Gizmos and Gadgets,Cool gadgets,High tech gadget,Tech gadgets,Electronic gadgets,Pc gadget

Slingbox Solo

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:45:00 +0000

Slingbox allows you to watch what’s on your TV from anywhere! It’s perfect for the traveler in your life. With an internet connection users can control their cable box and watch live TV, video from a DVR and even HD content.Slingbox Solo is a product from www.slingmedia.com and it will let you watch your Home TV or DVR through the internet on your computers or mobile phones.This is a great idea and these days being the festival period of Christmas and New Year, this could be a good gift that you can consider giving to your loved ones.With so many LIVE events, TV Shows and Sporting events happenning, this could let you watch the same LIVE without you being to get back to home.

The minimum things that you need to setup and use Slingbox Solo are:

Windows or Mac based PC,
High-speed Internet connection
Home network router.

Here are some of the features of Slingbox Solo taken from their website:

Live Video Buffer Get a Handle On Live TV
The Guide See What's On
Virtual Remote Control Just Like Home
Multiple Viewing Modes
Sizes Go Full Screen or Anywhere In-Between
TV On Your Mobile A Truly Liberating Experience

Nokia’s Smallest Bluetooth Headset Is BH-804

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:26:00 +0000

Recently, Nokia has announced a new Bluetooth headset called the BH-804. Now, if you’re wondering why Nokia is making a splash out of this new product instead of busying itself with a more newsworthy mobile phone, hold your horses folks because the BH-804 boasts something which made it worthy of this coverage. The BH-804 according to Nokia does not only provide crisp and clear audio quality but it happens to be Nokia’s smallest Bluetooth headset ever.

Naturally, the BH-804 comes in ultra-compact design. But don’t let its size fool you because this headset, housed in an aluminum case, features digital signal processing (DSP) which aids in background noise cancellation. This should provide clear audio quality when using it with any phone.

What else could a tiny device such as the BH-804 possible offer us? Well, aside from two user-friendly buttons that manages basic call functions, Nokia is also packing in a neck strap if you want to wear the thing around your neck and not on your ear and a desktop charger.

The BH-804 also provides 4 hours operating time and standby time of 150 hours after continuous charging for one hour. Now, for our more tech-savvy readers who are keen on getting the BH-804, you ought to know that this headset supports Bluetooth specifications 2.0 with EDR and features both hands-free profile 1.5 and headset profile 1.1. Nokia has not announced a price yet, but expect this headset to be available soon.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Started -- Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:15:00 +0000

Have you heard that huge atom smasher in Europe powers up for the first time tomorrow?Of course you have. You've also heard it repeated over and over that the Large Hadron Collider is the biggest, most expensive scientific instrument in history and that it's going to change our fundamental understanding of the universe.The team was holding its breath in the countdown to the switch-on after a series of technical hitches, including problems with the cooling system.The £5 billion machine has been described as a 17-mile racetrack around which two streams of protons - building blocks of matter - run in opposite directions before smashing into one another.

Reaching 99.99 per cent of the speed of light, each beam will pack as much energy as a Eurostar train travelling at 90 mph.The flashes from the collisions may help scientists reproduce the conditions that existed during the first moments after the Big Bang at the birth of the universe.Billed as the world's largest science experiment, the switch-on involved the first stream of subatomic particles - known as Hadrons - being fired into the tunnel, eagerly awaited by 10,000 scientists.

The first collisions are expected in around 30 days.Physicists hope to learn more about the origins of mass, gravity and mysterious dark matter - the "glue" thought to hold the universe together.But concerns have been voiced - in particular by the German chemist Professor Otto Rossler - that black holes created by the LHC will grow uncontrollably and "eat the planet from the inside".These claims have been dismissed by leading scientists, including Prof Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University who said that the LHC is "feeble compared with what goes on in the universe. If a disaster was going to happen, it would have happened already."

Best Case: The Large Hadron Colliders' ALICE experiment successfully creates quark-gluon plasma, a substance theorized to have existed just milliseconds after the Big Bang. By generating temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the sun, scientists hope to watch as this particle goo cools and expands into the particles that we know. That could help scientists answer why protons and neutrons weigh 100 times more than the quarks they're made of.

Worst Case: Scientists inadvertently make a micro black hole, and the earth is quickly erased from existence. Just kidding: scientists at CERN and elsewhere have ruled out the possibility that the LHC will create any kind of doomsday scenario. The black holes that the LHC could theoretically create don't even have enough energy to light up a light bulb. On the other hand, the U.K.'s Astronomer Royal put the odds of destroying the world at 1 in 50 million (which puts it in the realm of possibilities but still not as likely as hitting the lottery).

Google Launched New Web Browser "Chrome"

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:13:00 +0000

Google Chrome is set to be the third contender in a new round of "browser wars", competing with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and its rival Mozilla Firefox. Chrome is touted to be faster, more stable and more secure than the alternatives and was designed specially for next-generation web content – such as video, web-based games, chat and internet banking.Vice president of product management Sundar Pichai and engineering director Linus Upson said the company's developers had set out to "completely rethink" the concept of a web browser.

"On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple... Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better," they said in a post on Google's official blog.The announcement comes one day after Google sent a press release about Chrome to journalists in Europe in the form of a comic book, which quickly spread online.The 38-page comic book attempted to explain the technical concepts behind the web browser in layman terms.

"As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit 'send' a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome," Mr Pichai and Mr Upson said."As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available."We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries."Like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome will be open source – meaning that other developers can contribute to the project or use it as a template for their own work.Firefox is one of the most well-known examples of the open source code ideology, a principle of software development that states that the technology behind a product be made freely available and that encourages community development.

Playstation 3 2.42 Firmware Update Available

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:59:00 +0000

Without any announcements the Playstation 3 2.42 firmware update is available now via the Playstation 3.At the moment there have been no press releases or updates on the Playstation website to tell us what the update entails, so for now we have no idea what the update adds, updates or fixes.The update server is very congested at the moment and it is almost impossible to download the new software, we will keep you up to date with details on the update as we find them.This update improves the playback quality of some PLAYSTATION 3 and PlayStation format software."

JVC GR-DA30

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:02:00 +0000

funky looking JVC GR-DA20 camcorder made its way over from Italy to become the JVC GR-DA30 (or GR-DA30US). It’s got that same vertical sliding LCD screen and all. I actually got a chance to hold it for a moment and I have to say it’s not as bad as it looks. It is a lot smaller than it looks from the pictures, so the LCD screen doesn’t seem so garish. Besides recording to MiniDV tape, here are the specs:On the JVC GR-DA30 you are looking at a 2.4″ sliding LCD screen. I have yet to figure out the reason for this, as it doesn’t slide very far, but I’m sure there is a good one. The screen is not 16:9 ratio, although the camcorder will record in that format.

The JVC GR-DA30US also features a 30x optical zoom, VGA still photos, and JVC’s 3D Noise Reduction. The camcorder is built with a 680K, 1/6″ CCD, which is standard at this price point. Out of the total 680K pixels, the GR-DA30 has 340K effective pixels.For only $199.99, I’m sure many budget-conscious buyers will be drawn to the JVC GR-DA30US. Once they are more available, I would definitely recommend heading to your local electronics super-store to handle it before you buy.

iPhone 3G

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 04:57:00 +0000

Just over a year after Apple birthed the first iPhone, the long-awaited, next-generation iPhone 3G has arrived bearing a mildly tweaked design and a load of new features. With access to a faster 3G wireless network, Microsoft exchange server e-mail, and support for a staggering array of third-party software from the iPhone Apps store, the new handset is the iPhone we've been waiting for. It still lacks some basic features but when compared with what the original model was year ago, this device sets a new benchmark for the cell phone world.

With the iPhone 3G, Apple appears to have fixed some call-quality performance issues we had with the previous model--in our initial tests, the volume is louder with less background buzz than before. Music and video quality were largely unchanged, but we didn't have many complaints in that department to begin with. We're worried about battery life--some early reviews indicate that the iPhone 3G lasts only a day--but we'll run full tests over the next couple of days and report our results on this page.

Price may well remain our largest concern. New AT&T customers and most current AT&T customers can buy the iPhone 3G for $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. If you don't qualify for that price--check your AT&T account to find out--you'll pay $399 and $499 respectively. Either way, you'll pay $15 more per month ($74.99 total) for a plan comparable with the original iPhone ($59 per month). So, while you'll pay less outright to buy the handset, you'll make it up over the course of a standard two-year AT&T contract.The iPhone 3G hangs on to all the original iPhone features and throws in a few more, so we'll concentrate on what's new. Lucky for first-gen iPhone owners, most of the impressive array of additions--save 3G support and enhanced GPS--come along with the free 2.0 software update. For more on the organizer features, stocks and weather widgets, YouTube app, notepad, threaded texting, and visual voicemail.

The iPhone 3G's support for AT&T's wireless UMTS/HSDPA wireless broadband network comes too late for original iPhone buyers who grew frustrated with the slow Web surfing speeds over the 2.5G EDGE network, but it makes for a much more satisfying second-generation device. Safari consistently delivered speeds of about 300Kbps to 500Kbps and even faster at times in our tests. That's a huge jump over the typical EDGE speeds of less than 100Kbps. Web pages that used to take minutes took only seconds to load via 3G. We'll do more scientific comparison Web testing (3G versus EDGE) over the next few days and post the results on our review. In the meantime, check out this Prizefight.

The IPhone 3G offers a host of additional new features, from the noteworthy to the trivial. For the enterprise, there's remote wipe (to erase data in case of a stolen or lost phone) and integration with Cisco IPSec VPN for remote network access. You'll also find calendar colors and a new interface for entering passwords. (Now the screen temporarily displays the last character you entered so you can verify that you haven't mistyped.) We found the new ability to take screen captures (by holding the Home button and pressing the power/sleep key) especially useful. Screenshots end up in the camera's photo gallery.

Unlike the original iPhone, you cannot activate the iPhone 3G via iTunes. Instead, you will have to activate the phone and sign your new contract in either an AT&T store or an Apple store. Though we understand the motivation behind this move--AT&T is trying to ensure every iPhone sold is activated on its own network--the experience isn't as nice as sitting in the comfort of your home. Once you have your phone out of the store, you will need to sync it with your iTunes account after first downloading the latest iTunes 7.7 update (download for Windows or Mac first. That took us a long time on the iPhone 3G's first day on sale but hopefully those glitches will subside over the next few days. If you're replacing an original iPhone, make sure you back up your data from the old iPhone first; you'll then be able to transfer it to your new handset.

PS3 firmware update 2.41 Is Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:33:00 +0000

PlayStation 3 firmware update 2.41, which brings the system in-game XMB and trophy support in the form of a stable patch, is now available to download.The previous PS3 Network Update, firmware 2.4, debut these features last week, but the firmware was quickly yanked from availability by Sony amid reports that it locked up people's systems. While these reports seemed to be scant, the company decided to use caution, pull the update and retool in favor of 2.41.

2.40 was withdrawn shortly after its release on July 2 when it became clear that it effectively 'bricked' some consoles.Not all PS3s were affected by the problems with 2.40, and it is not clear exactly where the root cause (or causes) of the issues lay as examples of all major configurations appear to have been hit by the bug(s).

PS3 firmware 2.36 Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:34:00 +0000

As promised, PS3 firmware 2.36 is live. This is a precursor to the very desirable firmware 2.40, which will include in-game XMB. Firmware 2.36, on the other hand, will only improve "system stability when playing select PlayStation format software titles."

PlayStation Network director of operations Eric Lempel has posted an exciting item on the PlayStation Blogs. He has announced that the PlayStation 3 Firmware 2.36 update is coming soon and he dropped some confirmations about the much-anticipated Firmware 2.40.Lempel wasn't quite clear on what exactly Firmware 2.36 does, but he did mention that it stabilizes software performance for some select PS3 titles. What he had to say next, however, was a lot more exciting. It reads:

We’re also happy to officially report that the 2.40 system software update for PS3 will include “XMB” access in-game. The update will also include “trophies,” an exciting new feature that we’ll be providing more details on soon, as well as some other new enhancements. We’ve talked about some of this on the blog previously and know that many of you can’t wait to get your hands on these features. You can expect us to share all of the official details shortly.Sounds awesome. The good times for the PS3 just keep on rolling these days. We'll give you more updates as they come, so stick around.

July 11 2008 Is 3G iPhone Release Date

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:07:00 +0000

The official date for the Apple 3G iPhone will be July 11th 2008 for 22 biggest markers and the UK is included in that list, at the moment there is no word on the prices for the UK iPhone 3G but we will keep you posted.So with the confirmed date of July 11th and with the US price of $299 for the 16GB and $199 for the 8GB iPhone 3G we can see happy days looming closer.With anticipation at a fever pitch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G to an appreciative audience during the opening keynote speech at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference.on Monday.

The new iPhone, sporting a thinner and sleeker look, will support faster 3G (third-generation) broadband wireless networks and come with built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities, Jobs said. Support for 3G networks will enable the new iPhone to download data up to 2.8 times faster than the earlier model, Jobs said. Built-in GPS will make it easier for users to navigate roads.

The iPhone 3G will come with a 3.5-inch screen and have better battery life, with talk time of five hours, stand-by time of 300 hours, six hours of high-speed browsing time, 20 hours of audio and seven hours of video, Jobs said. Some who had previously bought iPhones complained about its battery life and that was a problem that Apple needed to solve with the new iPhone, Jobs said.

Quicker data downloads and lower prices are key to greater adoption of iPhones worldwide, Jobs said. Apple has cut the price by half to make the new iPhone more affordable for users, so that the 8G-byte model will sell for US$199 and the 16G-byte model for $299. The company found that 56 percent of people surveyed wouldn't buy the earlier iPhone because they found it expensive.

Apple Unveiled MobileMe Application

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:35:00 +0000

At the 2008 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple unveiled a service that allows users to wirelessly sync and access information across multiple devices.Dubbed MobileMe, it's a cloud storage service that enables push e-mail and real-time synchronization of calendar items, contact information, and other data on an iPhone without the need for a Microsoft Exchange server.

The Web-based MobileMe works with the iPhone's mail, calendar, and contacts applications in addition to working with Mail, iCal, and Address Book on the Macintosh and Outlook on Windows. Additionally, MobileMe offers online storage for documents, files, and photos.During the presentation at WWDC, Apple showed how photos taken from a phone can be automatically uploaded to the Web-based MobileMe account for storage or to share with friends.

Apple also launched a site called Me.com, a portal where users also can manage their MobileMe accounts. MobileMe applications feature no advertisements and support a drag-and-drop interface, according to Apple.The subscription-based service will be available on July 11. It's priced at $99 per year with 20 GB of storage, and subscribers can purchase additional storage capacity at $40 per year for 20 GB or $99 per year for 40 GB.As expected, MobileMe is a replacement for the company's .Mac service. Current .Mac users will be automatically upgraded, Apple said.

The Jeep Renegade Concept Car Looks Awesome!

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:39:00 +0000

A B-segment Jeep concept vehicle, the Renegade is a sporty, "minimized" two-seater ideally suited for the all-weather fun of dune-surfing or rock-crawling."Jeep has a great future and great future products, a lot of what you see in the Renegade concept will be integrated into Jeeps that we will see over the next few years," predicted explained Steve Schmelz, Sea View Chrysler Jeep, Ocean Township. "Everyone who has seen the Renegade at auto shows around America has loved it."

"Everyone at our dealership is very excited with the possibility that we could one day see this vehicle on our showroom floor," said Christopher Mackey, Freehold Chrysler Jeep. "The Renegade concept puts a different twist on what it means to be "green' with parts being molded from soy and other recyclable materials."

" "The Green Machine.' Jeep is taking us from Army "green' to environmental "green,' " said Anthony Maffucci, Toms River Jeep. "Good for the Earth we all dwell and dawdle on and still the best for our four-wheeling enthusiasts. This time Jeep will produce the Renegade with the heart of a rebel with a cause.""With an electric motor powering each axle, the Jeep Renegade concept is designed for a "hang on and have fun experience,'" said Tony Shamenkov, Jeep Renegade concept principal exterior designer.

Constructed of environmentally responsible materials, sustainability is a key theme of the Jeep Renegade concept.Renegade is targeted at customers in the "Stylish Green" segment of the marketplace — those who are extremely environmentally oriented, appreciate high-tech and innovation, and enjoy performance combined with style in keeping with their "green" attitude.

The advanced propulsion system in the Jeep Renegade concept starts with a 40-mile lithium-ion battery pack. A range extender — in Renegade's case, a small-displacement (1.5-liter, 3-cylinder) BLUETEC diesel engine — allows for journeys beyond 40 miles. In fact, the Jeep Renegade concept boasts a 400-mile range.

Scion Unveils Hako Coupe Concept

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:22:00 +0000

Any hope that Scion would be revealing the next iteration of the tC, or a clean-sheet sports coupe with which to replace it, were dashed this afternoon in New York when the wraps were pulled off the Hako Coupe Concept. The Hako is essentially a Scion xB that's lost a couple of doors and gained a massive schnoz, a seriously upright windshield and some highly stylized accents. Scion's PR people insist that the coupe's design is inspired by the "emergence of American vintage style among young Tokyo trendsetters," which may be true, but Scion's veep, Jack Hollis' remark that the Hako "is the sporty version of a box." Oxymoronic? We think so.

As with most of Scion's concepts, the Hako is a combination of form and functionality, with an emphasis on living the Scion life that the brand has fought hard to establish. As such, there's a focus on lifestyle elements that find their way inside, with storage crevices for magazines and mobile phones, flat-screen monitors and a videogame-inspired dash that would be all the rage if you were eight and it were 1992.

While the Hako is technically a coupe, it's not what we were hoping for, especially considering that Scion insists that the brand has its finger on the pulse of the youth market. What do young, car-crazed youths really want? We'd suggest that it's a few stands away, sitting at the Hyundai booth in the form of the Genesis coupe.

Dean Kamen's Robot Arm has Mind-control and 3D-spatial Interfaces

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:47:00 +0000

Inventor extraordinaire Dean Kamen spoke at D today about the latest developments in the Luke arm. Not that it wasn't already impressive enough, but Kamen's company, DEKA Research, has made even more amazing developments in the arm's interface, complementing the early mechanical controls with spatial and neural interfaces. The shot above was taken of a man with transected nerves, which were interfaced directly to the arm, enabling him to delicately utilize numerous degrees of motion within hours of installation. Also in development for the Luke arm is a spatial interface (which would intelligently give some control of movement back to the arm itself), as well as a non-invasive mind interface that utilizes infrared to read neural signals through the skull. Furthermore, to lend in balance and motion with heavier usage, a new body-mounting chassis was built, featuring embedded bladders that tense up.

Kamen said that while mines tend to blow off legs, the improvised explosives used in Iraq tend to sever arms, a trickier limb to replicate. Anyway, he'll have more to say on his work on Thursday.

The 2010 Chevy Camaro Preview

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:12:00 +0000

The 2010 Chevy Camaro is one of the most highly-anticipated new vehicles to come from GM in years. Ever since it was announced, a stream of pics and speculation have fed ever growing excitement for the reborn muscle car's return. Enthusiasts have already seen virtual road tests, camo-free spy shots, and even videos of the car in action, but now one intrepid spy has managed to take things a step further -- they may be a little blurry, but someone captured an example of the 2010 Camaro making its way down the production line.

It's unclear where or when they were taken, but speculation is these pics are from GM's Oshawa, Ontario plant where the Camaro will be built. Given that the car is set to launch as a 2010 model (and the assembly line is conspicuously empty) these are almost certainly just preproduction examples, but it's interesting to see how the hot new coupe will be put together. One surprising thing about the photos is the complete lack of human beings in them -- meaning either the plant wasn't running at the time, or the General's assembly robots have really come a long way. Also in some shots you can get a good view of the car's final shape, including the presence of a pretty serious blind spot from the large C-pillar. Then again, with a rumored 400 horsepower coming from either the 6.2-liter LS3 V-8 of the Corvette or the 6.0-liter L76 V-8 powering the Pontiac G8, you shouldn't have any trouble avoiding people on the freeway.

Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:28:00 +0000

PCTV HD Pro Stick is the first ultra-compact USB 2.0 powered TV tuner in an attractive stick form factor that brings the brilliant sharpness of HDTV via ATSC to your PC. The new digital TV standard ATSC comes over the air and for free in high or standard definition, and there is no subscription required. In addition to ATSC, also standard analog TV (NTSC) can be received, via cable, satellite or antenna.Following are the salient features.

Features:

Watch live high quality digital HD and SD TV without service fees from anywhere on your laptop
Break free and PlaceShift with the sleek USB 2.0 powered portable PCTV device
Sit back and relax from afar with full remote control access
The options are unlimited with full support for both analog (NTSC) and digital (ATSC) reception
Instantly transform your PC into a personal digital video recorder (DVR)
Take complete control of when you watch your favorite shows with TimeShifting
Never miss a critical part of your favorite show again with pause, rewind and replay
Schedule recordings with the integrated Electronic Program Guide
Turn your Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) computer into a full featured analog and digital TV set (MCE remote sold separately)
Eliminatethe guess work by automatically recording shows direct-to-DVD and/or inthe destination file format of choice (i.e. iPod, PSP, DivX, etc.)
Capture from most consumer devices with analog outputs (e.g. VCRs, camcorders, DVD players, etc.) and then edit and enhance with the included Pinnacle Studio QuickStart software

PS3 Firmware 2.35 Update Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Thu, 15 May 2008 05:39:00 +0000

PlayStation 3 firmware update 2.35 is now available. According to the US PlayStation Blog, v2.35 is "a relatively minor update to improve stability of some PS3 titles." We're willing to wager a handful of stolen cars that "some PS3 titles" is a better way of saying Grand Theft Auto IV, whose compatibility with older PS3 models has become a topic of discussion and a sore spot for early adopters of Sony's console. An alleged Take-Two email yesterday hinted at a Sony firmware update.

As noted in the comments of the blog by Sony's Al de Leon, this upgrade does not fix GTA IV. Said de Leon, "I just want to clarify that this upcoming firmware update isn't related to GTA IV. For those of you who may still have an issue playing the game on your PS3, we have identified a solution that should resolve the issue. You can contact SCEA Consumer Services for support."

BlackBerry Bold Officially Announced

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:04:00 +0000

RIM has officially announced the release of the BlackBerry 9000 Bold. Expect the newest addition to the RIM family to appear sometime this ’summer’ on AT&T, then T-Mobile.The BlackBerry Bold 9000 still looks like existing BlackBerrys, but it's packed with new power, most notably a 624-Mhz processor and high-speed 3G networking.The new BlackBerry Bold represents a tremendous step forward in business-grade smartphones and lives up to its name with incredible speed, power and functionality, all wrapped in a beautiful and confident design,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO, Research In Motion.

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone comes with the most vivid and bold display ever introduced on a BlackBerry smartphone. Its half-VGA (480×320 resolution) color LCD is fused to the undersurface of the lens, making images leap out with stunning definition and clarity. Pictures are vibrant and razor sharp, while videos play smoothly and web pages, documents, presentations and messages snap with exceptional quality and contrast.

While it is designed to meet the extensive requirements of the business professional during the day, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone also caters to the business person’s consumer side during evenings and weekends. It features a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom. The enhanced media player can display pictures and slideshows quickly, play movies smoothly in full screen mode, and manage an entire music collection. Audio can be played over the handset’s dual speakers in rich, stereo sound, and when using wired headphones or external speakers, the media player gives the user an equalizer with 11 preset filters – like “Lounge”, “Jazz” and “Hip Hop” – that boost or soften audio ranges to create the perfect ambiance.

For even broader high-speed network coverage, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone supports the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi standards, ideal for use in enterprise or campus wireless LAN deployments, over Wi-Fi hotspots and on wireless home networks. A new “Push Button Setup” is included, making it faster for users to connect to protected wireless networks that require a sign on process.The BlackBerry Bold smartphone (model number: 9000) is scheduled to be available from wireless carriers around the world beginning this summer.

Key Features

**Tri-band HSDPA
**Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g)
**Half-VGA (480×320 resolution) color LCD
**128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory
**2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom
**16GB microSD/SDHC card support
**Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0 support
**iTunes support via BlackBerry Media Sync
**5 hour talk time, 13 days stand-by

Nokia 8800

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:14:00 +0000

From the illuminated keypad, to the precision glass and metal body and matching headset, the Nokia 8800 oozes quality. It's the Audi R8 of the celluar chic parade. Good looking, instantly desirable and frighteningly expensive.Forget touch screen, it's just Nokia's standard interface. It's a breeze to use next to some of the other fiddly phones on the market. We scrolled through the menu with the grace and style of Madame Moss in Milan.

Although its features can't rival other fashion blowers such as the Sony Ericsson, it has the essentials. You get a 3MP camera with autofocus, 3G and a decent music player. But this isn't about media gumph, it's the individual touches that make the 8800 Arte so special. Turn the handset over to mute an incoming call, reveal an analogue clock by tapping the front or choose from some specially designed wallpaper.At over £300, it's expensive, but with a timeless design and superior build, you're paying for quality. A phone classic.

Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Luckily, Casio has 1200 of them -- that's how many frames its new EX-F1 can shoot every second, at top speed. This creates ultra-slo-mo movies that turn everyday sights like falling water into eye-popping, mind-bending visuals, albeit at low resolution (336x96-pixels).It can rattle off full fat 6MP snaps at a memory card-punishing 60fps, and even night time scarcely slows the Casio down, with an epilepsy-inducing stroble flash that fires seven times a second. Take a time out to look at the images, and you'll find them lively and colourful, if not overly detailed.

Unlike an SLR, you can't swap the heavy, built-in 12x optical zoom lens but as it's stabilised, sharp and virtually free from distortion, it's hard to see why you'd want to (unless sluggish zooming gets on your nerves). In fact, many SLR owners will be enviously eyeing the F1's simple manual settings, intuitive click-wheel control and -- especially -- Connery-smooth full HD movie mode that can output punchy 1080i movies via HDMI to your flatscreen TV.It's the world's fastest consumer camera, it's easy to use and it's a decent HD movie camera too -- suddenly it doesn't seem so expensive...

Fujifilm Finepix S100FS

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:06:00 +0000

Forget triple X or even quadruple X, this bad boy has no less than 14 X zoom to its name, thanks to its eye-popping super-zoom lens. With a twist of your wrist, you can zip the FS100's generous optics from a landscape-spanning 28mm wideangle setting to a paparazzi-impressing 400mm telephoto. Basically, it lets you frame almost any scene perfectly, without waiting for a whiny motorised lens to zoom in or having to swap for more powerful glassware.

But this is no digital SLR: you can't swap the lens out and the viewfinder shows only a flickery electronic image instead of the bright view you get with a real SLR. So what do you get for half a grand? Behind the crisp (and optically stablised) lens lives a respectable 11MP sensor that can pump out vivid images, smartface detection and red-eye removal technology, plus colour tweaks that aim to copy Fujifilm's old Velvia and Provia 35mm films.

The detailed 2.5-inch screen can fold out to help framing, and there are manual features, burst modes and sharp VGA movie clips. But it's also much slower and heavier (a kilo!) than today's nippy SLRs -- unless you really need to pack all that optical power in one punch, a twin lens SLR kit will save you money, time and weight.

Navigon 2100

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:50:00 +0000

The plastic body attracts fingerprints like Pete Doherty court summons, but the Navigon 2100 is packed with features for stress-free navigation. Lane Assist highlights the lane you need to be in for motorway exits (a godsend for mid-lane hoggers). Signpost Display shows true-to-life signs; you also get a countdown to each exit and safety camera info.

The 2100 is easy to use, although the keys are too small for our large fingers. Route calculation times are some of the best of test, consistently around 15 seconds, re-routing initially takes seconds, although at one point berating us to U-turn.These gripes aside, the innovative driving feature make the Navigon 2100 stand out from other mappers on the market.

Nokia NGage

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:46:00 +0000

In its previous incarnation Nokia's N-Gage was a handheld, but now it's back as a mobile games service, where you can download games on the move and play online. Sounds good?It is if you've got an N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95 and N95 8GB which allows you to download the service, and its even better on the new 5320 Xpress Music which come with the application pre installed. Rubbish, if you've got any other Nokia blower as it's not compatible.

If you are one of the chosen few to get the "Gage" the choice of games isn't bad. Fife 08, Asphalt 3: Street Rules and World Series of Poker are available now, with Tetris, The Sims, Dogz, Crash Bandicote and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, promised soon. You can bag these from Glu, EA, THQ Wireless and Gameloft but a hefty price of £8. Cheeky.Use is unlimited though, and you can try every game for free. Unfortunately if you change your handset, you lose the game, which sucks if it's close to upgrade time.

When it comes to playing the games there's no comparison to a DS Lite or PSP. On a N81's 2.4in screen, it's still enjoyable but ramp the complexity up and things become trickier; we'd have preferred a few more inches of pitch in FIFA 08. The headphone connection gets in the way as well, so a Bluetooth stereo headset is essential.The N-Gage Arena Community is pretty impressive. You can chat and play with other gamers and take part in mass online tournaments. Just make sure you check your network charges first. You can get your competition juices flowing; the more you play, the more points you score and the better your ranking.

If you've got a compatible handset and access to WiFi, N-Gage lets you play alone (or with others) in the bath, on a train, or even up a mountain. But we're not totally convinced. At £8 a pop, games are pricey and really need to check with network download costs. If handset and game choice improve, N-Gage could be a winner.

LG Secret

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:36:00 +0000

First came the chocolate, then the Shine and now we've got the Secret -- the latest in LG's Black Label series. This instalment, showcasing itself as the world's thinnest five-megapixel cam-phone, is the finest to date.The UI really is a peach, with the Touch Media functionality being a particularly awesome, user-friendly feature. It allows you to control music and edit photos the ease and finesse of a Fernando Torres finish. Special mention goes to the games, which transform the Secret into somewhat of a mini-Wii remote. There's plenty of fun to be had flicking the handset towards the bullseye in darts or crashing a mammoth home run during an inning of baseball.

The camera is rammed with features, but the picture quality itself still falls slightly short of some of the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot blowers doing the rounds - still a mighty fine snapper, though.This super-slinky slider is also as pretty as pre-meltdown Britney, in pigtails, with a cherry-flavoured lollypop. The touch-sensitive neon blue ripples on the screen and coupling haptic sensors add exponentially to the Secret's substantial sex appeal.

LG has been heading up the fashion phone stakes for some time and its style-conscious fingerprints are all over the Secret. Sadly, we mean quite literally.In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking the big Secret was the birth of a fingerprint snaring screen technology used to ward off would-be light-fingered scallywags. The self-heralded 'tempered glass' may well protect from scratches, but you'll have a job to see past your own paw prints, which is a crying shame because we have very little else to bemoan here.

Nokia Tube To Take On Apple iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (alex martin) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:05:00 +0000

Nokia may be the dominant handset-maker worldwide, but it too apparently feels the need to develop an iPhone wannabe, and is currently working on its first touchscreen phone, codenamed "Tube," according to InfoWorld. The sighting comes a week after AT&T (NYSE: T) said " within months" all of its smartphones, including the iPhone, will be running on 3G, and other reports are surfacing today, saying that WSJ's Walt Mossberg says the 3G iPhone will be here in two months.

Competition in the handset business is fierce with Apple setting the new bar for ease-of-use, attractiveness and the ability to use multimedia content. InfoWorld said Nokia's "Tube" was shown in a slide at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference in Redwood City. The touchscreen device uses a lot of graphics and will allow photos to be easily uploaded. There's no date for when the phone will be shipped. Of course, Nokia likes to point out that its not a close race. Since the launch of the iPhone in June, Apple has shipped up to 6 million devices, and Nokia ships that many overnight, the company said.

But perhaps, the 3G iPhone will be a closer match, offering users the ability to consume content much faster. Last week, AT&T Mobility's CEO Ralph de la Vega, said that within months all of the carrier's smartphones will be running on the 3G network. When asked to clarify that statement to see it included the iPhone, he essentially said yes. CNET reports today that Mossberg recently said publicly that the iPhone "will be 3G in 60 days," which lines up nicely with Apple's Worldwide Developers' Conference and when the phone's App store goes live.

Nokia has codenamed the challenger as Tube. The company said that Tube would be their first touch device.Nokia Tube concept was showcased at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference in Redwood City. The company added that Tube would support Java unlike the iPhone which lacks support for it and Flash.