port, for viewing images and listening to MP3s.

JVC expect most buyers of the GD-32XI to be business and commercial, planning to shift 10,000 sets a year. The 1080p display will be priced at the equivalent of around $2,500.

According to the latest “open secret” in Japan, Sony are working on a Walkman and a satnav PND that would each use Google’s Android OS. Expected to hit the market in 2010, full details about each device are unknown, beyond that Sony seem to be hoping to use the open-source platform for a range of future products.
One such device could, it’s tipped, be an Android version of the recent Sony Walkman X, the company’s flagship PMP with an OLED touchscreen that we reviewed last month. That currently runs an in-house OS, though analysts believe Sony would like to harmonise all such mobile devices - including PND and messaging devices like the Mylo - on the same platform.

Doing so would reduce duplication of development and reduce costs, a topic of particular interest to Sony who have suffered heavy losses as a result of the ongoing economic situation. Part of that strategy has been to push Sony’s previously distinct teams closer together, something a common groundwork in the shape of Android would certainly facilitate.

Jointech have announced their new JE100 ebook reader, a 7-inch device that uses an LCD touchscreen rather than an e-ink display. Based on Windows CE 5.0, the Jointech JE100 will likely not only boast Mobipocket Reader, MSReader and eReader support, but play back video and audio files together with viewing and editing Microsoft Office documents.
Inside there’s a 400MHz CPU, 128MB of flash memory and 64MB of RAM. Transflash cards up to 4GB in capacity can be used to boost storage, and there are two USB ports: one a host, for plugging in external peripherals such as a QWERTY keyboard, and the other a slave, for hooking up the JE100 to a computer where it presumably mounts as an external drive.

There’s also an integrated speaker and audio output socket, and battery life is rated at 3-6hrs from the 1,500mAh pack. That’s low compared to an e-ink ebook reader, which use far more frugal E Ink panels, but of course the JE100 displays color and video which for some will make it a more tempting prospect. No word on MRSP as yet.

The first examples of nettops based on Pegatron’s UltraSlim design are showing up, and it’s Ruvo with their Mini Cap 7 that’s the first to reach reviewers. UMPC Tips have a photo unboxing of the Intel Atom 230-based mini-desktop, and while it’s too early for a full review the initial hands-on feedback is tentatively warm.
While it may use the same casing as Pegatron’s NVIDIA Ion based IPP7A-CP, the Ruvo Mini Cap 7 doesn’t have the GPU prowess. Instead the graphics are courtesy of SIS, though they do support DirectX 9. Other specs include 1GB of RAM, either a 16GB SSD or 160GB hard-drive, and gigabit ethernet; ports include six USB 2.0 (two up front, four on the back), audio in/out (plus a headphone socket on the front), and either a DVI or D-Sub video output.

The fanless Mini Cap 7 measures just 172.5 x 153.5 x 20mm, and according to Frank from UMPC Tips came without cables or an installed OS. The latter seems to be the case at online retailer Farandsoft, where the Ruvo Mini Cap 7 is available to order for €236.25 ($330) before taxes.

The small leaked Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 shot has apparently opened the floodgates, as there are now more live shots of the unannounced smartphone together with a tentative spec list. According to the latest leak, the XPERIA X2 will have an 8.1-megapixel camera with autofocus and 30fps video recording, together with a 3.5-inch WVGA OLED touchscreen and a custom version of Windows Mobile 6.5.
That “custom version” is apparently a specially cooked version of Microsoft’s smartphone platform that’s tipped to be particularly fast on the XPERIA X2’s hardware. No specific CPU is known, though it’s said to be faster than the X1’s Qualcomm MSM7200A 528MHz chip, paired with 512MB of RAM. Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA Panels are making a reappearance, unsurprisingly, and they’ll also be compatible with Windows Mobile 7 should users upgrade.

Other than that, there’s A-GPS, a 3.5mm headphone socket and an accelerometer. Obviously that’s on top of the slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which these new shots show to be made up of separate buttons rather than a molded keypad.