Cablevision Systems Corp is launching an app for customers using its Optimum package to watch television on their iPads at home. The service, available at no extra charge, will allow the cable operator's more than 3 million customers to watch some 300 channels, search programming by genre and enable customers to record programs. The system uses Cablevision's digital cable television network to deliver programing to the iPad, so customers do not need to have Internet access on their devices to use the app. "This application allows the iPad to function as a television, delivering the full richness and diversity of our cable television service to a display device in the home," said Tom Rutledge, Cablevision chief operating officer. The move by New York-based Cablevision comes weeks after Time Warner Cable launched its own iPad app in mid-March. The Time Warner version allows users to watch live programing from 32 networks so long as they are at home using their Wi-Fi network. But Time Warner's app sparked controversy. A few days ago, after getting several "cease and desist" notices, the No. 2 U.S. cable company said it would no longer carry networks owned by News Corp's Fox, Viacom and Discovery Communications. The media companies believe the cable company needs to pay for new licenses in order for customers to use the iPad app.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Materials available from HP’s U.S. and Japanese Web sites indicate computer maker Hewlett-Packard is preparing new versions of its EliteBook ultraportable notebooks, including power-sipping versions of Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors and USB 3.0 for fast connectivity to peripherals. Although the EliteBooks have historically been oriented at business and enterprise users, they’ve also been embraced by road warriors and travelers, who value their performance-per-ounce ratio. According to information that’s come out of HP so far, the new EliteBook models - the 2560p and 2760p convertible tablet PC will feature second-generation Intel Core processors, including the Core i5-2537M and Core i7-2617M, matching processors already available in the 15-inch EliteBook model. HP’s ultraportable EliteBooks typically have 12.1-inch displays; however, material on HP’s Japanese site suggests HP might be offering a model with a 13-inch display with up to 1,440 by 900-pixel native resolution. Reports also have the new ultraportable EliteBooks offering integrated 33G connectivity as an option; the current EliteBook 3540p offers 3G service from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint as an option in the United States.
Taiwan’s AsusTek has brought its Eee Pad Transformer to U.S. consumers by April by launching the device at electronics retailer Best Buy for a starting price of $399.99. The availability of the Eee Pad Transformer not only increases the number of Android tablet devices on the market running Android 3.0 “Honeycomb,” but also hits a very important price point: it undercuts the Apple iPad 2. The Eee Pad Transformer features a 10.1-inch display with a 1,280 by 800-pixel resolution, so it has more pixels than an iPad, and is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and 1 GB of LPDDR2 memory. Rather than relying on flash storage, the Eee Pad Transformer carriers a 16 GB hard drive but the device still measures just half and inch thick, although it weighs a rather un-svelte 2.2 pounds. The Eee Pad Transformer features a 1.2 megapixel webcam with mic, a 4-in-1 media card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 wireless networking, and is available in brown or black. The Transformer’s claim to fame is that it can dock with an optional keyboard and that keyboard contains a whole separate battery system, so the combined devices can run 16 hours rather than the 8 hours users can expect from the tablet alone. The keyboard is optional and Best Buy doesn’t seem to have it in stock yet but even with the keyboard dock the Eee Pad might give an iPad-and-keyboard combination some serious price competition. Asus is also launching the Eee Pad Transformer in France and the United Kingdom. In the UK, the 16 GB edition will apparently sell for £379, with a 32 GB edition selling for £50 more, with keyboard docking stations going for another £50. In France, the 16 GB version will apparently be priced at €399, but won’t be available until May.Friday, April 1, 2011
HTC has posted a new promotional video for its upcoming Android tablet, which will either be named the Flyer -its moniker in the video -or the smartphone-like Evo View 4G when it arrives this summer. As tablets go, the specifications for the Flyer are impressive but far from unique: a 7-inch, 1024-by-600 display; 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; 1GB of RAM; 32GB of internal memory; a microSD card slot; and dual cameras (5-megapixel rear, 1.3-megapixel front). What makes the Flyer unique is its pen-input feature. Despite the woeful history of pen-based tablets, HTC is giving it another go with the Flyer. If one can trust HTC's promo video, the Flyer's pen implementation looks pretty slick. The abilities to notate in eBooks, comment on documents and Web pages, and sign contracts with a stylus add a new layer of functionality to today's tablets. A pen is also better for many drawing and photo-editing tasks, as the video carefully illustrates. It'll be interesting to see if HTC's pen-input makes the Flyer a standout in an increasingly crowded tablet market.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
China’s largest computer maker, Lenovo has launched its own tablet computer at home as it tries to compete for a share of an increasingly crowded market dominated by Apple's iPad. The LePad - powered by Google's Android software - was launched in China on Monday at a Chinese-media only event. Lenovo will begin selling LePad directly to Chinese consumers this week through its own retail stores and it will put it on sale outside China by June. The firm said in a statement that it was aggressively pursuing the mobile Internet device business and established a special division - the Mobile Internet and Digital Home Business Group - this year to better compete. "The LePad is the first major launch since the business group's founding, we are confident in it and will continue to enrich its product line with better performing products and a richer selection of styles," Lenovo said. In addition to the iPad, Lenovo's new tablet will compete against gadgets from other major electronics companies such as Dell, Samsung Electronics and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion. LePad - which was first unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - has a 10.1-inch colour screen and connects to the Internet using WiFi or 3G telecom services. In China, models equipped with WiFi wireless technology will carry a recommended price tag of 3,499 yuan ($533) for the 16-gigabyte version. The pre-orders for LePad have began on March 16. Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC business in 2004 for $1.25 billion, had roughly 27 percent of its home market last year and was ranked fourth in the world with a global share of about eight percent, according to data from IDC intelligence firm.
Online marketplace operator EBay has said that it will pay $2.4 billion for GSI Commerce, which operates websites for retailers like Toys R Us and Bath & Body Works. EBay Inc., which runs its namesake site where users buy and sell items through auctions and fixed-price "Buy it Now" formats as well as online payments service PayPal, hopes the acquisition will bolster its ability to connect buyers and sellers around the world. GSI runs websites, packs and ships products and offers interactive marketing services to a variety of retailers. It has long-term contracts with 180 retailers, including Radio Shack, Ace Hardware and American Eagle Outfitters. EBay has been working on improving its eBay.com website by doing things such as revamping its home page, cutting upfront listing fees it charges sellers and bolstering its search engine. In an interview, eBay CEO John Donahoe said the GSI deal fits in with his company's efforts to help retailers grow. Lots of businesses need help doing things like generating demand for products, running their websites, delivering goods to customers, and growing their mobile sales, Donahoe said. GSI does this for large companies, and eBay and PayPal do this for small- and medium-sized companies, he said, which makes the acquisition a natural fit. The purchase might also help eBay compete with Seattle-based Amazon, which, in addition to selling many items directly, allows merchants to sell their products through its site and offers product fulfillment services, too. EBay is already involved with GSI through PayPal, which was integrated with GSI customers' sites last year. San Jose-based eBay said it will pay $29.25 per share. The $2.4 billion total is the second-largest amount eBay has paid for another company so far. In 2005 eBay paid at least $2.6 billion for Internet calling and messaging service Skype, which it has since sold.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Paul Baran, whose work with packaging data in the 1960s has been credited with playing a role in the later development of the Internet, has died at age 84. Baran died at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. Saturday night of complications from lung cancer, said his son David Baran. Paul Baran is best known for the idea of "packet-switching," in which data is bundled into small packages and sent through a network. Baran outlined the concept while working on Cold War issues for the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica in 1963 and 1964. In 1969 the technology became a concept the Department of Defense used in creating the Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet, numerous reports on the subject said. The idea had been so advanced at its development that private companies had passed on it. "Paul wasn't afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else thought was the right or only thing to do," Vinton Cerf, a vice president at Google and a colleague and longtime friend of Baran, told the New York Times, which first reported Baran's death. President George W. Bush presented him with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2008. A year earlier, he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, joining the likes of Thomas Edison. "I think that we give a lot of attention to music and football, why not those who come up with ideas that we use in a different way," he said. Baran's method of moving data was designed to still function after a nuclear attack. Because there were no centralized switches, and bundles of data could simply find a new route if one weren't working, the system could still work even if much of it were destroyed, the RAND Corporation said. He called the process "message blocks." Donald Davies of Great Britain independently developed a similar system and his term, "packet-switching," would eventually be adopted, RAND said. It would be decades before the social and commercial possibilities of the technology would become clear, and Baran would miss out on a lot of the money and glory that came with it, but he was happy to live to see it happen, his son said. "He was a man of infinite patience," David Baran said. The son said his father recently shared a paper that he wrote in 1966, speculating on the future of the computer networks he was working on. "It spelled out this idea that by the year 2000 that people would be using online networks for shopping and news," he said. "It was an absolute lunatic fringe idea." Paul Baran was born in Grodno, Poland in 1926 and his family moved to the United States when he was 2 years old. Baran received many accolades late in life for his pioneering work, but he was anxious to widely distribute the credit. "The process of technological developments is like building a cathedral," he told the Times in a 1990 interview. "Over the course of several hundred years, new people come along and each lays down a block on top of the old foundations, each saying, I built a cathedral. If you are not careful you can con yourself into believing that you did the most important part." Baran's wife since 1955 Evelyn died in 2007. He is survived by his son and three grandchildren.According to a report by Wall Street Journal, Google is joining Citigroup and Mastercard to set up a mobile payment system that will turn Android phones into a kind of electronic wallet. The new technology, which is in its early stages, will allow consumers to wave their Android phones in front of a small reader at the checkout counter to make payments. The planned payment system would allow Google to offer retailers more data about their customers and help them target advertisements and discount offers to mobile device users near their stores. However, Google is not expected to get a cut of the transaction fees. Initially, holders of Citigroup-issued debit and credit cards would be allowed to pay for purchases by activating a mobile payment application developed for one current model and many coming models of Android phones.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Nokia has said it will continue to sell smartphones using its legacy Symbian software for a long time after its first phones using Microsoft's Windows go on sale. Symbian is due to be replaced by Microsoft's Windows Phone over the coming two years under a plan announced in February, raising concerns Nokia could drop Symbian phones - which have lost market share, but generate strong profits - too early. "We will be selling Symbian-devices long after Windows Phone devices from Nokia have already started to appear," said Purnima Kochikar, head of developer relations at Nokia. Nokia has promised to introduce its first models using Windows Phone platform at the latest in 2012. Nokia didn't specify how long it would continue to offer Symbian. Earlier this week research firm Ovum forecast that Symbian phones will continue on some markets into 2016. Kochikar said coming Symbian models would focus on strong integration of services, as well as have faster processors than so far in the Symbian product line. "Over the past weeks we have been evaluating our Symbian roadmap and now feel confident we will have a strong portfolio of new products during our transition period - i.e. 2011 and 2012," Kochikar said. "They will also include improvements in hardware performance such as GHz+ processing capabilities and faster graphics speeds," she said. Nokia's current top models, the N8 and the E7, use 680 MHz processors, while rivals top models already use 1 GHz and faster processors.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Dell has launched the Inspiron M5030, what it claims to be the first Spanish-language laptop sold within the U.S.
The Inspiron M5030 doesn't just have a Spanish-language operating system, as anyone can configure Windows or the Apple OS to operate in Spanish. The $499 notebook also contains a Spanish-language keyboard, designed to give Spanish speakers a more familiar experience.
Dell said it was targeting the 50.5 million Hispanics who live in the U.S.
However, the M5030 will launch in a limited release at BrandsMart USA shops in both Florida and Georgia.
"The launch of the laptop stems from Dell's commitment to listen to customers," said Gerald Zapata of Dell. "By listening, we realized there was a need to develop a laptop that was 100 percent designed for Spanish speakers, affordable and available in the United States. The concept was to introduce a laptop that meets all of these needs and enables Spanish-speaking families to better communicate and keep in touch with relatives, share information and experience the ultimate in technology."
Aside from the cosmetic changes to the OS and the keyboard interface, the new M5030 looks nearly identical to the existing M5030, a Dell laptop which is only sold in stores. The Spanish-language version includes an Athlon II P360 prcoessor, a 1366-by-768 15.6-inch widescreen display, 4 Gbytes of memory, DVD burner, 3-in-1 card reader, 802.11g/n, all running under Windows 7 Home Premium.
The Inspiron M5030 doesn't just have a Spanish-language operating system, as anyone can configure Windows or the Apple OS to operate in Spanish. The $499 notebook also contains a Spanish-language keyboard, designed to give Spanish speakers a more familiar experience.
Dell said it was targeting the 50.5 million Hispanics who live in the U.S.
However, the M5030 will launch in a limited release at BrandsMart USA shops in both Florida and Georgia.
"The launch of the laptop stems from Dell's commitment to listen to customers," said Gerald Zapata of Dell. "By listening, we realized there was a need to develop a laptop that was 100 percent designed for Spanish speakers, affordable and available in the United States. The concept was to introduce a laptop that meets all of these needs and enables Spanish-speaking families to better communicate and keep in touch with relatives, share information and experience the ultimate in technology."
Aside from the cosmetic changes to the OS and the keyboard interface, the new M5030 looks nearly identical to the existing M5030, a Dell laptop which is only sold in stores. The Spanish-language version includes an Athlon II P360 prcoessor, a 1366-by-768 15.6-inch widescreen display, 4 Gbytes of memory, DVD burner, 3-in-1 card reader, 802.11g/n, all running under Windows 7 Home Premium.
Friday, March 25, 2011
AsusTek Computer Inc. has unveiled a sleek tablet computer, after the Taiwanese firm saw the sales of its once popular line of mini-laptops stall following the launch of Apple's hit iPad.AsusTek says the EEE Pad Transformer, which runs on the Android 3.0 operating system, distinguishes itself with an optional keyboard that is superior to docking options for other tablets because of its light weight and flexibility.
Its 10.1-inch screen with a front and rear camera can be detached from the keyboard to allow users on the move quick Web browsing and film viewing. Plugging it to the keyboard dock, the device can then be used as a full-fledged laptop.
"In our own pursuit of perfection, we offer users more options," said AsusTek CEO Jerry Shen. "They can get a full range of functions including 10-finger touch, Flash supported video viewing, e-book reading, and a physical keyboard so they don't have to deal with any inconveniences."
The EEE Pad Transformer, which became available for pre-order in Taiwan on Friday, goes on sale in the U.K. on March 30, to be followed by U.S. sales.
In Taiwan, the 16 GB version without the keyboard sells for 14,900 New Taiwan dollars ($500), while the keyboard version costs NT$17,900 ($600). The company did not provide prices for other markets.
Another Asus tablet, the 12-inch e-Slate powered by the Microsoft Windows operating system, went on sale in January, while two additional Asus tablet models will go on sale soon. Shen said he expected total sales of the four models to reach two million units in 2011.
Taiwan's Acer Inc., the world's third largest computer vendor, has already unveiled four tablet models, as well as a 4.8-inch smartphone that doubles as a tablet. The company says all will be on sale next month.
Shen acknowledged Apple Inc.'s current dominance in the rapidly expanding tablet computer market, but predicted that its market share would fall to 50 percent by 2012, as devices run on Android and Microsoft systems pick up steam.
Asus pioneered netbooks - mini-laptops - to great fanfare in 2007. Once seen as a key to the company's growth, sales remained flat in 2010, following the iPad's appearance in the marketplace.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
T-Mobile's new 4G mobile broadband laptop stick, the T-Mobile Jet 2.0, can now be ordered for free, with a 2-year contract for mobile broadband service. The device, which plugs into a USB port on your PC or Mac laptop, is meant to deliver high-speed HSPA+ 4G Internet access.
Most importantly, T-Mobile has continued to demonstrate its commitment to growing its 4G network, with the announcement of doubling the network's theoretical download speed to 42 Mbps and the introduction of new 4G smartphones, the T-Mobile G2x and Sidekick 4G. In addition to the Jet 2.0 laptop stick, T-Mobile is also launching other 4G mobile broadband devices later this spring: the T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 (first device with 42 Mbps capability) and a prepaid T-Mobile Rocket 4G.
The T-Mobile Jet 2.0 is available now. It features Wi-Fi connection management and a microSD memory card slot. So, you can use the laptop stick for external storage as well as wireless Internet access.
Most importantly, T-Mobile has continued to demonstrate its commitment to growing its 4G network, with the announcement of doubling the network's theoretical download speed to 42 Mbps and the introduction of new 4G smartphones, the T-Mobile G2x and Sidekick 4G. In addition to the Jet 2.0 laptop stick, T-Mobile is also launching other 4G mobile broadband devices later this spring: the T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 (first device with 42 Mbps capability) and a prepaid T-Mobile Rocket 4G.
The T-Mobile Jet 2.0 is available now. It features Wi-Fi connection management and a microSD memory card slot. So, you can use the laptop stick for external storage as well as wireless Internet access.
