Those pesky Chinese copycats are it again - they’ve ripped off the iPhone. Sad to say, that in some ways, this little iPhone Flip actually looks better than the original Apple version. For a start it’s a 3 Mpxs camera and a 2.6 inch screen which makes it considerably better than the iPhone Flip.

Ok, I’m going a little too far - aGPS, Email, Wi-Fi etc which actually makes it pretty crap unless you’re looking for a very basic phone that looks good and only costs £65.

Your choice, if Apple doesn’t manage to close them down anytime soon.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Following on the heels of Sandisk, Toshiba has announced a new SDHG card, the SD-ME016GA, which will be released in Japan in January next year. The card is due to to go on sale for about $200.

Sandisk released their 16Gb cards in September so Toshiba has a little catching up to do but the pricing looks favourable…then again, it’s a big market with plenty of space for competitors.

Toshiba also announced two SDHC cards. The SD-C16GT6 holds 16GB and will cost $200 when it hits Japanese stores in April next year. An 8GB model (SD-C08GT6) will be available in Japan for around $100 next month.

There are no dates for expected availability outside of Japan!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Demand for video and data traffic on the internet is rocketing. Cue Cisco and the next generation hardware for telcos.

4 years development and $200 million has put Cisco in a position to reap some serious profits from the ever increasing demands being placed on the internet. The new Cisco router, ASR 900, is capable of 6.4 terabytes throuhput every second - that’s some serious bandwidth for downloading ‘men’s entertainment videos’! Here’s an idea of how fast this router is: you could download 250,000 songs or 200 movies in ONE SECOND!

The new router should help telcos cope with the tidal wave of data currently being experienced,wel, at least until some bright spark gives us Gig ADSL connections to our houses!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Hardware piled sky high.

These figures are an estimate provided by Gartner who estimate that the number of PC’s is growing at about 12% per year. On that basis there should be around two billion installed PC’s kicking around by 2014.

According to research director George Shiffler,

Mature markets, such as the US, Western Europe and Japan, currently account for 58 percent of the world’s installed PCs, but these markets only account for 15 percent of the world’s population,

On top of those figures, reasearch suggests that 180 million PC’s are due to be replaced this year - that’s a whole lot of recycling!

Popularity: 29% [?]

Available for download.

OpenSuse 11 is here - actually, it was made available for download yesterday but better late than never.

The latest version of OpenSuse has some improvements which should make life a whole lot easier for users.

• improved installer
• improved sound management - at last
• faster package management
• OpenOffice 2.4 and Banshee media player

Personally, I’ve always liked Suse. I know that there have been a number of issues over the years regarding installation and support for certain pieces of hardware but with the backing Novell and AMD the free OS should be onto a winner.

Popularity: 29% [?]

I think it’ll have a tin opener on the side!

Well, maybe not. But you never know. But it’s no wilder than some of the speculation on the iPhone 3G. Following Steve Jobs keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. iPhone rumour jockeys have been throwing around ideas such as:

• front-facing camera for video calls
• changes in form factor
• GPS capability.

Reports are circulating on the internet that Apple is filing a patent for under screen solar cells. Looks the Apple really is Green!

Popularity: 23% [?]

It’s here.

I’ve just downloaded the latest Windows XP service pack. So far, no problems (I haven’t rebooted yet!) so hats off to Microsoft so far. The issue with Dynamics RMS is still present and Microsoft are working hard to resolve this - if you’re using DRMS, don’t worry; Microsoft automatically detects your installation and does not stream the download to your server. The problem also affects Vista SP1 but, as per XP, this has been covered by Microsoft until the issue is fixed - later this month, according to MS sources.

Now go, download and enjoy!

P.S Let me know if you have any problems. I’m off to reboot. See you later…maybe.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I wonder if they’ll give a us 2Gb download limit?

It looks like Virgin are ramping up their assault on BTs broadband services. A trial has run to test 40Gb connections over a 217 mile stretch of existing 10Gb backbone - basically, London to Manchester. The test was designed to examine the viability of enhancing the existing network.

Nortel Networks 40G Adaptive Optical Engine DWDM transponder cards and Juniper Networks T-series routers, with 40Gbit/s interfaces, were used during testing. The trial was run by Virgin Media as a proving ground for the growing requirements of Virgins customers - looks like we’re getting pretty bandwidth hungry!

Popularity: 23% [?]

Sticks fingers up at O2.

Vodafone has signed a contract to supply the iPhone to consumers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. Full details have not been released as yet which suggests this may not be an exclusive deal.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Creation of a grotesque love child?

Do you have platforms running Windows and Novell Linux? You’re in for a treat - if you run SCOM 2007. Novell is working with Microsoft to produce a suite of tools that will allow you to manage SuSe from a Windows platform. The move is part of the joint effort to push both Novell and Microsoft products deeper into Enterprise territory.

Novell have also announced a major push to use Open Source providers to enhance it’s ZENworks management tools for Linux.

I know that many of you will be thinking that Novell is a possible acquisition target for Microsoft but I doubt this will happen. Why buy a company when you can just squeeze them out of the market?

Popularity: 31% [?]