Apple Responds to Over Heating iPhones in France

It comes as a suprise but Apple has responded that the iPhones were damaged by an external force and not by over heating. Reports of iPhones exploding, starting fires and killing people in cold blood have been around since the inception of the handset. They've also been relatively sporadic, seemingly short on evidence, and Apple hasn't given complaints much credence or response. So when we heard a story from France the other day about a security guard's iPhone "exploding" and sending a shard of glass into his eye (though apparently not serious enough to warrant a hospital visit), it was a little hard to believe, but with a few other stories of cracking screens due to overheating cropping up in Europe over the past couple weeks, French authorities have taken an interest in the story. Anecdotally, a teen says his phone "imploded" in Belgium and gave him a headache, a woman's phone cracked without warning, and ten or so victims in France have come forward to complain of similar problems, picking up the interest of a French consumer watchdog group. Apple is naturally not new to the concept of overheating in its battery-powered devices -- in fact, it's just entered into its first full-on iPod nano recall in Korea of the 1st-gen players after numerous reports of battery faultiness worldwide -- but with 26 million iPhones out and about, and the iPhone 3GS tending to run a bit hotter than its siblings, a systemic problem with one or all models of the handsets isn't something consumers or Apple would take lightly.
Herve Novelli, France's top trade official, met with Apple France's Michel Coulomb today to discuss the problem, and so far Apple is sticking to its guns: it claims that reported incidents are in the single digits, and that all cases it's investigated fully so far have turned out to be blamed on "external force" to the screen. Herve and Michel seem to have parted on friendly terms, promising to keep in touch over the issue, and the EU's alert system for dangerous consumer products (inexplicably dubbed RAPEX) is staying in the loop as well, asking the 27 member nations to keep tabs on the situation. Novelli says it's "too early to blame anyone," and we'd have to agree, but we hope Apple keeps up the (freshly) open communication about this issue going forward.A number of iPhones that reportedly "exploded" in France were not due to the battery overheating as had been suggested, Apple has said.

Nokia N900

Yes guys Nokia N900 now giving Germany and Italy a way to pre-order. We have talked about the Nokia N900 a few times already and we know most of the details of the device. The N900 will be the first Nokia mobile phone to run Maemo, which is Linux derived. I can say that the N900 is the first Nokia handset that I have found particularly appealing in a long time. Now that Nokia's Maemo-powered N900 is looking mighty nice and official, the company's Germany and Italian arms have no problem going ahead and taking your hard-earned Euros in exchange for a pre-order. Both sites are actually listing it for €599 (US $860), or €99 more than what we heard yesterday. A pretty huge discrepancy, to be sure, but it's not unlike Nokia to have a flagship phone fluctuate in price. That October release date is a ways off, but if you're absolutely convinced this must be in your pocket by Halloween, you know where to go.

Nokia has said that the device is expected to ship this October at a price of about €500. If you live in Germany you can pre-order the device right now directly from Nokia for €599,00. Italian N900 hopefuls can also grab a pre-order today at the same price. There is no word on availability or pre-orders in other countries at this time.

Atlast Windows 7 upgrade options will be available in Europe

It was on debate for so long if Windows 7 will make it to Europe or not. But atlast the upgrade option will be given to users across Europe for the ease of not having to buy a new DVD to install a fresh copy. From engaget.com it is quit obvious that this option will be available but for a shirt while. They state that without the Europe-specific browserless version clouding things up, Microsoft was freed to offer in-place upgrades to current Vista users, and it has sagely done exactly that. The October 22 release date will see both full and upgrade versions available on European shelves, and the UK Home Premium upgrade has been priced at £79.99 (MSRP), which is set to jump to £99.99 on January 1. If you're quick, you can currently pre-order the full version for the lower price from the MS online store. The Family Pack option also makes a welcome appearance, costing £149.99 to upgrade three machines, but it too will be a limited time offer.

iPhone 3GS capable of 1080p video playback

WoW, now this is one hell of a news. People on the internet playing around with what the GS can do have come up with something really interesting. 1080 playback baby ! Yes ! Who needs a big expensive tv when you can play the same thing on this mini phone, or in other words the MONSTER iPhone :P ! People over at engaget.com states that We always suspected the iPhone 3GS was capable of 1080p HD video playback, and now we've got proof. Although Apple lists the iPhone 3Gs's max video playback res at just 640x480, iLounge linked to Chinese forum post claiming that the 3GS could do 30Mbps 1080p playback earlier today -- and when we saw that the only thing we needed to do to test it out was download the free FileAid app, well, you know how we've just spent the last 20 minutes. We tested out a bunch of HD trailers from Apple's QuickTime trailer site, some videos we shot with a Lumix DMC-GH1 and some other random videos with general success, but there were some major hiccups: high bitrate 720p video off the GH1 stuttered during playback, and loading the Avatar trailer consistently crashed the phone's audio driver until we restarted.
We tried the same thing on an iPhone 3G and just got error messages at almost every resolution, so it seems like it's a combination of the 3GS's extra horsepower and different built-in software at work here -- software that's clearly not ready for prime-time, as evidenced by the bugs. We're hoping Apple is polishing that up and getting to unlock this functionality, since it'd be sweet to just plug into an HDTV and play video -- anyone listening out there in Cupertino?

iPhone OS 3.0 bug surfaces!!!

Yes folks.. a new iPhone bug has surfaced and this time thi bug allows u to see deleted emails. Now this bug is really dangerous. Imagine you deleted your private emails and then you hand over your cell to one of your mates to check it out. He searches for something and your emails pop out which are still accessible from the iPhone search. One searious bug iPhone developers should look into. First the SMS bug and now this one. No beta testing done before realeasing a FW off in the market? Well we have to think where our privacy is going. Just my opinion, yous guys share yours. We've heard whispers its fixed in iPhone OS 3.1, but until there's a confirmed fix we'll be using the Gmail web interface.

Ipod Touch With a Camera - A Reality ?

Ipod Touch With a Camera - A Reality ? Well from the leaked pictures that can be found all over the internet , it seems likely that the next gen iPod will have a camera as well. The pics dont seem like a photoshopped thing and looks authentic. So in the end what would remain a slight difference between a iPhone and a iPod is that one can receive calls where as other cant, and also with that , a HUGE price difference and a 2 year old contract. What if a few months later some hackers find a way to add a mic and GSM module to the iPod which already has all the specifications of iPhone? Its not far away when we will be having our own iPod to iPhone transformer :D !

The Solar Jacket - Electiricity on the Move

Ever wondered that you could be a battery yourself? Literally speaking I was amused when I saw the Solar Jacket picture. From the picutre it is quite clear that it can be used for any low to mid powered elecrtic suppliance i.e. cell, laptop, camera etc. The Vest is not only a fashionable Vest, but also your reliable assistant for charging the electronic devices of all kinds, when all power sockets are out of reach. Vest is equipped with 4 safely protected weather proof solar panels. You can pull these panels out and leave in the sun - if you are working or relaxing than put it in the open air.

The principle of this clothing is as follows: These Solar panels absorbs solar energy and accumulate it in a battery located in the front left pocket. When any of your equipment needs to be recharged, just connect it to the battery. The Solar Vest contains useful tools and electronic parts for managing the solar energy, in its pockets, as well as cables with a variety of power connectors. It fits almost any mobile phone, laptop, camera etc. This usefull THING can be purchased for $140 dollars only.

Google on Twitter

Are you a google lover ? didn't you find the google in twitter ? Google published a list of twitter accounts in various products. Just follow them to Get live updates. Even though Twitter was attacked 2 days back, there is no harm visiting and updating your accounts on twitter because the fols over at twitter took care of the attack as soon as their systems were breached. So here is the list for most of the Google Accounts on Twitter.

twitter.com/Google - our central account
twitter.com/Blogger - for Blogger fans
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar - user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleImages - news, tips, tricks on our visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews - latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleReader - from our feed reader team
twitter.com/iGoogle - news & notes from Google's personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents - news of interest to students using Google
twitter.com/YouTube - for YouTube fans
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork - solutions for IT and workplace productivity

Geo-related
twitter.com/SketchUp - Google SketchUp news
twitter.com/3DWH - SketchUp's 3D Warehouse
twitter.com/Modelyourtown - 3D modeling to build your favorite places
twitter.com/EarthOutreach - Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs
twitter.com/GoogleMaps - uses, tips, mashups
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky


Ads-related
twitter.com/AdSense - for online publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsHelper - looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues
twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah - Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum
twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics - insights for website effectiveness
twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder - re building display ads
twitter.com/GoogleRetail - for retail advertisers
twitter.com/TechnologyUK - for U.K. tech advertisers
twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE - for German AdWords customers
twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE - for German ad agencies
twitter.com/AdSensePT - info for Portuguese-language publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsRussia - AdWords news & tips in Russian
twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords - Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog
twitter.com/AdWordsAPI - AdWords API tips

Developer & technical
twitter.com/GoogleResearch - from our research scientists
twitter.com/GoogleWMC - Google Webmaster Central
twitter.com/GoogleCode - latest updates for Google developer products
twitter.com/GoogleData - Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data
twitter.com/app_engine - web apps run on Google infrastructure
twitter.com/DataLiberation - our initiative for complete import/export of all data
twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI - about using Google Maps embedded in websites
twitter.com/GoogleIO - Google's largest annual developer event

Culture, People
twitter.com/googletalks - notes from our @Google speaker series
twitter.com/googlejobs - the voice of Google recruiters

Country or Region
twitter.com/googlearabia - news from the Google Arabia Blog*

twitter.com/googledownunder - Google activities in Australia & New Zealand
twitter.com/GoogleDE - Google in Germany
twitter.com/GoogleLatAm - Latin America (en Espanol)
twitter.com/GooglePolicyIt - Notes on Google policy issues in Italy

Update: Additions indicated by *
Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog & Twitter Team

Nokia RX-51 tablet

This is a picture of Nokia RX-51, coming out of wild, with no details. The so called cell companies are try their best to put every thing in to a pocket sized device. A day will come when you will only need a cell phone and nothing else, because it would be able to cater all your gadget needs. The pace at which technology is advancing, it looks like the ultimate is not so far away.

Not long at all after that mysterious Nokia RX-51 passed through the FCC comes shots from Indonesian message board Kaskus of the tablet-like device in the wild. The blurred box shot and the label behind the battery clearly say RX-51 prototype, and the design is unmistakably similar to the rumored press photo for the Maemo 5-powered Rover from back in May.

Logitech replaces G5 with Gaming Mouse G500

Say bye bye to the good old days where getting a G5 was one of the best things for a gamer. Logittech has thrown in G500 instead of G5 now, which offers more sexy appeal, the look worth a minute. The buttons, as can be seen from the picture, has been reshaped and replaced with accordance to the new world order ;). As the demand for gaming gear increases,the competition for the best on the market becomes more aggresive.

911 accepting TEXT/SMS as well !!!

Yes guys, its TRUE! 911 has introduced call for help through text. All you have to do is write 911 and send it to 911 ... but when ur in an emergency or stuck somewhere, can you really write a text? As far as I think this move by the 911ers is just to attract more fame and attraction in the market where all the buzz is being taken by iPhones, Palms, Googls OS, Win 7 and the list goes on for the high end computer freaks. So how do we rate this? Is it a good move or a bad one? No one know yet! Will it be utilised for what it has been introduced for or what. We will have to wait and see for ourselfs.

Sony announces 2TB Memory Stick XC

Not even a day has passed since I posted about the Toshiba 64 GB memory card, Sony has stuck back by announcing specs for its 2 TB Memory stick, yes you read it right its 2 TB MEMORY !!! Ever wondered what we are supposed to do with this much memory? As far for my calculations I think there are not even 1 % computers out there in the world which has 1 TB space in them, and with this stick a cell phone can have this much amount of memory?

Looks like next thing we will see would be hardcore gaming machine in a soda can size! As appearing on Sony's oss-formats.org site, the Memory Stick XC keeps the current form factor for memory sticks (most likely these guys will be backwards compatible) with the XC series (XC Duo, XC-HG Duo, XC Micro (M2 XC), XC-HG Micro (M2 XC-HG)) using the exFAT file system, and the PRO series (including the PRO Duo, PRO-HG Duo, Micro (M2), HG Micro (M2-HG)) using the tried and true FAT12/16/32

Kensington's iPhone / iPod charger with a MINI BATTERY !!!

So now we get some extra life! Yes, Kensington has introduecd a charger which also gives you iPhone a life support ... Extra battery that you can connect to your iPhone and use it on the go! If you thought that there was no solution for the low battery life or you were having problems with your iPhone or iPods battery, this is a must have for all of you. The Charging Dock with Mini Battery Pack, which not only charges your dock connecting iPod or iPhone, but also energizes an external battery pack through the same USB cable is up for pre-order now for $69.99.

Toshiba's 64GB SDXC Card coming in December !!!

There were days when we used to see 64, 128 or at max 256 mb cards for our digital cameras and cell phones. As can be seen from the picture below, Toshiba is going to introduce 64 GB SDXC card in this coming December. So much for 4 and 8 gigs? From what we can see at the same time last year we were talking about the 16 and 32 GB ones, the computer vendors have slowed down the pace to introduce this mega-mem small-size card in to the market.
From the competition out there I think it wont take alot for the 1 TB cards to arrive, No? Well lets say....2 years at max?