Archive for March, 2010

Remember that ultra-low-cost Android-powered tablet that Marvell was showing off back at MWC this year? It seemed neat enough considering the aggressive goal of getting it into Chinese customers’ hands for somewhere around $100, but there was a single unforgivable problem: the iWonder logo was upside-down. Fatal flaw, right? Well, not to worry, because Marvell’s back with the iWonder here at CTIA, and this time the logo’s facing precisely the same direction as the display (in landscape mode, anyhow). We’ve also learned that the tablet is being produced in a wide variety of colors — we saw white at MWC, black here — so if you’ve ever dreamed of owning a cherry red Google-powered tablet that’s as big as your frickin’ skull, Marvell knows a guy who knows a guy who can probably hook you up.

iWonder Android tablet fixes major bug: the logo is right-side-up — Engadget

Windows/Mac/Linux: Video encoders are a dime a dozen but DamnVid not only encodes local video in a wide variety of formats, it converts online video in real-time as you download it.

You’ll find no shortage of video conversion tools if you take the time to look. The majority of them, like DamnVid, rely on the venerable FFmpeg library. Unlike the majority of video conversion tools, however, DamnVid makes it extremely easy to download and quickly convert online videos from dozens of video sites.

In the screenshot above we started filling the conversion queue simply by visiting a few video websites and copying the URL as we found videos we wanted to download and covert. You don’t even have to copy and then paste the URL into DamnVid, it grabs supported site URLs right from the clipboard. When you’re ready to convert the videos, DamnVid encodes the video in the new format as you’re downloading it significantly cutting down on the time it takes to empty the encode queue.

DamnVid Encodes Movies While Downloading for Speedy Conversion – Conversion – Lifehacker

Haven’t updated your laptop’s trackpad driver lately? Then you may well want to consider doing so, at least if your laptop is equipped with a Synaptics trackpad. As a user on the Hardware Zone forums discovered, the latest Synaptics driver seems to enable multitouch gestures on older laptops that didn’t previously support them, including two-finger scrolling, and three-finger click. What’s more, while the drivers themselves come from HP, they should work just fine on other laptops with a Synaptics trackpad. Hit up the link below to try it out for yourself.

Synaptics driver enables multitouch gestures on older trackpads — Engadget

If you’re a software developer lucky enough to get a look at the iPad before its release, you’d better be ready to submit to some of the toughest security measures this side of Super Max.

We’d gotten an inkling about the extreme precautions Apple was taking from none other than Rupert Murdoch, but Business Week has an in-depth look at what goes on behind closed doors.

It starts with a 10-page nondisclosure agreement that must be signed by anyone making contact with the device. Developers who want to test their apps on the iPad must do so in an isolated room with blacked-out windows, and the tablet must "remain tethered to a fixed object" for the duration. While Apple will ship iPads out to devs, they won’t do so until they’ve got photographic proof that their restrictions have been complied with.

That is, of course, if you’re able to get your hands on an iPad at all—it’s not clear how many developers have been seeded, but even notables like Flixster and Evernote have been shut out of the process so far.

How Apple Keeps iPad Developers on Extreme Lockdown – Ipad secrecy – Gizmodo

According to this press release, Marvell is announcing the $99 Moby Tablet for Education. You’ve seen my video of Marvell’s 4.3″ Tablet prototype shown at CES based on the Marvell Armada 600 processor. The Moby tablet is based on the same Armada 600 platform but comes with a larger screen (probably

//slashdot.org/submission/1196796/99-Moby-Tablet-as-textbook-alternative?from=rss

Why ? Because some said that buying an IPad from amazon is way cheaper than buying IPad from online Apple store because of because tax charged. With IPad order from online Apple store, you’ll have to pay tax for around thirty or forty dollars but If you buy IPad from Amazon you can save more ! and this is not included Amazon’s discount yet.

If you want to buy a cheaper IPad, better wait for Amazon ? – a place for digital read & digital write. – tablettweet.com

At the MIX10 conference, Microsoft released the developer preview of Internet Explorer 9. This isn’t a full web browser like IE8 is – just a taste of what’s to come in IE9. Developers who have the preview browser installed, though, will receive updates bringing new code every 2 months until the beta release of IE9.

As previously announced, the new browser will support HTML5, CSS3, and hardware acceleration. It also sports a new JavaScript engine called “Chakra.” You can read more about its improvements and how to send feedback over on the IE blog here.

When you first launch the IE9 preview browser, you’re taken to the IE9 Test Drive website where you’ll find a series of tests ready to be run. There are speed demos for testing browser performance, graphics demos, and HTML5 demos for testing border radius, CSS2, DOM Style, and DOM events. There’s also an “HTML 5 T-Shirt Designer” app that uses HTML5 and XHTML to let you create your own shirt.

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Preview IE9 Now | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10

Ninth time’s the charm, sometimes! At least that’s Microsoft’s hope with IE9, which they’ve just announced at Mix, brings new HTML5 support (including HTML5 video!), hardware-accelerated graphics for text and images, and a totally new JavaScript engine. Constantly updating.

Microsoft issued a release just before the actual announcement and demo at the Mix conference, which is just getting under way—here’s what we can pick out so far. (More to come, after the demos.)

Internet Explorer 9: A Fresh Start – Internet Explorer 9 – Gizmodo

T3 is reporting that Mike Tedesco, Microsoft‘s Senior Product Manager for WindowsBU, stated that a version of Microsoft Office for the iPad is "something that we’re looking at." Tedesco stressed that he couldn’t make any official announcement today, but from the sounds of things, Microsoft is at least considering a version of Office for Apple’s newest creation.
The iPad already has the ability to run a productivity suite — Apple has created iPad-specific versions of its own iWork programs, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for $9.99 each — but as T3 notes, bringing Office over to the iPad would go a long way toward establishing it as a legitimate productivity device. Whether those Office apps would be bundled together, offered individually, or cost as much as or more than iWork is, of course, impossible to say at this point. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about Microsoft’s intentions.

Microsoft may create Office for iPad

Making a bootable USB flash drive for Windows Vista and Windows 7 isn’t all that tricky, but it’s always nice to find an app that simplifies things. Not only does WinToFlash make the process about as easy as it can get, but it can also create Windows XP, Server 2003, and Server 2008 installers.
The default options make it easy to roll a silent Windows install, or you can flip the custom switch and specify the exact setup parameters you want to use.
The handy app also has one more trick up its sleeve: moving Windows Preinstall environments. PE discs can be extremely handy for troubleshooting and repairs, and being able to painlessly zap them over to a USB flash drive means not having to burn a new copy every time someone’s haggard old optical drive decides to chew up your CD.
WinToFlash is a free download and is totally portable. It’s an excellent tool to add to your USB-related utilities.