Mobile Technology
The $20 cell phone is on the horizon
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August 10, 2005 Approximately 80 percent of the world's population has wireless coverage, though, only about 25 percent subscribe to wireless services due largely to the cost of mobile phones. This represents a huge opportunity for delivering mobile services to large sections of the world's population. In India alone, roughly 11 percent of its total population has telecom connectivity with a mobile subscriber base of 58 million. All of which makes Texas instruments latest cost-effective single-chip cell phone solution very significant – available in less than 12 months time, the chip will reduce the cost of manufacturing cell phones by around 30% and as Texas Instruments (TI) Chairman Tom Engibous announced, “the $20 cell phone is on the horizon.” Read More
Creative's Magnesium 30GB Zen Vision MP3 Player with 3.7 inch Hi-Res Colour Screen
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August 5, 2005 Another MP3 player? Well yes, but the Zen Vision has a magnesium casing and comes with a 3.7-inch SharpPix high-resolution 640x480 262,144-colour screen for photo viewing and digital video playback. Featuring a transflective screen that provides excellent image and video quality even in bright sunlit conditions, the 30GB Zen Vision is "the business", at least for the next week or two. Available in either pearl white or black, the diminutive Zen Vision measures 4.9 by 2.9 by .8 inches and weighs 8.4 ounces and will cost US$399.99 which makes it good value compared with an iPod, heh! Read More
Popkomm’s annual ‘Innovation in Music and Entertainment Awards’
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August 4, 2005 With a goal of providing a global showcase for the best new business ideas, the brightest entrepreneurs and the hottest startups in the music, media and entertainment technology sectors, the ‘Innovation in Music and Entertainment ’ (IMEA Awards) held at international music and entertainment business show Popkomm have never been more interesting or relevant. The fourteen finalists for the Popkomm-IMEA Awards, which will be conducted on the first day of Popkomm 2005 in Berlin on September 14th, include a stunning array of digital entertainment ideas and initiatives. Our article is hyperlinked to all 14 of them. Read More
Lightweight fold-up solar charger for AA Batteries
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August 3, 2005 Thanks to the proliferation of handheld devices, the population’s battery addiction is growing at an alarming rate while we await fuel cells or some other way of keeping our MP3s, handhelds and PVRs working within our lifestyle needs. Rechargeable batteries make a lot of sense in the meantime, and now a new fold-up solar charger might make life a little easier for at least some of us. The PowerFilm AA Foldable solar charger is ultra lightweight, thin, and recharges batteries in a highly effective manner in varying sunlight conditions while optimising charging time and protecting batteries from over-charging. It recharges 2 AA rechargeable (NiMH or NiCad) batteries in four hours or four batteries in eight hours, weighs less than 4 extra batteries and folds to pocket size. The military version is already on the market and reportedly a big favourite with soldiers in remote locations. Read More
Wireless Traffic Report Application from Palm
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July 29, 2005 While there is more information readily available than at any other point in history, there is not much information that is really need-to-know-NOW. Sitcom TV, indeed 95% of the entertainment delivered by real-time wireless audio and video services (formerly known as television and radio) can be painlessly time-shifted, even archived , until a convenient slot in your schedule appears. In the grand scheme of information that is time-critical, there’s news, sport, weather and traffic reports with the latter two high on the list of things you don’t know that can hurt you. In 2003, 51 US urban areas experienced more than 20 hours of delay per rush-hour traveler – 20 hours of wasted existence. Traffic reports have traditionally been one of the stronger drawcards of morning television and rush-hour radio but as wireless information services become more sophisticated, we’ll be able to see exactly what the situation is on the roads between here and there on our handheld. Which is why Palm’s announcement of Traffic for Treo Smartphones is important – it’s a glimpse of the wireless connected future – and it’s available in ten cities now: Atlanta, Baltimore/DC, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. Read More
Laptop harness holds any laptop in perfect position to entertain passengers in the rear seat
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July 30, 2005 Now here's a fabulous idea - a harness that holds any laptop in a near perfect position to entertain children in the rear seat of ANY vehicle. If you have a laptop with a DVD player, buying one of these US$24.99 harnesses means you now have a back seat entertainment system. The CradleVue laptop computer travel harness suspends any laptop between the two front seats of nearly any vehicle, installs in about one minute and is fully adjustable to accommodate nearly any size or make of notebook computer in sport utility vehicles (SUVs), mini vans, cars, and trucks with integrated or adjustable headrests. The product is made of nylon webbing, tent-quality bungee-like shock cord, hook and loop fastening, and is sewn to rigid quality standards. Read More
Mobile phone reliability survey names the most reliable mobile phone
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July 28, 2005 While the mobile phone manufacturers continue to upgrade functionality and our phones have a shorter and shorter lifespan, one of the issues which never seems to get much attention from the media are the defect rates of mobile phones – the frequency that mobile phones need repair. Obviously, this is a jealously guarded secret amongst manufacturers but one of the world’s most respected telecommunications magazines recently did some research on the subject, polling 12,000 people who reviewed 38 models of mobile phone. Sagem turned out to be the most reliable brand with NEC and Samsung filling the placings. And the most reliable individual model of mobile telephone on the market is … Read More
Samsung Launches Satellite DMB Phone that Slides and Rotates
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July 27, 2005 Samsung Electronics is the world’s most valuable consumer electronics brand and the future looks incredibly bright for the Korean manufacturer, having recently overtaken Sony as the number one consumer electronics brand in the prestigious Business Week/Interbrand “Best Global Brands” report. In the five years since the annual ranking of the 100 largest global brands was first produced five years ago, no other global brand has risen as much in brand value -- 186%, to $14.9 billion, by the end of 2004. What’s this got to do with a new mobile phone? Everything! Samsung has recognised the opportunity to leverage off the universal recognition offered by being a leading player in handset production as the world adopts the mobile phone and it has hitched its star to the inevitable rise of the convergence device. Samsung’s latest offering which went on sale in Korea yesterday is arguably the most advanced phone in the world at this point in time, and the world’s 14th largest company is posturing quite clearly that it will continue at the forefront. This latest satellite DMB phone with a unique “slide and rotate” form factor. Samsung’s B200, which was first unveiled at MIPTV/MILIA in Cannes, France last April, is the most recent addition to its growing line-up of satellite DMB phones. Read More
Archos AV700 18cm Personal Video Recorder
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July 15, 2005 Personal Video Recorders have not exactly set the world on fire at the rate everyone expected given the public’s acceptance and indeed embrace of the MP3 player. Indeed, one could be excused for wondering why PVR sales are sluggish. Is it the inability of the retailers and manufacturers to communicate the killer functionality, the high pricing of most PVRs or that the general public is having trouble wrapping its collective brain cells around the personal entertainment centre concept, time-shifting ad infinitum. Accordingly, it will be interesting to see how well Archos’ new AV700 fares with its release this week in the company’s home market of France, and availability over the coming fortnight in most foreign markets (United States, United Kingdom and Australia). The AV700’s biggest selling feature is the 18cm (7 inch) wide screen and the 100 Gigabyte drive capable of storing 400 hours of video and/or your entire MP3 collection. It isn't cheap, but you want one .... don't you! Read More
Ten years old today - a revolution in a decade!
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July 14, 2005 Today is the tenth birthday of the MP3 – the file format that has reached ubiquitous usage in every language on the planet was named on this day, July 14th, 1995 by researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. The audio team at Fraunhofer decided to use “.mp3” as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology (replacing “.bit”) following an internal poll and soon MP3 became the generally accepted acronym for the ISO standard IS 11172-3 “MPEG Audio Layer 3.“ And the result is now history - over 80 million MP3 players will be sold worldwide next year.
France Telecom offers ''Big Screen'' Video EyeWear to Mobile Phone Users
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July 10, 2005 France Telecom's wireless unit, Orange SA, will soon roll out a new mobile video service that will let cellular phone subscribers view TV, movies, photos and broadband Internet content with a big screen viewing effect using video eyewear from MicroOptical. MicroOptical's video eyewear contains two Kopin full-colour, QVGA-resolution (320 x 240) CyberDisplay 230K microdisplays. The sleek eyewear allows users to privately view large-size video or pictures equivalent to a 12-inch screen as seen from three feet away, yet simultaneously view their surroundings thanks to the small size of the frame and MicroOptical's patented optics which allow the user to see around the screen. Read More
iRiver's miniscule U10 PVR and multimedia player
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July 8, 2005 Iriver has shown its latest range of flash-memory based audio and multimedia players in Korea and one of the more interesting amongst the expected bunch of smaller, larger capacity devices was the U10, a tiny flash-memory based multimedia player which appears to be all screen when it’s not in its TV connectivity cradle. Now it may be all screen, but there’s still not much to the device – the 2.2-inch QVGA landscape screen is only 320 x 240 pixels, so you’ll still need a vivid imagination even if you have recorded your favourite TV show. Read More
Fujitsu Triples Charging Capacity of Fuel Cells for Mobile Phones
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Tokyo, July 6, 2005 Fujitsu today announced its co-development with NTT DoCoMo of a prototype high-capacity micro fuel cell and the prototype development of an external recharger for FOMA handsets. For the prototype micro fuel cell device, the concentration of the methanol fuel used was raised from 30%, the concentration used for the companies' previous fuel cells, to a remarkably higher concentration of over 99%. This enables the prototype device to charge up to three FOMA handset batteries with just 18 cc of methanol. Read More
The first self-playing digital audio book
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July 2, 2005 The first self-playing digital audio book was announced this week, and although there was no huge fanfare, the moment was a significant one as it’s the first time that electronic media of any form has been sold complete with the player. FindawayWorld is developing a range of digital audio consumer products and the first product to market is the Playawaywhich will be sold pre-loaded with premier content from leading publishers and authors. Designed in conjunction with IDEO, one of the industry's leading product innovation and design firms, Playaway can be expected to take an immediate chunk of the audio book market as it offers the ability to go straight from the shelves to your ears without the need for downloading or another audio player as it is entirely self-contained. Playaway is expected to announce an array of licensing deals with content creators, publishers and authors in the near future. Read More
Appliance ''Placeshifts'' the Living Room TV
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July 1, 2005 Sling Media yesterday announced the US availability of the much-anticipated Slingbox. Transforming Windows XP based PCs and laptops into personal on-the-go digital TVs, the Slingbox allows individuals anywhere-anytime access to their own living room television experience with no additional monthly service fees. In a concept quite similar to Sony's LocationFree TV which enables you to watch your home TV in almost real time from anywhere via the internet, the Slingbox is an appliance which when used in conjunction with broadband turns any Internet-connected laptop or desktop PC into a personal TV, enabling consumers to watch their cable, satellite, or personal video recorder (PVR) programming from wherever they are in the world. If the Slingbox is coupled with a broadband Internet connection, the viewer's live TV stream can be "placeshifted" via the Internet to a PC located anywhere in the world. Read More
The Cableyoyo - instant hit product!
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June 30, 2005 Some products appear very cool from the get-go and with a name like cableyoyo, this was a contender before we even knew what it did. Cableyoyo suits everyone with fixed & mobile electronic devices. It is stylish, blends seamlessly with any electronic device and so discreet it can disappear in-between products. Oh, and we almost forgot to mention what it does – it is an elegant solution to the excessive number of small chords we all seem to gather, which clutter our desks and tangle in our bags. It also protects the chords from damage due to twisting and tangling. Read More
TAG Heuer’s “Diamond Fiction” watch bracelet
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June 27, 2005 TAG Heuer’s latest creation, the Diamond Fiction watch bracelet was recently shown for the first time by the elite brand’s latest Ambassador, Hollywood star Uma Therman. With TAG Heuer’s 2005/2006 Year of Diamonds theme, a stunning ladies watches collection was shown but the Diamond Fiction stole the show. It looks like a bracelet of red satin positively dripping with Top Wesselton diamonds (879 to be exact) but when you press a button on the side, some of the diamonds change colour to red offering the time in a digital display. Only three single and exclusive timepieces will be created at the TAG Heuer workshop at the Chaux-de-Fonds with a value of EU100 000 euro each. Read More
Samsung shows 7 megapixel camera phone outside Korea
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June 17, 2005 Samsung Electronics took its “mine’s-bigger-than-yours” game outside Korea this week when it showed its seven-megapixel camera phone, the SCH-V770 at CommunicAsia in Singapore. Perhaps the most encouraging sign was that Samsung has released official “portrait shots” of the SCH-V770 which we first wrote up from Korea in March. It’s an indication that we may soon see the awesome converged device in other markets, and Samsung's Kitae Lee concurred when he said, "We are focusing on our latest technology that demonstrates the innovation of Samsung, and gives visitors a crystal-ball industry view of what they can expect in the future from the world's leading telecommunications company.” Read More
Mobility Electronics patents programmable power adapters
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June 17, 2005 Mobility Electronics has announced that it has obtaining a new U.S. patent covering programmable power adapters. Programmable power adapters have an advantage in that a single adapter can be configured to power a range of mobile electronic devices with differing power requirements. The new patent, U.S. Patent 6,903,950, extends Mobility's power converter technology to cover next generation power supply architectures that will utilise intelligent digital configuration and control methods for programming the output power of its adapters.
The World's First Windows Mobile 5.0 Based 3G Device
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June 16, 2005 High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) has announced plans to release the world's first 3G Windows Mobile 5.0-based device, the HTC Universal. The Universal will enable customers to be more productive while having powerful multimedia and internet browsing capabilities. Global distribution plans for the device are expected in the second half of 2005 with mobile operators in Europe, North America, and Asia. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, unveiled Windows Mobile 5.0 during his keynote at Microsoft Mobile & Embedded DevCon 2005 in Las Vegas and displayed its versatility on the HTC Universal. Read More
The Superstar Earphone: Retail Versions of Musicians' In-Ear Monitors
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June 14, 2005 When we wrote up UltimateEars last October, we explained how the company specialises in making custom deluxe “ear gear’ for rock’s royalty and basically ooohed and aaahed at the price (US$900) and quality of the custom- moulded Ultimate Ears in-ear monitors that have been worn by just about all of rock’s superstars for the last decade so they can ensure the best possible sound on stage. Now consumers can get the same first-class audio with a new range of Ultimate Ears Super.fi earphones -- premium universal-fit earbuds designed for use with personal devices. The Super.fi 5EB (US$199.99) and Super.fi 5Pro (US$249.99) incorporate the company's proprietary technology to make music from U2 to Kelly Clarkson, Eminem, Ray Charles and even Rachmaninoff sound crisper and fuller than ever before. Read More
Mobile Phone Thigh Holster
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UPDATED - NEW IMAGES & INFO - June 15, 2005 Now this is a clever idea. The Tsaya is a thigh cell phone holster for women but the really clever idea is the menage-a- trois viral-marketing scheme. Firstly, don’t get excited – the menage-a- trois is just a sexy name for tell-a-friend scheme where they get a US$10 discount, making the Tsaya US$69.99 and you get a US$10 referral fee. The sales pitch? It’s in “delectable black patent leather” so it will be “smooth against your clothes”, fits any mobile phone, has a separate pocket for your credit card and cash so you can travel sleek without a handbag, and you can wear it concealed or show it off with a short dress.
Hard disk versus Flash MP3 players
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June 10, 2005 The global love affair with the portable digital music (aka MP3) player continues to flourish with more players, larger capacities and cheaper prices, all the while fueled by more of the population exploring digital music and podcasts, and encouraging and showing their friends to try them. If you’ve noticed a proliferation of smaller, cheaper flash memory-based MP3 player siblings of larger Hard Disk Drive (HDD) MP3 players (usually with a mini or junior added to the name), it’s because flash memory has in recent times got MUCH cheaper. But while HDD MP3 players are now approaching 100GB, it’s the flash players that are emerging as the stronger growth segment. Read More
USB ShareDrive: the thumbdrive with a brain
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June 8, 2005 The FlashPoint ShareDrive is a new type of USB thumb drive that allows users to copy data stored in the FlashPoint flash memory to another flash drive or a USB device such as an MP3 player or digial camera WITHOUT a computer. The new FlashPoint ShareDrives have an integrated female USB connector so users can plug a cable or another device into the same USB port in which the FlashPoint ShareDrive is attached, chaining devices. Computerless copying to another sharedrive is compelling functionality and , arguably well worth the US$200 price for a 1GB drive – more than double that of a standard 1GB thumb drive. Read More
A watch with one hand!
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June 6, 2005 Gerald Charles Genta creates beautiful watches. An artist turned watchmaker, he is responsible for such heurological masterpieces, such as Royal Oak by Audemars Piguet, the Da Vinci and the Ingenieur by IWC, the Nautilus by Patek Phillippe, the Pasha by Cartier, the Constellation by Omega and the Bulgari-Bulgari, by errr ... Bulgari. In 1969, M. Gerald Genta founded his own brand and his own watch works. This triggered a series of unique creations, from the "Repetition Minutes" with automatic movement in a case just 2.72 mm thick [1981] to the stunning million dollar model, the "Grande Sonnerie" [1994], renowned as the most complicated watch in the world, at that time. After 20 years, he sold the brand and the company and the factories and went back to painting but … well, once a watchmaker. Now the legendary "maitre horloger" has returned to his second art with a new brand, Gerald Charles, and once again, the results are exquisite. Read More
DualPhone combines VOIP and POTS in a cordless handset
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June 4, 2005 This is big news! In the year since Skype officially launched its free P2P telephone service, the service has been growing like wildfire. Add to this a broadening of features such as SkypeOut and SkypeIn, their outbound and inbound bridges to traditional phone service, and Skype Voicemail and it's starting to look like Skype can take on the entire telecom industry all by itself. Fortunately for Skype, they don't have to conquer the world alone. They have a strong ally in RTX, specifically RTX's Olympia DualPhone. The DualPhone combines the best features of Skype with the best features of a standard cordless handset. For the first time Skype users can make calls in the same convenient fashion that we've had available with standard phone service for the last 50 years. Better, in fact, since the DualPhone allows incoming POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) calls to be placed on hold when a Skype call comes in, and vice versa. This is big! Read More
Universal Rechargeable Battery/Charger Powers and Charges Multiple Personal Electronic Devices
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June 3, 2005 One of the biggest tragedies of daily life is running out of a ready supply of electrons - being connected requires electricity and without it, well, it's instant Stone Age, isn't it! Accordingly, a rechargeable battery that powers and charges all of your mobile devices is a good idea. Created by Tekkeon, a company that specialises in innovative products designed to simplify everyday life, myPower ALL powers and/or charges portable DVD players, digital cameras and camcorders, portable media centers, portable MP3 and CD players, PDAs, and mobile phones, and many notebook computers - virtually any portable device. Read More
MP3 watch from Mercedes Benz
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June 1, 2005 Merchants of people mobility (also known as auto manufacturers) have been a little slow getting their brain cells wrapped around where the MP3 fits into the grand scheme of selling automobiles. The unanimous first step appears to be offering an iPod integration/interface kit, as VW, GM, Volvo, BMW, Mini and Mercedes have all done and we expect more to follow. Curiously, Mercedes Benz has just released a wristwatch incorporating an MP3 player, voice recorder and 512Mb of flash memory capacity, becoming the second auto manufacturer to have such a watch. Read More
These pictures were taken underwater with a mobile phone!
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May 29, 2005 A new shockproof and waterproof casing that fits 95% of all cell phones has been released onto the German market for a price under 50 Euros. The WaveCase is so waterproof that it can be used underwater, turning the average cameraphone into an underwater camera capable of catching your holiday snaps above and below the water. As the casing is impervious to water to a depth of 20 metres, it is also ideal for protecting your converged device from sand, dust, rain and maybe even taking your phone surfing with you. Read More
Infusion WiFi Internet Radio, FM Radio and MP3 Player
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May 26, 2005 As convergence rampages onward, the area of audio content and how we will consume it in the future has been one with no obvious outcomes. While podcasting has been a major trend of recent times, liberating content from the desktop en masse, live internet radio is only just beginning to become unwired and the jury is still out as to what devices we’ll use to listen to streamed audio content. One possibility is the Infusion, a compact portable Internet radio that connects to the Internet via WiFi without the need for a PC. It has a range of features including Internet radio, a timer recording, MP3 player, FM radio receiver, news / sport / weather ticker-tape banner, and more. Around the same size as a credit card (58mm x 71mm x 16mm), the Infusion will reach market in time for the 2005 Christmas season priced “between medium capacity flash-memory MP3 players and high capacity MP3 players with built-in hard drives." Read More
The Cruzer Titanium 2GB
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May 26, 2005 From the world of beautiful, tactile, exquisite objects that are satisfying simply to hold and look at comes the new Cruzer Titanium from SanDisk. With a street price below US$200, the new 2 GB Cruzer Titanium is manufactured using an advanced titanium alloy from Liquidmetal Technologies that is approximately 2.5 times the strength of titanium, extremely hard, light, and both wear and heat resistant. The USB 2.0 hi-speed Cruzer Titanium flash drive is claimed by the manufacturers to be “virtually indestructible” (yeah, sure) but all reasonable efforts to physically protect the data it contains have been met and it really does look the part cos it is drop-dead gorgeous! Read More
Nokia launches new Linux based Internet Tablet product category
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May 26, 2005 Nokia introduced the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet at the LinuxWorld Summit in New York here yesterday. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is a dedicated device optimized for convenient Internet browsing and email communications in a sleek pocketsize format. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet features an high-resolution (800x480) widescreen display with zoom and on-screen keyboard, ideal for viewing online content over Wi-Fi. Aside from Wi-Fi, the device can also connect to the Internet utilising Bluetooth wireless technology via a compatible mobile phone. Read More
World's Highest Capacity, Highest Performance Flash Drive
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May 25, 2005 When you're a military or aerospace integrator and you've just gotta have a certain gadget, weight of dollars will win the day every time. Which is why flash-based data storage M-Systems has commenced mass production of its new FFD Ultra320 SCSI flash disk. The new FFD Ultra320 SCSI is specifically designed for mission critical systems required by the military, aerospace, telecommunication, video server, broadcasting and factory automation industries and is now available in capacities ranging from 1 to 176 gigabytes and SCSI interface speeds of 320 megabytes per second, all within in a standard 3.5" case. How much? As pricing is usually OEM, it's hard to get a retail price, but Engadget reported last year's 90GB model cost US$40,000. A sign of the times is that this year's 176GB version costs less than US$25,000. Read More
PalmOne’s LifeDrive: a “Mobile Manager” Product
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May 18, 2005 Venturing beyond its well-known focus on the handheld and smartphone markets, palmOne today introduced the LifeDrive mobile manager, a product that fuses business productivity tools and entertainment applications. Designed for people with a significant volume of digital information, the LifeDrive mobile manager offers 4GB of hard-drive storage a large 320x480 high-resolution color screen, and wireless access through built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetoothwireless technologies. Read More
Motorola Labs Debuts First Ever Nano Emissive Flat Screen Display Prototype
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May 11, 2005 Motorola Labs, the applied research arm of Motorola, has unveiled a working 5-inch colour video display prototype based on proprietary Carbon Nanotube (CNT) technology - a breakthrough technique that could create large, flat panel displays with superior quality, longer lifetimes and lower costs than current offerings. Optimised for a large screen High Definition Television (HDTV) that is less than 1-inch thick, this first-of-its kind NED 5-inch prototype harnesses the power of CNTs to fundamentally change the design and fabrication of flat panel displays. Read More
