Intel has been hitting the news lately, some good & some bad. the European commission just hit Intel with a fine of US$ 1.45 billion for violating the EC treaty & abusing their power unethically between October 2002 & December 2007. AMD had already filed complaints along these lines with the EC in 2000, 2003 & 2006, which urged a further investigation into this issue.

Intel Logo

A summary of the claims are as follows:
Intel allegedly gave hidden rebates to computer manufacturers & encouraged them to only stock up on their x86 CPUs. They also allegedly paid a major retailer to delay the launch of their competitors products.

The manufacturers that have been identified are Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo & NEC.

Here is a Introductory video of new Nokia N900 from The Nokia Blog.

This is a Mobile Powerhouse in shape of a Mobile Handset. N900 is Nokia’s first ever handset powered by Maemo OS, a Linux-based operating system that is backed by major players like Intel and Nokia itself. The 600 MHz Processor and 256 MB of RAM making it a small computer. Graphics are powered by a PowerVR SGX 530 graphics processor (OpenGL 2.0).

The video is about 6:28 minutes long and 40 MB is size.

This is a video review of Nokia N97 Firmware 20.0.0.5 from The Nokia Blog. This update will let you have kinetic scrolling and a lot of new apps in your existing N97. It also consumes less memory and freeing up and incresing the Built-in Phone Memory by 20%.

The newly introduced Applications contains some useful apps like Facebook Widget which lets you access your Facebook account easily from N97 and connect with your friends and social contacts.

It also have an app with which you can sync your contacts and calenders with Google (GMail) Contacts and Google Calender.

All the other pre-existing apps like Youtube, Flickr, Nokia Maps, OVI Store is also present. The scheduled worldwide release of this firmware upgrade is October, 2009.

This Video is about 3 Minutes and 30 Seconds long and a must watch video if you are planning to buy a new N97 or upgrade to the latest Firmware.

Below is another video from SymbianWorld,Its a long video of about 7 Minutes and 53 Seconds.

In April this year, we tested a large number of hard drives. In the category of external desktop drives, the 2 TB WD My Book Studio Edition II 4TB was pretty good. We now have with us the WD My Book Studio Edition II 4TB Hard Drive.

This is a huge drive mind you – it weighs around 2.63 kg, so it’s not ideal to carry very often. Four connectivity options are available – Firewire 800, Firewire 400, USB & eSATA.

WD My Book Studio Edition II 4TB

The specialty of this drive is that it supports RAID-O & RAID-1. RAID-O makes the entire 4TB usable. We haven’t seen too many drives that require drives, but this one does for the RAID function. When you first connect it, you need to install the driver & then set the RAID configuration.

There was nothing spectacular with the test results. The read burst speed was higher with the RAID- I configuration with both connection interfaces – USB & firewire. With our file transfer tests, We found that average read and write speeds to be similar with both RAID configurations. the 1 GB Photoshop scratch test showed a big difference in file transfer. With RAID-O, the speed was twice as good as raid-1, as you would expect. With Firewire, the performance was around 10% better than with USB.

The 4TB WD My Book Studio Edition II only works with Windows vista due to capacity restrictions of previous Windows operating systems. Using RAID-O is recommended, but if your data is very important, RAID-1 is the way to go. At $649.99, it surely is a costly thing to buy, therefor, we’d suggest our readers to wait until the price drops.

Nokia today officially announced its new release of N97 Mini. This phone is a modified version of its ancestor N97.

This phone is cheaper than N97, but lacks some of it’s features like huge 32GB internal memory is now 8GB. See the video below to take a glimpse of its features.

The video is about 51 Seconds.

If there’s one part of the computing experience we’ve missed it’s something really high-end for audiophiles. And we are not talking about the dime-a-dozen 7.1-channel cards. Just looking at the STX you just get the feeling of quality. And it’s hard not to get impressed looking at it’s spec-sheet. The 124 dB SNR aside, the functional parts (opamps, DAC chip etc) are covered with an EMI shield. The Essence STX is built on a rather unusual four-layer PCB, ensuring excellent filtration of noise while the analogue output signal paths are also EMI shielded, ensuring that squeaky-clean signals are passed on. Additional power is required via a four-pin molex connector. This one is built on a PCIe x1 interface and ASUS has recently come out with a PCI version.

The DAC is a Burr-Brown (now Texas Instruments) PCM 1792A, considered an audiophile-grade component. beneath the EMI shield the opamps are mounted on sockets as opposed to being soldiered to the PCB. This allows swapping of opams to alter the sound signature according to taste. Note that the Essence STX is a stereo opamps on the card. Two opamps are the JRC 2114, considered good for audio applications. these serve as the current to voltage converters and are placed just after the DAC chip. They utilize the output of this chip and convert it, passing it on to the third opamp, the LM4562 which acts as the final buffer. Made by National Semiconductor, this opamp is quite famous and widely used by DIY audiophiles. Its claim to fame is excellent THD (Total Harmonic Distortion), quick slew rate and high bandwidth-all of these elements make for a superb choice for any discerning audience. Nichicon “fine gold” caps are used for all critical regions- a costly indulgence by ASUS and we highly approve.

Asus Xonar D2/PM

Now for the fun part – this sound card is the first one we’ve seen with an in-built headphone amplifier. This is good news for high-end headphone users, since headphone amps are very costly! The bundled software can switch between normal impedance,(up to 64 ohms), high impedance (60-300 ohms) and extra-high impedance (300-600 ohms), adding 0 db, 12 db and 18 db (respectively) to the gain to match headphones of varying impedances. The Essence STX has a pair of RCA outs for stereo, one 6.3 mm headphone jack, one 6.3 mm analogue input jack and digital-out supporting both coaxial and optical  connectivity on a single jack.

We tested the Essence STX with some stereo speakers first – our Genelec 6010A active loudspeakers with the 5040A active sub-woofer and some SACD .FLAC rips. The imaging (sound standing) is spot on. The bass, while ample, is not excessive and won’t intrude on the mid-range. But it goes low down and does so cleanly and with nary a hint of loss of control. The mid-range is liquid and wide with lots of detail to be plucked from between notes. Male and female vocals alike sound rich and lush without being overly warm. The highs are incredibly detailed and transparent. We felt the highs were slightly over emphasized, but not in ordinate. Quite the contrary, this is just the tool for discerning listening sessions; particularly pieces with instruments have great rendition. Next we plugged in some quality cans and we’re pleased to report the STX handles itself admirably – the sound is clean, without any sort of noise and very musical-the word balanced came to mind as the incredibly detailed Grado SR225 seemed to get a bit of needed bottom end grunt from the headphone amp unit. What is equally hard to miss is the immediacy  of the detail, there is no unnecessary delay to notes,attacks, decay, instrument  reverb-everything is spot on and tonally accurate. The Essence STX will also drive something as beefy as the Sennheiser HD 650 quite well, but not to the same level of analytical detail as a high-powered headphone amp.

Wealso tried the STX with games and movies, although not its forte, it handles games quite and with very accurate imaging-something necessary for a proper gaming experience. Movies are fun too, with action scenes getting their just rewards – the Essence STX never loses control and detail  and its surround imaging is superb, despite the lack of additional channels.

So ASUS finally delivers something “Stereophiles” (including some of us) around the world have waited for. So what’s the trade off ? Well, it won’t replace that Zana Deluxe Headamp you paid half a year’s salary for and some purists will sneer with contempt at people who use their PC for music. Moreover it isn’t cheap, at $249, but then quite frankly neither is a ticket to a Pink Floyd concert. We feel it is well worth the price with its premium quality innards and audio performance. It serves a niche segment and does so exceedingly well, therefore those on the lookout for something similar won’t flinch one bit.

The HP Photosmart C8188 has memory card slots and a lightscribe CD/DVD drive. Not only does this printer read from CDs, but it can also print labels directly onto the face of the CD or DVD. there is a 3.5 inch touch screen with an easy interface, that somewhat resembles a windows XP theme. Like the Epson Photo stylus TX700W, this too has Ethernet, WiFi, and olso come with Bluetooth, so almost any phone or laptop can shoot out prints without the hassles or wired connectivity.

HP Photosmart C8188

Some detail on our first test image was lacking and also the overall color tone of the print was on the warmer side. The second test image was more balanced, but again, a few details with regard to the textures were missing here and there. The combi-document, consisting of text and images, showed smooth and readable text and well distinguished colors on the images.

The HP Photosmart C8188costs $499, which may seem pricey, but if you do need a feature rich photo printer with all connectivity options including an optical drive that can read your digital media, then this is something you should buy.

July marked one year since Apple began allowing independent developers to sell their apps through the iTunes App Store. During the year that passed by, we have witnessed a frenzy from geeks all over the world to create a variety of applications for the iPhone.

iPhone Apps

But are any of these geeks becoming millionaires selling inane applications such as “Rate a Fart 2.0″, which, incidentally, is selling for 99 cents? All logic points towards a Firm no. Still that hasn’t stopped the App Store’s repertoire from reaching well over 50,000 apps and more than 1.5 billion downloads. The base and top or this pyramid consists of applications that cost less than a dollar. One might in fact be inclined to think Apple is running a digital dollar store.

The best seller lists titles such as GloBall and Flight Control — both games. These are hardly the building blocks of something that can become as big as an Amazon or eBay.

Besides, most veteran app developers around the world are saying that the app store is now very crowded. Getting noticed is therefore becoming even more difficult. There are sites such as l48Apps.biz that even give app makers tutorials on how to market their applications. Tips include getting your app reviewed on some of the dozens of app review sites that have sprung up, such as AppScout.com.

Making apps might be serious business or just something that geeks do on the side for fun or popularity. Yet, there are signs that more serious and utility- oriented apps are on their way. For example, the QuickOffice Mobile Office Suite that has crept in at the 99th position on the top 100 list. It’s a $12.99 application for creating, editing and synching documents and spreadsheets. There i5 also a S 100-million dollar venture capital fund called iFund, that intends to “fund market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod Touch platform”.

However, the fund has so far managed to fund only five ventures. Considering the competition from Pre and Android that is expected in the near future, let’s hope the enthusiasm of app makers continues undampened.

Google Voice

Google Voice, the invitation only service launched by Google a while ago has now been ported to Android and Blackberry. The service basically lets you have one “Google Voice” number which is connected to your other numbers such as your Office, Home and Mobile Number. You can choose which of the phones you want ringing when someone calls.

One of the features it boasts is caller groups, with restricted access to certain phones. For instance, friends can have access to all three numbers while your pesky neighbor can be allowed to bug you only when you are at home.

The best part is that people only have to remember a single number. The number stays with you for life, so even if you change your other numbers it doesn’t make a difference. Simply update the new numbers with the service. Google Voice also gives you other services such as voice mail and automated transcripts of the same.

With the newly released Google Voice Mobile Application for Blackberry and Android, placing outgoing calls from a Google Voice number has become easier, said a blog post from Google. The app is fully integrated with contacts on the phone. For the thousands of people who don’t have an Android or Blackberry device, Google has a mobile web version which can be accessed by typing m.google.com/voice into your mobile phone’s browser. The blog post also says that “Currently, Google Voice is only available in the U.S.” Let’s hope it comes to our stores soon.

If you have been getting tempting messages with video links in your accounts in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Bebo, Friendster and Hi5, beware. Any attempt to download the video will make you another victim of Koobface, a worm that may steal critical and personal data from your computer.

The ICER Team has warned that Koobface, a play on the name of social networking site Facebook, comes with an enticing tag line and spreads by spamming the contacts of the victim on networking sites. With more than 3 million members of Facebook alone in India, Koobface’s potential for wreaking havoc on the country’s computer systems is immense — a fact that has prompted the government to issue the alert.

Typically, Koobface victims get a message from one of their contacts inviting them to click on a video link. The link leads you to a site mimicking the video sharing site, YouTube. Once there, you are asked whether you want to download a software needed to watch the video.

If you click ‘yes’, the worm gets activated, leaving your computer vulnerable. The worm not only disrupts your internet experience by sending your searches on engines like Google elsewhere and returning garbled replies, it also steals data that may have been left in your computer’s memory.

If you have already been Koobfaced, the only way to protect your machine is to delete all files and registry keys that have been added by the worm. Internet users have also been advised to install and maintain updated anti-virus software in computers and block ports that aren’t required.

While you may not be able to notice the worm rummaging through your electronic files searching for personal data, including passwords, the visible signs of the worm would show up on your internet browsing where you would get abnormal results to your searches.

Soure