It’s rare to hear news from Iriver, but times and times again, they pop out of nowhere and introduce some teaser video with a few names. This time, it’s some colourful PMPs, named U100, P100, and D2000. Read more…

Have you ever wondered what the correct pronunciation for ASUS is? You probably see them often, for the EeePC, for your computer’s motherboard, or anything computer related. You’ll sure spot them in a computer shop. But have you ever wondered if you’re calling them correctly? Ah-suh-ss? Ah-sue-ss? As-ses? A-sus? Je-sus?

The correct way is “A-seuss” (or “Eh-SUS” according to Taiwanese phonetics). The reason given is that apparently it’s a direct chop from the pronunciation of “Pegasus” — the origin of the company’s name — which ironically seems to favour the former diction. Anyway, let’s cut the crap, and let the lovely and cute lady teach you some English! Read more…

When will you actually use a 7mm-thick HDD? You hardly or probably won’t even be using these low profile hard disks. Hitachi has increased their 7-inch single-platter’s density to swallow 500GB worth of data for you. This single-platter archivist measure 2.5 inches diagonally, but as its Z5K500 product name suggests it only spins at the ‘tame’ rate of 5400RPM. The less generously proportioned Z7K320 offers 7200RPM if you’re after more oomph, but the price will probably swallow you up. I won’t be surprised if you can’t get this yourself and your first contact with ‘em will probably be in the form of any ultrathin netbook/notebook.

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And where does that news come from? From the press release of RIM themselves, for the Q3 earnings call this week. “There are no PlayBook revenues included in our Q4 guidance, and we expect the first revenue impact from PlayBook will be in RIM’s first quarter,” a RIM spokeswoman said, adding that the PlayBook is still slated to ship in the first quarter of the calendar year. The company expects the first revenue from the dual-core tablet to arrive in the first quarter of the company’s fiscal year. So the book must be readily available by then.

Well, this actually needs some explanation. You see, RIM’s first fiscal quarter doesn’t start till March, which happens to be when the first calendar quarter ends. Yes, RIM can certainly revise its guidance to shareholders and launch the BlackBerry PlayBook earlier or later if that’s what execs deem fit, but if both of RIM’s statements remain true, then March is when the PlayBook will ship.

As with all the tradition of iFixit, the latest gadgets in town must be dissected for humanity. The latest phone that got the buzz would be Nexus S, and they sure did get hold of one unit. Can’t really escape the paws of the boys over there, can you? Let’s check it out! Read more…

Everything needs touchscreen these days, but this touchscreen phenomenal has gotten into the wrong place: a guitar. Here’s the Misa Kitara Digital Stringless. Yes, it’s stringless, so it’s digital. This futuristic guitar has an innovative multifunction touchscreen, with MIDI controls and an on-board polyphonic synthesizer with effects, thus allowing guitarists to fully express their musical vision. Read more…

There are too many HTPC or media streamer out there that you can’t decide which one to get? Well why not build yourself one? It’s easy and simple, because there’s this new VIA EPIA-P830 Pico-ITX board. Don’t let the size full you for this. It’s very capable of spitting out 1080P contents.

Powered by a 1.2GHz VIA Nano E-Series processor and a VX900 media processor, the EPIA-P830 supports HDMI connectivity, DDR3 memory, HD audio support, advanced display connectivity and a high performance hardware HD video decoder with the latest VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine. The VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 delivers advanced filtering and cutting edge post-processing to perform ultra-smooth decoding of MPEG-4/AVC, H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV-HD, providing smooth playback of the most demanding multimedia titles at resolutions up to 1080p without incurring a heavy CPU load. You can also add the P830-B I/O add-on-board to get a VGA port, Gigabit LAN and two USB 2.0 ports. The VIA EPIA-P830 Pico-ITX board measures at just 10 cm x 7.2 cm.

Zalman has unveiled their latest casing, which is a full tower PC named the GS1200. Not sure why it’s called that, which sounds more like a power supply of 1,200 watt. The case comes in an all-black design, including the interior.

There’s a top mounted I/O panel with one USB 3.0 port, three USB 2.0 port, one eSATA and two audio connectors. That sounds good enough, although I’d prefer if they change the top I/O panel to two USB 3.0 ports instead of only one. There’s also one HDD docking station, similar to another manufacturer’s design. I’m not sure why that’s necessary as these days nearly everyone has external hard drivers.

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