Google, in an instant

Google has come up with a way to please the one billion visitors they receive a week – give them the information they desire instantly.

No longer will Google waits for you to hit ‘enter’ – it now starts updating the results page Instantly as you type. UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the United States are the first set of countries to receive Google Instant – which is due to roll out any day now – while Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 8 are the first supported browsers. Mobile users will have to wait until the fall.

Google’s boffins say that instance search will save over 350 million man hours over the course of a year. Check out this amusing video using a Bob Dylan song as an example.

Nokia N8 makes a date

Nokia’s N8 “multimedia powerhouse” Symbian^3  phone will be available from the “last week of September” in the UK if you pre-order it from Nokia’s website. If fancy trotting down to the high street though, then you’ll have to wait a couple of days – it won’t be available until 1^st October.

The phone’s camera has been getting a lot of praise – it’s 12 megapixel and can record in HD. Videos can be edited using a unique, built-in editing suite and then played back with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound.

“The Nokia N8 is perfect for creating and sharing great content in high-definition, using HDMI out to connect to your TV as well as hot-USB swap. We’re making it fun and easy to capture and share memorable moments on the go,” says Mark Loughran from Nokia UK.

It’ll set you back £429 SIM free or on contract from £35 per month.

IBM creates World’s fastest microprocessor

In ten years time people will probably laugh at IBM’s record breaking z196 Processor, but for now it’s the World’s fastest microprocessor clocking in at an impressive 5.2Ghz.

IBM sunk more than $1.5 billion into research and development to produce the four-core chip. It contains 1.4 billion transistors on a 512-square millimeter (mm) surface.

IBM says that this world record-breaking speed is “necessary for businesses managing huge workloads, such as banks and retailers”.

So it’s not for PC-fan boys to run Crysis 2 and Rage with? Oh.

Apple shows off Apple TV and 2010 range

This week is going to be a busy one for the world of technology – the IFA is taking place in Germany and Apple has just shown off their new 2010 models of the Nano, Shuffle iPod Touch and their new Apple TV gizmo.

There isn’t much to say about the new Shuffle so we’ll get that out of the way first. It has a 15 hour battery, the button has made a comeback and is now on the front of the device, it comes in five colours and will be available from next week. $49 will bag you a 2GB model.

The Nano has had the biggest overhaul and has turned the most heads. It now has a touch screen which replaces the click wheel and it’s 46% smaller and 42% lighter. It comes in seven colours and has a 24 hour battery. It’s not all good news though – there’s no camera and no video playback. And although it has a time and date function, there’s no alarm feature…because it doesn’t have a speaker. Prices are set at $149 for 8GB or $179 for 16GB.

As predicted by many, the new iPod Touch is simply an thinner iPhone 4 minus the phone features. That means it’ll feature a retina display from the iPhone 4, an Apple A4 core, 3-axis gyroscope and FaceTime support due to the addition of a front camera. It’ll be arriving in US stores next week at a price of $229 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB. No 16GB or 128GB models it would seem.

If anything, Apple TV is inexpensive. The tiny black box will only cost $99. It sits under your TV and allows you to stream TV shows and movies onto your picturebox in 720p. Apple says that 720p works best for picture quality and bandwidth. Round the back you’ll find a HDMI port, Ethernet, optical audio, USB sockets and it also has 802.11n WiFi. TV shows from ABC and Fox will cost 99 cents at time,while HD movies will cost $4.99. Other services set to appear include YouTube, Netflix, photo sharing site Flickr and Mobile Me. Rotten Tomatoes will be providing information for the movie database. The device also comes with a white-coloured remote that resembles an elongated Shuffle.

Apple claimed during their conference that the iPod Touch is now the #1 gaming device outselling the Nintendo DS and PSP combined. This however does seem a little hard to swallow – at last count 132 million Nintendo DS handhelds have been sold compared to 120 million iPod Touch units.

Nintendo should be worried though, especially if Epic’s new iPhone engine – which can be seen for yourself by downloading the Epic Citadel demo – is anything to go by. You can read a little bit more about that over on Kotaku.

Control freaks

The first iControlPad has rolled off the production line. If you can’t guess by the photo above, it’s an add-on designed to give the iPhone a proper joypad. There’s also a variant planned that’ll have an extra battery built-in to give your phone a boosted battery life.

There’s a video detailing how it was designed on YouTube. Plenty more details, including images of prototypes, can be found on the official site.

Don’t simply expect to stroll into your nearest iPhone accessory retailer and buy one though; the first run is said to be limited to 3,000 units and may have to be pre-ordered.

Hit the jackpot? Then buy a Jackpot

You may have heard of Gresso before – they make incredibly expensive, but rather nice looking, luxury phones and watches. Their iPhone covers recently got websites in a tizzy because of their $4,500 price tag but they’ve managed to outdo themselves this time round with a phone that costs $1,000,000. One million dollars!

Only three Luxor Las Vegas Jackpot phones are going to be made. The 12mm thick phone has a case made of pure gold (180g by weight) and is encrusted with rare 45.5 K black diamonds. The back panel is produced from 200-year-old African Blackwood while every key is manufactured from single crystal sapphire with a total carat weight of 32.

In other news, Tesco have launched a £6 mobile phone contact.

iPod Touch 4 rumour round-up

The rumour mill has been churning like mad over the past few days over details for the iPod Touch 4 – or iPod Touch 2010 – as some websites have been calling it.

The speculation actually started back in April when BoyGeniusReport did some digging around in the iPad’s OS file structure and found references to “iPod 4”.

Then posh UK retailer John Lewis mentioned that their autumn catalogue will include an updated iPod Touch with the same 5-megapixel camera with flash, FaceTime software, and HD video capabilities as the iPhone 4.

However, 9to5mac – which is where the image above comes from – seem to think that the camera will be only 3.2 mega pixels.

Hardmac gave us perhaps the biggest glimpse though – they claim that Apple has been sending out size dimensions of the device to various case manufactures so that they can get their cases into stores the same time as the device itself. The story was backed up with an image of a finished iPod Touch 4 case which shows a rounded back and a hole for a camera.

In summary, then, it’ll be pretty much identical to the iPhone 4 only with a rounded back instead of a flat surface on the reverse.

I very much doubt that Apple are bothered about these information “leaks” – it’s bound to sell well whatever happens.

Best Buy jump on iPad bandwagon

US retailer Best Buy are planning to release their own iPad-style tablet under their Rocketfish label. It actually started off as a communication tool to be used between employees but Best Buy had a brainwave and thought it would be ideal to sell to ‘Joe Public’ too.

The images above come from Best Buy’s CTO Ralph Stephens who added the two images to his Twitter account. He had also said about a month ago on Twitter that the tablet has a front facing camera and runs on Android 2.2.

A few people have speculated that it’s simply a rebranded HP Slate, but seeing that the images are of a gutless prototype that’s something hard to believe.

Lenovo’s mini PC packs a tiny punch

Lenovo’s super slim desktop PC is not much bigger than a CD case and weighs just 1.4 pounds. At $400 (roughly £260) it won’t leave a big dent in your wallet either.

The IdeaCentre Q150 has specs similar to a Netbook – 1.66-GHz Intel Atom D510 CPU, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD and 802.11n Wi-Fi (plus ethernet). Nvidia’s ION graphics chip gives it the ability to play decently released PC games, but don’t expect them to run on the highest settings.

An SD slot would have been a welcome addition – I don’t think it would have affected the size of it at all.

Perhaps the highlight though is the mini keyboard – anybody that owned a Nintendo 64 is going to feel right at home with that bad boy.

Look mum, no wires!

UK retailer Currys are going to be exclusively stocking the Duracell myGrid wireless charging station. The device has been mooted as the first real rival to the Powermat.

Simply clip a Power Sleeve onto your MP3 player or mobile and then lay it on top of the device and it’ll start to charge without wires or cables. Up to four devices can be charged at once and as a safety feature it’ll switch itself off if keys or a similar object are accidentally placed on it. It’s expected that one Power Sleeve will come free with the myGrid, with the rest available to purchase separately. The iPhone sleeve is $34.99 (£22) on Amazon, just to give a rough idea.

No price has been confirmed yet. The Powermat retails for around £59.99 though, so expect a similar price.

Google’s Android army

According to Google, around 160,000 Android-powered smartphones are being activated per day. This fits in perfectly with news from research company Canalys, who claims that Android smartphone shipments have increased a massive 886% year-on-year from the second quarter of 2009.

Even with ongoing issues with the iPhone 4, Apple showed the second highest growth with 61%.

Microsoft was the only company to see a drop in shipments during the same timeframe, with Canalys amusingly referring to Windows Mobile 6.5 as a” discontinued platform”.

iPad owners are independent geeks, says survey

Personality assessment specialists MyType questioned 20,000 people to find out what the typical iPad owner is like. The results have provoked a massive response, with a blacklash currently occurring on Twitter.

MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck claims that “The typical person who has bought Apple’s latest gadget is unkind and has little empathy for others. They are self-centred workaholics with an overwhelming interest in business and finance who cherish power and achievement and will not cross the street to help others.”

“[The iPad] appeals to people who spend all day working in front of a computer screen and enjoy interacting with new technology. In their free time they are so used to computers they want another screen to ensure continuity in their lives,” he continued to say.

Koelkebeck adds that the iPad gives users “an identity statement that helps them cope with their own failings – as a mainstream, closed-platform device whose major claim to fame is ease of use and sex appeal, the iPad is everything that they are not.”

He then concludes his report by saying “The next time you see someone sitting on a train smugly using theirs, take comfort from the fact they are probably not a nice person.”

I think the backlash is pretty much deserved. Some people though seem to have got the wrong end of the stick and are under the impression that the report was written by the Daily Mail. The British newspaper is only responsible for printing the results of the survey, not writing it.