Sony to Release Pocket Printer
Sony is planning to roll out its pocket-sized printer, designed to go along with an equally pocked-sized digital camera, this November.
The MP1, as the new printer is called, is less than 5 inches wide and 3 inches deep and is projected to cost US $280. It produces business-card size prints with 307 dpi, 16.7-million color tone quality sealed by a clear laminate. Each picture takes about two minutes to print. The ink cartridge is to retail for about $28.
Jeff Clark, Sony's marketing manager for digital printers, told the TechExtreme news site that he thinks the tiny printer will fill a market gap.
"Sony felt that a mobile, portable printer with the ability to have a beautiful, colorful print on-demand would be the answer to all those times when you used to say, 'I wish I had a camera,' and now say, 'I wish I had a printer,'" he said.
Password Recovery No Longer A Phone Call Away
Tired of getting tripped up by a forgotten Windows password? A new product from PC Guardian lets users recover lost computer passwords without having to call a help line.
The Encryption Plus Secure Password Recovery System was released on Tuesday by PC Guardian, a developer of data encryption software and anti-theft devices for PCs.
PC Guardian President Noah Goath said in a press release that 15 to 30 percent of all help line calls involve forgotten passwords.
The program works on computers that operate on Windows NT 2000 and XP. It provides users with what the company calls an "easy-to-use" question-and-answer interface. At the initial setup, the user creates three personal question and answer pairs. After three unsuccessful login attempts, the program automatically asks the personal questions, allowing the user to
gain access without having to contact outside help.
Bankers Team up to Fight Money Laundering
The British Bankers Association this week launched an online program meant to teach bankers how to prevent money laundering.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service alerted the industry recently that large-scale money laundering might be planned for the first part of 2002 as criminals attempt to make use of confusion caused by the introduction of the Euro.
The NCIS recently reported that the number of suspicious transactions in the U.K. in 2000 increased by 27 percent from the year before.
The course will help banking staff detect money laundering and will be available in October.
Because it's Hard to Both Drive and Use a Laptop
Gracenote, which has until now focused on providing computer users with extra information about the music they're listening to, announced on Tuesday that it will make its song-recognition technology available for MP3 players and home and car stereos.
The company's service allows applications like Winamp to show song titles, cover art, music reviews and other information while a song is playing. Gracenote's president, David Hyman, said it is moving offline because people are used to getting vast amounts of information while in
front of their PCs. The same capability will now be available at home and in the car.
Motorola Introduces Rugged Cell Phone
A mobile phone designed for use in rugged conditions was released on Wednesday by Motorola.
The i55sr handset meets military standards for shock and vibration resistance. The body of the phone has a rubber grip. Motorola said this is the first rugged-condition cell phone enabled with the Java 2 Platform Micro Edition to be available in North America. It comes pre-installed with business and entertainment applications including a calculator and a Sega game.
Other features of the phone include speakerphone, a two-way radio option, voice-activated dialing and a voice recorder. And lest the yellow and black rubberized outer clash with your hiking ensemble, it also comes in gray tones.
Pentium 4 Notebooks On the Way
Intel said it will release Pentium 4 laptop computers in the first half of next year. The notebooks will run at more than 1.5 GHz when they hit the market and will climb to a speed of 2 GHz by the end of the year, said Frank Spindler, vice president of Intel's mobile products division.
In the first part of 2003, the company plans to debut Banias, a portable chip Intel said will provide all-day battery life. The chip works by shutting off subsections of itself in order to conserve energy.
Both the Pentium 4 chip and Banias are meant for the mainstream laptop market, the company said.