When it comes to mobile phone deals and offers we need to acknowledge the fact the Internet has very good offers, some that are not accessible at the local mobile phone dealer. On the other hand, there is also the problem of gaining access to information and finding one resource that can give you valuable information is something we need to always have on our minds. One such resource available is DialtoSave, one web site that is linked to all the major cell phone line operators like Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Virgin, O2 and more. We found here a very good list of possible offers, especially when talking about mobile phone deals. You can go for both a link to a given operator and choose the pay plan that is best suitable for yourself or you can also go for just purchasing a new mobile phone and access some of the best deals we have seen in the area. No matter what you may need, DialtoSave offers that important information you need. The web site was first established with a specialization in cheap international calls and eventually grew more successful and started offered even more information for its visitors. Talking strictly about international calls, you get to learn about an incredible pay plan with just 1 penny per minute for countries like USA, Russia, Italy or Spain, 2 pennies per minute for countries like Japan, Romania or Turkey and 3 pennies per minute for countries like Georgia, Zambia or Colombia.

DialtoSave is also linked with broadband and they do offer a great broadband comparison service that lets you choose exactly what you need with a whole list of possible providers. We thus have three main broadband deals that are tailored for mobile use, Read more »

This piece of news is sure to make some Macbook Air users happy! A lot of them have been complaining about the battery life of this laptop but the good news now is that a company called QuickerTek announced an alternative. You can go for solar power, if you have the needed money. We have three offers available: 18 Watt foldable solar power (will charge your Macbook Air in 14 hours and costs $500), 27 Watt foldable soldar power (will charge your Macbook Air in 14 hours and costs $600) and 44 Watt foldable solar power (will charge the Macbook air in 5 hours and costs $1000).

The official press release stated that the three options available vary in size from 10.5 inches to 60 inches and an Element backpack is included, one that would store both the Macbook Air and the Solar Cell. It is currently marketed as perfect for college students and the image used is a student on a campus lawn never running out of Mac battery. No matter the use, there is no denial that this is a great solution although the Macbook Air is more popular among businessmen than college students.

According to AMD and nVIDIA, Intel is not sharing their specs for the USB 3.0 open host controller. It is officially expected to appear on the market in 2009 and comes with a lot of bandwidth upgrade when compared with the USB 2.0 so we are dealing with something special here. The possibility of going ahead in this market could lead to a lot of money and there is a big chance that both AMD and nVIDIA think that Intel is trying to do this.

USB-IF was founded in 1995 by Intel in collaboration with others like HP, Microsoft, NEC, NXP Semiconductors and Texs Instruments. USB-IF is now working together to bring USB 3.0 to life (it is also being called “PCI Express over cable” so you might also find it under this name). Bandwidth will be increased 10 times as compared with USB 2.0 and transfer will be at around 5 gigabits per second. A lot of the intellectual property behind this new technology was not created by Intel but nVIDIA and AMD think that the company is currently holding a lot of information to itself. They claim that Intel is working silicon so the open host controller is working but they are not giving specifications to chipset and processor Read more »

A lot of sources in the hard drive industry claim that Western Digital is currently working on a Raptor Hard Drive that would come at 20,000 RPM. This is linked with the fact that analysts consider that SSDs will soon become affordable in around 1 year and SSD manufacturers are working hard on toping each other. Also, hard drive manufacturers are currently worrying about the impact that SSDs can have on their business because performance is becoming more linked with other aspects than storage capacity. This is where the Raptor line has an advantage.

The new Western Digital hard drive line is sure to be highly popular although it is quite similar to the new VelociRaptor. It will share similarities in the 2.5 in drive and the 3.5 inch housing. We do not have a lot of details about the topic as everything is still in development and no time frame has been released. According to some sources the hard drive is supposed to be silent and will feature an incredible platter spinning speed of 20,000 RPM. It seems that Western Digital did not manage to get this silent part well done yet and progress aimed to be achieved through an improvement in housing.

This is a classic T-Mobile versus At&T battle although Starbucks is the one that is caught in the middle. T-Mobile is now suing Starbucks because of their free AT&T Wi-Fi offer. The problem is that the two companies are actually promoting free Wi-Fi in a market where T-Mobile currently has the exclusive right to “sell, market and promote its services” because the infrastructure transition to AT&T is not complete. Technically speaking, there are only 2 markets that run Death Star certified equipment in Bakersfield and San Antonio. This basically means that all the other stores are on T-Mobile so it is considered that AT&T is making money off T-Mobile’s back. The problem is that the customer is the one that will suffer and I am sure that everyone thought that the transition to AT&T was done at the Starbucks locations that allow it. It is hard to know what will happen with this in the future but it looks like the law will have to be respected and a trial is in order from the point of view of T-Mobile.

According to a French message board, a new Samsung Blu Ray Player is to appear on the market and it will be called BD-P2500. Although there are a lot of rumors out there, what is interesting now is the fact that this here blu ray player would be the first one that has hardware to support full spec BD-Live from Samsung. On the other hand, the company also announced that the BD-P1500 will become “BD-Live-ready” if you get a firmware upgrade that is needed in order to get to 2.0 spec. The new rumored blu ray player would come equipped with this 2.0 action and this would make it a lot easier. Still, this might just be a good rumor.

Japanese cell phones are highly complicated and they have a lot of features, we all know this. The problem is that it is estimated that people actually only use a maximum of 10 percent of the functions of mobile phones in Japan, according to Nobi Hayashi. He actually gave an example in the Panasonic P905i, which comes with 3-inh TV, GPS, 3G, motion controlled Wii Style games and the hard truth is that all these are not that perfect as motion controls are slow and the TV cuts out. We have a lot of complicated menus that do hide the cool functions in deep sub-menus. With this in mind the iPhone should be quite good as it is easy to use and has enough features.

Talking strictly about the iPhone Hayashi said: “It may sell modestly as a smart phone or as an upgraded iPod, but it’s not quite cutting it as a competitor in our mobile-based culture.” This basically means that the iPhone would need more features in order to be suitable in the Japanese smart phone market. A recent poll also showed that half of the people in the poll would want to buy an iPhone but only a fifth actually knew what it was. The only thing that is good at the moment for the iPhone in the Japanese market is the Apple brand, which is well known and might sell alone a lot of the units that will be sold. An increase in features would be good and might pull off a huge surprise in the country but still, the current line of features of the iPhone is considered not enough for the Japanese mobile market, even if the leaders have too many features. Quite strange, no?

Recent news in show that Sony is getting ready to release a small laptop (low cost of course) that is based on Via Technologies. A prototype was announced last week and shown by Quanta Computer (contract manufacturer) at WiMax Expo in Taipei. The mini laptop is based on the open source Via OpenBook reference design and will start shipping during the third quarter of this year.

Going into specs we see that the laptop will feature a 1.6 GHz C7-M processor (from Via,of course) and is listed with Sony as manufacturer. What is interesting is that Quanta is currently the largest laptop maker for laptop computers in the world although Sony was listed as manufacturer at the official showing. The truth is that Quanta is currently under contract for many big brands in the industry and they are not allowed to discuss customer facts with anyone. This might be the case with Sony as well and we do expect Sony to be officially listed as manufacturer. We must keep in mind that if Sony is in fact Read more »

Here we go towards science Fiction a little but it does seem that science fiction is quickly becoming reality from many point of views. Now we found out that a computer is capable to read our minds by simply looking at scans of their brains while thinking about some words. The scientists responsible think that this can lead to us understanding how the brain stores information and more importantly, where. According to Tom Mitchell (Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University and the same individual that helped to lead the study) this discovery can aid in the treatment of various learning disabilities and language disorders. He stated that:

“The question we are trying to get at is one people have been thinking about for centuries, which is: How does the brain organize knowledge? It is only in the last 10 or 15 years that we have this way that we can study this question.”

The team of scientists used Read more »