Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Premier disque dur 4 To pour Seagate



Seagate est le premier à annoncer un disque dur affichant une capacité de 4 To. Pour le moment, il n'est intégré qu'au sein de la gamme GoFlex Desk, c'est-à-dire en tant que disque dur externe pour Mac et PC. Dans la version MAC, on trouve une interface USB 2.0 et FireWire 800, alors que la version PC se limite à une interface USB 3.0 (compatible 2.0 bien entendu). Les caractéristiques du disqus ne sont pas connues, mais à défaut de connaitre sa vitesse de rotation on peut supposer qu'il est doté de 4 plateaux de 1 To.

La gamme GoFlex a donc une nouvelle fois la primeur des nouveaux disques, comme cela avait été le cas avec le Barracuda XT 3 To. Intégré dans la gamme GoFlex dès juillet 2010, le disque ne fut lancé en version interne qu'en mars 2011. Seagate a par ailleurs lancé en mai 2011 un GoFlex doté d'un disque dur d'1 To utilisant un seul plateau. Les GoFlex Desk 4 To devraient être disponibles courant septembre pour un tarif public fixé à 249$ outre-Atlantique.
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Tuesday, 6 September 2011

La révolution numérique par HP



Pas assez rentable … Malgré une position de leader mondial et un chiffre d’affaires se comptant en dizaines de milliards, HP veut se séparer de sa branche PC et arrête les tablettes WebOS. e J8 août, c’est un séisme, virtuel mais de magnitude maximum, qui a retenti dans le monde de l’informatique. Par un communiqué, Hewlett-Packard annonce vouloir se séparer de sa division PSG.
Mais attention, on ne parle pas là d’une petite fi li ale sans avenir : Persona! Systems Group, c’est la division chargée de toute l’activité PC du groupe. Accessoirement, il s’agit du leader mondial, gui a généré un chiffre d’affaires de 28,5 milliards d’euros en 2010 sur 87,5 milliards d’euros pour le groupe au total.
Bref, pas une paille. Avec le PC, HP jette aussi l’eau du bain : le développement de sa tablette TouchPad, tout juste mise en vente, est stoppé, ainsi que le système d’exploitation WebOS. Léo Apotheker, le nouveau PDG du groupe, ne croit tout simplement plus à l’avenir de cette activité. Ou plutôt, à la possibilité de conserver des marges assez intéressantes pour· l’actionnaire dans ce domaine.
Des marges trop faibles Car c’est essentiellement là que le bât blesse : HP est leader d’un marché dans lequel les marges ne sont à peu près «que» de 6% … alors que dans les services logiciel, elles atteignent facilement 20%. Dans son communiqué, HP rend aussi hommage à Apple, sans le nommer : «Le mardi de l’informatique personnelle évolue rapidement avec de nouveaux formats el de nouveaux écosystèmes pour les applications.» C’est l’effet tablette. Et les constatations des instituts ne sont pas faites pour contredire cette vision: selon Gartner, le marché du PC a reculé de 18,9% en Europe au second bimestre 2011. La tablette, les Smartphones, les apps représentent Je véritable avenir de l’informatique personnelle. Mais l’avenir de HP, lui, se trouve du côté des services, de l’informatique professionnelle el du logiciel. L’abandon planifié du marché du PC s’accompagne donc du rachat simultané d’Autonomy, un éditeur anglais de logiciels professionnels, pour plus de 5,5 milliards d’euros … Concrètement, les conditions exactes du désengagement de HP du PC ne sont pas encore fixées : création d’une spin-off ou cession de la branche, rien n’est encore décidé. Le coup d’arrêt a déjà été doru1é pour ce qui est de WebOS et de ses produits. Mais la fin de l’activité PC sous la bannière HP sera effective d’ici 12 à 18 mois, affaire a suivre !
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Saturday, 3 September 2011

Sony announces jumbo Nintendo DS tablet, Samsung shows off Galaxy Tab 7.7



Europe’s largest consumer electronics expo, IFA 2011, is just about to kick off in Berlin, and both Sony and Samsung have jumped the gun and announced three delicious slabs of Android-powered goodness. From Sony there is the S (slate) and P (portable) tablets, and from the other side of the East China Sea, Samsung has outed the Galaxy Tab 7.7 — a 7.7-inch (!) Super AMOLED Plus 1280×800 tablet that replaces the original Galaxy Tab.


Spec-wise, the Sony tablets sport dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 CPUs clocked at 1GHz — and judging by some benchmarks, they are certainly not the fastest tablets on the block. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 has a 1.4GHz dual-core Cortex-A9-based Exynos 4210 SoC — a faster version of the chip found in the Galaxy S II smartphone — which should be very fast indeed. All three tablets have 1GB of RAM and plenty of expandable, non-volatile flash storage, 3G (HSPA+) connectivity, and they all run Android 3 Honeycomb (with highly customized interfaces). Both the Sony S and P are PlayStation-certified, too, meaning it can play PS games like the Xperia Play — but neither device has hardware gamepad buttons, so…

Design-wise, it is Sony that — as always — is pushing the boat out with some interesting and unconventional shapes and use-cases. The S tablet at first glance is just a standard me-too iPad killer — but you’ll notice in the image below that it’s actually curved along one horizontal side. Apparently this is to mimic the feel of a folded magazine or newspaper, a shape and weight distribution that is easier to hold with one hand. Having one raised edge will mean that it can prop itself up on a flat surface, too. The P tablet, of all things, is a clamshell with two 5.5-inch 1024×480 screens (view larger); kind of like a jumbo Nintendo DS. Just like clamshell phones of yesteryear, this rather odd form factor will allow the P to go where no other tablet has gone before: the jacket pocket and the purse. The Sony S, incidentally, has a 9.4-inch screen at 1280×768; higher resolution than the iPad 2.

Price- and availability-wise, the Sony S 16GB will be $499, and 32GB will be $599 — the same as the iPad 2 — and it doesn’t sound like it will be a carrier exclusive. The Sony P doesn’t have a US release date yet (and it will be an AT&T exclusive), but it should be available in Europe for around 500 euros in November. Both pricing and availability are unknown for the Galaxy Tab 7.7, though it will probably arrive before Christmas and cost around $400.

For Sony, these devices represent its first foray into Android tablets — and presumably, judging by its uncharacteristic lateness to the party, it is hoping that these radical designs are enough to divert some attention away from the massively successful iPad 2. The ability to play PlayStation games could certainly help things along, and the P’s weird form factor (and thus a different target demographic) mean that Sony could enjoy a lot of success — but on the other hand, it might just fade into obscurity like many of Sony’s wackier designs.

In other news, Lenovo and HTC have also used IFA to announce two more Android tablets — the ThinkPad Tablet and the Jetstream — and when the IFA kicks off in earnest tomorrow, we can guarantee that there will be dozens more to sink your teeth into. Be prepared for a slew of ultrabooks, too.

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Friday, 19 August 2011

Android Voice Commands


Android Voice Commands, also known as “Android Voice Actions” (that’s the official name) let you speak a command to your Droid phone and it Does Something that you told it to do… without any typing! (or without much typing).



For example you can tell your Android Phone to “Call” someone, “Navigate” to someplace, or “Map Parks”… and the dutiful droid phone does what you tell it.

In the first example, it will Dial the number for the person you told it to “Call”. Next, it would give you spoken voice directions to get to (Navigate to) that place you told it you wanted to go, and lastly, it would show you a Map of all the parks nearby on your smart phone’s display.

Android Voice Commands – Common Commands
Here are a few common Voice Commands you should try out to make Voice Actions work for you. I’ll cover the details on what they are supposed to do in another tutorial (or set of tutorials). You should be able to say the following words with usually something after them, and your Droid phone will Do It!

Try these out:

• Call (say a name), Call (say a number),
• Text, Send Text to (say a name, then your message)
• Map, Map of (say something, like “Parks”, “Pizza places”, etc.),
• Email (say a name, then say “subject”, then say “message” and go for it) – this one is fun, we’ll do another article on it for sure,
• Directions to, Navigate to (say an address or the name of a place),
• Listen to (say a musical group, or a song title),
• Note to Self (sends you an email),
• Go To (say a website address)
There’s much more, and each of the above has their own special options, we’ll look into it together if you like. Leave a comment asking what you want covered next.

ALERT: HTC Incredible users (and maybe others as well), Your Voice Commands seem to work better if you say them without the “to” word. i.e. “Send Text (say a name, then your message)” or “Email (say a name, etc. see above list)”
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ASUS lance sa MARS II, une carte record


ASUS vient d'annoncer officiellement sa MARS II, qui est ni plus ni moins que la carte graphique la plus performante du moment. Ce type de démonstration technologique devient une habitude chez ASUS, qui avait déjà lancé une double GeForce GTX 285 en 2009, la MARS, puis l'an dernier l'ARES, une double Radeon HD 5870. Cette fois pour arriver à ses fins la MARS 2 n'est ni plus ni moins qu'une double GeForce GTX 580.



Chaque GPU fonctionne ainsi à 782 MHz (10 MHz de plus que sur une GTX 580), contre 2004 MHz pour les 1.5 Go de GDDR5 l'accompagnant, à comparer aux 607 et 1707 MHz d'une GeForce GTX 590. Le gain est donc de 28,8% sur le GPU et de 17,7% sur la mémoire, et il faut s'attendre à des performances proches d'un SLI de GeForce GTX 580 soit 20 à 25% de mieux qu'une GeForce GTX 590 et 12 à 19% de mieux qu'une Radeon HD 6990.

D'un aspect plutôt massif, la carte occupe 3 slots ce qui permet à Asus de mettre en place un système de refroidissement costaud : chaque GPU dispose d'un ventilateur de 120mm et d'un radiateur en aluminium parcouru par 4 gros heatpipes en cuivre et en contact direct avec le GPU. Le tout mesure 315mm x 130mm x 60mm pour environ 2,4 Kg.

Au niveau de la connectique, Asus a opté pour une sortie DisplayPort, une sortie HDMI ainsi que 2 sorties DVI Dual-Link. Pour satisfaire sa gourmandise la carte dispose d'une alimentation à 21 phases et de pas moins de 3 connecteurs d'alimentation 8 broches, de quoi fournir jusqu'à 525W en restant dans les normes. L'utilitaire GPU Tweak permet pour sa part de modifier la tension et la fréquence GPU, la fréquence mémoire et la vitesse des ventilateurs pour atteindre de nouveaux records.

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Wednesday, 10 August 2011

5 Most Common Direct Mail Mistakes



There’s nothing worse than witnessing your money being wasted on a direct mail campaign that just didn’t get your phone ringing or send customers through your door. When it happens, it’s likely not the direct mail delivery method, but your actual campaign that flopped. Here are the five most common mistakes most businesses make.

1. Your direct mail list targeted the wrong customer: Not spending enough time and money on the list itself that targets your best type of consumer is a major campaign deal-breaker. Quite often we throw a campaign together without a thought to what kind of marketing list we are going to use. We find out later that the direct mail piece, the message and the call to action was perfect but the list, which we rushed to purchase without checking the validity and the integrity of the list broker has let us down.

Due your diligence and find a reputable list broker and explore the quality of the list. The types of consumers on the list can sometimes change the direction of what kind of marketing message you are going to use if you happen to find another target market ready to buy your product or service.

2. Your direct mail campaign wasn’t tested: Testing your campaign is a necessity. More than half of our customers will give us their direct mail campaign, the list and then fail to provide us with some parameters on changing how the mailing piece looks. There are so many things to test such as the color of the envelope, size of the piece, the message, making it lumpy and so on.

To test the headline, the direct mail piece design, the overall message and power of the call to action, put yourself in the mindset of your customer and be a test junkie. You will find you will be consistently doubling and tripling the money brought in on a campaign when you test the effectiveness of the campaign.

3. Your direct mail campaign didn’t separate features from benefits: Stress the benefits to the customer in your marketing message as opposed to the features of your product or service. The customer does not care about the fancy features of your product. As a matter of fact, they do not have the time to listen to how great you are; they want results. What kind of results can your customer achieve by using your product?

Features are the objective facts about your product or service (size, color, appearance, usability) while benefits state what the product or service does for a customer (makes money, saves money, heals, saves time, etc.) Make sure you clearly tell your readers what your product or service can do for them and how they will benefits from using it.

4. Your direct mail campaign didn’t have a call to action: Even if the intent of your campaign is to reach potential customers and make them aware of your product or service, you still need to have an offer. What is a campaign good for if you do not have an offer? Even just asking for the order in your message is good enough to get you results.

Your readers need to be prompted to take action and it’s your job to offer the right incentive for them to do so. Research what kind of offers you are going to make and be sure it is compelling and benefit driven.

5. Your direct mail campaign was a one-time deal: On average, people need to see or hear an advertising message seven times before they take some sort of action. Mailing out a campaign just once doesn’t do the trick. It’s called a “campaign” for a reason and entails multiple mailings to be the most effective. It’s not your customer’s job to keep your information and recall it when they need it; it’s your job to always be in front of them.

Be sure to follow-up with your potential customers, either by multiple direct mailings or phone calls or a combination. It’s important to time your campaign well and stay top-of-mind, especially when your customer is in need of your product or service.

A direct mail campaign is an investment with the potential for great returns. Don’t make the common mistakes many businesses do. With a winning marketing combination and the right tools and messages, your campaign can come out shining.
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