3 Jul, 2008
Google Maps is experimenting with speech recognition technology for its mobile users. The lucky guinea pigs are owners of the blackberry Pearl 8110, 8120, and 8130 in the US. This is the same voice search technology that they use in their free directory service, GOOG-411. This service proves to be very useful for many mobile users who lack the time or patience to type the long names of the places they want to go to. It will hopefully also add a level if safety as it could help to keep peoples hands and eyes off their phones and on the road, because even knowing the danger people still insist on using a mobile phone while driving. (Read the full post about ‘Google Maps testing voice search on Blackberry’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
The MPAA is taking a heavy hand with piracy, as is the RIAA, but that only covers audio and video. What about books?
According to book publishers the threat of piracy from illegally downloaded text books is growing. Rather than students spending as much as US$100 per book to get the texts they need, they are turning to the Internet to download scanned versions for free.
The situation isn’t helped by BitTorrent sites appearing focusing specifically on books. One such example is Textbook Torrents, which recently received a demand from Pearson Education asking for the removal of 78 book torrents or legal action would be started.
(Read the full post about ‘Piracy of books on the increase, publishers start taking notice’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
Using web search data collected in June 2008 from Google logs and Secunia PSI scanning results, a group of researchers have managed to compile just how many users are surfing the web with old browsers. By doing so, they are heightening their risk to hackers and malware.
The research was carried out by Stefan Frei and Martin May of ETH Zurich, Thomas Dubendorfer of Google and Gunter Ollmann of IBM. Together they compiled the report entitled Understanding the Web browser threat: Examination of vulnerable online Web browser populations and the “insecurity iceberg”.
The results are quite eye-opening with some 637 million users having old or out-of-date browsers.
(Read the full post about ‘Research finds 637 million users have risky old browsers’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
Well, it has now become official, Firefox 3 has set the record for the most software downloads in a 24 hour time period and have been added to the Guinness World Records. The time period coincided with the launch of Firefox 3 and ran from 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008 during which a total of 8,002,530 people downloaded the software. The downloads also did not stop there, as of current, which is just about two weeks since the launch, Firefox 3 has been downloaded just over 28 million times. Overall that is pretty impressive, but at least according to this user, so is Firefox. If you have not already I would suggest giving Firefox 3 a try. Read [SpreadFirefox] Keep (Read the full post about ‘Mozilla claims world download record with Firefox 3′…)
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3 Jul, 2008
So you wanna shoot in the wild? Long gone are the days of the plain black flip-top camera bag. Now-a-days, photographers have a choice of resting spots for their Precious. And this new carrying case, touted the “Adventure Bag” by Tamrac, is really rather impressive. To start off, the simple design of the bag is a masterpiece in it’s own right. Sleek and well balanced, with a youthful design… it looks more like a regular backpack than a camera bag, which is actually a good thing for those carrying around pricey equipment and not especially wanting to advertise that fact. The Adventure Bags feature separate sections to hold all of your goodies. (Read the full post about ‘Tamrac’s Adventure Bag brings tech to what used to be a simple case’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
Gear4 has introduced its BlackBox micro, a portable USB-powered speaker system which is touted as the company’s smallest speaker system to date. The Blackbox micro utilizes SFX technology in delivering high quality sound which you wouldn’t expect a speaker of such size would be capable of giving out. Thanks to its two drivers that work together to product optimal audio output, the Blackbox micro is a must-have speaker system for laptops or music players. The Blackbox micro can connect to any source devices through its 3.5mm audio cable jack and is powered by a USB cable, so users must make sure to connect the speakers on a computer for continuous power supply. (Read the full post about ‘Gear4 delivers the Blackbox micro; a portable USB-powered speaker’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
Did you know the first public signs of the iPhone were way back in 1999, when Apple registered iPhone.org. Silver from iPhoneGold has put together a great timeline showing the history of the legendary iPhone, including domain registrations, trademarks. the famous 3% stock drop all the way up to the new iPhone 3G. Full sized iphone timeline here, thanks Silver for spending a worthwhile couple of days researching and putting this together. (Read the full post about ‘iPhone Timeline’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
by Thomas Ricker, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 3:38AM
Is this the Radeon card destined to leapfrog NVIDIA’s performance leading GTX 200 series? We’ll know in August (or soon thereafter), that’s the rumored release date for AMD’s Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card. As the X2 name implies, the card packs a pair of RV770-based GPUs and should be ready to sample with 2GB (!) of that “world’s fastest” GDDR5 memory by the end of this month. It’s worth noting that the leaked images show a total of 1GB of GDDR5 (16 Qimonda GDDR5 chips) on that black PCB. AMD will then make the 4870 X2 (RV770XT) cards available to its partners in mid-August, hitting retail soon after for an estimated $499 according to sources over at DigiTimes. (Read the full post about ‘AMD Radeon HD 4870 X2 images leaked, rumored for August release’…)
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3 Jul, 2008
Bang & Olufsen, a great North American supplier of high end home theaters and custom multi room music systems, has recently broke into the headset market with the EarSet 2 and EarSet 3. The EarSet 2 is a Bluetooth wireless job that features two omni-directional microphones that uses Digital Signal Processing (DSP) to assist in clearer sound by suppressing wind and other background noise for the best transmission possible. This EarSet 2 also has a great ergonomic feel as well. It has a full adjustable clip to fit on your ear comfortably, and a convenient fold out mike. This fold-out mike functions as an on/off switch for the device. Calls and volume are operated by a single, easy-to-use switch. (Read the full post about ‘Bang & Olufsen EarSet 2 and EarSet 3′…)
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3 Jul, 2008
Virgin Mobile has just released the UTStarcom Arc, yet another entry level handset for the masses. You get the following :- Bluetooth connectivity VGA camera (pffft!) Speakerphone capability External and internal displaysSurely $49.99 isn’t too much to ask for a basic phone such as this? Tags: lcd, PDA, gadgets, game (Read the full post about ‘Virgin Mobile Arc’…)
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