To all those mobile gamers out there, Lenovo just announced a new netbook model called Lenovo IdeaPad S12, the first netbook to integrate Nvidia Ion technology. NVIDIA ION is a motherboard platform that includes NVIDIA’s GeForce 9400M GPU and Intel’s Atom on a Pico-ITXe motherboard designed for netbook and nettop devices.

Lenovo S12 is expected to deliver the next level in mobile computing with improved usability and groundbreaking performance ever found in a netbook. Lenovo S12 takes Intel’s well-designed and economical Atom CPU and has a GPU capable handling 3D gaming and full 1080p video playback. It boasts 10 times faster graphics and video transcoding.

While this Netbook by Lenovo is small, its power packs a punch, with some specifications of the Lenovo S12 includes a 12.1 WXGA screen, a 160GB SATA Hard Drive, up to 1GB in DD2 Memory, and an integrated wireless adapter for wireless capabilities.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 will have two flavors. The one with the Intel GMA950 graphics chipset will be launched first in July priced at $449. The?  Nvidia Ion version of the Lenovo S12 will hit “later this summer” and while the exact price is not yet announced, best guesses place it at just under $500.

KIDO’Z, THE CHILD-FRIENDLY WEB BROWSER
Report by John Raul Joven II

If you have kids that like to go online and surf the Net, it is just right to have them safeguarded against inappropriate content that may harm your children’s developing minds.

We all know that mature content is just a few clicks away from regular web browser’s homepage and sometimes they even appear unintended right before our eyes while browsing the Web.

In this case, you need Kido’z, a child-friendly web browser that lets your kids safely browse, watch videos and play online games.

Here are the top three reasons to use Kido’z:

• First, it gives a guaranteed safe web environment for kids.
• Second, is extremely easy to use and can be personalized for your child.
• Third, it gives easier access to the popular child-friendly sites that lets
  your child watch videos, play online games and browse the Web.

Kido’z is free and can be downloaded at Kidoz.net. It uses Adobe AIR runtime technology and can be installed on systems that are AIR-capable.

HIGH FIVE AT EPISODE 5: CONTEST WINNERS
Reported by John Raul Joven II

Here are the five lucky winners of Episode 5’s contest with Top Hosting Center’s Speedy hosting plan with domain names valid for 12 months as prizes.

And the names of the winners are:

• Jonatan Escobar of Florida, USA
• Steven de Filippis of Toronto, Canada
• Jessa Escoton of Davao, Philippines
• Kirsty O’ Sullivan of Brisbane, Australia
• Arianne Aquino of Panabo, Philippines

Congratulations!

FACEBOOK PHISHING SCAMS CONTINUE DESPITE SECURITY BOOST
Reported by Dylan Combs

If you use Facebook, you may want to pay attention to this little bit of information. A Facebook phishing attack is spreading through the very popular social network right now.?  It arrives as a Facebook message titled “Hello” and has been asking recipients to “check Areps.at” or “check Best.at” which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in itself. But nonetheless, at least 2 USAToday reporters today reporters alone received the bogus message within a single day. If you will click the link it will take you to a Facebook login page which is obviously a fake page where you’ll be prompted to type your username and password. If you’re gullible enough to click the fake page and type in your credentials, your password will be changed and you’ll be locked out of your account. The bad guys will then use your account to replicate the attack with everyone on your friends list.

So if you use Facebook, don’t click on those links and my tip is always check the URL bar. There’s always a bar at the top of the browser that says exactly where you are at. If it doesn’t say “facebook.com/ [whatever],” it’s not Facebook.

BIOSHOCK 2 TO BE RELEASED IN NOVEMBER 2009
Reported by John Raul Joven II

BioShock fans can now mark their calendar because BioShock 2, the sequel to the popular first person shooter video game developed by 2K Marin, is now set to be released on October 30, 2009 internationally and on November 3, 2009 in North America.

The game is expected to be released simultaneously on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows platforms.

The plot of BioShock 2 is set ten years after the events of first BioShock, when a number of towns around the world have been reporting kidnappings of young girls, with witnesses reporting the attackers as both extremely fast and thin.

Fans of BioShock will notice the general features of BioShock 2 which include:an evolution of genetically enhanced shooter, extension of the Rapture fiction and they’ll be able to see the Rapture before the fall.

The development team behind BioShock 2 brings more than 10 years experience who developed award-winning game titles such as Unreal and Unreal Tournament franchise.

GEEK OF THE WEEK: STEVEN DE FILIPPIS
Reported by Demitri Aleksejev

Our Geek of the Week is Steven De Filippis from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Demitri: So Steven, as a young geek, what are your areas of expertise?
Steven: Ever since I was two years old, I was always touching my parents’ computers, mouse, keyboards, and everything around. And then my parents got me my own computer which is very slow but back then it was considered very fast. Then as I was going on in life, I’ve actually realized that programming is what interests me more. So, I’m able to develop iPhone applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. And on the Web, I’m able to program SQL servers platforms or blogs. As well I’m also able to do some web designing with CSS, PHP and HTML.

Demitri: Oh that’s great. And for the second question is: what is your your best computer rig?
Steven: The best rig machine, computer, or whatever you want to call it. But I have them over right now is the Asus Rampage II Extreme with 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz. It includes Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition Quad-Core (which is 3.2ghz), and it has a video card NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 and that’s the one right here which is a 22-inch monitor.

Thanks Steven, for being a geek of the week.

Good to news to everyone, my podcast co-host Brad of Tech Webcast announced that he’s going to sponsor Tech Conclave a new microphone. On May 23rd, he posted the good condenser microphone and it’s presently on its way from Melbourne to Davao. I’d like to personally thank Brad for this and hopefully our show will have better audio quality when it arrives.

If you questions, suggestions or comments, email me at techconclave (at) gmail (dot) com or visit our website and chat with me live through our live chat page.

Thank for watching this episode and thanks for those who participate the recent contest sponsored by Top Hosting Center. Catch you all next episode.

And always remember, it’s good to be geek.

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Twitter! Its an everyday social networking site we use, or at least some of us do. While many of us thought that twitter was a hit on the Internet, allowing users to share every little detail of themselves or an event, twitter hasn’t been best at keeping its users online.

With so many competitions such as MySpace and Facebook, will twitter really survive with its only feature being broadcasting status updates and messaging back and forth?

Twitter’s user loyalty problem will have a great impact in its feature success… or failure. With 60% of Twitter’s users not returning until the following month to use Twitter’s service, Twitter is lagging behind Facebook and MySpace.

Now with Facebook also opening its stream to API developers, it now allows any developer to create new applications incorporating the real-time stream of Facebook. With so many Twitter applications using Twitter API stream created for desktop and mobile applications, Facebook has fired back allowing its API stream to be used by any developer, this means new competition for Twitter.

What do you say about Twitter’s future? Does it stand against today’s social networking giants Facebook or MySpace? We will have to wait and see who takes advantage of Facebook’s new API stream and how Twitter will respond back. Until then, Twitter remains head to head with Facebook.

MICROSOFT INTEGRATES WINDOWS XP ON WINDOWS 7
Reported by John Raul Joven II

Good news to all Windows XP advocates and all Windows users who refused to jump into Vista, Microsoft just announced one of the secret technologies embedded with its Windows 7: the next major Microsoft operating system will integrate Windows XP.

Windows XP remained popular up to these days because of its notable speed and compatibility — factors both worldwide businesses and consumers want that Microsoft failed to deliver when it launched Windows Vista.

Dubbed as XPM or XP Mode, Microsoft claims that the feature provides near-perfect compatibility of Windows XP applications in Windows 7. Considering that Windows 7’s system requirements are on par with Windows Vista, enabling the XPM however will require a more powerful machine with at least 2 GB of RAM.

Having built on same platform as Microsoft’s Virtual PC 7 product, XPM will take advantage of virtualization
technologies in-built from CPUs such as the Intel VT-x for recent Intel CPUs and AMD-V for AMD processors.

Through XPM, users will be able to install and launch Windows XP applications on Windows 7 desktop, and can even run alongside the same application of Windows 7 version, without affecting the core operating system. This means the inclusion of the XPM feature on Windows 7 will not undermine its speed, stability and security. Microsoft will include a full Windows XP SP3 license with every legal copy of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate for use with XPM.

A release candidate version of Windows 7 is expected to be available to the general public for download
on May 5th. The RC version means that Microsoft is now on the final stages of completing the operating system which will succeed the unpopular Window Vista.

NETBOOKS DON’T DESERVE APPLE LOGO
Reported by Richard Crake

I’m here today to talk about the Apple netbook – or at least the Apple netbook rumor. I reckon any speculations on the Internet for Apple will come out with a netbook laptop.

Many people speculates this as the market for netbooks as definitely there as there have been reports stating that netbooks have outsold iPhones.

Last time I checked over 10 million iPhones sold has a definite market for this device.

However, when interviewed Tim Cook, one of the main people of Apple, said quote, "All I see wrong with these product is cramped keyboards, cramped displays. Until we are ready to bring innovation to this industry we can offer nothing as of yet."

So, will they be making a netbook? There have been reports that Apple had been ordering lots and lots of flash memory and 10-inch touch screens, so if they’re gonna bring out something that match the cost of video players or bring out a good touch tablet device or something along those lines, we just have to wait and see. All I’m saying is watch this space.

FIND BARGAIN NETBOOKS AT EBAY
Reported by Tom Maxwell

Hi, everyone. Tom Maxwell here from Tech Conclave giving you a top tip. What I have here is an Asus Eee PC. This is the very first edition, the 701.

Although it’s a small size, this computer can still do, you know, deal a lot of tasks. For example, it can do word processing, Internet browsing, you can play games on it, you can watch TV, you can even use it as a security camera with its built-in webcam. I got my Eee PC for just 75 pounds – it’s a bargain compared to the 225 pounds they were a year ago.

Now, the easiest way to do this is by keeping a close eye on eBay.  Let me show you how to do this the easy way.

Okay, so now we have eBay loaded up, let’s type in "Eee PC." On the left hand side, you want to click on the Laptop section. This will get rid of all other categories that will come up with the search. Click the Buy It Now only tab. Now that’s loaded,  on the Sort By Selection, select Newly Listed only, this will show up the newly listed items.

Now you can see the bargains before the majority of other users allowing you to grab those bargains.

GEEK OF THE WEEK: NEIL PERRIN OF GEEKWITHGLASSES.NET
Reported by Beau Sinclair

Hello this is Beau here for Tech Conclave Geek of the Week.

This week’s geek is Neil Perrin. I believe that’s right. GeekwithGlasses.net, go and check him out.

Beau: Neil, what do you do and what skills that you have as a geek?

Neil: I am a long-time technical gadget user. I’ve been working  with computers since I was about ten years old so we are looking at about 24 to 25 years that I have been involved with the computer industry and technology and gadgets in general.

I work professionally in the DC area as a contractor and do computer work for the government, government and such. And I have a passion to all things computer-related, technical-related and gadget-related. I’m a gadget guy. I decided I wanted to go ahead and share my knowledge with the masses.

 Beau: Oh cool, awesome. This has been Beau Sinclair from Bright, Australia.

Click here to learn more about Neil and his live tech show, Geek With Glasses.

If you have questions, suggestions or comments, email us at techconclave (at) gmail (dot) com or you can also direct them, along with your tech questions, to our new community forum which can be accessed  at www.techconclave.com/forum

On episode 5 we will launch a contest with web hosting packages bundled with domain names as prizes. For more information, register and participate in our community forum. The contest rules and regulations will be first announced there.

Also, visit my website at www.johnraul.com, it is powered by Top Hosting Center and the Tech Conclave website is powered by Host Color.

Thank you for watching this episode. I’ll catch you again next time. Please subscribe and always remember, it’s good to be a geek.

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