High Tech Review

The technology icon stands before a crowd, holding in his hands a prototype that embodies his vision for the future of computing. It’s a touch-screen tablet that is thinner than a magazine, has all-day battery life, and sells for less than $800.

But the icon wasn’t Steve Jobs and the tablet wasn’t the iPad. It was Bill Gates, speaking in 2005 to a crowd of Windows hardware makers in Seattle. The technology enabling such a device was still a few years off, Gates said, but it was time to start working toward that vision.

A year later, Microsoft detailed Project Origami, an effort to commercialize Gates’ vision by adding a touch interface on top of Windows XP. Yet, the technology still hadn’t caught up with the vision.

A few devices, like Samsung’s Q1 eventually found their way to the market, but they were a bust, offering terrible battery life and costing more than $1,000. Within a year, Microsoft and the partners had largely abandoned the effort.

Fast forward four years and the Gates tablet vision is a reality, thanks to Apple. Despite a decade spent trying to sell Windows-based tablets and the prescience to see the hardware trends that would make it possible for a device like the iPad to exist, Microsoft has thus far missed the boat. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have heard there’s a new iPhone hitting stores this week. If you’re planning on buying one and still have your old iPhone, why not sell it?

There’s a good chance you can recoup much of what you originally paid and put it toward the new iPhone 4. Individuals, resellers, and retailers are willing to pay for old iPhones, you just need to know where to look.

The gadget resale market, especially for the iPhone, is hotter than ever right now. Consumer electronics reseller Gazelle.com said last week that 10,000 iPhones were sold to the site in the week following the iPhone 4’s introduction on June 7–and that was 10 times the number of old iPhones sold to the site following the iPhone 3GS announcement a year ago.

Your best options for making money off your iPhone include the obvious places like eBay and Craigslist, but if you don’t feel like doing the work yourself, gadget resellers will do most of it for you: they’ll buy your phone from you and handle the reselling themselves. And this year, iPhone retailer Radio Shack is offering an incentive to sell back your old phone.

Though most places will take any model iPhone with normal wear and tear, the later the model of iPhone you’re selling, and the better the condition it is in will increase the resale value. And, of course, before you part with your phone, remember to wipe it of all your personal data. Read the rest of this entry »

The mobile web in China has loopholes where content could go under the radar of government censors, analysts say.

“It could be anything else the government normally frowns upon or does not consider healthy, which could be political content to pornographic content,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting, a market research and strategy consultant firm.

Mobile phones in China have not escaped government control. Last December, nine Chinese ministries initiated a campaign, which ended in March, to crackdown on pornography transmitted via mobile networks.

Mobile carriers also began monitoring text messages for pornographic and other “illegal” content, blocking phone services to subscribers found to have sent such messages, state media reported in January. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft has launched a slimmer and more powerful Xbox 360.

Slimmer Xbox 360 going on sale this week

The new console - to be launched this week - will have the same price as the old system, but comes with Wi-Fi and a 250 GB HD.

It follows a similar move by Sony, which released its own slimmer edition in August 2009.

The announcement was made ahead of the E3 games convention in Los Angeles, at which the firm showcased its range of forthcoming games.

The event also saw the first public viewing of Call of Duty: Black Ops, the latest edition in the popular Call of Duty series.

The new edition is set during the Vietnam War and takes the players through the tunnels of South Vietnam and into the jungles of Laos.

The game will hit the shops on 9 November this year. Read the rest of this entry »

To anyone who uses Twitter, the word “tweet” is as natural as, well, a bird. But don’t expect to see it in The New York Times.

“Someday, ‘tweet’ may be as common as ‘e-mail,’ ” wrote Phil Corbett, the Times’ standards editor, in a memo this week, according to The Awl. But, for now, Corbett has nixed further use of the word — “outside of ornithological contexts,” he wrote.

The Times will stop using the word because “tweet” isn’t standard English, “and standard English is what we should use in news articles,” Corbett said.

Corbett noted that not everyone uses the micro-blogging site and therefore may not be familiar with what a “tweet” is.

After all, The New York Times always uses words people are familiar with, like “louche” and “shibboleths.” Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like James Bond, the 007? If yes, you will be surly in love with his watch also which is always there with him in every gathering and celebrity shows. It is the Rolex Day-Date. Like James Bond many other celebrities and high political officials love Rolex watches because the high prices, perfect looks, innovations and top quality material ensure a collar up effect among their fans and thus increase the respect and dignity in the hearts of people. Most of the fans love it to follow their ideals. There are many 007 and other celebrity fans who desire to wear a Rolex watch to feel like their ideal ones. But the factor of high prices is always there which inhibits them to enjoy the luxury feeling of a Rolex watch. Rolex Replica Watch has solved the problem for them and has given a chance to all of them to see their dreams come true. Today you will see every Bond lover wearing a replica Rolex Day-Date and if he would say that this is the watch which Bond was wearing in his recent show, you will never be able to unjustify him because he would be wearing the exact timepiece with no difference at all. Replica Rolex Day-Date is most famous among fans, students and all white collar professionals who require style and chronologically precise facts at the same time. Marvelous designs and day and date functions make a replica Rolex Day-Date the best choice for all men and women. The most prominent thing is the low price which replica Rolex Day-Date offers. As low as $150 this watch is quite easy to afford. When you are wearing it on, you are having the world in your pocket and if by chance you lose it, it will never be a great loss in monetary sense. So you should always prefer a replica Rolex Day-Date for yourself and your dear ones. Order today and enjoy the free facility of home delivery.

Editor’s Note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a Bay-Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

(CNN) — World Cup time is almost here — but can your cell carrier handle it?

Beginning Friday, millions of sports fans in the United States and around the world will be using their wireless mobile devices — smartphones, iPads and every kind of cell phone — to catch an amazing month of soccer (or football, depending where you live).

During the games, live mobile video coverage will be available from ESPN Mobile TV, Sprint TV, and other mobile carriers and media organizations. Plus, fans will be checking for World Cup photos, video highlights, commentary, scores, tweets and more.

This will be a watershed event — and a big challenge — for mobile carriers in the United States and abroad.

According to The Nielsen Company, 23 percent of U.S. soccer fans plan to follow the World Cup via mobile. Also, U.S. soccer fans who reported being less likely to watch live TV broadcasts of World Cup games are especially likely to use mobile devices to follow the games live. Read the rest of this entry »

During a recent commencement address at Hampton University in Virginia, Barack Obama described the way today’s internet-powered media environment “bombards us with all kinds of content.”

He warned students that iPads, Xboxes, and other popular digital gadgets can turn information into “a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment” rather than a means “of empowerment.”

As soon as the president’s remarks were made public, knees began jerking throughout the blogosphere.

One online pundit said that Obama sounded “like a grumpy old man.” Another suggested that in criticizing technology he was acting like an “old fogy.” Even the normally restrained Economist magazine rushed out an editorial accusing Obama of “technophobia” and “Luddism.”

By the reaction, you would have thought our BlackBerry-toting president had called for a return to horse-drawn carriages, outhouses, and whalebone corsets.

Instead of drawing ridicule, Obama’s words should have drawn our attention — and our concern.

Over the past decade, most of us have been dramatically ratcheting up the time we spend surfing the web, exchanging electronic messages, and hanging out in social networks like Facebook and MySpace. At the same time, we’ve been showering our kids with laptops, iPods, PlayStations and smartphones.

The average American today spends more than eight hours a day peering into a screen — TV, computer, or cell phone — and the average teen sends or receives well over 2,000 text messages a month. Read the rest of this entry »

Today more and more people choose cable or Internet Protocol Television instead of traditional satellite television or refuse from watching TV channels altogether as it is much easier to watch a movie or a television program recorded on a DVD-disk.

Choosing the programming provider you will find useful this overview of dish network. Below you will find a few important features that will help you decide whether you need this satellite provider or not.

To have excess to TV channels through dish network the sky above your house should be clear. Read the rest of this entry »

The HTC Desire is one of the hottest phones currently on the market and its popularity has led to shortages in stock levels. If you are planning to pick up a Desire with the intention of taking it abroad, then its roaming abilities should not disappoint. The Desire is compatible with the majority of international networking standards and its quad band compatibility means that it will operate well in both Europe and the USA. Selecting a network by hand or allowing the Desire to choose an appropriate foreign provider is open to preference and its simple, intuitive menu system with touch sensitive interactions should further simplify things. Read the rest of this entry »