Friday has rolled around once more, but the latest tech news doesn’t wind down, it just steams on through. Catch up with all the headlines here first in techie breakie and prep yourself for plenty more to come.
January, 2010
The days of the dinky netbooks are numbered. Or at least that’s what Samsung wants you to think, with 11.6-inch screens cropping up on a raft of its newest machines. The Samsung X120 falls slap bang into this category. So is this just a little lappie with bigger screen real estate? Or a bulked up powerhouse? Read our Samsung X120 review now and find out.
UPDATE: LOVEFiLM has been in touch, and it seems its spokesman got a bit ahead of himself. The announcement, which has yet to be made, will cover the same news Sony and Samsung have already revealed. Did the TV makers jump the gun, or is LOVEFiLM still dotting the Ts and crossing the Is on a deal? We’ll bring you a full update as soon as LOVEFiLM issues its official position.
Notice how LOVEFiLM, the online DVD rental service, has been popping up in new TVs of late? Samsung and Sony are both bringing online LOVEFiLM streaming to their new flatscreens this year, but we could be seeing it on many more gadgets too: We’ve learned LOVEFiLM is preparing a further announcement in the next few days.
Could the Apple tablet pack an OLED display? It’s a claim we’ve heard time and time again over the last year, but now the stars, or at least the web rumour mill, seem to be aligning for that to happen. Want to know what we’ve seen in our tealeaves? Read on.
The Vodafone iPhone may be arriving six months after the first third gen iPhones shipped, but it’s off to a flying start nonetheless: the network reckons it’ll have shifted 50,000 new iPhones by close of play today.
Google is putting Google Earth to work in the service of fundraising for the Haiti earthquake relief response. It’s put up a page showing the damage that’s been done, with the latest satellite imagery and easy links to donate.
Mobile phone payments using near field communication (NFC) technology, for Oyster card style contact free purchases, will begin to go mainstream as soon as next year, according to a new report.
SmartControl isn’t the most dazzling universal remote we’ve seen so far this year, but at a shade under £25, it is one of the cheapest. Set top boxes mounting up? Read on and find out how you can cram those AV controllers into one little candybar.