Xperia Pureness unboxed, performs for the camera (video)

As you are no doubt well aware, the launch date for the Xperia Pureness is looming. If you've been dying for a closer look, you're in luck: the fashion icons over at MobileBurn have got their hands on one and have been kind enough to make us a short film of the reveal. At first blush, the phone doesn't look any less impressive than it did in the shots and video we've seen before. There doesn't appear to be any hint of a keypad before the thing when shut off, although that obviously changes once it's powered on. As far as that transparent glass display goes, we can tell from here that it's not likely to be visible in direct (or even some indirect) sunlight -- but since you're a jet-setting nightclub habitue' who hasn't been outside in the daylight in four years that probably shouldn't bother you much. The UI is pretty much standard for an SE feature phone, and the battery is not removable. The price? Looks like it will run you a healthy £530 (about $875). Still interested? Peep the video in action after the break.

HDI's laser-driven 3D HDTV hits production, should ship next year

When we first caught wind of HDI's "world's first laser-based 3D HDTV," we were cautiously hopeful that it'd be ready to go (at least as a prototype) at CES 2010. Looks like we may actually get our wish, as the company has today announced that its magical set has reached the manufacturing stage. What's it all mean? It means that the set is being fast-tracked for release in 2010, meaning that you're just months away from having stereoscopic 1,920 x 1,080 content in your living room... provided there's actually any programming to view, that is. Of course, it'll handle the 2D stuff too, and the twin RGP LCoS micro-display imagers in there ought to provide plenty of crisp imagery regardless of the source. We're still not sure if the Woz-approved 100-inch version that's being shown to curious onlookers is the size that'll be pumped out to the mainstream, but we're hoping for at least a few smaller siblings for those of us with last names other than Kennedy, Gates, Buffet and Ellison.

Gallery: HDI's laser-driven 3D HDTV hits production, should ship next year

xpPhone teased with specs and pictures, makes Windows XP young again

Don't panic, we haven't gone back in time. What we're looking at here is the world's first but still-yet-to-be-released phone that runs on Windows XP, and its Chinese maker has just released some juicy specs and interface images to tease us all. The ITG xpPhone will be blessed with the chutzpah-filled AMD "Super Mobile" CPU, coupled with either 512MB or 1GB RAM. Storage options range from 8GB SSD to 120GB HDD (probably 1.8-inch) and everything in between. While the sheet confirms both GSM and CDMA support, ITG's pre-order page -- which looks more like a newsletter sign-up page at the moment -- is still vague on the phone's availability and price. For now we'll just continue to gaze at the interface pictures until something happens.

Gallery: xpPhone teased with specs and pictures, makes Windows XP young again

There're people who talk about Me on the Internet?

 

Here’s a complete guide to some of the best tools that will help you track what other people are saying about you, your business or your products on other websites, forums and social media sites.

You can secretly "listen" to conversations happening on the web in almost real-time and can then respond if you think a "negative" comment posted on another site may harm your own reputation or that of your brand.

All the "buzz monitoring" services mentioned in this guide are available for free and they can help you monitor almost every part of the "public" web including blogs, forums, websites, video sites, user comments and even some social networks.

Monitor Your Name or Business on the Internet

1. Google Search – Type your name (or that your business) in the Google search box and use the "Past 24 hours" with "Sort by Date" option to find the most recent web pages, blog posts, forum threads, etc. that are talking about you (see example).

If people tend to misspell your name, you should always use a search phrase that includes both your real name and the misspelled version separated by OR (in caps). 

Since Google doesn’t offer feeds, you should consider adding the results page to your bookmarks folder that you open every morning.

2. Yahoo! Alerts – If you are some sort of a celebrity who’s frequently quoted in the press or if you’re a business looking to track your brand mentions in print media, Yahoo! Alerts can be great option. It will send you an email message as soon as there’s a news story in some publication that mentions you or your brand.

3. Google Alerts – Unlike Yahoo! News Alerts that primarily track mainstream media sources, Google Alerts will include stories* from blogs, regular web pages as well as traditional media if you go for the "comprehensive" option. You can even subscribe to Google Alerts in your favorite feed reader.

Google Search vs. Google Alerts – Google Search (mentioned at #1) will find each and every web page that mentions you but Google Alerts will only find web pages that appear in the top twenty results of Google Web search so you are likely to miss some pages if you rely solely on Google Alerts.

[*] See tutorials on how to use Google Alerts and Google News effectively.

4. Facebook Public Search – Facebook has 300+ million members and chances are high that some of them are talking about you or your product in their status updates and wall posts.

Type your name in the Facebook search box (upper right corner) and then use the "Posts by Everyone" option to finds status updates, links and notes written by other Facebook member that mention your name. This will show content from all Facebook members who have enabled their posts to be viewed by people other than friends.

5. Yahoo Pipes (for blogs) – Google Blog Search, Technorati and Bloglines from Ask.com are some popular blog search engines to help you discover blog posts that link to one of your web pages.

You can type the address of your website in this Yahoo! Pipe and it will merge results from all the different blog search engines into one feed that you can either subscribe via email or in your feed reader.

6. Twitter Search – In addition to regular search operators, Twitter search also supports location parameter so you can limit search results to a particular geographic region.

For instance, if you are handling PR for a US based company who just launched a new product in India, you can use a query like "Product Name near:India" to find reactions on Twitter only from India and nearby regions (just what your client wants).

7. Digg Search – Do you know that Digg, like Google, also supports the site: search operator. Use this with your site, choose the "newest first" option and you’ll immediately know when people add your stories on Digg.

They may not hit the front page but will you’ll still know about them – see example.

8. Back Tweets -  Type your web domain name and it will show you all messages on Twitter that include a link to your website (see example). This is just like another useful version of Google’s link: operator but for Twitter (see related services).

9. Back Type – Unlike blog search engines that only index blog posts, Back Type indexes the comments left by other users on blog and other social sites including FriendFeed and Digg.

Type the name of your product or service in the search box, choose "all" (default setting is "relevant") and it will help you find comments /discussion on the Internet that mention you (see example).

10. StepRep – This is another brilliant service for online reputation management. It monitors what people are saying about you (or your products) online and will notify you by email when new results are found.

There may be some overlap with Google Alerts but StepRep can routinely discover sites that mention you but have been missed by Google Alerts. You may use your existing Google Account to log into StepRep.

11. Truveo Video – AOL owned Truveo is probably the largest search engine for video that indexes video clips from all possible video sources on the web including YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, and more. And this is precisely the reason why you should prefer Truveo over Google Video Alerts for tracking your brand mentions on video sites.

You can subscribe to Truveo search results in a feed reader.

12. Social Mention – Another excellent service that helps you track your name across different social media sites like Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc. from a central place. You may get results via RSS or subscribe to once-a-day email alerts for all the keywords that you are monitoring on the web.

13. Webmaster Central - This is one of the best tools to find out other sites that are linking to your web pages (another tool that you may use is Yahoo! Site Explorer).

Assuming that you’ve already verified your site with Webmaster Central, go to "Your site on the web" -> "Links to your site" and there you’ll see a list of all external pages that link to one of your pages. This table can be huge if you run a popular site but there’s an option to export the complete result-set into Excel for further analysis.

A Visual Guide to Computer Cables and Connectors

Computer cables can be confusing so here’s a quick visual guide that will help you quickly identify almost every cable that came bundled with your computer and other electronic gadgets. You may also refer to this guide for ideas on how to hook different devices using commonly available connectors and converters.

1. USB Cables and Connectors

What are USB cables used for – You can use USB cables to connect most new devices to your computer including flash memory sticks, portable media players, internet modems and digital cameras.

Computer accessories like mice, keyboards, webcams, portable hard-drives, microphones, printers, scanners and speakers can also be connected to the computer through USB ports. Additionally, USB cables are also used for charging a variety of gadgets including mobile phones or for transferring data from one computer to another.

How to recognize USB Cables – The standard USB connector, USB-A, is a rectangular connector. The USB-A end is present on every USB cable as it is the end that connects to your computer.

The other end of the USB cable may have different connectors including USB-B (a square connector commonly used with printers, external hard drives, and larger devices) or smaller connectors such as the Mini-USB and Micro-USB that are commonly used with portable devices such as media players and phones.

Additionally, many other connectors have USB-A connectors at the end that connects to the computer, and a device-specific connector at the other end (e.g. the iPod or a Zune). Then you have USB Male to Female connectors for extending the length of a USB cable.

Many other non-USB cables can also connect to your computer via a USB converter; these cables have the standard USB-A connector on one end while the other end could have connections for other ports such as Ethernet or audio.

2. Audio Cables and Connectors

2.1 – 3.5mm headphone jack

The most common audio cable is the standard headphone jack, otherwise known as a TSR connector. It is available in several sizes, but the most common ones used with computers are the 3.5 mm or 1/8" mini audio jack.

Most speakers and microphones can connect to the computer with these audio cables. The microphone port on your computer is usually pink while the speaker port, where you insert the stereo audio cable, is colored green. Some computers have additional TSR audio ports colored black, grey, and gold; these are for rear, front, and center/subwoofer output, respectively.

A larger variety of the TSR connector, 1/4″ TRS, is commonly used in professional audio recording equipment and it can be connected to a computer using an 1/4" to 1/8" converter (pictured right).

2.2 – Digital Optical Audio

For high-end audio, like when you want to connect the output of a DVD player or a set-top box to a Dolby home theater, you need the TOSLINK (or S/PDIF) connector.

These are fiber optic cables and can therefore transmit pure digital audio through light. Some laptops and audio equipment have a mini-TOSLINK jack but you can use a converter to connect it to a standard TOSLINK (Toshiba Link) port.

3. Video Cables

3.1 – VGA

One of the most common video connectors for computer monitors and high-definition TVs is the VGA cable. A standard VGA connector has 15-pins and other than connecting a computer to a monitor, you may also use a VGA cable to connect your laptop to a TV screen or a projector.

Converter cables are lso available to let VGA monitors connect to newer computers that only output HDMI or DVI signals. A smaller variant of VGA, Mini-VGA, is available on some laptops but with the help of a converter, you can connect any standard VGA monitor to a Mini-VGA port of your laptop.

3.2 – DVI Monitor Port

If you have purchased a computer in the recent past, chances are that it uses DVI instead of VGA. The new breed of "thin" laptops use the smaller variants of DVI like the Mini-DVI and Micro-DVI (first seen in MacBook Air).

A DVI cable has 29 pins, though some connectors may have less pins depending on their configuration. DVI’s video signal is compatible with HDMI, so a simple converter can allow a DVI monitor to receive input from an HDMI cable.

Additionally, DVI to VGA converters are also available for connect your new graphics card to old monitor that supports only VGA mode.

3.3 – S-Video

S-Video cables, otherwise known as Separate Video or Super Video cables, carry analog video signals and are commonly used for connecting DVD players, camcorders, older video consoles to the television.

Standard S-Video connectors are round in shape and may have anywhere between 4-9 pins.

4. Audio and Video Cables

4.1 – RCA Connector Cables

RCA connector cables are a bundle of 2-3 cables including Composite Video (colored yellow) and Stereo Audio cables (red for right channel and white or black for the left audio channel).

Sometimes additional cables may be included, offering additional audio channels and/or component video instead of composite. Component video offers better picture than composite because the video signal is split in different signals while in the case of composite, everything is transferred through a single yellow plug.

Uses of RCA Connectors – The RCA cables are usually used for connecting your DVD player, stereo speakers, digital camera and other audio/video equipment to your TV. You can plug-in an RCA cable to the computer via a video capture card and this will let you transfer video from an old analog camcorder into your computer’s hard drive.

4.2 – HDMI Cables

HDMI is the new standard that provide both audio and video transmission through a single cable. HDMI support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160p (HD is only 1920×1200) with up to 8 channels of digital audio and are used for connecting Blu-Ray players to an HDTV.

Standard HDMI cables can be up to 5 meters long, but higher quality ones can be up to 15 meters long, and the length can be further increased with amplifiers. HDMI is backwards compatible with DVI so you can use a converter to watch video on a DVI device through the HDMI cable though you will have to use another cable for the audio.

4.3 – DisplayPort

A combined digital video and audio cable that is more commonly used in computers is DisplayPort and the smaller derivative Mini DisplayPort. Both support resolutions up to 2560 × 1600 × 60 Hz, and additionally support up to 8 channels of digital audio.

Mini DisplayPort connector is currently used in MacBooks but we could them in other computers as well in the near future.

Standard DisplayPort cables can be up to 3 meters long, but at a lower resolution cables can be up to 15 meters long.  DisplayPort connectors are available to connect VGA, DVI video, or HDMI video and audio with a DisplayPort cable or connection.  Additionally, converters are available to convert Mini DisplayPort into standard DisplayPort.

5. Data Cables

5.1 – Firewire IEEE 1394

Firewire, otherwise known as IEEE 1394, i.LINK, or Lynx, is a faster alternate to USB and is commonly used for connecting digital camcorders and external hard drives to a computer. It is also possible to ad-hoc network computers without a router over FireWire.

Firewire typically has 6 pins in its connector, though a 4 pin variety is common as well.

5.2 – eSATA Cables

While SATA cables are used internally for connecting the hard drive to the computer’s motherboard, eSATA cables are designed for portable hard drives, and can transfer data faster than USB or FireWire.

However, the eSATA cable cannot transmit power, so unlike USB, you cannot power an external hard drive with eSATA. The eSATA cable is somewhat different from the internal SATA cable; it has more shielding, and sports a larger connector.

6. Networking Related Cables

6.1 – Phone RJ11 Cable

The telephone cable, otherwise known as RJ11, is still used around the world for connecting to the Internet through DSL/ADSL modems. A standard phone cable has 4 wires and the connector has four pins.

The connector has a clip at the top to help maintain a tight connection.

6.2 – Ethernet Cable

Ethernet is the standard for wired networking around the world. The Ethernet cable, otherwise known as RJ45, is based on Cat5 twisted pair cable and is made from 8 individual wires.

The Ethernet connector, likewise, has 8 pins and looks similar to a phone plug, but is actually thicker and wider. It too has a clip to help maintain a tight connection like a phone connector.