Now every X10 can multitouch

Japanese X10 users are glad that they are getting an update which will finally enable multitouch or pinch zoom on their X10s. The update was released on the 19th of January 2011 via OTA (Over The Air) or USB connection.[source]

There’s no word when the Malaysian models or other countries will be receiving this update but someone in the XDA Developer forums has made a patch which will let you apply the update yourself. The best thing is, this patch just adds a feature and will not format your phone contents. Check the forum post here. Do note that this mostly works on the x10 only, most X10 mini uers are reporting that it does not work.

Need more convincing? Watch the video below:

Motorola still locking bootloader

For quite some time now, Motorola has been locking bootloaders of their Android phones. What this means is that there is no possible way (at the moment) to put any custom ROMs onto your Moto phone. The newer phones such as the Motorola Atrix 4G is also locked. This is confirmed through a reply posted by Motorola on one of their Youtube video about the Atrix docks here. The reply was a very feisty and rude one too (which was actually then removed by video moderator due to its inappropriateness but on the internet, once something is seen, it cannot be unseen).

@tdcrooks  if you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks.

Motorola

To put it in the words of a favourite Malaysian meme, Motorola said:

Motorola ini lock bootloader, you tak suka, you keluar dari Motorola.

So, what Motorola is trying to tell you is, if you don’t like what they are doing with their bootloader,  you can take your money and go elsewhere. The Atrix 4G is actually quite a cool piece of hardware, able to run a custom version of Linux when placed into its dock. If only those who bought the phone were given more freedom to do whatever they liked with the phone they purchased.

new HTML 5 logo

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the code which every uses to create websites. Since it’s development started around 1980, the current version of HTML up to now is version 4.01 which was released in 2000. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has now began to roll out the next version, version 5 which is said to have better support for media such as video. W3C has also unveiled a new logo for the HTML5 standard, which webmasters can proudly display on their sites. There are also many HTML5 branded merchandise which can be purchased. To know more, drop by the W3C site here.

Also, it’s best if you make sure that your current web browser support HTML5 so that you aren’t missing out on anything. You can test your browser at The HTML5 test site.

AMD Fusion starts appearing in Malaysian stores

AMD recently just announced it’s new line of APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) which are essentially a CPU (Processor) and GPU (Graphic Processor) into one chip. The chip is expected to drive the price of portable computers such as netbooks and notebooks lower while not sacrificing the performance. It is expected to perform much much better especially when compared to Intel Atom netbooks.

Acer is one of the first manufacturers to sell a AMD based notebook here in Malaysia. It’s called the Acer Aspire 4253. The specs are below:

• AMD E-350 (1 MB L2 cache, 1.60 GHz, DDR3 1066 MHz, 18 W)
• ATI Radeon™ HD 6310 Graphics, supporting Unified Video Decoder 3 (UVD3), OpenCL™ 1.1, OpenGL® 3.1, OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft® DirectX® 11
• 14′ HD 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal™ TFT LCD, 16:9 aspect ratio
• 320GB SATA HDD
• 2GB DDR3 RAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
• Gigabit Ethernet, Wake-on-LAN ready
• Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR
• Acer InviLink™ Nplify™ 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ supporting Acer SignalUp™ wireless technology
• 8X DVD Super Multi Plus Drive
• Multi-gesture touchpad, supporting two-finger scroll, pinch, rotate, flip
• Acer Crystal Eye webcam, 1280 x 1024 resolution
• Built-in mono speaker with high-definition audio support
• 48.8 W 4400 mAh 6-cell Li-ion standard battery pack
• 2-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC)
• Three USB 2.0 ports
• HDMI™ port with HDCP support, External display (VGA) port
• Headphone/speaker/line-out jack , Microphone-in jack
• 342 x 249 (D) x 28.5/33.5 (H) mm
• 2.2 kg (4.85 lbs.)

It is priced at RM1349 to RM1399. The battery is expected to able to last the Acer Aspire 4253 for around 4 hours.

I’m actually quite excited to see AMD Fusion based computers appearing here but i don’t find the specs for this Acer Aspire 4253 interesting. Honestly, i was expecting to see more ultraportables with screens around 12″ carry the AMD Fusion instead of this bigger 14″ laptop . Currently the 12″ screen category has limited choices, examples such as the Asus EeePC 1215 and Dell M101z often come to mind.

For 14″ screens around the RM1.3k price, you can expect to find much more choices, often with more CPU capability (AMD P-320 @ 2.1Ghz or P-340 @ 2.2ghz ) than the E-350 @ 1.6ghz on the Acer 4253. This is to drive productivity when working on a bigger screen. A few models which i can name are the Asus A42N-VX023, Compaq CQ42-304AU, Lenovo G465 or Acer Aspire A552.

If you are interested to try out the new AMD Fusion platform, check out these online stores:

http://www.techhypermart.com/notebooks/acer-aspire-4253-e352g32l-14-notebook-laptop-amd-e-350.html

http://buylaptop.com.my/web/products.asp?Id=1618

Apple CEO on MC, then COO disses competitors.

Barely a few weeks into the new year and Apple has to do without it’s visionary CEO, Steve Jobs. He’s on medical leave to focus on his health [source]. Many are wondering how Apple will do without it’s head honcho, especially with the anticipation of this year’s iPhone 5 just around the corner. I guess many aren’t very optimistic that Apple will do as good. Ever since Steve announced that he’ll be away, the price of Apple stocks dropped by 5% on the morning that it opened [source].

While Steve is away, the company COO, Tim Cook is left in charge. Upon stepping up to the plate, he made very clear of Apple’s stand on tablets, especially voicing his thoughts on tablets from competitors such as Windows and Android”

If you look at what’s out there today, there’s not much. There’s the ones that use Windows, they’re generally big and heavy and expensive. They have weak battery life, they require a keyboard or a stylus as an input device, customers are frankly just not interested in them. Then you have Android tablets, and the varieties that are out shipping today, their operating system wasn’t designed for tablets. Google has said this, this isn’t just Apple saying this. That means you have the size of a tablet that just isn’t reasonable for what we call a ‘real tablet experience.’ That’s just a scaled-up smartphone, which is a bizarre product category. If you do a side-by-side with an iPad, you’ll pick an iPad.

We firmly believe that our integrated approach is better than the fragmented approach. You can see this in a number of ways — from the number of fragmented app stores with a variety of ways to pay, people will pull their hair out. Who’s on the latest OS — Android always lags … In net we think our integrated approach is better, rather than making the end user a systems integrator. I don’t know a lot of people who want to be systems integrators. And I think the same thing about iPad. It’s the same set of issues, at the end of the day. [source]

When the iPad was first released, many used to think that it is just an iPod Touch on steroids. But just see where the iPad ranks today. Supposedly we are going to see more innovation on the Android tablet front with the release of Honeycomb tablet. Microsoft on the other hand just continues to iterate their current desktop Windows OS to make it more ‘touch’ friendly, but even we are not sure where Microsoft are headed.