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Tag: ipod

  • Bose's Latest and Greatest HDTV Offering is the VideoWave II

    Bose is known internationally for their audio systems, but the VideoWave II, the next generation of their popular original home theater offering, gives users a 55-inch HDTV and all that is needed for a full home theater.

    As does the 46-inch in the first VideoWave, the larger HDTV now includes LED backlighting, a significant upgrade over their initial product line. And the 55-inch set features a slimmer profile, for better wall placement.

    The HDTV set has also been given a facelift, with an aluminum-finish bezel and matching click pad remote. The set handles full 1080p resolution and a solid 120 Hz front panel. The magic of Bose takes over in the rear, with their patented waveguide technology running six woofers. Add that to the PhaseGuide sound radiator and you’ve got the power and impact of seven distinct speakers.

    The software is just as smart as the hardware in the VideoWave II. Bose’s ADAPTIQ audio technology customizes the sound settings for maximum quality in the room. It actually bounces sound off the ceiling and the opposite wall, recreating a seamless surround sound experience. It’s a stunning effect, and removes all the clutter of speakers from your space.

    The HDTV set ships with a console unit that accepts inputs from a wide range of devices, including most cable and satellite boxes, Blu-Ray machines, mobile devices and game consoles. The remote has junked infrared reading in favor of radio frequencies, so anything you plug in can be safely stowed away without a connection loss. Add on a dedicated iPod dock, and you’ve truly got all you need for home entertainment.

    The price may be the best part, as purchase delivery and installation is only $5,999. It’s easily mounted on the wall, but also comes with a stand for your entertainment center.

  • Obi202 VoIP Adapter Allows for Free Local Calls

    A company called Obihai Technology has created the Obi202, a VoIP adapter that, when used in conjunction with Google Talk gives consumers the ability to make unlimited free local calls. Google will allow the service to run free of charge through the end of the year, and the Obi202 can be bought for a mere $75 on Amazon.com.

    The crux of the Obi202’s visibility comes through their partnership with Google Talk. There are many other VoIP adapters on the market, but with the Obi202, a user doesn’t even need a computer to make or receive calls. In addition, it will work with any standard telephone. You plug the device into your router, and you’re basically ready to use the service.

    VoIP-List.com: extensive catalog of voip providers, available software and hardware resources

    Google has allowed free local calls with Google Talk since the summer of 2010, and they’ll continue to do so through the end of the year. At the end of each year they made an announcement about continued free service. So users will have to take a wait and see approach, as Google may end up offering another year of free local calls in the eleventh hour.

    Basic calling isn’t the only thing the Obi202 can do. Hop on your Android or iOs-powered device and download the OBiON app. It’s free as well, and will give you a fantastic additional service, the ability to bridge calls from your cell phone. That means even if you have a tablet or an iPod device with network service, you could then use it to make calls. And with a bit of extra code work, you could even receive incoming calls as well.

    Reviewers have been more than pleased with the latest version of the Obi202. The voice quality is impeccable, the router they ship is solid, and you can connect two different phone handsets and set up as many as four different VoIP accounts. It plugs right into a USB port, and can be connected to a hard drive that will then link into the router. Basically, it allows you to create your own cloud storage service, and you can link it up with Google Drive or Dropbox for added features.

  • Pinger Aims to Bring Free Voip to iPod Touch and iPhone

    Pinger, a startup based in San Jose, California, aims to challenge Skype (and others) by offering free voice calls. They are doing so by piggybacking voip on their hugely popular TextFree application, which allows sending free text SMS messages.

    TextFree is unusual in that each user gets its own phone number, thus the 8 million TextFree users are in fact 8 million phone numbers (putting Pinger in the Top 10 US mobile carriers). For comparison, Q3 2010 Pinger distributed 1.7 million phone numbers, AT&T distributed 1.6 in the same time span.

    Their current revenue model is ad-based, showing ads while the user is composing her message. As an indicator of profitability, the startup has already been backed up by venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and others by raising more than $11 million.

    Pinger is currently serving 1.2 billion ads and sent 4 billion messages each month and is only expected to raise its numbers. As Pinger’s target audience is between 16 and 26, advertisers are already eager to participate to set buying habits and brand loyalty as these users turn into adults.

    For phone calls, users will have a limited amount of free monthly minutes, which they can increase by downloading other apps, completing 3rd party offers (a model coming from social media games) or by credit card payment. Pinger says that they are aiming to offer a worldwide service, disrupting the mobile industry and profiting from the huge markups phone carriers apply in their prices. Time will tell if they are able to make it.

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    Ruben Berenguel blogs in mostlymaths.net about productivity, time management and a little programming while he finishes his PhD in Mathematics. Don’t miss your opportunity to subscribe to his RSS feed.

  • Apple Reports All-Time Record Revenue

    Apple has announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter ended June 26, 2010. The company posted record revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion ($3.51 per diluted share).

    These results compare to revenue of $9.73 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion ($2.01 per diluted share) in the year-ago quarter.

    Gross margin was 39.1 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 52 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

    Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.

    The company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter — 61 percent unit growth, 9.41 million iPods — 8 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

    Apple also began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of 3.27 million.

    “It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

    “We’re really pleased to have generated over $4 billion of cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue of about $18 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $3.44”

    Related articles
    Apple Announces Record March Quarter Revenue
    Apple Releases Find My iPhone App
    iPhone 4 Sounds Starting Gun for Smartphone Gyroscope Market
    iPhone 4 is Here

  • Apple Reports All-Time Highest Revenue, Sold 8.7 Million iPhones in Q1 2010

    Two days before the long-awaited unveiling of the company’s “latest creation”, Apple revealed financial results for its Q1 2010 (ended December 26, 2009).

    The company posted revenue of $15.68 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share.

    These results compare to revenue of $11.88 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.26 billion, or $2.50 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

    International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

    Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 100 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

    Sales went up especially in Japan (400 percent!), Australia, UK, France, and Germany. Apple’s flag device is now sold in 86 countries. 17 new carriers have added iPhone to their offerings.

    Apple COO Tim Cook said the company is moving slow in China because they are focused on building the brand there and on the quality of point of sale (there are 1500 points of sale for the iPhone in China). Earlier this month Apple activated over 200,000 units in China.

    The company also sold 3.36 million Macs during the quarter (a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter) and 21 million iPods (an eight percent decline).

    Laptop sales were up 18 percent and sales of the iPod touch went up 55 percent.

    “If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

    “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

    According to Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, Apple expects revenue in the range of about $11.0 billion to $11.4 billion and diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.06 to $2.18 in Q2 2010.

  • HD LCD TV with Integrated iPhone/iPod Docking Station Coming in November

    While looking for some nice gadgets at this year’s IFA, Biz-New.com came across Vestel’s LCD TV with integrated iPhone/iPod docking station. Barış Altinkay, Product Manager for Vestel, gave us a demonstration on the product as well as a short introduction to the company.

    Vestel Group is comprised of 24 companies operating in manufacturing, technology development, marketing, and distribution fields in the consumer electronics,digital technologies, IT and household appliances, with € 3.7 billion turnover.

    According to the company, they account for 21% of the total TV, 10% of the TLC TV, 25% of the digital set-top boxes, and 10% of the household appliances markets in Europe.

  • Universal Adds iPhone/iPod Features to Blu-ray Titles


    Universal Studios has announced plans to add a series of iPhone and iPod touch-enabled features on its upcoming Blu-ray releases.

    These will enable access to exclusive interactive content through the mobile devices – starting with the Blu-ray release of the box-office smash Fast & Furious on July 28th.

    The free app will be available from Apple’s App Store on the same day and will give users the ability to control interactive content on web connected Blu-ray players.

    One of the features, Virtual Car Garage, will give users360-degree views of the cars in the movie, as well as the ability to call up exclusive technical specs.

    Later this year, Universal will extend the features to allow access to bonus content on Blu-ray discs, which will be downloadable to the iPhone/iPod touch to watch features on-the-go.

    The devices will also be able to be used as a virtual remote to control Blu-ray disc features and/or access additional detailed information about the film, its cast and more while watching the movie.

    Releases will also integrate with social network applications or sites such as Facebook and Twitter to allow users to update their friends about movie-related activities.

  • Apple Updates iTunes, Ends Pre's iPod Charade


    Apple has released an iTunes update that prevents Palm’s Pre smartphone from appearing to be an iPod when connected to a Mac or PC.

    According to Apple, iTunes 8.2.1 is a free software update that provides a number of important bug fixes.

    What the update also does is disables devices "falsely pretending" to be iPods – including the Palm Pre.

    The result is that the newer version of iTunes software will no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players such as the Pre.
    Apple has taken this step beause the Pre plugged a Pre into your Mac or PC (and running a version of iTunes earlier than 8.2.1) was able to pass itself off as an iPod to iTunes.

    While Pre users will still be able to drag music onto the device – making it a less seamless process.

    Pre owners can obviously choose to stick to the older version of iTunes or consider another music applications.

    Whether Apple’s move will put people off buying the Pre remains to be seen.

    In a separate development, Palm is making its Mojo Software Development Kit available to developers interested in building applications for the Pre.

    While the SDK is now officially available, submissions won’t be accepted until this fall.

    Palm said more than 1.8 million apps have been downloaded since the Pre went on sale six weeks ago.

  • Palm Entrusts Pre Success to New CEO Rubinstein


    Palm has appointed Jon Rubinstein, the man credited with delivering Apple’s iPod and iMac. as its new CEO amd chairman.

    He replaces Ed Colligan, who is stepping down after sixteen years leading the company.

    The executive changes come just a few days after Palm launched its Pre smartphone.

    Rubinstein, who joined Palm as Executive Chairman in October 2007 to help bring innovation back to the company, assumes his role as CEO on June 12.

    In his time with Palm he has been instrumental in the development and launch of the Pre and webOS.

    Palm said Colligan plans to take some time off, then join Elevation Partners, a major financial backer of Palm.

    Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is claiming that Verizon will end Sprint’s exclusive deal with the Palm Pre in January 2010.

  • Service Offers To Double iPod Capacity To 240GB


    A US Company has started an iPod upgrading service that can expand an iPod to 240GB – or 48,000 tracks.

    Apple’s largest iPod is the 120GB classic which allows up to 24,000 tracks to be stored.

    While this would seems sufficient for most users, it seems it’s not enough for everyone.

    Rapid Repair offers to remove the old, "small" Apple HDD and replace it with a more advanced but same-sized 1.8" Toshiba 240GB storage unit.

    The operation also invalidates the Apple guarantee, according to SmallBusiness.

    To double the MP3 player’s capacity will cost USD $300 plus postage.

    Rapid Repairs says it is looking to extend its services to Zunes and other MP3 machines.