What do you know, even professional coders like to develop things on the side. Opera‘s mobile dev team has been working on a “hobby project” to bring its browser to the Maemo-sporting Nokia N900 and N8x0 devices, and today sees the first fruit of that labor in the form of a “preview build” release. Fredrik Ohrn warns us that there might not ever be a final version, since this is being done just for fun — and particularly in light of the MeeGo future that awaits the platform — but for now it’s yet another option for your versatile mini-computer. Click the source for the download.
Before Apple jumps on the bones of the Hong Kong-based manufacturer, you can grab this slate device, which looks like an oversize iPod Touch or iPad, for between $500 and $700.
Sony has announced a dedicated camcorder which will use the same E-mount lenses and giant DSLR-sensor found in its new NEX mirrorless cameras. The camcorder, which will be available in the fall of this year, will shoot in the high-quality and increasingly popular AVCHD format.
Who cares, right? After all, if you buy any modern SLR, you can shoot video too. But this seemingly simple announcement is actually pretty huge. SLRs aren’t built for video. They have mirrors that get in the way and the bodies are designed for shooting stills, not for holding one handed and shooting video. They also have limits on clip length.
A purpose-built camcorder fixes all this, and it also gets the big sensor that makes the movies look so filmic by allowing you to throw the background into a blur. Even pretty expensive pro camcorders and TV cameras don’t do this.
Add to that that you’ll be able to use Sony’s new E-mount lenses, and all the old Alpha lenses via an adapter, and you have a rather compelling machine. Sony hasn’t announced any more specs or even a pricing guide, but if the aggressive prices of the NEX stills cameras is anything to go by, this camcorder should be very affordable. Suck it, Hollywood. Indie movie-makers rule!
We haven’t been this worked up about a product since we realized that someone actually made a Hello Kitty warming blanket, and if we can convince our sound card to slide down a slot, we’ll probably be kicking our integrated Ethernet port to the curb in favor of the Killer 2100. All jesting aside, Bigfoot Networks has returned after 14 months of silence in order to debut the “world’s fastest online gaming card.” According to the company, this here NIC is equipped with a dedicated network processor, Windows stack bypass, Visual Bandwidth Control and “other optimizations” designed to provide the most optimal online gaming experience ever. For those drinking the Kool-Aid, it’ll be available for £86 ($127) in the coming weeks — we’d caution you to wait for benchmarks first, though. Or just buy a faster internet connection.
With Microsoft’s Courier canned, and HP’s Slate suffering a debilitating identity crisis, what’s a WinTel fan to do? Easy, wait for Computex set to kickoff on June 1st in Taipei. According to Intel’s Mooly Eden, Vice President of PC Client Group and all around hip dude, that’s when Intel will respond to ARM and its Apple iPad lovechild. Speaking at the Intel Investor Meeting on Tuesday, Mooly rapped:
“People ask me, are you serious about trying to participate in the tablet market? The answer is yes, we are going to have tablets… stay tuned for Computex. We are going to design silicon for this category and we are going to actively participate in this category.”
Gauntlet, thrown. Mooly also took the opportunity to show off a razor thin netbook reference design that he expects to see on the market “sooner or later” sporting a hard working dual-core Pineview-class Atom CPU to support heavy-duty multi-tasking OSes — the same chips that are apparently at the heart of Intel’s tablet ambitions. See the incredibly thin netbook prototype after the break along with a few choice grabs of Mooly raising the roof.
If you’re a lover of unnecessarily large and comically styled controllers, chances are you’ve been a bit depressed lately with all this Sony Move and Microsoft Natal talk, tech that could do away with fancy add-ons altogether. But Hori, at least, is continuing to follow the righteous path of giant peripherals with this bodacious add-on for Square Enix’s Wii port of Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory, an arcade game with a name long enough to be worthy of such a mighty gamepad. Sadly, this collectible card game really only requires three buttons: a big red one, a big blue one, and the sword, which is simply pushed downward to activate special attacks. It pales in comparison to the two control sticks, three pedals, and 40 buttons of Steel Battalion, but sometimes it’s the visual impact that really counts.
My Vietnamese is terrible, but this video demo is still pretty clear. What you see is a newer version of the 4G iPhone that was bought by Gizmodo.
This iPhone surfaced in Vietnam, and may or may not have been bought on the black market for $4,000. It certainly looks legit, and in a more finished state than the Gizmodophone: The ugly screws in the base of the handset are gone, for example. However, the general design and internal features match up with the prototype seen last month, lending even more credence to the notion that this is, in fact, Apple’s next phone.
The video, from the Vietnamese site Tinhte, also shows something that Gizmodo couldn’t: that new hi-resolution screen. Although limited to displaying a test screen, you can see how sharp it is when the camera zooms in. And talking of cameras, you can also clearly see the front-facing webcam. The rear case appears to be made of radio-transparent ceramic rather than plastic, and the micro SIM tray slides from the side, iPad-style.
Inside, a teardown has revealed that the new iPhone is built on the Apple-designed A4 chip found in the iPad, which promises a rather powerful handset.
Between this and the iPhone-OS4-beta revelations, there really aren’t many surprises left for Steve Jobs to reveal at the expected launch June 22. Sure, we still don’t know the capabilities of those cameras, but we expect a boost in megapixels to around 5 MP, and perhaps 720p video, but those are just numbers. No, Steve will have to pull out something big to get our attention. Maybe, just maybe, AT&T might at last offer tethering?
11 a.m. PT update: MacRumors chief Arnold Kim has provided a translation of the video, courtesy of a MacRumors forum member
The phone may look small on video, but it’s big in real life. It feels very sturdy and solid in your hand. Glass on both front and back. Back camera has flash. This new iPhone is somewhat longer than the old one. He doesn’t see any way of opening it beside prying it out. The screen is locked. From his guess, he says the phone can only be keep enabling by entering a code after time intervals. The width is narrower then the old phone about a couple mm and longer a couple mm. On the right is the microsim slot. Very solid and heavier than the old phone. It’s a more manly phone and look more modern than the old phone. Thank you. That’s it.
It ain’t the first Eee PC we’ve seen with a carbon fiber finish, and if the second one in as many months is any indication, we get the feeling we could see quite a few more of these surface at Computex in just a few weeks. The latest netbook from ASUS has found itself plastered on a German e-tailer’s website, with the R101 proudly boasting a 1.66GHz Atom N450 processor, 250GB hard drive, a 10.1-inch LCD, native 1,024 x 600 resolution, Intel’s GMA 3150 graphics and a battery that’s good for 9.5 hours (if you use it sparingly, we’re sure). The only other nugget we’re made aware of is the €299 ($379) price tag, but it’s pretty obvious we won’t be treated to a chiclet keyboard and a trackpad bar with a split in the middle. Fiddlesticks.
See the marking on that chip with the Apple logo. No, not the “N90” codename indicating that it’s from Apple’s next generation GSM iPhone, the other text. If we’re not mistaken then we’re seeing “339S0084” on that chip from today’s fourth-generation iPhone teardown. Guess what? According to Chipworks, that’s the Apple A4 microprocessor fabricated by Samsung and the presumed work of Apple’s acquired PA Semi and Intrinsity engineers. The “APL0398” text is also the same as that found on the iPad’s speedy and power sipping A4 system-on-chip. The other markings differ however. What that means isn’t entirely clear yet but we’re digging.
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