Better late than never right? That’s how the saying goes and it looks like Sony clearly qualifies for that. The company has realized that Apple’s iTunes idea is a goldmine and therefore it’s preparing to launch its own iTunes version which will sell music, movie and books to its customers. Mobile applications could also be included in the future Sony Online Service but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!
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Just as we told you a few days ago, Google has decided to unveil its own computer operating system this year. Although we were expecting it to arrive at some point in 2010, Google execs must have realized that now’s the time to make Google OS official.
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Iomega officially unveiled today the StorCenter ix2-200 NAS which is a basically an updated version of the StorCenter ix2 NAS dual-drive backup and media-sharing solution.
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Read the rest of Iomega Unveils New StorCenter ix2-200 NAS [New Dual-Drive StorCenter Models Available in USA & Europe Now; Asia to Follow in November]

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Although Gateway didn’t took the time to show off one of their most precious little pieces of technology, we still managed to get a hold of this slim and sleek new Gateway EC18T tablet. Leaked online from an anonymous source, the new EC18T is Gateway’s first step into the tablet PC niche which is getting more interesting by the day.

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Adobe has big plans in mind for all our mobile smartphones and computers. The company announced today its Flash Player 10.1 which is going to be available soon to most smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks and PCs out there. In other words, as long as your mobile gadget has access to Adobe Flash content, Flash Player 10.1 will let you view it. There will be support for most mobile operating systems: BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian phones. Naturally Adobe will offer support for computers too whether they are running Windows, Mac OS or Linux.
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Read the rest of Full Flash Support for Mobile and PC Announced by Adobe [Flash Player 10.1 for BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian Phones Included]

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The idea of sharing your wireless connection with other users certainly has some people a bit hesitant, especially when it comes to the security of the whole deal. I wouldn’t want anyone snooping around on my hard drives. But if the people at FON have their way you’ll be able to openly share and share alike your wireless network with any number of other users on the FON international wi-fi network. Their latest wireless router, the Fonera 2.0n, improves upon their last model with several added social networking functions as well as speedier 802.11n protocols. (...)
Read the rest of FON Fonera 2.0n Wi-Fi Sharing Router [802.11n Wireless Connectivity, Web 2.0 Services Integration, 4 Ethernet Ports, USB 2.0 Connectivity]

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Here we go again. We’ve had another swimmer jump into the waters of the network attached storage (NAS) pool and this time it looks like something straight out of an episode of Buck Rogers. You know, the one where Buck argues with Twiki and Dr. Theopolis about how dangerous and seemingly impossible his mission is going to be. Anyway, 80’s retro looks notwithstanding, the latest entrant into the NAS market is the new Thecus N2200 from, who else, Thecus. (...)
Read the rest of Thecus Debuts N2200 NAS [Value-Based Network Attached Storage, Dual 3.5-in Drive Bays, DLNA/uPnP Compatible, 11W Operating Power Draw]

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Network Attached Storage, or NAS, is still a relative newcomer to the technology scene. What used to be the realm of corporate IT engineers is now making its way into the consumer market. People want the ability to access and store their multimedia files on a centrally located HDD that can be poked into from just about anywhere. Looking to provide yet another viable option for those home users looking for NAS solutions, NETGEAR has just announced the launch of their latest NAS device, the 1TB Stora network-attached storage device. (...)
Read the rest of NETGEAR MS2110 Stora NAS [Network Storage Device, 1TB Capacity, Access Files From Any Internet-Connected Device]

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More and more home users are getting over their fears of networking and diving right in. Manufacturers are making it easier for ordinary, less tech savvy folks to take advantage of services like DLNA and wireless home network storage devices and the latest product introduction from Belkin, the Home Base, speaks right to this change in consumer mindset. The Home Base is a user-friendly device that integrates right into existing home networks and enables wireless sharing of multiple USB peripherals. (...)
Read the rest of Belkin Home Base Wireless Network Sharing Device [Wirelessly Share Printers, USB HDDs, Cameras With Others On Your Home Network]

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It’s all about sharing. People want to share their lives with anyone that’ll listen and sites like YouTube and FaceBook are a testament to this personal media exodus. On top of this, we all want to be able to access our data and information no matter where we are on the planet and if we have friends we want them to have access to it as well. Could we be any more high maintenance? Seagate has just announced a new network adapter called the FreeAgent DockStar and it too is all about sharing.
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Read the rest of Seagate FreeAgent DockStar Network Adapter [Works With FreeAgent Go Portable HDDs, Share Your HDD On Your Home Network or With Others Anywhere Using PogoPlug]

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How’s this for an interesting concept. You can connect any two PCs that are located anywhere in the world and as long as both machines are connected to the Internet you can share files between them. It gets better. Not only are the two machines networked, but it’s all done using a simple, plug-and-play USB device that splits in two. One half goes in one PC and the other half goes in the other. That’s it. No cables, no network cards, passwords, usernames, or any of that other fun stuff that we have to deal with when we attempt to share data between to computers. I know, that technology doesn’t exist yet, right? Wrong. A Singapore-based technology company called iTwin has just developed what they are calling a cableless network cable and they are set to completely disrupt the portable storage market. (...)
Read the rest of iTwin Wireless USB Networking Device [Bi-Directional, PnP, Remote File Access Between Two PCs Located Anywhere In The World]

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Network Attached Storage. This brings to mind devices like the Apple Time Capsule that allow users to store massive amounts of multimedia data on a storage device that can then be accessed via a wireless network or DLNA compliant device (think Xbox 360 or set-top multimedia box). Now that’s something worthwhile, especially as more and more people are hoarding massive high-definition movie collections or decades of high-res family photos on their hard-drives with little recourse should they suffer a massive system failure. The thought alone sends chills down my spine. Rest easy people. LG has just announced a new network attached storage device (NASD), the LG AN2R1, which is sure to have wireless home networkers sighing with relief. (...)
Read the rest of LG N2R1 Network Attached Storage Device [1TB/2TB Shared Storage, 802.11g Wi-Fi, Windows, Linux, Mac Compatible, Drive Swapping, DLNA-Compliant, Network-Sharable DVD/RW]

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I’m not normally one to get all that excited about a new wireless router, but when I caught wind of the latest product introduction from NETGEAR I have to admit I got a little tingly inside. The WNDR3700 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router is not your ordinary wireless router. This thing is packed with a ton of useful features along with some just plain cool features that’ll make you want to take that old router of yours and go Office Space on it with your favorite Lewisville Slugger. Not sure yet? How about the ability to share a USB hard drive with anyone on your network? How about a 680MHz processor? I thought that’d get ya. (...)
Read the rest of NETGEAR RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router [680 MHz MIPS Processor, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Frequency Bands, Integrated DLNA]

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Well, the rumors have proven themselves out with respect to ASUS launching an updated version of its popular EeeBox home entertainment PC. Listed on the ASUS website as the EeeBox EB1012, this latest iteration in the small but powerful EeeBox line of PCs has definitely upped the ante in the category. The EeeBox EB1012 Entertainment PC is touted as the ideal Full HD entertainment center for your living room. It has multiple I/O ports for connectivity including eSATA for efficient, high speed data transmission and it uses 80% less power than a typical desktop. (...)
Read the rest of Asus EeeBox EB1012 Home Entertainment PC [Ion Graphics, 1080p HDMI Out, Atom N330 processor, 250GB HDD, 2GB DDR2-800 RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi]

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Nokia is quite well known for its line of mobile phones and there aren’t many who would challenge their market position in that market. However, when it comes to offering consumers portable computers, they have been quite absent from the scene. Well, all that’s about to change with their latest announcement. After more than 25 years in the mobile industry, Nokia has decided to bring its knowledge of both technology and portability to the PC world with the new, Windows based, Nokia Booklet 3G. (...)
Read the rest of Nokia Booklet 3G Netbook [Intel Atom Processor, 10.1-in Display, 12-hr Battery, Integrated Wi-Fi, 3G HSPA and GPS]

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The D-Link Powerline DHP-303 Ethernet plug makes use of the existing electrical cabling in our homes to bring internet connectivity to us. This system does away with the investment and effort required for cabling when creating a LAN at home.
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The new Check Point ZoneAlarm Z100G is a secure wireless router that promises enterprise level protection for home wireless networks. It’s release was announced by Check Point yesterday. Version 8.0 of the Z100G endeavors to make home wireless networks hacker-proof.

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Just a very brief heads-up to let you know, if you didn’t already, that Mozilla have just made Firefox 3.0.6 – which, of particular note, serves to resolve a security flaw in the implementation of Javascript that could potentially allow hackers to inject and run unauthorized code via an exploit -available for download.

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Acoustic Research introduced two new internet radios at the CES in Las Vegas – the ARIR600i and ARIR200. Both AR internet radios offer Wi-Fi connectivity so there is no need to tether the radio to a computer. Both radios also feature programs made available via very interesting content partnerships that Acoustic Research has entered into. The Acoustic Research Slacker partnership lets listeners enjoy music covering a 100 genres and more than 10,000 artist stations.

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The Vodafone Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) USB offering is a handy little gadget that truly puts the Internet within the reach wherever you are in the United Kingdom or at least 80% of the United Kingdom as stated by Vodafone. If you have this USB tucked away in some corner of your rucksack or pocket, the Internet is always accessible. What’s more you do not get tied to an expensive contract that drains you even when you are not using the service; it truly is Pay-As-You-Go.

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Nabaztag the bunny is a Wi-Fi enabled desktop companion and capable of feats that other carrot-chompers can only dream of. This 24-carrot certified gold rabbit can fetch information from the Internet and make available to you. So, whether its news headlines or stock reports, email notifications, weather reports or sports scores, this Wi-Fi gizmo is guaranteed to have you totally dependent on it for information.

The bunny is constantly adding new features to its repertoire and soon this brainy bunny will be able to offer you traffic updates, inform you if you have an SMS waiting for you, and even deliver a message to your house once you have sent it via the Nabaztag website. Now why you wouldn’t want to simply pick up the phone and inform folks at home is purely for you to decide. Loony applications apart, Nabaztag does open up endless possibilities for keeping you connected all the time with the help of Wi-Fi technology. Nabaztag BTW is apparently Armenian for “rabbit”.

The Nabaztag bunny communicates through sounds, voice, light flashes, and ear movements. So, for example yellow lights flashing could indicate a rise in share prices whereas droopy ears could imply that you should have sold the stocks last week. The ears are accessories and changeable, you have a choice in color and design for the ears.

Contents:

* 1x Nabaztag
* 1x Power adapter
* 1x Quickstart Manual

Dimensions:

* Approximately: 16cm(H) x 13.5cm(W) x 13.5cm(D) without ears
* Approximately: 23cm(H) x 13.5cm(W) x 13.5cm(D) with ears

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Google Chrome 1.0 is available for download, it has passed its beta stage in a 100 days from its beta launch. This is a creditable achievement for the guys working on Chrome considering that Gmail is still in the beta phase – but then I guess that is a far bigger project with much greater scope for application tie-ins.

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Following a development period of some three years, Mozilla have today announced that their new FireFox 3 browser (release candidate) will become available for download on June 17 and, having tried the beta, we can confirm that FF3 is not only a great deal faster but its also, thankfully, far less resource hungry than its pervious iterations – though, at the time of writing, the majority of our favourite plug-ins are wholly incompatible with this new version.

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Amaztype allows you to search Amazon for books relating to any search term you enter by cleverly reconstructing your initial search term from the covers of books that match the term: for instance if you type in ‘Fish’ Amaztype proceeds to build up the word ‘Fish’ using covers of books that relate to the topic of fish. Not only that but if you see an image of a cover that appeals to you Amaztype allows you to click and zoom in on that cover to gain further details with the option of linking through to the Amazon store for purchasing.

You can link to Amaztype here.

[Source | Notcot]

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Quite apart from having a visual style all of its own – and, personally, I find it very pleasing to the eye in a clean and uncluttered way – the Clusty search engine claims that it’s unique in that rather than showing a never ending list of results it actually clusters them together which is stated to assist you in honing down on search results that you may otherwise have missed. And it’s also nice to know that this particular site appears to come rather well out of this particular searching algorithm.

The Clusty search engine is well worth a little investigation and it should also be noted that if you find the results from other search engines hard to decipher due to poor eyesight then this could prove extremely useful.

All in all it’s impressive stuff, and not merely from an aesthetic perspective, and you can link to the whiter than white Clusty Search Engine to give it a whirl for yourself via this link.

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Using Google Maps, GeoGreeting allows you to create your own personalised message from the satellite images of buildings that serve to make up the letters of your text – you then simply send your intended recipient the link provided. Out of interest, the greeting you send will also detail the actual buildings used to make up your message, which, apart from being of cursory interest, is geeky enough to get the site mentioned here.

You can see s GeoGreeting in action by clicking this link or you can create your own message by clicking here.

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Instead of using traditional techniques, such as search keywords and categories, Retrievr rather uniquely bases its search on a small sketch that you complete inside a box and, whilst the results are not always as expected or hoped, it certainly makes for some interestingly improbable returns – then again, the results I obtained could just be down to my rather eccentric artistic style.

You can try Retrievr for yourself here, and if you can get it to return a set of pictures that don’t include either a dog or a cat – when you have drawn a car and a plane – then you’re a better person than I (though I respect that the site is still very much in development).

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Scripted entirely in DHTML this free online version is an extremely faithful portrayal of the original 80’s game – none of that 3D Lemmings nonsense – that had many of us pulling our hair out whilst those little, green-haired lemmings seemed utterly intent on committing suicide all over the screen.

You can travel back in time and try once again in vain to save those moronic creatures by equipping them with umbrellas, dynamite and pickaxes – to name but a few – by clicking here.

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Weighing in at a mere 3.6MB download, and programmed in C# and C++, Paint.net offers a considerable range of tools – including layers, unlimited undo and numerous special effects – that will certainly cater for the majority of users looking either to manipulate imagery or to touch up images prior to uploading to websites, or prior to including in documentation, etc.

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Help is at hand, however, as this is where this simple but highly effective free Colour Chart Generator could save hours of thumbing laboriously through endless paint cards and charts. Interestingly, it could also prove an invaluable tool for web designers as well in their search for complimentary colour combinations.

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Read the rest of Automatic Colour Chart Generator

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You either love or hate the very notion of desktop wallpaper, but a good background image can undoubtedly act to raise the spirits and bring a little character to proceedings and I must say that if you are interested in quality wallpaper (without the “e”) then this site, named somewhat predictably as “Wallpapr” is a great free resource.

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Read the rest of Free Wallpaper (without the “e”) via Flickr

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In this feature article I will over a condensed list of some of the many services now offered by Google, some of which may be unknown to you. This is by no means an extensive list but there are a number of gems here (22 to be precise) – some of which offer practical and viable alternatives to commercial software packages such as Excel.

Even if you consider yourself to be a Google aficionado you may well find something in this list you perhaps did not know about.

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Read the rest of A Rough Guide to Free Google Services

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If you have a decent internet connection, and you are a little bored of your mp3 collection, then Finetune could well be the answer. On a personal level, any music service that recognises The Boards of Canada is alright in my book, and Finetune not only recognised them, but it also built and then streamed a custom playlist of their music straight back to me. Very impressive.

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Read the rest of Create Your Own Personalised Online Radio Station

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Of the interesting entries in the chart it is interesting to note that the Irukandji Jellyfish comes in at number eleven, just above pornography (which is rather unexpected). It is also interesting to note that Pokemon slots in at number sixteen, just above the events of 9/11.

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Read the rest of Wikipedia Top 100 Pages by Views

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