Adobe Systems recently announced Adobe Acrobat 9, which incorporates Flash technology into the widely used PDF documents.

Because of Flash Integration, Acrobat users can now include videos and also application files compatible with flash player in PDF documents. Document recipients can utilize Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and use this content. Adobe says that Acrobat 9 turns static documents into dynamic communications. Users can also insert H.264 or FLV video for direct playback in both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. A variety of video formats may also be converted to FLV for playback in PDF.

Acrobat 9 also features a concept known as PDF Portfolios, that enables the unification of content in a single document, which will let users to put multiple media file types such as videos, documents and 3D objects in a compressed .pdf file format.

Live collaboration within PDF documents is also supported as well, through a group of services collectively called Acrobat.com and available in the form of a public beta release. It will have many applications. Utilizing this, a businessman may use Acrobat 9 and send contracts to his client, for example. Groups of people could work on a document in real- time via Acrobat.com. Integration of Acrobat 9 with acrobat.com also enables storage & sharing of PDF files. Adobe mentioned that it was all about extending Acrobat so that people could work better with documents. Featured at Acrobat.com are Adobe Buzzword, a web-based word processor, and ConnectNow, which can be used for online web-conferencing and desktop-sharing.

Other features include the ability to create PDF maps through import of geospatial files which retain metadata and coordinates and also the ability to Personalize a PDF Portfolio with customizable templates for branding & navigation. Another useful feature is that it is possible to compare and then highlight the differences between 2 different versions of a PDF file/document. PDF files can also be created using document scanning to PDF and automatically recognize text with optical character recognition (OCR).

Using AutoCAD, convert cad drawings to PDF with Acrobat PDFMaker button, preserving the document layers in AutoCAD. 2D and 3D CAD designs can also be converted to PDF for project collaboration without expensive CAD or viewer software.

Acrobat 9, comes in Standard, Mac OS X, Pro and Pro Extended editions, will be available in July. The Standard Edition contains basic forms capabilities only. The Pro version has many extra’s like a powerful forms designer. Acrobat 9 Extended edition includes Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES and Adobe Presenter. It provides capabilities like video conversion and 3D functionality. Moreover, PowerPoint documents may be converted into Flash & also be wrapped in a PDF.

The VUDU Box is labelled a TV’s new best friend and delivers thousands of movies and hot TV shows instantly, without the need for a computer directly to your television. This Gageet provides instant access to about 5000 movies and TV shows from any television. Movies and shows can be bought or rented.

It comes with high-def video, with video output of up to 1080i/1080p24 and looks very good on an HDTV. As for connections, it’s got HDMI, digital optical audio and other common options. It comes with a 250 GB hard drive to store movies. For connectivity, it has Ethernet and 2 USB ports for future storage options.

It also comes with various equipment and a quick start guide to get you watching movies on the VUDU quick and easy. VUDU requires a High-speed broadband Internet connection with a minimum bandwidth of 2 Mbps (3.0 advertised by ISP’s) for instant viewing of movies or less if you only want delayed viewing. You can check if your connection is good enough at http://speedtest.vudu.com/cdn1/.

It should be noted that VUDU are always adding new movies and TV shows to the available selection. The VUDU box is priced competitively at $295 which has been reduced since it’s 400$ release. It is a Gadget worth considering for the movie and TV show lover who wants to watch them instantly at good quality.

This laptop is a bigger and better version of Dell’s popular XPS M1330. It is thin and light and has a 15.4″ high definition widescreen. It is also a well designed, attractive and extremely functional Gageet.

It has a starting weight of 5.8 lb and a starting price of 999$. The screen lacks LED backlighting unlike the M1330. It has reasonable 3 hour + battery life and well-designed and responsive keyboard, touchpad and media buttons. The colour options available are Midnight Blue, Alpine White, Tuxedo Black and Crimson Red.

These laptops use an Intel Core2 Duo processor, which goes up to a 2.60GHz Intel T7800 processor. It can have 1-4 GB of RAM and a hard disk drive of up to 320 GB. You have the option of a 256MB Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT or a 128MB Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS for the graphics card. The former option uses high-performance GDDR3 memory. The M1530 includes a Biometric Finger Print Reader and has a built-in Web cam. For connectivity, it has Hyperband Multi-Antenna technology, Wi-Fi, and internal Mobile Broadband options.

Its limitations are the fact that it only has three USB ports. It also has noise issues with Slot-loading drive and the hard drive. Nevertheless it’s an excellent laptop and has great style and performance. It can definitely be considered an improvement over Dell’s M1330 in many areas.

Photoshop Express is completely Web-based and can be used with any type of computer, operating system and browser. Once registered, users can share photos using the online image editor or with social networking sites like Facebook.

Photoshop Express is easier to learn and changes to images can be made quickly with the web application. With one click, red eyes or blemishes can be fixed. The program also has the ability to selectively change colors and resize, tint, distort the image by dragging the cursor over the image and clicking. The image editor creates slide shows and embeds photos in Web pages.

Photoshop Express is available for free with 2 gigabytes of storage at http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopexpress/?promoid=CBTVM ]]> http://gageet.com/internet/free-web-version-of-adobe-photoshop-express-launched/feed http://gageet.com/laptop/34 http://gageet.com/laptop/34#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:23:24 +0000 admin http://gageet.com/uncategorized/34

Toshiba’s Satellite A135 laptop is a newly available laptop. You can get this notebook now in the stores. Let’s look at why this laptop could be the perfect gageet for a would-be laptop buyer.

These laptops have a starting weight of around 6 lbs. The colour choices offered include metallic Onyx Blue and Mist Gray. The display is going to be a 15.4″ wide screen TruBrite. No dedicated graphics is offered. It comes ready to go with Windows Vista already installed. The notebook won’t be RAID enabled.

This laptop will be available in three configurations, aimed at different market segments. The high-end A135-S4499, which will be sold for $1,499.99 and has Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz processor, Vista Ultimate, dual 120GB hard drives. The S4499 will also feature integrated Audio and fingerprint reader.

The value version is the A135-S4427, which will have a Core Duo processor, a single 120GB hard drive and Windows Vista Home Premium and is priced at $899.99.The third configuration will be, the Satellite A135-S4467, which has a 160GB hard drive, 1.73GHz Core Duo processor and 160GB hard drive and is priced in between the other two configurations at $999.99.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air, a computer that the company billed as the world’s thinnest notebook — small enough to fit inside an interoffice mailing envelope. It’s priced starting at $1,799 and will be available within two weeks. Sporting a silvery finish, the MacBook Air features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display that has a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. The backlighting saves power and provide “instant on” response from the moment you turn it on, according to Jobs. The device has a slightly wedge-shaped profile. It weighs about 3 pounds, and sports a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches. Its 12.8 inches wide and 8.95 inches deep.

MACBOOK AIR Technical specs

If there’s one thing Apple knows how to do its build desirable items - and its latest laptop is no different. The MacBook Air is impossibly thin - measuring just 4mm thick at the front and stretching up to a hardly bulky 19.3mm at the back. In fact, even its thickest part is still slimmer than most notebooks’ thinnest bit.

But just because it’s thin, doesn’t mean it’s underpowered. Apple has managed to cram in a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM. The hard drive is a little on the cramped side at 80GB, but it’s still plenty for all but the most demanding of users. It also features a full 13.3in LED backlit screen, so it’s still a joy to work on.

Its reduced footprint does mean you only get a single USB port and no optical drive - but it does come with a utility that lets it piggy back the drive of other machines on the network. It also offers an impressive five hour battery life.

The computer uses a 1.8-inch disk drive, on which no more than 80 gigabytes of data can be stored. Memory is limited to a standard two gigabytes of RAM and its processor is slower than those of Apple’s other laptops. The design team jettisoned an optical disk storage device for playing DVDs. Mr. Jobs demonstrated a feature called Remote Disk that will make it possible to play the contents of a DVD via a wireless network from another Macintosh or Windows PC. Also, the MacBook Air’s battery is not removable.

The MacBook Air is a dramatic departure for Apple:
It’s a narrowly-targeted hardware product. The critics hate it because their rumor-fuelled dreams have been dashed and they will have to keep lugging their 12″ PowerBooks around for a few more years. But then the Critics are not the target market for this product and they don’t seem to understand that large, profitable markets for highly cost-controlled products exist outside of their domain. Apple has plenty of narrowly-targeted software products (Final Cut Pro for instance) and these don’t attract the same howls of derision. But then those products target markets by adding specialized features and charging appropriately. Taking features away, as Apple did with iMovie in iLife08, is bound to cause geek grief because the expectation exists that the monotonic march toward “better” is always along the “more” axis. Not so. So who will be buying the world’s thinnest laptop? A simple answer: anyone who values it highly enough. That will include executives and sales people who travel, present, and are seen with their laptop in important business situations. They value low weight and looks above everything else. They already have a Mac at home, including maybe a MacBook of some sort, but they will still buy a MacBook Air because it gives them the things they cannot get otherwise. This is the Miata of the laptop world: a second or third purchase after the most critical needs have been fulfilled, only for those who have the juice to make what they want real. MacBook Air is clearly a companion computer. Apple has stripped everything from it that is not necessary in order to save weight and space. What is left is an interesting set: wireless Ethernet, audio out, video out, and USB 2.0. Those cover what must be the four most numerous connections on the planet right now. And once you pair it with a companion Mac, you have everything you need for anything. The breathtaking omission for many is that the battery is built-in. But why are batteries removable in the first place? Removable batteries represent a huge additional cost in every aspect of Apple’s business: more design, more material, more safety concerns, more stock, more line items, more connectors, more testing; the list goes on and on. The overall product design gains enormously by building the battery in, as Apple has shown with the iPod and, more recently, the iPhone. To me, the inclusion of a back-lit full-size keyboard cements the target market as that of highly mobile, highly responsible, highly visible individuals whose time and presence carries a high price. We’ll be seeing lots of these in the real world, many of them in dim lighting and accompanied by the whirr of a projector fan. ]]> http://gageet.com/laptop/apple-macbook-air-notebook/feed http://gageet.com/pollsarchive/your-favorite-gaming-platform http://gageet.com/pollsarchive/your-favorite-gaming-platform#comments Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:12:49 +0000 admin http://gageet.com/pollsarchive/your-favorite-gaming-platform

Samsung has announced its BD-UP5500 Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player at a press conference held at CES 2008 in Las Vegas.

The Samsung dual format BD-UP5500 supports both the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD soundtracks playback are supported as well. Other features include standard DVDs to full-on 1080p upconversion and out-of-the-box Blu-ray profile 1.1 support (which allows for picture-in-picture commentaries on newer Blu-ray discs), an Ethernet port new firmware downloads and accessing online content, and HQV processing for enhancing HD and SD video.

The samsung BD-UP5500 Duo HD player will be available in the second-half of 2008 for about $599.

SanDisk has announced the Cruzer(R) Titanium Plus, a USB flash drive offering  automatic online backup for every file copied to the drive. The Cruzer Titanium Plus has a capacity of four gigabytes (GB) and is the first SanDisk flash memory device to offer online backup.

The BeInSync backup requires an initial registration. When the drive is plugged in and the user is online data will sync automatically with an online storage account. BeInSync uses Amazon’s S3 storage service provided by Amazon Web Services. BeInSync encrypts all files during transmission from Cruzer Titanium Plus to Amazon’s servers to protect user’s data.

Cruzer Titanium Plus will be available in March, with a manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of $59.99. The online backup service requires Windows 2000 (SP4), Windows XP or Windows Vista. After six months of free service, online backup costs $29.99 per year (credit card required).

Thats right! The DS-TV is an antenna that attaches onto your DS and allows for reception of television signals. The main screen becomes the viewing area and the touchscreen below handles changing channels and other features.

The DS-TV costs $62.70 US and is compatible with the current DS and DS lite. A Nintendo spokesperson told GameSpot that it currently had no plans to bring DS TV to other regions ]]> http://gageet.com/games/nintendo-ds-tv/feed