Photo: heath_bar / Flickr

There are three pilgrimages central to geek culture that every nerd wants to make before they die. They are the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and the great Comic Convention (Comic-Con). While two of the first three have already taken their bow, Comic-Con 2010 began earlier this week, on 21 July.

What makes Comic-Con so special?

As its name suggests, Comic-Con 2010 (Comic Convention) is a celebration of all things comic-related.

What we’re expecting

In recent years, Comic Con has become more of a pop geek culture festival then exclusively a comic book convention. So, it’s often the place where first looks at major sci-fi films occur – Avatar debuted at Comic-Con – as well as a celebration of the web, television and video gaming.

Comic-Con 2010 will host the reveal of an overhauled take on gaming icon, Mega Man, in the form of Mega Man Universe (old-school gamers just passed out from sudden excitement upon reading that). We also hope Comic-Con will be where Marvel Studios reveal the new director and lead actor for Spiderman 4, since it’s been confirmed director Sam Raimi and star actor Tobey Maguire will not return for the sequel.

Photo: heath_bar / Flickr

What will definitely be cool is the first look at the Green Hornet 3D, as well as the famed panel with Lost and Fringe creator J.J. Abrahams. The good folks over at Techland have put together a fantastic list of which panels to show up early for, since the lines are going to be impossibly long. Geek culture takes centre stage for a few days at Comic-Con 2010. Oh, and the Green Hornet for the win!

Are any of you, our faithful readers, going to Comic-Con, or have any of you been in the past? What are you looking forward to and, if you went on a previous occasion, how was the experience?

Sony has recently unveiled its new ultra-slim and compact notebook at Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2009. The new model is named the VAIO P11Z and is a perfect rival for Apple’s MacBook Air; in fact it s better than that as it’s cheaper and faster. This Sony netbook is very different from the others in several ways. The most tingling feature is its compact form factor and 8 inch widescreen display that can show two windows side by side in an unusual resolution of 1,600×768 pixels. However this may make it difficult to read very small texts but overall its look awesome.

Due to its sleek design and smooth curvy edges the VAIO P11Z is easy to slip into any handbag. The overall weight too is not hefty. This nano notebook weighs just 638 grams, making it actually much lighter than the so-called Apple MacBook Air. The VAIO P11Z’s a perfect business device and so elegantly polished that even a CEO won’t mind carrying it to the meetings. Coming to the performance, the VAIO P11Z is build around a speedy processor and equips 2GB memory. The keypad contains small keys but unlike the other notebooks it gives full feedback to the fingers after a key press to offer touch typing to speedy typists. To maintain the compact form factor the company hasn’t included any trackpad in this model. Instead, there are special directional keys on the keypad itself for navigation purposes. You can also attach a mouse to it.

VAIO P11Z doesn’t neglects connectivity on the go. It’s loaded wit several wireless communication options such as 3G mobile broadband, Bluetooth, WI-Fi, Built-in GPS and much more.

Tags for this article: mobile, netbook, notebook

Sony is looking forward to develop high tech products in future, products that are supposed to be much more creative and innovative than your imagination. Recently at Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas the company unveiled the concept of its new fascinating product line called Contrast that includes a Flex OLED Walkman, Reader and VAIO laptop.

All the Contrast products are outcome of the perfect amalgamation of three sophisticated technologies, i.e. OLED, touch, and physical flexibility. The Contrast Flex OLED VAIO laptop is the first of its kind and unique among all Vaio laptops, including other slim models like the Sony Vaio VGN-FW21M. The new Contrast Flex  truly redefines mobile computing. It’s basically a concept that represents a super-thin laptop that apart from the standard laptop functions offers unprecedented flexibility and user interactivity. The touchscreen technology has been taken to the next higher level and the laptop is as thin as a paper.

The main attraction of Contrast Flex OLED VAIO is that it’s totally a touch screen and there is no hard keyboard to work. You can fold it seamlessly and work via virtual keyboard. On top of this you can also hide the keyboard to double the display size while watching videos, visualisations or browsing through images. The Flex VAIO will also incorporate an accelerometer that will adjust the display orientation according to the screen movement. According to Sony the laptop will be made of high performance shock resistant flexible bio-plastic. However, the Sony’s Contrast product line is just a concept right now and it may take several years to get it materialised. The development of the prototypes for lab testing has already begun.

Now available for less than a hundred pounds, netbooks are a portable and powerful asset. All set to take over the market, Netbooks are sensations in the field of technology.

These practical laptops are compact at just seven inches. Many even more advanced netbooks are set to hit the markets in the year 2009. They are energy efficient and affordable. Companies like Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Elonex, Asus, etc showcased their netbooks at the recently held CES in Las Vegas. There is an announcement by Microsoft that its Windows 7 operating system will be compatible for netbooks.

Realizing the potential in this arena, mobile operators like Vodafone have jumped into the fray offering consumers a free Inspiron Mini 9 netbook with a mobile broadband contract. Computers at this rate are all set to become as accessible, affordable and disposable as mobile phones.

The year 2008 already saw the sales of netbooks racing past the iPhone. Predictions from Gartner, the IT research firm indicate that the year 2012 will see a whopping 50 million sale of netbooks. And to think, all this started with the unassuming Asus Eee PC 701 back in late 2007. The website notebookreview.com which compares and monitors laptops based on products viewed on its site, has listed the ten. Four of these are the netbooks. According to the T3 gadgets and technology magazine’s deputy editor, Luke Peters, netbooks are popular due to their size. Being portable and affordable are the two main reasons for its popularity among consumers.

Average retail price of netbooks is around £300. The more expensive ones include Sony’s Vaio P which is priced at £849.

Tags for this article: netbooks, acer, intel

An interesting mini laptop was released by Archos, a leader in the field of innovative technology and portable media players. Named the Archos 10, this mobile laptop is both compact and functional, whilst providing users with an opportunity to stay connected. With the Archos 10, it is easy to be entertained as well as productive as you move around.

Features galore are incorporated into the 2.8 pounds Archos 10. They include a powerful processor Intel Atom effectively combined with the operating system Microsoft Windows XP, RAM memory of 1GB, hard disk capacity of 160GB and a 10.2” LED screen of 1024×600 pixels resolution. All these advanced features make the Archos 10 one of the most effective computing system at its size, weight and budget.

Users now need not worry about not being connected to their family or work on their move. Stay connected 24×7 with the help of the integrated communication technologies including Ethernet LAN, 802.11b.g wireless, etc. This laptop is also USB 3G ready. You can now instantly message or voice and video call with the help of the Skype software from the laptop. The Arcos 10 also features a 1.3 M pixel web cam.

State of art applications include the vTuner Web Radio, Xn View photo editor, Lotus Symphony – the Working suite, TV player, Parental filter, BitDefender Antivirus 2009, etc. In short, the netbook is up to par with most others on the market, and clearly surpasses the Archos 7 Internet Media Tablet with its capabilities. Other interesting offers of the Archos 10 include the option of downloading from five million tracks on eMusic choosing from the catalogue, 50 free songs and movies from Archos media club.

The competitive price and superb features and functionality makes Archos 10 an ideal buy, especially for first time users.

The 2009 Consumer Electronic Show (CES 2009) is ready to raise the curtain in Las Vegas next week. There has been a lot of buzz created regarding the show up to now and the masses are getting more and more excited as the opening day gets closer. The CES 2009 is expected to be very enthusiastic about the unprecedented technology, gadgets and gizmos it unleashes upon consumers. This show will introduce consumers all the latest jaw dropping technological enhancements electronics companies have to offer.

You can view everything there. Right from laptops to sub-netbooks, smartphones to GPUs, LCDs to touch screens, the CES 2009 will be portraying each and every electronic device that can change your digital lifestyle. Although there were many new jaw dropping developments that took place last year, some of them were simply marvellous. Below are some of the great gadgets that are scheduled to be displayed at the CES 2009.

Both Lenovo and HP will be unveiling the concept of the dual screen laptop. For the first time, these two companies will be developing laptops with two displays. Next comes the new touch screen netbooks. The touch screen technology is always liked by the end user and the CES 2009 will show off some of the new improvements in touch screen netbooks developed by Intel. Apart from this, Samsung and Sony are also busy preparing for the show. These two IT giants will be showing their talent in the field of organic LCD displays. The main attraction will be the new wafer thin displays that possess an unbelievable thin form factor. Sony may also unveil its first touch screen walkman, which is set to compete with the Apple iPod touch. Samsung’s Android powered smartphone will also be in the limelight at CES 2009. All in all, it is set to be a great show and we can’t wait.

The upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is the stage at which many companies are presenting new and exciting mobile computing devices this year. One common theme among a few top notch computing device manufacturers is that all of them are putting emphasis on introducing dual screens in laptops. A few days back Apple talked about its Tribook having three displays. After that the Lenovo announced the coming of its dual screen laptop and now the HP has decided to do the same thing.

The Hewlett Packard is going to develop a dual screen laptop with an advanced configuration. The laptop is called Firefly and is especially geared towards hardcore gamers and multimedia fans with its specifications that outdo most rivals, including the Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion DV7-1020 laptop. The Firefly will contain high performance hardware chips in its compact body that will make this device a complete desktop replacement gadget. Firefly will also possess a 20 inch enclosure. It will have a primary display of 17.1 inches (1920×1200 pixels) and a secondary display of 4.3 inches (800×480 pixels) that is positioned underneath the primary one. At its core, the Firefly is powered via Intel Core 2 Extreme processor running at 2.4 GHz. 4GB of RAM, as well as two ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 GPUs running in CrossFire mode are also onboard. As far as storage is concerned, this laptop equips a 250GB hard disk drive running at 7200rpm.

Such a high end configuration definitely makes the Firefly a gaming monster. You can play any game on it smoothly with all the advanced graphics settings on at a high resolution.

Symwave, the leading semiconductor supplier of high-performance analogue/mixed-signal connectivity solutions for the PC, consumer and mobile devices, is ready with the world’s first consumer application of SuperSpeed USB 3.0. The new application will offer an incredible data transfer rate (10 times faster than the legacy USB 2.0) as it will run on the third version of Universal Serial Bus architecture.

The company is collaborating with the leading cable, components and hard drive manufacturers to demonstrate the transfer speeds of USB 3.0 at the consumer Electronics Show or CES. It will demonstrate an unprecedented data streaming to and from external storage devices at a speed which was unattainable previously. The demonstration will take place at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada from 8th Jan 2009 to 11th Jan 2009.

The SuperSpeed USB is set to amaze the next digital generation and will hit the technology market in the second half of next year. So we will have to wait until then before seeing actual flash drives, like the Fujifilm USB Drive 2GB, which use the USB 3.0 standard, instead of the current USB 2.0 profile. Till now the interested parties have read about the technical specifications and capabilities of the USB 3.0 in theory only but now the demonstration by Symwave will let them experience the amazing powers of the new USB in real time and will give a clearer idea about the upcoming technology.

Solid State Drives or SSDs are creating a buzz in the mobile computing market these days. Because of the reliability and performance offered by these storage drives they were expected to replace standard hard disks. However this has not happened completely because of two major reasons. The first is that SSDs are very costly and other reason is that they only offer a maximum storage capacity of up 256GB, but most offer far less, like the Transcend ExpressCard/34 SSD SLC 32GB. On the other hand, the legacy HDDs are cheaper and offer more than 500GB of storage capacity, thereby preventing SSDs from taking over completely.

However, the gap in the storage capacity has been bridged by Toshiba. The company is going to unveil its new SSD which will offer half a terabyte of storage, i.e. 512GB at the Consumer Electronics Show to be held at Las Vegas next month. Toshiba has made this drive using its 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND flash technology. The drive is capable of offering sequential read speed of 240MB per second and a data write speed up to 200MB per second. The company has not announced the cost of the SSD yet. So it’s not known whether the drive will come with an affordable price tag or if, like the other SSDs, it will also charge the end users heavily in return for such a massive storage capacity. The drive is expected to hit the consumer markets in the second quarter of 2009.