VIA is trying its hand once again at the “mini-note” form factor, with a new OpenBook reference design. Its first go round, the Nanobook, was generally panned in light of the ultra-successful Eee PC, but certainly wasn’t ignored. The new design is right in line with the new wave of subnotebooks, with an 8.9-inch 1024 [...]

The first thing to note is that the XPERIA X1 is absed on Widows Mobile 6.1, which marks a departure for Sony Ericsson phones as they’ve never used Windows Mobile before. This brings greater synchronization with the desktop (at least if you have a Windows-based PC, anyway), but at the cost of the dreadful Mobile [...]

The new Orbitsound T6 iPod docking system is supposed to produce a fuller, warmer sound than regular speakers through a ’single point stereo’ sound system (of a single, smallish speaker). The Orbitsound T6 uses triode valve (or tube) amplifiers and (in combination with its patented AirSOUND technology) creates a balanced sound field throughout the room. [...]

Amazon has modestly cut the price its Kindle E-Book reader. Barely released late last year, the white hand-held reader is now 10% off at $359 and buyers will also receive free two-day shipping. Amazon hasn’t released an official statement about the price cut (at least not yet), but this should provide a decent boost in [...]

Japan’s Panasonic will release their new RP-HJE900 earphones on June 15th. Our earphones adopt zirconia, a material generally used in the manufacture of fake diamonds which should suppresses sound distortion. Sound pressure sensitivity is around 100dB/mW, and frequency response is 6Hz–28 KHz! (Impedance: 26Ω). They also feature something interesting… Removable cables.
[www.akihabaranews.com]