So what makes this one so different to the others? I hear you ask. Well, here’s the answer. The case fits seamlessly around the edge of the iPhone or iPod Touch to create incredible impact protection, in fact 100% more protection than a standard plastic case.

It has all the usual cut outs so functionality is not restricted at all, and the soft(ish) nature of the material (d3o) creates massive shock absorbance meaning you can hurl it around till your heart’s content and it probably won’t break for at least twice as long as it would do in a normal case.

Not only does it allow full functionality of the iPhone 3GS or 3G, it also keeps up with the impressive styling of the phone. Charcoal in colour with smooth, rounded edges, the extra protection on your phone will not make it look rugged or ugly at all.

Also, the casing is thick enough that it just raises the iPhone off of a desk, which means they can keep the front and rear of the phone visible at all times and provide almost maximum scratch protection. I think it would be fair to say, the iPhone is prone to getting a little scuff here and there.

The product appeared on BBC’s Dragon’s Den program last year (with Peter Jones throwing an iPhone at a desk) and has been tested to the point where it has survived being thrown at a brick wall and dropped from a balcony whilst cradling an iPhone inside, just take a look at the video below to learn more and to see them testing it out.

The iBand d30 iPhone Protector case looks like a great solution for protecting your beloved iPhone or iPod Touch from high impacts drops, in fact I’ve wanted one ever since I saw it on Dragon’s Den. That said I’d still personally be a little concerned about scratches to the front or back of the case and would probably pair this impact protection along with the Zagg’s InvisibleShield scratch-proof cover which together should ensure a long life for your iPhone/iPod Touch.

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In essence, TiVo is a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), similar to the likes of Sky+ and Sky HD which is probably one of the most highly demanded product of it’s kind at this moment in time. But it is clear that with this move, Virgin look to tackle BSkyB head on with their own box.

So what is TiVo? Well for those of you who have Sky+, you will be familiar with such functions as creating what they call ‘series links’ to your favourite shows and saving the entire season to an internal storage device. TiVo is designed with a similar intention, allowing users to save their favourite shows for future viewing, but the other main feature is that it suggests TV shows and films that it think you should like based upon what you already like – it’s a great system to find new content that you’ll like.

This is accomplished by it giving you a ton of extra features such as their recommendations which allow users to rate shows according to their quality, and subsequently a list is produced and shared with other TiVo users recommending similar and popular shows to those they already regularly watch – adding a real social-side to watching TV, who’d have thought it?

As well as this there is a whole host of HD content such as an on-demand movie store similar to Sky Box Office and such. Currently in the US, TiVo is partnered with the likes of Amazon and Blockbuster in providing this vast library of content. There are built in search facilities which makes it easy to find what you’re looking for in a flash.

Other great features included with TiVo is the ability to watch your recordings on another television, expand storage space, transfer your recordings to a mobile device and remotely schedule recordings through mobile devices.

In addition, you can also connect to the internet on your TiVo box which allows extra functionality such as streaming music from online providers, (music can also be stored locally or played from your computer), stream video from YouTube and other such video content websites.

Also, let’s not forget the TiVo also gives you access to the type of TV that we have become used to in years gone by. All the free channels are available over the air as you would normally watch TV on a regular Sky or Cable box. However, this is where TiVo and other of Sky’s competitors have run into trouble. Currently, channels such as Sky Movies and Sports create too much of an attraction for the majority of people in the UK that they cannot fathom switching to a provider on which they have to rely on terrestrial or extra subscription channels such as ESPN to view sports.

Although all in all, a Virgin-TiVo based set-top box sounds pretty nice to be honest and it is a good bit of healthy competition which may spark up yet another rivalry between Virgin and a leading service provider in the UK such as those in the past with the likes of BT.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Virgin can make a success out of TiVo in the UK and if it does work out wel, then TiVo have a happy return to the UK market, especially since their last entry pre-dated Sky+ itself, but ultimately was not successful, perhaps it was just ahead of its time back then? We’ll see…

Via – Engadget

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Installation was effortless, and I was up and running in no time with no hassle. Unlike most complex applications that are designed for a similar function, Stellar’s recovery software is extremely well designed, providing easy access to key functions and allowing even the most inexperienced user to navigate around. You’re given five tabs to choose from at the top of the window. When a tab is selected, you’re given different functions to choose from and an explanation on how each of these functions work and how to use it. This is especially useful for beginners, and shows how much thought went in to the design process of the application.

So the user interface is great, but does Stellar’s data recovery software work well when getting your data back? To find out, I carried out small test of my own… The first thing I did was deleted numerous documents and other files across my hard drive and made a note of them so I knew what I was looking for when I ran a search to get them back!

Under the ‘Data Recovery’ tab, I chose to perform a ‘Deleted File Recovery’, which performs a quick scan to search for deleted files on your drive and presents the results in a treeview. If you can’t find the files you’re looking for you can then perform a deep scan, which should get you results, although it naturally takes longer!

I recovered most of the files that I deleted using a quick scan which took seconds, but others required a deep scan, so if you’re looking for a lot of things you may want to perform a deep scan and savage through what’s found. It’s also worth noting that you can’t recover a file to the same drive that you’re recovering it from. This means that if your computer only has one hard drive, you may want to recover the file on to an external drive, such as a pen drive or external hard drive or else the process won’t work.

As well as scanning for lost data, you can also specifically recover deleted emails with Stellar data recovery, which is a great feature to have, especially in a corporate situation where many e-mails are of the upmost importance. When your email file is found (either a .pst or .dbx email file can be searched for) you can then recover it to Outlook. The only down side to this is the limited file support; Microsoft Exchange isn’t supported which is a down side for many corporations, but it’s definitely a feature that could be expanded further in the future to accommodate more users.

In addition to these main functions, you’ll also find more useful features under the ‘Advance Options’ tab, which offers utilities that can examine the health of your hard drive, create an image file of your drive or use raw recovery to try and extract data from a corrupted drive.

Although it carries a $99 price tag, Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery software is a great tool for power users and regular users alike, and if you’ve got data that you need to recover for any reason, this great utility could be the way to go!

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Data and games are stored on OnLive servers and the images are beamed to gamers around the world who compete in an online environment. The Beta went up quite a while ago and it seems the waiting is almost at an end for US gamers, as the official OnLive launch date has been announced as 17th June 2010.

For $15 a month users will be able to access the OnLive community, however games themselves will cost that little bit extra which is a given considering developers are still going to want their money’s worth out of their games. However this does raise some concerns with potential gamers.

For example, new services and businesses always have a high risk attached, so what if OnLive goes under? what happens to your ownership of the game? Perhaps people would rather have a physical copy of the game still that they can call their own.

Initially, the service will run on Mac and PC as a browser plugin, but the MicroConsole will be released later in the year if you’d rather have a more authentic console experience with the controller pad and all.

Impressively, the games will be run at 720p with 1080p resolutions to come later as well, with up to 60 fps. They also showed off the games running on platforms such as the iPhone which they say will be implemented, ‘over time’.

At first there will be between 12 and 25 titles including Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, Dragon Age Origins, and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. The titles can either be bought or rented from the OnLive service which provides users with the option of long term deals which will be cheaper, or testing a new game perhaps in a more thorough way than possible through downloadable demo’s. The games will be sent to 48 states in the US and the data centers storing the games are ‘strategically placed to avoid lag’.

So the service is now completely official, and it is confirmed to include features such as ‘instant play demos’, ‘multiplayer gaming’ and ‘instant video-based social networking’. There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to any service, particularly ones of this sort.

For example, travelers will no longer need to lug around huge gaming laptops as this service reduces the real need for such high spec computers. So then the questions will be raised by the manufacturers of Alienware machines which are specifically designed for gamers. Will they be left redundant if the service takes off on a global scale? But also, how will this service fare given situations of internet connection issues and high internet traffic, do we even have the infrastructure yet to properly play games using this straming, cloud-based gaming system?

Personally, I feel the prospect of OnLive and its games on demand system is certainly exciting. I can’t wait for it to be brought to the UK (if indeed it will be, we will wait on the success across the pond first) as it means I no longer have to worry about the high cost of my machines as this could be the ultimate form of digital game distribution. I feel that many people will share this view and can honestly see the service being successful, but perhaps not the real future of gaming.

Via – BBC & Geeky Gadgets

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4. Project Natal Release Date & Price Announced?

The announcement was made at GDC yesterday along with a trailer of the type of games that we’ll be looking at playing to start off with. With true 1:1 motion control, it is said to be more responsive than Nintendo’s Wii Motion Plus controllers which is a bold statement.

I’m looking forward to seeing just how the PS3 Move is and what kind of games will be released for it. The fact we’ll be able to play motion controlled games in HD isn’t really a major factor. What I want is a game that uses Move and to get me really immersed in the action. I’m not one for the gimmicky party titles so I’d like to see some new IP games created for use with Move and see how that pans out.

A few games of already been announced which include Little Big Planet and SOCOM 4. Will we see the next Call of Duty taking advantage of Move? It might be nice to have the option of using both the SixAxis controllers and Move.

There are quite a few big named studios already putting their name to creating games for Move including Square Enix, Capcom, EA and about 33 more.

To be honest, it looks like a bit of a Wii remote rip off, with the main controller and a sub controller similar to the nunchuck which is quite cheeky on Sony’s part. It looks like Move will cost in the region of $100 so whether that will be a straight swap to pounds remains to be seen, but it’s more than likely it will be a straight £100 for us Brits.

The Playstation Move release date is set for the back end of 2010, so expect Santa to be delivering a bucket load of these.

So what do you think to Move? A Wii rip off? What the Wii remote was wanting to be? How do you think it compares to the forthcoming Project Natal’s release date and price being proposed to be around £50? Let us know below.

Via – IGN

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The infamous camera cars have been out and about over the last year busily snapping up everything from busy city streets to little lanes in the middle of God knows where, there’s even been some Google Path View images captured using specially equipped trikes.

In some parts, such as the village of Broughton, the journey of the car has been somewhat treacherous with outraged protesters lining the streets creating human blockades preventing the car from snapping their streets. None the less, Google got their way in the end and we’ll all be able to go spotting more strange Street View sights in the UK with all these new images.

The Google Street View (UK) mapping service has been somewhat of a success since its inception around a year ago. According to recent statistics regarding the service, 1 in 5 people use it to find their next house! As well as the 60% majority which use it to actually find their way and others use it to spy on foreign countries, perhaps a holiday destination. But all in all, Google Maps has seen a 30% increase in users since the street view arrived.

The UK is not the first, and will certainly not be the last to reap the benefits of the Street View service with dozens of nations coming before with very few, if any real complaints thus far. In its defense over privacy issues, Google had this to say…

“Google has gone to great lengths to safeguard privacy while allowing all British users to benefit from this feature…Google UK has consulted extensively with many privacy and community groups in developing the feature and privacy safeguards.”

“The blurring technology is continually improving but sometimes this means we get some false positives – in some cases you can find we’ve blurred the face on a poster or the face of Colonel Sanders on the KFC signs,”

Clearly they’ve had to face several restrictions since implementing the service, but so far it has only been a roaring success. Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist, promoted its success in a short statement, “Street View takes mapping to a level not possible before. And with so many practical applications it’s no wonder that over two thirds of people who had tried the service said they would use Street View again.”

So what are your opinions on Google Street View UK? With the blurring technology in place and protecting privacy do you still have issues with it? particularly now it’s expanding so rapidly. Do you use the service regularly? I personally don’t drive so the only use I have found for it for me, is keeping a track on changes in the area in which I grew up, which was limited so the expansion has my highest approval.

Via – IT Pro

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4. Google Street View (UK)

But no doubt the price will be higher over here as is the norm, so expect a price of around £3000 for the first 3D ready TV to hit the UK shores. Hopefully they’ll be cheaper than that, but I highly doubt it.

I can’t see this being an instant hit as Sony are pricing the average gamer out of the 3D market as soon as it’s launched, because who the hell as a spare £2500+ laying around the house?

But with the upcoming release of Batman Arkham Asylum: Game of the Year Edition with the option to play it in 3D without a 3D ready TV or the new firmware update, do we really need to splash out on the new higher priced TV’s just yet? They will eventually fall in price, but it might take a couple of years for Sony to benefit from PS3 users playing on 3D Bravia TV’s.

Let us know your views in the comments below.

Via – IGN

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With such a service being well suited to location aware devices such as the iPhone 3GS, it was only a matter of time until Tagcrumbs had an application on the App Store, and it’s now available in the store for seven countries.

With the free Tagcrumbs iPhone app, you can recommend a place you’ve been for others to go, knowing that they’ll have a great time. With Tagcrumbs, users can tag places they find, offering great flexibility to users who can recommend and find virtually anything they want that’s been tagged by others.

Another great feature of this free application is that if you’re not connected by Wi-Fi and don’t have GPS active, there’s an online mode that you can use to draft recommendations and then publish them when you have a connection.

With the introduction of their iPhone application, it makes for the perfect means of adding or “tagging” places onto Tagcrumbs in a similar way to other location-based apps, however this is more about providing information about the places that you’ve been to rather than broadcasting out to the world where you are at that precise moment in time.

Another interesting feature is that you can create digital breadcrumb trails for others to follow in your footsteps (quite literally), which I’m sure could be quite fun, whether you’re on holiday and looking for a tourist trail or simply looking for a new pub crawl route for a night out.

I’m sure there’s lots more to come from these types of location-based apps, but I’m pleased to see that this particular one seems to have more direction and purpose than some of the other more big name apps out there that I’ve tried on my iPhone 3GS! Let’s hope they come up with an Android version of this app soon!

If you’re a someone who loves location-based apps, then, you’ll definitely like this Tagcrumbs iPhone app and you should try it out from the App Store as soon as you can!

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Introducing the Wall Of Sound which dwarfs any personal speaker I have ever seen in my lifetime. Weighing in at 225 pounds and completely handmade, the Wall Of Sound can be purchased for mammoth price of $4,495.

Promoted as the world’s most powerful iPod speaker, the Wall Of Sound has a frequency response of 40Hz – 20,00kHz, which is impressive to say the least. Here is the actual description of the product as seen on the official website;

So would you buy one? Or more importantly, could you fit one in your house? I know I couldn’t, perhaps this is something for Steve Jobs himself, although he probably would have opinions about the styling not going with his iPod Nano!

This mammoth ‘gadget’ is certainly not very eco friendly either and I doubt it has the ‘Energy Star’ which has become so relevant on the latest gadgets of 2010. I think I’ll have to pass on this being the speaker for my iPod Touch, I wonder just how many of these will be sold though?

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When uninstalling, you simply drag the application into the trash can. As with any program, however various leftovers remain on your hard drive which are hard to identify amongst the multitude of other files floating around. This is where AppZapper comes in!

It’s a simple application which allows you to drag any application in to a small window. AppZapper then finds all related files for you and groups them together ready to be ‘Zapped’ with the main application. The whole process is not only simple, but effectively manages to delete any related files and save space on your hard drive, in this sense it’s similar to the recently reviewed CleanMyMac software.

Oh, and did I mention the really addictive ‘zap’ sound you hear as well as the screen flashing every time an application is deleted? Don’t worry, you can choose for this not to happen, but it’s cool right?

As well as the standard drag and drop feature, a recently introduced feature, ‘Hit List’, allows you to visually browse all of the applications on your Mac. If you find one that you no longer want, simply hit Zap and the application along with all its related files will be gone!

AppZapper is shareware, free to try for 5 zaps before requiring a license which can be bought for $12.95 from the AppZapper site.

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