Todays & Tomorrows Technology

ASUS’ Eee PC T91 convertible touchscreen netbook should have been on sale in the UK for several weeks now, but the 8.9-inch tablet has been suspiciously absent from online and bricks-and-mortar retail stores. According to what a company official told AsusTablet, that delay is due to a “logistical mishap” in distribution; we can apparently expect the netbook to arrive in stores from Monday June 22nd.
The ASUS representative did not go on to explain the exact nature of the “mishap”, although they were at pains to point out that the T91 is still shipping. It’s also unclear whether the delay will impact shipments of the netbook outside of the UK; the T91 was supposed to begin shipping in the US this week.

Buyers of the tablet will get an Intel Atom Z520 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD. What makes the T91 interesting is its rotating display, which can be folded flat against the keyboard and thus leaving the netbook as a touchscreen slate. Standard and 3G versions are expected.

Microsoft have confirmed that their upcoming Zune HD touchscreen PMP will use NVIDIA’s high-definition capable Tegra chipset. Speaking in the official Zune Insider podcast, product team member and show host Matt Akers revealed that the recent rumors about Tegra’s adoption were true, describing the Zune HD with the NVIDIA chipset as “like a mini laptop in your hand.”
Also tipped by Akers are “much better battery life” and graphics acceleration, both well publicized advantages of Tegra by NVIDIA. The chipset offers 1080p video output via an HDMI port, together with hardware graphics acceleration and multiple power-saving features; the Zune HD, meanwhile, will support 720p output to a connected high-def monitor and HD Radio.

The PMP will go up against Apple’s newly-boosted iPhone 3G S, which uses a PowerVR SGX video chipset that also promises HD support and improved graphical capabilities. We’ll have to wait until September, when the Microsoft Zune HD is tipped to launch, to find out which takes the top spot.

New blu-ray players pop up everyday it seems, but we’ve yet to see one that’s dropped below the $100 mark. But now it seems we’re in luck with the latest Curtis Mathes offering, the CMMBX130.
Offered by Meijer, this new Blu-ray player can play 1080p Blu-ray discs and can even upscale regular ol’ DVDs. Outputs include an optical digital audio, composite and HDMI 1.3.

Other specs include a 24-bit 192kHz audio converter, a BroadCom 7440 processor and an 11-bit 108MHz digital-to-analog convertor. It also has an Ethernet jack for downloading firmware updates. The price for this Blu-ray player is currently just $99.

Seagate revealed a bit more than they might have intended today by posting up information about their 640GB FreeAgent Go on their website. And actually, this is pretty big news, as it’s one of the first drives to exceed 500GB, at least for external storage, that is.

The larger capacity 640GB drive has fewer color options than the smaller drives, coming in just silver and black. However, much of the other features are the same, including its USB-only status.

There’s also support for the Seagate docking station. We don’t have any information on availability or pricing yet but that should all be available soon, or at least once Seagate makes this thing official.

The Cideko Wireless Media Keyboard got its big reveal at Computex and while it might not be groundbreaking, it does add an additional option to the world of wireless keyboard accessories.

So, what makes this keyboard interesting? It features a mouse function that operates in mid-air. The top of the keyboard has two buttons for mouse clicking functions and of course, there’s the full QWERTY keyboard beneath that.

This keyboard looks to be pretty small, so we don’t know how great it is to type on, but it might be worth a shot. We don’t know a release date or pricing information just yet, so hopefully when that comes out we can give you a better assessment of whether this one’s worth the investment.

If you’ve been looking for the device that has it all to help you jump into the world of HD radio, then you might just want to check out the Sonoro elements W. This Internet radio can bring you all the HD stations you’ll ever need and then some.

This is definitely a luxury item, sporting a compact design meant to turn heads. It’s capable of delivering Internet radio and FM radio, but no AM, notably. Pandora stations are also available through this device.

16,000 stations are accessible. All you need to do is connect to the Internet via LAN or WiFi connection. This kind of feature set will cost you though. A whopping $499, in fact. So, this definitely isn’t the Internet radio for everyone, but it might just be the thing you want to splurge on.

So, we don’t know if these are for real or not, but some specs for the Canon 1D Mark IV DSLR Camera were revealed today at Photography Bay. These specs reveal quite a bit about the new camera and if proven true, will be pretty interesting to see in action.

Specs include a 1.3x crop sensor for 16-megapixel images, sRAW1 format for 8-megapixel images and an ISo sensitivity of 50 to 26,500. The supposed beta tester reveals that the camera has a burst shooting mode that’s faster than the 1D Mark III and has a super fast autofocus as well.

Other features include a 3-inch LCD screen, video recording, and ergonomically arranged buttons and controls. We already heard about an August release date for this model, so if these specs are real and there are beta models in tester’s hands, that date is looking more and more likely.

Samsung released their SMX-C14 camcorder today, following the product’s announcement back in April. This camera sports the Touch of Color style that has been so popular among Samsung products these days.
This camera features a 25-degree angled lens and 16GB of flash memory. However, you can expand this by means of the SDHC memory card slot. It’s capable of HD H.264 format and photos with a 1,600 x 1,200 resolution.

Other features include time-lapsed photography, a 10X optical zoom, edit abilities, an Upload button for transferring files to YouTube, and USB syncing. You can get the SMX-C14 now for the equivalent of $310 in Korea in blue, gray and red color options.

Plustek revealed the next flatbed scanner in their OpticBook line today called the A300. This scanner is in large format and is intended to be used to scan books or anything that’s bound and normally difficult to fit on a regular scanner.

This new scanner is capable of scanning 12 x 17-inch A3 pages. It can do so at a rate of 2.4 seconds and works with even very thick books. And for your convenience, your scans will convert to PDF automatically.

It can adjust for the distortion caused by the curve of a book’s spine and automatically convert scanned text into image files. You can get the OpticBook A300 soon, though pricing information is not yet available.

RIM’s BlackBerry Onyx 9020 could be the second handset from the company to feature an optical trackpad instead of the usual trackball. While previous leaked shots of pre-release Onyx hardware have shown the smartphone with a trackball, according to the latest news from CrackBerry’s trusted sources the final production version will definitely get the trackpad.

The buttons on the Onyx have apparently also been reworked slightly, in part to better accommodate the trackpad. No photos of the updated BlackBerry have been released, nor concrete justification for the design decision, but it’s believed to be an attempt to minimize hardware failure and reliance on mechanical input methods.

What’s still unknown is when we can expect the Onyx to actually arrive on store shelves. The last we heard, back in March, was that it would land on AT&T and perhaps as a different version – with UMA support – for T-Mobile USA.

Dell’s upcoming 12-inch budget notebook, the Vostro 1220, has leaked, and it scores a few points for being neither CULV nor Atom based. Instead, the Vostro 1220 gets an Intel Core 2 Duo T6750 processor, up to 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard-drive, plus a DVD burner.

There’s also an ExpressCard slot, SD card reader and biometric fingerprint security. Ports seemingly include three USB 2.0, ethernet, a modem, VGA and audio in/out, and there’s a row of handy touch-sensitive media control buttons above the keyboard.

We’re not sure of pricing or availability for the Dell Vostro 1220, but it’s likely to be on the cheap end of the scale. It could very well take the place of the Dell Inspiron Mini 12, the demise of which has been rumored since February.

If you ever needed proof that the Japanese love their robots, then the viewing figures for this video of Hina should convince you. Already racking up over 100,000 views in just 24 hours, the clip shows Hina making a cup of coffee – including measuring out the beans, grinding them, adding the water and even pouring it.

Hina stands 36cm tall and has 21 degrees of freedom, two gyroscopes and an acceleration sensor. Her antenna are actually the swinging pig-tails you see in the video. It’s not entirely clear whether these were pre-programmed movements or done in real-time – a modified SEGA Saturn twin-stick controller is used – but either way, it’s impressive.

A copy of the video (embedded below) has been viewed more than 100,000 times on Japanese portal Nico Nico Douga. It’s brilliant stuff, and I now know what I want for Christmas.