MODDING: blogs

DChoc Cafe Hold Em Poker is now available in the N-Gage application’s showroom section. Just go to the N-Gage application on your device, go to the Showroom tab, select “Options” and then “Update Now” to see it in the latest games list (alternatively you can select “Show All Games”). To find out more about the N-Gage platform including a list of compatible phones, try reading the All About N-Gage FAQ.

(Engadget Japan) Nowadays, everyone is trying to make a netbook, Fujitsu introduces their netbook series - Loox M with 3 colors available - red, white and black.

(Sharp Japan) The netbooks around the market are more or less the same, except the design and different variation of the same specifications.

Today, Sharp announces in their press release - Mebius, not just your usual netbook but a netbook with a LCD touchpad.

Following our observation that the ‘price/payment’ fields in Download! on all devices had been upgraded and made more sensible, it seems that the main ‘Applications’ folder in Download! (i.e. the bit that doesn’t involve paying Jamster) has now acquired sub-folders, to whit: ‘Business’, ‘Entertainment’, ‘Social networks’, ‘Reference’, ‘Utilities’ and ‘Widgets’. All interesting stuff, but that Ovi client can’t come soon enough for us, with as wide a compatibility as possible. No new apps at this point, but to see the changes, just go into Download! - Applications on your phone.

Computer spies have repeatedly breached the Pentagon's costliest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The newspaper quoted current and former government officials familiar with the matter as saying the intruders were able to copy and siphon data related to design and electronics systems, making it potentially easier to defend against the plane. I guess it is a good thing that on April 6, 2009 US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the US would buy a total of 2,443 JSFs! If only the companies working on the project would have had secure systems.

Citing people briefed on the matter, it said the intruders entered through vulnerabilities in the networks of two or three of the contractors involved in building the fighter jet. Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor. Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems also have major roles in the project. Lockheed Martin and BAE declined comment, and Northrop referred questions to Lockheed, the paper said. The Journal said Pentagon officials declined to comment directly on the matter, but the paper said the Air Force had begun an investigation.

Taiwan-based netbook vendors saw shipment volumes fall short of their respective goals in the first quarter, according to sources at channel vendors. Although Acer is estimated to have shipped two million Aspire One netbooks in the first quarter, the sources said that sales in the channel were lower. Meanwhile, Asustek's Eee PC sales were only 900,000 units, lower than the expected one million units, while MSI had sales of 200,000 Wind series netbooks, the sources revealed.

The sources pointed out the drop is mainly due to the maturing of key sales regions plus incomplete penetration into emerging markets. To counter the drop, both MSI and Acer have already turned their focuses toward the ultra-thin notebook market, and will reduce their investment in the netbook segment, the sources claimed.

Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme GTX 280 graphics board cooler review @ Elite Bastards and other reviews from around the web can be found by visiting our forums!

While NVIDIA's reference cooler for their GeForce GTX 200 series of products is pretty respectable in terms of both noise and performance, there's always something better available for anyone willing to shell out for a third-party solution. Arctic Cooling's hefty Accelero Xtreme GTX 280 aims to be that “something better”, but can it succeed in making the stock cooling solution look wimpy in terms of performance as well as size?

How important is the OS in your smartphone? This has always been a strong discussion topic, as David Wood points out on the Symbian Foundation blog, but it’s not the only issue around Operating Systems. Should we not be asking how important the perception of your OS is, to help drive the market? If that’s the case, then Symbian OS and the Symbian Foundation need to make some hard business decisions in the next year to ensure the public know who they are. Read on for my analysis and suggestions.

The Nokia Beta Labs blog recently announced Nokia’s latest beta offering - ‘Here and now’. This is a context-aware (location) shortcut to services. Currently ‘Here and now’ provides local weather and events listings. It currently works only with S60 3.2 devices (N79, N85, 6220c etc.), and is currently still in development, but will be pre-installed on a number of upcoming Nokia devices. Beta Labs is asking for your feedback to help shape the future direction of the application. See below for screens and thoughts.