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13
Oct 2008 |
Google's answer to Apple's iPhone, the HTC G1 Android phone, is coming to South Africa next year.
The G1, informally known as the Google phone, will be brought to South Africa by Vodacom, the cellular network operator that is also the distributor for Apple's iPhone in South Africa.
"Vodacom can confirm that it is currently finalising negotiations to offer the HTC G1 phone to customers in South Africa," Vodacom Group's chief communication officer, Dot Field told News24 on Monday morning.
The Google ... |
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13
Oct 2008 |
We're not sure what's more frightening about this, the fact that the Russians figured out how to do it or that WiFi networks are effectively now completely insecure. ElcomSoft claims they can "recover" WPA and WPA2 encypted passwords using any NVIDIA-based graphics subsystem in a workstation, desktop or even a notebook, to crack WPA encyption over 100 times faster than with a standard CPU. This might not mean much to the average home user because, let's face it, serious thugs aren't bothering to hack into... |
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13
Oct 2008 |
From the Motorola "Brick" to the iPhone, cell phones have certainly come a long way in the past quarter of a century.
It was 25 years ago today, October 13, 1983, that the very first commercial cell phone call was made. Bob Barnett, president of Ameritech Mobile communications, called Alexander Graham Bell's nephew from Chicago's Soldier Field using a Motorola DynaTAC handset, referred to as the "Brick" because of its hefty size.
Weighing in at 2.5 pounds, the phone wasn't exactly portable. And it was... |
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7
Oct 2008 |
When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?
Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can't always prevent you from s... |
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6
Oct 2008 |
HP is said to be preparing a rival to Apple's popular iPhone, with sources suggesting that it will ship before the end of the year. HP has refused to confirm or deny the rumours.
Reports in The Wall Street Journal claim that HP is preparing an addition to its line of iPaq smartphones and handhelds that will have a touch-screen and chiefly target the consumer market.
Many of HP's current iPaq models already have a touch-screen, but these Windows Mobile devices are designed to work with a stylus, not a ... |
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6
Oct 2008 |
Sanyo Electric has developed a blue laser diode that will help lay the ground toward higher capacity and faster Blu-ray Disc systems.
The laser can emit a beam of 450 milliwatts, which is about double the power of Sanyo's current highest power laser for Blu-ray Disc systems. The higher power means it can write and read data on discs with up to four data layers and at speeds of up to 12X, Sanyo said on Monday.
Each recording layer on a Blu-ray Disc can store 25G bytes of data and the current highest ca... |
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6
Oct 2008 |
It may be one of the most widely anticipated broadband roll-outs beyond the first products in 1999/2000 but Virgin is just a couple of weeks away from getting people onto its live 50Mbps cable broadband service.
The internet is of course a great place for rumours, and the big difficulty can be separating fact from hearsay. A visitor to our forums has 'leaked' some information on the forthcoming product, and similar information is appearing elsewhere.
The fact the roll-out will take to April 2009 to co... |
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6
Oct 2008 |
The growing popularity of VoIP is a scary topic for traditional landline and cellular carriers and given AT&T’s interest in recovering its investment into the subsidy of each iPhone 3G, it is clear that any technology that would keep customers from purchasing more expensive voice plans would have a chance to be officially approved by Apple. However, Fring has made it and enables users to send can instant message or place voice calls to your contacts on major platforms such as Skype, MSN or ICQ free of charg... |
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5
Oct 2008 |
Palm may not have much of an appetite for Google's Android platform for mobile phones, but Motorola definitely does.
Reports in Top Tech News and elsewhere suggest that Motorola is looking to hire hundreds of Google Android developers. Indeed, a quick search of Motorola's job openings suggests that, indeed, Android is set to become a permanent fixture at Motorola, which has long built Linux-based phones but hitherto used MontaVista's Mobilinux.
The goal? Move from an internal development pool of 50 An... |
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4
Oct 2008 |
It was about time. After months of uncertainty, Sprint’s Xohm unit was finally ready to roll out WiMax in Baltimore earlier this week. The network appears to be working as planned, but it seems that the promises made by the carrier are a bit exaggerated and there are many variables that need to be pinned down to enable consumers to make a decision whether they should subscribe to such a service or use 3G or wait for LTE instead. Right now, I believe there is very little that makes WiMax a compelling offer f... |
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4
Oct 2008 |
There's been so much going on at Nintendo this week we've barely even scratched the surface of the company's plans, so here are a couple more pieces of new hardware.
The first, for the Wii, is a VoIP phone called Wii Speak that – bizarrely - comes bundled with a new version of Animal Crossing called City Folks.
Popular way in
The DS incarnation of the game has proved itself already, shifting 5 million units, so Nintendo is clearly using it to push the new hardware to the masses the easy way.
Wii... |
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1
Oct 2008 |
Toshiba has put a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) inside a cell phone, but commercial availability of the technology isn't expected soon.
The prototype cell phone, which Toshiba is showing at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan, offers around six hours of talk time with the DMFC, according to a Toshiba executive manning the company's booth. A conventional battery in the same handset would provide between three and four hours of talk time, the executive said.
DMFCs produce electricity from a reactio... |
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1
Oct 2008 |
Sony has announced two new Vaios for Europe – a NS1 series notebook and an intriguing all-in-one Vaio JS1 PC – which are aimed squarely at home users.
Sony's ever-popular Vaio brand may now come in both business and home flavours, but the addition of the Vaio NS1 and Vaio JS1 adds a little breadth to the latter.
Sony Vaio NS1
The NS1 apparently brings together 'design values and quality to create a notebook that is well balanced and accessible for casual everyday users'.
More importantly it ... |
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1
Oct 2008 |
This week's CEATEC technology show just outside Tokyo is home to not just the latest mainstream gadgets, but also some of the weirdest tech you'll ever come across.
In the latter category we have a mobile phone application that is supposed to let users see through walls.
Sensors galore
The 'Real Space See-through Mobile' software comes from KDDI's R&D laboratory and Tokyo University and is – you'll not be surprised to learn – still just a prototype.
Although we weren't able to see it in a... |
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1
Oct 2008 |
Microsoft's latest effort to get people to use its search service is something called SearchPerks, which gives people points for using the search engine that can later be redeemed for prizes.
Users who agree to download a small program to track their usage get one "ticket" per day for every Live Search query, up to 25 per day. The program runs through April, at which point users can "cash in" the tickets that they get and trade them in for prizes or donate them to a charity.
It's the latest in a serie... |
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