CHICAGO (Reuters) - Adults who play a lot of action video games may be improving their eyesight, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
They said people who used a video-game training program saw significant improvements in their ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray, a finding that may help people who have trouble with night driving. "Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery—somehow changing the optics of the eye," said Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York, whose study appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."
For the study, the team divided 22 students into two groups. One group played the action games "Call of Duty 2" by Activision Blizzard Inc and Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament 2004." A second played Electronic Arts Inc's "The Sims 2," a game they said does not require as much hand-eye coordination.
The two groups played 50 hours of their assigned games over the course of nine weeks. At the end of the training, the action game players showed an average of 43 percent improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray, while the Sims players showed none.
Bavelier found very practiced action gamers became 58 percent better at perceiving fine differences in contrast.
"When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it," Bavelier said in a statement.
Senin, 30 Maret 2009
Action-Oriented Video Games Can Aid Eyesight
Google Starts Free MP3 Service in China
BEIJING (Reuters) - Google Inc on Monday launched free downloads of licensed songs in China, while sharing advertising revenue with major music labels in a market rife with online piracy. Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China, said one reason Google lagged in the mainland search market was because it did not offer music downloads, the missing piece to its strategy in a market where it trails leader Baidu.com Inc.
"We are offering free, high quality and legal downloads," Lee told reporters. "We were missing one piece ... we didn't have music."
The service offers downloads of some 350,000 songs—from Chinese and foreign artists—a number that will rise to 1.1 million in the coming months, said Gary Chen, chief executive of Google's partner www.Top100.cn, a Chinese music website co-founded by basketball star Yao Ming.
Music from artists signed by Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music will be available on the service, which Google has no current plans to expand beyond China, said Lee.
"This is the first serious attempt to start (monetizing) the online market in China. I can't overestimate how important this is," said Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia Pacific and Asia chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Users will be able to search by musical measurements such as the level of "beat" in a song and "instrumentality," as well as by artist and song name.
IFPI said last year that more than 99 percent of all music files distributed in China are pirated, and the country's total legitimate music market, at $76 million, accounts for less than 1 percent of global recorded music sales.
The new service will attract users away from illegal download sites because the music and service will be of a higher quality, said Warner's Rutherford.
Downloads of unlicensed music and videos are rampant in China, the world's biggest Internet market by number of users.
While Google dominates the global web search market, in China Baidu holds more than 60 percent of the market, more than double Google's share.
CTIA: AT&T Announces Six Phones with Keyboards
The new keyboarded phones range from the $49.99 Samsung Magnet to the long-awaited Nokia E71x Symbian-powered smartphone and the nation's first phone with a super-bright AMOLED display, the Samsung Impression.
AT&T rolled out a half-dozen new phones with full QWERTY keyboards in advance of this week's CTIA Wireless trade show today, saying in a press release that text messaging and e-mail were the "killer apps" for mobile-phone data use.The new keyboarded phones range from a $49.99 budget device, the Samsung Magnet, to the long-awaited Nokia E71x Symbian-powered smartphone and the nation's first phone with a super-bright AMOLED display, the Samsung Impression. The new rollout of products immediately solidifies AT&T as the U.S. carrier with the widest range of keyboarded phones for text-messaging addicts and occasional e-mailers.
From most powerful to least, here's what AT&T put out today:
The Nokia E71x is AT&T's version of the Nokia E71, which was PCMag's Editors' Choice for keyboarded smartphones when the unlocked version came out last September. The E71 has been my personal choice for a phone, on and off, for months. It looks a lot like a BlackBerry, but it's slimmer, with an all-metal body; AT&T's version is black anodized stainless steel rather than the silver version we tested.
The E71x offers 3G, Wi-Fi, and GPS, and runs the Symbian smartphone operating system, allowing things like full Microsoft Exchange synchronization and Microsoft Office document editing. AT&T loaded on its own software: the E71x works with AT&T's one-way Video Sharing service, streams clips from AT&T's CV video service, supports MobiTV live streaming TV, and streams XM radio channels. The phone has a 3.2-megapixel camera as well.
The E71x will cost $149.99 and be available in late April or early May.
The Samsung Propel Pro resembles last year's Propel slider, but it's a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone. The Propel Pro is a silvery slider with a full QWERTY keyboard but no touch screen—you navigate around the relatively standard Windows Mobile interface with a joystick. The device has a fast 528 MHz processor, which should feel especially speedy on a non-touch-screen phone; a 3-megapixel camera; tri-band 3G including the 2100 band for international roaming; Wi-Fi; and a 2.55-inch, 320-by-320-resolution screen.
The Propel Pro will be available on April 14 for $199.99.
The Samsung Impression is the first U.S. phone with an AMOLED display. I've handled this phone before, and the screen is eye-popping: colors just jump out at you from the 3.2-inch, 240-by-400-resolution screen. The phone isn't a smartphone, but the screen slides to the right to reveal a full four-row QWERTY keyboard for texting and limited e-mail use.
The Impression also has a 3-megapixel camera, 3G on AT&T's 850/1900 bands, GPS, and all of those AT&T services I mentioned above, such as video sharing and MobiTV. It's a bit heavy, at 5.3 ounces.
New technology costs money, of course—in this case, the Samsung Impression will sell for $249.99 when it becomes available on April 7.
The LG Xenon is like a less-expensive, scaled-down version of the Impression. Just like the Impression, it's a touch-screen sliding phone with a full keyboard that isn't a smartphone. It features 3G, Wi-Fi, video sharing, and a 2.8-inch, 240-by-480-pixel touch screen—higher resolution than the Impression's, actually. But the screen is a standard LCD, not an AMOLED, and the Xenon's camera is just two megapixels, letting LG deliver this phone for $149.99, on sale April 8.
AT&T knows we're in a recession, so the company is supplying two budget-priced keyboarded phones as well.
The LG Neon is a lurid green-and-white messaging phone with a sliding screen that reveals a keyboard of round, candy-colored keys. It has a 2.4-inch, 320-by-240 touch screen and a 2-megapixel camera, but no 3G or Wi-Fi. The Neon will cost under $100 when it goes on sale in late April or early May.
Finally, the Samsung Magnet will retail for less than $50 with a new contract. The Magnet is a basic quad-band EDGE phone with a slab-style design and a keyboard of small, sculpted keys below the main screen. It looks a little like a Palm Treo or BlackBerry, though it isn't a smartphone. The Magnet has a VGA camera and no real Web browser, but it has text, IM, and e-mail support. The Magnet joins the Pantech Slate as an affordable texting phone from AT&T.
NEC Pulls Out of PC Market, Except Japan
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's NEC Corp will halt production and sales of personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region around July, a spokesman said on Saturday, in a move that would see it pull out completely from the loss-making PC business overseas. NEC, which has the top PC market share in Japan, last month signaled a withdrawal from the PC business in Europe, Africa and the Middle East amid slumping demand and tough competition.
NEC has warned it would post a net loss of 290 billion yen ($2.96 billion) for the business year ending this month, and is accelerating restructuring efforts, which include pulling out from weak businesses and cutting more than 20,000 jobs worldwide.
Competition with rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc has been fierce and NEC sold its retail PC business in Europe in 2006.
NEC sells about one-sixth of its annual global sales of 3 million PCs outside Japan.
Skype To Launch for iPhone, BlackBerry
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Skype, the Internet telephone unit of eBay Inc, is planning to launch its service for iPhone users on Tuesday and for BlackBerry in May as part of its effort to expand beyond desktop computers.
Skype has been pushing to make its service work on the most popular advanced phones with an aim to expending its more than 400 million users who were mostly lured by the promise of cheap and sometimes free calls made using its computer application. Skype Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag said he has high hopes for the application's success on Apple Inc's popular iPhone as he expects Skype's most feature-rich mobile offering to appeal to new and existing customers.
"The No. 1 request we get from customers is to make Skype available on iPhone. There's a pent-up demand," Durchslag said in an interview before the CTIA annual mobile showcase in Las Vegas, where Skype plans to launch the service on Tuesday.
In May it will launch Skype for Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices, which popularized mobile email. It has already announced Skype for Nokia phones and for phones based on Android, Google Inc's mobile system, and Windows Mobile, from Microsoft Corp.
CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood said the new applications give Skype a chance to boost its mobile phone position, which has been weaker than that of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter or News Corp's MySpace.
One of Skype's unusual iPhone features is the fact that it allows subscribers use to the phone numbers in their existing iPhone address book so they do not need duplicate lists.
"Whether you're Twitter, MySpace or Facebook you want to be embedded in the address book," said Wood. "This puts Skype firmly into the game."
Skype's iPhone application will be free to download and will allow free calls between Skype users. As with Skype on the desktop, fees will be charged for calls to traditional phones.
The service will also work on later versions of Apple's latest iPod Touch device, which has Wi-Fi links but no cellular connection. The iPod Touch launched September 2008 has a microphone, unlike the first iPod Touch launched in 2007.
While Skype video is very popular with desktop customers, Durchslag said that the company is still considering whether it will offer video for the iPhone or other phones.
"We're considering video carefully but we have a really high bar on the quality," and how the user interaction will work with other applications on iPhone, he said. "If we do it we will have to do it incredibly well."
CCS's Wood said that if Skype can replicate the popularity of its desktop video feature on the cellphone it would help a mobile category that has been slow to take off, as well as boost its own status in cellphones.
"I'm firmly convinced that if Skype could find a way to bridge all those cellphone cameras and laptop cameras it might kick start a video telephony opportunity," he said.
While mobile Skype has been available for some time in other countries such as the United Kingdom, it has been slow to catch on in the United States partly due to carrier concern that it would cannibalize their phone call revenue.
In the United States for example, AT&T Inc has had a monopoly on calls made from iPhones, as it is the exclusive carrier here.
But Wood said that Skype has actually shown that it can boost consumer spending on cellphones as it encourages use of the phones for other services such as data.
For example he said that its success on networks such as 3 UK, owned by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, suggests that carrier fears have been unfounded.
"The only area where I think there are some question mark is that it could erode roaming revenues," he said, noting that some consumers particularly in Europe hesitate to use their phones while outside of their carrier territory because of notoriously high roaming fees.
Nvidia's Future Isn't Graphics?
What's the future of graphics? Well, to hear Nvidia tell it, it's almost anything but.
In a presentation Friday, Nvidia recapped all of its twelve hours or so of presentations made at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC 2009), covering the technologies that the company is working towards with its graphics chips and related technologies. If there was a trend that Nvidia emphasized at the show, it's that the company hopes that graphics is moving away from individually created objects and art to more of a procedural model, where the GPU acts as sort of a location director, creating vegetation, directing AI actors, and and costuming characters in dynamic materials.
The foundation for this, of course, is two initiatives; its programming language, CUDA, which governs the use of the GPU as a general-purpose computing engine, and PhysX, its Ageia-born technology of using the GPU as a physics engine.
Over 150 games across both the PC and game console platforms use PhysX; far fewer, however, use the GPU-powered PhysX version. Those include a new game from a Russian developer, "Cryostasis," which includes particle effects; GRAW 2, which includes destructible objects and kinetic damage from those objects; "Star Tales," a Chinese game combining Sim-like aspects, which models falling objects; and "Sacred 2," which launches next week and uses physics-based spell effects.
But Nvidia's next initiative may also be its most vague: artificial intelligence, or AI. "Doing AI is a totally feasible goal," Tony Tamasi, the senior vide president for content and middleware, said in a small press conference on Friday. "For the next few months, we'll be working with third-party middleware guys to develop this" for Nvidia's hardware, he said.
For whatever reason, AI seems to be the natural extension of physics developers; rival Havok, which uses the CPU as a processing engine, unveiled its latest toolset with support for AI. But AISeek, a dedicated AI choip company which was founded in 2005, is essentially on life support, Tamasi said. (A Google cache of AISeek.com reported a dispute between the company and its hosting provider, which had taken down the page and replace it with its own as of March 22. At press time, AISeek.com was live with its own content.)
Nvidia also launched APEX (Adaptive Physics Extensions) this week, a method for generating physical interactions. The company unveiled several plug-ins, including procedural models for rendering clothing, hair, the destruction of walls and other surfaces, and turbulence, such as in smoke or water. The destruction model either could be used to destroy the entire geometry of walls and other objects (a concept first introduced in the PC game, "Red Faction") or could be used to "slough off" rubble from walls or ceilings, which would remain as persistent objects in the game world.
T-Mobile Improves App Store Plans
With Apple's app store running at full steam and RIM and Microsoft primed to release theirs, T-Mobile wants subscribers to know that it's building an app store for everyone, not just smartphone owners.T-Mobile first announced its devPartner program last September. Since then, its made the program simpler for developers, changed the name to the T-Mobile Partner Network, and launched the first few apps, said Ian McKerlich, T-Mobile's director of mobile content and services.
"We want people to talk about us in the same positive breath that they would an Apple or an Android," he said.
Apps from the Partner Program are designed to work on T-Mobile's range of feature phones, such as the Sony Ericsson TM506 and Nokia 5310. T-Mobile also has BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile smartphones, which will use their own operating systems' app stores.
T-Mobile has dramatically simplified its revenue-sharing system, McKerlich said. Initially, the program had a complicated series of carrots and sticks that would reward developers who did things like adhere to UI standards and penalize developers whose apps used too much data. That turned out to be hard for developers to work with, so T-Mobile went to a simple, industry standard 70/30 revenue split.
"We had a pretty sophisticated model that was elegant, but was a little too complex," McKerlich said.
T-Mobile now sells third-party applications through its Web2Go WAP page on phones such as the Sony Ericsson TM506. To help users pick apps, T-Mobile lets them rate apps on a 5-point scale. But the carrier still has a long way to go in terms of making the catalog easily accessible, sortable, and searchable, and McKerlich knows that.
T-Mobile is looking at social ranking systems, a "people's choice" category, and finding a way to get rid of the slow response times inherent in WAP catalogs, McKerlich said. The company is also trying to find a way to make its Web-based app catalog more visible; it's currently buried deep within T-Mobile's Web site.
T-Mobile's partner program has one big built-in disadvantage compared to smart phone app stores, McKerlich said: the fragmentation of Java. Java programs work a little differently on almost every phone, making it very difficult to build and sell Java programs that work on a wide range of handsets.
T-Mobile is making it "job one" to create a "homogenous development environment" on its Java phones, and its working with OEMs to try to find a way to standardize Java implementations, McKerlich said.
While a few apps such as Pelago's Whrrl and JuiceCaster made it into the partner program in 2008, T-Mobile users should expect to see a lot more activity in 2009 as the carrier works out the kinks.
Fact-checking Microsoft's Latest Anti-Apple Ads
Is there really only one Apple laptop under $1,000? 'Fraid so. But there is more to it than that.
Microsoft's latest, subtly anti-Apple ads are all over the Web and broadcast TV. The new Microsoft "Laptop Hunters-Lauren" commercial suggests that there is only one Apple laptop under $1,000 and it has a 13-inch screen. For the same money, it claims, you can get a better Windows-based laptop with a 17-inch screen. True? It is, but that isn't the whole story.In the 60-second ad, Lauren is looking for a new laptop, one that has "speed, has a comfortable keyboard, and a 17-inch screen" for under $1,000. An on-screen card and the voiceover drives home the point that Microsoft is giving her the money to buy the system: "You find it, you keep it." She goes shopping, first to a "Mac Store," where she can find only one computer for under $1,000, a MacBook with a 13-inch screen. Is this possible? Fraid so.
The only MacBook you can afford for under $1,000 at the Apple Store is the 13-inch MacBook for $999. New MacBook Pro 17-inch models are way over Lauren's budget starting at $2,799, and pre-owned 17-inchers are still going for over $1,000 at places like smalldog.com, powermax.com and usedmac.com. You can get a used PowerBook G4 17-inch for under $1,000, but you wouldn't necessarily want that when those PowerBooks have less than 2GB of RAM and small hard drives. Sure, she could get a Mac mini for $599, keyboard, mouse, and an external 20-inch display for under $300, but somehow I don't think she would be interested, since it's not portable.
Back to the ad: Lauren then goes to a Best Buy, where she quickly dismisses ultraportables. She checks out various laptops, including a $949.99 model from Sony (looks like the Sony VAIO VGN-FW351J/H to me), and a Gateway FX laptop that's above her budget, before honing in on two 17-inch laptops—a $749.99 Dell Studio 17 laptop and an HP Pavilion. Cue stereotypical shopping decision squeal, and she decides on the HP. The balance due is shown on screen as $699.99.
The online version of the ad has a direct link to the model in question; it's a HP Pavilion dv7-1245dx. It comes with an AMD Turion X2 RM-72 processor, 4GB of memory, 320GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, DVD burner, and the all-important 17-inch WXGA+ (1,440 x 900) screen. I wanted to check this system out so I asked PCMag's laptop lead analyst, Cisco Cheng, if we have a HP Pavilion dv7 on the shelf somewhere. He said "DV7? That's an old laptop."
What is Microsoft getting at?
If Microsoft's point is to stick it to Apple and claim that there's only one Mac laptop for under $1,000 and it's got a small 13-inch screen, they're absolutely correct. You can't walk out of an Apple Store with (any) laptop for under $1,000 after tax. Certainly you can't walk out of an Apple Store with a 17-inch laptop for under $1,000. Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro is a professional product for people like pro photographers and videographers and is marketed and priced as such.
So should the Mac faithful get in a tizzy over this imagined slight? Nope. Apple's strategy has never been about taking a majority of market share over Windows. It's been about increasing profit margins ever since the second coming of Steve, when they cleaned out all the "cheap" Macs they were selling at Sears. At the prices Apple charges for Macs (and iPods, and iPhones), Apple is making a healthy profit margin on every product they sell (and they still sell a lot). Apple's control over its ecosystem, innovation, and design are its hallmarks, not its cheap prices.
Selasa, 10 Maret 2009
Hands On with the Dell Latitude E6400 XFR
Dell may not be as seasoned as Panasonic or GeTac in the fully rugged space, but when opportunity knocks at your front door, you greet it with open arms.
The Latitude E6400 XFR is still relatively new to what might be called the "practically indestructible laptop market", as the notebook was launched a year ago. Despite flying under the radar during that time, however, Dell is by no means holding back. Dell has upgraded the ruggedized Latitude line to the Latitude E6400 XFR with Ballistic Armor, which supposedly can withstand hurricanes and desert storms.As with all fully rugged laptops, the frame is built like a safe, and is just as heavy. The E6400 XFR tips the scales at 8.5 pounds, although the heft was absolutely necessary from a design standpoint. The previous version was surrounded by a thick magnesium alloy frame; the new XFR shows off a new armoring technology, a Dell-exclusive, PR481 material that Dell refers to as its "Ballistic Armor." It's a similar polymer hybrid base to that used in cryogenics and the automotive industry, with a high strength-to-weight ratio.
In addition to meeting MIL-STD 810F and IEC specifications – in each case, military certified tests rated for scenarios such as 3-foot drops, extreme temperatures, and high dust and moisture levels – the E6400 XFR takes it beyond the standard tests: It achieved a 5 rating in independent specifications such as IP64 and IP65, in which water, for instance, is jetted into the XFR at 50 MPH. Not only can it withstand accidental drops and spills, but it can also last through a hurricane and a desert storm, according to Dell.
Other cool design features include a single Dell Quadcool fan, at the base of the system, that pulls heat from a series of metal pipes that run through the motherboard. The notebook's hard drive hard drive (either a solid-state disc or standard hard drive) is also protected in three layers: by a thermal elastomer material located on the corners of the laptop, a hard case shock mount, and by rubber shock mounts within the chassis. Like almost every fully rugged laptop, a carrying handle, equipped with zinc anchors, is fused with the XFR's front bezel.
Naturally, with an outdoor machine, you'll need an outdoor screen. The 14-inch LED widescreen is different from a typical one in that it's three times as bright (750 cd/m2 ) and uses a special anti-reflective surface. It even features a resistive touch-screen option, so that your fingers can do the walking in times when they're needed.
The XFR's features are basically the same as the non-ruggedized Dell Latitude E6400. You'll receive the standard array of connectivity ports, including three USB and FireWire connectors, an eSATA port, an ExpressCard slot, and a multi-media card reader. In addition, wireless technologies such as WWAN, WLAN, and Bluetooth, and a SIM card reader are included. Also present is an illuminated keyboard, which is one thing no outdoor laptop should be without.
Performance parts also reflect the entire Latitude line in that an assortment of Intel processors, up to 8 Gbytes of memory, and an Nvidia Quadro graphics card can be ordered with the system. Though the $4,200 Latitude E6400 XFR isn't cheap, the Dell Latitude E6400 XFR caters to a specific market, and it ships today.
Symantec Support Gone Rogue
I've praised Symantec's support, especially the integrated chat-based support introduced with Norton Internet Security 2009. Their support agents did a great job handling some problems that came up during my evaluation of that suite. Lately, though, a number of readers have reported problems with chat support. One asked for help because he was concerned that the threats Norton found were merely quarantined, not removed. The chat agent could have explained how to delete items from quarantine, or even demonstrated how using remote control.Instead, this agent insisted that the only recourse for full removal was an extra-cost session with a consultant. Another reader got worried when a chat agent performing remote-control cleanup used an unfamiliar non-Symantec program.
I didn't get a lot of detail from these readers. Based on my own previous, positive sessions with chat support, I wondered if they might have just misunderstood the situation. But my new experiences while evaluating Norton 360 version 3.0 opened my eyes to the magnitude of the problem. Did Symantec switch outsourced support companies? Has the chat support team gone rogue? I can't say for sure what's at the root of the problems, but here's what happened.
For my evaluation and review of Norton 360, I installed the product on a dozen malware-infested systems. Most installed and ran flawlessly, but one system had a blue-screen crash during installation. On restart the Norton 360 installer gathered and analyzed error logs, then offered a link to support. I was impressed—most products don't have such resilient installers. I followed the link and initiated a conversation with chat support agent Mohanakrishnan (at least he didn't claim his name was Bob).
Mohanakrishnan asked some questions and (with my permission) took a remote-control tour of the system. He pointed out one blatant malware symptom: a big screen from a rogue antispyware program claiming it had found terrible problems and offering to fix them, for a price. He escalated me to another support agent in the Virus Removal Department, after verifying that I had a valid registration key. Sorry, if you get stuck during a trial installation, chat support is not available.
Prajith, the second agent, asked a lot of questions about my online activities but didn't bother to remote-control the system. He suggested I "remove the infection immediately." I pointed out that was my intention—I'm trying to install Norton 360 so it can remove the infection. He continued that "expert consultants will do a complete diagnosis of your system, and troubleshoot any malware present on your computer." Only after I agreed did he add that this is a for-pay service and ask if it would still be OK. He didn't state the price, but later research revealed that it would have been $99.95 to get this $79.99 product installed.
Naturally I said no, I already have a license for the software, I just want to install it. He declared that I had only bought "the software, updates to the software and for the virus definitions," not a guarantee that the software would install. I asked repeatedly for a solution other than paying extra but never got anything resembling an answer. Eventually, I ended the chat, carefully saving the transcript and a screen-capture movie I had made of the entire interchange.Norton User Forums to the Rescue
Simultaneous with the release of the new Norton 360, Symantec brought its Norton User Forums Web site out of beta. The company was anxious for me to try it, so this seemed a perfect opportunity. I registered and posted a description of my problem in the user forums. Within an hour I had the correct answer from a forum volunteer: If Norton 360 won't install due to malware, use the Norton Recovery Tool to clean up the system first. Those who've bought the boxed product can just boot from the disk. Others can download an ISO image of the tool, burn it to a disk, and boot from that.
I downloaded, burned, booted, supplied my product key, and let it run its scan. It detected and removed many threats, and reported that a couple couldn't be removed. A second scan cleaned those up and I was ready to boot back into normal Windows. Now that's the right solution! Symantec confirms that the chat agent's behavior was incorrect. "The support agent should have directed you to the free Norton Recovery Tool as a first step. It was an error on his part." The company went on to say "We have shared this situation with executives on our support team, and we will ensure all customers are informed of these free options [Norton Recovery Tool and Norton User Forums] with regard to virus removal." To prevent such errors in the future, the team is "increasing agent training and creating stricter instructions for agents to better communicate free malware removal options." I hope so!
Taking Unfair Credit
As it turns out, the story doesn't end here. The Norton 360 installer still wouldn't complete its job. On every reboot, the app went through its whole rigmarole again, collecting and analyzing log files and sending me to tech support. It wouldn't complete the process and I couldn't uninstall the incomplete program. Once again, I followed the links to chat-based tech support.
Murugash, the chat agent, remote-controlled the system and verified that the Norton 360 installation was stuck. No problem. He downloaded the Symantec Norton Removal Tool (SYMNRT) to my test system. This is Symantec's answer to uninstallation problems that were common with older program versions. It removes all trace of all Symantec products. After running it he offered to "run a scan from the Norton security scan" to make sure all threats are gone. I asked if this is necessary, given that I've already scanned the system with the bootable Norton Recovery Tool. He said "it is a deep scan just from a online Norton program," so I let him do it.
To my surprise, he downloaded and ran the free Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware utility. This is, of course, not a Norton program by any stretch of the imagination. It did find a few traces of various threats left behind when the CD-based scan wiped out the executable parts. Now, don't get me wrong. I have no grudge against tech support using free tools from other sources for cleanup. It's a fairly common practice. I just resent it when they pass those tools off as their own.
Selasa, 03 Maret 2009
Sprint XOHM (Mobile WiMAX)
When it's good, Sprint's XOHM WiMAX network is very, very good—as speedy as a fast cable Internet connection. When it's bad, it's still pretty good. XOHM is supposed to usher in a new era of high-speed, Internet-connected everything. Based on the WiMAX 802.16e standard, which is heavily backed by Intel, XOHM should be compatible with WiMAX laptops, handheld devices, and even digital cameras and home security systems, somewhere down the road.
For now, Sprint is simply aiming at existing ISPs. The carrier is pushing XOHM as an alternative to cellular Internet for laptops, and as a possible substitute for cable or DSL broadband for home users. This technology has the potential to shake up the ISP market. For more info, check out Sprint's XOHM: What You Need to Know.
XOHM currently exists only in Baltimore, Maryland, though I also detected the network in Philadelphia. Sprint says that coverage in Chicago, Washington D.C., Providence, Boston, and Dallas is in the works, with more cities to follow.
XOHM is debuting with an ExpressCard for Windows (not Mac OS) laptops, the $59.99 Samsung SWC-E100, and a $79.99 home modem from ZyXel (which works with both Windows and Macs). Near-future product options will include the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition Internet tablet, which we tested; a USB modem from ZTE; and various Windows (not Mac) laptops from a range of mainstream manufacturers. The network works with any WiMAX device—Sprint doesn't have to approve it—but there just aren't many WiMAX devices yet. We'll head down to Baltimore again next week with more gadgetry to try out.
You can attach one of four service plans to your XOHM devices: The "home" plan works with the home modem, for $35 a month (its on sale through December 31st for $25), the "On the go" plan is for the ExpressCard, at $45 a month ($30 until 12/31), and "Pick 2" lets you get two devices (a modem and a card, for instance) for $65 a month ($50 until 12/31). Finally, you can buy a $10 day pass to try out any XOHM device. None of these plans require contracts or credit checks, making it a good choice for students and those with less-than-stellar credit. But I wish Sprint would offer combo plans for existing Sprint customers, or for users who want to roam with EVDO beyond XOHM's very limited range.
The installation process is run-of-the-mill. You sign up for service on the Web, entering an ID (the MAC address) found on your WiMAX device. You must use XOHM's own connection manager software to connect to the Internet. It worked fine on my Apple MacBook Pro running Windows Vista Enterprise, though I sometimes had to restart the PC after waking it from sleep mode to get it to recognize my ExpressCard.
I tested XOHM over a one-day period in six scattered locations across Baltimore: Downtown, Harborplace, Penn Station, Owings Mills, and two spots in Mount Washington.
Right now, coverage is pretty spotty, but that's to be expected from a new wireless network in its first week. It was true of EVDO, it was true of HSDPA, and it's true of WiMAX: Networks start out patchy and then fill in. Still, I was concerned that Sprint's coverage map doesn't tell the whole story. Sprint's mapped dead spots, such as around the Old Court metro station, seem to be accurate. But I found other dead spots that Sprint claims have coverage, such as at the intersection of Falls Road and Northern Parkway.
WiMAX has a tendency to get considerably slower when you're further from a tower, and the relatively short range of 2.5-GHz towers also may explain why I saw my signal vary block by block. At a shopping mall in Mount Washington, for instance, I had a significantly stronger signal on the south side of the mall than on the north side. You don't see these differences so much any more with the mature EVDO cellular networks.
With a strong signal, I saw download speeds averaging 3.6Mbps, with my fastest test at a blazing 7.1Mbps. That's faster than my home cable connection! "Good" upload speeds varied from 416Kbps on up to a really impressive 2.1Mbps.
But speeds dropped sharply with a weak signal. Downloads crawled as slowly as 620Kbps and uploads fell as low as 122Kbps. I still got several download results over 1Mbps, even with a very weak signal.
Interested in the overall averages? That would be 2.3Mbps down and 915Kbps up, which jives with Sprint's advertised range of 2-Mbps to 4Mbps down and 500Kbps to -1,500Kbps up.
The time for a request to travel across the network, a.k.a. latency, has a major effect on how responsive a network feels. I measured latency by pinging a basket of five Web sites. XOHM's average latency, at 133ms, was much lower than that of cellular networks, which usually average around 200-ms to -250ms. I got figures as low as 71ms on one test.
But XOHM's latency is still several times that of Wi-Fi. Testing against a public Wi-Fi hotspot with a Covad DSL backhaul, the Wi-Fi hotspot gave me a latency result of 24 ms. So Wi-Fi feels much faster, because pages start loading more quickly.
When XOHM worked well, I could do things I'd never before dreamed of doing over a cellular connection. A 480p version of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" streamed beautifully from Hulu.com. A new version of Quicktime downloaded at 666Kbps, with the 26.7MB file arriving in under a minute. A 720p movie trailer streamed along for more than a minute before needing to buffer again. In essence, it was a big, fat pipe heading into my laptop.
XOHM mopped the floor with existing cellular networks. I tested the XOHM card side by side with the Editors' Choice Sierra Wireless AC595U on Verizon Wireless's EVDO Rev A network in Baltimore. I achieved decent speeds for EVDO with the AC595U, with most downloads in the range of 700- to 900 Kbps and a peak of 1.9 Mbps. XOHM was in a different class. Of course, EVDO is nationwide. XOHM is only in Baltimore.
A better comparison is with Wi-Fi hotspots, or home cable or DSL connections. And here's where things get tricky. Cable and DSL options can be faster or slower than XOHM. But they're typically more consistent.. If you have 5-Mbps cable, you usually get 5 MBps. Sometimes there will be a ton of traffic in your neighborhood and you'll get less, but it's typically steady. XOHM seemed inconsistent—7 Mbps in one place, 2 Mbps in another. And XOHM's upload speeds are slower than those offered by high-end wired solutions.
Linksys Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Router (WRT160N)
You'd be hard-pressed to find a true draft-n router for less than you can buy the Linksys Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Router (WRT160N). Linksys's own RangePlus Wireless Router (WRT110) may be $20 cheaper on the mean streets of Techtown, but it's not a true draft-n machine (it employs Linksys's RangePlus "n" emulation technology). Nor does it take advantage of Linksys's free LELA 3.0 network management software. The WRT160N does. Those differences aside, however, the WRT160N is fairly similar to its less-expensive sibling in features and, unfortunately, throughput.
Externally, the RangePlus and Ultra RangePlus are exactly the same. Five Ethernet ports adorn the rear of the router: one WAN/Internet and four wired Ethernet ports, although none are Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) capable. There's also no USB port for Linksys Storage Link technology or printer sharing. You will, however, like the new Linksys case design—the sleek, black and gray case with no external antennas visible has real Dark Knight flair.
I found setup to be a muddled affair, and starkly different from the easy process I sped through with our vintage 2007 Editors' Choice–winning Linksys WRT600N. First, there's the dual-LELA (Linksys EasyLink Advisor) software issue. LELA has been the name of the company's installation wizard for several product generations. Now Linksys has released LELA version 3.0, which acts as a home network management system. Although only a version number distinguishes the two applications, they're very different products. Straight LELA is the wizard that kicks off when you click on Install Router after the installation CD starts during Autorun. LELA 3.0 is the network management software, and that's a separate install (or download) that shouldn't run until after the wizard completes.
That "after the wizard completes" part was a bit of an issue for me, because it hung both times I configured the WRT160N: once with my Comcast cable modem at home and again with the DSL line here in PC Magazine Labs. The same wizard hiccupped at the same place when I tested the Linksys WRT110, but it did eventually complete. With the WRT160N, however, it never recovered. The setup process runs fine until it asks you to connect the DSL line to the router and power everything up. But after I did that, the installation utility failed to find the router. The router, however, sees the broadband Internet connection, gets an external address, and hands out an internal address to the machine running the installation CD—so you can actually surf the Internet while the installation wizard is still looking for the router.
The fact that I couldn't get to LELA 3.0 from the wizard didn't bug me very much because I had a press release telling me where to find the network management package. Regular customers, on the other hand, will need to remember to kill the install wizard after it fails, eject the CD, and then reinsert it to kick off Autorun again. That will bring up the CD's menu, from which you can select Install LELA 3.0. Perhaps by the time you read this, Linksys will have fixed the issue.
D-Link Xtreme N Duo Media Router (DIR-855)
The King is dead. Long live the King. On our Labs tests, the brand-spanking-new D-Link Xtreme N Duo Media Router (aka the DIR-855) garnered enough oohs and aahs to be named our new all-around Editors' Choice for home wireless routers. Not only is the DIR-855 feature-rich in all the right places, it's also faster than our previous dual-band king, the Linksys WRT600N. If the whopping $359.95 (list) price isn't a problem for you, this is the router to get.
Everything about this wireless bit blaster stands out, starting with its design. At first glance, except for the large LED screen embedded at an angle on the top, the Xtreme N Duo looks much like any other dual-band router: a rather plain white box with three antennas and the usual collection of small activity and speed LEDs on the front. Read the directions, however, and you'll find information on skinning the Xtreme N Duo. If you're interested, the docs tell you where to find a site hosted by D-Link in partnership with Skinit (a gel-skin maker). There you'll find a library of available stick-on decorations for much of the D-Link line, or you can design your own. There's more info in the slideshow appended that accompanies this review. Some sample skins should arrive here shortly; when they do, I'll post photos of my router/fashion statements on our new @Work blog.
On pure aesthetics of the unadorned box, I'm more inclined to favor the sleek, antenna-less look that the new Linksys routers sport. The three adjustable antennas on the back of the router certainly work fine, but they don't set it apart in the looks department. The top-mounted LED screen, on the other hand, does. It's large enough to display sophisticated menus, which require two control buttons (mounted in front of the screen) to navigate. The screen shows what's intended to be a snapshot of the router's current state and configuration. Links indicating whether the Internet line is up or down, whether wired or wireless is running, and what the status of DHCP and WPS activation is—it's all on the LED. You can access these links or navigate a few short submenus via the two front-mounted control buttons.
Some folks will love the LED. It looks cool from a geek perspective, and if you take the time to get to know the icons, it really does provide the snapshot D-Link is going for. Me? I don't hate it, but I won't be using it much, either. In my house, these routers usually wind up someplace inaccessible (think elevation) so an on-box LED just isn't that useful. I tend to create a desktop shortcut to a router's Web interface, which shows a much more complete dashboard view right after you've logged in to the management console.
Before you get to the day-to-day management utility, however, the setup instructions ask you to run through the CD-based installation wizard, which is easily the weakest facet of this product. The wizard tries to take you through every step of the process, including unboxing the router, verifying contents, plugging in all the wires, and attaching your cable or DSL modem and networked devices. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the software was buggy as all get-out, hanging when it was trying to find the router for the first time after I plugged in the wired PC running the CD.
It hung again when I got as far as attaching the DSL connection. The software refused to recognize the DSL line, but, ironically, the router saw the modem just fine, letting me access the Internet and browse eBay while waiting for the wizard to catch up. It never did. Finally I just got bored and accessed the Web management interface directly. If you're reading this while installing your own Xtreme N Duo and getting just as frustrated, open your browser, go to 192.168.0.1, then enter "Admin" as the user name and leave the password blank (assuming this is the first time you're accessing the router). D-Link needs to work on that Installation Wizard code.
The management console, on the other hand—I smile just thinking about it. Good times. It's based on the same software you may have seen in other D-Link router products. The interface is stable, and it supports some cool features unique to the Xtreme N Duo. The first time you use the management utility, for example, you'll see buttons to some wizards. Most of the world can skip the Launch Internet Connection Setup Wizard. That's because most home broadband providers use DHCP, so the Xtreme N Duo picks up its DHCP address automatically as soon as you connect the DSL line (as it did in my lab). The capability is so slick, even D-Link's wizard programmers were caught unawares, as proved by my ability to surf the Web while the Installation Wizard was stymied.
The Wireless Security Settings Wizard, on the other hand, is one I'd run. This one walks through the complete Wi-Fi setup process and requires just a few steps. You can, of course, perform the same tasks with the standard wireless management screens, but the wizard does make it easier for newbies. And it works. D-Link has configured all the parameters to default to the most common values, so if you don't understand something, you can just leave it as is and you'll probably be okay. For security, though, definitely change the router's SSID (the wireless network's name) and the admin password for the router.
RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i (Nextel)
Nextel subscribers looking for a Direct Connect–compatible smartphone finally have a real BlackBerry option: the Curve 8350i. While it lacks the speedy data transfer of, say, the Sprint BlackBerry Curve 8330, the 8350i makes up for it with a Wi-Fi radio that's compatible with 802.11b/g networks. Use of BlackBerry OS 4.6 gives the 8350i the latest document-editing software and a new menu system. The device also partakes of the Curves' slick design—well, almost. Despite a few small gaffes, the 8350i is a genuine BlackBerry that should satisfy fans of Nextel's iDEN network.
The BlackBerry Curve 8350i looks a lot like other 8300-series Curves, but there are a few key differences, the first being size: The handset measures 4.4 by 2.4 by 0.7 (HWD) inches, which is 0.2 inch taller and 0.1 inch thicker than the Sprint Curve. It also weighs a bit more: 4.8 ounces, compared with the 4-ounce 8330 and 3.9-ounce AT&T Curve 8310. Since the 8350i has the same tapered edges as the original, it's tough to notice these changes in hand, but it does look larger when you compare it side by side with either. On the other hand, the new rubber surround feels nice and sturdy—just as a Nextel phone should. There's also a heavy-duty plastic holster with an adjustable belt clip in the box.
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Other attributes will also be familiar to Curve cognoscenti. The 320-by-240-pixel, 2.4-inch light-sensing LCD is bright and easy to read. The QWERTY keyboard has raised plastic keys with a pleasant, clicky resistance, so typing on the 8350i is a pleasure. The trackball and four flanking control keys are exactly the same as those on other Curves. One gaffe: The 8350i substitutes the Curve line's standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack with a nonstandard 2.5mm port on the left-hand side. This is a major step backward that makes it difficult to upgrade the included wired earbuds, which are passable, but not outstanding. They are about on a par with the bundled earbuds of iPods. Also on the left-hand side you'll find a mini USB jack and a large push-to-talk button. The right-hand side, meanwhile, contains a programmable shortcut button that defaults to activating the camera, along with volume controls further up. The bottom of the slab-style handset is empty, while the top contains a recessed mute key.
Voice calls on the 8350i were clear and crisp in both directions. Callers said I sounded the same as I do on my own BlackBerry Curve 8330 (Verizon), while on my end voices sounded slightly brighter and more distant than I'm used to. The mic's wind rejection was sublime: On the other end, callers could barely hear the cold, hard wind gusts I was battling. In addition, as befits a Nextel phone, the 8350i has a loud, clear speakerphone that easily suffices for outdoor use, and the push-to-talk feature works the same as with any other Direct Connect handset. Callers said I sounded virtually the same using the speakerphone as I did with the 8350i pressed against my ear. I paired the handset with an Aliph New Jawbone Bluetooth headset without incident, as well. Battery life was excellent at 8 hours, owing partially to the 8350i's slightly larger 1,400-mAh battery.
RIM outfitted the 8350i with a Bold-style menu system, which features improved icon design with a wire-frame look and smooth highlight fades as you pass the trackball over each icon. As is typical for Sprint and Nextel phones, the Curve comes with a solid software bundle that contains Handmark's Pocket Express information aggregator for news, weather, sports scores, and more; instant-messaging clients for AIM, Google Talk (a rarity), and Yahoo Messenger; support for NFL Mobile and NASCAR Mobile; and four games, one being Texas Hold 'Em King 2. There's also DataViz's Documents To Go on board for editing Microsoft Office files, and the integrated GPS chip works with the included BlackBerry Maps as well as the optional TeleNav-powered GPS Navigator software that presents voice-enabled turn-by-turn directions.
The Curve 8350i has the usual push e-mail support for up to ten accounts using BlackBerry Internet Solution (BIS). It also works with BlackBerry Enterprise Solution (BES) for mailbox integration with Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, and Lotus Domino. RIM's latest Web browser includes a mouse cursor and zoom feature, which is welcome given our "blah" feelings toward RIM's browser in the past. It rendered WAP pages well on my tests, but iDEN's slow data speed means you'll want to kick in the Wi-Fi radio whenever possible. RIM does compress data on the back end, which helps, but not enough; hooking into a nearby WPA2 hot spot sped up the proceedings considerably. Unlike other Curves, the 8350i doesn't work as a tethered laptop modem, either.
For multimedia, the 8350i has 128MB of onboard storage, which is a modest upgrade from the 96MB in the 8330 and the 64MB in the rest of the Curve line. (Sprint also throws in a 1GB microSD card for good measure.) The microSD slot is beneath the battery—never a good thing—but it read and wrote to a 8GB SanDisk microSDHC card without a problem. The 8350i played video files smoothly, even in full-screen mode. The built-in music player sports revised user-interface graphics and displays large album-art thumbnails. Music sounded warm and clear when paired with Cardo S-2 stereo Bluetooth headphones, but it was a bit tinny through the included wired stereo earbuds.
The 8350i is equipped with the same 2-megapixel camera (with video recording) that graces other Curves. There's a small portrait mirror on the rear panel along with a bright LED flash. Photos were detailed but quite noisy in low-light, indoor environments. 240-by-180-pixel videos felt jerkier than on other Curves I tested, but that may also be a function of the lighting conditions in my test videos.
Given that Nextel's smartphone lineup is almost nonexistent (the only other available option is the ungainly BlackBerry 7100i, which lacks a full QWERTY keyboard and is older than dirt), the Curve 8350i is a good choice that should stem the flow of Nextel subscribers crossing over to Sprint—or another carrier, for that matter—in search of a real smart device. It's about time.
Kensington Wireless USB Docking Station
To make business laptops lighter and more compact, manufacturers have to get more and more creative in their designs. When the systems become really small, even basic features like optical drives and multiple USB ports sometimes fall by the wayside. This doesn't mean that average business users are in any less need of these features; it just means they may have to resort to a USB hub to make it work. The Kensington Wireless USB Docking Station ($230 street) is a more creative and elegant solution to this dilemma, providing seamless connectivity with your printer, speakers, external display, and other peripheral devices, so you can get more out of your system. Unfortunately, Wireless USB isn't that widespread on laptops yet. We've mainly seen it on business notebooks like the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 and the Toshiba Portégé R400, or as an option on systems like the Dell Inspiron 1525. The dock's roughly 12-foot range can be inconvenient, depending on what kind of space you're working with, and somewhat limits the benefits of this otherwise useful device.The station itself is fairly unobtrusive: It measures 11.25 by 6.25 by 4 inches (HWD), not counting the 3-inch antenna that must be flipped up when the device is in use. In keeping with its wireless capabilities, the docking station actually looks more like a router than like the laptop docks I'm used to seeing. A power light on the front turns on once you plug in the station. It shines yellow when the station is connected to your laptop, and orange when disconnected. The device has one USB port on the front, with four more on the back, along with DVI and audio outputs. The docking station also comes with a mini-USB cable to allow you to connect it directly to your laptop as well.
I initially had some difficulty connecting my review unit with the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 I used for testing. I tried to associate the device wirelessly multiple times, to no avail. However, once I connected it directly via the cable, the docking station immediately showed up in the computer's Wireless USB Manager, and connection was seamless from that point on. To test the device's range, I moved the laptop to various distances from the docking station. Every time I lost signal—at roughly 13 feet—the station would reconnect immediately if I moved a step closer. (It should be noted that I selected Automatically Reconnect in the Wireless USB Manager's menu. Other options require you to reconnect manually, or to answer a prompt every time the laptop comes within range of the station.)
Throughout my testing, the docking station worked well with the T61. Devices like flash drives, printers, and monitors registered as quickly as they would had I plugged them directly into the laptop. Though Kensington's site promises a range of 15 feet, in reality it was more like 10 to 13 in our RF-crowded lab. The docking station must also be in line of sight of the laptop, with no equipment or walls in the way.
To check out data transfer speeds, I loaded up a flash drive with 1GB of data. When it was plugged directly into the laptop, I was able to transfer all the files in 1 minute 40 seconds. When I tested with the docking station right next to the laptop, the transfer took 3:11. As expected, times increased as I moved the docking station farther away, to 5:12 at a distance of just over 8 feet. I was actually able to establish a connection from roughly 11 feet away, but the file transfer failed about 8 minutes in. It makes sense that wireless transfer speeds would be lower than wired, because UWB just can't approach regular USB data rates. According to Kensington, the docking station should get 20 to 40 megabits per second for file transfers from a meter away. In contrast, wired USB 2.0 has a maximum bandwidth of 480 Mbps.
One of my favorite features on this device is the ability to connect wirelessly to an external monitor. I could see this coming in handy at a meeting or presentation where you want the freedom to present from different parts of a room while displaying information on a screen. One caveat, though: Kensington readily admits that the docking station is not meant for multimedia. It can handle documents or low-quality video (think YouTube), but it's really not meant for streaming anything at a higher resolution. Videos should stream at 60 to 70 Mbps, according to Kensington.
Predictably, the monitor connection dropped off between 10 and 12 feet. I wouldn't recommend trying to manipulate any documents or images on the monitor at too great a distance from the docking station. The farther away you get, the greater the lag time will be between what's happening on your computer screen and what you see on the station display. The docking station offers two viewing modes—Clone and Extended (dual-view), and it's easy enough to switch between them via a silver button on the front of the unit. Clone view shows the same view you see on your laptop, while Extended view allows you to use two monitor screens for a larger working space.
During testing I also connected the docking station to a set of Harman/Kardon SoundSticks II speakers (audio was clear and responsive); plugged in a Canon Selphy ES2 photo printer (though I didn't actually print with it); and used a wireless mouse and keyboard set connected to the docking station. Everything I plugged in was immediately recognized by the laptop; I never had any trouble connecting to a device via the docking station and I never had to wait.
It's unfortunate that Wireless USB still isn't that common on laptops. Without it, you won't be able to connect to the Kensington Wireless USB Docking Station, except via the included cable. There's always the option of purchasing a separate UWB dongle as well. You can find one for less than $100, but the docking station's price is already high without that extra expense. Kensington sells a Bluetooth UWB dongle, but the manufacturer doesn't recommend using it, saying it will drastically lower data transfer rates. But if you're one of the lucky few with a UWB-enabled laptop, and mobility and an expanded feature set are of great importance to you, this docking station is an elegant solution.
LG Versa VX9600 (Verizon Wireless)
The LG Versa VX9600 is the touch-screen phone for people who hate touch screens (like me): With a unique detachable QWERTY keyboard, it easily swings between key-tapping and touch-screen-only modes. The Versa is a terrific texting phone, but the software's rough edges prevent it from being an all-around winner.
It's a little difficult to describe the Versa's form factor, because it changes. The handset starts out practically identical to the LG Dare: measuring 4.2 by 2.07 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighing 3.8 ounces, with Send, End, and Clear keys below a big 3-inch, 240-by-480-pixel touch-screen display. The screen is actually smaller and of a higher resolution than the Dare's, giving the Versa's UI a smoother, more-sophisticated look. There's a 2-megapixel camera lens and LED flash on the back. On the sides, you'll find camera and volume controls, a 2.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and a mysterious lock switch.
Slide the switch and the Versa's back panel comes off. You can then pop the backless handset into its hybrid keyboard/case made of leather-textured plastic, which gives the Versa a roomy QWERTY keyboard and a dim, monochrome external screen that displays the time and caller ID information. The keyboard has flat but well-separated and nicely clicky keys, and it's very easy to type on. Unfortunately, the case is misbalanced: When you put the keyboard-equipped Versa down on a table, it tips back rather than sitting up like a little laptop. The included QWERTY keyboard is only the first attachable accessory for the Versa; the second one is an optional gamepad, arriving in April. Verizon remained vague about the gamepad's price and functionality, except to show that it's got an eight-way, Nintendo-style directional pad, and Start and Select buttons. Presumably, games will have to be custom designed to work with the controller.
I really like the Versa's interface. Swiping your finger across the LCD lets you switch between four different home screens: one with photos of your favorite contacts, one with thumbnails of your favorite media stored on the phone, and two with different application shortcuts. The home screens rotate in 3D, like the faces on a cube.
The touch screen is very responsive, and its two touch keyboards—a virtual phone keypad when the screen is in portrait mode and a virtual QWERTY keyboard when it's in landscape mode—are a joy to type on. During my tests, there was an annoying bug in the UI, though: Sometimes when I tapped on icons, they'd beep and flash but not launch.
As a phone, the Versa is acceptable but not great. Reception, volume, and earpiece quality are all good. Transmissions from outdoors, however, had a wobbly, thready sound to them that seemed to be connected to the phone's noise cancellation. There was a lot of in-ear feedback of my own voice, which I didn't mind, but probably some people will find it too much. The phone had no problem auto-pairing with two different Bluetooth headsets—a Motorola H15 and an Altec Lansing Backbeat—and the Nuance-powered voice recognition worked well. Battery life, at about five and a half hours of talk time, wasn't bad.
Besides its excellent interface, the Versa's star feature is its Web browser—it's better than the Dare's. I never thought I'd say this about Teleca's typically subpar Obigo browser, but the new version (Q7.0-1.6) actually renders Web pages the way they look on the desktop, if at very slow speeds. You can scroll around with your finger, drop into full-screen mode, and open up three tabs at once. There's even some Flash support; Flash Lite 3.1.5 plays Flash ads and some games (supporting up to Flash 8), but it can't handle streaming Flash video like what you'll find at Hulu.com.
I've been hoping for years that Verizon would get better e-mail and IM programs; although its Mobile E-mail app is a big step up from the old Wireless Sync, it doesn't hold a candle to Sprint's Seven program. It supports Windows Live, Yahoo, POP and IMAP, and pushes e-mail to you as it arrives, but messages are in plain text with no HTML or attachments. The onboard OZ instant-messaging program is also quite basic, supporting AIM, Windows Live, or Yahoo IM, one at a time. At least the SMS app has been given a facelift and has a cute new interface.
As a media player, the Versa has both software and hardware problems. The audio player syncs music with Rhapsody on PCs and plays a wide range of file formats: unprotected and protected WMA, along with unprotected AAC and MP3. But you're limited to a nonstandard 2.5mm jack for headphones, and we heard both a background hiss and strange popping artifacts over our tunes. As a video player, the Versa plays both MPEG-4 simple profile videos and content streamed from Verizon's V CAST video service. But videos appeared in a 240-by-240 box in the middle of the screen, never in an immersive full-screen or wide-screen mode. I ran into another bug when trying to access V CAST: It took three attempts to connect to the service.
At least you get plenty of room for media: The phone has 272MB free memory, and it supported our 16GB Kingston microSD card.
The Versa's 2MP camera promises a lot, with face detection and a feature called SmartPic, which claims to reduce noise and improve low-light performance. Picture quality was sharp if sometimes overexposed in the bright areas. Low-light photos didn't look too bad, and didn't show too much blur, while daylight photos showed a bit of visible compression artifacting. As far as we could tell, SmartPic didn't help much. The camera's autofocus is terribly slow, causing a 2.1-second shutter delay, which drops to a more reasonable 0.6-second delay if you turn autofocus off. The 640-by-480 movie-recording mode produces footage that, at 14 frames per second (fps), looked a bit jerky and compressed in testing; the 320-by-240 movie mode, at 20 fps, looked better.
The handset works, with the right data plan, as a modem for PCs and Macs. After connecting with a USB cable, I was able to achieve decent speeds of about 800kilobits per second down and 350 Kbps up. That's a little slower than a dedicated USB modem, but not too bad. Verizon's VZNavigator 4.1.4 is also on board for GPS turn-by-turn navigation.
Sure, the LG Versa VX9600 is a do-it-all phone—I just wish it did everything a little better. (Adding a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, less-buggy software, a better video player, and a more-robust e-mail app would be good places to start.) Still, the snap-on hardware keyboard idea is innovative, so if you want to dabble with a touch screen but don't want to be limited to it, this may be the phone for you. Otherwise, heavy texters should check out Verizon's less-expensive and more compact LG EnV2, and touch-screen fans should give the LG Dare a look.
Kodak Launches $200 Camera with 10x Optical Zoom
LAS VEGAS—At the PMA show in Las Vegas, Kodak introduced a budget-priced 10X zoom camera, the Kodak EasyShare Z915. The 10-megapixel camera will be available in April for just $199.95. The camera is less capable, but a lot more affordable than the Kodak Z980, a $399 24X superzoom camera that launched earlier this year at CES.
The Z915 will also offer a 2.5-inch LCD, be powered by AA batteries and will be available in red, blue, black, and gray. The 10-megapixel shooter will include Kodak's "Smart Capture" mode which automatically adjusts camera settings based on the environment and subject that is being shot to produce better images.
Phoenix HyperSpace Adds Pre-Boot Office EditingAMD Shrinks Mobile Graphics to 40-nm
AMD's ATI division has shrunk its Mobility Radeon HD 4800 series to use 40-nm manufacturing technology, a first for the industry.
The process shrink has been accompanied by the launch of two new parts, the Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and 4830, which have already begun shipping. AMD executives said they believe that Asus, MSI and Toshiba will all have announcements at the CeBIT show this week, which most likely will include design wins for the new parts. "We believe that this is an inflection point in the industry and we are again taking the crown on 45-n, parts just as before we were the first to be in 55-nm tech, said Asif Rehman, a product manager for AMD.
Although the process shrink allows the graphics chips to run faster, but within the same thermal envelop as the 55-nm parts, the 4860 won't be the most powerful arrow in AMD's quiver. That title is still held by the 4870, still arguably the fastest part, Rehman said.
The 4860 and the 55-nm 4850 are essentially the same part, Rehamn said, although the process shrink to 40 nm allows the 4860 to operate at 650 MHz, about 10 percent faster than the 4850, which runs at 500 MHz. The 4830 is slightly slower, although the exact clock speed will depend on which type of memory it will be paired with; if it's GDDR-3, the 4830 will be clocked at 550 MHz, while a 4830 paired with GDDR-5 memory will be clocked at 600 MHz, Rehman said.
Architecturally, however, the 55-nm 4800 series parts and the new 45-nm 4800 introductions have some significant differences. The 40-nm Mobility Radeon HD parts contain 640 stream processors, versus 800 for the 55-nm products. The memory bus width is also 128 bits wide, half that of the 55-nm products. One advantage: audio over the DisplayPort connector, a feature that the 55-nm parts lack.
Rival Nvidia is expected to announce its own 40-nm parts this quarter.
Apple Refreshes iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini Lines
So much for that March 24 event. Apple jumped the gun Tuesday, quietly refreshing its iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac mini lines.
The company has also slashed prices. A newly refreshed 20-inch iMac will now retail for $1,199 - down from $1,499. It features a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics, and a 320GB Serial ATA hard drive.
A $1,499 24-inch model features a 1920 x 1200 pixel widescreen, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, and a hard drive with 640GB or 1TB of space. The 24-inch also offers a number of graphics options, including NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, NVIDIA GeForce GT, or ATI Radeon HD 4850 discrete graphics.
All iMac models feature an iSight camera, a Mini DisplayPort connector, built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, six USB 2.0 ports, and a FireWire 800 port.
Apple's Mac Pro tower line has been updated with Intel Nehalem Xeon Processors. The desktops start at $2,499 - $300 less than the previous generation. Each model comes with NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics, a Mini DisplayPor, and a DVI port standard.
The quad-core $2,499 Mac Pro model features a 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3500 series processor, 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory (expandable up to 8GB), NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics, 640GB Serial ATA, an 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support, four PCI Express 2.0 slots, five USB 2.0 ports, and four FireWire 800 ports.
The 8-core $3,299 model, meanwhile, features two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 processors, 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory (expandable up to 32GB), NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics, 640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm, an 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW), a Mini DisplayPort, DVI, four PCI Express 2.0 slots, five USB 2.0 ports, and four FireWire 800 ports.
The new Mac mini line begins at $599. Measuring 6.5 x 6.5 x 2, the diminutive desktop is available in two configurations. The lower end $599 version features a 1GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable up to 4GB), NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, and 120GB Serial ATA hard drive. The $799 model features a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable up to 4GB), and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics.
Both models feature five USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 800 port
Always Innovating Launches Four-In-One 'Touch Book'
What's really interesting about the Touch Book, however, is the form factor. The system, designed by Fred Bould of Bould Design product development studio, is essentially a touch-screen tablet with a detachable keyboard base. In what Always Innovating refers to as "keyboard mode," the Touch Book performs the basic functions of a netbook: document creation and Web surfing. But once you convert the device to tablet mode, you can take advantage of its touch-screen abilities. The company is capitalizing on its tablet functionality to bill the system as a gaming platform, handheld PC, e-book reader, and more.
The unit measures 9.4 by 7 by 1.4 inches, and weighs in at 2 pounds with the detachable keyboard in place. Its 8.9-inch screen features 1,024-by-600 resolution. In the hopes of improving portability, Always Innovating included three internal USB slots in the design, along with two external USB ports and a mini USB port.
For storage, the Touch Book implements an 8GB microSD card, and it offers a myriad of wireless options including 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth connectivity. The 3D accelerometer is another nifty feature.
The Touch Book has two batteries—one in the screen and one in the base—which the company promises should last 3 to 5 hours in tablet mode and up to 15 hours in keyboard mode. By utilizing the ARM processor, the Touch Book can always be on: there's no need to reboot, and it can run silently, with no fans or spinning drives.
The system will come with the default Touch Book OS, but it can also run Android, Ubuntu, Angstrom, and Windows CE.
The Touch Book is currently just a prototype, but it's available for preorder on Always Innovating's site and will ship in the spring. The Touch Book comes with a 12-month warranty and unlimited online and e-mail support. It retails for $299 for just the tablet and $399 for the netbook variety.
