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Tech News and Reviews
Toshiba will have its own family of slates by this time next year
Mar 12th
Before the iPad and before the Slate, the most exciting touchy tablety thing in our lives was Toshiba’s JournE multimedia tablet. Now that the Japanese compu-maker has seen what the competition has on offer, it’s proudly proclaimed itself back in the running with an entire family of slate devices it’s planning to introduce near the end of 2010 or in early 2011. “It has proved to be a mistake to underestimate these new categories” is the word from Toshiba’s Jeff Barney, which indicates that not even he sees that much potential in the form factor, but his company is pushing ahead with its plans for fear of being left behind. Also quoted in the Fortune piece is ASUS’ inimitable Jonney Shih, who makes sure to remind us that without multitasking, Flash support, or a webcam for videoconferencing, the iPad leaves plenty of room for devices richer in features to grab market share. All we know for certain is that the major players are falling in line to make 2010 truly the year of tablet — whether or not consumers will place their stamp of approval on this vendor-driven craze, though, remains to be seen.
ASUS Cine5 is ‘world’s most compact’ five-channel speaker, doesn’t forget the blue LEDs
Mar 12th
Seriously, who told manufacturers that we’re in love with garish LED status lights?ASUS has strapped a glowing orb of unnecessariness around the volume knob of the Cine5 — an otherwise perfectly acceptable and appreciably diminutive PC soundbar. With an array of speaker drivers integrated into that curvy body, ASUS claims the Cine5 produces realistic multidirectional surround sound, but does admit it’s mostly intended for smaller spaces such as study rooms. The announcement also includes a nod to FPS gamers, with claims that the improved positional audio on offer will benefit both gameplay immersion and accuracy when identifying a sound source, though we reckon the biggest boon will still be the elimination of the extra cables and speakers one usually needs to get one’s surround sound on. Price and availability have not yet been made public, but knowing ASUS both should be in the reasonable range of the market.
PlayStation Move: everything you ever wanted to know
Mar 12th
Sony dropped a lot of knowledge on us yesterday, at long last replacing rampant speculation with some cold hard facts — and even a name! — for its new PlayStation motion controller. The PlayStation Move is being described as a “platform” and a “virtual console launch” by folks at Sony, and we think they mean it, so prepare for a motion-controlled ad war later this year, as Microsoft and Sony set themselves up for a real three-way fight with Nintendo for your physical living room activity of the gaming variety. While some of the high-level Wii-like functionalities might be obvious, follow us after the break as we walk through the nitty gritty of everything we know so far about Move.
JooJoo hits the FCC, reveals NVIDIA Ion, 3G card
Mar 12th
Well well. We’d always suspected that the JooJoo tablet was hiding something extra to run HD video and Flash, and it’s just hit the FCC with full documentation and a teardown confirming that there’s an NVIDIA Ion GPU paired with an Atom N270 packed inside. We’re also seeing a 3G card in there, although it’s unclear whether it’ll be active or installed at launch — we’ve been told the 3G version won’t be ready until sometime later this year, but things have been changing fast, so that may be in flux as well. There’s also a picture showing it running Windows, but we’re assuming that’s just for testing purposes — we’d also bet it’d be an easy little hack. But back to Ion for a second: our experience with first-gen Ion netbooks has been one of decreased performance and drastically reduced battery life, so we’re very curious to see how the JooJoo holds up compared to modern netbooks running Intel’s Pine Trail chips and NVIDIA’s Optimus-based Ion 2. We’ll see — it’s supposed to ship in just a few weeks. Two more pics after the break.
P.S.- Oh, and Fusion Garage got back to us yesterday with a list of supported local video formats, and it’s pretty decent: AVI, MPEG-4, MOV, WMV and WMA, FLV (Flash Video), VOB, OGG, OGM and OGV, MKV (Mastroska), DiVX and XViD. We’ll see how the battery holds up, though — our very own Joanna Stern predicts a best case of 3.5 hours with WiFi on and a video playback time of two hours.
iPad orders start at 8:30AM tomorrow morning
Mar 12th
We knew iPad pre-orders were starting tomorrow, but know we know exactly when all you lovable crazies have to stumble out of bed and transmit your credit card numbers to Steve’s brain: 8:30AM ET, or 5:30AM on the West Coast. We generally recommend a bed shaker alarm clock, but hey, let’s not pretend we haven’t all turned a few long nights into tomorrow with our old friends Jackie D and Mistakes. See you on the other side, chochachos.
iriver introduces D1000 ‘e-dictionary’ for Korea
Mar 11th
So-called “e-dictionaries” don’t often make the trip over here, but iriver broke that trend with its D5 clamshell device, which suggests that it just might also do the same with its new D1000 follow-up. Of course, like its predecessor, this device is quite a bit more than just a dictionary, with it packing a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 touch screen, 8GB or 16GB of storage, built-in WiFi, a DMB TV tuner, 720p video output, and a full range of media player features. Happen to live in Korea or planning a trip sometime soon? Then you can pick this one up right now for between 349,000 and 409,000 Korean won depending on the model and capacity, or roughly between $300 and $360.
MSI’s Wind U160 netbook up for grabs in the US
Mar 11th
Got a hankering for Pine Trail? We attest to a certain weakness ourselves, and now MSI’s Wind U160 netbook is on sale for $380 to fulfill your Atom N450 snacking needs. We were intrigued by the little laptop when we played with it back at CES, particularly if its standard 6-cell battery hump can really produce the quoted 14 hours of life. For whatever reason Newegg and Buy.com are showing now-shipping right now, while Amazon’s lagging with pre-orders only at this point, but we’re sure you’ll make the right retail choice, whatever happens.
Panasonic gets official with Lumix DMC-G2 and DMC-G10 Micro Four Thirds cameras
Mar 11th
Panasonic has the news day all to itself with its newfangled pair of Micro Four Thirds shooters, and in case you were wondering — yeah, this is the exact same duo that we saw slip out on Friday. Up first is the Lumix DMC-G2, which looks an awful lot like the G1 it replaces and is touted as the first interchangable lens system camera with touch-control shooting. Granted, we haven’t exactly warmed to the idea of using a touchpanel to fire off a shot, but hey, it is what it is. Other specs include a 12.1 megapixel Live MOS sensor, Venus Engine HD II technology, a 3-inch rear LCD and a 720p (AVCHD Lite) movie mode, though curiously enough a price and release date eludes us. Moving on, there’s the DMC-G10, which is supposedly the “world’s lightest” interchangeable lens camera with a viewfinder; this one packs the same 12.1 megapixel sensor and Venus Engine HD II as on the G2, but the 3-inch LCD lacks tilt / swivel / touch options. We’re still waiting on pricing for this one as well, but now is as good a time as any to mention that both fully support those obnoxiously expensive SDXC cards. Huzzah!
Motorola Backflip now on sale at AT&T
Mar 11th
Heads-up, kids — AT&T’s first-ever slice of Android is now available. Just let that sink in a minute. Feels good, doesn’t it? Motorola’s Backflip has gone on sale just as promised, and that debatably awesome Blur action can be yours for $99.99 after mail-in rebate and a 2-year agreement. So, you pulling the trigger, or you are you waiting for whatever Dell and / or HTC are bringing to the party?
First iPad ad premieres during the Oscars
Mar 11th
Apple’s doing the Oscars up right tonight — not only was Steve Jobs making friends on the red carpet, but the company ran the first iPad ad just now during the broadcast. It’s pretty much what you’d expect out of an Apple ad, but, you know, more magical. Get ready for a blitz of these as we lead up to April 3.