New iPods may be facing supply issues

When Apple announced the iPhone 5, the brand also unveiled the next generation iPods. These new iPods were greeted well by the audience at the event. Many people took to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and claimed that they were far more excited about the latest iPods than about the iPhone. However, a report by Mocotakaraclaims that when the iPods arrive in Japan next week, there would be "considerably few numbers of the initial shipment”.  Reportedly, the iPods could be distributed within the next two weeks. Some customers who have pre-ordered them through Apple’s online store are getting notifications that their orders are being prepared for shipment. A 4 inch Retina Display The report by CNET states, “Any shortages on the Touch's side could be the result of the screens Apple is using, which reportedly caused maker Sharp some headaches. The screens use in-cell technology, which combines both the pixels and the touch sensitive layer into one unit. The result is a screen that Apple says reduces glare, while improving sensitivity and contrast ratio. At the same time, the screens were reportedly quite difficult to produce. Last week one of Sharp's executives told Reuters the company was producing "adequate volumes" of the screen.” For those who missed out on the unveiling, Apple introduced the new line-up of the world’s most popular music players – the all-new iPod touch and its 7th generation iPod nano. The new iPod touch is the thinnest iPod touch ever and features a 4-inch Retina display, a 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, Apple’s A5 chip, Siri—the intelligent assistant and iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. The new iPod touch comes in a new ultra-thin and light anodized aluminium design, and for the first time ever, iPod touch comes in five vibrant colours.  The reinvented iPod nano is the thinnest iPod ever, at just 5mm, and features the largest display ever built into an iPod nano, allowing you to enjoy more of your music, photos and widescreen videos. The new iPod nano features a 2.5-inch Multi-Touch display to make navigating your music even easier; a home button to quickly get back to your home screen; and convenient buttons to easily control volume and quickly play, pause or change songs without looking. The new iPod nano gives music lovers built-in Bluetooth for wireless listening with Bluetooth-enabled headphones, speakers and cars. Funky new shape iPod nano will be available in October in pink, yellow, blue, green, purple, silver, and slate for a suggested price of Rs 12,500 including VAT (Rs 11,013 excluding VAT) in a 16GB model through Apple's authorised resellers.

New iPods may be facing supply issues

When Apple announced the iPhone 5, the brand also unveiled the next generation iPods. These new iPods were greeted well by the audience at the event. Many people took to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and claimed that they were far more excited about the latest iPods than about the iPhone. However, a report by Mocotakaraclaims that when the iPods arrive in Japan next week, there would be "considerably few numbers of the initial shipment”.  Reportedly, the iPods could be distributed within the next two weeks. Some customers who have pre-ordered them through Apple’s online store are getting notifications that their orders are being prepared for shipment. A 4 inch Retina Display The report by CNET states, “Any shortages on the Touch's side could be the result of the screens Apple is using, which reportedly caused maker Sharp some headaches. The screens use in-cell technology, which combines both the pixels and the touch sensitive layer into one unit. The result is a screen that Apple says reduces glare, while improving sensitivity and contrast ratio. At the same time, the screens were reportedly quite difficult to produce. Last week one of Sharp's executives told Reuters the company was producing "adequate volumes" of the screen.” For those who missed out on the unveiling, Apple introduced the new line-up of the world’s most popular music players – the all-new iPod touch and its 7th generation iPod nano. The new iPod touch is the thinnest iPod touch ever and features a 4-inch Retina display, a 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, Apple’s A5 chip, Siri—the intelligent assistant and iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. The new iPod touch comes in a new ultra-thin and light anodized aluminium design, and for the first time ever, iPod touch comes in five vibrant colours.  The reinvented iPod nano is the thinnest iPod ever, at just 5mm, and features the largest display ever built into an iPod nano, allowing you to enjoy more of your music, photos and widescreen videos. The new iPod nano features a 2.5-inch Multi-Touch display to make navigating your music even easier; a home button to quickly get back to your home screen; and convenient buttons to easily control volume and quickly play, pause or change songs without looking. The new iPod nano gives music lovers built-in Bluetooth for wireless listening with Bluetooth-enabled headphones, speakers and cars. Funky new shape iPod nano will be available in October in pink, yellow, blue, green, purple, silver, and slate for a suggested price of Rs 12,500 including VAT (Rs 11,013 excluding VAT) in a 16GB model through Apple's authorised resellers.

Apple's iPhone 5 gets thumbs-up from Consumer Reports

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Consumer Reports, the influential reviewers' group that blasted the iPhone 4 for a faulty antenna, on Friday gave Apple Inc's latest smartphone a thumbs-up despite echoing widespread complaints about its patchy mapping service. The organisation, which in 2010 withheld its recommendation for the iPhone because of spotty reception when the gadget was held in a certain way, said laboratory tests confirmed that the new iPhone 5 ranked among the best smartphones, but its mapping function clearly fell short. Apple's latest iPhone, sporting a larger 4-inch screen and 4G capability, drew scathing reviews for glaring errors in a new, self-designed mapping service. Chief Executive Tim Cook apologised last week and directed users to rival services run by Google Inc and others. "Despite the widespread criticism it has received, Apple's new Maps app... is competent enough, even if it falls short of what's available for free on many other phones," reviewer Mike Gikas wrote on the group's website yesterday. "As Apple has recently apologised and promised to fix these and other map glitches, we expect the Map app to improve in time," he wrote. Apple's shares were down 1.3 percent at $658.43 in early afternoon trade on Nasdaq. The consumer electronics juggernaut began selling its latest smartphone last month. Sales of over five million in its first three days in stores fell short of outsized expectations as it struggled with supply constraints. Apple iPhone 5 recommended by Consumer Reports. Its homegrown Maps -- stitched together by acquiring companies and employing data from a range of providers including TomTom NV and Waze - was introduced with much fanfare in June by software chief Scott Forstall. It was billed as a highlight of the updated iOS 6 software. Errors and omissions quickly emerged after the software was rolled out. They ranged from misplaced buildings and mislabeled cities to duplicate geographical features. Users also complained that the service lacked features that made Google Maps so popular, such as public transit directions and street-view pictures. The last time Apple faced such widespread criticism -- including from Consumer Reports -- was during 2010's "Antennagate" furor, when users complained of signal reception issues on the then-new iPhone 4. This year the consumer group, which reviews everything from cars to kitchen appliances, also warned initially that Apple's new iPad threw off too much heat. A defiant Steve Jobs at the time rejected any suggestion the iPhone 4's design was flawed, but offered consumers free phone cases at a rare, 90-minute press conference called to address those complaints. "Now that our auto experts have completed their tests, including some carried out some days after the launch, they describe the app as relatively streamlined, and concluded that it generally provides clear guidance, including voice and on-screen directions," Gikas wrote. "However, they did find that it lacks the details, traffic data, and customization options offered by the free Google navigation app found on Android phones."

First-gen iPod is back; this time in your browser

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Pritesh Desai, a digital artist has made a first-generation in-browser iPod. It can be used the way one would use the regular iPod, and this one here can be played right out of your browser.  While it is a year since the genius behind Apple, Steve Jobs passed away, this coming up is nothing short of the perfect tribute. Begin by going to this link here. The life-sized iPod that you can see in your window is where you begin. Users can drag the mouse, and move the scroll-wheel. They can move through the options by dragging through the scroll-wheel, and by clicking on the button at the centre of the scroll-wheel, they can play their favourite music.  The iPod's in your browser now On his site, Desai writes, “Apple’s rise as the world’s biggest company ever in the history can be attributed to one single product – the iPod. Steve Jobs pulled out the tiny mp3 player, the size of a deck of a cards and ushered Apple towards it’s greatest era. I decided to recreate the original iPod using HTML5 and CSS3. I’d like to show you the current progress.” To get the scroll wheel working, he tried to use 'Shiny Knob Control with jQuery and CSS3' by Tutorialzine. However that wasn't without its glitches. "I stumbled across this wonderful jQuery plugin ‘jQuery Knob’ developed by Anthony Terrien. It worked beautifully, it even had a special iPod mode which had infinite scrolling," he adds further. Desai wanted his creation to be ready just in time for Jobs' first death anniversary. "I dedicate this iPod to Steve Jobs, without whom there would have been no iPod," he adds further. He is working towards adding the option to shuffle songs, and also try to introduce the whirring sound, while moving the scroll-wheel. Meanwhile, reports suggest that when the new iPods arrive in Japan next week, there would be "considerably few numbers of the initial shipment”. Reportedly, the iPods could be distributed within the next two weeks. Some customers who have pre-ordered them through Apple’s online store are getting notifications that their orders are being prepared for shipment. For those who missed out on the unveiling, Apple introduced the new line-up of the world’s most popular music players – the all-new iPod touch and its 7th generation iPod nano. The new iPod touch is the thinnest iPod touch ever and features a 4-inch Retina display, a 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, Apple’s A5 chip, Siri—the intelligent assistant and iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. The new iPod touch comes in a new ultra-thin and light anodized aluminium design, and for the first time ever, iPod touch comes in five vibrant colours.

Razer to launch gaming tablet Project Fiona

Razer had showcased its latest project earlier this year during CES – a gaming tablet named Project Fiona. According to PCMag, co-founder and CEO of Razer, Min-Liang Tan, has been checking the interest level for the tablet on Facebook and Twitter. After 11,000 Facebook Likes and counting, Tan has said that Project Fiona has generated enough interest in the public, and will be produced. The unnamed tablet is said to have a 10.1-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It is said to be powered by an Ivy Bridge-generation Core i7 chip. According to the concept art, the tablet is aimed at a gaming audience with the help of two controller pads sticking out of the sides, each sporting some buttons and an analog stick. Razer is set to launch Project Fiona Last month, Razer had unveiled a new version of its gaming laptop, called the Razer Blade. The new version of the Blade will feature a third-generation Intel Quad-core processor, and an Nvidia GTX 660M graphics card, while maintaining its slim 22mm thickness and a weight of 3.1kg. The laptop will also stick to its 17.3-inch display. According to the manufacturer, the new hardware will allow the laptop to be twice as powerful as the original, while maintaining portability. Other changes include 2GB of DDR5 video memory, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM, a 500GB HDD running at an RPM of 7200 as the primary storage, and a 64GB SATA III SSD with NVELO Dataplex software. Also new is the thermal system, which has been remade to keep the laptop running at a lower temperature. While the new hardware is fine, much like the first Razer Blade, Razer seems to have gone with lower storage memory. For the sake of comparison, the original Razer Blade featured a Core i7 2640M, 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GT 555M with Optimus, 60Wh battery, 320GB hard drive and a built-in HD camera. While things under the hood have changed, the Razer Blade maintains its unique Switchblade UI. On the right side of the backlit keyboard are 10 programmable macro keys that dynamically change depending on the game you are playing along with matching icons. Of course, the game profiles will have to be present in order for this to work and so far Razer has promised support for popular games such as Battlefield 3, Rift, End of Nations, League of Legends and many more. The really interesting bit is the large colour LCD panel below the macro keys. It features two modes. It can either display in-game information as you are playing or act as a multi-touch trackpad. Other than the whole dynamic keys bit and the aluminium body, this is not revolutionary by any means.Dell’s Vostro 3750 is a perfect example as it delivers great gaming performance, even though it wasn't designed for that task. Razer seems all set to go toe-to-toe with Dell in the dedicated gaming laptop market. Pre-orders for the Razer Blade is set to cost $2,499 (around Rs 1.4 lakh), and shipping will begin in North America from 30 September.

Android-based, new Akai Smart Box can turn any TV into smart TV

Japanese consumer electronics brand, Akai has announced the launch of the Akai Smart Box. According to an official statement by the company, the product transforms any television -- CRT, Plasma, LCD or LED -- into a smart TV. Akai Smart Box, based on the Android platform, maintains an open network without getting restricted to the servers of smart TV brands, as in the case of most smart TVs. The device will be available across India at an introductory festive offer price of Rs 6,590. The MRP is Rs 6,990. The Akai Smart Box comes with a wireless mouse for navigation with which any TV can perform all the functions that a tablet PC normally does. It is equipped with 4GB internal memory, and supports memory up to 32GB through an SD Card slot. It allows users to connect to the Internet and browse websites, read books and newspapers, check e-mails, look up weather updates and market updates, play games, book travel tickets, play music, play videos on YouTube, use Facebook, Twitter and Skype. Customers can also shop from the TV by visiting shopping portals. The Akai Smart Box turns regular TVs into Smart TVs Pranay Dhabhai, Managing Director, Akai India said, “Product life span in today’s digital age is short; buy anything and by the time you’ve stepped out of the shop it’s already outdated. Our Smart Box is set to change the way television is seen in India. Customers can upgrade their existing TV to a Smart TV which gives Full HD viewing experience without changing their existing TV. Even consumers who are planning to purchase Smart TVs can choose to buy a normal LED TV and connect with our Smart Box to get the benefits of smart TV at a fraction of the price.” With the Android operating system, the Akai Smart Box converts a normal TV into a PC. It also creates a hotspot when connected to a LAN cable or a 3G dongle, as it transmits Wi-Fi signal to operate other gadgets. It also supports 2G network. Customers can even print documents from the Wi-Fi enabled printer. By using the HDMI cable one can get Full HD picture quality. It has 4 USB ports. So, besides a mouse, keyboard and webcam, one can connect a hard disk drive or a USB flash drive, and view their contents on the TV. The Smart Box supports all popular formats of movies, music and photos. It can also save photos and videos recorded through the webcam.  The Akai Smart Box also supports the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) function, which allows users to seamlessly access and share digital content from their mobile phones onto the TV screen, when connected with a common Wi-Fi device.

Microsoft to launch Spotify-like Xbox Music on October 26

Microsoft is ready to launch its own music service later this month. The music service, dubbed Xbox Music, will be going live on October 26, according to Eurogamer. The service is set to follow the style of Spotify with free users being able to listen to music through ad-supported channels, and paid users not seeing any ads. The service seems to be designed with Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 in mind, as users will be able to store music from the service onto Microsoft’s cloud service – SkyDrive. The service will make its way to Xbox 360s in an upcoming dashboard update. The service will also get its own apps for iOS and Android soon after the release. Will get the Xbox Music service this month Recently, Microsoft started a rewards system for gamers with high Gamerscores on Xbox Live. The new rewards program is meant to reward gamers for their loyalty to Microsoft’s gaming console – the Xbox 360. The rewards come in three tiers and seem to be very miniscule. The first tier, called Contender, is for those with a Gamerscore between 3,000 and 9,999. This tier gets a 'special gift' during the gamer’s birthday month. The website notes that the 'special gift' will be valued at $0.25 (around Rs 13). The next tier, called Champion, is for those with a Gamerscore between 10,000 and 24,999. Gamers in this tier receive the 'special gift', along with a 1 percent rebate on purchases made on Xbox Live Arcade for every month. The third and final tier, called Legend, is for those with a Gamerscore of 25,000 and above. Gamers in this tier also get the 'special gift', along with a 2 percent rebate on purchases made on Xbox Live Arcade. In a recent interview with The Verge, Brian Hall, General Manager of Windows Live, Microsoft mentioned the existence of a new Xbox. Hall referred to “the new Xbox” as one of the many projects that could be integrated with Windows 8. He said, “We’ve had Hotmail and operated Hotmail for about 16 years. We obviously have Exchange, and Outlook, that people use at work. We just decided it was time to do something new and bring the best from each of those and put them together and release it right in time for the new wave of products that we could have coming out with Windows 8, with the new version of Office, with the new Windows Phone and the new Xbox”. While this was the first time anyone from Microsoft had openly acknowledged the existence of the next generation console, Microsoft later backtracked in a comment to IGN.com, “The comments to The Verge were not understood in their intended context. When Brian mentioned a ‘new wave of products,’ he was referring to the full lineup of products coming later this year from Microsoft, including Windows 8, Office, Windows Phone and of course our fall Xbox update which will bring a host of new consumer experiences like Xbox Music, Videos, Games on Windows 8 and Xbox SmartGlass”. According to an earlier report, a supposed Xbox 720 “Durango” developer kit was posted on a developer forum and was introduced to the public for a price of $10,000. The developer kit resembles the traditional PC tower running a debug launcher, which caused many people to be cautious and sceptical about whether the prototype is authentic. EuroGamer’s Digital Foundry reached the source of the leak. After following up on the story with multiple developers, who are working on next-gen projects, they came to the conclusion that the hardware was real.

Street View now live on Google Maps iOS web app

After users of iOS 6 were forced to turn to the web browser versions of Google Maps and Nokia Maps for their navigation needs, Google has released a new update to the web version of its Maps service, according to UnleashThePhones. In the new update, users can access Street View from the mobile browser version of Google Maps in iOS. While the update is mainly for iOS devices, Google has said that other phones can also use Street View on the Google Maps web app, but it won’t work equally well. The feature is available on both the iPhone and the iPad by accessing Google Maps from the device and hitting the Street View button on the upper/lower right side. As revealed earlier, it is also possible to have Google Maps and Nokia Maps running on your browser in full screen on your iOS device. Street View is now available on the Google Maps mobile web app Recently, CEO of Apple, Tim Cook had issued an apology for the faulty Maps app and had suggested some alternatives, as the company works on improving the app. In his statement, Tim Cook said, "We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better...While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app". Apple had released a statement to AllThingsD regarding the complaints that the company was facing for the new Maps app that was included in the iOS 6 update. According to the statement,“We are excited to offer this service with innovative new features like Flyover and Siri integration, and free turn by turn navigation. We launched this new map service knowing that it is a major initiative and we are just getting started with it. We are continuously improving it, and as Maps is a cloud-based solution, the more people use it, the better it will get. We’re also working with developers to integrate some of the amazing transit apps in the App Store into iOS Maps. We appreciate all of the customer feedback and are working hard to make the customer experience even better.” Features of iOS 6 were unveiled during the Apple event earlier this month. The new Maps app has a built-in search for local points of interest, with over 100 million possible suggestions. Other features of the Maps app include navigation, routing, 3D maps, satellite imagery – that wraps around the 3D maps – and the ability to get directions directly through Siri.