Reg Hardware

14th February 2006 Archive

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  • Apple drops Intel Mac Mini's built-in iPod dock

    Eleventh-hour decision, sources claim

    Upcoming Intel-based Mac Minis will not sport an integrated iPod dock, a variety of sources said to be familiar with Apple's plans have claimed. Such a move was predicted late last year, with the precedent of discoveries made in March 2005 that the computer had the internal connections necessary for a built-in dock. So might …

    Mac 14 Feb 2006, 10:00

  • Windows Vista boot times to pass by in a Flash

    USB memory keys to accelerate app, data loads too

    Windows Vista will give the NAND Flash market a big kick when it ships, Samsung has claimed, thanks to technology integrated into the new Microsoft operating system that will allow USB Flash drives to expand a PC's main memory bank, along with support for Flash caches in hard drives to accelerate boot times. The upshot: …

    Bits 'n' Chips 14 Feb 2006, 10:37

  • NEC preps 'perfume bottle' media player

    Sports 'liquid gui', apparently

    We've heard of designing gadgets for girls, but NEC's latest music and movie player takes the cake. Preferring not to spray the device metallic pink, the technique favoured for other female-friendly toys, the company has instead styled the 30GB hard drive-based VoToL PK-MV300 after a perfume bottle. The VoToL sports a 2.7in …

    Media players 14 Feb 2006, 11:19

  • Firm launches 'world's smallest' external HDD

    USB key packs in 0.85in 4GB drive

    Japanese peripherals specialist Elecom has introduced what it claims is the world's smallest external hard drive. Its MF-DU204G packs in 4GB of storage capacity yet is sufficiently small to warrant its own, integrated USB connector. The secret? The use of a bus-powered 0.85in HDD, Elecom said. The drive is packed into a …

    Gadgets and Gizmos 14 Feb 2006, 11:43

  • Intel 'to halve' Pentium D 950 price next April

    Other 65nm dualies to get much cheaper ahead of 960's debut

    Intel will slash its Pentium D 9xx processor prices by up to 50 per cent on 23 April in a bid to get buyers to make the move to dual-core platforms, it has been claimed. The move will precede the launch of the 3.6GHz Pentium D 960, which recently popped up on the chip giant's latest roadmap update. The 960 will debut on 30 …

    Channel Register 14 Feb 2006, 12:02

  • Seagate to spin a 12GB 1in HDD in Q3

    Perpendicular recording

    Seagate yesterday not only pledged to ship a 12GB 1in hard disk drive in Q3, it also promised the drive would ship in a much smaller casing than its current 1in HDD line-up does and consume two-thirds of the power. What's more, the drive incorporates perpendicular recording technology, the company said. Seagate's 14g ST1.3 is …

    Gadgets and Gizmos 14 Feb 2006, 13:00

  • Motorola promises 3G Q PDA phone for Q4

    3GSM Ready for network testing then, at least

    Motorola's would-be BlackBerry-beater, the Q, will ship by the end of the first quarter, the company promised yesterday, before going on to announce a 3G version of the QWERTY keyboard-equipped PDA phone. The wait for the UMTS model will be longer: even the networks won't get their hands on it until "late Q4". Earlier this …

    Phones 14 Feb 2006, 13:26

  • Apple gears up to ship MacBook Pro with CPU speed boost

    Notebooks now running at up to 2.16GHz

    When it launched the MacBook Pro in January, Apple said it would begin shipping the Intel Core Duo-based notebook this month. Today, it narrowed the timeframe down to this week, but compensated patiently waiting purchasers with a processor upgrade, bumping the original 1.67GHz and 1.83GHz standard models to 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz …

    Mac 14 Feb 2006, 15:59

  • BenQ hails 'super 3G' phone first

    3GSM Claims first showing of an HSDPA handset

    BenQ Mobile this week took the wraps off what it claims is the first 3G handset equipped with support for the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) data transfer boosting technology. The BenQ-Siemens EF91 won't ship until the Summer, by which time there should be a number of HSDPA-enabled handsets. The EF91 sports a 2in …

    Phones 14 Feb 2006, 16:31

  • Motorola readies Windows Media music phone line-up

    Apple relationship souring?

    Motorola is to produce a line of Windows Media Audio-based music phones, the company said this week, as an alternative to the iTunes-equipped handsets it already offers in partnership with Apple. The two product lines will remain separate, Motorola claimed. Up to three WMA handsets are scheduled to ship in H2, Reuters reports …

    Phones 14 Feb 2006, 17:04

  • 400,000 Sony Bravia TVs hit by software flaw

    Affected models stuck in stand-by

    Sony has admitted a faulty batch of Bravia-branded LCD and rear-projection TVs has made it into the wild. Around 400,000 sets may carry a software bug that could prevent them from being turned off after a cumulative 1,200 hours in stand-by mode. The TVs won't switch out of stand-by mode at that point, either. Sony said …

    Gadgets and Gizmos 14 Feb 2006, 17:40

  • PalmOS goes Linux - again

    3GSM Garnet successor due by year-end

    PalmSource today unveiled its future OS as the Access Linux Platform (ALP), and this time it really means it. It's been a tumultuous year. At the last 3GSM, PalmSource was talking about moving PalmOS 6.0, aka Cobalt, to a Linux kernel. But a change in strategy, which led to the abrupt departure of CEO Dave Nagel last May, saw a …

    Phones 14 Feb 2006, 17:49