AfterDawn: Tech news

Latest news

AfterDawn: News

Stuart Hughes selling $20,000 diamond-encrusted iPhone 4

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 06 Jul 2010 9:45

Stuart Hughes selling $20,000 diamond-encrusted iPhone 4 Following in the footsteps of the ridiculous £200,000 Supreme PS3 and the even more ridiculous $3 million iPhone 3GS Supreme, jeweler Stuart Hughes has begun offering a diamond-encrusted Apple iPhone 4 for the reasonable price of $20,000.

Unfortunately, only 50 of the special devices will be made, so you better get your order in quickly.

The smartphones are unlocked, and come with "6.5 carats of VVS quality, F-color diamonds" and a carrying case made of ostrich.

Apple's logo on the back is now a solid platinum and diamond version of itself.

StuartHughes also sells a $20,000 diamond-encrusted iPad, which has 11.43 carats.

Check the whole collection here: http://stuarthughes.com/




AfterDawn: News

New Verizon ad takes aim at iPhone antenna issues

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 05 Jul 2010 1:35

New Verizon ad takes aim at iPhone antenna issues This week, Verizon has started a new ad campaign picking at the iPhone 4's antenna issues.

The iPhone 4 has been in the news, negatively, over the past week as more and more users complained about losing their calls and data plan when gripping the phone with their left hand.

Apple first told users to hold the phone in their right hand, or to buy a case. The company then flipped their story, instead arguing that an algorithm was misrepresenting the amount of service the phone was receiving. Firmware update 4.0.1 will update that algo.

Verizon, seeing an opportunity, has bought a full page ad in the New York Times for the upcoming Motorola Droid X, praising the Android device while also taking a shot at the iPhone.

On the bottom of the ad is the following statement: "And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls."




AfterDawn: News

Lenovo shipping first 3D laptop

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jul 2010 9:32

Lenovo shipping first 3D laptop Lenovo has begun shipping its first 3D notebook, the IdeaPad Y560d, less than a month after introducing it.

The Y560d features a 15.6-inch 16:9 high-definition screen. The TriDef 3D technology (TriDef Media Player) software can transform a standard movie into a 3D experience (the software does not support transforming Blu-ray or HD-DVD content though), while TriDef Photo Transformer can turn standard photos into 3D as well.

TriDef 3D technology solution includes a 3D screen and 3D glasses, as well.

The first configuration available will be have a Core i7 processor running at 1.60GHz, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD.

Lenovo is selling the 3D notebook for $1500 USD.

In the future, Lenovo will offer a separate configuration, with an i7 at 1.86GHz, a Blu-ray drive, and "RapidDrive," a hybrid 64GB SSD and 750GB HDD for quicker booting.




AfterDawn: News

Palm laying off staff after HP acquisition?

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jul 2010 9:17

Palm laying off staff after HP acquisition? Despite saying they would "double down" on WebOS, it appears HP has been laying off numerous Palm staffers over the past few weeks.

Says a now former-Palm staff member, speaking to Barron's:

"We were given our exit envelope Tuesday morning. Our badges stopped working and we were removed from the computer network at 2:00pm that day.

On Thursday, June 17th, those at the working level who were going to be kept, were given “welcome to HP” letters. On Friday June 18th, those of us who were subsequently let go, were given a succinct letter that stated in part “the company is determining whether there is an appropriate role for you once the acquisition with HP is completed. Our expectation is that a final decision will be made and communicated to you the week of June 21st.” We were however told nothing about our status during the week of June 21st, nor Monday June 28th. Adding to this, during the week of June 21st, at a WebOS team meeting, attendees were told that there were 33 current open positions and that the plan was to grow the team by over 100 during the next year."

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

YouTube hacked? Target: Justin Bieber videos

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jul 2010 8:41

YouTube hacked? Target: Justin Bieber videos Twitter was alight this morning with complaints that Justin Bieber videos on YouTube were hacked, with a good portion of the singer's videos hacked to say "FAIL" or other messages.

The attack came from Internet community 4chan, which has been waging a small "war" against the teenager for a couple of months.

Earlier in the month, the community rigged the voting system for the Justin Bieber My World Tour Contest, where fans are supposed to vote for their country to get Bieber to come and perform a concert. As of today, North Korea is leading the contest, although it is likely the votes will be tossed out and Israel will be the real victor.

The hack involved using a vulnerability in the site's comment system.

Explains Mashable: "The bug allowed users to inject HTML (the code that most websites are built with) that could be executed on the site, whereas HTML within comments is supposed to be restricted. The hackers did everything from force pop-up messages to appear over the site declaring that it had been hacked to redirecting Bieber video pages to sites hosting pornography and malware."

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

NIN fans complete free Blu-ray

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 04 Jul 2010 5:47

NIN fans complete free Blu-ray In March 2009, Nine Inch Nails went around the U.S. for the Lights In The Sky Tour and because they somehow could not get a professional capture team for a commercial release, they released 405GB of free raw HD footage from the tours to their fans, allowing them to do what they please with it.

In January, the fan group This One Is On Us released their creation, in literally every format you could ever need, for free, with the exception of full Blu-ray.

Today, the group has released the BD of "The Gift," for free, with the torrent available here: The Gift Blu-ray torrent.

The group says the BD is about 19.3GB, and will have 1080p resolution and 5.1 surround sound.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Popbox launching later this month

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 2:42

Popbox launching later this month Syabas has announced July 23rd as the shipping date for the highly-anticipated Popbox media player.

Pre-order began in May with a July 4th tentative release date. The company decided to delay the launch to work on some final tweaks for the Popbox software.

Among the first Popapps to ship with the box are Picasa, YouTube, Photobucket, Twitter, Next New Networks and Revision3.

The interface also includes a cover-flow-esque visual thumbnails selection for videos, music and other data, as well as universal search.

More notably, the interface can handle Flash, Java and QT meaning Netflix will be available eventually. Also available in the future is Hulu, CBS and ABC content, which can now include the in-video ads required for playback. Facebook Shoutcast MP3, and other Popcorn Hour content will rollover to the new box eventually, as well.

For video, full 1080p at 100Mbps is now supported, along with the standard MPEG formats, H.264, VC-1, WMV, MKV, XviD and other containers. The player can also support most subtitle files, including Microsoft's proprietary one. For streaming, the Popbox can recognize iTunes via Bonjour, and DLNA and UPnP sources.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Apple waives 10 percent restocking fee on iPhone 4

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 2:16

Apple waives 10 percent restocking fee on iPhone 4 Apple has waived the 10 percent restocking fee for iPhone customers who return their phones, following the revelation that their devices have had a flawed signal strength indicator for years now.

The company added buyers could return the smartphone for a "full refund" within 30 days if they were not happy with it.

Until the announcement, Apple was charging $20 for a returned 16GB iPhone 4, and $30 for a 32GB model.

The decision to drop the fee is likely in conjunction with a recent class action lawsuit filed by angry customers who say the company shipped defective iPhone 4s and have been collecting on the restocking fee.

Says the suit: Apple is willingly selling defective products and consumers "are unable to return the phone without incurring a substantial restocking fee."

In general, Apple is facing a growing number of complaints about signal strength, and dropped calls, which appears to occur when you hold the phone in the lower left corner. Apple even had the audacity to tell buyers to purchase a case for their phone to avoid the problem.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Early Adobe AIR for Android leaked

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 1:55

Early Adobe AIR for Android leaked Droid-Life has gotten an early build of Adobe AIR for Android, along with some early apps that can be used with it, and posted it to their site.

AIR allows developers to create applications or tools that can then be used on multiple operating systems.

Explains Adobe: "Adobe Air will let you publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications (.apk) for the Android OS. These AIR applications can be delivered to Android devices through Android application stores such as the Android Market.

Developers can write new code or reuse existing web content to build AIR applications for the Android OS. Because the source code and assets are reusable across the Flash Platform runtimes, Adobe AIR and Flash Player, it also gives developers a way to more easily target other mobile and desktop environments."

Download it here: Adobe AIR for Android

You can try a few apps for AIR here: Droid-Life




AfterDawn: News

Motorola Droid is most popular Android device

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 1:18

Motorola Droid is most popular Android device According to a new metrics report from mobile advertising giant AdMob, the Motorola Droid is the most popular Android device, followed by the HTC Hero.

It is important to note that the data is based on 12.7 million Android phones as of May 31st. The MyTouch 3G Slide and HTC EVO 4G were released in early June and are therefore not included.

The Droid, which launched last November, has 22 percent market share, with the Hero having 16 percent. Rounding out the top 5 are the HTC Magic, Dream (G1) and Droid Eris, each with between 8-10 percent share. Google's flagship Nexus One has just 2 percent share.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Motorola Droid to get Android 2.2 Froyo in two weeks?

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 1:06

Motorola Droid to get Android 2.2 Froyo in two weeks? While still unconfirmed, the latest rumor has Verizon rolling out Android 2.2 Froyo for the Motorola Droid starting in two weeks, making the device the second smartphone to get the update, behind the flagship Google Nexus One.

The leaked Verizon memo shows the roll out starting July 13th, which makes sense given the increase in stable versions of 2.2 floating around the Web currently.

Motorola's Droid remains the best selling Android device of all-time.

There are many new features that most users have been expecting and wanting. The main two are the addition of Flash (built-in) and the addition of Wi-Fi tethering. Additionally, Apps2SD, desktop to handset music streaming and a "one-handed camera UI" are part of the update.

On the performance end, a new Dalvik JIT compiler will give 2.2 users a 200-500 percent performance boost over those using 2.1. The HTML-5 supportive browser will give 300 percent performance boosts for JavaScript.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

'Twilight' cam 'pirate' sues movie theater

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 12:52

'Twilight' cam 'pirate' sues movie theater In December of last year we reported that a 22-year old woman was arrested in Chicago for recording three minutes of the newest "Twilight" film with a digital camera at the movie theater, and was forced to spend two days in jail awaiting a hearing.

Samantha Tumpach faced up to three years in jail after being charged for criminal use of a motion picture exhibition.

Making the situation worse was the fact that Tumpach wasn't filming the movie and was instead taping parts of her sister's birthday party, which was taking place at the movie theater. Although the movie is in the background in clips, there are longer clips of family and friends singing happy birthday to Tumpach's sister at the theater. The situation was met with justifiable outrage from almost everyone who read about it, including the director of "Twilight: New Moon," who said the woman should have the charges dropped.

Fortunately, a week later, the prosecutors tossed out the case against her, and apologized for the time she had to spend in a holding cell.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Best Buy employee suspended for iPhone spoof ads

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 03 Jul 2010 12:38

Best Buy employee suspended for iPhone spoof ads The 25-year old Best Buy employee who posted a viral video spoofing iPhone 4 and HTC EVO 4G zealots has been suspended from his job this week, and says he expects to be fired after the July 4th holiday.

Brain Maupin, a long-time employee at a branch in Missouri, posted the two YouTube videos in late June, and the first video has over 2 million views.

Each video slams fanatics of the two popular smartphones, but neither video even mentions Best Buy.

"They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile," said Maupin.

Maupin was asked to quit, but refused.

"I issued a statement to them explaining that the video was intended to be comedic and hence, not taken seriously by them or all these stockholders & customers they are worried about [being] turned off to buying from them due to the video," Maupin added.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

World of Warcraft to eventually go free-to-play?

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 02 Jul 2010 2:19

World of Warcraft to eventually go free-to-play? World of Warcraft lead designer Tom Chilton has suggested this week that Blizzard may eventually move the extremely popular game to a free-to-play model.

Says Chilton: "At some point, it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee."

That being said, the developer was quick to note that his suggestion was on a very long time frame, if it was to happen at all. "We’re not spending a lot of time thinking about it. It’s not something that’s a reality for us in the near future."

Other major MMO games such as The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online have recently moved to a free-to-play model, choosing to make money off weapon and clothing upgrades for characters as well as other digital items.

When asked about their movies, Chilton responded: "I feel like they’re doing that to compete with other games that are on a similar subscriber level to what they were at. I imagine that when one of them went free to play it cannibalised some of the other subscribers. I can definitely imagine that being the case with World of Warcraft. If another game comes along and blows us away it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee. Or even further down the line, when we have another MMO out."




AfterDawn: News

Microsoft sells 15,000 slim Xbox 360 units in Japan at launch

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 02 Jul 2010 1:54

Microsoft sells 15,000 slim Xbox 360 units in Japan at launch Microsoft has sold 15,000 of the new slimmer Xbox 360 units during launch week in Japan, giving the console its strongest week in the region in a very long time.

Overall, 17,370 Xbox 360s were sold in the nation.

The previous week saw sales of just 2060, weak even by the Xbox's normal Japanese standards.

Because the console went on sale on the 24th, the weekly figure only accounts for four days worth of sales. The slim model sells for ¥29,800, while the Elite sells for ¥24,800.

In Japan, the DS line remains very strong, with the DS Lite, DSi and DSi LL selling a combined 61,141 units.

Full chart via GI:

DSi LL: 41,676
PSP: 23,257
PS3: 19,578
Wii: 19,115
Xbox 360: 17,370
DSi: 17,306
DS Lite: 5209
PS2: 1530

PSPgo: 845





  Newer entries Older entries  

News archive