Digital Tech News - Digital Technology & Consumer Electronics

Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface

With a price tag of about $8,500, Samsung Electronics and Microsoft Corp. recently announced that the next generation Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface is now available for pre-order. The design has come a long way since the Surface was first announced back in 2007,  and the Samsung SUR40 now features PixelSense technology, which is said to give LCD panels "the power to see without the use of cameras." It was also named a 2011 "Best of What's New" award winner by Popular Science magazine.

Kingston Digital DataTraveler USB Flash drives feature urDrive application

Kingston Digital, Inc. recently announced a free pre-loaded application for its line of DataTraveler USB 2.0 Flash drives called urDrive, a useful set of tools that will help you easily and securely store and access multimedia and data files, play casual games and securely browse the Web. The urDrive app is available on Kingston’s entry-level DataTraveler 101G2, 108 and 109 USB Flash drives, and soon on the DTIG3, offering from 4GB to 32GB of storage for photos, music, games and videos. The application set also features a built-in photo viewer, an MP3 player, file management tools, quick links to social networking sites, and its own Maxthon 3 web browser.

With all of these features available right from the USB drive, you are able to take it with you while travelling to access all of your files on any computer and surf the Internet without leaving any trace of your Web surfing history behind. The urDrive USB also includes Norton PC Checkup, which scans for viruses, spyware, worms and adware on any computer you plug it in to.

urDrive Applications

 

eBay Fashion App offers Augmented Reality from Total Immersion

eBay and Augmented Reality innovators Total Immersion have teamed-up to offer a new mobile shopping feature within eBay’s Fashion app called “See It On.”  As you can see in the video below, the new feature allows you to virtually try on sunglasses in real time thanks to augmented reality and the front-facing camera on an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch. The app uses facial recognition to identify the user and then will apply virtual sunglasses to your video image. Once you've got that going, you can also adjust the fit, choose different styles, frames, lenses and colors as you like, and purchase the item in the app. This is truly a sign of what's to come in mobile smartphone shopping.

Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Network Launched Today

Verizon Wireless launched its 4G LTE mobile broadband network in 38 markets across the U.S. today. Verizon is promising download rates of between 5 - 12 megabits per second, and upload rates at between 2 - 5 Mbps, with two 4G LTE high-speed wireless data service plans available - a 5GB monthly plan priced at $50, and a 10GB monthly plan priced at $80. Overage charges for both plans are set at $10 per 1GB. At launch the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network will initially offer customers two 4G LTE modem devices, the LG VL600 and the Pantech UML290, which are each available for $99.99 with a new 4G LTE Mobile Broadband Plan contract. 4G LTE smartphones will be released in 2011.

The video below shares some of the benefits of 4G LTE from Verizon Wireless:

Walmart Announces Holiday Consumer Electronics Gift Deals Ahead of Black Friday Sales

This holiday season Walmart invites customers to check-out "The Amazing Walmart Electronics Event," for the best deals in consumer electronics gifts from Saturday, Nov. 6th- 7th at Walmart stores and Walmart.com before official Black Friday sales begin. Walmart suggests HDTVs, video game consoles and laptops as top Christmas presents this year, which is why the company is focusing deals on electronics like a Vizio 26" LED TV for $198, a $288 Compaq laptop computer and a $50 Gift Card on a Sony PlayStation 3 Move Bundle. Walmart's holiday sale list also includes other Vizio HDTV sizes, so see the list below.

Kingston 32 GB microSDHC Class 4 Card

This week Kingston will start shipping its new 32GB microSDHC Class 4 card for increased mobile storage on smartphones and other compatible devices.According to Kingston, this 32GB microSDHC card can store about 29,000 photos, 6,000 songs and more than 2,000 minutes of video. The card will also ship with a small USB reader, which will make for easy data transfers. Pricing is set at $153.00 for the 32GB card only, or $155-$159 if you add SD card adapter and reader.

Seagate Announces 3 Terabyte FreeAgent GoFlex External Desktop Drive

Announced as the world's first 3 terabyte external desktop drive, the new Seagate 3TB FreeAgent GoFlex external hard drive is able to store heck of a lot of digital content, up to 120 HD movies, 1,500 video games, thousands of photos or countless hours of digital music, according to Seagate.

The 3TB drive has a USB 2.0 interface which can be easily upgraded to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800 with a GoFlex desktop adapter, greatly increasing file transfer performance and speed.  It's compatible with Windows OS and Mac computers, and the unit includes an NTFS driver for Mac, which allows the drive to store and access files from both Windows and Mac OS X computers without re-formatting. 

The 3TB GoFlex Desk external drive with USB 2.0 adapter costs $249.99.

RealD Introduces 3D Glasses for Kids

Arriving in time for summer 3D movie blockbusters, RealD Inc. has stocked theaters showing Disney PIXAR’s “Toy Story 3" in the USA and Canada with kid-sized RealD 3D glasses. That's right, no more having to deal with children complaining about those huge 3d glasses, these new 3D glasses for kids are designed to fit kids 8 years of age and under, and come sealed in individual packaging to ensure they are sanitary and quality assured, according to RealD.

Sony Develops Rollable OLED Display

SonyInsider reports that Sony has developed an ultra-thin, super-flexible 80µm-thick 4.1-inch 121 ppi OTFT-driven full color OLED display with16 million colors, shown here being wrapped around a thin cylinder.  This gives Sony a lot to brag about when they hit SID (Society for Information Display) 2010 International Symposium in Seattle, WA this week. We can only imagine the innovative gadgets that will be created in a few years using flexible, rollable displays like this. Check-out the video below.

To create the display, Sony developed OTFTs with an original organic semiconductor material (a PXX derivative) with eight times the current modulation of conventional OTFTs. This was achieved due to the development of integration technologies of OTFTs and OLEDs on an ultra-thin 20 μm thick flexible substrate (a flexible on-panel gate-driver circuit with OTFTs which is able to get rid of conventional rigid driver IC chips interfering roll-up of a display) and soft organic insulators for all the insulators in the integration circuit. By combining these technologies, Sony successfully demonstrated the world’s first OLED panel which is capable of reproducing moving images while being repeatedly rolled-up – around a cylinder with a radius of 4 mm – and stretched.

HP to buy Palm for $1.2 billion Dollars

After months of troubling times for Palm, HP comes to the rescue and agrees to purchase Palm at the price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock, or about $1.2 billion. This will get HP back in the smartphone game, but we'll have to wait and see if the company will focus on smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, or the much more popular Android OS. HP says the deal should close around July 31, 2010.