Isaiah's Tech

A new Dell tablet looks like it will be on-the-way in the near future. The Dell XT2 is rumoured to be launching this Wednesday, Ferbruary 11. It has decent specs, such as: "a 12.1-inch multitouch display, up to 5GB of DDR3 memory", your choice of 80GB or 64GB of SSD. You also get the choice of having a 1.2GHz or a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo packed inside this baby. It weighs about 3.62 pounds, just in case you wanted to know.

Google is going to take over the world Internet soon, but first, it's going to dominate e-mail services. If Gmail's growth continues, we may see it pass Hotmail by the end of this year. As Gmail's usage continues to increase day-by-day, Hotmail's usage is going in the opposite direction. Gmail grew 43% from December 2007 to December 2008, while Hotmail went down 5% during the same time period. Hah. Take that Hotmail users. Gmail catching up to Yahoo is a different story. Gmail will have to continue this pace to catch up to Yahoo's usage by 2011. I don't even know anyone who uses Yahoo anymore and i find it incredible that Yahoo is so far ahead of all of its competitors. It's okay, Gmail will pull through.

Microsoft Skybox? It looks the name has been changed to Microsoft MyPhone. Maybe the Windows Mobile name change to Windows Phone is true, after all. Windows Phone + Microsoft MyPhone, get it? The Windows Mobile name change has yet to be confirmed. Anyways, rumour has it that at MWC Microsoft will be releasing "invite-only" betas for MyPhone. MyPhone will have the same features (and possibly even new additions) as the Skybox, since they are the same service.

Windows has had many successful operating systems over the years, Vista is going to be excluded from the list. Windows XP was Microsoft's most successful OS ever and why they decided to move on to a horrible OS, such as Vista, is beyond me. "In 10 weeks, Microsoft Corp. will begin to retire Windows XP by shifting the seven-year-old OS into a more limited support plan." This isn't going to stop me from using XP after the Windows 7 Beta shuts down. Microsoft has been wanting their users to switch OS's, but i am actually going to thank Microsoft because they've delayed this "limited support plan" for a while now. Windows XP might be the best OS currently, but Windows 7 looks like it will be better than XP, the same way Vista should have been. Windows 7's benchmark tests are surpassing Vista's and are around the same as XP's. Microsoft should be closing the XP and 7 gap, in terms of speed, soon. But, with the evolving technology coming out for computers / laptops, i'm sure the hardware should be able to run Windows 7 faster than XP. I am actually going to thank Microsoft for making XP such a good OS. Kudos.

Through the Fire and Flames. The hardest song in Guitar Hero 3. A 14 year old named Danny Johnson has broken the old record by almost 100,000 points at a Best Buy store with the "Guinness officiaries in attendance." The record was last held by Chris Chike, who was 17 years old. The previous record was 899,703 and the new record is now 973,954. Apparently, as Danny was attempting to break the world record, he went through / broke / demolished about 80 guitars. Does this 14 year old need to go through some anger management? To be honest, i'd do the same thing if my parents afforded to buy me 80 guitars. I'm really waiting for the day where someone shatters this record with a 100%, will it happen?

If you have a T-Mobile G1 and are interested in the Android hack to enable multitouch capabilities. Just go to this link, via Gizmodo.

Dell XT2 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/07/dell-xt2-specs-and-availability-leaked-launching-on-weds/
Gmail Usage Increasing: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1258
Microsoft MyPhone (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/07/microsoft-confirms-myphone-invite-only-beta-coming-to-mwc/
Windows XP's Time is Almost Up: http://www.pcworld.com/article/159151/windows_xp_retires.html?tk=rss_news
Windows XP picture: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/category/pc-gadgets/software/page/5/
New Guitar Hero 3 Record: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/07/14-year-old-breaks-ghiii-fire-and-flames-record-guitars/
T-Mobile G1 Android Hack For Multi-Touch: http://i.gizmodo.com/5146797/how-to-hack-android-for-multitouch-web-browsing-on-the-t+mobile-g1

Kicking off this blog post with MSI. MSI's all-in-one Wind NetOn A1900 is decent. Apparently, this is the M19 from last November and it was also shown off at CES a couple of weeks ago. "The 18.5-inch desktop houses an Intel Atom N270, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, DVD burner, 4-in-1 card reader, 1.3 megapixel webcam, and an optional 802.11 b/g." As of right now, there is no word on the pricing or the availability. The screen itself has a 16:9 resolution, has a 1000:1 contrast ratio and a 5ms response time.

"Intel has confirmed it is already shipping the next incarnation of the Atom processor." If you read the last paragraph, i mentioned that the MSI Wind NetOn A1900 has an Intel Atom N270 chip. These chips are actually coming out 6 months earlier than the expected release date. It was expected to ship in mid-2009, but the N270 and the N280 chips have already made their way to laptop makers. The N280 and N270 are very similar and the N280 is only a tiny bit faster than the N270. "The N280 is clocked at 1.66GHz and connect across a 667MHz frontside bus." The N270's speeds are 1.6GHz and 533MHz, respectively. The Asus EeePC 1000HE is the first netbook that has the N280 processor, just in case you wanted to know.

Intel is looking to push their SSDs out more frequently this year. They have now cut their SSD prices by a third. Although, they are still expensive, a price drop is a price drop. We are that much closer to SSDs taking over HDDs with every price drop.

A new leak, regarding Microsoft's Skybox has been found. Apparently, Microsoft put up a website about Skybox, but then pulled it immediately. Skybox is "a service that would let Windows Mobile users back up and access information stored in the cloud." Skybox will do a various number of things, such as: letting users "access their contact lists and calendars and share photos through a Web account." There are a bunch of other features but i, myself, don't know much about it. Microsoft may mention this kind of service at MWC, which is a couple of days away.

 Up to this point, Microsoft has managed to keep their mouth shut about what their going to announce at MWC. The Microsoft Zunephone rumours are looking to be false, as of right now. A new rumour has surfaced about the renaming of "Windows Mobile" to "Windows Phone." Yes it's just a rumour, but if Engadget is willing to believe it, then i guess i do too. Their guess is much better than mine. They are the professionals.

MSI Wind NetOn A1900 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/msi-wind-neton-ap1900-gets-official-photography-treatment/
Intel Atom Chips Coming Early: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/06/intel_ships_n280_chips_early/
Asus EeePC 1000HE picture: http://ijcopon925.blogspot.com/2009/02/south-korea-at-1gbps-by-2012-samsungs.html
Intel Cuts Prices of SSDs: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-266676.html
Microsoft Skybox: http://www.pcworld.com/article/159088/microsoft_leaks_skybox_mobile_storage_site.html?tk=rss_news
Windows Mobile Changing It's Name To Windows Phone (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/microsoft-insists-its-not-making-a-phone-rumored-to-be-rebrand/