bintang-lima.com

ASUS hasn’t exactly been tight-lipped about its DR-950 e-reader — you know, with it outing photos and all — but apparently the 9-inch E Ink, touchscreen reading device will be ready for buyers in April. ASUS told the guys at Electric Pig that it’s currently in process of shopping around for content partners, but plans to have the e-reader to market by springtime with a price tag in the range of £250 (about $354). Not too bad, though it’s tough to get too jazzed about a black-and-white model with the OLED color DR-570 version on the horizon.

When it comes to claims of being the world’s first or fastest, there’s a big difference between announcing product and actually delivering it for retail. So let’s be clear, SanDisk might be announcing the world’s fastest 32GB SDHC card today, but it won’t be shipping until August. It’s not even the first 32GB class 10 SDHC card announced since Panasonic did its unveiling more than a month ago — and this is where SanDisk’s speed claims get confusing. That “class 10″ logo is supposed to be a standard means of identify the card’s speed as rated by the SD Association. Yet SanDisk claims a max read/write speed of 30MBps whereas Panasonic claims a max of just 22MBps. Guess we’ll have to see head-to-head benchmarks to know the truth. Regardless, it is fast and that makes it suitable for capturing 160 minutes of full HD (1920×1080 pixels) video recorded at 24Mbps.

It’s crazy, we know. Just hours after hearing shockingly believable whispers that Apple’s white-hot iPhone 3G could be sashaying over to Verizon Wireless, in flies a Wall Street Journal report asserting that the suits in Redmond are (also?) in talks with America’s largest carrier. ‘Course, we’ve heard rumors that Microsoft was banging out a smartphone behind closed doors for centuries now, but much to our chagrin, there’s no mention of “Zune” in “Project Pink.” Instead, we’re told that said handset is a touchscreen-based multimedia phone that will aim to extend the Windows Mobile OS while “adding new software capabilities.” Not surprisingly, the article also mentions that Windows Marketplace would be front and center on the phone, and potentially most interesting is this tidbit: “a third-party is expected to make the device.” Hey HTC — seen any strange calls originating from the 425?

Make no mistake, that thing you see pictured above definitely looks no nicer than $2,000, but hey, at least it actually is just $2,000. Indian Autos Blog was on hand at the Tata Nano’s official unveiling in Mumbai, and naturally, it fired off a number of images to share with those of us not able to hop a flight to see it in person. The car is set to take showrooms around the nation by storm starting this Wednesday, but for those of us stuck elsewhere on the planet just longing for a (new) beater car for under two large, the pics in the links will simply have to suffice.

We’d already heard that ASUS had been invited to join the Open Handset Alliance, and DigiTimes is now reporting that the company is, in fact, planning to launch an Android-based handset — go figure. That phone, some unnamed company sources say, will roll out sometime in the first half of 2009 (we’re guessing late first half), and could possibly be released in Taiwan first under ASUS’ own brand before making its way overseas in the form of different “customized models” for various clients. Of course, any other details are non-existent at this point, but those same sources did also note that ASUS will be phasing out its use of the Ericsson Mobile Platform (or EMP) in its phones in favor of handset platforms from Qualcomm and Marvell, which is interesting insofar as that both Qualcomm and Marvell are members of the OHA, while Ericsson is not.

There’s certainly no shortage of eye-catching iPod docks / speaker systems to choose from, but this new so-called AeroSystem is the only one to get Jean-Michel Jarre’s stamp of approval, and that’s enough to get at least a few folks to take notice (though we’ll personally stick with our Joy Division Zune). In addition to being a conversation starter, the speaker unit also look to be capable enough audio-wise, with it packing two 20W RMS speakers and a 45W RMS subwoofer into its retro-inspired enclosure, plus a USB port and a 3.5mm jack to complement the requisite iPod dock connector. As far as these things go, it’s also not too ridiculously expensive, with it running €450 (or close to $580), though you’ll likely spend a bit more than that if you hope to get one of these out of France.

It’s somewhat difficult to believe that the Access Linux Platform (also referred to as ALP) still has proponents out there, but apparently, Edelweiss could be gearing up to launch what would be the very first ALP-powered handset available on the open market. Slated to launch exclusively in Russia, the touchscreen-driven smartphone would boast a 3.5-inch 854 x 480 resolution screen, quad-band GSM / tri-band UMTS support, 8GB / 16GB of internal capacity, GPS and a 3.2-megapixel camera with Auto Focus. Word around the block has it that the device was actually designed by Emblaze and will eventually be manufactured by Sharp, but that’s if the teaser site actually leads to anything tangible.

The Touch-screen phone market is getting crowded. While HTC is trying to catch up Apple’s iPhone with HTC Touch phones, another Taiwanaese company, Asustek is set to launch Asus P552w touch-sceen phone that looks very alike to HTC Touch.

The P552w, which was unveiled on September 5, features the latest Asustek-grown 3D touch user interface, the Glide, which is able to perform functions similar to the HTC-grown 3D TouchFLO technology, the noted the observers.
Asustek is expected to start volume shipments of the P552w in the fourth quarter of this year, compared to the first quarter of this year as originally planned, the observers indicated.

With HTC already shipping over three million HTC Touch phones and another one million HTC Diamond phones, Asustek’s pricing and its strategy to cooperate with telecom operators will be critical to the success of the P552w, said the industry watchers.

In the meanwhile, HTC is set to launch HTC Opal, a 3G version of HTC Touch phone. The HTC Opal is powered by Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP 850 200MHz processor and is running on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, which is identical to the OS of the Asus P552w, indicated the observers.

Dear BCA Card Member,
BCA Card Installments available now at Our Shops.