Google has been working on development of native iPhone application that will be released when iPhone Firmware 2.0 will be launched. Vic Gundotra, Vice president of mobile application engineering said “we expect to have applications at day one.” He also said that development of web applications for iPhone would continue in parallel as these can be continually updated and improved without requiring a new download. Google maps is the only third party application on present iPhone model. Google might develop applications that compliment their online services like calendar and Google Docs.

Last week, Eurocom announced their quad-core Xeon based notebook and this week it is Xtreme Notebooks turn. This mobile server uses X3360 Xeon processor that has 12MB of L2 cache and 2.53GHz clock speed. Buyer can configure the notebook with Blu-ray burner, RAID 0/1/5 hard drive arrays, Dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 and up to 4GB memory. Like the Eurocom D901C, this system will also be more than $3,000 and will be available through the companies website soon.

Eletronista is reporting that Canadian iPhone is set to be launched in June and will have the cheapest data plan offered by any carrier. Rogers, claims that the 3G iPhone will be available the same month it is released in US. In fact, many believe that more than few countries will see simultaneous 3G iPhone launch next month. The best part of tip that Electronista got is that iPhone will qualify for Rogers’ $7 on-device browsing plan, which currently allows all phones offered by Rogers, except BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices to access web via browser installed by Rogers. There is no information about whether the $7 plan will allow YouTube and App store usage or not.

DuPont and Dainippon Screen have formed a partnership to develop new technology for manufacturing of next generation of AMOLED displays. It is widely believed that AMOLED displays will be successor to LCD displays. But the main problem with AMOLED today is cost of manufacturing. The two companies are collaborating to develop a technology that combines Nozzle printing technology of Dainippon with small molecule based OLED solution materials to reduce production costs involved in AMOLED. The combined technology will result in manufacturing process that prints AMOLED displays on glass as the ink-jet printer prints on paper. Currently OLED displays are made using a double process of printing and then coating OLED panels with that prints, making the total cost of production way more than LCD displays. DuPont and Dainippon are hoping that their partnership will bring cheaper manufacturing equipment, which will increase AMOLED production and reduce cost.
[Via Slashgear]

It has been rumored that Palm is working on their next smartphone for quite some time. A picture of the upcoming Palm 800w has been leaked on the Internet. The phone will come with WiFi, GPS and EV-DO. The 800w will work on Windows Mobile 6.1 and will be released with Sprint in Q3 2008. Look-wise the phone is a love child of Palm 750 and Centro, yes its ugly. I was hoping that Palm would learn something from Apple or HTC and design a better-looking phone. Seeing this device I feel it’s already too late for Palm, a smartphone maker I loved till 2006.

Commercial Times reported that we would see the next revisions of Macbook in third quarter 2008. The release date for the new Macbook would fall between July and September. According to the newspaper AU Optronics Corp and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp, top two Taiwanese display makers have received orders for LCD panels that will be used in Apple’s new MacBooks. Apple is targeting to ship three million new MacBooks by end of 2008 and the order could be worth $50 million for the companies. It is believed the next generation of the MacBook laptops will have all aluminum design and use Intel’s upcoming Centrino 2 platform with X4500 integrated graphics card.
[Via MarketWatch]

Sprint and Samsung released a joint press note saying that the WiMAX network has finally passed Sprint’s rigorous commercial acceptance criteria and it should be ready for real world deployment by end of this year, in Washington DC and Baltimore. Barry West, XOHM president said, “this is a major step towards launch readiness and Sprint is extremely pleased with the performance of the mobile WiMAX network and access devices from Samsung.” Sprint started testing the WiMAX networks last year and initially had plans to cover 100 million people by end of 2008. But now Sprint says that the initially rollout will be in only two cities and they will add more cities next year, pushing back the original rollout schedule.

Last week, it was Vodafone that announce that it has reached an agreement with Apple to launch iPhone in ten countries. Today, it is Orange’s turn, the company announced that they have made an agreement with Apple to bring iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange African markets. It looks like iPhone will be available in most of the countries by end of 2008 and in many countries more then one carrier will carry the iPhone.
[Via Orange]

Business Software Alliance (BSA) published its annual global software piracy results. Piracy rates fell in almost all the countries. There were only very few countries that showed increase in piracy, that to very little. The two main countries US and Canada saw a rise of one percent in piracy rate. BSA calculates piracy rates by estimating the total amount of software deployed in a market, subtracting the amount of software sold in the area over the same period, and the result is called piracy loss. Though the process is flawed, as BSA estimates rather then having real data. But it gave a very important result that piracy is steadily falling around the world.  Even though piracy rate fell, losses in dollar amount increased. BSA estimated that software companies lost $14 billion in piracy last year, again this estimate is calculated using the same flawed method. We have to understand that BSA has a small personal agenda here, as the software companies that want stricter rules against piracy fund it.
[Via Ars Technica]

Apple has filed a patent for “personal media devices with wireless communication” with the US patent office. The abstract of the patent application says, “Systems and methods are provided for personal media devices having the ability to communicate wirelessly, and in particular, communicate wirelessly using a short-range communications protocol (e.g., WiFi and Bluetooth). Such communication provides users of personal media devices with access to several WiFi oriented applications. For example, in one embodiment a personal media device may wirelessly download subscription assets (e.g., podcast) as they become available. In another embodiment, content specific or local to a merchant may be provided to personal media devices that are in wireless communication with a wireless router affiliated with the merchant. For example, if the merchant is a restaurant, the merchant may provide a menu to the personal media device and the user may place an order on his or her media device by selecting items on the menu.” So Apple wants to be part of every thing you do not just phone calls or email. You can see the complete patent application here.

Last year, Intel announced that they would release quad-core CPUs for laptops in Q3 2008. It was believed that the TDP of the quad –core chips would be 45 watt and as a result they will only be used in desktop replacement notebooks. But according to the latest information the Core 2 Extreme QX9300 Quad-core chip will have a TDP of 35 watt only, putting it on par with the heat and power requirements of current dual-core chips used in laptops. This will effectively mean that the quad-core chip can be used in any notebook designed for Core 2 Duo processor without changing the dimensions and we will see the processor in high-end slim laptops. The chip is part of upcoming Centrino 2 platform and will have 12MB memory, 1.066MHz FSG and 2.53GHz processor speed. The quad core chips will have a premium and be priced at $1,038.

AUO revealed a super slim LCD panel that is just 0.39” (9.98mm) thick and weigh 44% less than rivals. The 42” panel uses LED backlighting resulting in better power efficiency and brighter colors. The Panel has very uniform image reproduction and brightness of 450nits. AUO is also working on a high contrast ratio LCD panel with contrast ratio of more than 200,000:1. This 42” panel will use 16 x 8 blocks of LED backlights, each of which can be individually controlled. AUO has not released any information about release date or pricing for both the panels. AUO will showcase both the panels at Society for Information Display (SID) from May 20th to 22nd in Los Angeles.
[Via Slashgear]

Gigabyte has introduced the M700, a 7” touchscreen UMPC. The M700 runs on VIA’s 1.2GHz processor with VX800 chipset that comes with Chrome 9 graphics and video decoding hardware. The UMPC comes with a dock that packs digital TV tuner and IPTV streamer. The dock comes with TV inputs, optical drive and SD card slot. The dock can function like Slingbox and provide content to M700 wirelessly. Gigabyte will not use the Microsoft Media Center and has developed their own TV software. The UMPC will have 1024 x 600 screen, 1GB RAM, 40GB hard drive, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, GPS and front/rear cameras. The M700 will run on Windows Vista and go up for sale in Q3 2008.

Samsung today announced the new SGH-F400, a dual-sliding music phone that will be released in France this month. Samsung and Bang & Olufsen have jointly designed the phone that is aimed at music enthusiast. The phone uses the ICEpower technology from Bang & Olufsen that offers natural sound enhancement. The SGH-F400 also has ShazamID, allowing users to record a small snippet of music and quickly receive track information. Other features on the phone are 3-megapixel camera, 2.2” QVGA display, 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo speakers, FM radio, Bluetooth, HSDPA, microSD card slot and USB 2.0 support.  The phone comes in two colors black and white. No information about price has been released.
[Via MobileBurn]

T-Mobile’s Chief Executive Officer Rene Obermann said today that the company has sold 100,000 iPhones since its launch in November 2007. T-Mobile is the exclusive iPhone provider in Germany. The company had announced at the end of January that they had sold 70,000 iPhones in first three months. According to Hamid Akhavan, a board member at T-Mobile, iPhone sales were “about in line” with the company’s internal targets. I think that the iPhone sales have lagged in Europe because it doesn’t support 3G and uses the slower EDGE connection for data. iPhone sales will rise in Europe as soon as Apple releases the 3G iPhone.
[Via CNN]

CBS Corporation has entered into an agreement to acquire CNET Networks, Inc it was announced today by Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBS Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, CBS will make a cash tender offer for all issued and outstanding shares of CNET Networks for $11.50 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $1.8 billion. The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide. CNET Networks owns CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com, CNET news, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MYSimon and TechRepublic.

TG Daily has posted details about the soon to be released ATI Radeon 4800 graphics card series. First of the new cards will be launched in mid-June followed by series of new cards based on 4800 platform. The 4800 series will be based on the new RV770 chip and will compete with NVIDIA’s GT200 chip. Initially ATI will launch three cards based on the RV770 chip - Radeon 4850, 4870 and 4870 X2. The 4800 series card will come with minimum 512MB GDDR3 memory. The higher-end 4870 (512MB) and 4870 X2 (1GB) will use the new GDDR5 memory. The 4800 series will come with physics processing capability and DirectX 10.1 support. The Radeon 4850 will be priced around $200 and the 4870 will around $250. You can get more information on TG Daily’s website.

Last year, Asus launched its first motherboard with “Splashtop” support. Splashtop is an embedded Linux OS with Firefox and Skype. It gives you the ability to go online in just 15 seconds after you hit the power switch. Asus achieves this by running the Linux OS off a memory chip linked directly to the BIOS. The two problems with the P5E3 motherboard that Asus launched last year, were $350 price tag and it only worked with the super expensive DDR3 memory. Well, that all is going to change now, as this month Asus will start shipping P5Q series motherboard that will support the Splashtop feature. The motherboard won’t be as expensive as the P5E3 boards and it will use the DDR2 memory. Asus believes that it will ship more than one million P5Q motherboards every month. Next year Asus will start shipping laptops supporting the Splashtop technology.
[Via Engadget]

Intel showed off systems based on the upcoming Atom processors and also their next generation X4500 graphics chipset at Systems Expo in Tokyo, Japan. Many new small devices based on the Atom processors will be launched starting this June. The system that were shown included embedded computer from Dux, car information system from Portwell, motherboard for MID from Sophia systems and 1.6GHz Atom processor based circuit boards by Nagano and Omron. A system board using the upcoming X4500 graphics chipset was also show. Intel will launch the X4500 integrated graphics card with the upcoming Centrino 2 platform. Seeing the number of upcoming devices based on Intel Atom, it has become a hit product even before it is launched.

I like Swimming and I have always wished, that I could listen to music while swimming, like I do while running or doing other exercises. But carrying a waterproof case for iPod and using those ugly looking waterproof headphones would have been difficult while swimming. Last year when Motorola released, S9 Bluetooth headphones, I thought an mp3 player of similar shape would be a good solution for my problem. Today, I actually found the solution, when I saw the Ubanana’s uCan waterproof MP3 player. The player comes with only 1GB memory (for half hour swimming its more than enough), waterproof in-ear headphones and a 15 hours battery life. The Mp3 player will float to surface if you loose it while swimming and it’s not that bad looking either. The player is waterproof up to 3-meter depth, that wouldn’t be useful while deep sea diving but is sufficient for regular swimming. The uCan player will ship in July for $150.

Aliph Jawbone is one of the best Bluetooth headsets I have ever used. Aliph today officially launched their new Jawbone 2 headset. The new headset is 50% smaller than the one it is replacing and it weighs only 10 grams. The jawbone two uses a faster processor for better noise cancelling. It also has Voice Activity Sensor that allows Jawbone to better judge when you’re talking and when it is only noise, making it sound better and clearer. Jawbone 2 comes with a new charger that charges the battery to 80% capacity in only 30 minutes. The headset has a talk time of 4 hours and standby time of 8 days. The Bluetooth headset is available in three colors gold, black and silver. Initially only black version will be sold, gold and silver versions will be released soon. The black version is available now for $130.

Apple today confirmed that its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) has sold out for the first time in its history. The conference will be held from June 9th to 13th in San Francisco. Apple’s spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld, “response to this year’s WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK.” Apple has not given any details about the number of people registered to attend the conference, but in recent years, the number has ranged in thousands. The Developer Conference will kick off with a Keynote address by company’s CEO Steve Jobs on June 9th at 10:00 a.m.

ZDNet has posted that Intel Germany’s CEO Hannes Schwaderer confirmed, Apple would use Intel Atom processor in future version of the iPhone. Schwaderer said, “The device is slightly larger than the current version of the iPhone and that is not, however, because of the Intel chip, but because of the larger display used in the new iPhone.” Even though Schwaderer calls the larger device, future version of the iPhone, it is clear that he is talking about the rumored mini-tablet, which will have slightly larger screen compared to the iPhone.

An email has been sent to all AT&T retail employees stating that AT&T has started limiting iPhone purchases to One per Customer. This points to the reports that iPhone inventory is vanishing and Apple will not replenish the current generation iPhone supplies. Supply of the iPhone will resume with the introduction of next generation 3G iPhone. You can read the email below.

May 14, 2008?Urgent Breaking News
Please log in to My CSP before selecting any of the article links in this e-mail.
Retail News/Sales Ops/Training?
New iPhone Purchase Limit
Effective immediately, customers can only purchase one iPhone device.
Channel News Today is distributed to managers and above.
Sales reps can access all items designated for rep level and above on My CSP.
*** PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL ***

[Via BGR]

Asus will be releasing a new smartphone P560 in Europe next month. The phone will have 2.8” touchscreen, 450MHz processor, 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM, 3.2-megapixel camera, camera in front for video calls and microSD card slot. For communication the phone will support Quadband GSM, UMTS/HSDPA, EDGE, WiFi b/g and Bluetooth. The Windows Mobile 6.1 based phone will come with A-GPS and include GPS navigation kit, car mounts, car charger, and navigation software with regional European maps loaded on a 512MB memory card. We won’t see the phone in US but in Europe it will be priced €500.

Bill Gates demos a giant multi-touch surface unit called TouchWall at CEO summit in Redmond. The system is touchscreen setup, which works on a standard version of Vista called Plex. TouchWall is one of the several multitouch display prototypes Microsoft Research has created, its bit similar to Microsoft Surface, a multitouch table computer that Microsoft started shipping in April 2008. Chris Pratley, Microsoft’s General manager said, “Microsoft Surface and TouchWall are completely different products. Touchwall is a fundamentally simpler mechanical system, and is also significantly cheaper to produce. While the Surface retails at around $10,000, the hardware to turn almost anything into a multitouch interface for TouchWall is just hundreds of dollars.” Microsoft is not the first company to design a multitouch wall. Other companies like HP have also demonstrated multitouch walls and Jeff Han, the multitouch pioneer, started selling one last year for $100,000. There is no information about when and for how much Microsoft will sell that TouchWall.
[Via Cnet]

Samsung and LG have announced that they will team up to create and promote a new mobile digital TV standard for North American market. The joint venture between the two companies will co-develop a new solution that will require a minimal equipment investment from carriers and will use the existing digital broadcast TV infrastructure to bring live TV to mobile handset. Digital TV is broadcasted for free in the US, and thus will not offer any additional revenue for the operators. As a result mobile network operators might not be too motivated to support the new standard.

Speaking at Morgan Stanley’s annual Communications Conference, AT&T chief Ralph de la Vega said, the company’s HSPA network would be improved from the theoretical peak downloads of 3.6Mbps to 20Mbps in 2009. The improvement would not require major hardware upgrade but will be primarily a software upgrade for the network. This improvement will make the network speeds for AT&T comparable to the network speeds achieved by WiMax. De la Vega further added that AT&T will offer 4G network starting in 2010 and will use the 700MHz spectrum it bought last month. The Long Term Evolution (LTE) based 4G network will have peak download speeds of 100Mbps. Ralph de la Vega said, “ The future is all about data,” we completely agree with that, more the bandwidth better it is.

Rumors have been going around that Philips is working on a touchscreen phone for past few weeks. Today, Philips officially announced, not one but two touchscreen handsets the X800 and X-Connect. The X800 is a low-end touchscreen phone with 2.9” screen with 240 X 400 resolution, 2-megapixel camera, microSD card slot, Bluetooth and handwriting recognition. The phone support tri-band GSM/GPRS (no 3G or even EDGE) and has a battery life of 8 hours talk time. The higher-end X-connect will have 3” screen, GPS, Bluetooth and microSD card slot. The Windows Mobile 6 based phone will support 3G via UMTS/HSDPA. There is no word on pricing or availability for both phones yet.

Samsung will showcase their new 240Hz 15-inch LCD display prototype at the Society for Information Display 2008 show in LA on May 18th. The display will be the first ever LCD to run at 240Hz speed. Samsung Electronics Executive Vice President Souk Jun-hyung, who leads the Display R&D Center of LCD Business, said, “Our blue phase mode is a major evolutionary development beyond conventional liquid crystal modes. Samsung’s development of this technology provides a tremendous opportunity to move image quality of LCD screens much closer to that of a real moving image.” Samsung call the technology used in the display “Blue Phase”. The new Blue phase display does not need liquid crystal alignment layers, as it can make its own alignment layers, reducing the number of fabrication processes and over all cost. Additionally it won’t need the overdrive circuits, currently used to run 120Hz LCD displays. Mass production of the displays based on Blue Phase technology won’t start till 2011.
[Via BusinessWire]

A Microsoft executive said on Tuesday that the company is aiming for 40% of the smartphone market with Windows Mobile by year 2012. According to market research firm Canalys, 118 million smartphones were sold last year. Symbian captured 67% market share, Microsoft came in next with 13% market share and RIM took the third place with 10% market share. Eddie Wu, managing director of Microsoft OEM Embedded Devices in Asia said “Microsoft’s Windows Mobile went into around 11 million devices in fiscal year 2007 and it will reach nearly 20 million in fiscal year 2008, which ends on June 30th 2008.” It is estimated that by 2012 more than 300 million phones will be smartphones and if Microsoft what to gain 40% market share, every year it will have to almost double the number of Windows Mobile licenses it sells.

ComputerWorld did a test to find the fastest 3G network in US. The three networks tested were AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Computerworld tested time to establish a connection, peak and average download speeds, average upload speeds, time required to load each vendor’s web page and the effect each had on battery life. AT&T was the fastest network with average download speeds of 755Kbps, average upload speed of 484Kbps and peak download speed of 1.6Mbps. The AT&T card connected in just 3 seconds and took 0.228 seconds to load the web page. Sprint was the slowest with average download speeds of 494Kbps, Upload speeds of 294Kbps and peak speed of 1.2Mbps. The sprint card connected in 3.7 seconds and had page load time of 0.224 seconds. Verizon had average download speeds of 592Kbps and upload speeds of 232Kbps and peak download at 1.3Mbps. Verizon was slowest in establishing a connection and took 5.6 seconds but had the best battery life performance; battery life took a hit of only 20 minutes when the card was used.

There are around 250 million cellphone subscribers in India and every month more than 6 million new subscribers are added. Making, India the fastest growing cellphone markets. It is estimated that India will have more than 500 million cellphone users in 2010. Definitely, Apple wants to sell iPhone in India as soon as possible and with as many carriers as possible. Riyaz.net is reporting that iPhone rollout in India will be the largest, anywhere in the world. More than 250,000 Vodafone and Airtel retail outlets will sell iPhone, to cover all the metros and leading tier II towns. Compare that to 9000 stores selling iPhone in US, which is the biggest iPhone market till now. Both Airtel and Vodafone have announced earlier, that they have reached an agreement with Apple to launch iPhone in India. Airtel’s spokesperson said that they are working on the distribution strategy and cannot comment on release date. Vodafone hasn’t said anything except that they will be one of the iPhone carriers. If Apple captures only 10 percent of the raising cellphone market in India they will be selling 10 million phones every year in India alone. iPhone will be priced Rs. 23,000 and will be targeted at high-end mobile phone users.

RIM will hold its first developer conference in Santa Clara, California. The two and a half days conference is scheduled for the week of 20th October. Though RIM has not posted any agenda for the conference, it appears that mobile software development will be at the forefront of the conference. According to BGR, RIM is also working on a touchscreen BlackBerry device codenamed BlackBerry Thunder that they will launch in Q3 2008. The phone will have a full-face touchscreen, no slide out keyboard and just 4 physical keys. The four keys on the phone are talk, end talk, menu and back. The phone will be launch with Vodafone and Verizon with CDMA EV-DO and GSM HSPA. No other information is available about the device but I think we will come to know more about the device at RIM developer conference on October 20th.

Olympus showed its new E-520 digital SLR, an update to its existing E-510 model. The camera uses the same 10-megapixel sensor used in its little brother E-420 but adds Sensor-shift image stabilization, increased continuous shooting buffer and new grip. The camera has a sensitivity range of ISO 100 to 1600 and 11-points autofocus. It also supports face detection, wireless flash and Olympus’s Shadow Adjustment Technology. The camera will be available in July for $599 body only and $699 for body and an ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens.

Sharp added two new LCD TVs to its professional HD line-up. Both the 46” TL-M4600 and the 52” TL-M5200 comes with Ethernet port and built-in web browser for web surfing. The displays are made using Sharp’s proprietary Advanced Super View panel, with 6ms response time and 176 degree viewing angle. Both the models will support full HD and include DVI-D for computer input and HDMI 1.3 for video inputs. The TL-M4600 will have 1500:1 contrast ratio and will be available in June for $3,995. The 52” TL-M5200 has a 2000:1 contrast ratio and is available now for $4,995.

AdMob a mobile advertising startup has published a report based on ads requests made to its servers in month of April. The company found iPhone accounted for just 1.1% of overall cellphone traffic in US and 0.8% worldwide. Motorola took the top three places for individual handset. RIM was the second company behind Motorola followed by Nokia. According to the company Apple’s iPhone trailed significantly when pitted against other smartphones. Blackberry came on top with 47% share in US for web request made to AdMob servers. Worldwide Nokia was the leader with 42% of the request made to AdMob Server. iPhone has just 6% of US ads request made to the server and 5% worldwide. AdMob noted that a significant number of iPhone web requests came from countries where iPhone was not released officially. Definitely the study shows that iPhone has a small market share worldwide, but there is a problem when you consider web traffic market share based on the study done by AdMob for iPhone. AdMob is a mobile advertising company and it advertises on mobile websites and mobile landing pages only. So basically you will need a mobile browser normally found on most handset to send a web request to AdMob server. Now the thing with the iPhone is that it uses a superior full HTML web browser “Safari” and hence you don’t need to surf mobile websites to get the information. Most iPhone users surf the web in the same way they do on their desktops or laptop and hence a mobile advertising company won’t get many hits from iPhone browser. In fact I am surprised that iPhone came in top 20 handset worldwide based on traffic to AdMob server because after I got my iPhone last year I have never visited a website designed for mobile browsing. I always go to the full HTML version of the website as its easier to browse. In January 2008 Google reported that on Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhones surged, surpassing incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device. Few days later, iPhone traffic to Google fell below that of devices powered by Symbian OS but remained higher than traffic from any other type of cellphone. In fact Yahoo also concurred with the findings by Google. Another study done by StatCounter showed that iPhone is the most used mobile browser in US and Nokia comes in second. Worldwide Nokia came in first and iPhone second. So basically AdMob released this study just to get some free publicity even though they knew that iPhone statistics weren’t truly relevant to the amount of web traffic generated by iPhone.

Canon today added two new portable SELPHY photo printers CP770 and CP760. The CP770 is designed like a basket and comes with a handle for portability. The printer has a 2.5” preview screen on top and prints out 4 X 6 inch prints at 300DPI in 52 seconds. You can print by connecting the printer to your Mac or Windows computer via USB or by using memory card directly in its multi-card reader or use the optional Bluetooth adapter to print wirelessly. For portable printing you can use a battery pack ($80) accessory that will last for hours. The printer is available now for $150. The second SELPHY printer, CP760 is designed for home/office use and has same features as CP770 but doesn’t support battery pack. The CP760 will also be available for $150.

One of the first Intel Atom based mini-notebook “Wind” will be launched by MSI in US on June 3rd. MSI Wind will come in two screen sizes 8.9” and 10”, but only 10” model will be released in US. There will be two OS based models one with Linux and the other one with Windows XP. The Linux version will come with 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, Linux SUSE OS, 80GB hard drive, 512MB RAM, 1.3-megapixel webcam, WiFi b/g, 3 USB, 4-in-1 card reader and three cells battery that will last for 2.5hrs. The $399 laptop will measure 10.2” x 7.08” x 0.74” and weigh just 2.6 pounds. The Windows version will be almost identical except it will have 1GB RAM, Bluetooth, Six cells battery than will last 5.5 hrs and weigh 2.8 pounds. The Windows version will also cost more at $549. The mini-notebooks will be available in four colors Black, white, silver and pink. MSI’s Director of US sales has done an interview about the release of MSI Wind with LaptopMag you can check it out here.

Alienware will announce a low cost dual ATI graphics card based gaming PC by the end of May. The gaming system will come with 4Gb memory, 2.2GHz Quad-Core 9550 Phenom X4 processor, two ATI HD 3870 X2 graphics cards and a high-end Asus motherboard based on AMD 790FX chipset for only $1,699. Normally a dual graphics card system cost a minimum of $2,000. According to Alienware the company is seeing huge demand in gaming PCs below $2,000 and want to address the entry-level market with this system.

Apple’s iPhone partner for Switzerland, Swisscom has revealed its iPhone plans and also leaked details about the upcoming iPhone. According to the information released by Swisscom the iPhone will be available in three colors silver, black and white. There will be two storage capacities available 16GB for 659 Swiss Francs and 32GB for 799 Swiss Francs.  The 16GB model will be available only in sliver and the 32GB model will be in silver, black and white. The reports notes that the iPhone will be available in all 118 Swisscom shops and in both the Apple stores in Zurich and Geneva.
[Via 9to5Mac]

Wall St. Journal is reporting that Dell will start phasing out its XPS lineup, starting next month. According to Wall Street, Dell would drop four performance models of XPS next month and will focus on Alienware for high-end gaming market. Dell sells five desktop XPS models and three laptop XPS models, which four models it will stop making is not mentioned in the report. As of now it looks like it will be the four high-end desktop models that will go under the knife. A Dell executive said that the new team would focus on a line of new products for the gaming PC.

The Microsoft Mac Business Unit today announced the release of Microsoft Office 2008 Service Pack 1, an update that will increase stability, security and performance of the software. The update will be available via Microsoft Auto Update and its website. In Excel Microsoft has improved compatibility between the Office 2008 and 2003 for Mac as well as Office 2007 for Windows. Printing for Excel documents has also been improved. Entourage is now more stable and has enhanced support for Exchange. Word 2008 has increased reliability and responsiveness. Notebook mode adds updated formatting, recording status and several display options. The service pack 1 also improves PowerPoint printing engine making it faster and more stable. Windows Mobile compatibility has also been added.  So Fire up your Microsoft AutoUpdate and enjoy the benefits of Office 2008 Service Pack 1.

Apple has added HBO TV shows to iTunes store with variable pricing. The episodes of Rome, The Sopranos and Deadwood are available for $2.99, where as The Wire, Sex and the City and Flight of the Conchords are available for $1.99. Now as Apple is backing down from its flat-rate pricing policy we will see more shows on iTunes. But to tell you the truth I am not going to pay $3 to watch an episode of Sopranos, $1.99 price point was just about right for me. In fact I believed that Apple was charging too much for shows like Office that had a run time of only 20 minutes. For a 40 minutes show $2 was just fine and I know networks are forcing Apple to charge more.

The European laptop maker Eurocom announced their new laptop that uses Quad Core Xeon processor basically making it a mobile server. The other specifications on the laptop are also very impressive. You can configure your laptop with up to 8GB memory, up to 1TB storage with three hard drives, up to 1GB VRAM with Dual SLI 8800M GTX and a Blu-ray burner. The laptop has a 17” HD display and it weighs 12 pounds. The battery life on the laptop is just one hour and the basic configurations starts at around $3,000. You can order your server grade laptop here.

For past two days Apple’s online store is showing both the models of iPhone as unavailable. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said today in an interview “We’re currently out of stock, both the 8Gb and 16Gb models are unavailable.” She declined to say if Apple would restock the iPhone or comment on supply at retail stores. When I checked with my local Apple store today they were out of 8GB model and had few 16GB left. They have no information whether Apple will replenish iPhone inventory or not.
In another Apple related news, Apple’s public relations confirmed to Fortune that Steve Jobs will deliver a keynote address on June 9th the first day of the 2008 WWDC. Mark the calendar guys its going to be one of the biggest day in tech world this year.

Microsoft announced last week that it has sold 2 million Zunes. In the PR releases, Microsoft focused on announcing the one percent increase that was seen in Zune’s market share last quarter (Q1 2008) compared to that of Q1 2007. The reason why Microsoft PR emphasized on their 4% Zune market share and not number of units sold, was because there was a decrease in number of units sold in Q1 2008 compared to Q1 2007. If you just line up the facts, you will see that Zune sales are falling even after Microsoft added three new models to its Zune lineup.  Microsoft sold 1.2 million Zune’s in the first 8 months of sales. The company started selling 30GB Zune in November 2006 and reached the 1.2 million mark in June 2007. It took Microsoft more than 11 months to sell the next 0.8 million Zunes. Consider that Microsoft was selling equal number of Zunes every month till they reaches 1.2 million mark in June 2007. So Microsoft was selling 150,000 Zunes every month in first 8 months of sales. Now, consider the next 11 months when it sold another 800,000 Zunes, the company was selling 72,000 Zunes every month, that is less the half of what they sold earlier. Most websites are reporting that there was hardly any acceleration or sales were modest for Zune, but truth is Zune sales were bad. If there is a decrease of 50% in year over year sales, that is a very bad sign for the company. Apple and SanDisk were the only two companies in top five MP3 makers for Q1 2008 that sold more units than they sold a year before for the first quarter 2007. Both Creative and Microsoft saw a decrease in total number of units sold year over year in Q1 2008. Even after adding three new models 4GB Zune, 8GB Zune and 80 GB Zune in November 2007, Microsoft saw a decrease in unit sales that is really detrimental for the company. The time it took Microsoft to sell 2 million Zunes (between November 2006 and May 2008), Apple sold 76 million iPods. In fact, in the past two year, Zune had no impact on iPod sales (Microsoft’s main reason for launching Zune) and looking at the decrease in unit sales for Zune there might not be any effect in the future too.

E ink announced that it has developed the next generation of e-paper and would start shipping with-in three months. The e-paper displays are used in devices like Sony reader and Amazon Kindle as they can maintain an image using the Vizplex system without using power for up to a year. The new segmented display cell technology based e-paper will be thinner, more flexible and more power efficient than previous generation. The new technology will allow production of non-rectangular shapes with even holes in them and have a 180-degree viewing angle. E ink says the display can be used in smartcards, capacity indicators and electronic shelf labels. Delphi will be the first company to use the new display in their upcoming wireless bi-directional key fob that will permit both car-to-user and user-to-user communication, over longer ranges than traditional remotes. Delphi will launch the fob by end of 2008.

The security software manufacturer PC Tools claimed that Vista is not as secure as Windows 2000, even though Microsoft claims that Vista is the most secure ever build by the company. According to the statistics received from over 1.4 million computers using ThreatFire, an anti-malware program made by PC Tools Windows Vista is more susceptible to malware than Windows 2000 and 37% more secure than Windows XP. The data reported showed that for Vista on an average 639 threats were reported for every 1,000 computers. Where as for Windows 2000 586 threats were reported for 1,000 computers. Windows XP was the worst Windows OS and had 1,021 threats for every 1,000 computers. The company has give now information about the kind of antivirus used or whether any other security measures were in place or not. The number of malware for an OS that has less than 2% market share will undeniably be less compared to a OS that has more than 10 times market share. If you consider PC Tools report Windows XP had more threats than any other Windows OS and it also has the largest market share.

Dave Watanabe the creator of Inquisitor Safari Extension announced on Friday that Yahoo has bought the rights to Inquisitor. According to terms of purchase Watanabe will continue to be the lead developer for Inquisitor, but will not join Yahoo as an employee. Watanabe mention that Yahoo will use the extension for product integration but will continue using Google as the default search for now. He will also have significant input in future development of the extension and may help Yahoo to integrate different Yahoo services (Flickr, blog) with the extension.

iPhone rumors/news are coming in so fast that it feels like the next generation iPhone will be launched tomorrow. Well I don’t know when Apple will launch the new iPhone, but it looks like it will come with a black back. An “iPhone Black” option has popped up on AT&T’s website along side the regular iPhone, when you select what type of phone you have. So one more sign pointing toward the imminent 3G-iPhone release.
[Via BGR]

Update: AT&T has released an official statement saying, “The reference to ‘iPhone Black’ was simply a temporary placeholder used over the weekend for a scheduled update. It was meant to temporarily distinguish the various iPhone models- 4GB, 8GB and 16Gb but was never reassigned. We’re changing the site now.” How can Black be placeholder for three different size models? Come-on AT&T we know you made a mistake just admit it.

AMD today launched a low-power version of their Opteron server chips. The Chips are targeted to compete with Intel Xeon processors on better performance per watt bases. The five new chips include two eight-way server chips 1.9GHz Opteron 8347 HE ($873) and 1.8GHz 8346 HE ($698); and the three two-way server chips are 1.9GHZ 2347 HE ($377), 1.8GHz 2346 HE ($255) and the 1.7GHz 2344 HE ($209). All the processors operate at 55 watts and consume 30% less power. Brent Kerby, senior product manager for Opteron said “ AMD’s strategy is to price its two-way processors right on Top, price-wise on the Xeon processors.” AMD believes that majority of sales in server market will be in the 55-watt range in coming months.

Eye-Fi the maker of the SD cards with integrated WiFi network has announced two new cards the Eye-Fi Explore and the Eye-Fi Home. Eye-Fi has also renamed their Eye-Fi card to Eye-Fi Share. The Explore will be Eye-Fi’s top of the line card that will include geotagging using the Skyhook WiFi based location system, which is also, used in iPod Touch and iPhone. The card will be priced $129. The Eye-Fi Share will be have same features as the previous Eye-Fi card and will be priced $99. The last in the line up is the Eye-Fi Home a $79 card that will only be able to upload photos through desktop software using the home network. All three cards will come with 2GB memory and will be available on June 6th.

The No. 1 smartphone maker in US today announced their new smartphone platform BlackBerry Bold 9000. The new phone uses 624MHz Marvell processor, 320 x 480 screen, HSDPA/EVDO, WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth. The phone is based on the latest version of BlackBerry OS, 4.6 that includes DataViz DocumentsToGo, full HTML email and full HTML browser that displays web pages in desktop format like iPhone does. It comes with 1GB of onboard memory that is AES256 secure memory, for corporate IT managers to store confidential data. You can expand the total memory by adding up to 16GB MicroSD card. RIM has not announced the release date and price for the phone yet.
RIM also announced the $150 million BlackBerry Partners Fund in collaboration with RBC and Thomson Reuters. The Fund will be used to invest in mobile application and services development for the BlackBerry platform and other mobile platform. The BlackBerry fund is definitely inspired by the $100 million iFund for iPhone application development announced by Apple and KPCB few months back. But the good thing about the BlackBerry Partners Fund is that it will not restrict the development of the mobile application and services to any single mobile platform or any specific industry segment. You can get more information about the fund on BlackBerry Partners Fund website.

The latest iPhone firmware 2.0 Beta 5 released last week had some hidden new 3G and GPS features. The new firmware has added a preference screen that allows users of the new model to disable the 3G and use EDGE, as using 3G loads data faster, but decreases battery life. The latest firmware also has many GPS references in the code. One of the most interesting references is use of GPS data with camera for putting location metadata into photo files. Though there is no guarantee that Apple will have GPS in the new iPhone, but this is definitely an indication towards it. In 3G-iPhone distribution related news, Apple has reached an agreement with SingTel (Singapore Telecommunications) to distribute the iPhone in Singapore and its partly owned subsidiaries in Australia (Optus), India (Bharti Airtel) and Philippines (Globe Telecom). Vodafone also announced few days back that it would distribute in India and Australia, so both the countries will get multiple carriers supporting iPhone officially.
In another iPhone related news SwitchtoaMac.com had posted a rumor that 3G capable iPhone will be announced in May before WWDC and Apple would instead announce a brand new portable device at WWDC. In contradicting news David Manners posted that Luigi Licciardi, Executive vice president of Telecom Italia Mobile told him “we will be selling an iPhone with 3G capability next month”. Till now everybody is just guessing the 3G-iPhone release date, if you talk to most telecom companies they point to a June release date. But I won’t be surprised if Apple launches the 3G iPhone in May (just to surprise everyone) and announces new portable device at WWDC. We have less then a month before everything is cleared out.