eK-gadgets info

Ever since Apple’s PowerBook line met its end last year, people have been clamoring for Apple to return to them a 12-inch laptop. Rumors of Steve Jobs granting their wishes and bestowing upon them an ultraportable, professional-grade notebook have been fairly consistent since the man introduced the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros. Today, MacScoop quotes “trusted sources” that point to the arrival of a 12-inch MacBook Pro by the end of the year. These sources say the laptop will be half as thick as the old 12-inch PowerBook at 0.6 or 0.7 inch (15 to 18 millimeters to our international readers). This rumored laptop will weigh less than 3 pounds, making it the lightest Apple laptop ever released. If it’s ever released

The season for compact camera introduction, and Pentax is getting in on the action with its new Optio E40 and M40 models. Both include 8-megapixel CCDs, face recognition, and Pentax’s ISO-bump Digital Shake Reduction.The Optio E40 slightly edges out its sibling lens-wise with its faster 3x optical, 38mm-to-113mm f/2.8-to-f/5.2 zoom lens, but its 2.4-inch LCD checks in with 110,000 pixels (40,000 fewer than the M40), and its autofocus system relies on three focus points as compared to the nine points found in the M40. The M40 also bests the E40 in terms of sensitivity. The M40 ranges from ISO 50 to ISO 1,600, but offers ISO 3,200 in its Digital Shake Reduction mode. The E40 offers ISO 80 to ISO 800, with a boost up to ISO 1,000 in its Digital Shake Reduction mode. If you’re choosy about your power supply, take note that the E40 runs on AA batteries.

The M40 is expected to hit stores in August for about $200, while the E40 will follow in September for about $150.

Travelmate 6492 is one of the latest notebooks presented by Acer, just like many of the laptops currently on the market, this one also makes use of the Intel “Centrino Pro” platform and the Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The display measures 14-inches and the graphics card is also powered by Intel – Graphic Media Accelerator X3100 chip.

As for the storage capacity, the Acer Travelmate 6492 has a S-ATA hard-disk with 160GB, for some people this is more than enough and can last forever, while for others it can be easy to fill up in just a couple of weeks or one month. If you ever need to expand the usability of the Travelmate 6492, there is an Acer ezDock II/II+ docking system that is able to integrate new peripherals and make them work properly.

On the connectivity areas there is the obvious WiFi and bluetooth in the wireless section, and LAN + gigabit ethernet card for the wired part.

Fresh from the campus of Casio in Dover, New Jersey (just a few miles from where I live, actually) comes news of two new digital cameras in the Exilim series, featuring enhanced Exilim Engine 2.0 image processing module.

The new models, Casio Exilim EX-S880 and Exilim EX-Z77, are unique in the fact that they both include a new YouTube capture mode, a video recording mode specially designed for uploading videos to the popular video site.

In YouTube mode, video is captured in MPEG4 H.264 quality, at a compression ratio that allows users to record longer at no significant loss of movie quality. The video resolution is 640×480 pixels at up to 30fps.

The Casio EX-S880 offers a mammoth 8.1 megapixel resolution for photos and comes in a thin card size, and is available in red and black for an MSRP of US $299.99. The EX-Z77 is a 7.2 megapixel compact camera, available in black, blue, pink and silver and is priced at $229.99. Expect them to hit the stores in August 2007.

Samsung has launched another cellphone in the Korean market, the SCH-B710. It has a cool feature that makes the cellphone have a strange shape – it is the “swing-type” LCD screen that measures 2.2-inches with a Picture in Picture function.

The Samsung SCH-B710 cellphone has a 1.3 megapixel camera to shoot photos and record videos that supports panorama mode. The wireless connectivity feature is bluetooth, and to store the multimedia files there is an external memory – cards.

The best features stays for last, which is the support for S-DMB and T-DMB. It means Digital Multimedia Broadcasting – being able to watch TV or listen to radio on the cellphone.