Apple's new 27" big screen iMac

Apple Insider posted today a great review regarding the new Apple 27" big screen iMac. The full review can be found here.

Some of the key features for the new model is the fact that iMac comes standard with a wireless keyboard and the new Magic Mouse. Of course there are a lot more, like the fact that the 27" display is equipped with LED backlighting, to push more light through the pixels to achieve the best picture possible. The new 21.5" iMac features 1920-by-1080 HD resolution and the 27" model has a 2560-by-1440 resolution. That’s 78 percent more pixels than the 21.5-inch iMac.

A seamless, precision-forged enclosure makes the back one continuous aluminum surface. And there’s only one cord: the power cord. The wider iMac display allows more room to separate the two hottest components, the CPU and the GPU. This keeps things cool inside the iMac enclosure. Apple engineers also implemented an intelligent control system that monitors temperatures and delivers just the right amount of airflow to critical components.

Be sure to read the full review on Apple Insider. You can also check this beautiful piece of hardware at it's official page on the Apple website.

HP DreamScreen 130 digital photo frame

Photo frames have come a long way since the days of the old wood or metal ones. And the classical photo album is almost obsolete in these high tech days we're living. These days if you want to view your vacation or wedding photos you would get a digital photo frame that's capable to store all of them in one small place and you can view them on a sleek and small LCD screen or you can leave them play as a slide show.

HP's DreamScreen 130 is one of those cool digital lcd photo frames that has a lot more features packed in it's small box Some of those features, aside from storing and displaying photos, are: Internet radio, Facebook updates, music and photo streaming from a PC, a calendar and a built-in alarm clock. All in all HP DreamScreen 130 is a sleek stand-alone "smart screen" you can place on your kitchen counter or take from room to room because it even works with your existing home wireless network.

The DreamScreen 130 digital photo frame gives you the possibility to easily access content on your PCs and the Web via a simple menu, enjoy music, photos, and videos with HP MediaSmart software, control entertainment via an intuitive handheld remote control. For even more usability you can turn it to landscape or portrait orientation with the included stand.

If you are on Facebook, and a lot of people certainly are, with DreamScreen 130 you have easy access to your account so you can view and stay current on Facebook. You can also view slide shows of photos uploaded to Snapfish, stream music and photos from your PC, listen to Internet radio from Pandora or HP SmartRadio and stay organized with the calendar and be on time with the built-in alarm clock

The design of the DreamScreen 130 digital picture frame is pleasing and elegant, complementing your home decor. The speakers are concealed and offer a superb sound quality. If you need to, you can mount the lcd screen on a wall, because holes have been pre-drilled on the back.

For touchscreen capabilities is equipped with capacitive touch navigation buttons. Unlike the more classical 7 inch digital photo frame, the HP's DreamScreen 130 has a 13.3" wide screen display, with a 16:9 aspect ratio and 800x480px screen resolution. It's equipped with built-in Line Out for headphones or external speakers and 10/100 LAN & wireless 802.11 b/g for networking. It has 2 USB ports and a 6-in-2 Card Reader for your data transfer needs. The built in memory is 2GB, out of which 1.5GB is usable space.

For more information related to the HP DreamScreen 130 you can visit the official page on the HP Shopping site here

Natural user interface concept demos from Microsoft research

It seems to be a tendency these days for technology to go ahead of itself, releasing new and fascinating ideas continually. Natural user interfaces is one of the hottest topics these days. If you still haven't heard about them, I suggest you visit the natural user interface wiki on Wikipedia. These concepts are meant to improve the way we use technology or the way we interact with it. Lately we have seen that Microsoft has been more involved in social media environments and in the way users receive theyr products. It's not that crispy office company anymore. Or at least that's the way they want to appear.

The natural user interface Microsoft is developing is meant to improve the user interaction with the computer. Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, discusses how science and information technology can help solve the world’s biggest problems. In his presentations to college students Mundi uses text, voice but also hand gestures to manipulate the data on the screen. The most interesting thing though is the eye tracking, where you skim you eyes over the page in a very natural way.

Dont think that only big corporations have a part of all this hype. There are a lot more people passionate about such things. In fact there are even natural user interface groups out there. NUI Group, which actually is an acronym for Natural User Interface Group, is just one of them. You can check out their website at www.nuigroup.com. They have some really nice videos about the concepts that they created or tested.

Also in the commercial area there are several companies that provide customers multi-touch solutions, but mostly in the advertisement business. One company that deals with natural user interface in Europe is NUITEQ. Natural User Interface Technologies AB (NUITEQ) is a Swedish innovative technology company with its main focus on delivering commercial advanced multi-touch software solutions, to the global market. Additional services include multi-touch hardware solutions.

For all of these cool natural user interface devices you would of course need the top of the line technology or you would have to build it yourself, if you have the skills. But all of it is still in concept phase, which means it may never be created the way it is presented, it might not be cost-effective or another cool thing will come out in the meantime. One thing still bugs me about those transparent glass displays though. Won't they get all smeared from hand fat and fingerprints? Do you always have to clean them?