Author: Toby Leftly

Sprint, the George Bush of US wireless carriers has announced a new product it hopes will catapult it to the front of the mobile market. It’s an iPad case. Clearly not put off by the fact that AT&T has exclusive rights to the iPhone, and Verizon is the only other network ever mentioned as a contender to this throne, Sprint hopes to maintain relevance by simply being able to use the word ‘iPad’ in one of it’s product names. The stylish case has a pocket on the front to hold a Sprint Overdrive portable wifi hotspot device, a tenuous link at best. In an even greater display of advertising smarts, the case…

Research In Motion says it isn’t sure that video is the “killer app” for smart phones. In the age of mobile technological ubiquity, we want everything everywhere, but rich media consumes as much as 30 times the bandwidth as simple text and images. While making the point that data networks are under massive strain from the recent surge in the use of apps and video, RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis said more efficient delivery is required before RIM takes further steps towards HD devices. RIM uses server-side technologies that make it’s web browsing and Blackberry apps between 3 and 8 times as efficient as it’s…

Lovers of barely functional, bloated and outdated software rejoice: Microsoft Office 2010 has been released to manufacturing and could be available as early as May 1st! The neolithic software title lumbers onwards, regardless of technological advancement and shifts towards cloud computing. So what does Microsoft have in store for users so behind the curve that Office is still a great choice? Well, they continue to dazzle us with ‘The Ribbon”, their confusing and bloated UI trainwreck. The Ribbon becomes more controllable in 2010, which should add to the amount of time and effort required…

Engadget’s iPhone 4G photos are NOT genuine, according to a Mac Rumors reader. The device is apparently a Japanese clone, despite looking nothing at all like any existing iPhone design. The phone has almost identical markings on the rear to the iPhone, but has square corners not rounded edges. Andy Ihnatko chimed in last night, casting doubt upon the validity of the phone. “And does this even look like an Apple product? Every Apple mobile device — from MacBooks to iPods, with iPhones and iPads in between — belongs to the same style family.” Apple nerds will simply have to wait until June or July…

Adobe this morning announced their Creative Suite 5 software, with hundreds of new features and updates, ranging from full 64bit support for Mac users to better stroke control in Illustrator. We’re rounding up the new features and assessing the main apps to help you figure out if this is a must-have upgrade, or a snooze-inducing point-oh release. Photohop CS5 Photoshop is the app that started it all, and while Adobe has grown and evolved, Photoshop is still very much a flagship product. Content-Aware Fill is the big one – if real world usage even comes close to Adobe’s promotional videos it’s going…

It’s shocking that it’s taken this long for someone to think of this, but here it is – obnoxious LED advertising has arrived, and it surely won’t be long before the shelves of every store has glinting and flashing messages begging you to purchase them. Mercifully, the tiny batteries in these devices currently max out at around 40 hours, so it may be some time before this is commercially viable for every single product in every single store. Realistically, this “innovation” will most likely be used to add a personalized message to the bottle to be given as a gift. The practical implications of this…

Google Docs today received several updates that take the software to the next level and in some cases innovate beyond the capability of it’s desktop counterparts. Now faster and more responsive, Google Docs allows more people to collaborate on files together, extending the limit for one file to 50 people. Importing files is now easier and the resulting files are more accurate representations. Increased drag and drop capability and the ability to see other users edits in real time makes Google Docs an even more appealing choice as an alternative to Microsoft’s Office Suite or Apple’s iWork apps….

Microsoft is currently holding a live media event in San Francisco to unveil a new product, widely believed to be the Pink project, the successor to the Sidekick platform. The product, named Kin picks up where the Sidekick leaves off. Due in May 2010, the device is essentially a phone with a browser and camera built in. The device will launch on Verizon, although no plans or pricing has been announced yet. I’m having a little trouble understanding what sets this product apart from other regular phones or smartphones, but Microsoft notes that the device is capable of streaming media from a Zune, so…

In what promises to be the “Killer App” the iPad was waiting for, you can now use – wait for it.. Windows 95 on your iPad! If you camped out last weekend waiting for an Apple store to open, dashed in at 9:01am and forked out $500 for the mythical device, you probably aren’t interested in Apple’s iWork suite of apps or games, you probably just wanted to be able to run Microsoft’s first NT based operating system from 15 years ago. Kama Games used a BOCHS emulator to run Windows 95 on an iPad, apparently simply for the joy of being able to say they could. Features include no internet access, no DVD or blu-ray support,…

Smack bang in the middle of the controversy created by Apple’s change to their iPhone OS SDK agreement, Adobe announces their Creative Suite 5 software. No doubt with a hefty price tag, CS5 aims to widen Adobe’s involvement in your workflow, in part thanks to their purchase of Omniture, which provides content measurement and optimization services. The video, available on Adobe’s CS5 launch site, shows many new features including more on the new magical Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop, an overhaul of the text rendering engine in Flash and perspective control in Illustrator. There is always…