Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Storage

Toshiba and SanDisk have been in a number of joint ventures for some time now, but it looks like the two companies are now starting what could be a more drawn out break-up process, with SanDisk announcing today that it’s selling 30% of its manufacturing capacity outright to Toshiba in a $1 billion deal. For the time being at least, the two will remain 50/50 partners in the remaining 70% of the companies’ joint factories, though Toshiba will apparently get 65% of the production capacity at those factories. As MarketWatch points out, this latest move comes just a month after SanDisk rejected a $6 billion buyout offer from Samsung, and some analysts are now speculating that Toshiba’s deal will only make the company a more attractive target for Samsung. Nothing is expected to get wrapped up before August of 2009, however, which is when Samsung’s current royalty arrangement with SanDisk is due to expire.

[Via The Inquirer]

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Original post by Donald Melanson

TringMe has announced a Flash-enabled VoiceXML platform. TringMe said, “A lot of infrastructure is required to build voice application, because of the complexity involved in building interactive voice applications and the need for optimum performance and carrier grade reliability. Even with the innovation on both voice and RIA (Rich Internet Applications) fronts, something is required to bridge the gap and make voice accessible from RIA in a simple manner effectively.”

They added, “With TringMe, we have tried to bridge this gap. With extension of our platform, TringMe opens up VoiceXML accessibility to millions of flash and web developers to easily, yet, tightly integrate voice and telephony without having to know the intricate details of call-signalling, routing, billing etc.”

Developers only require Flash and Web technologies to create rich voice and telephony applications. Applications that can be developed using TringMe′s Flash VoiceXML platform include speech recognition, DTMF or text-to-speech.

The beauty of TringMe’s solution is you just post a simple widget on your website and visitors can traverse your VoiceXML application. With the ubiquity of Flash on all operating systems and browsers, market penetration is very high. Along with Flash, the VoiceXML capability is also accessible from Instant Messengers, TringMe MobileVoIP, or regular phones.

TringMe stated, “We are working with key VoiceXML technology vendors to provide a fully integrated solution. Currently, we have launched this solution in private beta and is available for evaluation. We will be happy to enable it from our portal to select interested developers.”

They have some sample widgets you can check out. I was able to click the holiday reservation system, speak the words “Disneyland, California” and the TringMe platform recognized my phrase and connected me to Disneyland’s live reservation system. I wasn’t able to traverse the Disneyland IVR since the sample widget didn’t have a DTMF/touch-tone dialpad, but according to TringMe they do support DTMF in their widgets. I wished they included it in their sample widgets.

Anyway, to check out the demo Flash+VoiceXML widgets go here: http://login.tringme.com/voicexmldemo.php

I′ll embed one sample widget here to save you a click.

Tags: Disneyland, DTMF, Flash, tringme, VoiceXML, voip

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Storage

Get your flash here, red hot flash memory. Toshiba is now sampling its new 256GB SSD with a 120MB max read and 70MBps write via 3.0Gbps SATA interface — not the fastest consumer SSD but not not bad. This 2.5-inch slab measures just 3.0-mm thick and targets laptops looking to shed the 9.5-mm constraint presented by standard hard disks. Like Samsung, Tosh also announced new 8GB, 16GB and 32GB SATA flash modules aimed directly at the booming netbook market with speeds topping-out at 80MBps for reads and 50MBps for writes. All the drives feature MLC-based NAND which accounts for the less-than blazing SSD speeds. On the other hand, that should help keep the costs low when these things ship in quantity later this year.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Flashphone is a web-based SIP softphone, while gtalk2voip lets you make or receive calls to/from all SIP phones and SIP services, including Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk. Both Flashphone and gtalk2voip are free. Now combine the two and you can make free web-based Flash calls to Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk (gtalk) users.

According to the Flashphone blog, “For example, if someone is online in Gtalk and you want to call him from flashphone you just need to enter SIP URI like sip:google_username@gtalk2voip.com and gtalk user will see incoming call. You also can easily call to flashphone from gtalk via gtalk2voip, add contact like [flashphone_login]_at_flashphone.ru@gtalk2voip.com and call to this contact, flashphone will ring if user online.”

Pretty sweet!

image of Flashphone during one of my tests:

Tags: Flash, flashphone, Јtalk, Google Talk, gtalk, MSN Messenger, voip, Yahoo Messenger

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Peripherals, Wireless, Storage

Frustrated by somewhat sluggish transfers from your otherwise spectacular Eye-Fi card? Fret not, as the company has just announced a forthcoming update at Photokina that will reportedly enable new and existing Eye-Fi owners to make “the upload of digital photos from camera to computer twice as fast.” Also of note, as of October 5th, users can even add features that aren’t already included on their card and renew annual services by tapping into the updated Eye-Fi Manager Web application. In related news, the outfit will be pushing its wares to Japan and Canada by the year’s end, and in even more related news, Eye-Fi now supports direct photo uploads to Apple’s MobileMe and the AdoramaPix service.

Read - Eye-Fi getting 2x faster
Read - Eye-Fi going international

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Storage

If you’re jonesing for the quickest, most nimble CF card this planet has to offer, you’ll be hard pressed to find one quicker and more nimble than this. Following up on Pretec’s launch, SanDisk has started shipping its 16GB 300x (45MB/sec) Extreme IV CompactFlash card, which marks a 12.5% increase in speed and 50% boost in capacity compared to its predecessor. Oh, but then there’s the $399.99 price tag. We know, right?

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Portable Video

Movies on flash drives aren’t looking like the next big thing, but Gemalto reckons its approach to getting DVD content on smaller surfaces is different enough to get noticed. In an admittedly bizarre release, the digital security firm has announced a new Smart Video Card for Italian carrier WIND, which “embeds a DVD-compliant optical disc into the card body of a regular SIM card.” The card can store practically any digital content (including video, software or URLs) and can reportedly be played back on any DVD drive. So what, we buy a new SIM card each time we’re looking for a new batch of miniaturized content? Fabulous!

[Via FashionFunky, thanks Bob]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Storage

Hey Sony, since you’re so in love with tacking on random letters and such to your flash memory line, how’s about we toss three capital consonants in your direction capped off with a lovely question mark? In a move that is depressingly not at all surprising, Sony has introduced the Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX, that latest in a long, long line of proprietary Memory Stick products that it insists on producing. These are supposedly “ideal for high performance digital cameras and HD camcorders,” and they rely on an 8-bit parallel interface to achieve whatever level of performance they′re capable of. Weirdly, Sony only quotes transfer speeds (a maximum of 20MB/sec read and 15MB/sec write) when the card is used in conjunction with the bundled MSAC-UAH1 USB adapter, but anywho, they′ll be available in 4GB / 8GB flavors this October for those who care.

[Thanks, Rob]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Regular readers of the VoIP & Gadgets blog will recall I′ve written about Flashphone several times. In theory, Flashphone, like Phweet (a Flash-based VoIP app) should work on Aircell’s airline Internet service. Until of course, Aircell blocks it of course. (See Andy’s post about doing VoIP over Aircell)

The most recent Flashphone news was the addition of flash-SIP/VoIP-to-video calling. Now today, Flashphone has released an Adobe AIR version of Flashphone. Many Flashphone users (about 75000 now) use Flashphone’s browser-based SIP softphone since it requires zero installation. However, if you are using flashphone to receive incoming calls, having a browser VoIP app isn’t always convenient.

That’s why Flashphone created an AIR version of Flashphone. Flashphone writes, “Now you can install it in few click with Adobe AIR runtime (if it’s not installed yet) and get real SIP softphone which works in the same way like browser-based one, but you can minimize it to system tray and be sure that you are online and ready to receive calls. Sure there are lot of things to improve in this version, so we are expecting feedback from our users.”

Here is the Adobe AIR Install badge:
var requiredMajorVersion = 9; var requiredMinorVersion = 0; var requiredRevision = 115;var airVersion = “1.1″; var airApplicationName = “Flashphone″; var airApplicationURL = “http://flashphone.ru/air/Flashphone.air”;var airApplicationImage = “http://flashphone.ru/air/flashphone.png”; var expressInstallDirectory = “http://flashphone.ru/air/”; var badgeDirectory = “http://flashphone.ru/air/”;

&lt/p&gt &lttable id=”AIRDownloadMessageTable”&gt &lttr&gt &lttd&gt Download &lta href=”http://flashphone.ru/air/Flashphone.air” mce_href=”http://flashphone.ru/air/Flashphone.air”&gtFlashphone AIR&lt/a&gt now.&lt/p&gt &ltp&gt &ltspan id=”AIRDownloadMessageRuntime”&gt&ltbr /&gt This application requires the Adobe® AIR™ runtime to be installed for&ltbr /&gt &lta href=”http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/mac/download/1.1/AdobeAIR.dmg” mce_href=”http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/mac/download/1.1/AdobeAIR.dmg”&gtMac OS&lt/a&gt or&ltbr /&gt &lta href=”http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/1.1/AdobeAIRInstaller.exe” mce_href=”http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/1.1/AdobeAIRInstaller.exe”&gtWindows&lt/a&gt.&lt/span&gt &lt/td&gt &lt/tr&gt &lt/table&gt &ltp&gt

Tags: adobe, AIR, Flash, Flashphone, Phweet, SIP, voip

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Home Entertainment

PlayOn wants to make sure you can get your daily dose of Barackrolls and Airwolf episodes beyond the desktop, while Hulu might not have a slick streaming set-top box of its own, this media server software turns flash video RSS streams into easily browsed folders for your DLNA-compliant hardware. PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and HP MediaSmart HDTVs being at the top of that list (with Nintendo Wii support planned by year-end) owners can grab the beta release of the software and stream low-res episodes of Psych, or any assortment of YouTube video they please. With Netflix support “just down the road” this could provide an end around for PS3 owners looking for streaming love, or Xbox 360 owners without Xbox Live Gold (we know you’re out there.) Bad news is the beta only lasts 60 days and there’s a $30 pricetag waiting at the end of the free lunch highway. Our experience was good, with no stutters in a Psych episode streamed via Wi-Fi to the PS3 (albeit with no choice of HD clips), but we’d wait for confirmation on the whole Netflix bit before dropping any dough.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

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Original post by Richard Lawler

Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals, Storage

As your never-ending quest to find peripherals specifically made to match beautifully with your PowerMac G5 / Mac Pro continues, we′ve one that’ll surely shoot right to the top of your must-have list. Nervian’s CardReader Pro slips just under the front handle of your tower, providing (almost) integrated card reader functionality without putting a damper on your rig′s style. Better still, the USB 2.0 unit supports 52 different flavors of flash memory, ensuring that just about every card you toss in there will mount in short order. There′s no word on how costly this will be when it ships in October, but those definitely interested can nab 15% off by signing up for details at the outfit’s website.

[Thanks, choco]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sure, it doesn’t look like much thanks to the FCC’s staunch aversion to photo glam, but that’s iriver’s Spinn PMP, a product which had us at a full, rigid swoon back at CES. While this would generally be good news, the model approved features a DAB radio and DMB television tuner — in other words, it’s not intended for US consumption. The user manual also confirms a FM radio, Mini SD slot, Bluetooth, D-Click System interface, 27 hours of audio and 5 hours of video, and support for SWF (Flash), TXT, Ṃ, WMA, OGG, JPG, AVI, MWV file formats. With FCC approval out of the way, the rumored UK August release date is presumably in the bag.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Storage

SanDisk has been toying with this for eons, but it seems the pieces finally fell in place for the firm to kick out its very first write-once memory card. The cleverly titled WORM (Write Once Read Many) SD card will predictably be aimed at industries where unalterable content is vital, such as police investigations, court testimony, electronic voting, etc. According to SanDisk, there is “no physical way to alter or delete individual recorded files,” but we’d wager that hackers at large would have a thing or two to say about that. Nevertheless, said units tout a 100-year archive life when kept under appropriate storage conditions, and while a 128MB iteration is the only one available now (more capacious versions are forthcoming), you′ll have to “inquire” to see just how inflated the pricing is.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Storage

So LAPTOP magazine published a report confirming what most people already believe to be true about SSDs (that is, before last week when SSDs supposedly hit the fan): they use less power than traditional drives. Apparently they got an extra 20 minutes battery life when testing an SSD against a platter-based drive in an Eee PC and Gateway T-6828 (which jibes with our own experiences using SSDs in laptops), but if you ask us, the discussion is seems a little moot. SSDs perform way faster and are far better suited to portable computing where drives are moved, bumped, and jostled — the power savings is great, but the speed and reliability are still our top two reasons for going SSD.

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Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Storage

Daaaamn, talk about clout. If DigiTimes‘ sources are correct, then Samsung, the world’s primary supplier of flash memory, just told its non-Apple customers to suck it in favor of a “large batch of orders” it received from Cupertino. The order is said to be for 50-million “8Gb-equivalent″ (we assume they mean gigabyte, or GB) NAND chips “mainly for use in Apple’s iPhone.” This order follows a June procurement for 25 million of the same chips. In response, Samsung has reportedly told its lesser customers that it would “sharply cut supply” of NAND to them while the order is being fulfilled. The shortage is compounded by Samsung lowering its manufacturing output in April and May in an attempt to reduce oversupply. Still, if these numbers are true (they seem high and DigiTimes can be hit or miss with its Apple sources) then the world is about to be awash in iPhone 3Gs come July 11th.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker