Isaiah's Tech

The Zune rumours have been fueling lately and there's no need to stop them now. Apparently, "a source close to Microsoft" has gone out on a limb and said that the Zune HD will be released in September? That gives Microsoft 4 months to release this thing, but seeing how this hasn't even been confirmed yet, don't get your hopes up too high.

[Gizmodo]

On Dell's official website they now have the G19 gaming keyboard from Logitech now on sale for $179.99 USD. You can also get it for $260 USD, if you get it bundled with the G9 gaming mouse. Keep in mind that this is the G9 mouse and not the slightly upgraded G9x mouse that was announced earlier this year. Go and get yours now at Dell's online store.

[Engadget]

The first Android-based netbook will be the Skytone Alpha 680. It's not a terrible start for Android on netbooks, but it's not a great one either. The Alpha 680, mentioned before, has: an ARM11 533MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM, a 1GB SSD, and a 7-inch display. Apparently, there are some incompatibility issues right now with some of the applications, but hopefully they'll be fixed before the official release. For a full spec sheet, click here. We'll see what happens when it officially launches, hopefully it's not a total fail.

[Crunch Gear]

E3 looks like it will be a massive event for Sony. The unveiling of the PSP Go! and apparently they could also unveil a slim PS3 model. Sony, of course, denied any hardware redesign related announcements, so just take it with a grain of salt. If you remember, a couple of days ago, the white DualShock 3 controller spotting was called a fake because of the UPC code. So, Sony is really being talked about everywhere right now. They're behind in the console war, so they must do something drastic and this could be it.

Could they unveil a slim PS3 at E3? Possibly. But, no one knows for sure. I'd be extremely excited if Sony revealed a slim PS3 because I still haven't gotten my hands on one yet. Hopefully, a slim PS3 will be cheaper and will come in 3 colours (black, silver, and white), but that's just my wishful thinking. I also hope they officially announce the white DualShock 3 at E3. Come on Sony! Do something.

[Engadget]

There are a select few of phones I would purchase here in Canada, because I'm looking for a good touchscreen phone with a QWERTY keyboard. Luckily, someone has spotted the LG Xenon on the Rogers website, which is actually not a bad phone. The LG Xenon has: a 2.8-inch touchscreen display with a 400 x 240 resolution, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 2MP camera, Bluetooth 2.0, 80MB of internal memory, a microSDHC card slot, an accelerometer, and dual-band HSPA / quad-band EDGE connectivity. The Rogers website has the LG Xenon listed as $79.99 CAD with a contract and $279.99 CAD with no contract. This is actually one of the better phones I've seen in Canada, since it fits my needs. But, now that it's available in Canada I have to scratch it off my list because I have to be "unique."

[Boy Genius]

The latest teaser from Alienware points to this website that has a countdown. You've got to be tired of countdowns by now, but it's still pretty exciting. Alienware is supposedly going to launch a "new gaming laptop & computer" under the name "Allpowerful." It will also probably be Alltooexpensive, but we'll just have to see what Alienware has up their sleeve. It looks like it may start a whole new product lineup from Alienware, but if you want to check out the teaser site, just click here.

[Engadget]

Just over a week ago, we heard that the Xbox 360 will be getting a 3D motion-sensing unit.Well, apparently the Wall Street Journal also thinks so because they are claiming that "a new 3D video camera for the Xbox 360 that will allow you to control games, Wii-style." The rumour also has it that it may debut at E3, but it won't be available until 2010.

[Gizmodo]

Finally! These have just been found on Amazon's official website. For the 16GB and 32GB model, the prices are $299.95 and $399.95 USD, respectively. This makes it a "tough" decision if you're deciding to buy this or the iPod Touch, since they have the same price. It's up to you to decide. Some iPod Touch advantages are: a larger screen and the App Store. The Walkman X has: higher sound quality and the OLED display. It's up to you to decide, but I still favour the iPod Touch because, I think, the App Store is just so important - even though I don't have one.

[Slash Gear]

Panasonic looks like they're a pretty busy bunch. First, they announced their 37-inch OLED TV that should be available in 18-24 months and then last week they cut the prices of their 103-inch plasma TV. It looks like Panasonic is now focusing on getting out their OLED displays.

Panasonic with the help of Sumitomo Chemical will produce the world's first OEL panel that will reportedly be "40 inches or larger." This OLED TV is expected to be around by fiscal 2010. They expect that by 2015, their 40-inch OLEDs will use only 40W or power which is a third of current LCDs and just 10% of what plasmas are sucking up. This new OEL panel from Panasonic will measure in at just 3mm thin and will be 20x brighter than current plasma displays.

Somehow, I think these displays will be too bright for me to even look at, but my eyes are willing to make that sacrifice.

[Crunch Gear]

MSI is best known for their laptops, to my belief, and here is the supposed Wind U200. The leaked / rumoured spec sheet consists of: a 12-inch LED-backlit display with a 1,366 x 768 resolution, Intel's CULV CPU, GMA 4500M graphics, WiFi, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 250GB HDD. The said laptop will also be equipped with a 3-cell battery, which will hopefully be upgradeable to a 6-cell, and will weigh just 3 pounds. Engadget's guessing that the Wind U200 will be in the $700 USD price range, so we'll have to see how that plays out.

[Engadget]

Maybe, I should have said 1mm thin. A couple of days ago, Shinoda released a 145-inch behemoth plasma TV that was just 15.8 pounds. But, don't let this 1mm thin plasma TV fool you. While being extremely thin, apparently it is also "super heavy." The widescreen plasma you see here is actually made up of 6 smaller plasma displays, to produce one giant display. That's all that is known, but I was actually curious to know the exact weight of this display, but it's actually unknown. I'm guessing it's quite heavy because that stand looks quite sturdy.

[Crunch Gear]

A couple of days ago, this news surfaced, but I never had the time to talk about it, so here goes. "Electrical engineering researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a flexible, stretchable OLED that acts something like rubber, and does not tear or break when stretched." Now that is amazing stuff. We can use OLEDs to produce ultra-thin TVs, for artwork, and now OLED expands as a rubbery type of product. If you want to know exactly how the rubbery OLED was made, then go check it out at Engadget. Apparently, the researchers will be presenting their findings in the British science journal Nature Materials later this month. It's so exciting what OLED will bring us in the future.

[Engadget]

Remember that Zune Phone tweet yesterday? Well, it looks like whoever was in control of the account is not connected to Microsoft because the account is a fake. He fooled us. Microsoft has also reportedly denied all of the Zune rumours that have been hitting the web.

I've got the scoop on a possible future Microsoft smartphone, codenamed Pink. Apparently, Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1 smartphones will have at least a 3.5-inch display, with 256MB or more of RAM, more than 1GB of storage, ARM v6+ processors, and OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible graphics hardware. Other specs include at least a 3MP camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, a compass, and an accelerometer to top things off. Apparently, in addition to all of this sweet news, "NVIDIA's Tegra platform and 'Qualcomm 8k,' which sounds to us like Snapdragon's QSD8xxx-series chips" could also be on-board. We'll see what happens, but we should be expecting these so-called devices next year, since that's when WinMo 7 is set to be released. These look like good specs right now, but in a year this could be lacking. It's a slight possibility, but anything's possible in the tech world. We'll just have to see how fast technology expands in the next year.

[Engadget (Fake Twitter), Engadget (Microsoft Pink)]