Shipments of the long-awaited Raspberry Pi single-board Linux computer may be delayed due to a “manufacturing hiccup.” The company on Thursday said that during the manufacturing process, the computers were equipped with non-magnetic jacks, which would result in a lack of network connectivity. The Raspberry Pi Foundation claims, however, that there is no need to fret because this is “a very minor problem to fix, and the factory is nearly done working on replacing them on the first set of boards.” The first shipments should still go out to customers in line with the firm’s previously announced time frame, although there might be a “slight delay.” Pre-orders of the $35 dollar computer sold out in less than a day when it went on sale last month. The single-board computer is equipped with a 700MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, SD card support, two USB ports, an Ethernet jack and both HDMI and RCA outputs.

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The low-cost Raspberry Pi Linux computer is set to become available for purchase later this month for $35. The firm behind the budget computer announced on Monday that the first batch of boards will enter manufacturing on February 20th and will be available at the end of the month. The single-board computer is equipped with a 700MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, SD card support and both HDMI and RCA outputs. Despite the low cost and small size — which is roughly equal to a credit card — the Raspberry Pi computer is powerful enough to run games such as Quake III Arena and power 1080p video, however the company intends for the device to be used in schools to teach the basics of computer science. A second Raspberry Pi model with 128MB of RAM will be released for $25 at a later date.

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Earlier this week, the Mozilla organization released updated versions of its 3.5 and 3.6 Firefox Web browsers. The updated bits patched 13 vulnerabilities found in the code-base, and 11 of the aforementioned security issues were listed as “critical” by the company. The vulnerabilities ranged from buffer and integer overflows to SSL spoofing. If you’re using Firefox 3.5 or 3.6 be sure to click the “Check for Updates” link under the “Help” menu to grab the latest and greatest from Mozilla.

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If you’re a Verizon FiOS residential broadband customer, with a need for Internet speed, listen up. Big Red has just announced a new plan that boasts some ridiculously fast, lust-worthy uplink and downlink speeds. How fast you ask? How about 150Mbps down and 35Mbps up.

“With a downstream speed of 150 Mbps, consumers can download a two-hour, standard-definition movie (1.5 gigabytes) in less than 80 seconds, and a two-hour HD movie (5 GB) in less than four and a half minutes,” quips the press release.

“The 150/35 Mbps residential offer will be available to the majority of FiOS-eligible households, and sold as a stand-alone service starting at $194.99 a month when purchased with a one-year service agreement and Verizon wireline voice service.”

As you can see, the new service does not come cheap, but if you can afford, justify, or write-off the new hotness, we recommend giving Verizon a call and ordering the high-test connection. The press release is awaiting your scrutiny after the break.

New Verizon FiOS Internet 150/35 Mbps Offer Launches Consumers Into Broadband’s Fastest Lane

NEW YORK – November 22, 2010 – Verizon is launching 150/35 megabits per second (Mbps) Internet service – the fastest mass-market broadband service in the nation – over the company’s all-fiber-optic FiOS network.  The company has begun to roll out the ultra-high-speed service to the majority of the more than 12.5 million homes that the FiOS network passes, and will make the service available to Verizon FiOS small-business customers by the end of the year.

Verizon’s new Internet service surpasses competitors’ offers by pumping three times the downstream speed previously available to FiOS customers.

“By offering the fastest mass-market Internet service in the nation, we’re supporting the immediate and future speed needs of bandwidth-hungry consumers,” said Eric Bruno, Verizon vice president of product management. “The new 150/35 Mbps FiOS Internet offer establishes a new benchmark for high-speed Internet in America, and paves the way for a flurry of emerging bandwidth-intensive applications to reach mainstream status.”

The Difference for Customers

With a downstream speed of 150 Mbps, consumers can download a two-hour, standard-definition movie (1.5 gigabytes) in less than 80 seconds, and a two-hour HD movie (5 GB) in less than four and a half minutes.

Downloading 20 high-resolution photographs (100 megabytes) would take less than five and a half seconds using the 150/35 Mbps service.  With the 35 Mbps upstream speed, consumers can upload those same 20 high-resolution photos in less than 23 seconds.*

The 150/35 Mbps residential offer will be available to the majority of FiOS-eligible households, and sold as a stand-alone service starting at $194.99 a month when purchased with a one-year service agreement and Verizon wireline voice service.

Verizon will continue to offer on a stand-alone basis its next-fastest FiOS Internet speed of 50/20 Mbps, as well as its 25/25 and 15/5 speed tiers.  FiOS Internet speeds of 35/35 Mbps, 25/25 Mbps and 15/5 Mbps will continue to be available in double-, triple- and quadruple-playbundles matched with FiOS TV, FiOS Digital Voice and Verizon Wireless service.

Bruno said the 150/35 Mbps tier takes advantage of Verizon’s robust all-digital, all-fiber-optic network, which extends directly to consumers’ homes and  will ultimately serve 18 million households.  The new speed tier will provide immediate value to consumers already using applications that require high downstream and upstream bandwidth.

“Our new 150/35 Mbps offer will also support burgeoning bandwidth-intensive applications such as Internet video to TV and PC, 3D TV and movie downloads, high-definition and real-time video conferencing, and online data backup,” said Bruno.

Amy Lind, broadband research manager for the global technology market intelligence firm IDC, said: “This is about more than Verizon zooming to the top of the broadband speed chart.  It’s a reflection of Verizon’s vision. Verizon understands that this kind of bandwidth will fuel new product and service development down the road and is poised to allow its customers to reap the benefits of those innovations in the future.”

Introduction of the new 150/35 Mbps FiOS Internet service follows recent Verizon field trials that achieved connection speeds of nearly 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), both downstream and upstream.  When a more advanced XG-PON2 technology was connected to the network several weeks later, connection speeds of 10 Gbps were reached on Verizon’s fiber-optic network.

Once service is connected, Verizon FiOS Internet customers have access to the Verizon In-Home Agent, a free application that gives them valuable tools to set up services.  In-Home Agent will help customers configure Wi-Fi links, set up and manage voice mail, auto-fix video problems, and trouble-shoot and correct Internet issues – all with the simple click of a mouse.

* Upload and download time estimates based on maximum connection speeds. Actual throughput speeds will vary.

Today, at IFA, Samsung executives confirmed previous rumors and outed Google’s next, next mobile OS’ namesake: Honeycomb (also known as Android 3.5). No features or specific details were given about Android 3.5 other than its code name and the fact that it will focus on tablets with larger screens. Samsung also said that there would be multiple Galaxy Tab models with different screen sizes, features, and price points. Though not specifically stated, it would appear as though those models are not due in the near-future; Sammy’s executives reiterated they are laser-focused on the Galaxy Tab’s immanent release (which will get Android 3.0 when it is released, in case you were wondering).

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What, you thought Skyfire for BlackBerry was totally dead in the water? Nope. They’re back at it again, restarting their alpha program for testers. The latest version is upped to 3.5 and has some nice improvements like downloading files from the browser to your device, setting Skyfire as the default BlackBerry browser and a bunch more. Check out the release notes after the jump.

“We are coming back with a new iteration for the Blackberry Alpha. 

As you are aware we temporarily closed the Blackberry Alpha. We planned for a certain number of users on our Alpha system that was quickly exceeded with the leak of the client outside the Alpha community. Please stick to the understanding of the Alpha program and NDA – it is NOT for open distribution. It just creates hassle for all people involved and spoils the experience for our Alpha participants.

This Alpha 3.5 is still targeted for Blackberry Bold mainly firmware 4.6.0.167 and 4.6.0.247 devices. , Feel free to try out the build as well on Blackberry 8900 and 5.0.xx firmware versions of Bold.

The version of Alpha 3.5 is 1.0.0.12799.

What got removed in Alpha 3.5 (vs. Alpha 3.1)?

• Stream Mode: We are actively working on an alternate method to provide streaming for Blackberry that will provide better performance and reduces the number of errors during streaming. This work has not been concluded yet. In the meantime we removed the existing stream mode. Stay tuned!

Thus please focus feedback for Alpha 3.5 on page load experience and basic browsing vs. the media experience.

What’s new in Alpha 3.5

• Inline Text Entry: You can now edit/enter form elements directly within the page, without being interrupted by a dialog box. Makes it more direct, convenient and retains the context.
• Click-to Call: The Blackberry client now will utilize tags in websites that trigger a phone call, when clicked (e.g. callto: and tel: links). You have to confirm before the call is initiated.
• Set as Default Browser: when set, links will open Skyfire
• Downloading of Files: you can now invoke the download of files to your device.
• Improved Scrolling: Further tweaking since the last Alpha.
• Reduced Checkerboard occurrences
• Alpha limit: We implemented a simple mechanism to limit the number of new users in our system. Once reached you see a message. If you encounter this and are part of this Alpha group then please contact us.

Known bugs in this Alpha

• Clear cookies: When you clear cookies in advanced settings it will not work. Will be addressed in the next release.
• Inline Text: We are seeing several issues.
• Sometimes old text is visible (Issue 331 & 409), when re-entering text box, the cursor is positioned at the beginning of the text field (Issue 333).
• Download: timeout when downloading large files (Issue 435)”

UPDATE: Just a word of warning — we’re getting reports from several Mac users that 3.5 has issues with restoring sessions/tabs after exiting and reopening the browser. By issues, we mean it doesn’t work. Windows users are seemingly not affected.

UPDATE 2: If you’re having the problem mentioned above, go to Firefox > Preferences > Privacy [tab]. If “Clear history when Firefox closes” is checked, click on Settings and uncheck “Browsing History”.

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