Riding the Blog FlumeLike a Rollercoaster, but with water.

The new Sony KDL-60LX903 is the best of the new 2010 range of televisions from Sony.  The 60-inch set will be accompanied by a 40-inch model in the LX range.  This has the new 3D capability, 200Hz refresh (presumably without the 3D functioning) and built in Wi-Fi.  The LX also comes with 2 pairs of the glasses required to see 3D TV.  This makes the LX the best of the range as the “high” HX models require purchasing Wi-Fi and the glasses as add-ons above the package provided with the LX.

The new range include “Monolithic” design, meaning the glass on the front extends right to the edge of the set.  Note however, this does not mean the picture does, rather that the glass goes over the border rather than having the usual bezel.  The 60LX903 as opposed to the 60LX900 indicates that the set s for the UK market and comes with Freeview HD tuner built in.  Apparently Sony aren’t jumping on the Freesat bandwagon with these televisions.

If you want to see on in action Heathrow Terminal 5 has one (straight from CES, Las Vegas apparently) on display showing a loop of footage from a specially modified PlayStation 3 hard drive.  A firmware upgrade for the PS3 to add 3D support for new games is rumoured for May 2010 and Sony are hoping to have some of the World Cup matches in 3D to help sell the the televisions.  It is not apparent whether the Sony 3D is the same / compatible with the offering announced by Sky that is due to appear this summer also.  Prices around £3500.

Afloat is a handy utility for OS X Snow Leopard that adds “always-on-top” to any application in Snow Leopard providing it has been coded in Cocoa.  Great if you want a scientific calculator (for example) to stay on top of your browser window.

After being probably the most talked about hardware for years and the most hyped since the iPhone, Apple had launched the iPad.

Like a large form factor iPhone ot iPod Touch the iPad is based heavily around the App Store and a new (if clumsy sounding)  iBookStore for getting eBooks in the ePub format.

The screen is 1024 x 768 resolution and multi-touch support is the same as the iPhone.  There will be 16, 32 and 64GB models to choose from in two lines, one Wi-Fi only and the other Wi-Fi and 3G (data).  It remains to be seen whether VoIP applications will work in the absence of a phone capability.  Presumably omitted so not to cannibalise sales of the iPhone.  Prices start at $499 with UK prices yet to be confirmed.

The picture shows the first of a wave of accessories with a docking keyboard for when you tire of the virtual on-screen affair.  Battery life is claimed to be 10 hours which should make for a good film playback device but a poorer ebook reader.

Long Term Evolution

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the future of mobile telecomunications that will replace 3rd Generation (3G) networks.  Also know as 4th Generation (4G) it was competing with the Intel backed WiMAX standard which has stagnated and lost ground over the last couple of years.

Although WiMAX can manage 6Mb/sec the LTE rollout reported at The Register by TeliaSonera in Oslo, Norway is promising 20 – 80Mb/sec.  It’s not likely to reach the UK until the next round of spectrum auctions which in turn won’t be until after the next election at the earliest.

Google have launched the Google Chrome web browser for Mac.

Here are a few fun facts from us on the Google Chrome for Mac team:

73,804 lines of Mac-specific code written
29 developer builds
1,177 Mac-specific bugs fixed
12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Mac code base, 48 external code contributors
64 Mac Minis doing continuous builds and tests
8,760 cups of soft drinks and coffee consumed
4,380 frosted mini-wheats eaten

Sounds like not very many soft drinks or mini-wheats (whatever they are?)

Microsoft has deployed the flux-capacitor to get 2010 here a month or so early.  The Year We Make Contact is also the same year that the next version of Microsoft Office is due.  The Beta out now for public consumption is a 760MB download and looks to be following the successful Window 7  model of getting so many people to download and try it that they will rush out an buy it.

In addition to Office 2010 there is also the SharePoint 2010 Beta available for download.

The Wyzo browser is based on Mozilla Firefox and promises accelerated downloads (HTML) and in-browser BitTorrent download as its key features.

Time Capsule Memorial

Apple’s Time Capsule backup device is a wi-fi router and single hard drive in one box. Although rather expensive compared to the cost of a stand alone external hard drive they do have the advantage of the slick Apple styling.

Unfortunately it appears that the, as advertised “server grade” hard drives don’t last as long as some might expect. The Time Capsule Memorial site currently lists over 500 devices that have died, with an average lifespan of 17 months.

Many people have previously stated that a backup solution based on a single hard drive was flawed from the outset.

Google have done a deal with Sony to put it’s year old browser Chrome onto new Sony computers. Chrome currently has around 3 percent of the browser market and is looking to follow the trend of Microsoft IE and Mozilla Firefox by getting manufacturers to pre-install the browser on new machines. The assumption being that people do not switch from what comes with the PC.

Apple has released the latest version of OS X, Snow Leopard.  The BBC have a Snow Leopard video review of some of the new features.  There are some concerns over security features that have not made it into Snow Leopard but have made it into Windows 7.  The Register has a piece explaining the Snow Leopard security details that mainly focus on loading parts of the OS into the same memory locations on boot up.  There is also a list of applications that have stopped working between the previous version of OS X, Leopard and Snow Leopard.