Content and news by Rob Williams

Apple does a great job of making sure that iPhone news don’t leave the front-page of any website, including ours. There are a few interesting developments to come to light over the weekend, including a new deal with InterDigital Inc. to deliver 3G technologies to the iPhone in current and future releases.

Of most interest though, is a leaked T-Mobile ad from Germany which specifically notes availability of a 16GB model. Nothing says that there is any credibility to this leak, but considering Apple is releasing a 16GB iPod touch at the end of the month, it’s not an unlikely scenario. According to the ad, the 16GB iPhone would sell for close to €499, equivelent to $689USD. Given the iPod touch pricing however, it would be more likely to see the 16GB model retail for $499USD on these shores. That is… if this leak proves true.

The ad includes an error which references the device in one instance as an iPod, but otherwise appears to be consistent with T-Mobile’s advertising and may reflect a desire to return to two-tier pricing for the iPhone after the drop to $399 for the 8GB model, if proven accurate. The 3G iPhone would sell for 499 Euros ($687) including a coupon for the iTunes Store, and would be available with phone plans that all offer unlimited data and vary only in terms of general calling minutes and SMS messages.

Source: Electronista (16GB iPhone), AppleInsider (InterDigital Deal)

Why is it when large companies begin right-ing their wrongs, they don’t usually take long to settle back to their old ways? When Sony released their Playstation 3 80GB edition, it was found that the emulation hardware was non-existent, and instead, it would all be software-based. This should be a non-issue to the consumer, but it apparently causes a lot of inconsistencies of stability from title to title.

To help you figure out if your favorite games have known issues, Sony has updated their compatibility search-list for both the 60GB and 80GB models. Depending on which model you choose, the results could be different. Overall, there are far less problems with the 60GB model, although they do exist. The moral of this story? If you are planning to pick up a PS3 and care a lot about backwards-compatibility, run out and pick up the 60GB model before they go extinct.

As we learned during E3, the new 80 GB PS3 does have backwards compatibility issues. All future PS3 models will also have similar BC issues as they’ll use the less expensive software emulation program instead of the PS2 native hardware which is currently in the 60GB model.

Source: Joystiq

AMD today launches their long-awaited Barcelona-based Opteron server processors. Since K8 first launched, not much has changed architecturally, but Barcelona changes that. In addition to Barcelona being AMD’s first Quad-Core offering, it’s also the first native Quad-Core offering on the market. This differs from Intel’s QCs which actually have two Dual-Core dies under the same IHS.

In addition to offering 4x128Kb of L1 and 4x512MB of L2-cache, AMD introduces 2MB of L3-cache, all of which is shared with all available cores. Other notable features include a tweaked IMC which now offers two 64-Bit wide controllers instead of a single 128-bit, improved branch predictors, optimized SSE implementation and of course, better power consumption.

AnandTech has posted two articles, each focusing on a different area. Their server article focuses on what Opteron’s are set out to do. The performance gains are obvious. Many new tweaks have proved very worthy for AMD, although Intel’s processors won most rounds. AMD didn’t allow much time with the chip before NDA lifted, however, so more in-depth articles are to follow.

Wondering about benefits from the desktop perspective? AMD gave Anand two days to work with all three chips on hand, so the results are obviously not conclusive, but immediate benefits are seen when compared to K8. The 2.0GHz processor doesn’t make jaw drops as hoped, but faster chips are on the way. AnandTech and others had 2.5GHz chips on hand, though they are not due out until later this year. Considering that AMD didn’t release these 2.5GHz chips at launch though, Barcelona in general is not likely to make overclocking enthusiasts jump for joy. Regardless, the initial performance reports look great for AMD, and their Barcelona will no doubt do well in the market for which it is intended. You can read both of AnandTech’s articles and the official (incredibly massive) press release below.

Here’s where things get complicated; we knew Phenom/Barcelona would be faster clock for clock, it was only a matter of how big of an improvement we’d get. If we are to believe that 15% is the best we’ll get on average, taking into account that Penryn is around 5% faster than Conroe, the updated architecture from AMD alone isn’t enough to really compete with Intel. In other words, price matters.

Source: AMD Press Release, AnandTech (Server), AnandTech (Desktop)

The UK has recently passed a new law that prohibits texting-while-driving. If you are caught in the act, you could face upwards of two years in prison, a lofty hike from the simple £2,500 fine for careless driving. Talking on your cell phone also carries a penalty, although much more tame at £60 for the fine in addition to three points off of your license.

This is a law that needs to be passed everywhere. Talking on a cell phone is one thing, but when texting, you are not even looking at the road. On an episode of Mythbusters, it was found that talking on a cell phone could prove just as dangerous as driving drunk, and even then it would be far safer than texting. Too many people have died already from such foolishness. If you need to text, it should be common-sense to pull over.

Those who kill while using a mobile phone will face 14 years behind bars under the charge of causing death by dangerous driving. Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said: “There is widespread public concern about the use of mobile phones and other hand-held electronic equipment while driving. “We accept that in cases where there is clear evidence that danger has been caused by their use – such as texting while driving – then our policy should spell out that the starting point for charging will be dangerous driving.”

Source: This Is London

The past few months have been great to the storage market, but few of the major announcements have come from Seagate. This comes as a stark contrast to last year, when they released the largest notebook and desktop drives available at the time. They are now finally striking back however, with their new Cheetah 15K.6 server drive and also new Maxtor OneTouch 4 products.

The Cheetah drive is a high-end server solution, offering 15,000RPM speeds, but the 28% increase in sustained data transfer in what’s important. It’s available in both SAS and FC offerings. Also launched are new Maxtor OneTouch external drives, in densities between 250GB and 1TB for the top OneTouch Plus offering. If it’s designed similarly to the Seagate FreeAgent Pro that we reviewed back in April, it should prove to be one heck of a product.

Seagate also introduced a new drive for digital video recording devices. The fourth generation DB35 series hard drives is now available with up to 1TB of storage space allowing recording of up to 200 hours of HD programming. Entry level hard drives of 250GB in the D35 series allow the storage of up to 50 hours of HD programming. The D35 series is also designed to operate inside of DVR systems without the need for cooling fans, which allows manufacturers to make quieter systems. The DB35 drives will be available in Q1 of 2008.

Source: DailyTech

With AMD’s landmark announcement the other day about opening up their Linux GPU drivers, all heads are now turning to NVIDIA to see what they will be doing. Unlike ATI, there is no official NVIDIA “open driver” for Linux, although they do contribute to the basic “nv” driver. Nouveau is an NVIDIA-based open-driver that’s constantly improving, though it’s developers are getting no help from NVIDIA.

So will they just sit around and play this off? It’s hard to say. They currently offer the best Linux drivers available that are not only stable, but offer great performance. But with the help of the community, AMD’s drivers are only going to get increasingly better. If NVIDIA wishes to retain dominance, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to consider taking a similar route as AMD.

So what will NVIDIA’s next step be if they wish to join Intel and AMD with open-source community enablement? Logically, they could provide specifications and assist these developers in a similar fashion to what AMD is doing, open-source their proprietary display driver, develop a new open-source “nv” display driver with greater functionality, or cooperate with and support the Nouveau project.

Source: Phoronix

Intel has announced plans to open up Fab 68, a 300mm wafer fabrication facility in Dalian, China. This major fabrication facility will cost $2.5 billion, effectively bringing Intel’s total investment in China to $4 billion. Once construction completes in 2010, it will offer 163,000 square meters of factory space and a massive 15,000 square metre clean room.

Of course this is not the first fab that Intel has situated in China. Along Fab 68 will be two current fabs in Shanghai and Chengdu along with other R&D centers scattered around China. With this new launch, Intel hopes to become even closer to achieving the goal of being one of the top three IT clusters in the Country.

“The scope and scale of our global manufacturing network gives Intel the ability to provide customers with leading-edge, energy-efficient products in high volume,” said Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel Corporation. “Fab 68 will have world-class infrastructure and be an integral part of our global manufacturing network while bringing us closer to our customers and partners in China.”

Source: Intel Press Release

Over the years, there have been few worthwhile online language-translation tools, namely because all of them offer foolish results. One I have relied on for a while though, has been Babelfish, which was actually one of the first such tools on the web. Microsoft, not being one to remain quiet in any category of web-service, recently launched their own translation service, “Windows Live Translator (Beta!)”.

According to Mashable, the tool makes use of Systran, a world-leading translation service that offers both live and automated translation. It’s a solid offering, but shouldn’t be used in any scenario of importance. “Techgage kicks serious butt.” translated to German comes out as, “Techgage tritt ernsten Kolben.”. Translated back to English comes out as, “Techgage steps serous pistons.”, which is so flattering, it might just become our new motto.

As far as the actual quality of the translation goes, Microsoft uses Systran’s well known engine (Google is also using it), but also offers the option of using their own in-house machine translation service which works well with computer-related texts. It’s hard to objectively test how good Microsoft’s translator really is, but based on a couple of paragraph of text I’ve fed it, I wasn’t impressed enough to declare it much (or any) better than Google’s translation service.

Source: Mashable

With Apple’s impressive showing the other day, should Microsoft be worried? No, but getting to work on an iPod threat would be a great idea. As CNET reports, Microsoft cut their Zune down to $199 the other day, but even then, it’s a difficult sell considering some of the new iPods in that same price range. The Zune could have been more impressive if it put it’s WiFi capabilities to good use. As it stands, the only thing it’s good for is swapping songs with your friends. Had they allowed similar functionality as Apple introduced in the iPod Touch, then things might be a little different.

If the leaks from last week prove true, then Microsoft is likely to have a tough time building excitement for their Zune 2 as well. I am far from being an Apple fanboi, but even I can’t discredit how great the new offerings look. For the first time, I’m actually considering getting an iPod in the months to come. The Zune and Zune 2 on the other-hand, don’t even look that visually appealing. Of course, competition is far from over, and Microsoft is not one to give up easily. Chances are good we will see some innovative stuff come out of Redmond sooner or later. Hopefully much sooner than later.

Microsoft has been careful all along to say it expected a long, expensive, uphill climb in this market. The thing that makes it so tough for competitors is that Apple has shown itself willing and capable of taking its market-leading products, turning them on their head, and making them even better. The company did so a couple years back when it introduced the iPod Nano to replace the iPod Mini, its best-selling product at the time. And it appears to have done so again, replacing the Nano with a video version and the video iPod with the iPod Touch.

Source: CNET News

If you thought the previous post was all of the AMD news available today, you would be wrong. According to the Inq, they just launched a gamers-specific website that mimics 3DFXGamers.com of old. Here, you will be able to view information on popular games, download drivers, enter contests, watch video and also chat to other community members. I have to say, the site looks pretty great. I’m not sure how useful it will prove overall, but at least it serves the purpose of friendly competition.

If you’re old that enough to remember, 3dfxgamers.com was a community site that spot forums, reviews of games, giveaways of hardware and many more things that kept that site in high regard. 3dfxgamers.com was also the very first site yours truly was working on in the forums, managing the impossible and keeping the peace on newsgroups and later forums. For newsgroup admins of these days, no – we did not ban posting of HTML and big posts in the non-binary group. Our members loved seeing game developer desktops and so on…

Source: The Inquirer

It was only yesterday that we posted about AMD’s “possible” opening up of their ATI drivers for Linux, and we sure didn’t have to wait long to find out it was absolutely true. In a press release issued today, AMD said that they will be releasing an information and development package next week that will support the HD 2000 and X1000 series of GPUs to the open source community.

Don’t be fooled… this is huge news and shows that both Open Source development and Linux are gaining some major headway. By opening up the driver, it will allow both AMD and outside developers work together to create a feature-rich and stable driver. By keeping it to themselves, there are many issues that can come into play. ATI hasn’t exactly had an outstanding Linux track record, but things are bound to pick up rapidly now.

“With this announcement we’re demonstrating our commitment to respond to the needs of the Open Source community and adopt a consistent approach across CPU and GPU technologies. By supporting open source drivers on our industry-leading ATI Radeon graphics processors we accelerate innovation across the entire AMD platform.”

Source: AMD Press Release

It’s only been a month since Beta 1 was released, but Beta 2 looks like it has come quite a way, as you will be able to see with the available screenshots on the official site. New since Beta 1 is an updated KOffice alpha release, new code gained from Google’s Summer of Code and various bugfixes all over. Most of KDE 4.0 has been feature-frozen, except for a few key features such as Plasma, a base for some killer applets.

I am a full-time KDE 3.5 user and have never had much of a problem with it, but it’s hard to not get a little excited for 4.0 especially after checking out all of the Beta 2 screenshots. While GNOME is clean and concise, KDE is looking to really add some sensible visual appeal to the next release. Will OS X finally have a real competitor in the GUI department?

The KDE Community proudly presents the second Beta release for KDE 4.0. This release marks the beginning of the feature freeze and the stabilization of the current codebase. Simultaneously the KOffice developers have released their third Alpha release, marking significant improvements in this innovative office suite. Both KDE and KOffice have benefited from the Google Summer of Code, as most resulting code has now been merged.

Source: KDE.org

Are you an executive without a laptop? Have $5,000 to burn? Lenovo’s ThinkPad Reserve edition might be for you. It’s most eye-catching feature is that it’s wrapped in nice leather. It’s similar in specs to their current X61, which offers a 2.2GHz processor, 2GB of ram, 160GB hard drive (also 80GB external), external DVD burner and a 12.1″ display.

The features don’t stop there though. One of the most important perks is the fact that it includes premium support, 24/7 priority service to their support staff and quick action to fix any hardware-related issues. For software, Windows Vista Ultimate and Office Small Business 2007 is included. With all of what’s included, it’s easy to see why it retails for such a premium, but it’s still a difficult price to swallow regardless.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Reserve was constructed to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the ThinkPad line and only 5,000 units will be built. “The ThinkPad Reserve Edition was designed for the world’s most accomplished professionals, so it delivers the best ownership experience available. It combines expert personalized service, exquisite design and materials, and superior technology to surpass any notebook PC available today,” said Lenovo VP of Branding and Strategy Craig Merrigan.

Source: DailyTech

We posted yesterday that Apple lowered the price of their iPhone to $399, to much expected angst by all of the early adopters who essentially paid a $200 premium for owning the phone for two months. Well, the reaction was so intense that Steve Job’s stepped in and in an e-mail, noted that all early adopters would qualify for a $100 gift certificate to use at any Apple store, or online. Personally, I’d prefer cash, but it’s not as though most iPhone owners don’t ever plan on throwing more money towards Apple in the future anyway. Kudos to Apple for such a quick turn-around to remedy the issue.

But even given the outcry, we definitely didn’t see this one coming. In another open letter to his people, Jobs states that he’s giving all iPhone owners a $100 Apple gift certificate (details to follow in the next week — it goes without saying this will only apply to people who bought before the price drop).

Source: Engadget

Although thumb drives are the norm, they’ve really only become popular over the past few years. Now, it’s second nature, and we are at a point where it’s difficult to purchase a normal drive. So, it’s no surprise when companies try something new, and give you a good reason to choose their products over someone elses.

Enter the OCZ ATV and ATV Turbo, rugged drives that are designed to take a beating. The goal of rugged thumb drives is not new… we’ve seen it from Corsair with their Voyager series for years. These ones have the speed to go along with it’s tough nature though, offering speeds of up to 35MB/s Read. We will be taking both new models for a spin in the weeks to come, so stay tuned.

“The OCZ ATV series is designed to operate under harsh environments with its shock and water-proof design,” states Jacky Huang, VP of Product Management at OCZ. “Besides its all-terrain nature, we also built this device with all the latest storage technology to make it truly cater to the most performance-demanding power users with its fast read/write speeds.”

Source: OCZ Press Release

Though it may be difficult to believe, it’s now been one full year since HP announced their surprise acquisition of Rahul Sood’s baby, Voodoo PC. In that year, we saw virtually no benefits to either side product-wise, but now HP has finally unveiled a huge gaming rig, the Blackbird 002. HotHardware has a first-look and makes sure to let people know that this is not due to Voodoo PC’s joining of the company.

The concept has been in the planning stages for quite some time, but there’s no doubt that Voodoo helped push it out a little faster. At least that’s what the “Voodoo DNA” badge is telling me. The machine comes in various configurations, but you can acquire one with a pre-overclocked QX6850 CPU that is overclocked to 3.67GHz, dual 8800 Ultra cards in SLI, 4GB of Corsair DDR2-8500 RAM, ASUS Striker Extreme, SoundBlaster X-Fi… ok I need to stop. This machine… I want it, and chances are you do as well.

As you would probably expect from a high-end gaming machine powered by Intel’s fastest quad-core processor that’s been overclocked by more than 22%, 4GB of Corsair’s top of the line Dominator memory, and a pair of NVIDIA’s flagship 8800 Ultra graphics cards, the Hewlett Packard Blackbird 002 is simply a high performance machine. When you cram as many high-end components into a machine like this, it can’t help but be fast. And in a few of the tests the machine put up benchmark scores higher than any other machine we’ve tested to date.

Source: HotHardware

There’s little doubt that you knew about all of these products already, and it’s no real help that we are posting about them an entire day late. I was just so ecstatic all day that I was unable to type up a news post. Really. Our friends at TheTechLounge have posted a report of all that’s new, including new iPods, Ringtones, more iPods, Starbucks partnership and more.

Big fan of the iPhone but are too cheap to afford one? You’ll be happy to know that one of the announcements was the price drop for the 8GB model: $399. Yes, the phones only been out for a few months but it has already dropped $200. You almost have to feel bad for the early adopters. Of most interest to me personally is the iPod Touch, an 8GB/16GB iPhone-type device… without the phone capabilities. It’s smaller than the iPhone, naturally, but includes the same great screen. Overall a great showing.

Finally, the iPod touch. The iPhone minus the phone. People have been asking for one ever since they laid eyes on the iPhone (Ed – I wanted one ever since I first heard rumors of one, long before the iPhone). And Steve really delivered this time. The iPod touch’s screen and device dimensions are nearly identical to the phone, except that it’s only 8mm thick (or thin). The iPhone is 11mm thick.

Source: TheTechLounge

In an attempt to improve their Linux support, AMD has refreshed their GPU support under the OS. The only word that comes to mind is “finally”, and I am sure I am not alone in that thinking. Our good friends at Phoronix have exhaustively posted content about the upcoming releases and also more information about what you should be expecting.

First, you can see what the new driver will be offering, complete with revamped control panel. If you want performance numbers, they have got those as well, for R300/R400, R500 and also tests with their high-end HD 2900XT offering. Lastly, is AMD going to open-source the fglrx driver? It’s hard to decipher, but it sure sounds promising! It’s great to finally see AMD coming out of their hole and getting appropriate drivers developed. NVIDIA has dominated Linux gaming for a while, but now they have some actual competition. Finally.

The official AMD press release states: “In the coming months AMD also plans to accelerate efforts to address the needs of the open source community as well.” But what does this mean? Are they opening up the fglrx driver? Are they providing specifications? Are they just making a better binary blob so the open-source community will just want reverse engineer it more?

Source: Phoronix

The good folks at Roxio have just sent word that they’ve updated their popular Easy Media Creator suite of applications to version 10. I admit, I haven’t touched Roxio software since version 6, so I am sure a lot has changed since then. Version 10 includes many new features though, many of which we will cover in an upcoming review. Some notables include the ability to copy any of your songs/movies/tv shows from your iPod to your PC, ability to send videos to YouTube, camera photo fix-ups, Windows Vista-integration, updated Blu-ray/HD-DVD support and more.

As we found out last week, Nero is also updating their suite to version 8 and all the rage seems to be web-integration, especially with YouTube. I’ve been using that program for the past week and have been pleased with it’s performance/feature-set thus far. You can expect comprehensive reviews of both Nero 8 and Roxio 10 in the coming weeks.

The latest version of Easy Media Creator is the ideal complement to Windows Vista. With a stunning new Aero user interface, it is easier than ever for consumers to manage their digital content from one project to the next,
whether it is burning a DVD or uploading videos to YouTube. Creator 10 also includes great new Gadgets for
Windows Vista, which make it incredibly convenient for users to capture internet and PC audio streams and
convert their media files into their preferred format for easy playback on popular mobile devices, like the iPhone or
Microsoft Zune.

Source: Roxio Product Page

LG doesn’t care to take sides, which works out to the consumers favor. As we first saw at this years CES, they released a dual-format stand-alone player, meaning it plays both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Obviously this is a good thing from most angles, since you have a much larger library to choose from, you don’t need two different players hogging up room and it’s simply more convenient.

According to Electronic House, they are planning to update their BH100 player (seen below) with a new BH200 player. Updated functionality is added, such as BD-Live, PiP for select titles and Blu-View. Output is 1080p at 60Hz and upscaling DVDs also uses 1080p. If you want one, you can pony up your $999 sometime next month.

The player will support various A/V formats including MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264 video, MPEG1/2 audio, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS and DTS-HD audio. Also expect plenty of inputs/outputs including HDMI 1.3 out and a LAN Ethernet port for network interactivity. You won’t have to wait too long for this one. The unit will hit shelves in mid-October for $999.

Source: Electronic House