PC Tech World: early

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix starts shipping, Seton Hall University gets early units

Lenovo's ThinkPad Helix has had one of the rockier roads to the US market, having been promised for February only to be delayed to April. Things are getting smoother, however, as the first units of the are rolling off the production line -- and there are already customers waiting at Seton Hall University. Keeping up its recent practice of handing out gadgets to junior students, the school expects to test the dockable Windows 8 tablet within a few weeks, and then deliver about 2,000 units to newcomers starting in June. The turn toward a hybrid lets the university settle on one PC design for the fall rather than divide its attention between tablets and Ultrabooks, Seton Hall's Drew Holden says. As for the general public? Lenovo hasn't officially put the Helix on sale through its own store, but a handful of customers say they've already received theirs through other channels. In any event, keep a close watch on third-party stores if you're willing to part with $1,499 for a ThinkPad convertible.

Via: Ultrabook News

Source: The Setonian

Monday, April 8, 2013

Get an early look at Facebook Home with these leaked pre-release APKs

Facebook Home's making its official debut on the HTC First and a handful of big-hitting Android handsets this Friday, but MoDaCo has come across a trio of APKs which offer an early taste. The leaked APKs have been stripped from a pre-release HTC First ROM, with MoDaCo noting they're "rather buggy" and not fully functional -- Chat Heads doesn't work, for example. You'll need a handset with a max screen res of 1,280 x 768 and must be able to remove the current Android Facebook app, as the newer APKs won't install otherwise. MoDaCo lists a workaround for phones that have Facebook baked into the ROM, but it'll still need to be rooted. Hit up the source link if you've got the side-loading skills and feel like giving Facebook Home a preliminary poking.

Source: MoDaCo

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Early apps for touch-based Ubuntu reveal a mostly clean aesthetic

The clatter of ergonomic keyboards is already bearing fruit, just two months after the Ubuntu developer community was let loose on the SDK for the newly touch-enabled OS. Canonical's Michael Hall has posted an update on his personal blog detailing progress with some core apps, such as Calendar and Weather, as as well the broader effort to give mobile Ubuntu a sense of personality. The source link shows off some nice-looking puzzle games, news readers and even an app built around the disembodied head of a strapping lad called Jono, who in many ways symbolizes the minimal-but-cheerful look of the emerging ecosystem. A bit of debugging here, a swoosh of the razor there, and it could be perfect.

Source: Michael Hall's blog

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Library of Congress unveils plan to preserve early US sound recordings

Historic audio recordings aren't exactly easy to access and play back since they're often in obscure or aging formats and sit within giant repositories and private collections, but the Library of Congress is gearing up to help change that for researchers and the average joe. The outfit's freshly announced National Recording Preservation Plan is headlined by a recommendation to create a publicly accessible national directory of sound recordings that'll act as an "authoritative discography" with details regarding their production and where copies are housed. You'll still have to take a trip to a library to hear the recordings for the time being, but the Library of Congress is hoping to hammer out licensing agreements that would allow for online streaming. Developing new preservation standards and creating university-based degree programs for audio archiving are also among the 32 short- and long-term recommendations spelled out by the document. Click the second source link to peruse the paper yourself.

[Image credit: Ray Tsang, Flickr]

Via: Huffington Post

Source: Library of Congress, Council on Library and Information Resources

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Google quietly removed search warning message in China in early December 2012

Google's search engine has a turbulent history in China, from search results being censored to temporary shutdowns. The company's most recent effort to serve mainland China with unfiltered search results met with an untimely end back in early December, Google confirms -- a warning previously told mainlanders when the search term they were using had met with issues (read: Chinese government intrusion causing lengthy connection times) for other users. GreatFire discovered that said message no longer popped up when searching for various censored terms on Google Search in China, and while Google's confirming that fact, it's unclear what the exact reasoning is. Given the rocky history between Google and China, it seems likely that China responded in turn to Google's efforts with its own -- or as The Guardian puts it, "Google concedes defeat in China censorship battle." Whether that's the case or not remains to be seen, but Chinese Google searchers should beware that your experience may result in some unfortunate connection issues from time to time (as much as 90 seconds), per China's censorship policies.

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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

WSJ: Acer Iconia B1 tablet hitting in early 2013, priced at around $99

More info on that ultra budget tablet from Acer that made a sketchy FCC appearance roughly a week or so ago: The Wall Street Journal's been chatting with a "person with direct knowledge," who offered up an intriguing price tag of "around $99" for the Iconia B1. The slate is said to feature similar specs as older Amazon and Barnes & Noble devices, including a 7-inch 1,024 x 600 display and a 1.2GHz processor. As for availability, the device will apparently be targeted at developing nations, with no word on whether it will make it to the US.

Filed under: Tablets, Acer

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

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By: Dilusha On 3:36 PM

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

iPhone 5S to launch early 2013?

Could the 5S be just around the corner?

The iPhone 5 may still be fresh out the oven, but whispers have already begun to surface that an iPhone 5S successor could go into production as early as next month.

The Chinese-language Commercial Times estimates that full commercial production of the rumoured iPhone 5S will begin as early as Q1 2013, with the December run only expected to return between 50,000 and 100,000 units.

The paper claims that Apple has put its foot on the gas for the next iteration of the popular handset, due to low yield rates of the iPhone 5 on the assembly line. Because of the fragility of the parts used to make the device, many break before they even see the light of day.

Such an early release of the iPhone 5S remains unlikely, however. The iPhone 5 has had barely enough time to gather dust on shop shelves, let alone pull in the masses of revenue Apple has still to make from it.

A Q1 2013 release of the 5S would also raise questions over Apple's upgrade process.

Then again, the Cupertino-based giant has surprised us before: earlier this month Apple brought us the new iPad 4 and the iPad mini just eight months after the release of the iPad 3 in March.

Nevertheless, it's more likely that the iPhone 5S will hit stores in the latter part of 2013, following the trend set by the iPhone 5 and 4S. It's even possible that Apple will skip the iPhone 5S and hop right on to the iPhone 6.

Needless to say, TechRadar will be keeping a close eye on this story and will bring you the latest developments as they emerge.

Via Digitimes