TechJunction

Move over Psystar – the EFiX development team claims to have created a USB device that allows the installation and use of Mac OS X on non-Apple PCs. What’s more, it is supposed to enable users to to install Mac OS X straight out of the box!

According to the EFiX website, “It allows its user to install Mac OS X straight from the original DVD without having to worry about patches, replacing files and anything like that.” Beyond that, the site is light on details at this stage, with far more than its fair share of broken links.

Speculation is that the product – scheduled for release on June 23 – is a flash drive containing an EFI emulator, a boot loader, and associated patches has been squashed by the EFiX crew, who say “EFiX is neither a memory stick or thumb drive. It is a completely unique device with very intricate protection above and beyond your wildest imagnation.”

Apple seems certain to unveil a new iPhone at a developer conference in San Francisco on June 9 – but how will it differ from its predecessor?

It seems, at times, as though Steve Jobs has an impossible job. Within days of the iPhone going on sale, technology fans and gadget geeks were already speculating what the next-generation version of the device would look like.

Since the launch of the device in July 2007, Apple has sold more than five million iPhones, and despite grumbles about slow mobile browsing speeds and difficulties typing on the touchscreen virtual keyboard, the handset remains, for many, one of the most innovative gadgets available today.

So, what will the son of “Jesus phone” look like, and will it really be an improvement over the first-generation device, or simply another clever way of bleeding our wallets dry?

Even with the price of what used to be known as the “$100 laptop” still hovering closer to the $200 mark, the organization behind the XO laptop design is at work on a next-generation device with an even lower target price: $75. To get there, it’s counting on advances in software technologies and in hardware development, including work on processors and displays.

Hence the typing experience depicted here in the One Laptop per Child organization’s XO-2 mockup, where the standard laptop keyboard has been replaced by a QWERTY touch screen. That reconfiguration would also allow for customizable keyboards, the OLPC said Wednesday, with younger children using a simplified keyboard and older ones able to use designs specific to various applications and multiple languages.

Ecamm Network today announced the release of PhoneView v2.0.

PhoneView (formerly MegaPhone) is a Mac application which gives iPhone and iPod Touch users easy access to iTunes media, photos, notes, contacts, SMS and call history data stored on the device. Files and folders can also be copied to the device for data storage and file transfer between Macs. Additionally, notes can be added to the iPhone or iPod Touch Notes program by dragging text files, Word docs, PDF files, and other formats into the PhoneView browser. Version 2.0 brings searching, access to the contact list, and automatic archival of SMS and call history data. Read the rest of this entry »

Google has long said that its best hope for future growth comes from mobile devices. Today, Google moved to bring that future a bit closer.

The Internet search giant joined an industry consortium that plans to build a next-generation wireless data network. Google is investing $500 million in the project, which is led by Sprint and Clearwire, and will be run by a new entity also called Clearwire.

Google has pursued initiatives intended to promote greater Internet access — preferably “open” access, meaning that users can choose what applications and services they use. The bet is that if users are allowed to choose, they’ll pick Google’s services, and therefore, will see ads delivered by Google.

The new powerful iMac 2008 now runs at speeds up to 3.06GHz! More powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processors, more memory, and a striking mixture of OS X Leopard and iLife ’08!

U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet’s current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010. Speaking at a Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 this week in London, Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, warned that the current systems that constitute the Internet will not be able to cope with the increasing amounts of video and user-generated content being uploaded.

“The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today,” he said. “In three years’ time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today.”

Carmakers are already charging batteries, tuning engines, and inflating tires to get ready for the Progressive Automotive X Prize contest, which will deliver $10 million to the winner whose car can exceed 100 miles per gallon. At the New York auto show last week, the X Prize Foundation unveiled Progressive Insurance as the sponsor of one of the most interesting auto contests to date.

We’ll take our second look at some of the competitors. (The first batch is here.) The cars in this gallery were chosen to show off some of the more interesting concepts and designs. Contestants range from small garage owners to companies like Tesla looking to find a niche in the luxury car business.

Although Mozilla says Firefox 3 beta 4 still isn’t intended for the general public, its performance so far has given them the confidence to announce the final version is nearly ready to be unleashed on the world.

In an interview with Reuters, Mozilla’s Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview that Firefox 3 is ‘ready for prime time’.

Schroepfer told Reuters that: “In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there”, with Firefox 3 beta 5 set to finalise “tuning the visual look and feel of the program” and further improving its stability.”

In an unexpected move, AOL has acquired social-networking site Bebo. The price tag: $850 million in cash.

Rumors had floated over the past few months that Bebo, which has over 40 million members, was up for sale. Reports suggested a $1 billion price tag, but there were few hints as to potential buyers. Though Bebo had already partnered with AOL’s AIM messaging client to facilitate friend-invite interoperability between the two services, even the most creative blogger speculation didn’t seem to point to AOL eventually buying the social network.