Tech News Daily

Cell phone use probed as cause of fatal crash
Investigators are looking at cell phone use as a possible cause of a crash Wednesday in Sardinia that killed a young Holland man, an Erie County sheriff’s deputy said Thursday.
Read more on The Buffalo News

Cell Phone Store Owner Busted For Secretly Taping Boys
The owner of an Ossining, NY, cell phone outlet was accused of videotaping a sex act between himself and an 11-year-old boy, but now faces more charges after police discovered he was using a hidden camera in the store to tape multiple boys while they used the store’s bathroom.
Read more on WPIX 11 New York

Logitech–one of the leading keyboard and mouse manufacturers has just released a new keyboard called the K800. The main feature of this product is that it is illuminated, making it perfect for gamers and anyone who prefer to work or play in the dark.

Moreover, it is also wireless, which is an advantage as long as the receiver is strong enough to receive signals from reasonably long distances. That way it can also be used as a media or HTPC keyboard for hooking up to your television.

Silicon Graphics delays 4Q earnings release
Silicon Graphics International Corp. said Monday it will delay its fourth-quarter earnings report to Aug. 31 from Aug. 17 in order to switch accounting methods.
Read more on AP via Yahoo! Finance

Integrated Graphics Card allows local cloning of remote output.
Featuring passive cooling, 512 MB on-board graphics memory, and direct mapping support, ATI FirePro(TM) RG220 compresses dual-display graphic data at host and outputs it over regular IP network to remote thin client device. Card provides true PC experience with full multi-monitor 3D and video support while helping to safeguard workstation-created IP with data protection for transactions. Via …
Read more on ThomasNet

Snow Leopard graphics update addresses frame rate issues
Apple has released a graphics update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The download brings stability and performance improvement for a variety of applications and games. Frame rate issues have been addressed in Portal and Team Fortress 2 on certain Macs, while a crash bug has been fixed in Aperture 3 and StarCraft II…. Apple – Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Mac OS X – Team Fortress 2 – Operating system
Read more on MacNN

Here’s some good news for Star Wars fans and home theater enthusiasts: in 2011, all six Star Wars movies will make it to Blu-ray, and Darth Vader can finally be enjoyed in perfect 1080p HD resolution. George Lucas dropped the bomb at the Star Wars conference in Orlando, Florida, in the company with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher no less.

“Blu-ray is the absolute best way to experience Star Wars at home,” said George Lucas and added that “films have never seen and sounds better.” There have been previous rumors about Star Wars on Blu-ray, but this is the first time that George Lucas officially announced plans for all the six movies. George Lucas could not give an exact launch date, but revealed that it is the already restored ‘Special edition’ editions of the films that will arrive on blue discs. The originals would require too much work, was the explanation.

Furthermore, Star Wars fans can look forward to “comprehensive extras, including documentaries, old peeks behind the camera, interviews, flashbacks and never-before-seen footage from the archives.” George Lucas surprised by also showcasing a recreated scene from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. This is a 50 seconds scene where we see Darth Vader talking to Luke Skywalker, who has started to assemble his lightsaber just before he enters the palace to confront Jabba the Hutt.

The scene was originally meant to be included in the movie and made it all the way through post production before it was removed. You can watch the scene right away or save the excitement for the Blu-ray release.

Who’d have thunk it? No more bad hair days with this luxury version of a hair dryer by Babyliss–”Volare” is a real bad boy among hair dryers. It is powered by an engine manufactured by Ferrari, allegedly for higher wind power, less vibration and longer life span than competing hairdryers.

The “engine” in the hair dryer has an output of 2200W, which gives you an air speed of 130km/h and an airflow of 95m3/h. The claimed life span of the engine is at least 2000 hours, which is about four times as much as a traditional hair dryer.Babyliss Volare is available in two sizes, normal size and compact. It is available in both traditional Ferrari red and black colors. The price is high for a hair dryer, but can you really put a monetary value on a bad hair day?

Certus Semiconductor Joins IPextreme’s Constellations Program
IPextreme®, Inc., the company bringing famous IP (intellectual property) to SoC (system-on-chip) designers worldwide and Certus Semiconductor, a leading provider of IO and ESD design solutions, have announced the inclusion of Certus Semiconductor in IPextreme’s Constellations™ program.
Read more on PRWeb via Yahoo! News

National Semiconductor Introduces Industry’s First Analog Design Tools in Japanese, Chinese Languages
National Semiconductor Corp. today announced that its award-winning WEBENCH® Designer tools are now available both online and offline in Japanese and Simplified Chinese languages.  Since its introduction in 1999, expert and novice electronic and mechanical engineers worldwide have used WEBENCH to create over 1.5 million analog designs cost-free and quickly.
Read more on PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance

It’s not every day you see such a small computer with two screens. But Toshiba W100 is not your everyday notebook. Toshiba has just unveiled their bid for a small and clever computer, the W100. Having two screens on a PC is not a new phenomenon, but we have not seen it pulled off this neatly before. The concept laptop is reminiscent of Nintendo’s popular portable game console, but the difference is that this is a thoroughbred computer.

Both displays on the Libretto W100 are seven inches with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels and the bottom touch screen can be used as keyboard. It is even possible to control it with one hand. The machine runs Windows 7 and is equipped with two batteries, although they still only allow the W100 to run for two to four hours depending on what you do with it.

To get your hands on one of these babies you should be ready to pay 124,800 yen plus shipping, as it’s only available in Japan so far. That gets you a computer with a 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium U5400 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD.

Over at Macrumors, they have apparently been able to get their hands on a new Mac Pro. As you can see here on the left, the inside of the machine looks incredibly tight and clean, and this is the bulkiest model. Macrumors’ initial benchmarks show that it is a really fast and hence a nice machine. However, they have not managed to get less convincing results in gaming benchmarks. The conclusion is that the game in question (Portal) is not optimized to take advantage of all the 12 cores in the new Mac Pro. In Cinebench and Geekbench, however, the results are as impressive as you’d expect.

Recession hits smartphone makers in the chips
The seemingly recession-proof smartphone is suffering from a side effect of the rough economy: Manufacturers simply can’t build enough of the gadgets because chip-makers that rolled back production last year are now scrambling to play catch-up.
Read more on Denver Post

McAfee Brings Smartphone Security Chops to Intel
McAfee recently acquired two companies that develop smartphone security software for enterprise customers.
Read more on TheStreet.com

Asian Smartphone Market To Grow Over Next Five Years
An industry report released on Monday says that smartphones will make up over half of Asian mobile phone sales by 2015, with 477 million units likely to be sold. Consultancy Frost and Sullivan said 54 percent of the Asia-Pacific mobile market will account for smartphones for the next five years. The consultancy said that the increase of smartphone sales will be a huge revenue boost for telecom …
Read more on redOrbit

Qualcomm is readying a new super chip for smartphones and tablets that should find its way into the first models before the holiday season. Do you have the new Samsung Galaxy S in your pocket and consoder your cell phone really quick to obey your every command? Just wait, you have not seen anything yet. The Galaxy S has only a single 1GHz processor to play with, but the new Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, the QSD8672, has two cores–each operating at an entire 1.5 gigahertz.

The processor is not just 50 percent faster in terms of clock frequency, but it can also work in tandem and should thus provide a more fluid experience, for example when you are messing with multiple simultaneous apps and tasks on your mobile. The extra speed means that developers can get started with even more sophisticated apps and games that are similar to what we know from game consoles.

But does the new hardware also lower battery life? Not necessarily. According to Qualcomm, the QSD8672 will automatically turn off one core if there is no need for it. Furthermore the processor supports displays with up to 1440 x 900 pixel resolution and can also record and play back video at up to 1080p HD resolution. So there is nothing in the way for competitors to create a smartphone with a better screen than the iPhone 4 and include a video camera with Full HD resolution.