Life getting you down? Is the only exciting thing that ever happens to you an unexpected item in the bagging area? Don’t be downhearted: the Panasonic DMR-BWT800 and DMR-BWT700 Freeview+HD Blu-ray disc recorders can metaphorically transform our boring two-dimensional world of meetings and losing any unsaved work into a dazzling high-definition, three-dimensional extravaganza, by literally …

After showing up in search results and being teased by a Sprint employee in a blog post last week, the 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook finally went on sale on Sprint’s Web site today for $499. As the Wi-Fi-only version, Sprint will not be offering any additional services and the tablet won’t require a contract. Sprint announced last January at CES that …

commentary Last week’s press release from the World Health Organisation (WHO) set alarm bells ringing and had many mobile phone users reaching for their hands-free headsets, but is there really cause for concern? A 40 per cent increase in the risk of cancer for phone owners is a terrifying prospect, especially in a country like Australia where phone subscriptions outnumber …

Apple According to conjecture from Linley Gwennap (reported by Barron’s), senior editor at Microprocessor Report, Apple’s next-generation mobile processor, the A6 chip, should be quad-core but only available in iPads. Gwennap wrote a piece examining the structure of Apple’s current A5 processor found in the iPad 2 and come up with two interesting conclusions about how Apple is using their …

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha blamed poor phone performance on the open Android Market during a financial conference today. He said that 70 percent of phones are returned because of untested apps that may drain the CPU or the battery. Jha claims that one way to control this is via its Motoblur application, which acts as an additional layer on …

Nokia decided to make Windows Phone handsets after finding Android didn’t offer enough opportunity to set Nokia apart from the rest of the pack, the company’s CEO Stephen Elop said at the Uplinq conference in San Diego. But Elop also admitted Nokia had “attitudinal” problems with Android. Although he called Android “a winning ecosystem” and knew that using it would …

As CNET’s Nicole Lee reported this morning, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha this week said that 70 percent of customers returning Moto smartphones are doing so because of poorly written apps that strain the CPU or battery. That’s reasonable, but I suggest that there’s a more obvious issue at hand here, and it affects more than just Motorola. The problem …

Toshiba’s new Thrive 10-inch tablet will be significantly cheaper than the iPad 2. The basic model will cost $429 (about £260) which is $70 (£40) cheaper than the entry-level Wi-Fi iPad 2, BBC News reports. While it shouldn’t be surprising that there are cheaper devices than Apple’s hallowed gadgets, Android tablet makers have struggled to bring devices in for below-iPad …

Apple could be a step closer to its dream of a wireless world as new rumours suggest it could be about to update its Time Capsule to allow wireless updating of your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, according to sources who spoke to 9to5Mac. Though apps can be updated over the air, Apple aficionados still have to use those funny …

It’s summertime and it seems like everyone is headed to Europe. Well, maybe not everyone. But this week I heard from two readers who are planning European trips this summer. Their big question: How do we stay in touch with loved ones at home while sightseeing and studying across the pond? In this week’s Ask Maggie, I suggest that a …