Where Is Tek Taking You Today!

HDD Based Player

2008-10-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

With cheaper and mass produced Blue Ray Disc players not showing any signs of moving towards, well, mass production, it was time that I started looking for something to use HD content freely available at various forums. In this search, I finally landed on something that caught my eye as innovative and future ready. Forget PS3, XBox or even PSP. Tvix from DVICO is a device that is made for junkies like me. A gadget wit drool factor quite high and with most digital ports implemented, TVix brings idea of a video or audio server quickly into a living room.

Amongst a host of features, it is capable of playing Matroska container files, alongwith your usual run of the mill AVI, WMV 9 files, h.264 or even AVHCD files from your camcorder. Equipped with a HDMI 1.3 port, these players (available in various configurations) can seemlessly bring HD content live on your spanking new HD LCD panel. With HDTV tuner and wireless LAN, the metamorphosis to a video server is near complete. If you want digital audio options, well, you got them in TVix. Overall, a great product, although priced a little high, it still suits a many purpose and is a value addition to any living room.

BlackBerry Pearl Flip

2008-09-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

It is official. The "Kickstart" is here! Also known as Pearl Flip, BlackBerry Kickstart is the latest offering and first of its kind from Research In Motion (RIM). This is the first flip clamshell handset in the BlackBerry stable. If you thought it was anything inferior, you are wrong. It works just as sweetly as its candybar form factor siblings.

Extaernal display is light sensitive and is used for functions like preview of messaging, email and phone calls. Nothing is concrete about pricing as of now. Here are the main features of the elegant Pearl Flip.

Light sensing external LCD display
240 x 320 resolution internal LCD display
MP3 playback support
Speaker Independent Voice Recognition
Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
SureType QWERTY keyboard
microSDHC memory card slot
Wi-Fi connectivity with support for UMA

Microsoft's Midori

2008-07-31T05:11:00.000-07:00

A long gap between two posts. It is not lethargy, but absence of any new technologies that can change computing dramatically. All that has been happening was in the form of updates of older and already existent technologies. be it Nintendo, iPhone 3g or Macbook Air. Essentially, these all have been upgrades of previous products and not path-breakers like iPod. A new thing on the horizon, however, sounds interesting and too complicated to me. If we are to believe, there may be future for desktop computing sans Windows or any Microsoft OS.

According to a report, Microsoft isn't just looking at the next version of Windows for future OS possibilities, but is looking beyond the Windows architecture altogether with a project known as Midori. The new OS is still in the "incubation" phase (which puts it slightly closer to market than R&D projects), but Microsoft has admitted to its existence, and the Software Daily Times says at least one team in Redmond is actively working on the new architecture.

The basis for the platform centers around research related to Microsoft's Singularity project, and envisions a distributed environment where applications, documents, and connectivity are blurred in a cloud-computing phantasmagoria which can be run natively or hosted across multiple systems.

Says the SD Times, "The Midori documents foresee applications running across a multitude of topologies, ranging from client-server and multi-tier deployments to peer-to-peer at the edge, and in the cloud data center. Those topologies form a heterogeneous mesh where capabilities can exist at separate places."

Nano Technology To Rescue

2008-06-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Wouldn’t it be nice if your first aid kit has something that could stop bleeding instantly? Fear not! Nano-technology provides a solution. Sounds too good to be true? Well, future is here and now because Arch Therapeutics have made a nanohealing gel that does just that, it stops bleeding.

Clinical trials are expected to begin shortly and it might not be too long before we see this miracle gel being used instead of gauzes or tourniquets. Made with "naturally occuring amino acids", this gel has the ability to cluster together in a warm aqueous environment, just like it is found on human skin. It is not something like band-aid! You will not have to worry about removing it, as the gel will dissolve like a amino acid into the skin. How cool is that! Future is arriving pretty thick and fast.

Time To Start BluRay Planning

2008-06-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

Once again, it is advantage Panasonic. With this new product, BluRay now reaches the domain of every day user. All of us who were fond of taking back up n DVD can now start leering about humongous data storage capability of BluRay.

Panasonic is releasing next month in Japan BluRay media that is capable of writing at 6X. Initially, these will be available in two vesions: the 25GB (LM-BR25MD) and 50 GB (LM-BR50MD). Theoretically, it can achieve transfer speeds of upto 216MBps. According to Panasonic, that is 20% faster than any present 16X DVD transfer speed. Expected to retail for $16 and $37 respectively for 25GB and 50GB versions, next month will bring a new era of back up capability in the hands of a home user. One Grey area remains though. There are no compatible BluRay drives that can handle these discs. It is assumed, by September, all this would be sorted out.

I guess it is safe to say that era of high definition is here to stay. How long will it take for mass production to start and prices to tumble is anybody's guess. It will be safer to assume that end 2008 will see a lot of activity in this arena, now that major studios have thrown their weight behind BluRay.

AMD Does The Magic Trick

2008-06-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

It has taken a while, but finally there is good news from AMD camp. They have virtually done equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of hat by offering overclocking possibilities in their existing Phenom triple core (8000 series) and Quadcore (9000 series). Six “hidden pins” on the processors and chipsets are the secret, which will enable simple overclocking through the southbridge and accelerate the current processors on demand.

If you are running an upcoming 2.8 GHz Black Edition CPU, a motherboard with the old SB600 model (RD690) will keep the processor cores operating at 2.8 GHz. However, if you have a motherboard with the SB700 chipset, you will receive a free upgrade to 3.0 GHz. And if you get a motherboard with a SB750 chip, your processor will run at 3.2 GHz, which matches the clock speed of the Athlon X2 6400+ - the highest clocked processor AMD ever offered.

The trick will be performed through the BIOS. AMD has not yet officially released the trick, but is most likely to be announced with release og 790GX chipset. This is what we like, competition! However, power consuption details of this trick are not known as of now. Here is wishing AMD all the best.

courtesy:TGDaily.com

Blu Ray Rolls Out

2008-05-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

Just when all the format wars news was cooling down, Blu Ray has landed the first meaningful punch. If you own a PS3 and like high def audio, this a BD you want to get your hands on just for the pleasure of enjoying High Def audio. After being immersed in High Def video and enjoying 5.1 channel audio tracks, it is now time to get immersed in a totally new experience that offers 2.0 LPCM, 5.1 LPCM, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, 5.1 Dolby True HD, 5.1 Dolby Digital at 48KHz.

These formats, all on single BD, are offered by Thondheimsolistene, an orchestra from Norway. The album is labeled "Divertimenti" and is eleased by the 2L label in full HD audio glory. Fans other than this label will have to wait a little longer I guess. Since a beginning has been made, others to follow suit will not be far behind, espacially if MPAA is going to be the first to jump on the bandwagon, as worried about stuff like DRM they are!

Welcome "The Grid"

2008-04-23T07:55:00.001-07:00

If you know your history of Internet, you probably know about CERN. If yo do not, for a low down on functioning of CERN, there is a fiction version in "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown. I find this source to be more readable than scientific mumbo-jumbo about Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Right, the new phenomenon designed by those folks at CERN is called "The Grid" and it could revolutionize Internet as we know it. At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds. Now that is fast!

The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at CERN have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the LHC, the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates. CERN, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs - enough to make a stack 40 miles high.

The Grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, unlike hotch potch of cables in case of Internet, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years. What this means is that this summer, most of students in US and UK will also be riding the fibre optic band wagon. How long you and I have to wait?

Alpine Creates Car Haven

2008-04-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Now this something surely top of the line. The new car entertainment product with WXGA touch-screen, Alpine IVA-W505 is a spanking new gadget that will make audiophiles and gadget guzzlers drool alike. If you have $1,100 to spare, go for this ultimate experience in car entertainment.

A product that matches the price tag, Alpine IVA-W505 provides all types of connectivity that you can think of. First things first! The unit uses Alpine's Imprint technology to create sound field in your car interior. This technology essentially involves EQ filters that intelligently change depending upon interior size of your vehicle. Compensating for vehicle's noise created by movement on road, this technology provides excellent sound field depending upon interior size.
Next comes the head unit itself. Throw anything at it, and it is designed to handle it. The 7-inch DVD/CD/MP3/AAC/WMA/DivX AV head unit offers Bluetooth hands-free connectivity and touch control over all your in-car digital media sources. If that was not enough, the unit also supports HD/Sat radio with iTunes tagging and your iPod or any other MP3 player. The double-DIN unit is IMPRINT, acoustic-correction ready and serves as a dock for Alpine's PMD-B200 portable GPS unit. Impressive, very impressive! Now this is the kind of thing that can be called jaw dropping and drool inducing.

Vista Bashing! Again!

2008-04-06T07:16:00.001-07:00

I saw this somewhere and had to share it! Fantastic thinking and tell the story of latest MS produce. If you want Vista source code, check this out. This was brief given to Vista designers. They really put their heads together and feet in their mouths and went about writing this gargantuan piece of code.

AMD Awakening?

2008-04-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

Finally, it seems AMD is shaking off the inertia. What Intel Core Duo processors did to AMD 64bit and X2 was quite spectacular. I have been AMD fan ever since good old 486 days and was rooting for AMD to wake up and get back in the race quickly. It seems they did and they are! The new Phenom X3 processor is the offering from AMD stable.

Aimed mainly at gamers and mainstream desktop market, Phenom X3 comes with three cores on the same die. The folks at AMD claim that this new offering will be atleast 30% faster than their two core brethren. Other than mainstream PC market, there is a Phenom lack edition available that is primarily aimed at gaming enthusiasts who like to over clock. Quite well suited to High definition videos, Phenom series is expected to upturn the trend in AMD futures.

Update Season

2008-03-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

This is the season of updates. No matter what platform you use, you ought to be effected by this. Almost simultaneously, Microsoft and Apple have released major updates to their latest operating systems. Microsoft Windows Vista has seen the release of SP1 on Mar 18, whereas, Apple's update for Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5 was released a day later.

Vista SP1 is expected to address a number of issues related to customer experience as well as security. However, a number of issues regarding hardware compatibility are expected to remain. Some software like Bit Defender Internet Security might have problems in running on Vista SP1. It is still early days to take out a complete list of incompatibility issues.

On the other hand, the largest yet update brought out by Apple computers, known as Security Update 2008-002 is expected to plug a total of 90 vulnerabilities in OS 10.4 and 10.5.

A Visionary Is No More

2008-03-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Although I do not qualify to write about Arthur C. Clarke, I just can not help saying a few words about this great man, who is no more with us. Known popularly for his immensely influential 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthut C Clarke was known for his visionary ideas. If the world is flat today, a lot of credit of this should go to the late visionary. It was he who conceptualised Geostationary communication satellite, the single most important thing in breaking the information barriers. Not that he formed a part of my universe, but still, he will be fondly missed!

Google Sucks

2008-03-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

The title by itself does not express my feelings to the fullest. Behaving like a pig headed monarch, Google just decided to disable my adsense account. No reason given, no explanation asked. If that is not pig headed and communist in nature, i do not know what else is! Well, they can stuff their adsense and hope they become adsensible with it. There are other things available and if Google keeps behaving like this, they might not be very far from falling off the perch. One dis-satisfied customer is more than enough.

Liquid Lenses

2008-03-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

Here is another exciting technology on the anvil. Or rather, it has been there for last two years, but is now showing some signs of life. Technology in question is liquid lenses for cameras. Yes, you read that right, "Liquid Lenses". This technology first made an appearance sometime in 2004 by a French startup Varioptic. Essentially consisting of two liquids, water and oil contained in a conical enclosure, lens is made to change its physical characteristics by application of voltage. At zero volt, shape of lens is flat, but at 40v, it attains a distinctively convex.

This technolgy was perfected by German engineers at Fraunhaffer institute working with engineers from Varioptics. They developed a system of four liquid lenses that could snap from 1-2.5x magnification at the touch of a button. This was a rudimentary technology demonstrator and was used by Samsung in their nondescript phones. These lenses received a lot of attention because of lower power requirements and absence of moving parts. After a long hiatus, this technology now seems to be making waves again with Seiko and Varioptic announcing manufacture 500,000 of these lenses. Meant to target 5.0 mega pixel, this technology, if it succeeds, will revolutionise the way we experience our photographic gadgets.

Omnisphere

2008-03-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

Not much has been really happening on on tech front off late. There has been usual Vista bashing and unusual gadget launches. None of them has caught the eye so far. There is one, however, that made me take notice. At first sight, it looked like a table lamp or a piece of decor. Looking closely only reavealed its true nature. It was Aigo Omnisphere. Looking like an object from outer space, this is actually an MP3 player. A look at it would make you think that this was a hi-fi product. As a matter of fact, it is hi-fi, if you can call an MP3 player as hi-fi.

Working on inbuilt 1GB memory, Aigo is a highly evolved player. Equipped with an expandable memory slot, Aigo is capable of playing all around music. That means you are not devoid of sound in any corner of your room. The best part about this device, though, is not it's music playing capability. It is the magic of 4096 lights that change along with the music that makes this player a unique one. At first, you will keep looking for controls and then realise that it works just by a simple twist of cone top. Highly thoughtful I say. To top it all, cost will leave you spinning like a cone. Pretty affordable at INR 5250, Aigo is a multi utility gadget in its own way.

Vista Bashing

2008-03-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

There is a whole lot of Microsoft Vista bashing going on out there. There were already plenty of so called "unhappy critics", and now the situation has been worsened by leakage of emails written by some big guys inside Redmond giant office. Apparently they have had issues with Vista compatibility with some hardware. I guess these tech guys are caught in a web of their own making.

First of all I do not understand this chest beating about "Vista Sucks". If something is designed by humans, it is bound to have flaws. Nobody is ever going to design a perfect system. Yes, it can be said that at some level, Microsoft is unable to address customer issues, but those are management problems. Not being able to provide support to a user who has just bought a computer and does not understand what Aero or UAC is all about, is definitely a downside of customer support. The bigger you grow, the more alien you become from your surroundings. That is exactly what has been happening with Microsoft.

As far as doomsday sayers, they are wrong in pronouncing Vista a dud piece of OS. I just can not think of any reason to debunk this OS just for the heck of it. After release of XP, people wanted more stability and more visual appeal. Vista surely brought that. The problem in this: XP by now has become so customizable with a slew of third party programs that a number of people do not feel the compulsion to change over to Vista for visual changes they can make all by themselves by using third party customizations. Window Blinds is a example in this case. As far as security is concerned, Vista has taken away the control over kernel away from a regular user. I do not understand why people should be unhappy about it. If they want to tweak the kernel, they might as well continue using Win 98!

It would seem, there is no end to this. That age old human habit of creating icons and then pulling them down with all their might is at work here. Personally, i do not feel any need to debunk Vista and call it s dud or dead OS. It has surely taken away those BSODs out of my computing experience. And to get that, if i have to make a few extra clicks, so be it!

Google Slump

2008-02-28T07:34:00.000-08:00

Looks like there is a slump happening at Google. Ever since reports of proposed Yahoo take over by Microsoft have started coming in, Google revenues have started going down. According to reports, fewer people are clicking on Google ads, which is the main source of revenue for the search giant.

To some extent, effects of a dawdling US economy is also showing effects on revenues generation. In short duration, the market value of this internet revolutioniser has slumped by 33%. What next to expect from a US Economy slow down, which way this run away bus is going to head, is difficult to say. Even in case of Google, investors were quite certain that this giant would be able to tide over any recession fears. But proposed sell out of Yahoo is having spinning effects.

Dead Disc

2008-02-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

Finally, it seems the format wars are drawing to a close. With Toshiba throwing in towel in the form of a "Quick Decision", HD-DVD is out of reckoning. Ladies & gentlemen, the winner is Blu-Ray Disc. Sony, Phillips and Matsushita can now hog the entire HD industry. In my opinion, i would have liked to see HD-DVD as winner. Low production costs would have ensured HD-DVD capturing the market early. But I guess bigger consortium with bigger stake in the pie won it all.

I remember the original DVD introduction when drives and players started at exorbitant prices and then fell through the roof waiting for a better format with better cramming capability to appear. I guess we can see similar thing happening in case of Blu-Ray by end of this year. Mass production will send prices spiraling down by end of this year. Problem may still lie with studios though. Content will start appearing shortly but will push prices up initially. So we might have similar condition of cheaper players and costly media yet again. Solution? It lies with internet. Increasing bandwidth is going to make HD content easily available. So net result: Cheaper Blu Ray players and emergence of hd-content sharing P2P services is the next order of things.

Hi Speed Flash

2008-02-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

There is an underlying principle in the mad mad world of gadgets and technology. To be precise, it holds good for technologies that are commercial in nature and lead to products of mass appeal. The principle goes like this: "Whenever prices of a popular product bottom out, a technological breakthrough will make same product reach the highest prices in its class." This is true for any product that has held a mass appeal. The technological breakthroughs are achieved in nick of time for product to revive itself as darling of the masses. The same is true for ubiquitous Flash memories. The breakthrough in technology started with the arrival of "Ready Boost" technology in Microsoft Windows Vista. Next came commercial production of Solid State hybrid drives. The latest is what actually effects the Flash memory itself.

IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between Intel and Micron, has achieved a breakthrough of sorts by developing an 8Gb SLC (single-level cell) high-speed NAND chip that can reach read speeds up to 200MBps and write speeds of up to 100MBps, which could mean faster data transfer between devices such as solid-state drives and video cards. To put it in perspective, current speeds are limited to 40MBps and 20MBps in read and write operations. This new breakthrough provides a five fold increase in speeds. Just when I was going to invest in a Samsung Hybrid drive, this new development has made me put off my plans and see how things work out.

To be sure, products based on the new NAND structure are not going to be available till late 2008 and that too at a premium. So, my principle will hold good for it. By middle of 2009, we should see a stabilisation of prices and this technology creating products that will be darling of masses. The cycle is going to repeat itself.

WIndows 7

2008-01-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

It is still under wraps. The hush hush release of Windows 7 M1 to the trusted family of testers. I do not really know if these are the trusted partners. The screenshots of Microsoft Windows 7 are available and by all accounts these look like nothing new from Windows Vista. Well, if they are just doctored screen captures of Vista, then I do not know how to classify them. By the available accounts, there seems to be wider support for hardware and the release bouquet remains the same like Vista, that means you will have Home Basic, Ultimate and business editions available when the OS is finally released. The estimated date is somewhere in end 2009.

Phone Becomes Reader

2008-01-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

A new innovation has been made possible with amalgamation of new technologies. The marriage here is of a 3G phone with a Rollable display technology. We have been hearing for sometime about the polymer displays that can be folded. Now a firm called Polymer Vision has done it. Polymer Vision is a Dutch Company in which Philips has 25% stake. The new product on the anvil is a 3G phone with e-book reader and 5 inch screen and is likely to be available this year. The new device will be called Readius, a 3G mobile phone with a 5 inch display that folds into the device when not in use. The use of Rollable Screen, which involves a display that can literally be rolled up to fit into the device, makes it an innovative device.

The big 5" screen will be used as a E-Book Reader and will use the E-Ink material for its display. This is the same material as used by Amazon Kindle, a reader introduced last year by Amazon.com but has no phone functionality. E-ink material looks and like paper including the reflective properties. Thus it provides a very realistic feel to reading. This makes it a superior display for reading pleasure. It's also capable of retaining an image without requiring any electricity, resulting in devices that are more energy efficient than those using conventional LCD displays. Polymer Vision has announced that the Readius will be available some time near the middle of 2008. There is no price announcement however.

iPhone Mods

2008-01-20T22:22:00.000-08:00

It is an ever evolving field. The amount of innovation that can be carried out in any one product or idea is astounding. I have always believed in one thing. Everything that has been designed or produced by humans, is likely to be, rather will be improved upon or broken into by other humans. So I find all this talk about secure systems and impregnable routines as unconvincing. This hold true for all man devised things under the sun. So is the case of iPhone. Here is an instrument that seems to have reached its pinnacle in exploitation by varied users. Yet, another milestone has been achieved. Now, it figures you can use your iPhone Touch to hum along, rather strum along your favorite guitar rip offs.

The feature is know as PocketGuitar and more can be found about it here. Point to be noted is that it is available on JailBroken iPhones. Simply put, you can fulfill your nerd fantasies by playing Jimmy Page with a small iPhone held in your hand rather than the Stratocaster. The modification allows you to strum along. You can practice and then impress your latest love interest with your guitar prowess. Now is that Cool!

Vista Successor

2008-01-19T08:52:00.000-08:00

That era is upon us once again! I remember those endless days trying to get my hands on erstwhile Longhorn to see how the future OS from the MS stable was going to look. Well, as I said, That era is upon us once again! With the rumours of successor to Vista gaining strength, the time is not far off when the emulators and beta versions are going to flood the download scene. The rumours are that the successor to Microsoft Windows Vista, perhaps, code named as Windows 7, has already been handed out to trusted "key" partners. The release period, which was earlier set to be early 2010, has been recast as late or end 2009. That leaves almost two years of salivating , imagining and speculating what the new version is going to be like. If the rumours are to be believed, Microsoft is ready to release two versions known as M2 and M3 in April/may and second half of this year respectively. But going by the history of Microsoft, there would be just no point in settling for these date lines. We all would remember how the release dates for Microsoft Windows Vista kept slipping. Same is the case for the yet to be released SP1 for Vista. All I would say is, keep your fingers crossed.

In Ear Headphones

2008-01-16T06:48:00.000-08:00

There are times when traveling or otherwise when you want to enjoy music without any bulk wrapped around your ears or any protrusions making your postures uncomfortable. This is the time when "In Ear Headphones" are of great advantage. So i decided to check out which earphones would suit me. The problem was: Where to start? One option is just do a search
and you will get many site names thrown up that have very effective but costly in ear phones for sale. My aim was to find a place where I could go through the whole range in a comprehensive manner. One site that really met my criteria was www.wize.com. A pretty comprehensive and neat layout is what one gets to see immediately on going here.

In Ear Headphoes are a real alternative to bulky and uncomfortable headphones for both critical and liesure listening. Good quality "In Ear Headphones" offer relatively high ambient isolation, up to 26dB or more, so you can listen at lower volumes, even in noisy environments. So the search starts for a good quality yet affordable "In Ear Headphones". This Site www.wize.com, the place where i went to look for my answers, provided a fast, accurate and appropriate response to my queries. Finding out about various "In Ear Headphones" became easy with number of user comments to go through. I would suppose the best way to find about a product is to ask your contemporaries before buying. User comments exactly offer this option.

Although I started to write about "In ear Headphones", I just could not help mentioning www.wize.com for the amount of variety that is available for review. I could find products from "Bose" to "Shure" and many other starting from very expensive to the moderate ones to suit many a pocket. 'Value for money'; if that is your motto, then i would strongly recommend visiting www.wize.com for a plethora of choices. Really, I felt like being spoilt for choice.