Confused motorists and permanently lost drivers rejoice! Do you find yourself squinting at a street sign which is turned juuust enough by a vandal for you to not be able to see it from the stoplights? Or perhaps you’re one of thousands who get lost after getting diverted to unfamiliar roads by the MMDA/PLDT/Meralco/Flooding/Fiesta/People Power Presentation. In whichever case, many solutions exist, most of which I doubt will be of any assistance in our tortuous network of roads and alleyways.

                                              Hopefully, this is just a representation of where to drive, instead of a recommendation of driving on the middle of the road...

In a rare boy’s night out, three editors became groupies for the night when they attended a Creative-backed event presenting the band named Reklamo – a socially-aware rock-band endorsing the world-renowned audio and peripherals solutions company. Although no product was launched, nor initiatives announced, being present for a night of powerful music opened our hardware-acclimated eyes to another facet of our industry – something that doesn’t work on specifications, features or gadgets alone.

                                             Migs, LC and Ciro on the hot seat(s).

Samsung Electronics has always been lacking in one of the more important member in its family of electronic devices. While they have great market penetration and recognition in devices like displays, cellphones, and printers, the imaging device palette has never been as complete as Samsung would have wanted it.

Asus’ EAH 3870 X2 TOP Edition came late to our party – we weren’t able to receive it along with the initial rush of top-end cards from AMD/ATI. Fortunately, this gives us a base for comparison, specifically with GeCube’s similarly off-the-wall designed HD 3870 X2.

                                            Design convention continues to advance from the simple PCB+Fan of yore.
 

Not to further confuse followers of technology minutiae and the merely curious, but the memory gods has seen fit to further muddle up the waters with a new kind of memory technology to add to the confusing alphabet soup of memory types like RAM, DDR, NAND, SSD, DRAM and the like. This time, this new addition is potentially something to really look forward to.

A heads-up to any and all potential buyers of entry-level but infinitely practical notebooks – a well-known laptop from a well-known company, specifically Intel’s Classmate PC, has been re-named and has appeared in some Philippine store shelves. Nothing alarmist about this post, as this is all above-board and legal.

                                             Neo Xplore X1 sporting the distinctive Classmate PC strap. Photo courtesy of bravekn1ght.

This new Altec Lansing product reminds me of two things: one, Altec Lansing’s resurrected “The Voice of the Theatre” one-liner that was used by the company back in the 1940’s – 50’s, and KITT’s red running light-bar.  But instead of LEDs lighting up one after the other and a muted “whom-woom” sound, this bar speaker gets much, much louder. And looks cooler too.

                                             Altec Lansing is rightly proud of its longevity and continued success. 

What’s all the fuss about? This thought kept running around in my head as I examined the MSI PR200 Notebook twelve-incher. Conceived as a business ultra-portable, this 1.8 kg black-and-silver creation looks handsome and functional, and the specifications are quite satisfying.

To Apple, design has always been paramount. The products that come out of their collective creativity always carry a certain sleekness and simplicity that appeals to techie and non-techie alike. However, it is up to the modding community to come up with a creation that is equal parts cuteness and ingenuity, while still being guided by Apple’s two main design philosophies.

                                            The Mac Mini.

Only one in a thousand can be described as having “photographic memory”. These people are those who go to a place once and then can describe to you turn-for-turn how to get to the same place, what model car you drove, and even perhaps what clothes you were wearing on that day – even after a year. Well, perhaps that was a little bit exaggerated, but the opposite kind of person certainly needs no exaggeration.

The cassette tape has had a long and storied life, with notable events such as the Beta and VHS wars, the miniaturization of the physical cassette and the advances in magnetic reading technology. Although tape media undoubtedly still have life in it as a recording format, the signs have been starting to appear in recent years, the biggest of which is the advent of alternative recording medias such as DVDs, Hard Drives, and the subject of today’s Preview, Flash memory recording.

                                              The CX7 doesn't seem so small in this shot.
 

It’s been a long time coming, but a quick peek through the internet air waves reveal that AMD is getting back on track after being sidelined by a crippled buffer – related glitch way back in late December of 2007 – an eternity in the computer industry. Perhaps this heralds more than the CPU getting back on track.

Canon ImageNation continues Canon’s tradition of refreshing their product lines and bringing in some very significant and highly anticipated releases at the same time. ImageNation Summer ’08, aside from having an appropriately tropical theme, gives those in the media industry the same experience as all previous ImageNation events – that is, we’re still as excited as ever to cover everything’s that new in the Canon line-up!

                                             A bit more sand, some orchids leis, and a little bit of sun - a perfect image for summer!

While it’s no longer the month of hearts, I bring to you something that’s worthy of a romantic February 14^th evening in a swanky restaurant – with a little geeky twist.

                                             A "traditional" marriage proposal (maybe with pants and leather shoes instead?)

From my early work as a sales manager for a PC components retail shop in Greenhills, I can say with rule-of-thumb authority that the majority of Filipino buyers don’t actually know what parts to look for, and thus end up with (usually) the cheapest parts with the least number of features. This is not always a negative development, as many capable boards with low, low price points exist on the market.

                                              The font for the first two letters remind me of a certain manufacturer...