Kindle Fire: Waiting for Amazon to "Friend" customers with non-U.S. IP addresses

Since its U.S. launch on November 14, 2011, Amazon's Kindle Fire has certainly made the tablet computer market a much more interesting space. Finally, consumers (at least, those who reside in the states) now have choices that are not limited between the expensive iPad and high-end Android slates and the low-cost, jocular excuses for a tablet computer.

Amazon's Kindle Fire is one exciting tablet computer. Local consumers, however, better wait for Amazon to resolve its geographical limits.

The Kindle Fire makes no pretensions as far as its list of features and capabilities is concerned. This doesn't mean, however, that it is a stingy and underperforming, underwhelming piece of high-tech tool-cum-toy.

Disk encryption keeps criminal data from police eyes

A research paper published in the Digital Investigation journal asserts that criminals can keep their data from law enforcement agencies by simply using commonly available hard drive encryption software. The joint U.S.-UK team of researchers has found that local and federal agencies cannot access data on a hard-disk drive that can incriminate those using the computer to commit crimes.

Data encryption protects the innocent, as well as the criminals. (Photo courtesy of renjith krishnan: www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=721)   

Hollywood movies have made us believe that cracking encryption-protected disk drives is as easy as ABC. The unglamorous truth, however, is government-sanctioned hackers are unable to break the encryption, in most cases.

Researchers say that encryption is virtually heaven sent for criminals, especially for the IT-enabled variety.

Looking at the bright side, if disk encryption can help protect criminals' data, we can all take comfort from the fact that it also keeps safe data owned by the more law-abiding people like us.

Huawei brings MediaPad tablet computer to the Philippines

Months after Huawei introduced it at the 2011 CommunicAsia in Singapore, the MediaPad is finally available from your favorite local IT retailers.

Running on the Honeycomb 3.2 build of Google's Android mobile operating system, the MediaPad comes packing a 7-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, encased in a 10.5mm (or 0.4 inches) thin body frame.

The MediaPad is Huawei's take on what consumers want from their tablets.

This 390-gram tablet computer is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor and includes a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel auto-focus main camera that also shoots HD videos.

Finally, with Nokia's Lumia 800, Windows users need not be embarrassed by their phones

Let's admit it, most fans of Windows have been afflicted with smartphone envy, for the longest time. While lovers of the iOS and Android platforms have been proudly and at times brashly displaying their iPhones and Android phones, users of Windows-badged smartphones are surreptitiously using their own.

The humiliation, both self-imposed and bestowed by popular culture and market realities, has continued for quite some time. That is, until now.

Nokia's Lumia 800 eases Windows users' smartphone envy.

Last week's launch of the Lumia 800 smartphone by Nokia finally ends most Windows users' wait for a real "Windows smartphone." Finally, Windows users need not feel inadequate each time an Android or iPhone fan whips out his or her smartphone.

Hewlett Packard's TouchPad Tablet Computer Receives a Reprieve

Agreeably surprised by consumers' rabid desire to own one of those TouchPad tablet computers they had earlier declared dead, HP executives recently announced plans to "produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand."

Fire-sale prices made a bestseller out of the HP TouchPad.

HP cut the price of the tablet from $399 and $499 to $99 the weekend following the company's announcement it was ending its tablet PC business on August 18. The move was part of HP's decision to give up its consumer business and focus instead on the enterprise market.

The fire sale created an online feeding frenzy, with consumers seeking to get their hands on one or more of those tablets set to become a piece of IT history or consumer electronics foible.

HP loses money with every TouchPad it sells. 

HP is set to lose money on every final-production-run TouchPad. HIS iSuppli's estimates it costs $318 to produce a 32GB version of the tablet computer.

I wonder why HP would want to have this "final run?" Is the company doing it just to spite Apple?

Hmm. There must be a business model somewhere here.

Source: Reuters Technology News

Cherry Mobile Introduces the Q70, the First Quad-SIM Mobile Phone in the Philippines

Dual and triple-SIM mobile phones are so 2010.

Cherry Mobile's introduction of the Q70, a quadruple SIM phone, has made this possible. 

That is four SIM cards in one mobile phone. No need to buy two or more handsets even for those who need to get in touch using four SIM cards. (If you're one of those people, I wonder what kind of social life you have.)

The company said the Cherry Mobile Q70 is the country's first Quad-SIM-Quad Standby handset that "enables consumers to utilize four different service providers which can be all active at any given time."

Samsung NC215: Samsung Combines Solar Energy with Portable Computing

The Sun might yet have saved the netbook from an impending tablet-driven euthanasia.

While some quarters have been trumpeting the netbook's so-called inevitable doom, along comes Samsung with the NC215 solar-powered netbook.

Loaded with a solar panel on its lid, the netbook can convert two hours of sunlight into an hour of netbook operation.