Digital Trends

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Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:41:00 PST

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Samsung Now Producing 256 GB SSDs

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:10:00 PST

Remember back in May when Samsung announced it would be launching 256 GB solid state drives? Samsung had originally planning to launch the drives in September, but today Samsung made good on the promise, announcing it has started production on the units, meaning they should start appearing as options for both notebook and desktop PCs in the near future—although we don't think they'll be cheap. "While SSD's have always been touted for their performance, Samsung is turning the storage industry upside down now with an SSD that delivers truly disruptive performance," said Samsung Semiconductor VP for memory marketing Jim Elliott,

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Seagate FreeAgent Go Now In (More) Colors

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:00:00 PST

Storage manufacturer Seagate is getting into the holiday spirit by introducing new colors for its FreeAgent Go line of external hard drives. Initially available in royal blue, red, black, and silver, new drives' new color options include pink, orange, spring green, forest green, sky blue, and gold. And, Seagate is throwing in some extras: through January 31, 2009, folks who register a new FreeAgent Go drive will receive a multimedia package, including 50 free songs from eMusic annd half-off a one-year subscription to SmugMug.

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Sonic Solutions Buys CinemaNow

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:30:00 PST

Sonic Solutions, which develops and distributes digital media software, has announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire digital movie distributor CinemaNow. The deal will rename CinemaNow as Sonic's Premium Content Group and integrate it with Sonics Qflix team. Qflix technology enables users to burn copyright-protected movies to DVD discs, so long as they're using QFlix-enabled drives and players, which are now available from Dell, Pioneer, and Plextor. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. "With broadband-connected consumer electronics hitting the market in ever

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Kingston Takes DataTraveler to 64 GB

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:30:00 PST

Memory and storage manufacturer Kingston has has introduced a new 64 GB edition of its DT150 DataTraveler USB drive, offering a new capacious storage option for folks like digital photographers and videographers who need to carry significant amounts of data with them. The DT150 works with Windows 2000/XP/Vista as well as Mac OS 10.3+ and Linux 2.6+, and just pops into any available USB port. "The new 64GB DataTraveler 150 takes transportable storage to the next level with big capacity in a small package," said Kingston flash business development manager Jaja Lin, in a statement. "As file sizes increase with digital media c

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Lich King Sells 2.8 Mln Copies On Day One

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:00:00 PST

If the streets seems remarkably clear of pedestrian traffic and loiterers the last few days, we may have found the reason:. Blizzard Entertainment reports that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich Kin sold more than 2.8 million copies during its first 24 hours of availability, making it the fastest-selling PC game to date. Many of those sales were fulfillments of pre-orders stemming from months of anticipatory hype surrounding the title, but also owes to the game's simultaneous launch in North America, Europea, Russia, Chile, and Argentina, with additional international releases following close

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Vizio Launches New LCD TVs, Full HD Monitor

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:30:00 PST

Low-cost HDTV manufacturer Vizio has formally announced three new small-screen LCD televisions, a new sound bar, and a new 26-inch Full HD multimedia monitor. But the big announcement is literally large: Vizio plans to introduce a 55-inch LCD HDTV with a 120 Hz refresh rate, 5 ms response time, and a swatch of high-definition inputs (includig five HDMI ports). Downside? The 55-inch VF550XVT1A won't be available for the holiday season…but customers might be able to get one in time for the Super Bowl. "Vizio is committed to providing advanced technology to consumers at a value," said Vizio co-founder and sales and marketing VP Laynie Newsome, in statement. "We understand the importa

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GTA IV Expansion to Feature Biker Gang

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:15:00 PST

Delivering on its promise of downloadable content to extend the Grand Theft Auto IV storyline, Rockstar Games has let details of its first expansion slip. The Lost and Damned will deflect the storyline from the game’s original protagonist, Niko Bellic, to focus on Johnny Klebitz, a member of the biker gang The Lost. According to USA Today, which broke the story, the expansion will still take place in Liberty City, but will explore new portions of the city and offer hours of more

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Zune Pass Now Packs Ten Tracks Per Month

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:05:00 PST

Microsoft is making more moves to make its Zune line of portable media players attractive to holiday shoppers. In addition to rolling out new application software and dropping prices on flash-based models yesterday, Microsoft has introduced a new Zune Pass subscription plan that not only lets subscribers listen to as much music as they want during a month: they can also permanently keep up to 10 tracks per month, and those tracks will be usable even if a user's Zune Pass subscription expires. "The way people

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MSI Debuts Colorful VR220 Notebooks

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:40:00 PST

Riding on the momentum of its popular Wind netbook, MSI on Wednesday revealed the VR220 YA Edition, a more capable compact. The 12.1-inch notebook runs an Intel Dual-Core processor rather than the more modest Atom chips used in netbooks, and also includes an array of other upgrades, with a price barely out of netbook territory. Besides the 12.1-inch screen (which boasts 1280 x 800 resolution), the VR220 gets a full 250GB standard hard drive, a Super-Multi optical drive, and h

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T-Mobile Goes with Yahoo for Mobile Search

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:30:00 PST

Internet giant Yahoo might be facing some tough times, what with losing it's Google search advertising deal, searching for a new CEO and watching its share price plummet. But T-Mobile is expressing continued confidence in the company, announcing that Yahoo oneSearch will be the default search for its new web2go service. Yahoo will also push sponsored search results and (in some instances) mobile search advertising to web2go. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. T-Mobile's new web2go aims

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Computer Virus Hits London Hospitals

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:00:00 PST

The computer system at three London hospitals – St. Bartholomew’s, the Royal London Hospital and the London Chest Hospital – have had to shut down their computer systems for at least 24 hours after they were infected by a virus. The hospitals have remained open and functional for operations and to see patients with appointments, the BBC reports, but emergencies have been diverted to other facilities and there have been disruptions for those needing hospital transport.

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Australia Brings New Net Censorship

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:00:00 PST

When Kevin Rudd was campaigning to become Labor prime minister of Australia last year, he promised an Internet content-filtering scheme that was essentially censorship to protect the nation’s youth. Once he had the post, the government announced the scheme, its Plan for Cyber-Safety, and there are plans for live trials of ISP-level content filtering before Christmas, according to the Guardian. The plan, which will cost around $80 million US, was put together by Senator Stephen Conroy, the minister for broadband, com

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Beware Firefox China Add-On

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:00:00 PST

Firefox is proud of its browser add-ons, and has even started Fashion Your Firefox to package them for users. But yesterday it warned people off some add-ons that they class as “experimental,” such as the China Channel, which allows people to surf the Web with the restrictions they’d find in China. A Mozilla spokesman said: “They haven’t been approved and so they may pose risks to users.” Around 1000 users have downloaded the China Channel. One user experienced an “uninstall bug” and lost all proxy settings after he closed Firefo

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Ballmer Restates Microsoft's Yahoo Position

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:00:00 PST

At Microsoft’s annual general meeting of stockholders in Bellevue, Wa., company chief executive was asked what was happening in regard to the company’s intent toward Yahoo – the very first question at the meeting. According to the Seattle Times, he replied: "Yeah, let me be as clear as I think I've tried to be publicly. We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo. I've said that a bunch of times. Somehow, some people got confused nonetheless. We did our best. We thought we had something that made sense. If it made sense to them, we've moved on. With that

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Top Ten Best Black Friday Deals

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

It takes some pretty spectacular deals to pry Americans out of their recliners late every Turkey Day and send them out into blistering cold parking lots to camp for hours, but retailers have it figured it out with Black Friday. And if you’re looking to score a big-screen TV for half of what it normally runs for, get a printer bundled with your camera for free, or pick up an MP3 player for the cost of a cup of coffee, you’ll be out there too. With the economy forcing consumers to pinch their pennies even more this year, and retailers trying even harder to open those cautiously held wallets, the deals are ripe for the picking. Here are a few of our favorite picks for this year.

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How to Recycle Your Electronics

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

The fun part about technology: Everyone loves something shiny and new, but what do you do with that mind-blowing gadget once it has lost its luster? You can throw it into the drawer or the trash, or you could do the smart thing – recycle it instead. Here’s how. The Prep Work As much as you’d like to go all “Office Space” on some of those electronics from years’ past, that can get messy. It’s also not too environmentally friendly, considering that there are glass, plastic, metals, and plenty of other non-biodegradable goodies inside and out that need to be dealt with. What’s more, you also need to be certain that they are being recycle

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Message to all CE Manufacturers: Ditch the Gloss Black Finish

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

I received a radio here at the office lately that had a pair of white gloves packaged alongside it. Butler-style, valet-style, Michael-Jackson-style gloves… explicitly to handle the radio. “Please unpack your cubo elements with the gloves provided…” the manual instructed. It wasn’t studded in diamonds, exceptionally delicate, or even slippery. It was just gloss black. And the surface collected fingerprints like a murder weapon on CSI, thus the point of the gloves. I actually give the manufacturer, Sonoro, credit for acknowledging the picky surface and including the gloves, but unfortunately, the trend extends far beyond the company’s

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Pioneer Elite Kuro Pro-111FD

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:20:44 PST

We get bleary-eyed checking out all the new HDTVs. Bigger, better and cheaper are this year’s watchwords in a nutshell. And yet, if you walk into a decent retailer (i.e. Magnolia in your local Best Buy) and gaze over a wide expanse of higher-end flat panels, one series always stands out: Pioneer’s Kuro plasma HDTV line. Consistently rated by everyone with 20/20 vision as the best available, we couldn’t wait to put the new Elite Pro-111FD through its paces. Although wonderful, though, one huge drawback for the product family is the simple fact that featured selections are wildly-expensive compared to plasma market-share leader Panasonic’s offerings. For example: A top-end (and very good) 1080p 50-inch Panasonic TH-50PZ850U is $2,999 and the entry-level 1080p TH-50PZ80U is $2000 (it’s not too shabby either). The same-sized Kuro? Try $5,000 for a top-end Elite or “only” $4,000 for a plain vanilla Pioneer. And this, before we even consider manufacturers like Vizio, who offer similar-sized models for around $1,500. But hey, what can we say: Even in this horrible economic environment, it’s still nice to dream of have the scratch to purchase a luxury HDTV. Hit the jump to see how well this new set fared…

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Blackberry Bold

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:02:30 PST

With every wireless device company now trying to compete with Apple’s iPhone, Ontario, Canada-based Research in Motion (RIM) has decided to go another route by simply doing what it does best—sticking to its tried and true Blackberry platform. The long anticipated Blackberry Bold, exclusively from AT&T Wireless, is the latest in the evolution of the business-minded smartphone, and can be described in a few short words: Bigger, faster and stronger. While the Bold was originally slated to drop this summer, and is only just now arriving, the good news is that Blackberry lovers and newcomers alike will find that the 3G device was well worth the wait.

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Microsoft Ditching OneCare for Freebie

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:30:00 PST

Microsoft has announced it plans to discontinue it's little-loved OneCare PC protection offering effective June 30, 2009, replacing it with a new, free malware protection service codenamed "Morro." The company is promising Morro will have a lighter footprint, making it more workable in situations where folks have low-powered PCs or limited bandwidth, and Morro will be available free of charge. "Customers around the world have told us that they need comprehensive, ongoing protection from new and existing threats, and we take that concern seriously,

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Logic3 Valve80 iPod Dock

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

Leave it to the British to nonsensically blend old-school analog audio equipment with cutting-edge digital players… and wrap it all up in a package so attractive you might actually want one. Like the Dice Electronics iTPA-220 before it, the Logic3 Valve80 is an iPod dock that harnesses a tube amp to attempt to deliver that characteristic “warm” sound of classic equipment from a cold and heartless stream of bits and bytes. Logic3 Valve80 iPod

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The Home of the Future

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

Exciting as the prospect of self-heating beds, Internet-connected showers and talking refrigerators seems at first blush, it’s difficult to know precisely what the home of the future is going to look like. Among the big questions: Will it be a Jetsons-style abode where convenience is king, or a more understated, efficient and practical domicile that offers facile automation? But while the future of domestic tranquility is hard to predict, one thing we do know for certain is that technology is driving the industry. Here, we explore several of the key concepts t

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Sony PSP 3000

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:40:04 PST

Disastrous proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD) format and haphazard software selection aside, we thought that the original PlayStation Portable was pretty terrific, what with its big, sharp LCD screen and noteworthy multimedia prowess. The handheld gaming system’s capable processor and onboard flash memory also made it ripe for the introduction of new features via firmware upgrades, which thankfully remain plentiful. Of course, we didn’t realize how bulky the PSP-1000 was until we wrapped our collective mitts around last year's PSP-2000, rightly nicknamed "PSP Slim." So when recent successor the PSP-3000 (available as part of the Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters PSP Entertainment Pack bundle) was announced, we figured that if we could have it all – and more, including a pleasing tweak to the screen's contrast level – in a pleasing form factor, why not? With this small, but welcome update, manufacturer Sony Computer Entertainment America further responded to consumer demand by adding video output to a connected TV, and even surprised us with clever hardware tweaks such as relocating the tiny stereo speakers from the bottom edge to the face of the unit.

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Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:19:25 PST

As the first Blackberry clamshell phone ever, the Pearl Flip is designed for a specific cross-section of mobile users: Those who don't really need a full QWERTY keyboard. Note that the original Pearl, still a viable alternative, started the trend of predictive type, where the truncated keypad automatically fills in words and letters as you enter them. The good news, of course, being that The Flip is just as useful. As long as, that is, you don't mind a steep learning curve.

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Pantech Matrix

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:36:37 PST

While QWERTY keyboards usually crop up on true-blue smartphones that also carry buckets of other extraneous features aboard, AT&T has recently tried to push full keyboards to the lower-end of the segment with an array of three new QWERTY handsets under $100. The Pantech Matrix, priced at $80, matches the likes of a real smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard and3G Internet access, but keeps the rest of the feature load light. Unfortunately, if you’re looking to take full advantage its speedy 3G Internet access, that feature set ends up being a little too light.

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Callpod Fuel Tank

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

Batteries can only take you so far. Three hours of talk time. Five hundred photos. Ten hours of music. No matter what the cap on your portable device, when you’re done, you’re done. And if you’re nowhere near an outlet, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Callpod’s new Fueltank changes that scenario by offering charging, without the outlet. Just tap the mini USB port on its side with the right adapter for your device, and the sweet electro-crude begins flowing. Top it off, and you’re good to go again, whether it’s with a cell phone, headset, nav unit, PDA, MP3 player, or portable gaming system.

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Intel Core I7, PC 3.0, and Anticipating Massive Change

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PST

Next Monday, the Intel Core I7 launches, and I’ve been using a system that Intel sent out which not only has the Core I7 and X58 chipset, but two 4870 X2 ATI graphics cards and two of the company’s new high-speed flash drives. To say that this system, (which has 4 real cores, and 4 virtual cores through hyperthreading, for a total of 8) is fast would be vastly understating the experience. The word amazing comes to mind, and I can hardly wait to put Windows 7 on it (is there such a thing as blindingly fast, squared?) Beyond the processor, or the graphics cards, the system also has around 130GB of second-generation SATA SSD drives. Boot time is not only a fraction of what it typically is with Vista, applications

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