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Tony Ibrahim

Westpac System Failure Effects Many Banks And More Customers

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Westpac are experiencing a processing breakdown with its banking system which has effected its own and other customers belonging to three of the four big banks.

The break down has resulted in a delay for customer’s making and receiving payments, the extent of which Westpac admit they do not know, claim the SMH. 

As a result customers belonging to other banks who are expecting other payments from a Westpac account will be affected by the failure, Westpac told BusinessDay. 

“Westpac has experienced a delay overnight in the processing of some payments to and from other banks. Customers can still make payments throughout the day, however there will be some delays.”

Commonwealth and ANZ confirmed the delays affected them, and promised to deal with them urgently once they receive Westpac’s transaction list. NAB was also affected by the banking system breakdown.  

Australia’s major banks process overnight payment and transactions in ‘batches’, leaving them vulnerable if one bank encounters a glitch. Unaware of what cause the problem, Westpac could not provide a timeframe for when the problem will be fixed. 

“Westpac has mobilised additional resources to restore payment services as soon as possible,” the bank said.
They also said that no customers will be a charged late payment fees as a result of the payment delays. 

New Exclusive Xbox Makes For A White Christmas

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Microsoft is releasing a limited edition White Xbox 360 console.

The 320GB Glossy White console will be bundled with three games: Forza 4 (hardcopy), Skyrim (download) and Lego Star Wars II (download).

It also comes with a uniform matt white controller.

EB Games’ parent company, GameStop, made the deal exclusively with Microsoft.

“GameStop is working diligently to get customers the exclusive products that they want to purchase this holiday season and we know this will top many wish lists,” said Mike Mauler, executive vice president of GameStop International.

EB Games will be stocking the White 320GB Xbox 360 console in Australia. It is available now from their online store for $299.

Yamaha’s Portable iPhone Dock Punches Well Above Its Weight

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Yamaha’s portable iPhone dock oozes street cred, but does it dish out worthy sound?

Every now and then you find yourself in a store gravitating towards a product you – up until that moment – had no intention of buying. Such is the charm of Yamaha’s PDX-11, an octagonal iPhone/iPod speaker dock that exudes attitude and will no doubt pick off shopaholics.


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Its shaped like an octagonal prism, except the octagon on the back is smaller, giving it somewhat of a vertex. It makes no attempt to apologise for this shape though, choosing to yell about it through a variety of bright colours and a complementary metallic steel grill. On its back are an auxiliary (3.5mm) input and a 12V power port. On top you’ll find an Apple iDevice 30 point pin, volume keys, a power button and a stainless steel carry grip that begs to be handled.

Seeing as it weighs a feeble 1.5kgs, it’s no chore to grab it and take it with you on whichever outdoor expedition you have planned. To do so simply requires six AA batteries and the patience of onlookers seeing as it blasts enough audio to get heads turning.

 

This sonic frenzy comes from a 4″ speaker and a tweeter companion, which together produce startling sound. Pop it inside any room and the enthusiastic dock fills it with rich audio, perky on the bass end and potent enough in the mid-to-high range. Putting up the volume to ‘max’ will see the treble clutter up, but by then the speaker is doing so much more than its due diligence, choosing to out additional volume at the expense of clarity. It is as lively as a child, producing tasteful sound that bounces off the walls vibrantly.

Take it outside and the dock rolls with the acoustic differences, playing songs back with less offensive bass and tamed tonality. It sounds balanced, skilfully replaying music with little distortion but riddled with body. It really delivers more than sound, with cranked volume serving up contagious atmosphere.

Admittedly genres characterised by an absence of bass (we’re thinking lonely vocals) tend to suffer on the PDX-11, seeing as it lacks the kind of maturity its (significantly) more expensive counterparts have to offer. But more often than not we’d pick this jovial dock over its restrained rivals, only too happy to load it with alkaline batteries for our days at the beach until they gave way after some six or so hours.

 

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When it runs out of juice, simply take it home and plug the power in. It’ll charge your Apple iPhone/iPod while effortlessly replaying your tunes, which can also be managed wirelessly via the included remote control.

On its own merit, the PDX-11 is a great docking system that manages to become even more attractive with its bang-for-buck $129 price. It’s hard to think of rival docks that ooze comparable audio prowess, let alone one that looks so darn good.

HTC To Launch Phablet Flagship

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HTC has taken Note of the success of Samsung’s 5.3 inch Galaxy.

The move is reminiscent of Samsung’s Galaxy Note, except the smartphone being release by HTC will be the company’s new flagship device. According to DigiTimes, the 5 inch device will have a screen resolution of 1794 by 1080 pixels, which is just shy of Full HD and the highest of any smartphone thus far.

Samsung pioneered the phablet market (smartphone-tablet) with the launch of their Galaxy Note, but as it approaches its first birthday, it is believe Samsung will be releasing a 5.5 inch successor at the end of August.

The success of the Galaxy Note was a surprise to the smartphone industry who, like I, believed its 5.3 inch size would cater to a niche audience. However, by March of 2012, Samsung reported more than 5 million Galaxy Notes had been sold. 

Part of the Galaxy Note’s charm is its stylus as it brings free-hand expression to the digital mobile world.

Read Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2: Bigger, Faster, August

The demand for Samsung’s Note has inspired rivalling vendors to take a piece of the phablet pie by releasing their own versions. LG has launched its 5″ Optimus Vu in international markets, along with phablet renditions from lesser-known players Pantech and Coolpad.

As of late, HTC closed offices in Brazil and South Korea. They also sold half of their stake back to Beats Electronics.

Australia Lands On Mars

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Australia has played a key role in the landing on Mars early today with the head of NASA recognising the contributions of Canberra, Australia, and claiming all countries involved are now on Mars.

At a press conference this afternoon, the head of NASA praised the work done in Canberra for tracking the final landing. He also noted three other countries assisted with the mission, but chose not to name them.

The $2.5 billion robotic explorer travelled 352 million miles for more than 8 months, only to endure the hardest part of its journey in the last seven minutes. Described as “seven minutes of terror,” the 1 tonne rover sliced through Mars’ thin atmosphere at 21,240km/h.

To slow the rover down for a safe landing, The Australian claims NASA used a supersonic parachute and an elaborate sky crane powered by rocket blasters. Once it kicked in, the crane lowered the rover down by nylon tethers for a six wheel upright landing.

“Touchdown confirmed” said a member of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The room then erupted in cheers.

“We are wheels down on Mars. Oh, my God.”

Minutes after landing two images were relayed back to earth; one depicting Curiosity’s wheel on Mars’ red surface and another capturing its shadow.

 

“It was a great drama that was played,” said one of the engineers on NASA’s media conference Panel. “The team brought us victory today.”

NASA scientists don’t expect to find life on Mars, but they do hope to find signs of microbial life over the next two years of exploration.

“If we succeed, it will be one of the greatest feats in planetary exploration ever,” said Mars’ program director, Doug McCuistion to reporters. “Our success rate has been pretty darn good recently.”

President Obama aims to have humans touch down on Mars by 2030. In order to determine if it is safe to do so, Curiosity has been tracking radiation levels throughout its journey.

Although a $2.5 billion project, NASA engineers are calling the program a bargain at just $7 per American citizen, when compared to the inflated price of going to the movies. 

Pure Connect Is The Sound System That Can Do It All

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Pure has been solidifying its name in the audio space by including a gamut of wireless technologies in its products.

“Some day, we’ll wonder why we ever had to physically connect devices.” That was said by Pure’s Managing Director, Graeme Redmond, and it’s with the same tenacity the folks at Pure have approached their latest offering, infusing it with a vast variety of wireless technologies.

The Sensia 200D Connect and has a lengthy feature set, so we suggest you take a deep breath first. 

It can stream wireless on-demand content and radio, will replay music streamed from a home computer and will record music onto a USB thumb drive. At your instruction it will ‘Tag’ tracks played on the radio, present their biography and provide you with the option to add it to your personal music collection by buying it.


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Google and Apple devices can stream music and radio wirelessly to the 200D, while social network aficionados can view Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, RSS feeds, weather reports and Picasa pics on the vibrant 7 inch touchscreen. For a small orb like system, that’s quite the feature set.

 

“Pure Stream delivers similar convenience when playing from a Smartphone to compatible Pure wireless music and radio systems” continued Pure MD Redmond. “Pure Stream is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pure’s vision for the digital home.”

Music is replayed over 30W speakers, is enhanced by a suite of custom Pure software and between the two, will deliver ‘completely immersive, room-filling sound.’

Other features include an input for an iPod/MP3 player; two fully featured alarms; countdown timer; sleep timer and a headphone socket. Add the optional rechargeable Pure F1 ChargePAK to listen to internet content anywhere within range of the Wi-Fi network or to digital and FM radio when further afield.

This action-packed system will go on sale from August 12th for $599.