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Apple finally announced the exact date of iPad availability in the U.S.: It’s Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models, while models with both Wi-Fi and 3G will be available in late April.

As far as other countries go, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

If you’re interested in pre-ordering your iPad, you can do it from March 12 onwards; U.S. customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple’s online store or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

via Mashable

Google’s latest addition to their search is Stars. Basically this allows people to remember the good results they got for a particular search term. SO for instance, a lot of people would search for facebook login when they want to login to facebook. This worked fine when facebook.com was returned in the results near enough to the top. However the problem occurred when Google indexed someone elses site or blog post (like this one) and it came up in someones search for facebook. For the non-techy, this lead to considerable anguish, as they couldn’t login to facebook.

So now with Google’s stars, they can always find facebook.com when searching for facebook.

Click here to login to facebook

Vodafone Ireland have announced that they will be officially selling the Apple iPhone from March 25th. Every plan (see table of plans and prices below) comes with unlimited free Vodafone to Vodafone calls & texts and 2GB of data.
On Perfect Choice Access + 150 and above, you also get inclusive minutes & texts to any network.

You can also pre-register for the iPhone, just click on the button below to give Vodafone your details.

The latest buzz (sorry!) on the interweb is Google Buzz (http://buzz.google.com/) is the new all singing and dancing facebook/twitter type thing, from Google.

So while everyone is clamoring to get a piece of the Google Buzz action, spare a thought for the poor Google Wave. Wasn’t that supposed to be the social media’s next best thing? It didn’t stay around for long, is anyone still using it?

And has anyone used Buzz yet?
What are your thoughts?

• This one is from techcentral.ie:
  
• This one is from theapplecollection.com:
  

Although personally, I don’t think there will be any optical media drive as this is not present in the MacBook Air

Apple has confirmed an event on Jan 27, inviting media and analysts to ‘come see our latest creation’, believed to be the iTablet.

Apple has invited journalists to a special event in San Francisco later this month, where it is widely expected to unveil the iTablet. Apple sent out the email invite today to select media and analysts, inviting them to "come see our latest creation".

The invite, which shows the Apple logo superimposed over a series of graffiti-style paint splatters, gives few clues as to what Apple will announce at the event. However, rumours and speculation have swirled for months that Apple is about to unveil a tablet-style computer.

The event, which will be held at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco, starts at 10am on January 27. Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, is expected to take the stage to make the announcement in what will be his highest profile appearance since returning to work after a liver transplant last summer.

The so-called iTablet is expected to feature a 10in screen, with all the same features and functionality as Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. Several websites have quoted sources close to the project as saying that the iTablet will also be used as a home entertainment hub for gaming, watching movies and listening to music.

via The Indo

Since the iPhone exploded on to the mobile scene two years ago, rivals have been scrambling to catch up. Now the one competitor we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived: the Google phone. Or, more precisely, phones. Not content with its dominant position as the 800lb gorilla of the internet, Google has turned its hand to producing free software that can be used by any phone manufacturer to power touchscreen devices.

The software, dubbed Android, has been available internationally for more than a year in just a handful of mobiles. But the first Android phones to be sold by Irish networks have only just landed.

So let’s delve into some Androids to see what all the fuss is about.
continue reading…

Sky has started rolling out its new electronic programme guide to all Sky+ HD customers with set top boxes manufactured by Amstrad. At the start of November, the satellite platform holder began implementing the new EPG for all subscribers with Samsung boxes.

The process has now shifted to Amstrad receivers, with Sky sending warning emails to all affected customers in advance of the rollout. A demo of the EPG is also available in Sky Anytime for any subscribers still waiting to receive it.

Some people may think that I am mad, I may even think it myself but I have uninstalled Ubuntu (Karmic Koala) and installed Windows Vista.

Why? Well I just got sick of Ubuntu not “remembering” settings I changed after a reboot, like the desktop effects. Also I installed XAMPP (LAMPP in Linux speak) and this also decided not to work. So enough was enough. I installed Vista.

Well thats the short version. I was going to put XP back on but I ran into “issues”. basically my pc has 2 partitions, and I wanted to keep the “second” one, my old D:\ as I had a lot of stuff on there, my iTunes folder being the most important. So I deleted the partition which contained the Ubuntu installation and created a new partition in its place for Windows. What the XP installation didnt tell me was that my old D:\ partition was now the Primary partition and what now contained my windows OS was the Logical or secondary partition.

I reinstalled XP twice and still was getting the same outcome. I decided to try Vista. Same thing happened again, but at least this time i noticed the Primary/Logical designations and realised that I would have to change the designations in order to boot my Windows.

Couldn’t change the designations. At least the Vista installation allowed my to copy my files to a number of USB memory sticks. SO then I deleted the old D:\, and created a new blank partition in its place. This left me with TWO primary partitions, so I installed Vista (again) on the smaller partition and everything went well.

Now I just have to turn off those annoying Vista warning popups

Ciara O’Brien from the Irish Times introduced us to the Seecode Vossor Phonebook (€139-€149)

Bluetooth car kits are a common sight, but if you would rather not drill holes in your shiny dashboard, try the Seecode Vossor Phonebook. The device looks (and actually is) a rear view mirror. The difference is that it has Bluetooth built in and a microphone and speaker for making calls. It will also store up to 600 numbers in its memory.

The device is simple enough to install yourself. You simply slot it over your existing car mirror, pair it with your phone and you are ready to go. A mini display in the centre of the mirror – almost invisible while it’s not in use – will light up when a call comes in to tell you who is demanding your attention. It has 10 hours of talk time and 500 hours of standby from a single charge and, if you need to charge it on the go, a portable in-car charger is included.

Link: http://www.seecode-europe.de/eng/