By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

China previously announced plans (way back in 2007) to enforce an universal cell phone charger, which was (and still is) a great idea. Now the European Commission has struck a deal with Apple and other cell phone manufacturers to start selling phones with universal cell phone chargers starting next year.

The EC has decided on the same adapter as China, a micro-USB connector. In a way, it’s surprising that Apple would go along with it. Why? They are pretty picky about the voltage that goes into their iPhones. For example, if you take just any old plug adapter that plugs into a socket, and stick an Apple iPhone USB cable into it, it may or may not work. In fact, there’s a company that sells an adapter to take care of that problem.

Motorola has been the same way in the past; some of their older phones that took mini-USB adapters wouldn’t “just work” with any old adapter.

In February the GSMA, a trade association for GSM-based mobile carriers, announced that it had brokered a deal with handset manufacturers to standardize around the micro-USB adapter in chargers by 2012. And in April of this year, the CTIA, the U.S. wireless trade association, backed the standard.

It’s obvious why this would be great for the consumer. No need to keep multiple chargers around. Right now, for example, I have one charger for my headset and one for my iPhone. My wife is in a similar situation with her headset and Samsung.

Additionally, I have tons of old adapters lying around for old phones, as well. It’s a pile of trashed electronics that may enter landfills in third-world countries.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Despite the fact that Apple was somewhat disappointed with the lines (or lack thereof) for the new iPhone 3GS on launch day, it sold over 1 million of the new, faster iPhone version in the first weekend. Thus, the new and improved iPhone availability widget is a boon, disappointing as search results might be.

At the time of this writing, for example, the widget shows things aren’t looking so good in California for availability at Apple stores. Click the above image to enlarge.

It’s improved this year previously, availability numbers were updated at the end of each business day. In fact, the page was usually taken down during the business day. However, this year, according to IFOAppleStore, the page is linked directly to Apple’s internal POS computers, and the data is updated hourly for each store.

California’s needn’t complain however: they could live in Delaware, which has only one Apple store, and is currently sold out across the board.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNewsSorry, readers. I have had an out-of-whack back, which has meant, not much I could do aside from lying down. Here we go, however …

Microsoft on Thursday finally dished on upgrade options for Windows 7, international availability on launch day (Oct. 22) and pricing. It’s hard to say which one is more important to me, 1) or 3), but in this economy, I’d go with 3).

So, to drag things out a bit, here’s the info on the international versions first: on October 22nd, Windows 7 will launch in the following 14 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Chinese (Hong Kong).

A little more than a week later, on Halloween, October 31st, the remaining 21 languages will become available: Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian, Arabic, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Thai, Croatian, Serbian Latin, and Latvian.

Actually, not bad; it used to take months for a full rollout to all languages.

In terms of Vista -> Windows upgrades, it all starts on Friday, June 26th. You can find full details here, but basically anyone who buys a PC from a participating OEM or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate on it will all receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows 7 at little or no cost (why Microsoft can’t get all OEMs to go with “no cost” is beyond me). The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program will last through January 31st, 2010 and is global.

Finally, pricing. You’ll remember a leaked memo I wrote about earlier contained info about aggressive promotions for early Best Buy pre-orders? The details in that memo were not just correct; the program itself is actually more widespread than it appeared.

Select markets will have the opportunity to buy upgrades at more than 50% off. In the U.S., you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99.99. Microsoft says to come back to the promotional site here on June 26th for a full list of participating retailers, but they have already announced that Best Buy, Amazon, and the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets) will have promotional pricing.

This program begins tomorrow in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The offer ends July 11th in the U.S. and Canada and on July 5th for Japan or while supplies last. In the U.K., France and Germany, the program starts July 15th and will run until August 14th. In their blog post, Microsoft calls this a screaming deal, and it’s certainly aggressive, no doubt.

I should note that this is only for upgrade versions; I’m still unclear if you can do a clean install with an upgrade version of Windows 7, or not. Prior to Vista, you could do so simply by providing your prior license key, but Microsoft didn’t allow that in Vista. You had to use “double install workaround” to make it work, a loophole that was discovered.

All right, how about non-promotional pricing? Here you go (US):

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99
• Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

Watch an interview between that lays all this out (unfortunately, Silverlight required).

Announcing the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program & Windows 7 Pricing

By John Tintle
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

I ran across a program called Knoppmyth. Knoppmyth is Knoppix optimized for MythTV to make it easier for novice Linux users to install MythTV. For those who do not know what Knoppix is, Knoppix is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals.

Why Myth?: Source: MythTV

-Basic ‘live-tv’ functionality. Pause/Fast Forward/Rewind “live” TV.
-Support for multiple tuner cards and multiple simultaneous recordings.
-Distributed architecture allowing multiple recording machines and multiple playback machines on the same network, completely transparent to the user.
-Compresses video in software using rtjpeg (from Nuppelvideo) or mpeg4 (from libavcodec). Full support for Hardware MPEG-2 encoder cards (Hauppauge PVR-250 / PVR-350). Preliminary support for DVB cards and the new pcHDTV tuner card.
-Support for the (very nice looking) hardware MPEG-2 decoder and TV out present on the Hauppauge PVR-350.
-Completely automatic commercial detection/skipping
-Grabs program information using xmltv.
-A fully themeable menu to tie it all together.

Why Now? I know this may be old news to some, but to those wanting to try our hand at MythTV, this may be a good place to start.

Alice Adds: I make no secret that I love Tivo more than life itself, but I also have a DIY side I can’t hide. Yesterday TiVo was shocked to find that its outsourced vendor had folded and it was unable to sell direct, which was bad news indeed. (Read more about that issue here.) So, not to kick a TiVo when it’s down, but I thought for those keeping an eye on alternatives, this is a good starter way to get your feet wet, especially if you are not as technically inclined.

Have Zune begun to copy Apple’s stylish music players with the upcoming Zune HD? We’ve got your weekly fill of format wars - this time focused on home automation and could we really be that much closer to wearable remote controls?

Father’s days coming up and, being such a caring bunch, we came up with a a really great idea! Another idea may be to get him an analog to digital converter so that he can preserve those old video and music sitting in the attic.

Are you aniPhone/iPod Touch user and also a networking maniac? Take a look at Zensify.

The week was capped off by the ever-so-geeky Mac vs. PC poster and a look at the current progress of holographic optics - manufacturer SBG has a very cool prototype of a full-color, heads-up wearable display.

By Martin Regtien

Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

A little under six months ago we took a look at the NS2300N and NS4300N SmartStor Network Attached Storage RAID solutions. The new NS4600 is the latest NAS/RAID in Promise Technology’s line up and looks to improve on their already solid SmartStor range.

Read on here for Paul Moon’s review of the new NS4600, along with some thoughts on our time with the two older Promise units - six months on.

By Martin Regtien

Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

The need for wireless networking is almost a certainty given the amount of internet capable equipment is an average home.  Just count the potential  devices such as PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, TV, Blu-ray player, fridge, the list can go on and on.  The speed of the wireless network needs to be sufficient to handle for example, high definition videos.

D-Link has generously provided DigitalReviews with a DAP-1522 Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge/Access Point and a DWA-160 Xtreme N Dual Band USB Adapter for this review.

Kevin Cheng reports here.

Another year, another new iPhone, and another long line to wait in? Yes, it’s true, but things are not quite as hysterical, panicky, crazy, however you want to call it.

iPhone 3G S lines are long, but pale in comparison to last year and 2007, when the first iPhone was introduced. I doubt, however, that Apple isn’t going to sell a ton of these devices this weekend, dwarfing the Palm Pre sales numbers.

Why short(er) iPhone 3G S lines, in that case? Well, this year, Apple and AT&T went back to allowing people to order phones online. You could then either choose to have it delivered to your home (my choice) or delivered to a store where you could pick it up. Since people already had their iPhone 3G S reserved, there was no need for hysteria.

Additionally, the iPhone 3G S is more incremental than the change from the original iPhone (EDGE) to the 3G in last year’s model. And, those who are in a contract with AT&T have to $200 extra to get out of the contract, so some may feel why bother opting in and standing in a long line?

Most of the changes in the iPhone 3G S are provided in the iPhone OS 3.0 firmware, and that, anyway with an older iPhone can get (though the EDGE model cannot support some of the functionality).

In terms of the actual features built into the HW that the iPhone 3G S has over the iPhone 3G, they include:

• Higher resolution camera
• Video recording (this can be done by jailbreaking your older iPhone, though)
• Faster CPU
• PowerVR graphics chip
• HW encryption
• Compass
• Voice Control
• Longer Battery Life

Is that enough to stand in line for? I suppose it depends, and the iPhone 3G at $99 will likely make people think as well.

BTW, there may be fewer hysterics in lines around the country and world for the iPhone 3G S, but I’m getting somewhat hysterical. As you may or may not know, Apple made sure UPS delayed the shipments for iPhone 3G S so that people wouldn’t get it early. According to my shipping status, it’s behind where I would expect it to be if I were going to get it today. Aaagh.