Apple Might Release A Touchscreen Notebook This Summer

When it comes to rumors, there is absolutely no stopping. This time it’s not the rumors about your favorite singer or a Hollywood celebrity but about a Touchscreen Netbook from Apple. Just like history repeats itself, rumors too repeat themselves. According to the latest report by Commercial Times, which was passed along by DigiTimes, an Apple Netbook is perhaps expected by the third quarter of this year.

Apparently, this information comes from another reliable source; Wintek, the company slated to provide the touch panels for the device. The Netbook itself is likely to be made by Quanta Computer.It’s not sure if the rumors can be believed or not. However, The Commercial Times did spill the beans to the original iphone. Nevertheless, if you go by the past records, then you may surely not like to believe them considering the amount of wrong information provided by them.

I do not understand why so much of rumors and hype have to be buzzed around this product when nothing about is yet sure. Who is anyways interested in some pale rumors such as this? At least I am not interested!

MiMo Is a Great Display to be Used in Cars

If you were looking for a great display, you must try and check out the awesome Nanovision MiMo Slim. It is not just portable, but is also slim and sleek and the form factor is mind blowing. The key feature of a MiMo display is that it runs only on a single and standard USB connection.

It is also bright and vibrant, and comes with amazing resolution and high contrast LED display. You could try video conferencing like there is no tomorrow. The touchscreen only helps you to lessen your work and you wouldn’t have to push those ugly buttons. You could use it in a horizontal or a vertical mode depending on your convenience.

It can be used in your car and needs no wiring. This has a seven inch display which is not only cool but also quite functional. I would say, don’t hesitate but just go ahead and get this before the stocks are out. The pricing is not mentioned but you could visit and get more information. This is the best computer display you could get for your car!

Foldable TV Screens Are On The Horizon

This is truly amazing stuff. Flexible TV screens mean foldaway cell phones and tiny computers! With paper thin screens like this the possibilities are endless. Sony has designed this organic light emitting diode screen that is only 2.5 inches and weighs a mere 1.5 grams. While they have no specific product in mind currently and this is only a prototype, I imagine a real application is only around the corner.

Business Uses for Cell Phones You Didn’t Know

By Marc Saltzman

Little known cell phone features can help your business, such as voice memos, syncing your contacts in case your computer crashes, and GPS navigation.

If you’re only using your mobile phone to place calls, check e-mail or surf the Web, you’re not taking advantage of all it can do for you and your growing business.

Yep, just as it’s estimated we only use about 10 percent of our brains, you’re probably overlooking many -- if not most -- of your phone’s handy hidden features.

Here we explore a few business-related uses of your cell phone that you might not know about, or use.

Tethered modem

Can’t find a coffee shop to log online with your laptop while on the road? Rather than using Wi-Fi, many people are connecting their phone to their notebook computer to use it as a modem -- even while in the back of a taxi.

“Most newer phones offer this feature -- connecting it to your laptop with USB or Bluetooth so you can log online -- but not many people are doing it yet,” says Erez Zevulunov, director of MIT Consulting, a Toronto-based technology solutions firm. “And now with cell phone bandwidth rivaling broadband modems, such as with 3G phones, speed isn’t an issue anymore.”

Be sure to check with your carrier first to make sure your data plan covers this feature, and find out what the roaming charges are when out of town.

Backup data

Speaking of connecting your phone to a computer, you can carry around many if not all of your contacts and calendar appointments with you -- software is often provided by the phone manufacturer. Furthermore, it’s also a convenient way of protecting your PC files in case something happens to the machine, such as damage caused by fire, flood, theft, virus, or power surge.

Many phones today also offer expandable memory, such as a 2GB MicroSD card, which is enough to store thousands of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Make sure, however, to compress all of these files into a password-protected .zip or .rar file -- just in case you lose your phone.

“Productivity features usually depend on how ‘smart’ the phone is, such as those with an open operating system, but many basic, conventional phones have data back-up services to protect against information loss,” says Nathan Dyer, senior analyst for enterprise mobility at the Boston, Mass.-based Yankee Group.

Memo taking

Many entrepreneurs and small and mid-sized business owners come up with a great idea while on the go, but don’t have a quick way to document it before the epiphany is lost. Guess what -- your phone likely has recording functionality buried in one of those option menus.

“I know lawyers who have stand-alone digital recorders and I ask them ‘why bother?’” says Zevulunov. “You can easily dictate for an hour or more, especially with expandable memory cards, which you can then download to your PC to archive.”

Mobile phones are also ideal for recording boardroom meetings and important conversations.

Also consider the free Jott voice memo service. When you’re out and about and need to send a message to someone (or “jott” a note to yourself), simply call a toll-free number, say your message clearly, and your speech will be converted into text and then e-mailed and text-messaged to the recipient.

GPS navigation

“More and more phones have embedded GPS capabilities that are extremely useful for turn-by-turn directions and locating addresses,” says Dyer. As an example of the latter, if the important client you’re taking out for lunch has a yen for Japanese food, you can quickly find the nearest one with a couple of button presses.

In fact, cell phones with integrated GPS will likely be as common as a built-in camera. Increasingly popular services include TeleNav, which costs about $10 a month, and don’t forget phones like the iPhone offer Google Maps with satellite imagery.

“Even if your phone doesn’t have built-in GPS it probably has Bluetooth so you can pick up an inexpensive receiver to keep on your dashboard,” says Zevulunov.

BlackBerry Applications for Business

By Marc Saltzman

By adding new applications, such as GPS and location-based services, businesses can now distribute BlackBerrys to staff and locate and dispatch workers, manage work orders, process electronic time sheets, and monitor assets.

Suffice it to say, the BlackBerry has become an indispensible tool for millions of small and mid-size businesses, largely in part to its reliable push-mail solution that delivers messages to your phone as soon as they arrive in an inbox.

But in order to maintain its competitive edge, the Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion understands it needs to open up its doors to third-party applications to help businesses remain productive while on the go.

“There has been phenomenal growth in applications available for the BlackBerry platform,” confirms Tyler Lessard, director of independent software vendor alliances at Research in Motion. “We are signing new partners every day and being approached constantly by people who are looking for ways to increase the mobile capabilities of their applications using the BlackBerry solution.”

The following are a few recommended applications that can help you and your employees stay in touch, keep organized and remain competitive, wherever business takes you. Be sure to check with your cell carrier for availability and pricing.

TeleNav

Rather than purchase a separate GPS unit to help you navigate from point A to B without getting lost, or finding relevant location-based info, a GPS-enabled BlackBerry lets you have it all on one device. Small and mid-size businesses "especially benefit from services like TeleNav because they save on travel time and they reduce the need for road warriors to call in for guidance,” says Carmi Levy, senior vice president for strategic consulting at AR Communications, a Toronto-based marketing communications firm. “[Employees] work more independently, consuming less office time and spending more time in front of customers.”

eOffice from DynoPlex

eOffice lets you easily access and manage all your documents, wherever and whenever -- all stored remotely on your office PC, through a password-protected virtual hard disk on the Internet. As if it were stored locally on the smartphone, you can now retrieve, review, edit, and save documents -- such as Microsoft Word or Excel files. “Attachments are an increasingly frequent reality for anyone who sends and receives e-mail, and although the basic BlackBerry OS allows Office files to be viewed, the experience is severely limited,” says Levy. “DynoPlex’s eOffice is often good enough that users can leave their laptops at home and travel lighter on business trips.”

SpinVox

This voicemail-to-text service can save you time because there’s no need to dial in to pick up your voice mail. Instead, an accurate transcript of the voicemail message is text messaged to you automatically so you can simply read the message on your BlackBerry. After all, you might be in a meeting and unable to answer that important call from a client, your boss, or a member of your staff. Well, now you can discretely glance at a text message which has the content of the voicemail message on your phone.

Nuance Voice Control from Nuance Communications

Consider it an alternative to using your thumbs to type your way through all of your BlackBerry’s functions -- such as making calls, drafting an e-mail or adding a calendar entry -- as you can use the power of your voice to take command. Your spoken words are transcribed into text for, say, an e-mail message, or you can choose to send your voice clip as an e-mail attachment. “Voice-activated control and navigation can remove the last barrier to on-the-road productivity -- the tiny keyboard -- from potential objections to wider mobile deployment,” explains Levy.

WebMessenger from Apptix

This all-in-one instant messaging (IM) client supports a broad range of services, including AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber. For small and mid-size businesses with mobile employees that need to routinely interact with the home office in real-time, "the presence awareness offered by an always-on IM client can be a compelling driver of productivity,” says Levy. “Road warriors can get answers to their questions more quickly, which allows them to spend more time servicing customers and less time waiting around.”

Other BlackBerry applications to check out:

• “We find that organizations are interested in applications that access [small business] CRM and accounting packages such as Goldmine, ACT, and Quicken,” says RIM’s Lessard.
• Impatica Showmate allows mobile professionals to deliver PowerPoint presentations directly from their BlackBerry smartphone.
• MobiMate’s Worldmate Live and Handmark’s PocketExpress can greatly enhance personal productivity and efficiency while traveling with tools that include flight status updates, rental car information, and world weather.
• Virtual Reach's Viigo is an RSS reader that can track, download, and display critical pieces of regularly updated content, such as news, stock values, and sports.

Going Blu-ray

It’s 2009 and about time we upgrade to the world of true 1080p movie watching with a proper Blu-ray player. Here are this year’s fresh picks.

After you go Blu-ray, you will never look at a regular DVD quite the same way again. One of the worthy units in the market is the Samsung BD-P1500 player. It can output a video resolution of up to 1080p and it’s got high definition multimedia interface (HDMI) output to accommodate all of that HD goodness. Although its inability to play DivX, MP3, WMA or JPEG files is despairing enough. This basic black box doesn’t boast many visual adornments, but it is classy in its understatement.

The video end is well covered, with HDMI 1.3, component video and composite video outputs and on the audio front, you get HDMI, optical digital and stereo analog. Samsung BD-P1500 lacks a coaxial digital audio output and multichannel analog audio outs (This is an issue for anyone who has an older, non-HDMI-equipped A/V receiver and desires the ability to listen to high-resolution audio tracks.) The player sports an Ethernet port and an USB port, which can be quite useful additions.

The Ethernet port can be used to access internet and the USB port connects enables storage devices to manage data. Since the BD-P1500 has an Ethernet port, a network setup will be required. But don’t fret, as the player’s default settings automatically obtain the needed information from a server and you will be required to make changes only if you want to manually input your network information. If you choose your shop right, then BD-P1500 should cost you around Rs 14,000. Its picture performance at this price is brilliant.

Next in line is the Blu-ray player from Denon, a world leader in consumer electronics, which has released three high-end players. The Denon DVD-2500 BTCI offers 10-bit video processing for scaling of standard DVDs up to 1080p and will output both bitstream and LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation) for the new audio codecs as well as all the legacy ones like Dolby Digital and DTS. It can also play CDs, Kodak picture and Fuji Color CDs, WMA and MP3 CDs, DVDs and of course, Blu-rays.

The image detail and colours were spot-on, while the uncompressed audio was far superior to the standard DTS. Result, a wider soundstage with improved detail and the bass of explosions are unbelievable. It lacks internal and mountable memory or an Ethernet port, so if you must have the downloadable add-ons for your entertainment, then look elsewhere. Otherwise, it costs approximately Rs 45,000.

The new Philips BDP7200, which seems like a tiny machine when compared with Denon-2500 BTCI, supports 1080p playback and allows you to pass Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD bitstream over HDMI. Frankly, there’s a lot to like about the BDP7200. A relatively quick and very stable Blu-ray player, it’s easy on the wallet too. At Rs 20,000, it figures in a snug price spectrum. Philips has included a lot of auto modes to remove guesswork for the average consumer.

If HDMI is your video output of choice, the default resolution setting is Auto, which causes the player to output the highest resolution your TV will accept. Other choices include 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. The player’s analog audio set-up menu lets you set output speaker size, distance and level for the front, centre, surrounds and subwoofer. The BDP7200 also gives no trouble while launching or playing the interactive games on it. It moved through the game experience without freezes, stutters, or excessive delays.

The BDP7200 supports picture-in-picture playback, but lacks access to web. Ultimately, the lack of an Ethernet port is the make or break issue in today’s Blu-ray players. If you really want access to BD-Live web content, a functionality which is available in the Sony PlayStation 3 then go for Samsung BD-P1500.

Microsoft filing for fewer H1-B visas

As the US Citizenship and Immigration Services started accepting applications from Wednesday for the much sought-after H-1B work visas for professionals, software giant Microsoft said this year it is filing less petitions for work visas under this category.

This is primarily because of the current economic situation in the country, Microsoft said. “Given the economic downturn, we are filing substantially fewer H-1B applications than we filed last year,” Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith wrote in a blog posting on microsoftissues.com.

Unlike previous years, Smith said a solid majority of Microsoft’s applications this year are for employees who are already working for Microsoft in the US, so that it can retain their talent and specialised skills in this country rather than risk losing them to a foreign competitor.

Observing that Microsoft would be creating several thousand new jobs this year, Smith said the software giant would hire majority of them from the US but would also hire talented professionals from overseas so as to remain competitive in the market.

“To succeed and continue adding jobs in the highly competitive global technology business, Microsoft and other US companies must be able to hire top talent wherever it is located,” he said.

Making a strong case for H-1B visa holders, Smith said, while the number of visa holders is very small compared to the US workforce, their contribution is huge. For example, last year 35 per cent of Microsoft’s patent applications in the US came from new inventions by visa and green card holders. The situation at other US technology leaders is probably very similar.

A recent study, he argued, found that for every H-1B position requested, US technology companies increase their employment by five new jobs.

He said importance of the high-skilled workers has not changed despite the dramatic changes in the economy