by Darren Murph, posted Jul 28th 2008 at 6:25AM
Maybe it’s the 16.4-inch panel, or maybe it’s the built-in Blu-ray drive. Whatever it is, Sony’s VAIO FW has garnered quite a bit of attention. Just a fortnight after getting (extra) official, this nimble monster made its way into the loving arms of NotebookReview, where critics couldn’t resist giving us a sneak peek before penning the fleshed-out review. We’ll just get it out there — initial impressions are really positive. Fit, finish and build quality were all deemed “excellent,” and the overall design was dubbed “beautiful.” Performance seemed to be above par during limited testing, though the screen is apt to be one of those love it or hate it ordeals. Check out the read link if for nothing more than a couple more shots.

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More than two weeks after the launch of the iPhone 3G, queues are still forming at Apple Stores throughout the US. And Apple is doing something about it. The crazy demand coupled with handset shortages has meant that some of the bigger storeas have had almost permanent lines outside and that even the smaller ones are being mobbed in the mornings to mop up the new deliveries.

To alleviate this, Apple is now opening all Apple Stores at 8AM instead of 10AM, and is hiring new staff to cope:

Your favorite Apple Retail Store is making it easier and more convenient to purchase an iPhone 3G. All stores will now open at 8:00 a.m. every day but Sunday and, to accommodate demand, we’re adding staff to help you get up and running as quickly as possible. Customers will be prequalified to purchase while in line and will receive a claim ticket for an iphone 3G. Your ticket can be redeemed on the spot or — if it would be more convenient to return later the same day — by 6:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. on Sundays.

That last line is interesting. Apple is actually moving the store out onto the street. Apple Store employees often approach customers on the shop floor, offering to check their purchases out with their fancy handheld computers. Now they are coming out to the sidewalk, processing your transaction and giving you a ticket. That way you can come back at any time that day to pick up the phone. Neat, but I won’t be satisfied until a Genius turns up at my home with coffee and croissants, slips under the covers with me and asks me if I want just 8 gigs or the full 16.

Availability page [Apple via Apple Insider]

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Asustek, maker of the Eee PC, is planning to fix the biggest problem with its littlest computer: battery life. The company will introduce “whole day” battery life, which we take to mean a bigger, better battery. It could also mean that there will be other hardware changes which would simply sip less juice, but the report from Digitimes doesn’t make this clear.

To be sure, the Eee isn’t the only mini-notebook suffering from battery woes. The tiny form-factor of these ultra-mobiles makes it hard to squeeze enough cells in to keep a computer running for more than a few hours, despite the lower powered processors and the smaller, less thirsty displays.

If Asus isn’t planning on just cramming more watt hours into it’s mini-notebook line, then — and this is pure speculation — it could be toying with lower powered chips or even dual mode displays like those found in the OLPC XO. A daylight readable screen not only uses less power, it’s also pretty well suited to the kind of always-everywhere use these tiny PCs are meant for.

What we know for sure is that Asus is knocking out new models and accessories at a tremendous rate, so hopefully we’ll soon see that Holy Grail of mobile computing: a mini-notebook that lasts as long as a cellphone.

Asustek to extend battery life and storage capacity for Eee PCs in 2H08 [Digitimes via BBGadgets]

Photo credit [Fimb/Flickr]

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 28th 2008 at 3:04AMIf you’ve experienced some shockingly slow results from your Windows Home Server-based unit, we’ve one question for you: do you have Power Pack 1 and the HP add-ons installed? If so, you may not be alone in your frustrations. Apparently a number of users have seen dramatic slowdowns that have rendered their WHS devices nearly unusable. It seems that all the “bloatware” really takes a toll, as the hard drives are constantly pounded and console menus take ages (minutes, to be more precise) to appear. According to Within Windows, the only real solutions are to install more RAM and / or tweak your pagefile configurations afterwards. Anyone else raging mad about the performance issues? What are you going to do about it?

[Thanks, Bryant]

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Earlier this month Hasbro and EA finally released a playable version of their online Scrabble game. With that game now available the next step has been taken and Hasbro are suing the developers behind Scrabulous.

As you may know, Scrabulous is basically a version of Scrabble available on Facebook and is very popular. Hasbro had already contacted the developers behind the game, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalia, and asked for its removal back in January, but at the time no further action was taken. Electronic Arts was also reported to have had discussions with the Agarwalias about the game, but ultimately they didn’t lead anywhere

Apparently Hasbro have now asked Facebook to remove the game from the social network because it is infringing on intellectual property rights. Earlier this month the “official” version of Scrabble was made available on Facebook.

Barry Nagler, general counsel for Hasbro said:

Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties … We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand.

Scrabulous has around 521,000 daily users compared to the official Scrabble’s 9,000 users.

Read more at Guardian.co.uk

Matthew’s Opinion
It’s a real shame that Hasbro have taken the legal route with this and started a court case. The fact is, Scrabulous remains very popular and this is going to upset many players if the game disappears.

Clearly what Hasbro wants is gamers to start playing Scrabble instead, but where do you think Scrabulous player anger is going to be directed? They clearly won’t want to migrate to Scrabble because Hasbro has upset them.

It would have been better all round if Hasbro allowed Scrabulous to continue, but did a deal with the Agarwalis to make revenue from it. Or even better, make it into the official version for Scrabble with a few modifications. Maybe that is something they attempted back in January and either party weren’t happy. All that will happen now is we are going to have a lot of upset players and a court battle.

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Check out these hot-looking Xbox 360 consoles that are currently on parade at ComicCon. They consist of one Watchmen, one DC Comics, one Gears of War, and one Terminator Salvation models, and all of these could end up in your home if you emerge as a winner in the Warner Bros contest. These cases will surely make you the toast of the neighborhood, but the (super)heroes depicted on the case itself aren’t guarantee that they won’t end up with a case of RRoD (Red Ring of Death). Perhaps the sizzling hot artwork has something to do with it?

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The IOCELL’s content phone looks like a gadget out of a spy movie, with features like a built-in drive that logs conversations and plays them back to make remembering things a whole lot easier. Furthermore, the device is also capable of sending out completed calls over the internet should you need to pass the audio to someone else or some top secret spy information to your partner and a USB port makes it possible to upload information into flash drives. Besides all that, the phone syncs caller ID information with calls and provide background music during conversations. You can make intelligent guesses on the price since there is no official information at press time.

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by Darren Murph, posted Jul 27th 2008 at 6:38PMLet’s face it — we owe a great deal of gratitude to the robots that get up each and every morning to explore far reaches of the universe that we humans are just incapable of landing on. But there’s still the problem of we humans having to tell these things what to do from our humble laboratories here on Earth. The brilliantly named Wolfgang Fink, a physicist and senior researcher at the California Institute of Technology, has plans to remedy said quandary by creating autonomous spacecrafts “that will be able to analyze data about points of interest as it passes and then make quick decisions about what needs to be investigated.” In essence, he’s looking to remove the Earthlings from the equation, which would enable smart robots to explore on their own and possibly discover new pools of purified water, REEM-B’s long lost siblings or the real most innovative NES-in-a-whatever mod. 2020 folks, mark it down.

[Image courtesy of NASA]

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