Tech News Update - January 21, 2010

In this week’s World Tech Update rescue efforts continue in Haiti and technology allows donations to pour in, the European Commission grants Oracle approval to take over Sun, Fujitsu unveils a pocket-sized Windows 7 laptop, Sony’s TransferJet finally comes to market, Amazon announces and SDK for its Kindle, Bill Gates joins Twitter, Nokia releases a free mapping application to compete with Google, Sony delays the launch of its PS3 motion controller and the wo

Tech News Update - January 21, 2010 Nick Barber: Thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update, I’m Nick Barber. Rescue efforts and clean up in Haiti are still underway and will be for some time. And as a warning before we cut to our video, we want to warn you that some of the images are quite graphic. International aid workers are scrambling to rebuild communications in the country, following the devastating earthquake, while people outside of the country are trying to use high tech means to raise money for relief. When the quake leveled the capital city of Port Au Prince, it also cut off many forms of communication in the country including landlines, satellite telecommunication system, and GSM Cellular sites. The International Telecommunication Union said it would immediately deploy 40 satellite terminals for basic communications, along with 60 other terminals with satellite broadband capability. On the donation side, Apple added a page to it iTunes Store, that allows people to donate to the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is also gathering money through text messaging. The simple donation process requires a mobile phone user to text the word “Haiti” to 90999 and a $10.00 donation will automatically be added to their phone bill. Cell phone companies have agreed to forward 100% of the money to the organization. There have also been efforts to raise money through popular Facebook games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. Moving now to Europe, the European Commission granted Oracle an unconditional approval to take over Sun Microsystems. This follows a controversial and drawn out examination of the deal but it still awaits approval in places like Russia and China. Approval in the European Union is a big step forward for a deal held by some as transformational for the entire software industry, but as others as the killer of one of the most successful open source programs in the world, the My Sequel Database. Now over to Japan, where this week Fujitsu unveiled a Windows 7 laptop that’s small enough to fit in the pocket. The Loox U, called the Lifebook UH900 overseas will be available from February in Japan, the US and Asia. It has a 5.6 inch multi-touch screen and is based on an Intel Atom processor. There’s a 62 gigabyte solid state disc inside, it runs Windows7 Home Premium and weighs just under 500 grams. Its small size means it can fit in most jacket pockets, but brings its own problems. Some users might face problems typing on the cramped keyboard, and Fujitsu has placed USB sockets on the front of the machine, so typing will become even more difficult when devices are connected. The computer will cost from a round of thousand US Dollars. Over the past couple of years, we kept you updated on Sony developed technology called Transfer Jet, or a way to transfer data between two devices by just bringing them together. Well it’s finally coming to market. The first product to support it, Sony’s Vaio F Laptop will be launched in Japan on January 23rd and these cameras will follow from February. The same month an international launch is planned. Transfer Jet works at up to three centimeters and it speeds rival USB cables. To send a picture, a user initiates sending on a camera, brings it close to the receiver, in this case a Transfer Jet adopter and the rest happens automatically. To use the technology, they’ll need this dedicated memory stick which costs about $100.00, about $30.00 more than a regular card. Transfer Jet can support data transmission at up to 375 megabytes per second, but the first products will run at a much slower speed of 40 megabytes per second. Still, that’s more than ten times faster than Bluetooth 2.0 We have a couple of items for you in our News in Brief this week. Amazon.com announced on Thursday its first ever software developer’s kit for anyone who wants to create active content for its popular Kindle e-readers. It will be available next month and for example a standard travel book could include real time weather updates and current events among other things. This week was a big one for social networking. President Obama sent his first Twit on Monday, and on Tuesday, Bill Gates joined the ranks of the Micro blogging site. The billionaire also rejoined Facebook with a fan page to avoid being inundated with friend requests. A new version of Nokia’s mapping service, Ovi maps will include turn by turn voice guidance for walking and driving navigation for free. The launch is in direct response to Google which in October also launch free navigation. The ultimate aim for Nokia is to increase the popularity of navigation and location aware services on mobile phones. And then to use that to support new business models including add based services. Sony has pushed back the launch of its motion controller for the Playstation3 by six months, hoping that the delay will make more software available at the eventual launch. The controller will bring Wii-like game play to the Playstation3, and was originally due to launch in the spring of this year, but it will now be available worldwide in the fall. The delay means that Sony will lose a six month launch advantage it had over Microsoft’s Project Natal System that’s due to launch by the holidays. Project Natal detects the gamers’ actual body movements and mimics them inside the games, so punches, kicks and jumps are translated immediately into movements. So you think you can text fast? Well maybe not as fast as the world’s fastest texters. A competition in New York pitted teams from 13 countries against each other with the first place team from South Korea winning a $100,000.00 Mok-Min Ha: I’m still a student and I’m going to use that for my college tuition if it’s possible, so I want to use for my future world travelling. Nick Barber: During the competition, players competed by typing phases in their own native language. The texting phrases could not contain typos, abbreviations, and had to be typed and sent at speeds faster than their opponents. Well that’s our show for this week, thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update, for those of you who entered our CES give away, we’ll announce our winner next week when we celebrate our 100th episode. We’ll also have coverage from Apple’s big announcement next week, as well. I’m Nick Barber and for all of us here at the IDG News Service, thanks for watching and we hope to see you next week.