The S2 comes with 2GB of flash memory and supports drag and drop. Samsung also bundles the Emodio software which serves as a media player and gives access to certain online features. These include firmware updates, downloadable equalizers for Samsung’s DNSE (Digital natural Sound engine) and themes. The player’s interface mirror’s other ‘shuffle’ class players by giving very simple controls. This means that the player has left out a number of control options including the important Folder Skip. another button is meant for skipping between three DNSE equalizer settings.
After listening to music, we came to the conclusion that the S2 is decent for listening to bassfriendly tracks, although it does not sound tight. Also, the player reproduced simple instrumentation or sparsely arranged tracks well but music that involved a lot of instrumentation in the mix became indistinct. Further the S2 could not reproduce stereo separation well and the mids and highs were either lost thanks to an overpowering low end, or sounded too airy and muddled overall, the S2 is okay especially for listening to songs with more bass. The Samsung VPS2 at Rs. 2,750 is a barebones player that knows what its strengths are. Its size and looks combined with its sound performance make it a good buy.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Samsung YP-S2 MP3 Player
Acer's AspireRevo Nettop Taps Ion Platform
With the AspireRevo, Acer wants to make a splash in the category of nettops -- low-cost, small-dimension PCs. Officials at an evening launch event at a science museum outside New York City played up the graphics processing power of the Ion combined with the Atom 230/330 chip, positioning it as a multimedia home PC that can be used as a gaming device.
The AspireRevo lets users watch 1080p HD video, play DirectX 10 games at high frame rates and tap the 3D capabilities of Windows Vista Premium. It will also be available in a package with a game controller with 3D motion sensors.
Though exact dimensions weren't immediately available from Acer, the company said the device takes up less than a liter of space, or about the form of a hardcover book.
The new nettop comes with either a Serial ATA hard drive or Solid State Drive (SSD) and up to 4GB of DDR2 memory. Memory can be expanded with a Mini PC Express slot.
Acer officials made much of the company's use of SSD.
"Using SSD and not HDD saves power," said Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci.
"There were several things holding back the wider use of SSD and the main one was cost," he said. "SSD used to cost about 50 times what HDD cost for the same capacity, but now it's down to about 10 times the cost, so we're getting there. Over the next two years we expect to see much greater use of SSD."
The AspireRevo is designed to be attached to the back of any TV display or LCD with a VESA attachment.
The device also incorporates 802.11 b/g WiFi and Gigabyte Ethernet connection.
Pricing and availability were not announced though one official said the device is expect to ship in the back-to-school time frame in the U.S., with a staggered release around the world.
Apple to Increase iPhone Storage, Says Report
The DigiTimes report continues claiming Apple ordered 100 million 1GB NAND Flash chips, mainly from Samsung Electronics. Apple could recombine these chips in the manufacturing process, creating 16GB and 32GB (Gigabyte) storing capabilities for new iPhone models. One hundred million 8Gb chips would be enough for 12.5 million 8GB iPhones or around 3 million 32GB devices.
Speculation around Apple's massive Flash memory order could mean that the long-rumored 32GB iPhone might be on its way and possibly a larger capacity 64GB iPod Touch. In the case of the iPod Touch, 64GB could mean a much higher price, somewhere around $500. A 32GB iPhone is feasible, especially as video-recording capabilities are expected in the new model (requiring more storage).
However, Apple uses this kind of NAND Flash chips in other of its products as well, like the iPod nano and Shuffle, so at the moment it is not very clear how the Cupertino company will use the 100 million chips. As previously reported, the new iPhone model is expected to feature a better camera (with video recording) and higher storage capacities, besides the 3.0 software improvements announced last month.
Sparkle Launches Geforce GTX285 Graphics Card
The GTX285 can work in 3-way SLI mode that allows three similar / equivalent cards to work together to deliver high frame rates even at high quality settings. The Sparkle Geforce GTX285 cards are launched by Abacus Peripherals who claimed that the high performance thermal compound used in the cards ensures optimal thermal dissipation even after years of use.
Nokia Launches N-Gage Mobile Gaming Service in India
With N-Gage, Nokia device owners in India can access mobile games using the N-Gage mobile application on their N-Gage compatible devices or on the online N-Gage showrooms (www.n-gage.com), accessed directly from their mobile devices. With the N-Gage application on their devices, people can connect with other e-players through the N-Gage Arena community, discuss topics via live chats and message boards, and participate in tournaments and hosted events. They can create a Friends List and send and receive private messages among other things. N-Gage Points can be earned for playing games and participating in community activities. Moreover, the experience can also take place via the N-Gage web portal on the PC, where players can interact with the N-Gage community or purchase new games and download them to their N-Gage compatible devices.
Nokia is also offering special pre-paid Oxigen e-vouchers which will be initially available at Nokia Priority Dealers (NPDs) in 9 cities across the country, including New Delhi and the National Captial Region (NCR), Chandigarh, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. N-Gage game vouchers are also available for purchase via Oxicash (www.oxicash.in/nokia) Oxigen's e-commerce portal, accessible from mobile phones and PCs alike, using the Oxicash pre-paid card.
N-Gage also allows consumers to try games before they decide to purchase them. N-Gage games in India are priced between Rs. 49 – 299 (inclusive of taxes) depending on the type of the game and the validity. Nokia N-Gage is today compatible with Nokia Nseries and other Nokia S60 3rd edition devices including N81, N81 8GB, N82, N79, N85, N95, N95 8GB, Nokia 5320 XpressMusic and 6210 Navigator.
Microsoft Releasing First SQL Server '08 Service Pack
The anticipated initial service pack for Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 database will be available imminently, Microsoft said Tuesday.
Many SQL Server 2000 and 2005 shops have been waiting for the pack before upgrading to the 2008 edition, as it contains all the cumulative updates and fixes issued since SQL Server 2008 was released to manufacturing in August, resulting in an overall more stable application.
Service Pack 1 (SP1) also makes it easier to deploy SQL Server 2008. A feature called Slipstream allows users to install the database and service pack at once, easing the process of loading the software onto hundreds or thousands of servers, said Fausto Ibarra, director of product management.
There isn't much in the way of new features in SP1, but that is a deliberate reflection of Microsoft's strategy to put out initial releases that are feature-complete, with packs only used for fixes, he said. "We got feedback from customers that they wanted more predictability, service packs that they could deploy without worrying about application compatibility."
Should there be a compatibility problem, users have the ability to uninstall the service pack, he said.
While Microsoft is hoping the service pack's release will entice more SQL 2000 and 2005 users to upgrade, the company claims SQL 2008 has been downloaded more than 3 million times already.
Some Microsoft customers, such as the financial services company Raymond James, haven't bothered to wait for SP1.
Raymond James is using SQL Server 2008 to power its BI (business intelligence) platform, said Todd Daniell, manager of the company's BI group.
The platform is being used by about 7,000 workers, from back-office employees to financial advisors at Raymond James' many locations around the country, he said.
Daniell is looking forward to the service pack's fixes, but said the initial release "was pretty solid."
SQL 2008 has improved scalability, performance and security, and also has "fantastic" data-compression capabilities, he said.
"I can't tell you how much that is going to save us over the long run," he said.
Raymond James was able to compress one of its largest tables by more than 70 percent, and went from a total data warehouse size of 2TB to less than 600GB, according to Daniell.
The company was also able to move its BI systems from an HP Superdome computer to commodity hardware, saving more than $100,000 per year in maintenance payments to HP, he said.
While Raymond James may buy other tools for "light, ad-hoc type of reporting," the company plans to stick with Microsoft products for its BI needs because the platform allows workers to interact with familiar front-end environments, such as Excel, he said.
Another reason the company isn't interested in other BI platforms, such as Oracle, is because Daniell's team doesn't have Oracle expertise, and the cost to buy Oracle products plus train his workers would be too high, he said.
But as enthusiastic as Daniell is about Microsoft tools, that does not extend to the prospect of running his BI operation on cloud services like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft's Azure platform, given the type of regulations the financial services industry must follow.
"I'm sure their security is a lot better than others," he said. "But man, you don't know until you know, and with something like this it's better not to know."
BlackBerry Storm Gets WiFi, Other Extras, Say Sources
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) is prepping a new version of its only touchscreen phone, the BlackBerry Storm, as soon as this September, according to reports. The new phone is set to bring improvements over the current offering, especially with the addition of WiFi.
SlashGear is citing an unnamed source (claiming it's the bee's knees), as giving them "their assurances that the BlackBerry Storm 2 would have WiFi, and would be an even better pro-consumer device than the first Storm." There's no wonder the biggest drawback of the BlackBerry Storm was the lack of WiFi, of course, after the clickable touch screen and the sluggish software.
Besides the September launch date and extra WiFi (which was quite obvious) not much detail was passed on. But if RIM does launch a new BlackBerry Storm this September, that will leave the current devices (10 months old in September) obsolete. That's not even a year since the original product launch in November 2008 (even Apple leaves one year between product cycles).
The addition of WiFi is in no way a surprise, as technically its lack made the BlackBerry Storm inferior to its main rival, Apple's iPhone 3G. Meanwhile, there's still a debate whether Verizon deliberately pulled WiFi to make BlackBerry Storm users dependent on the paid carrier services, but nevertheless the (yet again obvious) wireless connectivity addition is welcome.
Also, The Boy Genius site reports that two of its "independent sources" say a new type of screen will come with the BlackBerry Storm 2, improving the screen "enormously" and making typing "really pleasurable". The screen technology they say, won't be called SurePress anymore but TruePress. Just to add to the rumors, Boy Genius also dropped in a 5-megapixel camera on the BlackBerry Storm 2.
At the beginning of this month, RIM also launched the BlackBerry AppWorld -- in response to the growing popularity of Apple's App Store for iPhone (and something that the BlackBerry Storm et all were short of). However, the BlackBerry AppWorld pricing scheme is more expensive than Apple or Google's counterparts.
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