iPhone 2.1 firmware update announced

Apple on Tuesday launched an upgrade of the iPhone operating system that fixes some nagging bugs and refreshed the iPod line with new designs and lower prices expected to attract buyers during the holiday shopping season. "No crashes," says Steve. He's calling it a big update with the promise of fewer dropped calls, big battery improvement, and faster backups. Is this a dream? We'll find out when it's released this Friday.

iPod touch gets better with the App Store, Genius, and other new features. All for just $9.95

Microsoft mouse formalized its light blue

As expected, the division in charge of equipment at Microsoft, has lifted the veil on its new mouse with technology BlueTrack at a press event in Seattle, USA. With the launch of Microsoft Explorer and Explorer Mouse Mini Mouse, Microsoft intends to once again revolutionize the world of mice as the inventor of optical mice with BlueTrack proposes an entirely new technology for monitoring movements. The Microsoft engineers have indeed developed a new optical engine using a blue light. It is up to four times larger than the traditional laser mice today, allowing BlueTrack mouse to operate on a larger type of surface (carpet, marble table, wooden table, etc.).

And Microsoft, of course, not forgetting the design with these new mouse as you can find mice with a halo of light blue, a logo backlit, and materials of various kinds: a place rubber, plastic mat and shiny, or a chrome finish. While roulette is metal with a comfortable grip, but it is still not serrated.

For now, Microsoft announced two new mouse: Microsoft Explorer with Bluetrack technology, a rechargeable wireless mouse logically with technology BlueTrack and dedicated to the desktops and Microsoft Explorer Mini with technology that addresses BlueTrack about it the laptops. Côté tarification, Microsoft annonce un prix public conseillé de 79 euros TTC pour la Microsoft Explorer et 59 euros TTC pour la Microsoft Explorer Mini. Pricing side, Microsoft is announcing a retail price of 79 euros including tax for Microsoft Explorer and 59 euros including tax for Microsoft Explorer Mini. It is noteworthy that the commercial availability of these products should be done in the autumn. Microsoft announced 3 weeks between each load for Microsoft Explorer with technology Bluetrack and six months of autonomy for the model for laptops with a single battery.

According to our first tests, rapid and limited, mice with BlueTrack technology works on the following materials available in our hotel room: carpeting, above bed, jeans, wooden desk, LCD screen and leather sofa. Naturally some surfaces are a little crazy but still it is interesting to note that technology BlueTrack is actually better than traditional laser technologies.

Toshiba Announces 240GB 1.8-Inch HDDCapacity for Portable Media Players, Camcorders and Ultra-Mobile PCs

Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced the world's first dual-platter 240GB(1) (MK2431GAH) and single-platter 120GB (MKxx31GAL series) 1.8-inch HDDs for integration into portable media players, camcorders and compact ultra-mobile PCs for the holiday shopping season.

The new MKxx31GAL series also includes an 80GB capacity offering, rounding out the most complete line of high-capacity 4,200 RPM 1.8-inch HDDs for consumer electronics (CE) and mobile PC system manufacturers.

Toshiba's two new Parallel ATA HDD families feature the industry's highest areal density at 344 gigabits-per-square-inch, using fourth-generation perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, which was first introduced and commercialized by Toshiba in 2005. Toshiba's
technology leadership in PMR has enabled the company to consistently deliver leading-edge capacities in the 1.8-inch form factor to support growing demand for the miniaturization of mobile devices to run digital video, photo, audio and computing applications.

The new 1.8-inch HDD series uses a new mechanical and firmware design for enhanced durability, making the 80GB and 120GB single-platter HDDs well-suited for slim-line mobile gadgets and PC applications. The new dual-platter 240GB MK2431GAH product is especially suitable for light-weight mobile PC applications and high-end digital video camcorders, which require high capacity and ruggedness to protect users' valuable digital assets.

Design elements incorporated in the 240GB MK2431GAH optimize power performance to new levels with a 33 percent overall improvement in energy consumption efficiency(2) over Toshiba's previous generation two-platter, 160GB 3,600 RPM 1.8-inch model. In addition, Toshiba's entire line of new 4,200 RPM 1.8-inch HDDs delivers solid performance while state-of-the-art electrical components reduce power consumption during read and write operations by 20 percent, resulting in a cumulative improvement in power management. In addition, PC applications benefit from the performance boost of an 8MB buffer.

"Toshiba's dedication and focus on 1.8-inch HDD product development over the past decade has enabled us to continually drive innovation in this form factor -- from robust capacity introductions to improved performance and power efficiency," said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba Storage Device Division. "Thanks to these continual advancements, 1.8-inch HDDs have become an ideal form factor for the digital world, where
the ability to handle rich digital content in a mobile environment is king."

oshiba has been the market share leader in the 1.8-inch HDD category since its first product was introduced in 2000 and has cumulatively shipped more than 60 million 1.8-inch HDDs worldwide. The company's new 1.8-inch HDDs also reflect a commitment to enhancing the environmental soundness of its products by discontinuing use of certain environmentally harmful
chemical substances across all components incorporated in the drive and reducing carbon dioxide emissions during HDD operation. In particular, the MKxx31GAL series has been designed to lower carbon dioxide emissions by 54 grams per year.

Toshiba's new 1.8-inch HDDs will be incorporated into CE and mobile PC products shipping this holiday season. Interested developers and design engineers can visit http://www.toshibastorage.com for more information.

WriteRoom Software Now Available for iPhone

WriteRoom, is now available for the iPhone! Released yesterday, WriteRoom for the iPhone is a much needed replacement for the default Notes app. I hate the font in the default Notes, plus there’s no way to access any text from your computer unless you send it by e-mail.

When Wi-Fi is enabled, you can browse to and edit your notes from your local computer in Safari. However, Wi-Fi access to your notes is an optional feature. If you want a good clean writing platform, WriteRoom is exactly what you need, as it frees the screen of any distraction and lets you focus on the writing. Interested parties should note, however, that this feature is not currently password protected, meaning that when you enable document sharing, anyone on your local network can access your WriteRoom iPhone documents. So be careful what you write, or whom you are sharing your documents with.

With the WriteRoom iPhone app, you can access the Writeroom window from your computer (via Bonjour — only works on a Mac, sorry). This means that you can create, write and edit a document from either your iPhone or computer, and it can be shared between your devices.

Note, however, that this version does not have password protection, which means that when you enable document sharing, anyone on your local network can access your WriteRoom iPhone documents. Not a problem if you work at home, but would be an issue if you shared your network with co-workers.

WriteRoom for iPhone / iPod touch requires firmware 2.0 or later installed. Wi-Fi support requires access to wireless network. The app is available on the iTunes App Store here for $4.99 USD.

Apple unveiled today a new iPod nano

Apple unveiled today a new iPod nano featuring a tall and very thin oval shaped design. The new iPod nano 4G features an accelerometer sensor like the iPhone and a new advanced user interface

Meet a musical Genius.

With just a few clicks, the new Genius feature finds the songs on your iPod nano that go great together and makes a Genius Playlist for you.

Rock and roll over.

Thanks to the built-in accelerometer, you can rotate iPod nano to flip through album art with Cover Flow. Watch movies and TV shows in widescreen. And view photos in either portrait or landscape.

Shake to shuffle.

Just give iPod nano a shake and it shuffles to a different song in your music library.

Curved ahead of the curve.

iPod nano now comes in nine vibrant colors and a new curved aluminum and glass design. The crisp, bright picture makes watching movies and TV shows amazing.

Video

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Overall the iPod nano 4G looks like a great little music and video player with some nice features and UI tricks like shaking for shuffle mode. Measurements of the iPod nano 4G are 3.6x1.5x0.24inches and the weight is 1.3 ounces. The battery life is up to 24 hours when fully charged and the video playback time is up to 4 hours when fully charged.

The iPod nano 4G comes in 8GB ($149) and 16GB ($199) storage configurations and in 9 colors.

Google cuts data retention time in half

Google is cutting the length of time it retains user IP addresses captured by its server logs from 18 months down to 9 months.

IP addresses are the unique numbers that computers—or network gateways—use to communicate with the rest of the Internet, and in many circumstances (often in conjunction with cookies and log analysis techniques) they can sometime be used to identify individual Internet users, which potentially threatens their privacy.

Today, Google cut that 18-month retention time for IP addresses in half, reducing it to 9 months. Google's action is again in response to possible regulatory concerns—the EU is considering a 6-month retention time for data like IP addresses—but the company says it hopes the 9 month retention will give the company enough data to create innovative new services—including fraud prevention technologies—without compromising users' privacy.

Interestingly, one of the first things noted in the response is the link to Google's privacy policy which was added in July of this year; however, it's unclear if they really made that move in response to Article 29 or in response to California's requests (as indicated in my prior post). Either way, at least it was done.

But while Google announces a shorter data retention length, newcomers such as Cuil retain no data at all. Fleischer also noted all the kinks aren't worked out yet.

Added Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel for Google: "We haven't sorted out all of the implementation details, and we may not be able to use precisely the same methods for anonymizing as we do after 18 months, but we are committed to making it work."