Archive for December, 2009
Firefox 4, the latest offering by the Mozilla Foundation is well into development.
GUI Master Stephen Horlander has shown concept shots of the browser which seems to be heading in the direction of Chrome when it comes to look and feel.
Tabs are now accross the top with green loading bars accross each tab.
If you are on Vista or Windows 7, Aero is fully featured with the window space now being Aero Glass which definitely improves the look of Firefox tenfold.
The menu bar has gone and the top 25% of your window is now a lot more streamlined after losing the bars.
Considering 3.6 and 3.7 are deep in beta and alpha stages respectively, don’t expect to see the release any time soon!
New tech was announced today that on paper, draw a method for battery companies to create a working prototype of a Quantum based battery to replace the standard Lithium based battery on the market.
The idea behind the theory is that when batteries get to a certain minuscule size, in nanometers, the battery helps itself lowering limitations of methods that we use today.
The batteries, again in theory will beable to hold 10 times as much, and charge rapidly in comparison to the current range of cells available on the market today.
Gadget websites around the internet have finally managed to get a hold of the latest google phone.
The HTC Nexus One is now “The Google phone” and definatly looks the part.
It comes preloaded with the newest Google offerings, such as Google goggles and Google Navigation.
The phone has no keyboard like the G1, however the phone is a lot lighter and more streamlined because of it.
The larger screen and better multi-touch functions will help soften the blow of the lack of keyboard.
Those of you in America won’t be waiting too long to get a hold of the new phone, however if you are abroad, expect the typical delays before your nearest phone provider gets a hold of them.
Is this where gaming is headed?
Now Microsoft and Sony have announced tools which allow the same interaction that the wii offers, it seems that thsi may be the way gaming is going.
Family games seem to be bigger sellers at the moment, especially in the UK where game sales are dominated by wii titles and family friendly games from EA such as The Sims / EA’s new get fit brand etc.
Are the AAA Blockbuster, big action games decling enough for big publishers to stop focussing on them? Who knows, all I know is that I don’t want to spend my free time getting fit by playing imaginery tennis.
Tesco have recently added the iPhone to their range of mobile phone products on contract.
The basic package will be £20 a month with a £222 upfront payment on the phone. It will be a responce to Orange announcing they also are offering the phone and also Vodafone, who start selling the phone in Janurary 2010.
The value for money seems a lot better than the original O2 price which is welcome now some competition has come on to the market, removing that exclusivity they once had.
With Christmas coming up, now seems like a great time to jump on the iPhone bandwagon!
Recently E-Book readers have been the talk of the gadget world. With big retail shops starting to push sales, including Amazons own Kindle product, it comes at no surprise that they are one of the must have gadgets this Christmas.
The popular products include:
- Barnes and Noble Nook
- Amazon Kindle
- Sony E-Reader
All of these have one thing in common and that is they aren’t cheap. They start at around $250 and rise depending on the size of the screen.
All of these have similar format support for yourE-Books and each one has a similar subscription system for the purchasing of books, which download straight to your Readers device.
At the moment we recommend the Kindle for the Large Amazon range of books available and the flexible subscription system.
Thats the news this X-mas, with these smaller and less powerful laptops getting cheaper and cheaper.
From £250-300 you can pick up a quite well specced netbook which is capable of all your office / photo collection work.
By having a 12-13″ screen and a decent battery, netbooks are famed for having very long battery life times when you are out on the move. Used to 2-3 hours? Well with a larger 8 cell battery expect netbooks to last upwards of 11 hours or more.
If your loved one is asking for a new laptop for x-mas, why not consider a netbook? They certainly look the part.
As you may of noticed recently, there are a lot of GPS related phone app’s. From the usual Tom-Tom’s to Garmin, to the more lesser known, navicon and recently Googles offering.
They all have one thing in common except one stand out, which is that they all cost ALOT. The Tom Tom iPhone cradle is 100£ and the app itself with UK and Ireland only is 69.99£.
Google Navigation on the other hand is free. Once Navigation makes it too the iPhone and possibly Blackberry / Windows Mobile, it makes you wonder if this influx of other GPS apps will survive.
Only time will tell, and Navigation has to get through Apples content approval first!
The latest rumours to emerge from Apple insiders is that the Apple tablet will feature a 10″ LCD screen of a 9″ OLED screen which was found from dealings with LG.
If this is true, you can expect the OLED version of the tablet to be significantly more expensive due to the technology being relatively new and still exclusive for sizes bigger than a mobile phone. For example the Sony 15″ OLED screen is around £5500.
It is still unclear whether the tablet in question will sport the iPhones OS or a modified version of OS X.
Stay tuned for more Apple info!
Here at Power Keys we want to provide you with not all the latest gadget news, but also our own opinions on all the new tech including their successes and failings.
We are massive technology fans and want to bring our experience to the table to give you the best purchase ideas and consumer advice we can.
In the upcoming months we will be bringing you all the latest news from the biggest tech events and talking you through essential purchases of the season.
So remember to bookmark us and check back soon!