Product reviews: Home cinema systems

The latest systems have fewer, smaller speakers than previous kits. We immerse ourselves in the action on five of the bestBEST FOR: SURROUND SOUNDPIONEER LX01 £1,300.Despite having no centre speaker and just four tiny satellites plus the sub, the LX01 sounds impressive. Two drivers in each front speaker emulate the centre speaker, providing clear movie dialogue. The upscaling DVD drive gives a crisp image and records and plays almost all disc formats. There’s a 250GB hard-disk and a Freeview tuner,...

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Why you should buy an iPod touch

I generally try to keep this blog on topic with posts about science news. However, every now and then I like to take a little detour into the world of gadgets (and, as the traffic to my earlier post on where to find a Wii in Vancouver suggests, such posts are popular).Like many guys, I have a bit of a weakness for the latest tech toy. As a result, I often suffer buyer's remorse after spending my hard-earned money on something that I rarely ever use (I'm talking to you fold-out Palm keyboard!). So...

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Google Transit Expands to New York

A number of public officials and the founders of Google assembled at Grand Central Terminal this morning to announce the start of New York’s version of Google Transit, an online feature that they said would transform the experience of navigating New York City’s transit system, the nation’s busiest.“It is a very complicated transit system, and it just got less complicated today with the advent of Google Maps for transit,” Gov. David A. Paterson said, noting that the subway system opened with 9.1...

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Google phone to cost $179, will go on sale Oct. 22

Google likes to talk about organizing the world's information and making it accessible everywhere. On Tuesday, the Internet giant took a step toward fulfilling that mission with the long-awaited debut of the first mobile phone to use its software known as Android.The phone, which will go on sale at T-Mobile on Oct. 22 for $179 — $20 less than the iPhone — closely resembles a T-Mobile Sidekick, with a big screen and a keyboard that slides out from underneath and contains an extra key dedicated to...

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Yahoo Should Have Sold Search To Microsoft

As Yahoo and Google get ready to finally launch their search partnership--and trigger a storm of legal and industry protest by doing so--it's worth revisiting Yahoo's decision to pursue this deal instead of one with Microsoft in the waning days of the Microsoft-Yahoo dance (boy, does that seem like a long time ago).In the days when Google and Yahoo first announced their search partnership, Yahoo's stock was in the high $20s, and the Microsoft acquisition at $31 seemed inevitable. Then Jerry pulled...

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Microsoft, this is how you can deal with Google

Google has again gained a whole percentage point this month, at the expense of Microsoft (losing 0.9%). It seems that Microsoft is consistently losing ground — the ship is sinking, and it doesn’t appear they can do anything about it. So much for that $1 billion per year they are putting towards gaining market share over Google. What can they do to get on the right track?Let me explain something to you, Microsoft. What you are doing isn’t working — it’s as simple as that. It’s easy for someone to...

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What happened to the Big Bang machine?

Serious difficulties were encountered when boring an artificial cavern designed to house the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), one of the LHC's massive detectors - which are designed to monitor beam collisions for interesting events.The cavern shaft had to be bored through a 50m layer of glacial deposits – including fast-flowing water – which threatened to flood the hole.Engineers had to create a 3m-thick wall of ice around the circumference of the shaft as a barrier to the underground rivers.In April...

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Microsoft Zune 16 GB

When PC World reviewed Microsoft's previous Zune flash player last fall, we questioned whether support for wireless and for video was overkill on a device that holds only 8GB of content. This fall, Microsoft addressed the storage limitations by adding a new 16GB model to its flash family.But other than expanded storage and a glossy black case, the main changes involve the Zune 3.0 firmware--which is not preinstalled on the new Zunes (you must visit Zune.net to obtain it). What's more, the player's...

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Yahoo Is Counting on Apex

Slouched in a chair in the Holy Cannoli conference room at Yahoo!'s (YHOO) Silicon Valley headquarters one recent September day, a taciturn Jerry Yang looks every bit the embattled chief executive he is. With profits falling and sales growth slowing, the Internet portal's stock price has sunk below 19—a five-year low and 40% less than what Microsoft (MSFT) offered before walking away from its $47.5 billion buyout bid in May. Angry shareholders are still calling for his head. Then Yang starts talking...

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Amazon Enters the File-Shipping Business

Amazon.com’s curious ambitions as a computing infrastructure provider continue to grow. The company this week revealed a new service that will help companies of all sizes ship files like MP3s and software packages to people scattered around the globe.The “content delivery service” joins Amazon’s existing storage, software and database services where customers can store their data and code at Amazon’s data centers. The idea behind this push is that Amazon has developed vast expertise at running a...

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Google Co-Founder Has Genetic Code Linked to Parkinson’s

Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder, said Thursday that he has a gene mutation that increases his likelihood of contracting Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that can impair speech, movement and other functions.Sergey Brin wrote that he was vulnerable to Parkinson’s.Mr. Brin, who made the announcement on a blog, says he does not have the disease and that the exact implications of the discovery are not clear. Studies show that his likelihood of contracting Parkinson’s...

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Companies can learn from hacking of Palin's e-mail

SEATTLE — A precocious hacker cracks into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's private e-mail account, looking for dirt. In doing so, he opens a Pandora's box of tech security concerns for the presidential candidates — but perhaps even more so for Corporate America.That's the upshot of a fast-developing story playing out on tech websites Valleywag, Gawker, NetworkWorld and others. On Thursday, Kim Zetter, a veteran investigative reporter at Wired News, broke a story describing how...

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Microsoft's new ads take a direct shot at Apple

Microsoft's (MSFT) big-budget effort to battle more than two years of Windows-bashing ads from rival Apple (AAPL)took a new turn Thursday.After two weeks of three teaser ads "about nothing" featuring Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and comic Jerry Seinfeld, the company launched a new TV ad that directly addresses the long-running Apple campaign that personifies its Mac as a young, hip guy and a Windows PC as a clueless geek.The commercial opens with a real Microsoft software designer who looks like...

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Tech o Bee

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