A select group of iPhone users have reported that the touch-sensitive screen loses its sensitivity after an undefined period of time (mostly dependent on how heavy the usage is). The Finnish firm that developed the technology apparently foresaw this issue, since Apple is silently replacing the affected units without a lot of hoo-hah.While these issues don’t encompass the majority of the complaints about the iPhone, some believe this is only the beginning. It could become a problem for Apple if this turns out to be a widespread defect.

With the iPhone being well on its way for the official release in the States on the 29th of June, us Europeans are starting to wonder whether we’ll ever get our hands on this heavily hyped gadget.Apparently, Apple hasn’t quite established the necessary partnerships with mobile telecom corporations in Europe. These are needed (or wanted) to carry the iPhone over our networks. While this looks easy enough, Apple seems to be nit-picky and is probably setting high demands (US-comparable?), in search of an overseas AT&T.

Unlike in America, most European countries don’t allow cellphones to be eternally tied to just one network. Most states only allow this to happen temporarily, after which an unlock must be provided. In Belgium, for instance, this is completely illegal, which makes me think it’ll probably take even longer for the iPhone to arrive.

Since Apple really needs a dedicated carrier in the US, it’s unlikely we’ll see it before a deal has been signed. Nokia pretty much own the the smart-phone industry on the continent and would kill the iPhone hands down.

Seemingly, there’s a pretty high demand for the iPhone in Europe. Some statistics show that no less than 7 million UK-residents rate their interest-level as “strong”.

On the flip-side,  we may question ourselves if this hype is justified, before hasting out and making impulsive purchases…

ArsTechnica:

“For a long time, Dell was an unrivaled success story among PC manufacturers. But in April 2006, Dell’s expansion hit its first significant speed bump, as its growth rate began to lag the overall PC market for the first time. Since that time, it has seen its market share plunge, as HP moved back into the number one position in worldwide market share. The market share figures for the first quarter of 2007 were no better for Dell, as the company saw its worldwide market share dip to 13.9 percent and its US market share drop six percentage points to 27.9 percent.
Dell’s best bet may be trying to muscle its way on to store shelves in big-box retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City. It’s time for a change in religion at Dell, if not an outright revolution.”

It seems like Dell’s current model is losing credence amongst casual IT-consumers, which obvious caused this change of heart. Ordering online has its advantages: it lends you the ability to customize a system to your specific needs, something that’s impossible with retail boxes. I also believe the average Joe would rather be able to see (and touch) their investment-to-be, instead of browsing through various muddy pics on the ‘net.

Undoubtedly, it’ll be a challenge to get into this market again, especially after having left it so long ago.

Note: This post is outdated.

In this broadband-enabled era, more and more people turn to the full digitalization of their beloved DVD-based movie-collections. This enables centralization and streaming it to media boxes like Windows Media Center (also: XBOX360 as a Media Extender and in the future other Media Extenders), Apple TV and other platforms.

Throughout the years Internet media has dramatically gained popularity and so has DivX; the leading codec for decently compressed video. To date, DivX remains partially incompatible with Vista. Upon initialization, the installer gently warns you that some parts of the program/codec won’t work well.

After setup, you might notice your system being pulled into Windows Vista Basic-mode after firing up the DivX-player — the same scenario unfolds when you attempt to run an embedded DivX-movie on a webpage. Playing a movie from within Windows Media Player presents you with a black screen. Windows Media Center could experience the same. I’ve heard these problems are very system-specific (lucky me) and vary from system to system.

I’ve heard of a few alternatives, which could temporarily soothe your and my soars:

One solution would be to uninstall DivX and grab the previous stable version, which oddly enough doesn’t suffer from the instability issues (version 5.2.1). I’ve tried this, but to no avail. Vista’s window manager doesn’t crash, but the video doesn’t playback either. Again, this is very system-specific, so if you’re lucky, you could get it working on your configuration.
Alternative I: DivX 5.2.1 for XP SP2 (installs fine on Vista too)

Others just get rid of DivX for the time being and use the open-source solution XVid. This codec claims it will play your files, regardless of the operating system you’re on. In my case, installing it resulted into a “No codec found”-error. I was unable to resolve this.
Alternative II: XVid for Windows

There are many open-source apps out there, but the one I’m most impressed with must be VLC Media Player. Its platform-independency lets you run it on any recent version of Windows (including Vista), Mac OS, Linux and other platforms.It’ll use your current D3D-driver to visualize virtually any type of video — without codec-hell. Pretty impressive stuff.
Also, VLC also comes as a PortableApp.
Alternative III: VLC Media Player

Wikipedia:

“A solid state drive (SSD, also called solid state disk) is a data storage device that uses non-volatile memory (NAND) such as flash, or volatile memory such as SDRAM, to store data, instead of the spinning platters found in conventional hard disk drives. While not technically “disks” in any sense, these devices are so named because they are typically used as replacements for disk drives.”

Latest developments are pointing in a comforting direction: SSDs are evolving into larger variants and becoming more appropriate for use in mobile and even desktop systems. Since prices are still stagnantly high in comparison with conventional hard drives (10 bucks versus 25 cents per Gigabyte), though, it’s not yet ready for mass-usage in mainstream hardware and applications.

Dell has recently decided to start shipping some of the Latitude laptops with the 32GB SSDs from SanDisk. Dell hereby follows Sony, Fujitsu, Samsung and others. Currently they’re offering a disk of this caliber for (roughly) $550 more than a regular drive, decide for yourself whether this is a bargain or not.

Certain influential personalities have opinionated that Solid State is the road to clear for the future. Common beliefs dictate that these media have significant performance improvements and could be used as effective cache-memory — much like RAM. I like to derive common belief to rumor, since the technology is still too young to judge objectively and no-one has yet testified these alleged advanced as facts. Power consumption and physical weight, on the other hand, are significant pointers which show that this technology could have a lot of potency.

Microsoft has gone to great lengths to keep the exact naming of the nearing next generation Windows-version obscured. Till now, only speculations could be made, though according to Microsoft’s own document (posted as a test-run for Vista’s new help-function) Vista will named according to the following scheme:

• Windows Vista Starter (comparable to today’s Windows Starter Edition, meant for less developed countries)
• Windows Vista Home Basic (down-graded version of home premium)
• Windows Vista Home Premium (comparable to today’s Windows XP Home)
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Ultimate (collection of all versions)

‘N’-branded will most likely also be offered.