The iPhone iPad Noiseless USB Karaoke Mic

Here is one device for the shy but passionate karaoke singer. The iPhone iPad Noiseless USB Karaoke Mic allows the user to belt out tunes into an iPhone or iPad with a Sega Karaoke app without the neighbors complaining.

The innovative device looks like a black cone or even a plunger that completely covers the user’s mouth so that no sound escapes. Inside this device is a microphone that delivers the sound directly to the Sega Karaoke app on the iDevice. To hear the accompanying music from the app as well as the singing voice, the user plugs in earbuds into his ears.
It comes to no surprise that this device is made in Japan, which is known for producing strange solutions to everyday problems. A few years ago, a mute mic for the Nintendo Wii called the Noiseless USB Karaoke Mic was released to solve this very same problem. Understandably, there is a huge culture in Japan for karaoke singing, and corrolarily, neighbor complaints from these home concerts must also be rampant.
Karaoke fans may avail of the iPhone iPad Noiseless USB Karaoke Mic for $93. It ships right to your doorstep wherever you may be in the world at $20.

LG Optimus Vu Specs Detailed

Last week we saw the first image emerge of the LG Optimus Vu . LG has made this 5-inch phone official. It will run Gingerbread (Android 2.3) and feature a huge 5 inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio along with a specialized stylus. It is 8.5mm thin.

Some of the specs include: a 5-inch IPS 650 nit display at 1024×768, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front, 32GB of storage, a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 2080 mAh battery, HDMI, DLNA and Wifi Direct. The size of this one alone makes it a heavy hitter. Viewing documents, books, the internet and multimedia will be much easier on the display.
There is no info on an exact date for worldwide release, but it looks like it will hit Korea in early March.

iOS 5.1 coming in March with quicker camera access

Among the many rumours and reports of the next iPad, comes a report on Apple's next update to its mobile OS. Boy Genius Report have managed to get their hands on a copy of iOS 5.1, which is reported to be out on the 9th of March. Apparently, iOS 5.1 will provide Japanese support for Siri and also change up the lock screen to make it easier to access the camera. iPhone 4S has been available in Japan, since October and adding Japanese support to Siri will make it the fourth language that Siri supports. Currently, you can speak to Siri in English (in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia), French (in France) and German (in Germany). Apple says that they're planning to add support for more languages to Siri, Japanese being one of them. The others will include, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean. Which, of course, means we can look forward to more YouTube flooding of adventures with Siri videos in various languages. 

iOS 5.1 incoming

The other change that iOS 5.1 will bring is better camera access from the lock screen itself. iOS 5 brought with it the ability to access the camera from the lock screen. Users had to double click the home screen button and press the camera icon, next to the slider. This did allow for quicker access to the camera, especially when users wanted to take pictures of moments that were virtually fleeting. Placing the icon in the lock screen also made sense, because many competing devices have dedicated camera buttons enabling quicker launch of the camera. In iOS 5, to access the camera quicker, users will have to access their homescreen and then swipe a finger upwards to launch the camera. This process may or may not be quicker depending on if the user has a password set up for their phone. 

Of course, these are only reports and Apple, as usual, is not making an official comment on any of these statements. We'll have to wait and see what they dish out in March, which is also around when we might get a glimpse at the next iPad, we've been hearing so much about.

CoolerMaster launches Silent Pro Hybrid PSU in India

Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer, has launched their new power supply series, the Silent Pro Hybrid (SPH). The new series offers a string of new features, namely “Fan-less” operation for complete silence and a discrete control module for on-the-fly changing of fan speed. It comes bundled with a 7V fan power port and the 5.25-inch drive bay fan controller module, allowing Silent Pro Hybrid PSUs to directly power the fans taking the load off the motherboard. This direct connection provides the user with immediate and on-the-fly control over the 135mm Super Silent Hydraulic Bearings power supply fan. The controller can also regulate three more system fans if required. The PSU and system fan speeds can be adjusted independently via two dials. The new SPH series will be available in different power capacities starting with the 1050W (SPH-1050W) which retails for Rs.18,000 and a 1300W (SPH-1300W) which retails for Rs. 20,000. 

Bringing some peace and quite to desktop computing

The Silent Pro Hybrid Series seeks to curb fan noise to the minimum. The power supply fan can be completely turned off to essentially operate in dead silence. This mode persists until loads become greater than 200W. Once this load barrier is breached, a safe mode will activate the fan and cool according to the level of the load. It also offers a fully modular cable system thus different system needs can be accommodated. Users can select the cables to be installed for clean and efficient cable routing. This reduces clutter and also improves system ventilation. If the need for high wattage arises, users can simple swap the main unit by detaching the cables and in no time the system is up and running again.

The series is 80Plus Gold certified and has enough juice to support 4-way SLI/CrossFire and dual CPU. Use of quality components, such as Japanese capacitors, 135mm hydraulic bearing fan, multiple protection circuits brings higher reliability and all models carry a five year warranty.

Student Hacks Facebook, Gets Eight Months In Prison

I hope that British Student Glenn Mangham thinks that it was all worth it. He has a long lonely road ahead of him and it won’t include surfing social network sites. He was sentenced to eight months in jail for hacking into Facebook’s servers.

Glenn Mangham, 26, admitted to infiltrating the website between April and May of last year. Apparently no user details were taken, as he went straight for “invaluable” intellectual property instead. Facebook alerted the authorities last May after they discovered the breach. The FBI took care of the rest, tracing it all back to the UK address. He found his way in by hacking into the account of a Facebook employee.
He had previously shown the search engine Yahoo how it could improve its security and he said that he wanted to do the same for Facebook. The judge did not buy it.

Supposed iPad 3 Images Point To 8MP Camera

The latest alleged sighting of the iPad 3 shows the back casing and lends some support to rumors that the new tablet might have an eight-megapixel camera. Taiwan’s Apple Daily has some comparisons between old versions and the new, showing a larger rear lens, speculating that it would have an eight-megapixel camera.

They also speculate that the A6 upgrade would be a quad-core chip, although we have heard murmurs of a faster dual-core chip in its place. The image of the case back shows a more streamlined edge as well, though it is unclear whether this is to minimize a slightly thicker body or due to other factors. Most everything else is nearly identical.
This is by no means confirmation of an 8 megapixel camera and it could be a hoax, so take it with a grain of salt, but this could also be the real deal. We won’t know for sure until we have confirmation.

ITC rules in Apple's favor in lawsuit against HTC

The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has in its latest ruling, with respect to the ongoing lawsuit between Apple Inc. and HTC Corp. has stated that the Cupertino-based company does not infringe on the patents, which HTC alleges. In 2010, HTC had filed a complaint against Apple, accusing the iPad maker of infringing on five of its patents, pertaining to technologies for power management and phone dialing. To this effect, HTC Corp. asked the ITC to "bar some versions of Apple's iPods, iPhones and iPads from being imported into the United States." 

Patent woes!

This isn't HTC's first loss to Apple in their ongoing lawsuit. Back in October, last year, HTC Corp. lost a preliminary injunction against Apple at the U.S. International Trade Commission, when the judge stated Apple was not found violating any patents, pertaining to the same above mentioned technologies. That time, however, it was just a preliminary injunction that had slipped out of HTC's hands. On losing the preliminary injunction, HTC had stated that they were confident on victory in the long run. Back then, HTC general counsel, Grace Lei had stated, "This is only one step of many in these legal proceedings. We are confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to protect our intellectual property."

This month, as stated in our previous report, the entire commission would announce their decision, whether to "uphold or reject the ITC judge's decision." Now, clearly with HTC even losing out on the latest ruling, things surely don't look good for the Taiwanese company.