Find Out Which USB Devices Have Been Used on Your PC

Find Out Which USB Devices Have Been Used on Your PC


Updated Wed, 07/28/2010 - 09:41 by r.schifreen

It always amazes me to discover just how much information Windows stores, regarding previous activity on the PC. We all know about stuff like your web browsing history, for example, and all those thousands of cookies associated with web sites. Thankfully, there are programs which can delete this information in order to help maintain your privacy.

But did you know that, buried deep within the OS, is a list of all the USB devices currently connected, as well as all the devices you've connected in the past? No, me neither. Well, not until I discovered a handy little utility from the ever-wonderful Nirosft, which extracts the information and displays it in a handy table.

India's super-cheap computer @$35

Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal

unveils the low cost computing-cum-access device
in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: V. Sudershan

Cheap, or frugal, and India are synonymous. Take a look at the Nano car and now the tablet PC. 


It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011. 

If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of "world's cheapest" innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery. 

The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing. It has a solar power option too - important for India's energy-starved hinterlands - though that add-on costs extra. 

"This is our answer to MIT's $100 computer," human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said when he unveiled the device Thursday.

Computers Seized at Home of Gizmodo Reporter Who Wrote About iPhone, Gawker Media Says

By BRIAN STELTER AND NICK BILTON

Gawker Media said on Monday that computers belonging to one of its editors, Jason Chen, were seized from his home on Friday as part of what appeared to be an investigation into the sale of a next-generation iPhone.

One of Gawker’s blogs, Gizmodo, published articles last week about the future phone after purchasing the device for $5,000 from a person who found it at a bar in California last month.
Gizmodo published articles about a next-generation iPhone that was found at a bar in California last month. Gizmodo.com Gizmodo published articles about a next-generation iPhone that was found at a bar in California last month.

Gawker’s chief operating officer, Gaby Darbyshire, said it expected the immediate return of the computers and servers.

“Under both state and federal law, a search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist,” she wrote in a letter to San Mateo County, Calif., authorities on Saturday. “Jason is a journalist who works full time for our company,” she continued, adding that he works from home, his “de facto newsroom.”

“It is abundantly clear under the law that a search warrant to remove these items was invalid. The appropriate method of obtaining such materials would be the issuance of a subpoena,” Ms. Darbyshire continued.

The letter was shared on Monday afternoon by Nick Denton, the founder and president of Gawker Media. “Are bloggers journalists? I guess we’ll find out,” Mr. Denton said in an instant message.

It became apparent last weekend that the authorities in San Mateo County were considering whether to file criminal charges in connection with the sale of the phone, which was returned to Apple by Gizmodo last week.

According to people familiar with the investigation, who would not speak on the record because of the potential legal case, charges would most likely be filed against the person or people who sold the prototype iPhone, and possibly the buyer.

The documents published by Gizmodo indicate that the Web site was clearly girding for a legal fight. Ms. Darbyshire had sent an e-mail message on Friday to Mr. Chen before the police action, outlining the state law regarding warrants for information gathered by journalists.

“In the circumstances, we expect the immediate return of the materials that you confiscated from Mr. Chen,” she wrote.

In his account of the events, published on Gizmodo, Mr. Chen said that when he arrived home around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, the authorities told him they had been there for a “few hours already,” searching the home and cataloging computers and servers.

The warrant published by Gizmodo said the officers had probable cause that Mr. Chen’s home “was used as the means of committing a felony.”

A spokesperson for the San Mateo police said the department was “not allowed to comment.”

Source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/computers-seized-at-home-of-gizmodo-reporter-who-wrote-about-iphone-gawker-media-says/

See this: IPhone 4G Leaked Images

The Knife With Self-Destructing Memory

By STEPHEN WILLIAMS

Imagine how delighted the Swiss Army must be today: they’ve just been told that the makers of the venerable Swiss Army knife have released a new version, which contains a U.S.B. flash drive that will “self-destruct” if it falls into the wrong hands.

A screen shot of the Victorinox Swiss Army knife.Victorinox Swiss Army A screen shot of the Victorinox Swiss Army knife.

We ordinary folks can cheer up too, since the “un-hackable” gizmo will be available for sale, at prices starting at about $75, including screwdriver, mini LED light, retractable ballpoint pen, blade, scissors and nail file.

The Victorinox Secure, introduced this week in London, takes a page or two from the “Mission: Impossible” archives: the memory stick (available in sizes up to 32-gigabytes) is tamper-proof, the company claims. An attempt to forcibly open it triggers a self-destruct mechanism that burns the device’s CPU and memory chip.

The burn-up is the most drastic security measure on the device, but there are other security features as well, including a fingerprint identity function that’s aligned with a thermal sensor. In other words, the thing won’t work if the finger that holds the print is detached from the finger owner’s body.

These folks are serious.

The security threats posed by portable flash drives—devices that might be easily lost or stolen—are very real concerns to consumer and also to corporations. As the capacity for storage increases—allowing the drives to contain huge amounts of data and documents—the concerns only grow.

According to a post on the Tom’s Hardware site, the Secure Pro is to be available in three different sizes, from 8GB ($75) to 32GB ($270).


Source: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/the-knife-with-self-destructing-memory/

Victorinox Swiss Army Tinker with Free Classic Knife
Victorinox Swiss Army Champion Plus Pocket Knife
Victorinox Swiss Army Climber II Pocket Knife
Victorinox Swiss Army Classic SD Pocket Knife, Red
Victorinox Swiss Army Sportsman II Knife with AAA LED Flashlight

Self-Standing Iron

HDMI Cable Facts

Sony ICF-C717PJ - Multi-feature clock radio with projector

Sony gives you more in the morning

22 March 2010

Multi-feature clock radio with projector, soothing nature sounds and room thermometer

• Variable-angle projector shows time on wall or ceiling

• Relax with five nature sounds

• Room thermometer displays temperature to help you ensure a comfortable night’s sleep

• Input for digital music player

It’s so much more than just a clock radio. The new ICF-C717PJ from Sony is packed with great features to help you wake up and drift off in even greater comfort.

Compact and sleekly styled with an elegant brushed aluminium finish, the ICF‑C717PJ looks great in any bedroom. It’s also the first clock radio from Sony with a built-in projector. Just twist the lens module to any angle and beam a super-sized time display onto any wall or ceiling for comfortable viewing.

There’s a generous choice of ways to wake up with the dual alarm clock. Listen to your favourite radio show with the FM/AM digital tuner, or plug your iPod* or any personal music player into the audio jack and welcome the day with your favourite tunes.

Looking for a new way to relax? There’s a choice of five soothing sounds from the natural world that provide a harmonious accompaniment for waking up or drifting off to sleep. Choose from crisp, digital recreations of the undersea world, waves, mountain brook, rainfall or birdsong to suit your mood.

The big, bright, easy-to-read LCD offers a cool, soothing blue backlight: there’s a 4-way brightness control for comfortable viewing at any time of day or night.

There’s also a thermometer that displays ambient temperature in your bedroom. It’s a valuable way to check that you’ve got the heating set correctly and all set for a peaceful night’s sleep.

No power? No problem. Even if it’s unplugged or there’s a temporary power failure, a battery back-up ensures that you’ll still wake up at the right time.

The new ICF-C717PJ clock radio from Sony is available from April 2010.Source: Sony

IPhone 4G Leaked Images

Source: engadget & cultofmac

Holga 3D camera

Holga 3D camera

HTC Desire Android smartphone

Here is an introductory video tour of the HTC Desire Android phone with Sense.

HTC Desire delivers intense brilliance, sharp contrast, and true colors on the expansive 3.7-inch AMOLED display. The 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor makes the phone incredibly responsive as you multitask from app to app without skipping a beat, while the instinctive HTC Sense experience lets you wield the power of the HTC Desire with the greatest of ease.

Make It Mine
With the HTC Desire, it’s all about your information, your entertainment, your multimedia … your way. A multitude of HTC Sense widgets makes it easy to transform your Home screen with rich content that personalizes your phone experience.

If you’re a sports junkie or simply love to keep up to date with the latest news, the HTC Desire keeps you in the know with the News application. News makes it easier than ever to collect all your favorite articles from across the web. Choose from a selection of channels that cover top blogs, news sites or sports pages, or get news updates based on the keywords you select.

In South Africa, it's pigeon one, broadband zero (for now)

The strange but true story of a carrier pigeon that transfers data faster than broadband.

Last week a company called Unlimited IT demonstrated that, in South Africa anyway, transferring data the old fashioned way is still the best.

An eleven-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly 80 km from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card strapped to his leg.

Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds -- the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using the broadband line.

Local news agency SAPA reported that Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.

The carrier pigeon’s championship status is secure for the time being, but in coming weeks service providers will be tapping into a new undersea cable that will give end users access to much faster connections, so odds are Winston will soon lose his crown.

The Seacom cable, which has recently gone live and is available for service providers to access, can deliver up to 1.28 Tbps of capacity to landing stations in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya, and will dramatically improve connectivity for people living in these areas.

Championship pigeon aside, faster broadband speeds and more penetration will bring real economic benefits to people living in these countries. According to a World Economic Forum report published in July, “Raising broadband penetration in emerging markets to levels currently in Western Europe could add $300 to $420 billion in GDP and create 10 to14 million new jobs.”

And that ain’t chicken feed.

Do you think Winston will still be the data-transfer champion of South Africa by the end of 2009? Will South Africa’s service providers be prepared when their country hosts the Soccer World Cup in 2010? We’d like to hear from you. Please register below to share your opinion with the rest of our readers.

ICT for Economic Growth: A Dynamic Ecosystem Driving The Global Recovery, a publication of the World Economic Forum, July 2009.

Source: http://unite.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/adwords/article/view/id/181

British designers invent tweeting kettle

by Rob Welham

BEIJING, April 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Quite why anyone would want a kettle to send messages to the micro-blogging website Twitter is unclear, but British designers Ben Perman and Murat Mutlu have just invented such a device.

The Twettle, as it has been dubbed, connects to the Internet via a user's WiFi connection and sends out a message to Twitter when it has boiled.

The Twettle can even allow people to keep track how many cups of tea have been made, and calculate the amount of energy saved over the course of the week using a 'smart boil' feature.

While the Twettle is not yet available, Perman and Mutulu are aiming for a price tag of around 75 pounds (115 U.S dollars) if they can persuade someone to manufacture their product.

(Agencies)

Geek Travel Gadget Tips

By: Tate Fontaine

If done badly, with poor planning travelling any distance can be a nightmare. Geeks know good gadgets so when it comes to your next trip take a leaf out of their book and make your life easier with a geek gadget or two.

Travelling can throw up all sorts of issues that can be solved with a few gadgets here and there. So what better reason to have a look at some of the newest gadgets on the market before we go anywhere this summer.

There are a few common problems faced on every journey and we can put most of them into four categories ; entertainment, energy, security and safety. We will cover each category in turn and suggest an area of geek gadgetry to look at.

Entertainment can make the difference between a tedious boring journey or a relatively relaxing one. The good news is you are spoiled for choice when it comes to entertainment gadgets. It wasn't so long ago that if you wanted to watch a film on a long road trip you had to use a portable DVD player but now you can carry with a whole bunch of films on your phone. Books are still a popular choice for any holiday destination. There is nothing nicer than reading a good book while soaking up some sun. The problem with books is that they take up lots of room in your suitcase, eBook readers are becoming more popular because you can carry with you hundreds of books all on one device no bigger than a hardback book. You can also download new books wirelessly too.

No matter how many awesome gadgets you have they are all useless if they do not have any power. Batteries may have gotten better over the years but so too has gadgets demand for power. As a result battery life has not gotten much better. Until some geek at MIT works out how to use carbon nano-tubes in batteries we are stuck with mediocre battery life. Not so, thanks to the latest wave of portable recharging gadget devices. Now you can recharge your gadgets on the go. Some of the newest power gadgets now have solar cells so you can charge your gadgets whenever the sun is shining. Never again will you have to worry about being away from a power socket for too long.

You are most vulnerable when you are travelling because you are in an unfamiliar location with people you have never met before so security is never more important than when you are away from home. Thankfully there are gadgets out there than can help and you do not have to be a geek to enjoy these gadgets. There are clever alarms that fit to hotel doors to warn you of unexpected and uninvited visitors. Some of the more sophisticated ones have built in smoke detectors and other life saving gadgets that are invaluable when abroad.

Safety is paramount these days and fortunately there are lots of gadgets out there that can help us to stay safe. I can not recall how many holidays to Mexico I have had ruined from drinking bad water. Luckily there is a new gadget that can sterilise water in a matter of seconds. Long gone are the days of putting chemicals into your water bottle to cleanse your drinking water. Now there is a device that emits a high energy UV light and when placed directly into the water will neutralise any bugs contaminating it. The Ultra-Violet light works by destroying the DNA of any water-borne nasties.

I have outlined here some of the main areas that can help, not just geeks but anyone wanting to make their travelling experience a more relaxing and enjoyable one.

About The Author

Tate Fontaine is an avid blogger and technology buff. He works at a large US gadget focused magazine.

If you want the latest travel gadgets have a look at the Geek Gadget Guide to Gadgets Every Geek Needs This Summer.

The author invites you to visit:
http://www.geekgadget.net/

6 Features to Expect in iPhone OS 4.0

By Kevin C. Tofel

Less than a week after the introduction of the iPad, Apple plans to share details on “the future of iPhone OS” at a press event this Thursday, where the company is widely expected to lift the wraps off version 4.0 of Apple’s mobile operating system, which will add new functionality to current iPod touch, iPhone and iPad devices. The event will also shed light on what you can expect from Apple’s next-generation iPhone handset. Although Apple has sold a large number of devices running the iPhone OS — an estimated 40 million iPhones, more than 20 million iPod touches and now 300,000 iPads — there’s always room for improvement in the operating system. Here’s a short list of what to expect (including what I’d like to see!) from iPhone OS 4.0.

Multitasking — The ability to run more than one third-party application at a given time has long been a user request from the masses. The iPhone OS of today is capable of multitasking because the feature is currently supported on some native Apple applications – listening to music in the iPod app while web surfing or checking mail is a good example. So while the OS supports multiple apps running concurrently, it imposes limits to help ensure a positive experience with core functionality. But as some consumers look to the iPad as a potential laptop replacement, multitasking with non-Apple software titles is desirable (not everyone, of course, but for certain people). My own blogging activities would be far easier on the iPad if I could multitask to get web links and edit pictures while creating posts, for example. And I wouldn’t be surprised if only the iPad gains a multitasking function — or one that’s considered less constrained than on an iPhone.

Higher resolution — Let’s face it: The iPhone’s HVGA display was nice back in 2007, but it’s a little dated now. Many new handsets at the same price point offer generous 800×480 (or better) displays over the iPhone’s 480×320 screen. Look for iPhone 4.0 to support higher resolutions for the next-generation devices expected in a few months. This could help iPad owners as well. iPhone apps do work on the iPad today, but the pixel doubling of lower-resolution software makes apps look blocky and blurry.

Support for a second camera — Surely, the camera in the next iPhone will be bumped higher than the current 3-megapixel sensor. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see a second, front-facing camera for video chatting in iPhone OS 4.0 — it’s a feature we’ve been calling for since late last year. Perhaps it would be similar to iChat’s video offering on a Mac. We could even see third-party apps take advantage of such a change, although Apple may not allow access to such hardware for non-native apps.

A unified inbox — While I like to keep my work and personal lives separate most of the time, the one place I want them together is in my email. iPhone 4.0 should be bringing us a unified inbox so we don’t have to tap, tap, tap our way from one mailbox to another. Perhaps, like the once-missing copy-and-paste feature, Apple is still developing an elegant solution to the problem.

Enhanced voice-to-text features — Google added this highly useful function to Android 2.1 and it ought to be a staple in any modern smartphone. Apple added Voice Control in version 3 of the iPhone OS, but it’s limited by comparison — all you can use it for is to call a contact or control your iPod. Google’s implementation integrates throughout the operating system, making it easy to search the web, create a text message or even compose an email simply by speaking. Such a function could give Apple more insight to what iPhone OS users are searching for on the web — and would support a rumored Apple move into the search market.

Music in the clouds — iPhone 4.0 could be the first time we see the benefit of Apple’s LaLa purchase, which took place in December of last year. As I said in a GigaOM Pro report (subscription required) just days before the deal, if Apple doesn’t offer iTunes streaming over the web, others like Amazon could easily jump in the game. Consumers don’t mind carrying their music around, but storing content in the cloud offers nearly limitless capacity to hold media. And if Apple decides this isn’t a feature for the iPhone OS, I’ll just keep doing what I do today — store and stream my music with a cloud storage service like SugarSync or another provider.

http://gigaom.com/2010/04/05/6-features-to-expect-in-iphone-os-4-0/

Nokia X6 Review – A Power Packed Entertainment Gadget

by: Jerry Smith

The Nokia X6 is a high end XpressMusic edition from Nokia. While other midrange music phones are performing well, the high end smart phone with excellent music features is welcomed by many users. The size of Nokia X6 is 111 x 51 x 13.8mm and weight is 122g. The Li-Ion 1320 mAh battery provides a standby time of 401 hours for 2G and 420 hours for 3G, talk time of 8 hours 30 minutes for 2G and 6 hours for 3G and music play time of 35 hours.

The design of Nokia X6 is made of plastic, which is disappointing for the high-end phone with high price. Below the large screen, there are three buttons, call, menu and end. The front panel hosts the video call camera at the top along with a few sensors.

The centerpiece of the Nokia X6 is its 3.2 inches HVGA capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels and it can brightly display 16 million colors. The touch screen is supremely sensitive and it surpasses some midrange resistive touch screens too. Just a gentle touch is all that is required to swiftly activate the menus. However, the downside of the screen is that it has poor legibility under the sun.

There is a 5MP camera furnished with Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash at the back of Nokia X6. However, there are no some common features such as face detection, smile detection in Nokia X6 even though is is a high end phone. In addition, there is no lens cover to protect the camera.

The music player of the Nokia X6 is loaded with features, but the looks aren’t too flashy. There are five equalizer presets and you can always customize them depending on your preferences. You can reach the music player immediately through a dedicated key above the screen as well as run the player in the background. The Playlist DJ is a noteworthy feature that scans through your music library to create a playlist depending on the mood you have set. The music store is also a main part of the Nokia X6 and the video player performs well except for the lack of DivX or XviD. In addition, the FM radio with RDS enriches entertainment function.

The Symbian S60 5th edition user interface is much basic, except for the addition of the touch screen. Kinetic scrolling can be used inside interface for the file browser to web browser. The menus are centered on icons and there are scroll bars for icon menus. A full QWERTY keyboard will show up on the screen, when you set the Nokia X6 to landscape mode. Unfortunately, there is no auto ratotion of home screens when you change the orientation of the phone. The absence of widgets in the home screen means that you could only bring up the task manager to switch between tasks by pressing and holding menu keys.

The Nokia X6 has a fully featured phone book and you can use kinetic scrolling here too. Personal videos and ringtones can be assigned for contacts. Telephony is good in terms of voice quality, but there is no smart dialing feature even when voice dialing is present .

Nokia X6 supports all types of messages such as SMS, MMS and emails. They share a common editor. There is also a alphanumeric touch screen keyboard can be used for typing besides the QWERTY keyboard. The connectivity options are ample with support for 3G network too. The web browser is useful, but it could be more user friendly. Owing to the GPS receiver with lifetime City Explorer license and Ovi Maps, the Nokia X6 facilitate navigation during your travel.

About The Author

Jerry Smith, the editor of http://www.mobilephoneonly.co.uk. An expert on mobile phone and an observer of UK telecommunication market. He writes reviews on latest mobile phones, and also suggests promotional deals and special offers from mobile phone retailers in UK.

The author invites you to visit:
http://www.mobilephoneonly.co.uk

Cell Phone Jamming - Jamming Cell Phones Is Best Way To Declare Do Not Disturb!

by: Ospan Nurlan

In these scientifically advanced times of internet, laptops, Cell phones, PDA and mega modern machines; it is tough to let them go overlooked. However they have their demerits as well. You should have gone from a situation while you were in a significant and related situation as well as ringing of cell phone troubled your harmony and flow. It has happened to everybody and sometimes we are forced to think why ever land phone had to be assembled.

For example, you as well as your girlfriend are enjoying a movie in a theatre and just as there comes a key dialogue is regarding to be delivered somebody's cell phone starts ringing. You might have forgave him however that happening did not finish there, the concerned person not just receives the call however starts talking continually at pitch of his voice. At that specific moment, if you had control, you would have shattered the whole cell phone industry. This wouldn't have happened if that movie theatre management had installed cell phone jamming. Not just movie theatres however the restaurants, concerts, places of worships and shopping malls all suffer from same problem. A lot of a people are there who do not know the essential courtesy to shut down or at least make their cell phone on silent in these sorts of places.

Mobile jammers are the devices having a limited range in which the mobile phone would not be able to function. They would be useless in the restrictions of a jammer. Prior to foraying in the working of the cell phone jammer, you must know how the cell phone operates. It functions by communicating with the service network through cell phone towers there in different areas. As the people move, signal gets transmitted from one tower to the other. The jamming device broadcasts the same frequency as cell phone thus disrupting it totally. As the similar frequency overlap communication amid the mobile phone as well as the tower gets intermittent and mobile phone stops to work. There are different types of jammers with diverse ranges. A few are as tiny as the suitcase with place of few meters whereas a few could be as large as a room as well as have the range of some hundred meters.

Cell phones have special frequencies for talking and listening, that provides the jammer additional work of blocking both signals in order to successfully end the communication. Though it blocks any of the frequencies, cell phone is tricked in thinking that it has missing signal as well as is not able to get the service provider's frequency plus is said to be out of coverage. These attributes permit them being placed in particular kinds of prisons, for example, a lot of state prison have GPS jammers fitted. This is finished to stop the convicts from trying to work their planned crime even from inside prison. Mobile jammers are the gift of science and must be used efficiently and intelligently.


About The Author

Nurlan Ospan is the author of this article on GPS Jammer.

Find more information about GPS Signal Jammer here.

The author invites you to visit:
http://www.thejammerworld.com

Wii 7th Generation Gaming Console

by: Jerry Fische

If you are a great gaming fan, you may already know what Wii is all about. It is a seventh generation home video gaming console that was released by Nintendo. It is the leader of the seventh generation gaming consoles with wide features. Soon after having your first interaction with this gaming console, you will be amazed with the Wii remote, which is the wireless controller of the console and is a unique accessory of the console with numerous features. Due to this remote control and numerous other reasons, the Nintendo Wii has become a popular and the best selling seventh generation gaming console.

What Nintendo Wii Bundles Offer

The most distinguishing feature of the Nintendo Wii is its revolutionary designed controller, which offers distinctive motion sensitive 3D game play options. The Wii sports game is ideal to play with this new styled remote control. Wii offers free online game play and services and has integrated Wi-Fi to offer you complete comfort. The Wii is compatible with all the accessories of its predecessor, the Nintendo Game Cube, such as the controllers and games. The Nintendo Wii Console bundles come with photo viewing and built-in SD slot for storage. Nintendo's Wii is perhaps the most affordable yet ideal home gaming console for you to have.

The controller is different from the common one usually available with other consoles and it takes time to get used to it. One of the drawbacks that you have to face is the number of batteries the controller consumes. The Nintendo Wii is not as adept at the surround sound and HD graphics as other seventh generation gaming consoles. To facilitate the console interface with the wireless controllers, you need to place the wired receiver unit near the television. The major disadvantage that you will come across is that this gaming console does not play CD's or DVD's.

Wii Sports Resort

The Wii sports resort is a special collection of sports games for the console and is a sequel to the original Wii sports. The game is set in a beach resort, and there are a total of twelve different sports to play. Thanks to the motion sensors, you can play each sport with the Nintendo Wii remote or sometimes the Nunchuk, the same way as the actual sport. For example, in case of tennis, you can swing the remote just like the racket in a real game. Wakeboarding, archery, golf, bowling, canoeing, power cruising, and basketball are some of the sports available in the console.

In the end, it can be concluded that the Nintendo Wii obviously lacks the rich media features and graphical prowess you are sure to find in other 7th generation consoles. However, the unique motion sensitive controllers make up for this factor. If you can deal with the low graphics and sound, then this affordable and fun console is not easy to resist, especially with impressive Wii deals.

About The Author

Shop for the sport resort and motion plus Nintendo Wii console cheap on their website: Black Wii console offers, game packages, Wii Fit plus Wii console deals and review Wii bundles on offer from retailers in England before you buy. Visit: http://www.wii-bundles.com/ and http://www.wii-bundles.com/nintendo-wii

The iPod Effect

by: Chris Holgate

In a time when everybody suddenly seems to be looking to Apple for the next exciting piece of new technology, I'm forced to look back and wonder when everything all of a sudden started to go 'right' for them.

Things haven't always been this rosy for Apple; back in 2001 the ailing technology company posted a year loss of $25 million on revenues of $5.3 billion however, just 7 years later, they posted a $4.8 billion profit in 2008 based on revenues of $32.5 billion.

Such a turnaround is quite remarkable and seems to coincide very much with the release of the iPod; a revolutionary portable media device which enjoyed its first full year of sales in 2002. Initially released in October 2001, the iPod was easy to use and included a large hard drive which had an incredibly large storage capacity compared with the flash media based players of the time. Suddenly, rather than just being able to store a couple of albums on their media player, users were given the ability to store thousands of songs on a device small enough to fit in the pocket.

Over the years the line has been revised several times with the largest commercial available iPod created topping out at a 160GB storage capacity which is enough to hold around 40,000 songs. The current series of iPod touch units feature a touch sensitive colour screen, motion sensor, Wi-Fi and a more realistic maximum 64GB of storage.

Presently Apple claim to dominate the portable music device market with a 73% market share, having sold over 210 million units to date. On top of the revenue generated by the sale of hardware, there is also the huge revenue generated by iTunes which is the associated song download site for the iPod. Having signed the five major record companies up to its service, iTunes boasted total sales figures of over 6 billion songs at the beginning of this year. The service now also offers video content such as TV shows and movies for users of newer machines.

The most interesting point to note is the halo effect that has occurred with other areas of the Apple business following cultural acceptance of the iPod as a 'cool' piece of technology. Users appear to have subscribed to the Apple brand and very few analysts would deny that the tremendous uptake of the iPod has had a positive effect on other areas of the business.

The most notable spin off has been the Apple iPhone which since its release in June 2007 has sold over 21 million units. Although we cannot attribute the high number of sales directly to the iPod, there are strong similarities between the two devices in terms of design and desirability.

If we look at the Apple Mac computer, suddenly it has been accepted as a sexy alternative to the boring PC. The market share is still at a relatively small 11% worldwide however this compares favourably with the 4.1% figure that was circulating back in 2001.

I think it is fair to surmise that Apples current good fortune in recent years is predominately down to the new found desirability that allows the products to command their high price tags. In order to ensure this status isn't lost tomorrow they will need to build on this momentum so that products of tomorrow remain more than simple items of technology, but rather objects of desire.

About The Author

Chris Holgate is a director and copyrighter of the online Ink and Toner website Refresh Cartridges http://www.refreshcartridges.co.uk He writes a weekly article of all things tech related.

The author invites you to visit:
http://www.refreshcartridges.co.uk