Netgear introduces new Push 2TV wireless media player

Netgear has introduced new Push 2TV wireless media player and it is based on Intel’s Wireless Display Technology. This device is very much useful to wirelessly transmit HD videos from laptop and then to play on TV screens. You can watch a movie with your family in the living room over HD television through your laptop,. Netgear has not announced prices of the device so far.

A portable device, the Push2TV PVT-1000 is to be hooked to your HD TV via HDMI cable or Composite. This device will let you stream photos and videos with HD quality to the larger screen installing it on your compatible laptop. The only restriction is that it functions on Intel based laptop only. This means you can not use it on older laptops.

Intel showed its new Wireless Display technology at the Consumer Electronics Show 2010. This technology uses an adapter to bring content from laptop to TV. Intel WiDi technology needs Intel Core i7-620M, Core i3 or Core i5 based laptop with 64-bit Windows 7 OS. Certain specific modules are also needed on the laptop to get the Intel WiDi thing functioning.

Nokia makes fun of iPhone 4 reception issue

The reception issue with Apple iPhone 4 seems to have given a shot in the arm for its rivals, which are bitten hard by Apple's surging sales. And Nokia, the de-throned king of smartphone market seems to be cashing on the opportunity.

As iPhone4 users are complaining about reception issues while holding the smartphone in some position, Nokia Conversations, the Nokia's official blog on Monday sought to make fun of Apple's suggestion to iPhone 4 users on defining positions to use the phone, indirectly though, without even mentioning the iPhone 4.

Apple had sold 1.7 million units of the new iPhone, since its global launch last week. However, the reception issue had created some sort of a tension for Apple, which even issued a clarification in that regard.

Indirectly referring to this clarification, the Nokia blog said "We’ve been looking around and noticed there are many ways to hold your Nokia device. Whether you’re left-handed or right-handed, there’s no shortage of ways to hold your phone."

Further, the blog mentions four defined ways of using cell phones. However, it concludes by telling that Nokia users can ignore all the defined ways of holding a mobile phone. Hold the Nokia devices in any position and still there won't be any signal degradation.

“The key function on any Nokia device is its ability to make phone calls. One of the main things we’ve found about the 1 billion plus Nokia devices that are in use today is that when making a phone call, people generally tend to hold their phone like a…. well, like a phone. Providing a wide range of methods and grips for people to hold their phones, without interfering with the antennae has been an essential feature of every device Nokia has built,” the blog boasted.

Tweeting car

NEW YORK, USA: Online blogging is a trendy communication tool not just for tech-savvy humans. Now your car can also send messages on Twitter and have more followers than even singer Lady Gaga and US President Barack Obama.

The car that can tweet is AJ, a future model of Ford Fiesta, which is a test bed for company engineers exploring the possibilities when an automobile is connected to the internet and all of its concomitant services.

"It's getting pretty dark; time to put the headlights on," was a typical entry posted by AJ when a team of engineers drove the car to California for an exhibition in May, The New York Times reported.

Followers also learned when AJ’s mood was "joyful" when "there's no traffic, and it's not raining and it's enjoying a winding road", said Joe Rork, an information technology architect with Ford.

Rork recalled the journey during a presentation in Manhattan and explained how AJ was sending the messages on its own.

The software behind AJ was an application called the "Auto"matic Blog. It tapped into the available data on the car, including telemetry information, like location, speed, acceleration and braking.

It also gleaned information from windshield wipers, steering input and GPS data and correlated it with live information culled from the Web.

AJ's software could combine, say, real-time traffic notices about congestion with its current situation (stop-and-go braking) and weather forecasts (storms ahead) and then send a Twitter entry like, "Stuck in traffic; not looking forward to next 50 miles, either."

Apart from Twitter application, the engineers also ran the location-based Foursquare software, through which the car could automatically check the team in at restaurants and tourist spots along the way (and send pictures).

The car is also being tested with a programme developed by University of Michigan students called Caravan Track, which allows a group of travellers to be automatically apprised of their friends' locations and conditions along the way.

Ford is already on track to add smartphone applications, including a Twitter feed, to its Sync-based cars later this year, the daily said.

It has also announced that it will enable other phone applications to connect to its cars, allowing third-party software program to use a vehicle's built-in controls, like buttons on the steering wheel, to control programmes, including music players running on connected Android phones.

The tests with AJ were a natural extension of this strategy to see what's possible when the car is connected and online all the time, according to Rork.

Since mainly off-the-shelf hardware was used, including a high-speed cellular data connection, a Wi-Fi router and a Dell computer running Windows 7 in the trunk, any car could be turned into a Twittermobile, Rork said. ©IANS