Microsoft BlackBerry

No, Microsoft didn’t just make a good decision and buy BlackBerry to replace their not 1 but 2 failing mobile divisions (they bought Danger yaknow). Actually, now I think about it is more worrying then that.
It seems BlackBerry has decided that their hardware is horrible and to rejuvenate the  BlackBerry software for WinMo phones. Well, I might have lied a little about the hardware part (I have a 8800), but the software part is true.
If you need proof, you can now go to the  XDA-Developers website and attempt to get it working on your ugly slow Windows Mobile phone (don’t even bother denying it fan-boy). When you work out that you need a BIS or BES ISP account to actually use it and find out that the BlackBerry browser may actually be worse then the WinMo IE browser, you will probably give up and buy an iPhone.

I Dream Of Sony Tablet

If you read tech news you also would have read that Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony’s CFO, has recently said “Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it’s a space we would like to be an active player in.” Basically it means watch out iPad, Sony has an ace up its sleeve.
Imagine a company that is one of the biggest movie studios, one of the biggest music studios, one of the biggest game studios and also one of the worlds largest electronics companies. Take all those things and chuck them in the blender with a pinch of book store and comic store (which they already have) and you get what can be an amazing tablet PC opportunity. If Sony was to do this right it would be more then a tablet computer, it could be a portable entertainment hub like no other.
All isn’t sunshine and rainbows though. Sony has a habit of taking a beautiful piece of hardware and crippling it. Read any product review and you will see a common theme. They will take this fantastic opportunity to beat Apple at their own game and they will find a way to ruin the experience with DRM or weak application support. The other problem is Sony tablets have a common theme and that is the Windows OS. I’ve mentioned it before, a tablet OS has to build with touch in mind and Windows never was.
What I’m praying for is much more interesting then my cynicism. Imagine a 7″ tablet which was unbelievably thin with slide out PS3 controller (sort of like the PSPgo, but with dual sticks). Then a little XMB on there and make the screen touch sensitive and you would have an almost perfect peice of hardware. Then take all the stores you support, from ebooks to games and throw them on there, or better yet, charge a monthly fee for unlimited access to all of it!
That is the dream I one day hope for from one of the biggest companies in the world. Will it happen, probably not (that is the cynicism again).

Via [Yahoo]

Say Hello To The Sony Vaio EB Series

Looks like Sony has released another model to their ever going product line up. This time it is the EB series (E = Entertainment?).
It is a 2.7KG, 15.5″ entertainment machine from the looks of it, with a off center keyboard and touch pad, and options for very powerful ATI graphics cards (both the 5470 and 5650). The EB also seems to be inspired by Skittles for colours, with options for bright green, pink and blue.
The series starts at $US799 and ships somewhere in the future. Lets hope that though we get Acer pricing, we still get Sony quality.

Via [Sony]

iPad Runs Windows 7!!!

Ok, I used the title to sucker you all in. Of course the iPad doesn’t natively run Windows 7, it just can’t (ARM processor). What it can do, which is as good for corporate users, is run a virtual desktop via Citrix.
It seems the little iPad will have a few more tricks up its sleeve then originally thought.

Via [Gizmodo]

Surprise! The iPad is a tablet.

Actually, less a traditional tablet and more a giant iTouch. I have to say my first reaction was disappointment. There was nothing exciting and unexpected about it. I was hoping for a magical E-ink style screen, multitasking greatness, forward facing camera, super 2GHz dual core processor, plugless charging (and syncing) and other revolutionary concepts. I wanted the iPad to be the greatest gadget ever created.
After letting it sit for a while, contemplating Apples other successes, it dawned on me. Apple is a software company (well derr). The iPad was never going to be the hardware game changer that people speculated, but it is going to be what Windows 7 will never be, and that is an OS designed for being used on a tablet.
It is designed with convenience in mind. This is a true consumer device. It will make surfing the web fun, watching movies fun, playing games fun and it might even trick some people into reading books again. Just don’t expect it to replace your notebook.
Though I believe the price is still very high for what you get, it is the Apple premium and will guarantee you a constantly evolving user experience and one of the biggest stores around. I won’t be buying one when they are available but I have no doubt Apple will sell record amounts of them.

The PS3 Hacked..Finally!

It seems that the genius who broke open the iPhone (Geohot Verbatim),  has been spending time breaking open the PS3. How much time? He says it has taken him 5 weeks to finally break through the securities Sony had put in place.
The hack itself is just the ability to access the entire system memory, so it won’t play your downloaded games or allow home-brew as yet. His next step is to reverse engineer everything he has found, but this is definitely a step towards a completely open system for homebrewers and pirates.
3 years 2 months and 11 days it has taken, so you gotta give Sony some credit.
Via [PS3 Hacks]

Full Spec Vaio Z

The Vaio Z refresh has been known for a few weeks now (since the announcement at CES), but a few facts were still in the air. Sony Japan has now announced the Z officially with specs that will blow your mind.

The first thing to note is the new eye melting resolution of 1920 x 1080 (on the top end model). If you found the old z hard to read then this one will surely implode your brain.

It also features all the rumored bits and pieces; the Nvidia 330GT, the quad SSD (no hdd option anymore), back-lit keyboard (reference other article) and the 1.4 kg weight. Price is expected to be around the $US1899 but with the release date of  March you still have plenty of time to start saving those precious pennies (I recommend collecting cans).

Via [Gizmodo]

Windows Mobile 7 Hopes

Once upon a time a company called o2 (not the isp) released the Atom, a Windows smartphone like no other. It was small yet had a processor
that was fast enough to compare to a computer I had only replaced a year before. It was a hackers delight, with hundreds of applications and the ability to customise almost everything. I could say it had flaws, but what could I compare it to at that time?

Going forward, many new Windows smartphones would come ahead of it with only minimal changes. The problem was, other companies were now making better smartphones. Blackberry was superior at data compression, Apple superior at user experience and Android superior at price (can’t beat free).

Microsoft needed something drastic to recover their ever shrinking market. they force out yet another incremential update titled windows mobile 6.5. Reviewers were underwhelded by the same old experience. The face had changed but after a single press you were brought back to the same 10 year old techology.

So skipping forward again we now have word of windows mobile 7. Though still in rumor stage the idea is enough get me excited.

A rewrite of the kernel. A new user interface that is similar thought the whole device. A standard hardware experience across the board and no backwards support for old applications.

Wait what? No backwards support, but that was the whole reason you didn’t go apple years go.

I am glad to hear this. On an apple device, all software has a similar experience. The buttons and fonts are similar. The menus and options are similar. This is because apple knows users want a safe familar experience. My guess is this where microsoft is heading (also they will probably have something similar palm for legacy emulation) in that general direction. With a similar SDK and the ability to quickly add to the Marketplace, it would grow quickly.

With market share being lost hourly, I hope that Microsoft can pull a finger out and release a product that I don’t feel ashamed to carry around in my pocket.

Via [Gizmodo]

Sony Enters Streaming Video Market

Seems Sony has rounded up a bunch of studios and talked them into entering the 21st century of film distribution. Arriving, sometime this year, a system titled Qriocity will be avaliable on pretty much anything that runs a XMB (Vaio’s, BRAVIA’s, maybe PS3). The system will launch with hundreds of films in both SD and HD formats.

What doesn’t make sense is why it has taken Sony so long to make this happen? They already own a massive studio, and sure it might have taken some time to get 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Brothers, Universal and MGM on board, but they could have started with Sony Classics and grew.

I am hoping for a good value subscription based service, with a local mirror at my ISP and fast cinema to services. I can dream can’t I?

Via [Sony Insider]

Plug Computing Goes 3.0

Marvell have recently announced the follow up to the hugely hacker friendly Shivaplug. Titled Marvell Plug Computer 3.0, it now contains such goodies as WiFi, Bluetooth and a blisteringly fast 2 GHz Armada 300 processor.  All this crammed inside  something that resembles a mobile phone charger.

This little device can run as a NAS, web server, media streamer, print server, bittorrent downloader and anything else you can imagine, while using very little power and being dead quiet. If they can keep the price around the $US99 of the original, I will be plugging one in soon.

Via [SlashGear]