I think you “might” be disappointed!

See, I have a hunch that what we are about to see is essentially a bigger iPod touch; with a few bells and whistles because of the extra space and horsepower.  In other words, a slim, multi-touch tablet, with a beautiful display and some sweet software. Software and user experience is where I believe the magic will be.

Here’s what I think the BIG Apple story will be

I’m expecting the BIG part of the announcement to be less about the actual Apple hardware and MORE about how this new, bigger multi-touch device will encourage people to use computers in a different way.  The form factor ‘should’ be about right for a multi-user device, which would be used by the whole family to watch video, read the papers, surf and connect with the whole social media / social networking world.

It’s no secret (any more) that Apple have been speaking with newspaper / magazine publishers.  Equally, Kindle owners seem to love reading on a tablet size device – but are often frustrated at the lack of functionality.  The new Apple device will, I predict, solve that problem and offer a ton of great software features.

It’s a no-brainer that the device will look great and be slim (it’s Apple after all.)  But I genuinely feel that those just looking for the kind of amazing game-changing hardware advances made by the first iPhone will be disappointed. I think the game changing part will be the user experience.

Let’s see!

What do you think?

Get your prediction in before the big announcement and show what a total smart-ass you are!

Image: The Pug Father

Clearly, the BIGGEST story in tech news during that time, was that I got to name the title of last week’s Windows Weekly podcast with Leo Laporte “bing is my back end“. Yeah, I’m a big fan of the show (thanks Leo.)

What else did I miss?

Well, Gmail was offline for a couple of hours. It seems this caused many people to believe this now means cloud computing is dead and that the ultra-reliable Gmail service is now a hunk of crap. (Dudes, it was down for 2 fricking hours!!)

Skype has been sold by eBay – interestingly, not sold ON eBay though.

Sony has decided to ship notebooks with the Chrome browser pre-installed. I love Chrome and think that with some decent add-ons, it could tempt me away from my beloved FireFox.

Microsoft are STILL trying to do something in the smartphone market, with the release of another version of Windows Mobile (6.5).  It seems the marketplace is not desperate to dump their Symbian-based phones or iPhone’s for it just yet though.

iPhones have started to explode in people’s pockets (at least in France), though NOT according to Apple.  Apple claims that the French iPhones it has seen with cracked screens, were all caused by external force.

YouTube has decided to unblock UK users from viewing ‘official’ music videos, after banning us from accessing them for the past 6-months.  It seems a deal has been cut and everyone’s happy again. Great news for all lovers of sub-standard audio/video.

What tech stories are YOU following right now?

Let me know what’s grabbing your attention in the world of tech, with a comment below.

However, before you rush out to buy one, it’s NOT going to fit into your existing laptop!  That’s because the Scorpio Blue is 3mm thicker than a regular, 2.5inch laptop hard drive.

Bacause of it’s extra thickness, WD are recommending this drive for portable storage; like their new My Passport Essential SE Portable USB drive.

The drive spins at an impressive 5,200RPM, as opposed to the typical 5,400RPM of a full size hard drive.  Expect it to cost around $250 and it will available in a few weeks.

Samsung aims to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 50% over the next 4 years.  Industry commentators see these moves as being both more environmentally aware and potentially, more profitable for Samsung commercially.

This eco-friendly announcement comes as the South Korean government seeks to improve the country’s overall environmental standards, with an $84billion green initiative.

The investment is to be targeted on improving South Korea’s energy efficiency and lowering their pollution levels.

The demand for cheaper, more portable computers has seen netbook sales grow by an impressive 20% on last year and given many PC manufacturers and suppliers a much-needed boost.  Even Sony, who recently claimed the market for netbooks was ; “a race to the bottom” has now entered the market, with their Sony Viao W netbook.

Hewlett Packard on top – Dell sinking

Hewlett Packard remains the top selling PC brand. It has seen it’s share of the market grow from18.1% last year to 19.6% this year.  Gartner claim HP’s ‘aggressive’ price cuts are behind it’s recent growth.

Dell remain in second place, though heading in the opposite direction; with it’s market share down from 15.6% last year to 13.6% this year.

The list includes; Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.  That’s quite a line up, with a few notable names missing.

Google announced it’s new operating system on Tuesday, which is due to be released in the second half of 2010.

What is Google Chrome OS?

Google are aiming the Chrome OS at people, who “spend most of their time on the web.”  They are promising that Google Chrome OS will be minimal, lightweight, secure and fast – so users can “start up and get onto the web in seconds.”

The code will be open sourced later this year and Google say that netbooks running the Chrome OS will be available to consumers next year!

Google Chrome OS and Android

It’s clear that Google realises the huge market for something more substantial than Android; but which can also run on netbooks and older hardware.

I think this is a smart move.  Google’s developers and the open source community now have two different operating systems, aimed at two different kinds of device.  Trying to turn Android into all things to all people, would have inevitably led to compromises.  People were already beginning to ask, if Android was a desktop OS on a phone or a phone OS on a desktop.

One things for sure. The OS marketplace is about to get a lot more interesting!  You can read the full Google Chrome OS announcement here.

Sony Vaio W specs

Available in white, pink or brown, the specs are not too impressive for a machine that’s going to launch for around $500.  The Vaio W includes; a 10.1″ screen, an Atom N280 processor, 1GB of RAM, Windows XP and a 160GB hard drive.

It’s 2.6lb in weight and will come with a higher than average resolution screen, at 1,366×768 as well as bluetooth and 802.11n wifi.

The Vaio W gamble

This move into the netbook marketplace is quite a gamble for Sony, as you can buy a netbook of similar spec for a $100 less.  However, the build quality of Sony’s notebooks is pretty good, as are their keyboards.  Sony will be banking on enough people being prepared to pay extra, for their well-known fit-and-finish.  We shall see, with the Sony Vaio W available from August 2009!

Photo credit: Sony

First things first, I am not a printer geek. In fact, printers REALLY bore me.  I have probably owned around 20 printers and they were all pretty much the same – other than slight improvements in the print quality and speed over the years.  So, when the 8500 arrived at our offices, I was not expecting to be impressed.

I was wrong – here’s why!

Ok, firstly, the HP Officejet Pro 8500 (909g) has wifi and the range is superb.  You can, if you wish, connect it using USB or Ethernet.  However, the wifi option means there’s no need to worry about where you place it in your office, because it doesn’t need anything other than a power source.

Like many printers in its price range, the 8500 is also a photocopier, a colour fax machine (does anyone still fax?), a 5 slot card reader and a scanner.

Functions are controlled, either from your computer or via the bright, colour touch screen on the front of the machine.  Using the touch panel, I was able to connect to the office router in around 60 seconds.

Print speed, cost and quality

I know what you are thinking, it’s an inkjet printer, so it’s going to be slow, expensive to run and the print quality is going to be nothing like as good as a colour laser printer. No, probably no, and no.

Speed wise, this printer is easily the fastest inkjet I have seen. It’s actually as fast as my HP laser 1300.  Usually, an inkjet printer really struggles to print lines or tables, so I tested the 8500 on a pdf document I have, which is basically packed with tables, line graphs, line drawings and such.  Not only did it print everything without a flaw, it did so extremely quickly.

HP claims the running cost of the 8500 is extremely low, with a CPP (cost per page) of around HALF the price of laser printers in the same price range! Talking of running costs, the 8500 is designed to use as little power as possible, drawing around half the electricity of laser printers in it’s price range.

The print quality is simply stunning.  Text, images and photographs all look superb.  Even using default settings, the 8500 produces sharp, professional documents.

Two sided printing

The 8500 can print on both sides of a sheet of paper, direct from the feeder tray.  It prints on one side, waits a few seconds for the ink to dry, then it feeds the sheet back into the printer and prints on the reverse side.  The alignment of the print has been perfect every time and the end result very impressive.  I have seen this feature on more expensive laser printers, but not as sophisticated on inkjet printers or laser printers in this price range. This is a great way to reduce your paper costs and is obviously kinder to the environment too.

Scanner & OCR

The 8500 will also scan documents to a network folder, by pressing it’s ‘digital filing’ button.  Equally, you can scan direct to email – again, at the press of a button!

In addition, it comes with it’s own Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, which works very well. I tested it, by getting it to scan a document, which it had already printed.  It then opened that scanned document in my word processor and the OCR was 100% accurate.  It can be configured to open scanned documents in other programs, depending on your requirements.

Memory card support

There are 5 slots on the front of the printer, for memory cards.  It takes:
1. Compact flash 1 and 2
2. Secure Digital (MMC)
3. XD Picture Card
4. Memory Stick / Magic Gate Memory Stick / Memory Stick Duo
5. USB – PictBridge enabled

The price?

The Recomended Retail Price in the UK is £310, though at the time of writing this they are available via amazon.com for £249. Shop around!

The HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 – Pros and cons

Pros

• Wifi - Can be easily positioned and no need for cables.  Wifi range is very good too.
• Speed – Comparable to laser speed.
• Running cost – HP claim running costs are 50% lower than similarly priced laser printers.
• Print quality – Excellent.
• Convergence - Photocopier, scanner and fax all work well.
• Software set up - Easy and quick to install.  Set up took less than 25 minutes under Windows XP and Vista.
• Touch screen – The touch screen is clear and really useful.
• Environment - Low energy pull and double sided printing, to reduce paper consumption.

Cons

• Software - I found the software to be awkward to navigate around at first.
• Noise - Noisy on start up. Fine after that though.
• Standby mode – One of its energy saving features is to go into a standby mode. I found the computer sometimes lost the connection when the printer came out of standby mode.

Overall: 9.0 out of 10

I really enjoyed putting the 8500 through its paces.  The print quality is superb and once you get used to the awkward software that comes with it, it’s very easy to get high quality results.  If the running costs are as low as the guys at HP claim, I will increase my score to 9.5 / 10!

[Full Disclosure: This unit was sent to me to review by HP, free of charge.]

Kindle DX at $489 – With no colour display & no video

The Kindle DX is two and a half times the size of the previous Kindle and significantly more expensive than the other, already expensive Kindle models.  Although it can display 16 different versions of grey, the device cannot display other colours and it is still unable to play video.

The Kindle cost barrier

Right now, even its fans will admit that the cost of the Kindle DX is way too high. Forgetting the price Amazon charge for Kindle books, the cost of newspaper and magazine subscriptions (what the Kindle DX was designed for) adds up to a huge outlay – especially during a recession.

As a tech lover, I am VERY aware of the extra price we pay in order to be an early adopter.  I have a boxes, filled with thousands of pounds worth of tech gadgets, which are all-but worthless today.  However, even for me, the Kindle DX is just too expensive and not sexy enough to justify the price tag of owning and ‘feeding’ it.