Hasta La Gadget!

So look, you feel pretty special toting around that dual-SIM phone, right? Being able to switch numbers and carriers as you hop back and forth between Germany and Amsterdam is fairly nifty, but you’ve been considering a daily route around the Benelux. Of course, tri-SIM phones aren’t impossible to find either, but should you ever wander into France, Switzerland or any other nation, you’ll be forced to pop one of those out and insert another the old fashioned way. Well, unless you can score an OTECH F1. This here handset — which can only be found in the wilds of Asia right now — actually has room for four SIM cards, and it’s also packing a full QWERTY keyboard, 2.4-inch touchscreen, support for mobile TV, an FM radio tuner, Bluetooth module and what appears to be a 12.1 megapixel camera. Unsurprisingly, a price on this bad boy is eluding us, but if you’re an industrious jetsetter, we’re confident you won’t have any issues running one down. Whether or not you want to, however, is another matter entirely…

OTECH F1 handset holds four SIM cards, enables you to live a quadruple life originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

Free for All Friday

There are several different things that you can do to keep your computer safe from viruses, hackers, and other privacy issues.  One of the most essential forms of protection is an Anti-Virus, however you don’t have to stop there. Any extra layer of protection that you can add makes you computer that much safer. One of those extra layers that you can add is called BufferZone, a product of Trustware.

BufferZone is another solution to Internet Security and works by creating a virtual environment for you to run some of the most vulnerable applications like web browsers, P2P, and Instant Message programs.  A virtual environment means that your Internet downloads work in quarantine (like a compartment), never impacting your computer.  Think of it as a computer within a computer.

They offer three different versions; one that’s free (which I’ll be reviewing), BufferZone Pro which is offered for a 30-day trial or for $29.95, and an Enterprise edition. The free version will probably be suitable for any typical Internet user and does all of the important, essential functions like keeping your PC safe from viruses, adware, and the like.

Any program that is running the virtual BufferZone can never attack your PC.  If there’s hidden code within files like an Office document, or a screen saver file, you’re completely protected. If you’re one of those that downloads a lot from the Internet, this could save you a lot of hassle.

Downloading the free version is simple.  It’s an 8.7 MB download, and the installation process is real quick. After you’ve installed the program, you’ll have to re-start your computer.  Following installation, BufferZone creates a virtual environment to run applications. When your computer re-starts, you’ll be taken through a quick tutorial which guides you through the process (pictured below- click to enlarge).

To indicate to the user that something is running in BufferZone, it will have a red border around it (pictured below).  For example, if you download a program, it will place the file in the “virtual” directory specified by BufferZone.  When you double click to open the download, you’ll see a red border around the program or file icon.  This tells you the download is running in Buffer Zone.While it may appear that your hard disk was modified with the new download, it wasn’t.  New programs will not modify anything on your hard disk or on your system.  They are all simulated in virtual mode.

Now, you may be wondering what you’d do if you didn’t want to open a program within the BufferZone.  They’ve made it very easy to do. All you have to do to release something out of BufferZone and onto your computer is right click, and select “Release from BufferZone.”

Another important feature is the capability to uninstall programs from within the BufferZone.  On the BufferZone Management Screen that can be accessed via the system tray icon, you can completely empty the BufferZone which will clean the BufferZone registry, and virtual files.

There are a few limitations that you might come across with the free version.  First of all, if you’re using the virtual environment to run a web browser, you are limited to a single protection. You can choose from:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Maxthon
• Opera
• Avant
• Download-Accelerator

You’ll also notice that access to the “policy” and “firewall” sections are only available to users of the Pro version.

In order to use buffer zone, you’ll need to have Windows XP installed with Service Pack 2 or later.  You’ll also need Pentium 3 or higher, 300 MHz, 20 MB of hard drive space, and 128 MB of RAM.  This was tested on Windows XP, so Vista compatibility is unknown.

The best indicator that a program is running in the BufferZone is the red border around the application’s icon, and window.  Another sure indicator is the .virtual extension you’ll find after every file that relates to the program that you downloaded and installed. You’ll always know whether or not a program is running within BufferZone.

Overall I was really impressed with BufferZone, especially because it’s simple and easy for just about anybody to understand.  You can never have too many layers of protection in place to keep the contents of your computer safe. More details, and the downloads of BufferZone from Trustware can be found here.

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While it was announced back in August, the FragFX Shark from Splitfish Gameware will finally hit the shelves in North America on November 1. This gaming mouse works with Windows and Macintosh computers and offers novel power conserving technology that keeps it running for over 50 hours of gaming time or over 500 hours of standby on a AA battery.

The FragFX shark is designed to bring a gaming console experience to PC gamers. It comes with both a mouse and a “fragchuk” controller, and it allows users to dynamically program the motion, swap buttons, use Rapid Fire, and adjust the dead zone. It’s available for pre-order now for $89.99. 

What’s this, a bit of intrigue from NVIDIA? The company is due for a refresh on its DirectX 11 line and, with AMD’s Cayman series floating its way to availability on crystal-clear waters, the competition appears to be teasing its response. NVIDIA briefly listed a card called the GTX 580 on its System Requirements page and, while we don’t know how long it was there, it was quickly pulled after news of its presence started making the rounds. Accidental addition or the intentional planting of a seed of doubt in the minds of AMD fans? We’ll never know, and we don’t know the details of the card either, but expectations are that it contains 40nm construction with 512 CUDA cores, 2GB of GDDR5 memory, and a due date before the end of the year. That should give you plenty of time to upgrade your power supply… again.

[Thanks, Musouka]

NVIDIA lists unannounced GTX 580 graphics card on its page, quickly puts it back in hiding originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After 30 years, Sony has announced that they will stop manufacturing and selling the venerable cassette Walkman. In a poetic twist, the official death of the Walkman lands on the iPod’s 9th anniversary.* More »