Hoping your next smartphone will have more megapixels while being even thinner than the last? Us too, but we’re not known to skimp on image quality — an unfortunate conundrum of squishing more pixels into a tighter space. Enter Toshiba’s new CMOS sensor, advancing on both fronts, with 8 megapixels and what the firm reckons is the smallest pixel size in the industry at 1.12 micrometers. Also present is backside illumination, helping maximize photon accrual — which should make a certain Steve oh-so proud. Currently being sampled, the teensy gizmo plans to go into mass production later this year. Interested? Peep the full release after the break. Read more…

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Western Digital’s line of external book-shaped storage drives has always been well-received by our intrepid team of storage experts, and their Mac-inclined variants are often the most popular.  Clad in a sleek metal exterior, these guys are one of the most attractive devices that WD offers, and would fit right in with any Apple working environment.

Inside of the unit sits a power-conscious 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive, fit for storing your copious libraries of digital media. The outside is constructed of a brushed aluminum finish, making it durable and scratch-resistant, in addition to just plain pretty. Si

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opinion We couldn’t help but be amused yesterday with the hyperbole which accompanied the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s court victory over the nation’s number two telco Optus. In a sensationalist press release, the regulator trumpeted its success to the world:

“The court has just handed down the largest civil penalty for a consumer protection matter” ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel said today. “This decision sends the clear message that misleading consumers is not a legitimate business strategy. Optus is no

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ASUS is a world leader in motherboard and video card design and has expanded aggressively and with much success in recent years to provide laptops, displays and mobile products. With all their plans for expansion, ASUS has not lost sight in developing top of the line video card design, both under their Republic of Gamers enthusiast line and trickling down to their more mainstream lineup. Using the same approach in designing award winning motherboards, ASUS’ video cards are equipped with high quality components and unique cooling solutions that some manufacturers would consider enthusiast and would price at a premium.

The ASUS DirectCU video card line, however, is an exercise in consumer conscious pricing, as it is an exercise in excellent design. Af

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NASA has launched the Android version of the NASA App just in time to use it to watch the space shuttle Atlantis launch.

The same app has been available for the iPhone and iPad for some time and has achieved over 5 million downloads. Thats due in no small part to the number of features on offer, with the most useful today being access to live streaming NASA TV feeds.

As well as the ability to watch the space shuttle Atlantis launch from your Android device, the NASA app offers up thousands of images from NASAs growing collection, a library of NASA videos, mission information both past and present, launch countdown clocks, visible pass information for the International Space Station, ISS and Earth Orbiting Satellite tracking, and access to social features such as NASA Twitter and Facebook posts.

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At the end of last week, Samsung announced two new 11.6-inch Series 9 laptops and one of these is already available for pre-order form a North American retailer, which listed it at a rather low $999 price point.

The notebook features Samsungs new stylish design and is, for now, available only in black, but other colorways are expected to arrive once the laptop will start shipping.

Under the hood, the Series 9 model listed, which carries the product number NP900X1B-A02US, is powered by a second-generation Intel Core ultra-low voltage processor.

This goes by the name of Core i3-2357M and it features dual processing cores clocked at 1.3GHz with support for Intels Hyper-Threading technology, 3MB of Level 3 cache and a built-in Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU.

The Sandy Bridge processor is seconded by 2GB of DDR3 system memory and by a 64GB mSATA solid state drive with Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed.

All these are tucked away under a backlit chiclet style keyboard and the whole notebook, including the non-removable 4-cell Lithium-Ion battery pack, weight in a rather low 2.34 pounds.

As far as connectivity options are concerned, the Samsung Series 9 model listed online includes the usual 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, and Gigabit Ethernet options as well as a micro-HDMI video output.

The rest of the features list sports a USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, a 1.3MP webcam, a microSD memory card slot and a pair of 1.5W integrated stereo speakers. Read more…

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