A week after it was released in Singapore the 16GB Creative Zen V Plus is released in US. The biggest surprise is the cost its $249 (wake up Apple). Definitely its bigger then iPod Nano but you only get 8GB for $249 in Nano so 16GB Zen V Plus is a deal. Other features except price are 1.5” OLED screen, 15 hours battery life, support for MP3, WMA, WAV, Audible, JPEG and uncompressed AVI, FM radio and voice recorder. The organizer syncs with Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendar and tasks.

Apple updated its Mac mini with Intel Core 2 Duo Processors and 1GB of RAM. Apple has two models of the mini the lower-end mini ($599) has 1.83GHz processor, 80GB hard drive and 24x Combo Drive where as the higher-end mini ($799) has 2.0GHz processor, 120GB hard drive and 8x Dual-layer SuperDrive. Rest of the configuration remains same as previous generation Mac mini that is 64MB Intel GMA 950 graphics processor, Ethernet, wireless 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0, one FireWire port, four USB 2.0 port, audio line in/optical digital audio input and headphone/optical digital audio output.

Apple today introduced iWork ’08, a significant upgrade to Apple’s productivity software suite featuring new versions of Pages and Keynote word processing and presentation applications, and introducing an innovative new spreadsheet application called “Numbers.” Numbers introduces the concept of intelligent tables on a flexible canvas, a new approach that makes it easy to organize information, create calculations, analyze results and make spreadsheets look as great as they work. Pages ’08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and change tracking, and Keynote ’08 now includes text effects, transitions and themes that help users easily compose spectacular presentations, and Smart Builds with easy-to-set-up A-to-B animations that make impressive animations easy for anyone to create.

iWork ’08 is now available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $79 (US).

We will cover each of the iWork apps separately very soon.

Apple announced significant enhancements to its .Mac online service, highlighted by the debut of .Mac Web Gallery, a new feature for sharing photos and movies on the Internet. .Mac Web Gallery lets members easily share photos and movies directly from iLife ’08 with anyone on a Mac, PC or iPhone in stunning quality. In addition, .Mac Web Gallery visitors can download high quality images for printing and even contribute photos using a standard web browser or email. Other new .Mac features include a tenfold increase in .Mac storage to 10GB, support for personal domains for iWeb websites and enhancements to .Mac Mail.

.Mac is available as a subscription-based service for $99.95 (US) per year for individuals and $179.95 (US) for a Family Pack which includes one master account and four sub accounts.

Apple introduced iLife ’08, featuring a major new version of iPhoto and a completely reinvented iMovie. iPhoto ’08 automatically organizes photo libraries into Events that let users more easily manage their growing photo collections, and iMovie ’08 introduces an entirely new way for users to quickly make movies and share them online. Both iPhoto and iMovie integrate seamlessly with the new .Mac Web Gallery, Apple’s new service for .Mac members to instantly create and host stunning online websites for their photos and videos. iLife ’08 also features iWeb ’08, with live web widgets such as Google Maps that let users create even more dynamic websites, and GarageBand ’08, with its new Magic GarageBand feature that makes it fun and easy for both musicians and non-musicians to create great sounding songs.

“Apple has taken iLife ’08 to a new level that is years ahead of anything available for the PC,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think iLife ’08 gives Mac users even more reasons to love their Macs, and PC users even more reasons to switch.”

iLife ’08 is now available for a suggested retail price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

We will cover each of the iLife apps separately very soon.

Apple today introduced an all-new iMac line featuring 20” and 24” inch widescreen displays encased in aluminum and glass enclosure. The iMac comes with latest Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or 2.4Ghz, or 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, Support up to 4GB of RAM, up to 1Tb hard drive, 8x SuperDrive, 802.11n, Bluetooth and Ethernet. The 20” screen has 1680 x1050 resolution, 800:1 contrast ratio and 290 nits brightness, where as the 24” has 1920 X 1200 resolution, 750:1 contrast ratio and 380 nits brightness.

The iMac comes with ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard, built-in iSight camera and iLife 08. The 20” model with 2.0Ghz processor has 128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400XT Graphics processor and the 20” and 24” models with 2.4 GHz processor has 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics processor. All iMacs have one FireWire 400, one FireWire 800, three USB 2.0 ports, Built-in stereo speaker, headphone/optical digital audio output, audio line in/optical digital audio input and Built-in microphone. The 20” model with 2.0 GHz processor and 250GB hard drive is $1199, 20” model with 2.4GHz processor and 320GB hard drive is $1499 and the 24” model with 2.4GHz processor and 320GB hard drive is $1799.

Wii update brings aesthetic changes to the Wii shop, Digital clock on main menu, updated Weather Forecast Channel, today’s accomplishments note on the message board and changes to the way virtual console games are ordered. If you have done unauthorized technical modification, this upgrade could cause interoperability problems.

Nintendo has confirmed that the rumored bundle of Red and Black DS and Brain Age 2 will be available August 21st for $149.99. 

Nokia has released two phones in Prism collection, 7500 and 7900. The 7500 is the lower end of the collection and has a QVGA display, 2-megapixel camera, GSM (900/1800/1900) and EDGE. The 7900 has quad band GSM (850/900/1800/1900), WCDMA 850/2100, 1GB of internal storage and 2” OLED screen. The 7500 would cost you Euro 210 ($288) and the 7900 is Euro 400 ($549).

Sony BMG released a Unique iPod game called musika. The game works with 5th generation iPod and is available for $4.99 on iTunes. The game is described by Sony BMG as:

Your music, your game! musika is a groundbreaking music visualizer game for your iPod that taps into your song library to create original game play. Characters appear on screen with a wide variety of visual effects. If you see a character that's in the song title, hit the center button. Faster reactions will earn you more points and special icons can be hit for bonus effects.

On 7th August at 10AM Apple is having it press event, many rumors are going around on web about what apple will release tomorrow.  Here is a list of all the rumors
1)    New iMac: We don’t think this is a rumor we will see the new iMacs tomorrow but there are rumors about it price and size also. According to rumors there will be 20” and 24” and will range from $1199 to $1999. iMac will have an all aluminum design.
2)    Macbook Slim: A sub 4-pound notebook with a 12” screen. Some are calling it Macbook Mini or Macbook Nano also
3)    Macbook with Flash drive: it’s the same sub 4-pound notebook but with a SSD.
4)    Mac mini: Well apple has not updated Mac mini for more then a year, it deserves some attention.
5)    iLife: Rumors are the apple will release it new iLife version tomorrow or Apple will at least demo it.
6)    iPod: though apple has said that this is a Mac event only but still there are rumors that apple will announce new iPod.
7)    .Mac update: we this program also need update so we hope they do update it.

Well we know everyone knows about the price drop but that did not stop Microsoft from announcing it. The Premium system will get $50 off (now $349), Elite system will get $30 off (now $449) and Core system will get $20 off (now $279). These prices will be effective from 8th of this month, you have to wait two more days.

This NAS enclosure designed to work with Mac Mini uses 3.5” ATA hard drive. The enclosure features a built-in FTP server, Samba support, 10/100 Ethernet and supports USB for direct connection to you Mac mini. You can get it in UK for 64.99 pound, no word on availability in US

NEC and Hitachi have developed a Water cooling technology which will bring the temperature of the hard drive down and the hard drive will function at less then 5db. NEC and Hitachi employs noise absorbing, heat conducting plates and a low-speed radiator fan for this technology to work. According to the companies, the material used in the plates and housing is the most efficient heat conducting material ever. To get this hard drive you will be paying 20,000 more yens in Japan.
You can read more here: Arstechnica

Alienware is now offering a new “Quick Ship” version of its Area-51 m5550 laptop. If you want your Alienware laptop sooner and don’t mind losing the configuration option so dear to all Alienware lovers, you get a very well equipped laptop for $1699. The laptop comes with 15.4” LCD screen, Intel T7200 Core 2 Duo (2GHz) processor, ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics, 2GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive and an 8x dual layer DVD burner. Alienware guarantees that your laptop will ship within 48 hours.

Thomson has the boldest announcement for this week “world’s smallest 3” screen PMP”. The 3” Screen is a 16:9 high-def TFT screen in a stainless steel unit measuring 3.1” x 2” x 0.5” and weighs just 87g. It supports MP3, WMA, and WAV audio, AVI video and JPG and BMP image formats. It will be released in China first for around $105 for 4GB and $120 for 8GB, no word on when it’s going to be released in US

In a press release Sony announced the availability of the new 80GB PS3 at all the online stores and retailers in US and Canada. The system will be available immediately for a retail price of $599US/$659CND. Well, we already knew the price and about the free MotorStrom in the box, the only thing we needed to know was the release date. What Sony didn’t announce is that you can get the 20GB PS3 for $450 now, at GameStop.

Yamaha today announced two new receivers RX-V3800 and RX-V1800 with support for lossless Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS-HD. The receiver comes with Yamaha’s Cinema DSP processing engine that supports video upscaling to 1080p and HDMI 1.3a. The receiver also has Ethernet connection for accessing Internet radio, music files on PC and company’s MusicCAST audio system server. iPod and XM radio support can be gained with help of external adapters. The RX-V1800 supports 130watt x 7 and would cost you $1299.95 and the higher end RX-V3800 supports 140watt x 7 and will set you back by  $1699.95.

Researchers Wayne Cheng and Chih-Nan Wu at Photonics and Display Institute, National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan have developed a new system that allows the LCD to alter its pixels based on the viewer’s location. A camera in the system tracks viewers eye and sends the feed back to a software that adjusts the orientation of liquid crystals in the display and the power feed to light emitting diodes behind each crystal. This process results in a sharp and clear picture regardless of your position and viewing angle. At present the display only works for one person and can be useful for doctors and surgeons who use LCD’s to views medical images.

Hackers in Europe claim that they have unlocked the iPhone using a SIM reader and writer and a blank SIM card to obtain full calling and SMS capabilities. The total cost to do this process is $96. One of the Hackintosh forum members who says that he tested the hack on the Orange UK network, call in/out and SMS in/out worked fine.

According to Digitimes, Apple is about to unveil a flash based iPod video in September, which will increase the NAND flash shortage. The new iPod will have 16GB storage and the rest of the specs are still unknown.

Full article here: Digitimes

Nokia has licensed Microsoft’s new PlayReady DRM for its upcoming S60 and S40 platform based Cell phones. According to Nokia this deal will add to and extend Nokia’s existing copy protection by including Windows Media DRM 10 and Open Alliance Mobile DRM. There is no information whether Nokia will support Windows Media DRM or not, in its ‘rumored’ online music and mobile content store. The thing that amazes me most is that Nokia has licensed Windows Media DRM after Microsoft itself has not supported it in its Zune music player business.

Apple is scheduled to hold a press event at its corporate headquarters on Tuesday at 10am, Apple has described the event as Mac-centric and that it will focus only on upcoming Mac products. Despite all the attention to iPod and iPhone, Mac market share has doubled in past two years. Now the question remains about what Apple is going to announce tomorrow at its press event. Apple’s events are normally platforms for announcement of new and upcoming products.  According to Crum "Apple has already upgraded its MacBook, so the event will likely include new versions of the desktop Mac line, which Apple hasn't fully upgraded since September of last year. However, there is some speculation that Apple could be on the verge of releasing a new notebook that runs on flash memory instead of a traditional hard-disk drive".
Despite whatever the analysts say we believe there will be no flash based notebook coming from Apple this year. We do think that Apple can release a sub 4-pound notebook and we are sure that they will release the new iMac

Rumor is going around that the pics above are front and back of all new Aluminum iMac which, Apple is going to release on 7th August. The picture looks like photoshopped version of Apple's Cinema Display. Let wait and see what Apple releases on 7th August, rumors definitely indicate towards a all new iMac design.