iRiver N15 MP3 Player for Russia

iRiver offers in Russia the N15 portable audio player that looks exactly the same as its brother N20. The N15 is available in 2GB or 4GB capacities. It has a PMOLED display and supports MP3, WMA, WAV, APE and FLAC files. Compare to the N20, the N15 gives up the support for OGG files and offers 12 hours of battery life that is 3 hours less.

Apple, Android to take out PC sales - Gartner

Tablets, led by the iPad, will cut increasingly into PC sales from this year onwards, according to the latest forecasts from the Gartner research firm.
While the chipmaker  Intel has predicted tablets will expand the PC market, Gartner suggests Apple and Android tablets will displace around 10 per cent of other PC sales by 2014.
Gartner said on Monday worldwide PC shipments should grow 14.3 per cent in 2010 to 352.4m units, but that is down from its prediction of 19.2 per cent growth to  367.8m units made on August 31.
It predicts 15.9 per cent growth to 409m units in 2011, down from its earlier estimate of 18.1 per cent growth.
“These results reflect marked reductions in expected near-term unit growth based on expectations of weaker consumer demand, due in no small part to growing user interest in media tablets such as the iPad,” said Ranjit Atwal, Gartner research director.
“Over the longer term, media tablets are expected to displace around 10 per cent of PC units by 2014.”
Gartner describes media tablets as touchscreen devices running Android, Chrome or Apple’s iOS operating systems and does not include them in its PC figures. It does include tablets running Windows operating systems in its figures.
The research firm says the PC market will be weakened by disruptive forces such as media tablets and next-generation smartphones. Desktop PCs could be hit by adoption of computing in the cloud, with only thin-client “barebones” PCs or refurbished ones needed.
“PCs are still seen as necessities, but the PC industry’s inability to significantly innovate and its over-reliance on a business model predicated on driving volume through price declines are finally impacting the industry’s ability to induce new replacement cycles,” said George Shiffler, another Gartner research director.
Emerging markets are providing growth, but there is a risk consumers there could leapfrog PCs for alternative devices, Gartner says.
To complete the gloom, the research firm says economic uncertainty is making consumers postpone purchases in mature markets and media tablets are “rapidly finding favour with PC buyers who are attracted to their more-dedicated entertainment-driven features and their instant-on capability.”

An iPad Project for a magazine Virgin

 

With any Virgin launch, it is worth looking for the substance behind the hype guaranteed by Sir Richard Branson’s involvement. Tuesday’s unveiling of Project, billed as  the first truly interactive magazine for the iPad age, was no exception.

Joined by Holly, his 29-year-old daughter who is leading the Project, er, project, the bearded balloonist happily played into the hands of reporters who have  billed his pitch for Apple’s tablet as a battle of the billionaires with Rupert Murdoch, whose $30m iPad “newspaper”, The Daily, is expected early next year.
“This is not a battle. This is not a war. It’s about the future of publishing,” he said, before adding the jibe that 30 years of reading Mr Murdoch’s papers convinced him that his title would win “the battle of quality”.
But what does Project offer for what editor Anthony Noguera dubbed the most exciting thing in publishing since Caxton’s printing press? The launch issue, shown off with the usual wifi glitches in a New York hotel, features a flickering cover shot of Jeff Bridges, the Tron Legacy star, who strides on to the first page of an interview which offers more video and audio clips. Other features encourage interaction with the iPad’s touch screen, to colour in a blueprint of a new Jaguar or fly through the streets of Tokyo for a travel article.
For $2.99 or £1.79, readers will (after a 10-minute download wait “on a reasonable internet connection”) get “a monthly magazine that changes daily”, Branson said, highlighting its regularly updated blog and its desire to “crowdsource” comments, editorial ideas and other content. If that sounds like a mess waiting to happen, Noguera says these will be curated.
Project needs the crowd’s help, in part because it has just 20 people, only five of them in editorial roles. The Daily, by contrast, is hiring 100-150 people. “Virgin is a cheapskate,” Branson joked, shortly after dressing up as a mannequin for a photo opp outside an Apple store. Such stunts would encourage many people with iPads waiting under this year’s Christmas tree to buy the app in order to have something to show off what it can do, he predicted.
More revealingly, Noguera said this type of magazine was “far more expensive” to produce than a comparable print title. Forget all the talk about the benefits of not having unionised printers and delivery trucks – tablet-only titles still needed “extremely well-paid” developers and faced the tedious process of redesigning their products for each new device.
Project hopes that such costs will be offset by being charging advertisers such as Lexus and Panasonic a premium for interactive ads you can swipe, tilt and play with, and boasts that it will not carry a single inanimate PDF. “It’s going to make advertising a thousand times more effective than it is now,” Branson said.
But Project is a one-off app up against the likes of Condé Nast, Hearst and Time Inc which are busy translating their well-resourced magazine brands for tablets.  Branson told Bloomberg it would be “great” if Project attracted 50,000 subscribers (one-sixteenth of the number  Murdoch told the Australian Financial Review he needs for The Daily), but his daughter was more circumspect about the size of the market. “It’s quite difficult to put a figure on. It’s virgin territory,” she said.

MacBook Air

Computer Equipment
Client: Apple (U.S.)
Design: Apple (U.S.)

The MacBook Air is a full-size 3 pound notebook encased in sleek, sturdy anodized aluminum. The 13.3-inch, widescreen LED backlit display is mercury- and arsenic-free. The keyboard is full-size and has backlit key illumination with a built-in ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts keyboard and display brightness for optimal visibility. MacBook Air also includes a built-in iSight camera and an oversized trackpad with multi-touch technology. The port hatch flips down to reveal (and closes to hide) a USB 2.0 port, headphone jack and a micro-DVI port. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor was custom-built to fit within the compact dimensions.

Bloomberg Flexible Display

Computer Equipment
Client: Bloomberg (U.S.)
Design: Antenna Design (U.S.)

This highly flexible and compact dual-head display allows subscribers to the Bloomberg Professional Service to easily adjust the screen's display height, angle, vertical and horizontal orientations for optimum use with different software tools.

Dell XPS M1330 & M1530

Computer Equipment
Client: Dell (U.S.)
Design: Dell (U.S.), M3 Design (U.S.)

The design of the M1330 and M1530 notebook computer family builds a bridge between utility and aesthetics, adding appeal to the company's reputation for utilitarian value and mass production efficiency. The design's package is as much art as tool, delivering unprecedented fit and finish, premium color choices and outstanding connectivity. The notebooks are super slim, with an elegant wedge shape made possible by a two-point barrel hinge. High-tech buttons glow blue at the lightest touch, adding responsiveness to the interface.

Belkin RockStar

Computer Equipment
Client: Belkin (U.S.)
Design: Belkin (U.S.)

RockStar is a simple device that allows up to six audio devices, speakers or headphones to be shared with one another. Input jacks are the same as output jacks, so any port can be used to put sound in or get sound out.