It’s very tricky to write gadget articles on April’s Fools, but of all of the “announcements” today, this was one of the most interesting one. It’s basically an addon that attaches itself to your cellphone to give it better zoom capabilities. Although this isn’t impossible to do, it’s certainly unconventional. And given how slowly cellphones take pictures, this would require complete stillness in order to achieve decent results. Fake or not, it’s an interesting concept, although I don’t think it’s well suited for this generation of camera phones. I think we’re still a couple of years away before our camera phones achieve semi-professional quality, and a couple of years from Read more »

In a very rare move, Microsoft recently unveiled a plethora of screenshots that showed early interface prototypes. Some of them feel closer to Office 2k3′s interface, and some of them are even “wilder” than the Ribbon interface that they ended up adopting in the end. Read on to see more pictures of how the interface evolved through it’s development. Read more »

An interesting article emerged today about some of the features that Google lost, or had to drop, over the years. While the tendency back then was to see more and more applications and projects emerging, not all of them worked out. One of the smallest, but most beloved projects, was Google X, a small homage to Mac OS X. It was a basic Google homepage but with a Mac OS inspired bar on top of the search field with icons that increased, very much in the way that the bar works in the Apple OS. You can still find some mirrors on the internet, though they keep receiving cease-and-desist letters. Read more »

When the first MP3 players emerged iRiver was the most popular brand of music players. I still know a couple of people who own their first (or second) CD players that could read MP3-format files. Unfortunately for them, Apple’s dominance, and the lack of innovation in their products, brought them down to the level of the other less-known DAP manufacturers. The iRiver E100 is the latest offer from them, but, despite their efforts, it lands closer to Microsoft’s new flash-based Zune players than Apple’s dominant iPod Nanos. Read more »

As promised in my previous article, hats off to Microsoft for standing by their word and bringing us a standards compliant browser. When the final version is released web designers and developers everywhere will gradually have a much easier task in making their websites render properly in most of the popular browsers. Microsoft could have comfortably leave IE8 as an IE7 look alike that it standards compliant, but they went a step forward and actually brought something new to the browser industry, which will surely be mimicked in a near future in the form of an extension for everyone’s favorite fiery browser. To start things off, one of the things Read more »

As I mentioned yesterday, the Macbook Air helped raise the interest in extremely small and light portable computers (not those “computers” that Nokia is selling). Despite how well the sales are going, there’s another device that has been grabbing, or should I say “stealing”, the headlines from tech websites all around: the Asus EEE. While Apple chose to compete with Sony’s expensive ultra-portable laptops, the TZ series; Asus came up with a device that is almost as small and only costs a fraction of the price, in exchange for weaker specifications. One of our own ForeverGeek editors, Mel, has an Asus EEE and enjoys it greatly, and the only real Read more »

Every few years Microsoft announces some new project or technology that makes me think “I think they’ll get it right this time”. Vista, or should I say Longhorn was one of those said examples, until they decided to scrap the new file system they were working on. Internet Explorer 7 also seemed like one of those examples, until the improved compatibility with web standards proved to be disappointing. And here we are now with Internet Explorer 8, that has already passed the Acid test and aims to be come a fully standards-compliant browser: We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it Read more »

Whether you love, hate or feel indifferent about the Macbook Air, there’s no denying that it helped strike interest in the, otherwise “dull”, market of ultra portable laptops. After a few months of development Samsung finally announced it’s new ultra portable that packs better specifications than the Macbook but fails when in comparison to Apple’s sleek design. This Samsung P200 comes with a Radeon Xpress 1250, and although you won’t be able to play Crysis with it, it certainly does a better job at handling graphics than the Macbook Air’s Intel chip. The screen is a widescreen 12.1 inches one, and has an incorporated 1.3 Megapixel camera. The battery life Read more »

It’s news like this that make me feel like hell has gotten a bit colder. After the numerous complaints regarding the way Internet Explorer 7 was distributed, it looks like Microsoft is going to let everyone will be able to get their hands on the first IE8 beta when it comes out (or at least all the people who follow their obscure URLs and community registrations). The main focus with Internet Explorer 8 is web standards. I thought that was 7′s focus, but using the browser, or developing webpages that look good on it, has proved otherwise. Underneath that nice-looking UI (although that’s debatable) there are some problems that the Read more »

When I opened the Apple store this morning to find the best iPod I could for my friend’s budget I was surprised to see that it was down, so I knew something new was coming, and the “new” products left me going “meh”. Apple upgraded the processors of their “older” laptops to the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn and introduced the multi-touch touchpad to the Macbook Pro line. On the less positive site, they decided to not include the Apple remote anymore, from now on it will be available as a $19 (though that doesn’t bother me too much, as I already have one). “Normal” Macbook owners will have Read more »