An online Technology Review dedicated to Gadgets, Gizmos and Cutting-edge consumer electronics

iPhone 3G & iPod Touch 2G 3.0 Final Official Firmware Release

2009-06-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Download .rar files & Extract to folder.
2. Open iTunes 8.2 (or Download the Latest iTunes 8.2 and install)
3. Connect iPhone, Backup if necessary (contacts, pictures, etc.)
4. Go to summary tab of iPhone, on PC hold shift and click restore button.
5. Select the extracted firmware you downloaded from this post.
6. Done! Sit Back and let it do its thing....

Note: You do not need to be signed under a Developers account. Anyone can upgrade to this 3.0 Firmware.

Note: You cannot use this firmware with quickpwn or any other jailbreak/unlock software yet. So far its not jailbreakable. Soon Very Soon! Stealth and Dev Teams are working on it as this post goes up. This is the official firmware that only updates to 3.0

DOWNLOAD LINKS:

iPhone 3G 3.0 Final Release

http://rapidshare.com/files/245677864/iPhone1_2_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245680710/iPhone1_2_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245679104/iPhone1_2_3.0_7A341_Restore.part3.rar

iPod Touch 2G 3.0 Final Release

http://rapidshare.com/files/245670280/iPod2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245676213/iPod2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245674709/iPod2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part3.rar

If u want 200MB file then Download from below:

iPhone OS 3.0
http://rapidshare.com/files/245627669/iPhone1_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245624795/iPhone1_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar


iPhone 3G OS 3.0
http://rapidshare.com/files/245642744/iPhone1_2_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245639760/iPhone1_2_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar

iPhone 3G S OS 3.0
http://rapidshare.com/files/245643191/iPhone2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245641385/iPhone2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar

iPod Touch 1G OS 3.0
http://rapidshare.com/files/245644845/iPod1_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245642125/iPod1_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar

iPod Touch 2G OS 3.0
http://rapidshare.com/files/245644759/iPod2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245642423/iPod2_1_3.0_7A341_Restore.part2.rar

Download iPhone OS 3.0 Build 7A341 Software Update Ftp Links:

Download iPhone 2G Firmware 3.0

Download iPhone 3G Firmware 3.0

Download iPod Touch Firmware 3.0

Download iPod Touch 2G Firmware 3.0

Here are the Url's:

iPhone 2G Firmware 3.0

http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iPhone/061-6580.20090617.XsP76/iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

iPhone 3G Firmware 3.0

http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iPhone/061-6578.20090617.VfgtU/iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

iPod Touch Firmware 3.0

http://pfd.apple.com/ProtectedAsset/iPodTouch/061-6579.20090527.Xde3T/iPod1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw?downloadKey=1245345757_90c89d7c03d1843e05508328bcf51819

iPod Touch 2G Firmware 3.0

http://pfd.apple.com/ProtectedAsset/iPodTouch/061-6581.20090527.PiKu7/iPod2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw?downloadKey=1245345757_e359c513da44b53b53f7aa2174319b84

Apple teams up with Adobe for iPhone Flash at long last

2009-02-01T14:49:00.000-08:00

With Android getting all Flash-ey, Apple's "Goldilocks" position on Flash -- the full Flash player is too hefty, Flash Lite is too weak -- seemed pretty untenable. Now Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has revealed that Apple and Adobe are "collaborating" on making Flash a reality on the iPhone, citing the technical challenge it presents. What's clear is that with all this work to do, it doesn't seem they're going the watered-down Flash Lite route, but we're trying not to hold our breath for a full-on, Hulu-friendly version that will finally help us get that Doogie Howser fix on the go. Naturally, there's no word on when this will hit.

MP3 Mirror has potential, could be so much more

2009-02-01T14:47:00.003-08:00

Given that we've seen mirror TVs and MP3 players designed to emit sound within one's shower, we'd say Antonio Lupi's MP3 Mirror is just one of the gang. In fairness, we do appreciate the sleek design and its reported ability to integrate into any steel frame mirror, but unless we're badly mistaken, the user is still responsible for adding speakers. Our suggestion? Hook up with Emo Labs and concoct an all-in-one device with sound emission baked right into the shiny stuff.

iPhone Customer Sues Apple Over 'Broken Promises'

2009-02-01T14:47:00.002-08:00

A dissatisfied customer has filed yet another lawsuit against Apple concerning the iPhone 3G.

In a 14-page complaint filed this week, California resident Jason Medway alleges that the iPhone 3G suffers from a defect that makes its connection to the 3G network unstable.

"Thousands of consumers who purchased Apple's iPhone 3G and accompanying 3G service from AT&T have experienced broken promises regarding the phone's transmission speeds," the complaint stated.

Medway's lawsuit follows several others filed last year alleging Apple falsely advertised the iPhone 3G by calling it "twice as fast for half the price" compared with the original handset. In those complaints, customers said their iPhones could hardly maintain a connection on the 3G network and that download speeds were sluggish. The lawsuits followed widespread complaints regarding the iPhone 3G's network performance.

In a written response to one of the lawsuits, Apple said that "no reasonable person ... could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact."

Investigating the issue, Wired.com conducted a global study in August 2008, concluding the iPhone's network problems in the United States are due to AT&T's immature 3G network—not the handset's hardware. However, Medway does not name AT&T in his lawsuit.

Apple's Next iPhone Will Rule at Gaming

2009-02-01T14:47:00.001-08:00

The next upgrade to Apple's iPhone will have a strong focus on gaming, analysts and developers agree.

That's because the gaming market is an increasingly juicy segment of the mobile multimedia space — and it's one that Apple's phenomenally successful iPhone is well-positioned to dominate.

"The iPhone and iPod Touch are becoming a major new handheld gaming platform, and if you look at the App Store and look at what's doing well, that's reflecting," said Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, developer of the popular Tap Tap Revenge iPhone game. "I would look forward to improvements in the device as a gaming platform both for the phone and iPod Touch."

Apple made clear its plans to seize the gaming market in November 2008 when Apple marketing executive Greg Joswiak called the iPhone and iPod Touch "the future of gameplay," posing a serious threat to dedicated gaming consoles such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. The reasons? A few things: The quick, electronic distribution method of games and apps via the iPhone's App Store; the accelerometer and multitouch display, which are introducing new approaches to gameplay; and the iPhone's lighter, more portable form factor compared to its rivals.

Numbers say the iPhone is indeed in a position to assault the gaming market. Analysts predict Apple is on track to sell 40 million iPhones or more per year. By way of comparison, Nintendo sold 42 million DS consoles from January 2007 to June 2008.

Add to that the fact that the iPhone App Store has already got the DS and PSP beat in terms of game titles available: When the App Store was just three months old, it had 1,500 games; the PSP and DS had about 600 and 300 titles, respectively.

There are just a few weaknesses the iPhone needs to address before it's truly acknowledged as a serious game device, said Steve Demeter, developer of the Trism iPhone game: Processing limitations, graphic capabilities and memory management. For example, the PSP's advantage as a dedicated gaming device is that its application programming interface (API) is geared toward loading complex textures — a task the iPhone falls short on.

If Apple is serious about making the iPhone a gaming platform, it's a good bet that the next upgrade to the iPhone will address those limitations.

Tero Kuittinen, a Global Crown Capital analyst, agrees that the next iPhone will have enhanced graphics and more powerful processing capabilities. And those improvements will likely be incorporated in a new ARM chip that Apple is developing in-house. In April 2008, Apple acquired semiconductor company PA Semi to manufacture ARM chips for future iPhones.

Other than introducing graphical improvements it's unlikely the iPhone will see dramatic changes. Kuittinen noted that Apple enjoys keeping its interfaces consistent to ensure software is backward-compatible — so forget about a slide-out keyboard or a screen that's either much smaller or much larger than the current iPhone. Developers Decrem and Demeter agreed that Apple will likely be conservative with changes so as not to require software coders to rewrite applications to be compatible with the next iPhone.

One minor change Apple will likely introduce in the third-generation iPhone is an improved web camera with video-recording capability and a flash. Kuittinen said the camera will have to sport at least a 3.5-megapixel resolution in order to compete with Research In Motion, Samsung, HTC and LG, which are already selling handsets with superior cameras to the iPhone.

When can we expect the next iPhone? Considering the first iPhone launched June 2007 and the second iPhone shipped July 2008, the third-generation iPhone should land no later than summer 2009.

Let's hope this one has copy and paste.

Japanese Have a Better Lifestyle PC Than Americans

2009-02-01T14:46:00.001-08:00

Sony's hottest new netbook appears to be showing more love to Japan than the states.

In the United States, Sony launched the VAIO Series P Lifestyle PC — an 8 inch notebook that weighs 1.5 pounds — at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. At the convention, Sony said the Lifestyle would be shipping with a 1.33GHz Atom processor.

However, Engadget spotted specifications in Sony's Japanese site that list two options for faster processor speeds for the Lifestyle — 1.6GHz and 1.83GHz.

What gives? Are we getting those options here, too? Sony provided the following e-mail statement:

We do not comment on future product roadmaps.... The P Series is the ideal companion PC, allowing users to take it with them anywhere and everywhere for the ultimate computing on-the-go experience. We wanted to make sure the balance between price and performance was fair and after rigorous testing the Intel 1.33Ghz processor seemed to be the ideal candidate.

That's an odd response that conflicts with what Sony told me at CES, where a spokesman said the Lifestyle was powered with a 1.33GHz Atom to address heating issues.

Then again, considering this is a puny 8-inch netbook, I can't imagine customers would care that much about whether they're getting a 1.83GHz or 1.33 GHz CPU. Still, options are always nice, right?

Nicholas Negroponte Talks Up Second Gen OLPC Laptop

2009-02-01T14:45:00.002-08:00

The One Laptop Per Child project has taken a beating in the last few months with problems around scale of production, price and staff cuts.

The first laptop from the project, the XO-1, has mostly been sold through the 'Give One, Get One' program. Now a second generation version is on its way.

The XO-2 will be a $75 dual-screen device that can be held up vertically to resemble a book and turned around to use as a notebook.

The interesting thing here is that the hardware development will be open source in a bid to spur greater adoption, says Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab and champion of the OLPC project in an interview with The Guardian.

One important thing about the XO-2 is that we're going to do it as an open source hardware programme. The XO-1 was really designed as if we were Apple. The XO-2 will be designed as if we were Google - we'll want people to copy it. We'll make the constituent parts available. We'll try and get it out there using the exact opposite approach that we did with the XO-1.

Dual display aside, it will be touch-sensitive and have a haptic keyboard available, says Negroponte. Here's a leaked photo of what this dual display device could look like.

With its $75 price point there's also the hope that the XO-2 could potentially be used as a e-book reader in more developed markets. Maybe the OLPC project will be second-time lucky.

SanDisk Changes Strategy On Digital Music Players

2009-02-01T14:45:00.001-08:00

As SanDisk tries to find more ways to be profitable, the company could kill its older flash-memory based Sansa line of music players and instead focus on promoting its storage cards that come pre-loaded with music.

Instead of the iPod competitors that it has built, SanDisk will be pushing its slotMusic cards business. SlotMusic Cards are microSD memory cards that come pre-loaded with music albums. SanDisk's recent music players have been designed to promote the storage cards and those players will continue to be available.

A company spokeswoman confirmed the change. "Sandisk is committed to its digital music players and we have the Sansa Fuze and Clip on retail shelves," she says. "We are just looking at a shift in strategy that goes to the core of the company's focus on flash memory."

SanDisk entered the digital music player in 2005 with the Sansa music player. The inexpensive flash-based players became an iPod alternative for extremely budget conscious buyers.

Yet SanDisk has barely managed to make a dent in iPod's hegemony. Earlier this month, Apple said it sold 22.7 million iPods worldwide in the previous quarter, a three percent growth from the year before.

Recently, SanDisk started promoting its slotMusic cards product extensively. At the Consumer Electronics Show this year, the company introduced a new player called slotRadio and a line of companion music cards.

It's a significant evolution for the Sansa players that was first introduced in 2005 with the e100 series. The devices were initially available in the 512 MB and 1 GB versions and featured an SD card slot to add more storage. The flash-based players supported formats such as MP3 and Windows Media Audio (WMA) and storage was expandable using microSD cards.

Now SanDisk wants to make the microSD cards the centerpiece of its digital music business. In October 2008 the company launched the Sansa slotMusic player. The $20 slotMusic players were created to play slotMusic cards or user-loaded microSD cards.

The idea hasn't been met with great enthusiasm from bloggers. So is SanDisk making the right bet or should it be concede the ring to the iPod and get out of the music player business entirely?

BBC Snakeoil: 'Perfectly Accurate' Voice Recognition Phone 'Too Secret' to See

2009-02-01T14:44:00.002-08:00

"It's a secret world, most of which we can't film, and it operates from an industrial estate in Hereford."

So begins the BBC's coverage of the "The world's first fully accurate voice recognition system for mobile phones", built by a I A technology, company which employs just 40 people and normally supplies ejector seats to the military.

Is your snake-oil sense a-tinglin'? It should be. This video further charts the descent of the Beeb from an internationally respected and neutral reporting machine into a populist tabloid of a TV company.

The phone is called the Zumba, and comes in two parts: a giant, flat plastic ear and a rather retro looking box with a pie-chart shaped set of buttons on the front. Designer Dean McEvoy is dyslexic, and so designed the phone to be used without any typing or reading, ever. Sadly, the handset is too secret to even demonstrate. Or possibly, too not-working to show.

More: The phone is a "cloud" phone. All the heavy lifting is done on the company Web site, along with storage of your address book and presumably text messages. This site is apparently "100% secure", a claim we have heard more than once before. As McEvoy points out though, this does have the advantage of making the handset a dumb terminal -- if lost it's nothing more than a brick, free of personal information. Not that anyone would ever steal such an ugly box.

So what does the phone do? It appears that some super secret sauce lets you touch a single button on the earpiece and then speak. Your intentions are recognized and a text message is send, transcribed from your own spoken words. No mention is made of actual calls, but we'd think that this was just an omission from the film.

Do take a look at the video (non-embeddable -- linked below). McEvoy has the same look of desperate enthusiasm we saw in Sean McCarthy, back at our last snakeoil extravaganza, the Steorn Orbo perpetual motion machine. Maybe these guys should get together and make a hands-free, automatic phone that never needs charging? I'd buy that. You know, if it didn't disappear into obscurity after the first, doe-eyed, non-questioning media frenzy.

Retro Cassette Deck Will Hook Up to Almost Everything

2009-02-01T14:44:00.001-08:00

Back in the dark days before the internet, piracy took one form, whether software or music. It was the cassette tape, able to make hissy recordings of vinyl LPs, CDs and Commodore 64 games alike. My own nerd father used to sit at the "music center" every Sunday night for a couple of hours while the week's Top 40 was played. He wore big headphones, twiddled the analog VU meters and kept one forefinger constantly hovering over the pause button.

Now, of course, we have BitTorrent, Handbrake and all manner of other methods to help us steal bits and bytes. Which is why I'm happily surprised to see the PlusDeck Ex USB Cassette Deck, a cassette recorder which can slurp in almost everything.

It has a built in radio, a phone pre-amp for recording from vinyl turntables and a ridiculous array of inputs: USB, RCA, phono, 7.1 surround (in!), and the mysteriously named "cellphone input" and "adapter input".

There's a timer to control things when you're out and an IR remote to control them when you're in. All of this is pushed to your ears via the 7.1 surround sound output. It'll probably even hook up to an old ZX Spectrum and load Manic Miner for you. The price is a little steep, though, for something now rather niche -- it's $300. And good luck finding the tapes to put in it.

Awesome, Low-Tech Gadget Creates Liters of Fresh Water

2009-02-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the simplest technology is the best. The Watercone, a solar-powered water purifier, is a testament to that.

The cone-shaped device turns salty or dirty water into up to 1.7 liters of fresh water in a matter of hours, according to Watercone.

Here's how it works: You pour the bad water into a black pan, and then you screw on a cone. The black pan absorbs sunlight and heats up the water. Then, the evaporated water condensates into droplets on the cone's inner wall, and the droplets drop into a circular trough at the inner case of the cone. After a few hours, you can unscrew the cap, tip the cone upside down and empty out the clean water into a receptacle.

The Watercone is due out this summer, and it should cost no more than $30. This will be a tremendous help for poorer, developing countries.

Check out a video of the Watercone in action below the jump.

Continue reading "Awesome, Low-Tech Gadget Creates Liters of Fresh Water" »

First Look: MSI's Second Wind Blows Away Its Predecessor

2009-02-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

Here at Gadget Lab we've been blessed with an early test unit of the MSI Wind U120 — the successor to the popular MSI Wind netbook. Our first impressions? We like it plenty. The improvements from the first model are very minor, but they make a significant difference on something as small as a netbook.

Here's a rundown of the MSI Wind U120's features, accompanied by beautiful photography courtesy of Wired.com's Jonathan Snyder.

Bigger, Better Trackpad

First and foremost—the trackpad (above). Almost everybody complained about the crappy trackpad on the first Wind, and MSI listened. The Wind U120's improved trackpad is about two centimeters wider than the previous one, and you'd be amazed at how much easier it is to mouse around with that tiny addition in space. Also, the texture of the trackpad is a bit grainy, which makes navigating less of a slippery experience than it was on the previous model's. Third and most important—the Wind U120 has two silver buttons accompanying the trackpad, which beats the living bejeezus out of the clunky, single mouse button on the original Wind.

Photo Scanning Web Services Save Time, But How Much?

2009-02-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

If you've wanted to scan thousands of family picture prints at a time but never had the time to go through with it, a couple of services are available to do the job on your behalf. ScanDigital and ScanMyPhotos.com both take pictures that you send through snail mail and get back to you in digital versions that you can store in the cloud, safely.

ScanDigital's service scans your photos at 48 cents per print (at 300 dpi) or for 68 cents (at 600 dpi) to an online server where you can download or share them with others. Once they're done, they'll send you back DVDs of the digital pictures and all of the originals. According to the company, you receive task progress emails through the process.

But it's not that easy to send those pictures to them in the first place, according to Yahoo's Christopher Null. He tried the service this month and found that the instructions to send the pics were somewhat confusing and didn’t like that he couldn’t change his dpi scanning requests before the service was practically over. In theory, ScanDigital could set up a live online scanning 'booth' where a customer could check out how his pictures were looking while they were being scanned, and possibly request re-scanning a few for a few more bucks.

ScanMyPhotos.com also offers a similar service and scans hundreds of pictures per minute through an unnamed Kodak machine seen in this video. It's probably similar to this one. Its rate of 5 cents per photo is likely the cheapest out of any similar service on the internet. But you just can't send out a big box with a messy array of pics. You have to separate them all out into small packages with rubber bands and label them in sequence, and they all need the correct orientation. That's annoying. Basically, you're still doing a lot of the work and they're just taking care of the basic scanning.

But are these services any better than buying a good scanner and just doing it yourself?

At the beginning of the year, one of my New Year's resolutions was to scan thousands of photo prints on behalf of my older relatives. I thought it was important to insure their memories (which are also my own) against disasters like earthquakes, theft, and flooding. But one hour after I started scanning prints of the first box out of 15, (with a high-quality flatbed), I just quit. I realized this was going to take forever.

I'd scanned 16 pictures, which seemed like a lot to me (maybe that's a pathetic number for scanning pros, but I was trying to be perfect with the framing). I figured that if there were 2,000 pictures in the boxes, it would take me over 156 hours to complete the task. Rats.

Since that's way too much, I'm probably going to use ScanDigital to get them in order. Even if takes me a full afternoon to ship them, I figure I will save a week's worth of hours, at least. 150 big ones. It's not going to be cheap to pay for the service, but nothing is more expensive than wasted time.

Porsche Cayman S sportscar review

2009-02-01T14:32:00.001-08:00

Half a 100 grand, in this financial climate? Yes please.

Life as a Porsche coupe without the ‘911’ badge emblazoned upon your rump is always going to be tough. You’re not one of the cool kids at school; you’re the Z-lister without an invite to the glamorous parties.

Nevertheless, the Cayman has coped the best it can, climbing to the top of its class through sheer ability while tolerating the occasional jibe from the ill informed. Predictably, it remains a relatively rare sight on our roads.

Now, in truly relentless Porsche practice, we have the second generation Cayman: not an all new car as such, but a careful and thorough evolution, even if you’ll need a cagoule and NHS specs to spot the visual differences.

Who cares? It takes just a blast up through the gears to feel the added bite of the new ‘S’ engine, an all-new motor with a trick way of squirting the fuel into the mix. It works, because not only does it sound frisky – as ever, right on your shoulder in the cabin – and use less fuel, but it makes this relatively small and light coupe virtually as fast as a 911 – and that means very exciting indeed.

It’s still freakishly good to drive, with an inspiring chassis that encourages you without turning your knuckles white on the ‘wheel. And now you can order one with Porsche’s amazing twin clutch seven-speed transmission - even if stirring a good old-fashioned gear lever remains the most exciting way to drive your Cayman. This might just be the best real-world sports car on sale.

If you fancy owning one, it will set you back £44,108.

Apple iLife 2009 review

2009-02-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

Upgrade your iLife

Perhaps the biggest news of the last Macworld Expo was the unveiling of the two new updates for iLife and iWork. Both applications get around 90 major changes but the main show-stopper was iLife's iPhoto, with handy new features such as face recognition and the ability to plot your snaps on a Google map and send them directly to your Facebook pals. As it all sounds terribly exciting, does it really work? Read on...

iPhoto

iPhoto has become the champion application for iLife ’09, in acknowledgment of the fact that everyone and their dog now has a digital camera. It gets the biggest push this time with heaps of really quite impressive new tricks.

Faces joins Events as a new way of sorting your library, but it’s much cleverer. Using face detection technology, Faces automatically scans your photo collection to identify the same person throughout your library, so that you can label that person in one hit. When you label one person, Faces suggests other pictures of people that look similar.

It’s not perfect and sometimes you might find iPhoto asking you if this is your nephew, when it’s actually a slightly blurry picture of your nan, and sadly it doesn’t work at all with profiles of animals. You can of course label your pets manually. Now, when you make a new smart album, iPhoto can find and group your friends for you and suggest pictures you might have forgotten about.

Alongside Mobile Me, Facebook and Flickr buttons have been added to the iPhoto main screen. Anyone who's addicted to Facebook knows what a chore it is, tagging photos of all your chums - Faces makes the process a lot easier. Once you've tagged everyone on Faces, it will sync with your Facebook profile, so photos are not only uploaded straight to your photo album on the social networking site, but the tags will match Facebook tags. Also, when your Facebook friend labels someone you didn’t know, their profile name is added to your photo.

Places is powered by Google and shows you a world map. When you use your cursor to drop a pin in it, you’ll be shown a list of all the photos you have from that location. If your camera has geo-tagging, then iPhoto will do all of this for you, otherwise, you’ll need to label each photo first. A bit of a hassle but well worth it. Apple has enhanced the Google map to recognize actual addresses or landmarks too.

You can also add maps to your photo book too. When you label a photo, a small picture of the world map, showing that location will appear on the page if you so choose. And for the inside cover, you could plot lines on the Google map to show where all the photos were taken.

Another update is that red-eye removal is now automatic, like the face recognition feature, and the retouch function has inherited some features from Apple’s professional Apperture software. Now it is much more effective at airbrushing and brightening your blurrier snaps - we had great fun playing around with this on the slightly less favourable photos.

Once you’re done airbrushing you can export your slideshows in a resolution to suit your iPhone or iPod Nano or any other fruit flavoured companion you may own. To spice up the slide shows you can add Apple licensed slide shows and even movies.

iMovie

iMovie gets around 40 new tricks including an impressive stabilization feature that turns a shaky handheld camcorder clip into a steady movie-like shot. After you’ve imported your clip iMovie analyses the footage frame by frame first and then smoothes out the wobbles to a degree that you select yourself.

A brilliant Spielberg-esque feature is you can add an animation that presents, as a line on a globe, where your film was shot. Just think about the in-between bits in the Indian Jones films when Indy boards a plane that flies to the next scene.

Another cool animation starts your home made film as a camera zoom into the cover of a photo album which becomes the opening scene.

Editing photos with the Ken Burns effect to the beat of a tune is particularly satisfying. Just press edit on the beat while you listen to the music and then drag photos, or video clips, to each change.

GarageBand

The best new feature in GarageBand is a guitar lesson that shows you an instruction video along with a fret board graphic that shows you where to put your fingers. For $4.99, you can download a Sting tutorial, for example, from the iTunes store, or Nora Jones if it’s the Piano that you want to learn.

We're no guitarist, but after a lesson with Sting, we were feeling more confident about our guitar prowess, although we'd like to see some more well-known musicians featured in the Artist Lessons.

Nintendo DSi heading to UK ahead of schedule

2009-02-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

It was unveiled back in October of last year, but wasn't expected on these shores until the latter part of this year. But now it looks like the Nintendo DSi is heading to the UK much sooner.

According to a document spotted on Nintendo's website, the new launch date for Europe is 'Spring-Summer 2009', which could in theory be only weeks away. Take our advice, get saving and brush the dust off that sleeping bag, we suspect stocks will be severely limited.

If you want a low-down on Nintendo's new handheld, check out our guide to the device. But if you want the brief highlights, the DSi offers an integrated 3 megapixel camera, an additional camera for gameplay, a slightly larger screen, enhanced multimedia features including media player, photo viewer and web browser, plus an SD card slot for storage.

In Japan, you can pick up the DSi for the equivalent of £116. Whether that's the case for the UK remains to be seen.

iTunes Plus now lets you upgrade individual tracks

2009-02-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

Pick whichever tracks you want to upgrade and leave out the ones you don't

Apple has made a welcome, if belated, change to its iTunes Plus policies. You can now choose to upgrade tracks on an individual basis, so you can gun for higher bit rate versions of the ones you love and stick to the low quality for the ones you don’t listen to as much.

Previously, if you wanted to take advantage of the higher bit rate options available through iTunes Plus, you had to commit to upgrading your entire library. That wasn’t a huge problem if you’ve only bought a handful of tracks from iTunes, but if you’ve been building a sizeable music collection, the complete upgrade might cost a sizeable amount of cash.

Another problem is that if you’ve been buying albums, you probably don’t really want to spend money on upgrading the quality of rubbish filler tracks that you’ll never listen to again.

All that has now been solved by Apple granting iTunes users the ability to upgrade on a per-song basis. You don’t have to pay for the whole lot at once and you can upgrade overtime, counting out those tracks that don’t warrant the 256kbps treatement.

The price to upgrade your tracks to iTunes Plus are 20p for an individual song or £2 for a whole album. If you’re reading this having already bitten the bullet and paid for the whole shebang, you have our sympathies.

Samsung NP-X460

2008-12-17T06:35:00.000-08:00

Samsung Notebook Brings a Touch of Class to the Privileged

It's a good thing you took all of your money out of stocks in August and invested heavily in wheat futures, because now all those Wall Street schmucks are lining up for your bread, and you're making a killing. Because now, rather than trampling an octogenarian at Walmart for a $350 Daewoo laptop, you can kick down a little more for a luxury notebook. In everything but name, the Samsung X460 is just that: a bourgeois piece of tech for the upper crust. It looks good, performs well, has nice battery life, and it's a lighter than many 14.1-inch widescreens. But people are just going to have difficulty coughing up 1,600 smackers for one — except maybe you, Rockefeller.

This swanky machine has a velvety black and crimson styling befitting a smoking jacket, so it'll go well with yours — and looks good in the study sitting on your virgin teak and gorilla-skin laptop table. Its 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo is speedy and its 320-GB drive roomy, so you'll have no problem editing your photos or video from your latest safari or night out with Clooney and Pitt. The Nvidia GeForce 9200M GS offers pleasing game performance, especially for a borderline ultralight. The keyboard is reminiscent of the MacBook Air's, and it's quite solid and comfortable, so you needn't worry about the RSI that often afflicts the working class. And the card reader can accommodate not only SD but also Memory Stick and xD, so you use the cards directly from your Canon, Sony or Olympus — no cables are necessary (not that you can't afford a cable).

Regretfully, if Samsung is going to go all out, it should pull out the stops. If you are going to pay a premium price for a laptop, you should at least get Blu-ray, but it's not even offered as an option here. And while 3-plus hours of battery life is decent, one cannot expect civilized people to plug in midflight, even if the servant in first class will do it for you.

In reality, most of us are wiping the still-wet ramen noodles from our beards, as we scour Craigslist for our next gig while our severance or unemployment rapidly dwindles. This is just not the economic climate to throw money around on a notebook that almost gets there. The Samsung is a good notebook, but it's not great, it's way overpriced, and it doesn't even have a big brand to artificially inflate its worth. If you're loaded, shouldn't your notebook be, too?

WIRED Impeccable elegance gives you coffeeshop je ne sais quoi. Support for SD, Memory Stick and xD is rare and cool. Overall high performance marks for a thin and light notebook.

TIRED Price: This is a great deal in a $900 machine. $1,600? Not so much. Lack of Blu-ray is puzzling, especially considering the HDMI-out.

Style: Thin and light
Operating System: MS Vista
Manufacturer: Samsung
Price: $1,600 (as tested)

Sharp To Unveil TVs With Integrated Blu-ray Players Next Month

2008-12-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

The Blu-ray format has yet to blow up in a wave of success, but Sharp Electronics is betting that a Blu-ray-TV combo design will boost its sales and bring the company some needed buzz.

According to Sharp executive Mike Troetti, the company will release two Aquos LCD HDTVs with embedded Blu-ray players next month, right after they're unveiled during CES 2009.

The TVs will come in 32 inches and 42 inches, and the latter will have 1080p HD resolution and a 120Hz frame-rate processing. Both sizes will feature a multiple slot loading rig for easy transitions between Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs. For the moment, there's no word on whether the TV will be able to play the full suite of Blu-ray disc profiles.

Here in the Gadget Lab, we're big fans of the All-in-One rig, whether it's a touchscreen PC, or a quality iMac, but we're a bit skeptical of this one because of the nightmares of recent history.

In the early 1990s, if you remember, TVs with embedded VCRs were some of the most popular consumer electronic designs and flew out of Costcos in a hurry. It was easy and you didn't have to deal with any of that darn complicated cord pluggin', video input crap. But it wasn't especially fun when the VCR head inevitably coughed up half-eaten bricks or when you realized that they added a good 30% to its overall area. And very often, the quality of the video playback just wasn't as good as you could find it in separate set-top boxes.

This video quality disparity was less of a problem with embedded DVDs, but it is likely to come up again with the Blu-ray format, which still hasn't settled because manufacturers keep improving upon the players (although that's mostly a good thing). We'll take a look at this disparity when the TVs are released.

The early rumor is that the 42-inch Sharp HDTV/Blu-ray will be priced at about $2,000 or so.

What do you guys think? Will the convenience of the all-in-one rig prove enough of an incentive to buy, or is buying separate always the better TV option?

Unlocked Taiwanese iPhones Could Cause Gray Import Surge

2008-12-17T06:31:00.004-08:00

At $800 and $900 for the 8GB and 16GB models respectively, these iPhones aren't cheap. But the official Thai iPhone is, along with the Hong Kong version, the only way you'll be able to get your hands on an unlocked 3G.

While freeing the original iPhone from its carrier is a simple one or two click process, the 3G still hasn't seen a baseband unlock (you can jailbreak, or hack them to run unofficial software but you're still tied to the contract you bought it with). And with Euro telcos asking for some ridiculously high monthly charges, the lure of a non-tied handset is strong.

We'll see if these things make it onto the gray market, but our suspicion is that demand will be strong, especially in those countries which don't even have an iPhone yet. But remember, those prices are what you pay direct to Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) for the phone. Any Ebayer offering them up will certainly be putting a hefty percentage on top.

RAZR Re-Incarnated as Knock-Off Baby Toy

2008-12-17T06:31:00.003-08:00

It might not have the cachet of the iPhone, but the sheer ubiquity of Motorola's hate-it-or-hate-it RAZR means it has achieved an altogether higher form of immortality. It has been made into a toy for babies.

Here we see the plastic representation of Moto's iconic, hard-to-use clamshell handset. It has all the features needed to entertain an eighteen-month-old: chewy plastic corners, annoying sounds (just like the real thing!) and a rubberized, spittle-proof keypad.

In fact, this toy is so suited to the partially developed human that BoingBoingGadget's John Brownlee, who visited my temporary Berlin apartment last night to beg for companionship (it appears that even his paedokeet pet, Humbert Humbird, has grown tired of him) dropped his iPhone and picked up the Baby RAZR.

"I can't believe you still use one of these," he scoffed, brandishing his (old, first-gen) iPhone. "You're a professional gadget blogger," he continued, "you should be setting an example!"

Ah, the irony. I believe Brownlee returned to his lonely home still chuckling, unaware that the toy was in fact a toy. A toy that, incidentally, doesn't even fool its owner, a real baby that only two days ago mistook the Lady's furry hat for a potty and attempted to make a deposit.

Price, unknown. Availability: your local dime-store. More pictures below.

Hackers Successfully Unlock the iPhone 3G

2008-12-17T06:31:00.001-08:00

A team of hackers announced Tuesday that it has unlocked the iPhone 3G.

Codenamed "yellowsn0w," the hack will enable the iPhone 3G to work with 3G networks other than those sanctioned by Apple. (For example, the unlock hack would make the iPhone 3G work on the T-Mobile network in the United States.) The iPhone Dev-Team, famous for unlocking the original iPhone, said the hack will be ready for release by Dec. 31.

This, of course, will undoubtedly lead to another game of cat and mouse. When the Dev-Team unlocked the first iPhone in 2007, Apple released software updates that effectively bricked (i.e., rendered useless) any unlocked handset.

"It's a cat-and-mouse game," said Jobs, when asked about unlocked iPhones in November 2007. "We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it's our job to stop them breaking in."

It should be clarified that "Jailbreaking" the iPhone is not the same as unlocking it -- though there is some confusion over this term. The term Jailbreak refers to a process that hacks the iPhone to run unauthorized software -- apps that likely would never be approved in Apple's iPhone App Store. The iPhone Dev-Team released the Jailbreak tool for iPhone 3G -- called Pwnage 2.0 -- just days after the iPhone 3G's launch in July.

Tilt-Shift Comes to the iPhone

2008-12-17T06:26:00.002-08:00

Tilt-Shift photography (and the faking thereof) is so hot right now. In fact, it will probably date the photography of today in the same way the tobacco-graduated filter dates the pictures of the 1980s.

Now, the technique is set to swarm onto iPhones everywhere with the application TiltShift, enabling casual snappers to turn their surroundings into tiny models, with little people and matchbox-sized buildings.

What is tilt-shift? As you can see from the name, it comprises two parts, the tilt and the shift. Both of these involve moving the lens in relation to the film plane. The main historical use was for architectural photography -- the lens could be tilted to also tilt the focal plane, meaning that the photographer could have things both near and far in focus at the same time.

The lens could also be shifted (usually up) to capture the top of a building without tilting the camera back and inducing "converging verticals", a big no-no in the starchy world of architects. Interestingly, converging horizontals (railway lines that appear to touch in the distance) have never been so ostracized, presumably because you'd need a mile-high tripod to fix them.

The modern day use of tilt-shift lenses has been to simulate the effect of tiny models. If you take a picture of a train set, say, then you'll have a tiny area of focus, quickly blurring in front of and behind the subject. It turns out that this visual cue is wired tightly to our perception of size and therefore reducing the depth of field with a tilt lens makes things look tiny to us.

The lenses are a pain to use, though, so software stepped in. And now that software is available to do in-phone processing on the iPhone. TitlShift is a $2 app which allows some basic but powerful manipulation. You choose the area you want to keep in focus and "feather" the edges of that selection. The software then adds the lens blur. Easy.

The one thing we'd ask for would be to control the tilt effect by actually tilting the iPhone. That would be sweet. As it is, you have to use sliders on screen -- way more accurate, but way less fun.

IPod Touch owners aren't left out. The app comes with a small library of photos to play with, and can process anything already in your film-roll.

Pentax' Special Edition K2000 Dials the FFFFFF Up to Eleven

2008-12-17T06:26:00.001-08:00

Pentax has announced a white, special edition of its 10.2 MP DSLR beginner-cam, the K2000 (or K-m, depending where in the world you are). Other than color, it differs not a jot from the black K2000 launched in September.

The white body will come in a kit, bundled with two lenses, also lacking in pigmentation -- the DA L 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL and the DA L 50-200mm F4-5.6 AL. It doesn't look like there is a white version of the Pentax flashgun that was included in the original kit, though, which is a cryin' Christmas shame.

Today's news seems to be developing something of a theme. First, there is a movie reference in every post (go count 'em) and now, along with the snowball launcher, we have a snow white camera. We'd stick to the snowball fights for now, though. The white K2000 kit will hit stores in February 2009, too late to make it under the Christmas tree. Officially, the price is yet to be decided, but the reliable DP Review says this:

£449 [$701] with 18-55mm kit lens, £549 [$857] with both 18-55mm and 50-200mm lenses

Cowon S9 review

2008-12-17T06:24:00.001-08:00

Cowon 'ave a go...

The latest personal media player from Cowon clearly wants to be an iPod Touch when it grows up. It’s almost – but not quite – the Touch’s equal on so many points. It has a 3.3-inch display compared to the Touch’s 3.5-incher, for example. It comes in 8GB and 16GB sizes, whereas the Touch now goes up to 32GB. And, in place of the Touch’s built-in wi-fi is the S9’s much less useful Bluetooth support.

In some areas, however, the S9 actually manages to pip its rival at the post. Audio quality, particularly, is a strong suit for Cowon’s young whipper snapper. The BBE+ sound field system really manages to put some punch into compressed music files. A selection of additional JetEffect enhancements and EQ settings lets you tweak sound settings to your preference too, helping in some situations to compensate for weaker headphones. Speaking of which, you’ll need to avail yourself of a decent pair of cans forthwith, as the buds supplied here really don’t do the S9 justice.

To carry on the comparison, Cowon’s S9 is also a great deal lighter than the iPod and a little smaller in all proportions other than its depth. Its AMOLED (that’s Active Matrix Organic Light-emitting Diode, acronym fans) screen is noticeably brighter and more colour-rich than the standard LCD screen on the ‘Pod, too. Movies look stunning, and a familiar motion sensor-based feature means that flipping the device on its side lets you view your cinematic gems in all their widescreen glory.

Additional bonuses include an FM radio and an audio recording facility. Battery life isn’t bad, either, and A/V output lets you plug the little chap into a big, grown-up telly if you want to.

The only real letdown, in fact, is the S9’s slightly disappointing control system – a combination of touch-screen interface and physical buttons. It’s obviously supposed to work a bit like Apple’s equivalent but it doesn’t. Having a choice of ‘skins’ is all well and good, but using the S9 just isn’t as intuitive as it should be. The fact that pressing the awkwardly positioned ‘home’ button is actually slightly painful to use doesn’t help matters much.

AirCar - runs on compressed air

2008-12-13T04:20:00.003-08:00

After apocalyptic scenarios related to the global warming began to interest scientists, there already began to appear results of exploration in the field of energy economy and some other ecological technologies. In June 2007 Popular Mechanics announced that India, specifically Tata Motors, had begun production of the first car moved by air. This year, Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) announces that production of the similar model, destined for USA market is expecting to begin till the end of 2009, or at least 2010.

They have also tried to find some other solutions in nonpolluting propulsion domain. For example Daewoo a South-Korean company, created a Matiz concept with a hybrid engine: air – electric. Australian company EngineAir also developed a "rotative engine" moved by pressed air. K'Airmobiles presented two working concepts "VPA" (Vehicle with Pneumatic Assistance) and "VPP" (Vehicle with Pneumatic Propulsion) in the end of the last year; maximum weight of such a model being limited by 250 kg.

Propulsion technology of the AirCar's engine was developed by the former Formula 1 engineer for MDI (Motor Development International) from Luxemburg. While in the internal-combustion engines pistons are moved be the explosion of the fuel, then in an AirCar the moving is realized by air under pressure.

ZPM hope that soon the production of AirCars will be more than 10000 units annually. Models that will be launched will be OneCat, with two seats (as was produced in India) and MiniCat, with three seats. The company is also intending to launch a model called CityCat with six seats.

One refueling with 340 l of air under pressure will cost approximately 2 USD and will assure autonomy for more than 1000 km at the speed 100 km/h. The price for such a car is estimating to be 17800 USD.

It sounds too good to be true? We hope that not.

Bracelet media player made of e-paper

2008-12-13T04:20:00.001-08:00

Jewelry is created notonly to emphasize individuality of a person, but also was worn to be useful to him. Now we simply get lost among a huge variety of rings, beads, bracelets. The company Chocolate Agency has offered the optimum decision with its unusual jewelry. Their multimedia gadget is an unusual bracelet. This gadget in my opinion does not compete with earrings with camera built in but it still a very cool device.

This gadget does not have an ordinary display. Isn’t it perfect? It completely consists of e-paper. Due to its properties the display is thin enough and is also flexible. You can watch favorite movies or the video clips, the only thing you need to do is to unroll the bracelet.

One of the advantages of the submitted gadget is that it will be charged from kinetic energy of the man who carries it. Not sure where those kinetic elements are placed but the idea is pretty cool.

So, the bracelet is compact, interesting with its exceptional characteristics and much more – it looks wonderful as jewelry.

HDPC - smartphone and UMPC hybrid

2008-12-13T04:17:00.003-08:00

When someone needs mobile device that can accomplish complex tasks, smartphones are first that comes in mind. However, operating systems that are used on smartphones nowadays are very different from desktop ones. This means they need other applications, which are often very limited comparing to regular ones. What if someone needs fully functional portable PC? Netbooks or laptops are way bigger than usual smartphone, UMPCs offer good possibilities but without phone function. Fortunately, Chinese company MIU successfully integrated phone into UMPC, making a perfect and almost almighty portable gadget for computer geeks. Details below.

This collaboration between UMPC and smartphone is named HDPC, which stands for Hybrid Dual Portable Computer. It uses Windows XP as its main OS, so it is able to launch almost every regular application created for Windows. However, phone functions are realized in an unusual way. MIU engineers made an interesting move - they decided to not reinvent the wheel and didn't even tried to icorporate Wireless protocols - Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi. There are two cameras - one for video chat (VGA) and other (3 megapixels) for taking photos. IT even has Digital TV receiver, which is fully DVB -T compatible. Chinese companies often want to put as many functions as possible, so presence of TV signal receiver is not a novelty in Chinese smartphones. Las but not least - HDPC has full QWERTY keyboard hidden under its screen.

Big list of functions almost every time means big size, and this is true. Mio HDPC is big - no bigger than usual UMPCs but it is a huge phone in any case (160 x 65 x 25 mm), weight is not small too - HDPC weights 387 g.

This gadget is bulky, it looks like a brick, but nevertheless it is one of the most multifunctional devices on market. Usage of desktop OS means that user is not limited in audio and video formats; there is absolutely no need to convert video and audio files so they can be played on HDPC. It is also very convenient to use for internet browsing, IM applications and text editing purposes due to its QWERTY keyboard. In any case, let's wait for its release; it will be interesting to check its price. If it will be like their previous model, around 500 dollars, this gadget will have a good chance to be successful.

Original jewelry not only for the neck

2008-12-13T04:17:00.002-08:00

USB flash drives are so popular today that we cannot imagine our routine daily work or business without them. It's like our right hand. However, girls usually not only take from them useful features, they want to be stylish and original. Thus the USB flash drives become a wonderful accessory continuing to carry out its main appointment and functions. Nowadays, flash drives are appearing in various shapes and kinds. This season flash drive is represented in the form of jewel that perfectly suits you anywhere you are - be there a Birthday party or business meeting - you look simultaneously severe and refined. Girls or women will like this gadget very much because it reflects their nature - love to beauty and elegance. Made by Brando, unusual flash drive comes together with a necklace which you could put on and be glad and seem yourself perfectly like the beauty queen. Only this piece of jewel could make your mood very good. But the usage of this gadget isn't limited by carrying on neck - you could pick up it on your mobile phone and you'll always attract somebody’s attention having such jewelry. Be sure that your friends (mostly girls) would also like to get this smart gadget for being the same.
As to flash drive, it has to my mind standard characteristics to save your data in safety as it is necessary. Compatible with Windows Vista, XP and 2000 and even with Mac OS it has weight only 20 gr, what won't force you bend under this accessory. 81 X 24 X 10 mm serves to the gadget as jewelry’s sizes. The possible capacity makes 4 GB and this beauty costs 39.00 USD.
I think that carrying of this accessory bears some danger by essence. Everybody would have a temptation to snatch it away. So, be attentive!

Nice jewelry iRing for remote controlling execution

2008-12-13T04:17:00.001-08:00

iPod, iPhone ... iRing! The number of i-Family replenishes, do you khow? Neither iPod nor iPhone did cause so many emotions as this nice, original and cool-developed gadget. It is decorated by Apple emblem that distinguishes it from the other gadgets invented for easiness, comfort and practicality. The iRing is powered with USB special realized docking station. A special integrated function allows the jewelry to implement new method of managing or remotely controlling both the iPod and iPhone (or one of them). What do you think is the main managing item of the ring? You are right, 'cause just this small Apple's logo on the ring hides great possibilities inside. All this happens thanks to the built in Bluetooth technology and sensitive touch screen. Single charge will allow using this gadget during two days. The iRing operates perfectly only by the reason it uses OLED strip screen to display those controlling functions that are executed right now. It also does such an operation as volume regulation of the iPod and/or iPhone, functioning as skipping tracks with logo possibilities in the form of play/pause function. You could find out execution of the other functions by the only making any move with your finger - sensor rubber keypad will detect the pressure and will permit you making what you want. IRing is invented and designed by Victor Soto and it is a really good find in a jewelry world, because it is not only useful but also complete invention for the best controlling or managing favorite devices. It would be better that the gadget would have also such characteristics as information storage and remember capability. That would be cool enough.

An Elegant Earphone for You

2008-12-13T04:16:00.006-08:00

Women of all times and ages preferred jewelry. It was their passion and desire, their greatest wish to receive diamonds and brilliants. The items of jewelry have always been the work of art, and today that elegance and refinement is combined with the achievements of modern technology.

iLuv i83SIL Crystal In-Ear Earphones with In-Line Volume Control give you the possibility to use your earphones and be elegant and stylish. It has a dual function: it serves as an earphone, which allows you to listen to your favorite music retained in your iPhone with stereo digital sound and its exquisite design makes you feel smart and confident. Crystal In-Ear Earphones fits ideally for portable audio devices and the earpads are quite comfortable. The diameter of the speaker driver is 10 mm. A special design of inline volume control allows you to adjust it according to your wish.

As you have already understood, it is small and lightweight. Crystals, which cover the earphones, give it the specific refinement. The earphone is highly comfortable and stylish and, I am sure, will not leave indifferent anyone. Moreover, it is available in several color options: black, silver, pink, and gold; so you may choose the color that shows you preferences and mood. If you are in a difficult situation, this earphone may be an excellent present for your friends, who are mad at such devices.

Combination of Jewelry and Ear Clips

2008-12-13T04:16:00.005-08:00

As far as women are concerned, they like to shine brightly and jewelry is the ideal source which makes them glowing. Women would be glad if the usual objects of everyday use were covered with precious stones and gemstones. I am sure, they will be happy if they receive tiny and comfortable ear clips, set with sparkling crystals, which make girls stylish and elegant.
iLiv Company is famous for its products, which are refined, elegant, and suit to be used every day. Their i84 Crystal Ear Clips are the breakthrough in the development of technology and jewelry arts.

The ear clips’ design is smart and stylish, they are comfortable, easily fit the ears. iLiv combined professionalism, technical advantages, and beautiful design in its ear clips. These ear clips may be used for iPhones, and provide stereo digital sound. They are pressed tightly to your ears and the sound quality is higher in any acoustic conditions. The inline volume control allows you to adjust the sound as you wish. The ear clips are equipped with the adjustable slider for maximum comfort.

As the majority of the iLiv products these ear clips are available in two color options: black and silver; so you may choose the one you like most. It is ideal for those who like to listen to music while going somewhere, and you do not have to be afraid that they will fall, when you are in a crowded place.

A Bluetooth Headset with Swarovski Crystals

2008-12-13T04:16:00.003-08:00

People have always wished to look nice, stylish, and elegant. They choose black to look refined, or pink to seem gay and happy. We choose colors, which can transmit our mood and preferences, our relation to the reality. We buy a thing and we feel sorry that we cannot change its color, when our mood alters. The solution of this problem exists: this new device allows changing its color. You bought a Bluetooth headset, but its color is already boring? Change it into more bright and shining!

The Chameleon Bluetooth Headset offers the solution. It has seven changeable covers of different colors: gold, light sapphire, sapphire, rose pink, black diamond, red and green, and these covers are set up with Swarovski Crystals. So, when your mood changes, you may change the surrounding world and your gadgets will show your disposition. Furthermore, you will have only one Bluetooth headset, while your friends think, you have many of them. Each fascia may be easily clipped on and off, so you will not have difficulties with changing covers.

Despite its stylish and original design, the Bluetooth headset possesses excellent technical characteristics. It proposes enhanced qualitative sound and comfortable ear hook. 4 hours talk time and 120 hours standby time are other advantages of the Bluetooth.

This Bluetooth headset makes you look elegant and lets your hands free to do what you wish.

The most expensive earphones – jewelry from the UK

2008-12-13T04:16:00.001-08:00

What do we mean when we say about the luxury things? Of course, we could imagine great villa near the sea or improbably expensive car bought at one of the latest sales. It’s not enough. When we mention the luxury we also think about jewelry.
This jewelry really causes the best and unforgettable feelings. Terrific earphones were made by Casa Gi. The main components that are included in this gadget - gold and diamonds - are considered one of the most expensive jewelries in the world. 18 carat of gold are fantastic decorated with 118 diamonds. This means that earphones weigh 18 grams in whole and this testifies you have inside your ears not only fabulous thing but even easy earphones. The only problem remains - the developers have made only one pair of such wonderful precious earphones. A managing director of the Casa Gi Company, Richard Slack says that these earphones are the main “pride” of their Clive Ranger shop's window in the UK. From his words we find that the earphones attract "a lot of attention but as of yet we haven't found a buyer". It is the truth addressed to the gadget because its space price consists £3500. No doubt that diamonds and first of all gold make them sky expensive.
This gadget could be enough good present for the future coming Christmas. But it isn't absolutely unequivocally certain gift. They are still on sale at Bristol but nobody risks buying beautiful thing because it's not absolutely practical one. They look mostly like souvenir and not everyone will risk taking advantage of this piece with a view of personal safety. The only thing remains - to admire it under glass anywhere at home. However, such a gift will delight anybody, I think.

Swiss Rotary quality for all times

2008-12-13T04:15:00.003-08:00

Many of The most famous Swiss and world's watchmakers is a family firms. They started long ago and now some of them transformed in to big conglomerates. They are keeping old family traditions and to be in stream with modern tendencies as well. Football stars, celebrities, business and middle class, every can choice something for themselves at affordable price and with desired design.
Rotary Watches offering traditional watches for over a century. Swiss quality, affordable prices, unforgettable design and style, carefully selected materials are making Rotary watches to be a real piece of jewelry for all times. Watches are a perfect gift for any occasion, for any situation and for nearly any person. Having exceptional design and quality it will serve long years and always will be a piece of memory, which is bringing us back. Used materials are making it to be reliable, durable and solid. Rotary Collection includes items for any taste and age, for woman and man, from classic models to contemporary designed models. From sparkling collection for ladies, diamond encrusted and based on waterproof standard to Precious Metals collection. Watches, which will make you special. Rotary Watches is using such precious materials as 9ct gold, 18ct gold and sterling silver, sapphire crystals and other crystals in some models. Any customer may choose something special and suitable for any occasion or just for each day enjoyable moments. Express yourself and your feelings through Rotary, it is easy and original.

Something special for her, alliance of Swarovski and Philips

2008-12-13T04:15:00.001-08:00

Here is a new amazing gadget for ladies. Is a result of cooperation between Philips and Swarovski. Both they are perfect in their fields, but united their efforts they made something special. For some time they were so attentive to notice that gadgets these days somehow simple and squared. Having a time to think they agreed with each other that time to make something special and spark for ladies. Yes, probably they already got some jewellery, but definitely, it is not electronic one.
Design is very special, is heart shaped lock, which is in fact high speed USB flash drive. Both they have about 1GB capacity and it is enough to carry all necessary files and data. This gadget is coming with 2 years warranty. Retail price for them is near £120.
It is a great gadget, which also is great gift. If you have the aim to make your lady to feel a special – it is a right thing for her. It is so necessary, long-term device, modern and stylish, each lady would like to have something nice and beautiful as it. Nevertheless, it is not a single surprise form Philips, what do you think about the same design earphones. Either as present, or apart for different events, they are unique and special. Combination of 2 strong brands making it double strong from all point of view, beauty and quality.
Summary: Combination of exclusive design and functionality, technology and elegancy. It proves that functionality can come together with originality.

Vinotemp iCellar Wine Cooler

2008-12-13T04:14:00.002-08:00

Christmas is about having lots of people over for dinner. Making sure that everything is perfect for the time when all the guests arrive, gives many people a huge “Christmas” headache. But there are ways to ensure that everybody enjoys their Christmas dinner, including the hosts of the celebration. A good wine is a tradition in many families that celebrate Christmas together with their friends and family. In order for the good wine to preserve its quality, a wine cooler is essential. Vinotemp introduces the iCellar wine cooler that is a good Christmas purchase, or even gift.

This cellar can hold up to 12 bottles and is a model that offers many features that will make your wine experience even better. Design wise, iCellar looks good in any household, as it comes in a black and stainless mirrored outlook that gives it a modern touch. Some of the features that make it a good fit in your household are the energy-saving, quiet thermoelectric cooling technology, the touchscreen control panel that is easy to use, and the soft interior lighting.

A perfect blend of technology and design

2008-12-13T04:14:00.001-08:00

Swarovski announced launch of jewellery collection made a small revolution in design of gadgets. It is already a good tradition for Swarovski to issue one by one extravagant gadgets in collaboration with leading producers as for example Philips.
Time when usual design is satisfying people is passing, especially if we are speaking about creative personalities.
Nobody before had a similar idea, and nobody never did it. They created rock and roll inspired jewellery pieces. Professional headphones completely encrusted with amethyst crystals, sparks with millions of lights. They even created for these microphones special luxury box and small bag, this way all comfort conditions for gadget with price - 1670 Euro (approximately 2404 USD) were as well created. Undoubtedly, DJ will be the main figure at party, undoubtedly, the party will have great success, undoubtedly mood, atmosphere and drive will be at the highest possible degree.
It is a unique gadget, with created perfect blend of modern technology and style, quality and performance, new ideas how make celebrations and performance full of dance and sparks, which comes with brilliant, sparks of Swarovski crystals.
Swarovski Fashion Rocks - DJ Headphones is an item which will make any DJ to rock, as well it will inspire the public to have as much as possible of fun.

A perfect tandem of Bluetooth technology and Swarovski Crystals

2008-12-13T04:12:00.002-08:00

The wireless technologies developing very fast, and it is has a rational explanation. Life free from wires is simple, mobile and effective from short to long ranges.
If we are speaking about Bluetooth wireless technology it is a short-range technology, which providing free of cables connecting any devices with high security levels. The strongest points of Bluetooth are low power, low cost and reliability.
Now for us is something usual to use all these wireless gadgets, like they always were in our life. Very fast new technology becoming something natural for us, and after functionality we want to satisfy our aesthetic demands – if we are speaking about beautiful part of humankind. This jewelled gadget encrusted with famous Swarovski crystals Rose & Jet Design is one of them.
Yes, probably it is giving additional work to designers, but also transforming these gadgets in to piece of jewelry, which is giving more feminity and charm to their possessor. Now she looks so styli with this jewelled crystal blinded gadget and takes all advantages of hands free communication.
Universal Wireless Bluetooth Headset H350 is a use to use gadget, in spite of luxury look is providing all necessary features as:
Volume control, led indicator, 8 hours talk time, super light weight, one push access to all call functions. Use it with compatible models of Bluetooth phones as Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and enjoy all the freedom and beauty.

Earphones with crystals, special things for special people

2008-12-13T04:12:00.001-08:00

At least never before, such simple gadget as earphone was looking so much feminine, sparkling, and bright and has such look attractive as now.
Recently appeared CrystalRoc line of Sennheiser high-class chic earphones, which is something exclusive, unique and remarkable.
CrystalRoc used famous Swarovski crystals to create this extraordinary accessory. Already for more then 60 years Sennheiser name is a synonym of top-quality products as concerns recording, reproductions and sound transmission.
So as we can see this gadget is not only beautiful, fashionable thing, it is also a gadget with full functions and necessary functions, only it is a special, hand work, a piece of art in combination with modern technology. It is perfect work, where you will not find any defect and fault, where each small crystal is placed at its place. Further more it is a double hit, specially now when sometimes is so hard to surprise a person with something special, never seen before. This gadget will be a perfect present to young man or woman, who is stylish and modern, who likes to listen to the music in unusual way, and at the same time wants to look cool and unforgettable. Christmas, birthday, Valentines day, any event will be unforgettable decorated with this gadget. It is definitely add a touch of originality to its owner. Unusual look of usual things. Special things for special people.

Ideal Jewel Bluetooth for Women

2008-12-13T04:11:00.000-08:00

We are girls, and it means we like jewelry, we like to shine everyday, amaze and marvel our friends. Earrings, pendants, rings are our passion and desire. However, the technical progress goes further and successfully combines jewelry with gadgets. So, if your girlfriend is fond of technical gadgets and various small sparkling things, you can surprise her, presenting an original Bluetooth headset. Girls like different shining and bright things, which improve their mood and make them look elegant and stylish. Moreover, if they are useful as well, they are invaluable for girls. If your girlfriend is tender and sweet, you may present her a pink Bluetooth headset, covered with glowing crystals. If she is more sportive and keen, silver Bluetooth headset will be an ideal gift for her.

The Pama 7008 Silver and Pink Diamante Bluetooth Headset is a perfect and excellent accessory for women. It comes with the neck strap, Li-ion battery and charger, and flexible rubber on the ear hook. This means that you may shape it as you wish and, consequently, make it fit your ear more comfortably. The Bluetooth headset is light weighted (just 12.7g), and, moreover, it has other advantages as well: up to 5 hours talk time and up to 200 hours standby. You can use it with your phone and enjoy enhanced qualitative sound in various acoustic conditions.

It is stylish and elegant, it is covered with crystals, and it provides clear sound, so you may present it, use for yourself, and correspond to its design.

Earphones and Holster Case for Your iPhone

2008-12-13T04:09:00.002-08:00

We are mad at our phones: we cannot already imagine our life without these small devices, which store a huge amount of useful and necessary information. We are shocked if we have forgotten our dear phones at home. Without them we feel ourselves as if we are armless. And, consequently, we try to protect them from damage, not to throw them, drop, or kick down. However, sometimes, when we are angry, we may defect our phones, for we do not think of consequences at these moments.

iLiv Company proposed the elegant and stylish solution of this problem: its i80 Crystal In-ear Earphones with In-line Volume Control and Holster Case for your iPhone is designed specifically for iPhones. The case, made as a holster, protects your phone without impeding its usage, that is you can answer important calls, charge it, or find the information, you need, without taking it out from the case. Except this advantage, the case has two color options: silver and gold, so you may choose the one you need. It adds stylishness to your phone and excellent look.

In the set there are included, besides the case, the earphones with in-line volume control. They are designed in the same color pattern as the case is. The earphones give the possibility to listen to music, stored on your iPhone and provide high sound quality. They are very comfortable, and are ideal for these phones. The neat and fine design adds glamour to your phone and you will feel yourself stylish and elegant.

Cool jewelry - imitation of iPod ear-buds in gold and silver

2008-12-13T04:09:00.001-08:00

It is something usual for us now when we see gadgets made from gold or other precious metals, encrusted with stones, which are adornments of daily routine. IPods, USB flash memory, headsets and microphones which having all their functional features look rather as adornments.
Today we are bumping in situation when jewelry looks as gadgets. Something very new. Anna Tascha Larsson Sweden jewelry designer step that road. Now when iPod is desired by everybody gadget, when all these things is something more than functional devices, is fashion, style, and desire of whole generation. Anna Tascha Larsson decided why if so not to take this idea and to make from it jewellery shaped exactly as original gadget. One perfect day on the stage appeared her creation – a necklace, available both in silver and in gold, it looks precisely as iPod ear-buds. It is not functional gadget, but we have to confess that it looks so charming, these long retro lines of chain, not trivial modern jewelry, which is, underlines the woman individuality. A real peace of cool modern and feminine jewelry. The fact that Christmas and New Year celebrations each day closer and closer, making this gadget to be a cool present for cool lady as well.

USB Flash Engagement Ring with Swarovski Crystal, romantic and modern

2008-12-13T04:08:00.000-08:00

Modern technology and design rushes in to such traditional sphere of our life as marriage. Each of us definitely seeing each day many unusual gadgets, but how could we suppose that marriage proposal can me marked in such strange but nice way. This jewelry gadget main aim is to accompany men when he is doing this a very important step. For certain, it is special way to do it using USB Flash Drive Swarovski Crystal Engagement Ring.
It is not the first gadget with Swarovski Crystals, and we have all right to suppose that that sparkling story will be continued. Does anybody have a little idea what it can be next? I am in great doubts about it, honestly saying.
This magnetic Swarovski sphere shaped crystal is coming in variety of sizes and cuts. From rounded to ribbed, but both so elegant and attractive, like Snow Queen jewelry. Crystal on the top of ring is hiding the USB stick. If you got slender hands, it comes with necklace, which you can wear on your neck instead, one more feminine solution and practical one. Due to the fact that is a special engagement ring, it is mean at least you should store there also special things as story of two of you in photos, videos, memories. Keep it especially for it, let it be your most romantic gadget, increase your collection day by day, and enjoy it as much as possible, bringing time back. May be already you collected a collection of love correspondence to each other – from first day of meeting till moment when this Crystal Engagement Rings took place in your family life. Now you have solution, how to manage all these precious things, how to keep them safe and only for you and him. Crystal is a symbol of eternity, let these moments also be saved forever. Bright and modern way to be romantic.

HTC Touch Diamond, Simply Beautiful and… Only Beautiful?

2008-12-11T20:09:00.003-08:00

Here's one of the most elegant and beautiful WiMo devices available on the market, the HTC Touch Diamond.
When it was announced earlier this year I was amazed by the beauty of this little beast, but wondered how nice this PDA phone would actually be. Yes, the press release pictures were gorgeous, but pictures are sometimes deceiving… When HTC sent me a Diamond earlier this June, I was impressed by its appearance, but that was it.

Let’s put things into perspective, the Touch Diamond for me is similar to an Aston Martin DBS. Both the WiMo device and the car are stunning examples of design, and when you show them to friends they either drool like babies or look at you with envy. Things get real ugly when they do both at the same time…

Strangely, once turned on both the HTC Touch Diamond and Aston Martin DBS failed to impress us… Both are in fact poorly manufactured with cheap materials and slow and unreliable.

I have been using the Touch Diamond for a month now and I'm sad to report some puzzling facts:

- First we have the material used on the Diamond, cheap plastic, especially on the back. After using it for a week it begins to make little noises around the stylus silo, if you happen to hold your phone firmly at this end.

-Then you have the screen, a nice VGA little wonder which is “burned out” by the the phone's backlight. On our demo unit, the right side of the screen seems to be brighter and “burned” compared to the other side.

- Slow like a dead snail. Don't get me wrong here, but I hate having a 500Mhz plus powered device in my hands that's slow to respond when I tape on an application. I can assure you I've seen worse, but the Diamond is sluggish and you have to tap the screen several times in order to start an application.

- TouchFlo 3D… Why did HTC recreate what others have already beautifully done, like the SPB Mobile Shell 2.0? I complained earlier about the Touch Diamond's speed, well believe it or not, the Diamond is slow mainly due to the TouchFlo 3D environment.

There are NO doubts that the UI is gorgeous and will amaze you with it's nice graphics and animation, but after 15 minutes you'll find yourself in the Settings Panel removing TouchFlo 3D from your Today List. If you don't care about speed and enjoy taking your time doing things, consider this… You'll will spend much of your time scrolling left or right when accessing certain applications. Let’s say for example that you're at the Home screen and want to access to your web browser with TouchFlo 3D… You'll have to scroll left or right 5 times to arrive to your final destination. If you're like me and don't care about the camera feature or Mp3 player, guess what, there is no way to remove them!

-Too much “tapping” to launch applications! Similar to the TouchFlo 3D interface, HTC also made things worse by adding unnecessary additional steps to get to your “Notification”. Since our VGA screen is smaller than many of those found on other devices, HTC decided to add an additional pop-up page to let you choose between different notification icons like EMAIL, PHONE, NETWORK ,and so on. This adds a further step to the process.

-Weak radio. I own several HTC products, like an MTeor, a Hermes, an Advatange X7510, and now the Diamond. Among all of my HTC toys, the Diamond is the only one which often loses the network when I leave it alone for a time. I have tested this at several different locations and where my MTeor had a signal, the Diamond could not catch anything. Even more puzzling is how sensitive the Diamond is… I was outside Tokyo for a video shoot on the new Toyota Crown Hybrid. Where I used it if I swung the phone to my left I had 3 signal bars, to my right, none… Scary!

-GPS? Well… Yes the GPS works, but don't be in hurry to get your location.

Pros? There are some don't worry. The camera UI, as well as the photo album UI and audio UI are stunning, beautiful and fast! I uploaded several pictures taken straight from my 30D Canon in the Diamond and didn't have any slow down at all when viewing them, even when rotating them. Another nifty feature is the 4GB of HDD storage which can be used as an external USB thumb key. Honestly, this feature works pretty well on any MAC or PC, I even loved the way how HTC presented this with a nice pop-up page asking you if you want to connect your Diamond to the PC via ActiveSync or HDD storage. Well done!

Once again, I say that all UI animations are well done and really gorgeous, if things could be a little bit faster the HTC Touch Diamond would have made my day.

Conclusion:
How should I finish this review, if I can honestly call this one… If you put aside the iPHONE 3G for a moment, the HTC Touch Diamond is definitively a good Windows Mobile Device, and this compared to any previous models. The Touch Diamond's design is really nice, the TouchFlo 3D's UI is stunning, and we have a very small form factor PDA phone in the hand. However, there are many things that need improvement, like the weak radio and the TouchFlo 3D's speed, especially when now the Touch Diamond is not the only cool WiMo device out there (Sony Experia and Samsung).

So HTC… now everything is in your hands, just bring us ROM updates!

New YouTube-Friendly Camera from Victor JVC Available Now in Japan

2008-12-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

With a size of 54x113x68mm and a weight of 305g, here's JVC's latest video camera, the Everio GZ-MG840, with 60GB of HDD. Available now in Japan for 70,000 Yen (580€), this new camera uses microSD or microSDHC cards in to record MPEG-2 video.

This YouTube-Friendly camera features a 1/6’’ CCD sensor with a 32x optical zoom, and a 2.7’’ LCD screen. It records up to 14 hours and 20 minutes of video in Ultra fineness quality (720x480).

Victor also released another model, the GZ-MG880, with a built-in 120GB hard disk for video recording up to 28 hours and 40 minutes. It goes for around 75,000 Yen.

LG Cookie KP500 VS O2 XDA Zest

2008-12-11T19:53:00.000-08:00

Touch is cheap

Touchscreens aren’t just the preserve of the iPhone, Omnia or Prada. It’s possible to get a phone with a screen primed and ready for paw prints, without shelling out the cost of a transatlantic flight.
Targeting the cash conscious, the O2 Zest and LG Cookie might compromise on build, but if touchscreen is your number one priority, they utilise technology similar to that found in higher spec'd models.
Primarily a fashion phone, the Cookie is the latest in a long line of touchscreens from LG, borrowing from the Prada, KF700 and Viewty. In contrast the Zest is no head turner, instead business features target new entrants into the smartphone market. So will it be our sweet cookie or juicy smartie?

Death match one: Ease of use

LG Cookie KP500
£100 PAYG, Free on contract

With widgets you use to customise the home screen and a responsive 3in touchscreen, the Cookie if far more intuitive to use than the sluggish Windows Mobile equipped Zest. Without dedicated keys, there's a fiddly virtual keyboard and stylus and handwriting recognition.

O2 XDA Zest

Running Windows Mobile 6, the Zest was always going to be more business than consumer focused and thanks to a fiddly touch interface and stylus typing, it’s simply not as intuitive to use as the Cookie.

Winner: LG Cookie KP500

Death match two: Features

LG Cookie KP500

There’s no 3G or HSDPA, so connectivity is limited to GSM for tedious browsing and downloads. Motion sensor technology makes the games gimmicky, but great fun and there's a decent 3MP camera.

O2 XDA Zest

Calling this smartphone 'lite' is selling it short. With WiFi, HSDPA and GPS it can challenge most higher-priced handsets, there’s a decent 3MP camera and you get a 2-week CoPilot trial.

Winner: O2 XDA Zest

Death match three: Value for money

LG Cookie KP500

For £100 on PAYG the Cookie is outstanding value. In fact connectivity aside, we'd pick this over the heinously priced Prada any day. Just avoid it on contract - the iPhone is only £10 a month more.

O2 XDA Zest

Far cheaper then many Windows Mobile equipped rivals, the Zest is excellent value if you want office features and excellent connectivity without a contract. If it’s just a touchscreen you’re after, opt for the cheaper Cookie instead.

Winner: LG Cookie KP500

Death match four: Conclusion

The O2 XDA is great value if you’re after a Windows Mobile smartphone. If you’re not bothered by business features, there are more intuitive phones available. The LG Cookie is like a value pack of choc-chip biccies, the contents aren't premium, but the Cookie is still a decent mobile and great value for touchscreen fans on a budget

Winner: LG Cookie KP500

High-end 3D gaming on Apple iPhone

2008-12-09T10:55:00.001-08:00

Unity Technologies, a provider of 3D game development tools, claims to be able to offer high end 3d gaming on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch.

Unity claims to provide tools that offer developers the chance "for creating console-quality games for the desktop and the Web," and the company's iPhone/iPod touch tech has been released and already been licensed by more than 200 companies.

David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies says his "customers are as excited about the iPhone as we are, and the ability to quickly develop high-quality games for the iPhone with the broad range of technical capabilities that Unity offers quality content is rapidly appearing."

The company's press blurb adds, tantalizingly, "if you can think it, you will be able to build it."

Features in Unity iPhone

The features in Unity's iPhone development middleware include the following:

Live Preview - With the iPhone Remote, you can use an actual iPhone or iPod Touch to view and test your game live, right inside the Unity Editor. Just hit Play then test with iPhone in hand.
Seamless Publishing Workflow - Publishing a build for iPhone will create an entire, complete XCode project that just works. Press "Build and Run" in Unity and put your feet up. Relax until your game automatically compiles in XCode, installs, and launches.
High Performance Scripting - JavaScript and C# scripts are compiled to native ARM assembler code during the build process. This gives an average performance increase of 20-40 times over interpreted languages.
Occlusion Culling - Everybody loves high performance. PVS-based occlusion culling enabled on the iPhone is perfect for squeezing maximum performance out of the iPhone.
Shader Emulation - Mimic the graphical capabilities of the iPhone right inside the Unity Editor for fast WYSIWYG prototyping without any surprises in the final output.
Combiner based shaders - Unity exposes the full multi-texture capabilities of the iPhone. All aspects of the iPhone graphics pipeline can be modified through Unity's easy to use shader language.
PRVTC Texture Compression - Save your multilayer Photoshop files and let Unity automatically compress your images with PRVTC Texture Compression. It's all automatic without a single required click. This greatly reduces memory usage and distribution size, and also improves rendering performance.

Most expensive iPhone

2008-12-09T10:43:00.001-08:00

You thought $20,000 iPhone case was a lot? Think again. Here is something that will put that to shame! Austrian designer and jeweler Peter Aloisson created the most expensive iPhone ever!

iPhone Princess Plus is encrusted with 138 princess-cut diamonds and 180 brilliant-cut diamonds weighing 17.75 carats. The stones are set in 18-carat white gold around the rim of the phone. Its price is approximately 120,000 Euros.

If it’s a bit out of your reach, then you can choose a cheaper version with 347 brilliant cut diamonds weighing 6.42 carats. It’s priced at more affordable 45,000 Euro price.

Hurry up and get one for your wife, while the supply last!

Nokia E71

2008-12-09T10:40:00.000-08:00

Nokia E71

This Smartphone Means Business, Lets You Toggle to Personal Life

The E71 looks more like a Blackberry killer, but don't be fooled: This great white hope from Finland is a smart device that gives the iPhone a run for its money in a lot of different areas (yes, really).

Despite its obvious lack of an oversized touchscreen interface, Nokia wins points for a remarkably trim profile (10mm vs. 12.3mm), decent 3.2-megapixel camera (instead of 2.0), and the fact it's not tied to any carrier (yet). Most of all, we're stoked they avoided the overcrowded iClone bandwagon by sticking to what they do best: gorgeous hardware packed with a satisfying range of fun(ctional) features.

Setting up Nokia's Mail for Exchange program required no IT help or time. QuickOffice let us create, edit and send Word/Excel/PowerPoint files on the fly while we browsed PDFs with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The E71 is stocked with enough apps and goodies to keep even the most overworked road warrior on the ball, but it didn't feel too "business." That's mostly due to the fact that the E71 has two separate customizable home screens. One is designed to house all of your work apps like Excel and PowerPoint while the other is geared more towards entertainment with programs for audio, video and gaming. Switching between the two is dead simple, a dedicated button at the top of the menu lets you toggle between the two screens instantly.

The phone's 2.36-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA display is only slightly smaller than the iPod Classic's, and though the resolution can't top the iPhone's, with 15 fps, the E71 is still solid for YouTube clips. The slightly rejiggered QWERTY took some getting used to (the Q-A-Z keys are flush with the chassis), but the learning curve was significantly faster than any touchscreen we've tapped: After three days of iPhoning, typos were relatively common. After three hours with the E71, they're pretty much nonexistent. Oh, and did we mention the E71's got battery life for days? Yes, literally three of them.

WIRED: Up to 8 GB in an easy-to-access, external microSD slot. Quick and seamless OS. GPS, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth (you name it, it's basically got it). Vivid screen (even in direct sunlight). Textured stainless steel backing prevents slippage. Relatively lightweight (127 grams = 6 grams lighter than iPhone). Hit any letter on the QWERTY pad and predictive text calls up that section of your address book.

TIRED: No standard 3.5mm headphone jack. 3.2-megapixel camera's optics could be better. LED flash could be way better. N-Gage gaming platform not available. Screen's wide, but not wide enough to do a feature-length film justice. For $500, you could get TWO 8-GB, 3G JesusPhones (with $100 left over to put toward AT&T's data plan).

HTC Fuze

2008-12-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

The Slow Fuze Will Give You a Short Fuse

Some people have really bad phone skills. You'll ask a question and they'll take forever to answer, or they just sit there on the line, making you think the call dropped. (Hello? Hello?) Now imagine a phone that does that. You tap a button and nothing happens. So you hit it again. After the third or fourth press, all of the commands register, taking you someplace you didn't want to go. You have just met the HTC Fuze. This unresponsive sluggard is so laggy that all of its good qualities are snowed under by its constant reluctance to do anything.

Which is a bummer, because in most other respects, this is a pretty cool handset. One of the best features is the 3-megapixel camera with automatic focus. Few phones have it, and it makes a world of difference when you can get your subject into sharp clarity by pressing the button halfway. All it's missing is a real flash (it just has that weak LED). The keyboard is roomy and easy to type on, making short work of e-mails and text messages, and there's even a function that pulls up a notepad for jotting if you pull the stylus out mid-call. The Fuze comes with 288 MB of SDRAM, but you can add a microSD for as much extra space as you need. The HTC also has Bluetooth and WiFi for connectivity and faster web performance at access points.

Irritations mostly revolve around the slow response time, possibly due to the lumbering OS that is Windows Mobile. Scrolling in the browser is a pain, as your finger will often click the wrong link mid-scroll. Zooming in both web pages and photos is slow going, and it's easy to overshoot when zooming in or out. Videos shot on the phone look OK on the phone's sharp screen, albeit a bit quiet, but videos from other sources (such as a 320 x 240, 30fps WMV) stagger and stutter along. A minor annoyance is the lack of a headphone jack on the phone; it comes with an adapter, but that's just another dongle that gets in the way.

But we just can't get over the lag. If you have the response time of a sloth, you may not notice. But if you're a human, it will drive you to drink. If this phone didn't beat around the bush, it would be worth every penny, but as this loafer lags, it's not worth the time to even consider.

WIRED Great-looking screen and a full keyboard make a good first impression. 40 ringtones (that aren't all Korean karaoke pop) and a loud ringer give you plenty of choice for your sound. Bluetooth, WiFi and AT&T GPS round out the feature set.

TIRED A consistently slow, drowsy response time will not go over well with the ADHD set. Works OK with a stylus, but the screen only works half the time with finger presses. Clunky adapter takes the place of a dedicated headset jack. The phone only wakes up via the power button or the slide, not the phone or home buttons — even when it is unlocked.

Dishonorable Mention: Nokia N95

2008-12-09T10:35:00.001-08:00

Dishonorable Mention: Nokia N95

Nokia's N95 is not at all crap. It is excellent. Encrusted in a thick snot of cultured diamonds and given a $24,000 price tag, however, even the most capable and well-made technology loses its shine, even as it gains its sparkle. The incongruity of the addition is a reminder of its purposelessness.

Diamonds are not forever. Given enough time, they revert to graphite. Diamonds are not rare, either: they are abundant, and lab-made rocks can't be distinguished from natural examples without the help of specialized equipment. The apparent value of this valueless stone is all in our heads — it is expensive because the cartel that controls its sale, DeBeers, says so.

In other words, don't spill bullshit in your geek. The tech industry creates quite enough of its own.

High Concept Card

2008-12-09T10:34:00.002-08:00

High Concept Card

If you think the diamond-studding enterprise couldn't be executed with less subtlety than a million-dollar telephone, you'd be wrong. Behold GK Power Bank's diamond-studded credit card. It is a monument to the uncouth and the philistine. It is a simple ontological fact that nothing sleazier can be.

The marketing is pure class war, describing the card's very purpose as to allow easy "differentiation" between those with real money and those without—a silken ruff in an era that lacks such convenient status indicators. It is needed because the most common spending method, credit cards, are available to the general public and provide no "upgrade" path for the "uber-rich."

There's a truism well-expressed in Austen's novels: the only people who display wealth are those with less of it than the people they wish to emulate.

The Million-Dollar Cellphone

2008-12-09T10:34:00.001-08:00

The Million-Dollar Cellphone

Looking more like a medieval relic than a phone, the so-called "million dollar cellphone," by Goldvish, is so heavily coated in the things that it hardly looks like technology at all. If it were crafted as a trinket for a meso-american king to hurl into a lake, at least it might have slowly unraveled under the pressure of centuries of deep water, returning the stones to the earth.

As it is, however, we know that this revolting carbon banana is out there, somewhere, existing. If the only thing it has to cope with is air, it might well outlive humanity itself, so densely is it shielded.

Do you want this to be all that the aliens find amid the radioactive decay, thousands of years hence? Do you? Destroy it now, before it has a chance to diminish the intergalactic caliber of Earth's future ruins.

iPod Shuffle Plus Diamonds

2008-12-09T10:33:00.002-08:00

iPod Shuffle Plus Diamonds

Apple's least desirable product this side of the new millennium gets a $40,000 boost courtesy of chubby graphite. What's to say? Nothing. Pure, distilled tack.

Oh, and yes, they called it the iDiamond. Imaginative, huh?

Diamond MP3 Player For Dogs

2008-12-09T10:33:00.001-08:00

Diamond MP3 Player For Dogs

That the JooZoo MP3 player is cheap junk stamped with a few useless rocks becomes triply eyetwitching due to the spin. Firstly, there is the fact that it exists at all. Secondly, it's intended for an animal that doesn't give a damn. Thirdly, it's marketed as responding psychically to their moods.

For lacing their copy with pseudoscientific blather like "JooZoo encourages physical movement or increases blood flow rate by sound wave stimulation," the thing's creators should be packed off to mine Diamonds with their bare hands.

Bejeweled Gameboy

2008-12-09T10:32:00.006-08:00

Bejeweled Gameboy

Swiss Supply is a true believer in trash, having made only the most cursory effort to integrate diamonds into its remarkably low-end selection of toy: Nintendo's original Gameboy.

While I am again loathe to carry gold into the geode, it's hard to resist in this case. The creators of the $25k Gameboy not only dunked the thing, but elected to press a texture in it. Why? So that it would more closely resemble one of those cheap cigarette lighters they used to sell in gas stations in the 1970s.

Diamond USB Cross Thumbdrive

2008-12-09T10:32:00.005-08:00

Diamond USB Cross Thumbdrive

There is no gadget more banal or commonplace than the USB thumbdrive. There's also no shortage of examples dunked in superglue and battered with carbon. It is a relish tray of rot.

It is the sickly addition of religion in this cross-shaped one, however, that sinks it beneath the crowd. Bravo! That it's handcrafted from mahogany trees in the developing world is a deliciously cruel bonus.

24kt Gold and Diamonds Macbook Pro

2008-12-09T10:32:00.003-08:00

24kt Gold and Diamonds Macbook Pro

If it appears at first blush that our "only diamonds" rule has been broken, fear not. It is not Computer Choppers' MacBook Pro that we are interested in here, but something that sits upon it. Yes, the Apple logo.

There's something delicious about that totem of minimalism being slathered in ostentation. But wallowing in shadenfreude is useless. In the context of good taste, if in few others, Cupertino is a house of angels.

On the bright side, these diamonds take a crap gadget — the thing merely glows — and manage to interfere with even that limited utility. Well done, Computer Choppers!

The World's Most Expensive Computer Mouse

2008-12-09T10:32:00.001-08:00

The World's Most Expensive Computer Mouse

The most remarkable thing about the $24,180 "scattered diamond" is what obvious junk the underlying mouse is. Looking like an escapee from one of those 1980s Soviet labs where they tried to clone western technology, it has all the style and ergonomic quality of a plastic briefcase.

But no, this one has a "constellation" of 59 diamonds sprinkled to "bring color into office life and make working truly fun!" They'll also arrange the rocks into a monograph, if you want to make it even more worthless when you need to get rid of it.

Vertu Signature Black and White Diamonds

2008-12-09T10:31:00.001-08:00

Vertu Signature Black & White Diamonds

Resembling an art deco dildo, the Vertu's trashy exterior conceals a phone so ordinary a Motorola executive teleported from the mid-1990s might wonder if it was next year's Startac.

"Featuring" 644 white diamonds and 428 black diamonds for a grand total of 1,072 diamonds, this Vertu costs something north of $80,000.

But not at resale.

Gold Plated iPhone Hits UK

2008-12-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

Regular readers will know how I feel about the frivolous decoration of gadgets, from junky fake jewels to Rain Forest killing tchotchkes. However, a few things redeem this gold plated iPhone from Britain. First, the supplier is called Goldstriker, a name worthy of a stuntman or pornstar. Second, it really doesn't look too bad. If gold plating could be understated, this would be it.

Sterling Silver Microphone Ring

2008-12-09T10:28:00.001-08:00

The Analogue Ring makes our average gangster's lip-splitting Sovereign Ring look amateur. This hand made, sterling silver box houses a microphone which hooks up via a standard 3.5mm jack (cable thoughtfully included).

The grill is drilled aluminum, and there is also a brushed silver version available, both at $105. Impractical? Sure, but it's jewelry, so who cares. Of course, we're waiting on a Bluetooth version.

Product page [Etsy via BBGadgets]

Diamond Covered Earbuds: $6400

2008-12-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

To Heyerdahl Jewelry's claim "The world’s most exclusive earphones ever made" we might add "The world's most baddest sentence ever written", but that would just be cruel. The blurb actually refers to a pair of pedestrian 'buds slathered in carbon, called the iDiamond Ear.

Thomas Heyerdahl, previously found guilty of making the iDiamond, has squeezed 204 rocks onto the headphones, along with a 18 karat helping of gold. I don't know what makes me so angry when I see obvious tat tarted up with "exclusivity". Surely anyone stupid enough to buy one of the 1000 pairs of iDiamond Ears deserves everything they get.

Product page [Heyerdahl via Shiny Shiny]

Case-Mate Gives Away $20,000 Gold and Diamond Case for Blackberry

2008-12-09T10:26:00.001-08:00

This hideous gilded dog-turd comes from the normally respectable Case-Mate. Designed to defile a Blackberry Curve, the case contains half an ounce of gold and three and a half carats of diamonds. Thankfully there is only one of them in existence, which Case-Mate claims is worth $20,000. The fact that it is being given away at CES tomorrow indicates its true value, however.

You want it? Try booth 9104 in the Central Hall. And don't tell anyone we sent you.

Case-Mate Gives Away 20K Diamond Studded Blackberry Case at CES [Chipchick via Luxury Launches]

$30,000 USB Flash Drive Covered in Diamonds

2008-12-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

Under the sparkling exterior, the ICE is just a regular 4GB, SanDisk USB drive. But what an exterior. Mii-Stor (nothing to do with Wii avatars) has encrusted the platinum box with 456 white diamonds, totaling 5.19ct.

The price? A truly staggering £15,500 ($30,360), or $7500 per gig. At least these stones are real, and not just a crispy coating of crushed Swarovski glass.

Custom iPhones Stretch Good Taste, Wallets

2008-12-09T10:23:00.001-08:00

Did I miss the reports about the growing problem of people having just too much money? Because otherwise, I'm hard pressed to understand how someone like Peter Aloisson can make a business out of vulgarizing tech gadgets.

His latest creation, the iPhone Princess Plus, takes a perfectly good iPhone, studs it with about 17 carats worth of little diamonds, adds gold trim and slaps on a design that looks like a failed entry for a "The Golden Compass" logo. Price is 120,000 Euros (about $178,000), which does not include VAT tax, shipping, insurance or a reasonable explanation of why this seemed like a good idea at the time.

Apple iPhone Princess Plus [Peter Aloisson (via iPhone World) ]

Tacky Soccer Star Given Even Tackier Gold iPod

2008-12-09T10:21:00.002-08:00

David Beckham, English footballer, and one half of the First Couple of Chavs, has been given a gold plated 32GB iPod Touch to celebrate his winning 100 caps (a footballer is literally given a cap every time he plays for the England Team). The tacky gift was given to Beckham by his team-mates, and according to the British Newspaper The Telegraph, cost a mere £600 ($1190).

It is appropriate that the squeaky voiced soccer star was honored with bling, but it raises a question. Will the iPod ever be not cool? Is it so iconic that it can shake off any insult or will it eventually become tarnished by the onslaught of gaudy tat? A golden carriage clock for the 21st century, if you will.

David Beckham century gift - a golden ipod [Telegraph]

Review: 21st-Century Ghetto Blaster Makes Us Want to Do the Right Bling

2008-12-09T10:21:00.001-08:00

Lasonic X Famous i931

This ghetto-fabulous boombox featuring a "Famous Stars and Straps" pattern designed by former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker sure is eye-catching, and its ability to play music from iPods, SD/MMC cards, microphones, USB sticks and line-level sources hits us right in the feature set sweet spot. But with an interface that somehow renders the user-friendly iPod nearly un-navigable and a chintzy plastic construction, it's best suited for one activity: belting out rhymes over backing tracks stored in one of the above-mentioned formats. See, this thing has a quarter-inch input that works with a standard stage mic. A gain control knob mixes vocals above or below the music, while an echo knob adds various intensities of delay to your voice. We would not recommend this 2 x 12 Watt monster for regular music listening since it can be so frustrating to use. But if you know exactly what you would do with a microphone enabled iPod boombox, Lasonic X Famous i931 will get the job done in style — even if your name isn't Radio Raheem. — Eliot Van Buskirk

WIRED Plays MP3s from iPods or flash memory. Displays song information. Lets you address throngs with a microphone (not included). Remote control and custom-fitted docks for various iPod models are included.

TIRED Flimsy construction not tough enough for the streets. Semi-opaque plastic obscures iPod screen; no display on remote. Controls are more confusing than MF Doom's rhyme schemes. Doesn't work with iPhone or iPod Touch. Even when blasting Fight The Power, we didn't feel like tossing a garbage can through a window.

$250, famoussas.com

$6850 MacBook Throws a Bone To The Proles

2008-12-09T10:20:00.002-08:00

The MacBook. A sleek, simple and beautifully easy to use notebook computer. The polycarbonate shell is tough yet light and attractive; the magnetic clip satisfyingly snappy and gently strong.

The Monk Bogballe (no, I didn't make that up) Workstation: A stock MacBook crammed into a slim, over-fussy case. A huge black screen bezel increases its footprint while making the screen look smaller and a combination of leather and aluminum splits the box as schizophrenically as the differently sized halves. If you want an overpriced, pampered laptop with the form factor of a shrunken aircraft carrier, pull out your Amex black card now. To add further insult, this thing ships as a dual boot machine with Vista pre-installed (Microsoft Office 2008, too).

Your now irredeemably besmirched conscience can be assuaged by the donation of an XO laptop, included in the purchase price of the Workstation. This is the functional equivalent of tossing a half eaten Big Mac out of the window of your Bentley as you cruise down Skid Row.

Workstations With a Gazillion Screens

2008-12-09T10:20:00.001-08:00

Royal Pingdom's headline couldn't be beaten, so I just stole it. The gallery shows some quite ridiculous multi-monitor setups, starting with Al Gore's now rather pathetic looking set of three 30" displays. You know what, though? After six, it starts to get a little silly. You'll risk whiplash every time you check your email.

Click through to see the full line up. I won't tell you how many screens are in the biggest setup. Just head over and marvel at the environmental disaster presented for your viewing pleasure. Al Gore would be proud.

Nokia Wraps Phone in Cowskin and Rock, Charges $1800

2008-12-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

"The Art of Seduction... Begins with Knowing Your Own Essence."

This piece of verbal meaninglessness, which could be straight from the script of Zoolander, is waiting for you at the Flash promotion site for the 8800 Sapphire Arte, Nokia's new blingphone. The press release continues in a similarly air-headed vein. For example, while eschewing the traditional shards of Swarovski glass, the phone's main navigational knob is made from sapphire "which intrigues with its strong heritage and coveted appeal."

It's easy to mock. So we'll continue. The leather covering, sourced from East India, comes in "luxurious brown and coffee tones [which] remind us of understated elegance. These are considered a confident and sophisticated color choice for premium products."

Inside, the phone is actually pretty good, as you'd expect from Nokia. 3G, a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera and an OLED display are joined by 1GB internal memory and a sensor which switches off all sound when the phone is placed face-down.

The Sapphire Arte will cost you €1150 ($1830). Or you could just steal one. It's fingerprint-resistant coating makes it ideal for the jewel thief on the go.

IPhone 3G: Now in Diamond

2008-12-09T10:17:00.001-08:00

We rant from time to time about Swarovski encrustation: Lead-embalmed glass adorning all manner of Paris Hilton's favorite accessories. But the truth is, diamonds are no better. In fact, diamonds are worse, because they cost more.

So upon learning that Knalihs Athem have paid somebody to stick 475 little rocks onto the iPhone 3G, I started to wonder. Who would buy this? Clearly a fool with no idea of real value. Just ask yourself -- why is a diamond valuable? It's not because it's useful (industrial diamonds are pretty cheap) and it's certainly not because of rarity (the big dealers have years of inventory locked away).

Nope, diamonds have a fictional value based on consensus, just like paper money. At least money, while absolutely worthless, is imbued with some usefulness because it can be traded.

The price is unlisted but if you are actually thinking about buying a diamond encrusted iPhone, you deserve it to be as expensive as possible. At least there will only be 50 of them.

Reports, Employees Suggest Walmart Will Sell iPhones

2008-12-09T10:15:00.001-08:00

Walmart on Monday confirmed rumors that the retail chain will sell iPhones.

Employees in the cellphone departments of five California stores said they were training to start selling the device by the end of December, according to Bloomberg.

Gadget blog The Boy Genius Report was the first to leak rumors about Walmart carrying iPhones. The publication also hinted at the possibility of Walmart selling a 4GB iPhone for $99. However, this rumor is appearing unlikely to be true: MacRumors reports it received training and advertising materials for Walmart's iPhone, and there are no indications of a $99 model.

Walmart will become the second mass-market retail chain to carry Apple's phenomenally successful iPhone. In September, electronics retailer Best Buy was the first to do the honors. Getting help selling iPhones from a pair of the largest retail companies will only increase Apple's momentum in the mobile phone industry.

HP Prototypes First Flexible Display

2008-12-09T10:14:00.003-08:00

The Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University has promised that thin paper-like displays are just about three years away from field trials.

Now HP in partnership with the Center says it has created the first prototype of an "affordable" flexible electronic display. "We want to lower the costs of traditional flat panel displays and increase their functionality," says Carl Taussig, director of information surfaces for HP Labs.

Flexible displays are paper-like computer displays made almost entirely of plastic. They are easily portable and consume lower power than current displays.

Taussig says HP has been able to create a manufacturing process for the prototype that would allow the fabrication of thin film transistor arrays on flexible plastic materials. The displays would be created using roll-to-roll manufacturing, much like how a newspaper is printed in the press. That compares to a batch production that traditional displays use, similar to the process of cutting individual cookies.

"Roll-to-roll is about reducing costs ultimately," says Taussig.

The prototype display is black and white but Taussig says the process can be used to create flexible color displays. HP has licensed the technology to PowerFilm Solar, a company that specializes in flexible solar panels.

Though HP doesn't as yet have an estimate of what a flexible display will eventually cost consumers, the company says it expects the first displays to be available to the U.S. Army for trials in the next three years.

Logitech Launches Attractive New Lapdesks

2008-12-09T10:14:00.001-08:00

Most notebook users have experienced the burn that comes from keeping notebooks on their lap for an extended period of time.

Laptop desks try to fight that problem but most of them are tacky and poorly designed. With its latest product, Logitech is hoping to fix that.

The company's newly launched lapdesk is sleek, white and promises some impressive heat-reflecting design.

Logitech says its research shows nearly 60 percent of people who use a laptop at home use it on the couch, while about 36 percent use a laptop on the bed and 16 percent use it while sitting or lying on the floor. About 50 percent of those people report concerns about laptop heat.

Home remedies include the use a pillow or book to provide a barrier to the heat from the laptop but those usually end up trapping the heat making the device even hotter, says Logitech.

Logitech's lapdesk has a four-layer, heat-shielding design. And instead of the laptop lying flat against the body, the base with an arch makes contact with the legs in just four places improving air flow, it promises.

The lapdesks are available for a suggested retail price of $40. It's a small price to pay to avoid discomfort if you are on your laptop at home for more than a few hours.

Google Selling Unlocked GooglePhones to Developers

2008-12-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

Google is selling a "Developer" Googlephone, an unlocked, hackable version of the T-Mobile G1. The handset is available internationally and costs $400. The catch? You need to sign up as an Android developer to get one. This is, however, easy, and the only thing that stopped me from doing it was the $25 joining fee.

Why is Google doing this? After all, an unlocked G1 from T-Mobile costs about the same. It's all about the testing. The Android Dev Phone 1 is flashable. That is, you can install test versions of both the Android OS or any other OS of your choice. It also has an "unlocked bootloader":

Unlike the bootloader on retail devices, the bootloader on the Android Dev Phone 1 does not enforce signed system images.

That means that you can pretty much do what you like with it. Will there be non-developers buying this for international use? Of course. Will some ne'erdowell sign up for a dev account and place a huge order, selling the unlocked phones on at a profit via Ebay? Undoubtedly.

For now, though, Google is limiting orders to one per developer. Get them while they're hot!

Numberkey - turns your iPhone into a Macbook keypad

2008-12-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

If you have an Apple laptop, chances are that you not only don’t mind spending mad cash on peripherals.. you actually enjoy it. Good for you! It is thanks to your spend-happy frivolity that the economy will be turned around.

All the same a £199 numeric keypad seems a bit steep even by MacBook standards. Lucky, then, that it will also make phone calls and and let you check your email.

No, it’s no use,. I can’t keep it up. Balmuda Numberkey is a little iPhone app that lets you use your magic phone as an outboard keypad. The ‘keys’ can be skinned to look like the MacBook ‘chiclets’ or a variety of other keypad styles and the thing communicates with your laptop via wifi. In theory then, you could type numbers from the next room. Assuming you can think of a reason to.

Not something I would use myself (I barely use the keypad on my full size keyboard) but worth a look if you do a lot of data entry on the road.

New ASUS S101 Eee PC unveiled - and it's brown

2008-12-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

The ASUS Eee PC family must have been going at it like rabbits. We've already brought you first images of the 10" Eee this week, now behold the new Ultimate S101 Eee.

Unveiled today, it carries the same 1.6 GHz Atom processor and chipset as the rest of the rapidly expanding line, but comes with extra SSD capacity (Between 32 and 64GB). Oh, and to appeal to the more upmarket "Exquisite" user (their words, not ours), they've inexplicably painted it brown.

In an original move, ASUS chief Jerry Shen unveiled the new model by pulling it out of an envelope, an approach that in no way resembles Steve Jobs's unveiling of the MacBook Air.

Quite why ASUS is hoping to make the Eee go up-market when its main selling point was the low price tag, we're not sure, but expect it to retail for between $700 and $900. Be sure to check back on T3.com for regular updates as we follow ASUS' strange attempts to destroy its most successful brand ever within a year.

Apple MacBook Air

2008-12-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

We've been messin' with the ultimate version and make no mistake; this is true engineering genius..

At the start of the year, the T3 gossip machine leapt into pre-Macworld overdrive, forecasting a 12.1-inch lappy or iTablet. What we actually got was the world's slimmest notebook. Not too far off, then...

Intel has custom-built the 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor to fit inside the slender chassis while Apple has worked architectural wonders by shoehorning in 2Gb RAM, a 64Gb solid-state hard drive, 802.11n wifi, Bluetooth and blisteringly bright 13.3-inch LED screen. A new multi-gesture touchpad mimics the type of finger control seen with the iPhone and iPod touch, too.

Flip down a secret panel on the curved edge to discover a USB port, Micro-DVI and headphone socket. There's even an iSight worked into the lid, flanked by an omnidirectional microphone and light-sensor for activating the fantastic backlit keyboard, which is by far the most responsive Apple has ever made. Considering this notebook measures just 40mm at its thinnest point and weighs under 1.5kg, it's a miracle this thing actually made it off the design table.

But Apple has left a few blueprints behind, for the Air lacks FireWire, Ethernet, an optical drive and no more USB ports. A USB to Ethernet adapter costs an extra £19 and the deficiency of FireWire will madden those with compatible digital camcorders or peripherals. With no DVD drive, you must install a new app called Remote Disc on a separate Mac or PC and hijack its optical drive to install software wirelessly. It actually works very well and this notion of complete wireless-ness will be further complemented when Apple launches the cable-free TimeCapsule backup device.

Battery life is claimed at five hours, but we scraped just under three while using a varied range of day-to-day apps. And guess what? You can't remove the battery, so once you're out of juice playtime is over.

At £2000, the Air is strictly for high-flyers. It's a show-off's dream and the shape of things to come in the lap-sector but don't expect it to replace your family 'pooter.

LG KE850 Prada

2008-12-05T10:03:00.001-08:00

General	2G Network	GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
	Announced	2007, January
	Status	Available

Size	Dimensions	98.8 x 54 x 12 mm
Size	Weight	85 g

Display	Type	TFT touchscreen, 256K colors
	Size	240 x 400 pixels, 3.0 inches
		- Capacitive touchscreen - Flash UI - Downloadable wallpapers

Ringtones	Type	Polyphonic (40 channels), MP3
	Customization	Composer, Download
	Vibration	Yes

Memory	Phonebook	1000 entries
	Call records	40 dialed, 40 received, 40 missed calls
	Card slot	microSD (TransFlash), up to 2GB, 256 MB card included, buy memory
		- 8 MB shared memory

Data	GPRS	Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
	HSCSD	No
	EDGE	Yes
	3G	No
	WLAN	No
	Bluetooth	Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
	Infrared port	No
	USB	Yes, v2.0

Features	Messaging	SMS, EMS, MMS, Email
	Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML
	Games	Halloween Fever, Photo Puzzle, Virus, Pipe, order now
	Colors	Black
	Camera	2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels, video(30fps), flash
		- Java MIDP 2.0 - MP3 player - FM radio - Document viewer (.ppt, .doc, .xls, .pdf, .txt) - Organiser - Voice memo - Built-in handsfree

Battery		Standard battery, Li-Ion 800 mAh
	Stand-by	Up to 300 h
	Talk time	Up to 3 h

Kogan launches Agora Android phones

2008-12-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

Aussie Android crashes T-Mobile's party

Not keen to sign your life away with T-Mobile for a G1 handset? Well, now there's not one but two sim-free contenders on the block - the Agora and Agora Pro.

T3 presents: Top ten upcoming Android apps

Compared to shelling out for an 18-month contract, this is certainly the cheap option, with the standard Agora offering that now-familar Google-loving Android functionality, as well as a 2.5-inch touchscreen, 3G connectivity, a backlit QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD slot. If you want to upgrade to to the Pro model, there's also GPS, a 2MP camera and Wi-Fi, well worth the extra expense in our book.

Sound too good to be true? Well, in a way, it is. An Android phone needs data, lots of it, so realistically you will have to sign up to some kind of package. But at least you can shop around for a sim-only deal at your provider of choice. Kogan is doing pre-orders right now, with a basic available for AU$299, the Pro for AU$399. Brisk business is expected.

B and W Zeppelin

2008-12-05T09:49:00.001-08:00

Just another iPod dock?

Okay, it's an iPod dock. But if you happened to unwrap this monster on Christmas morning, don't be disheartened.

See, this isn't some plastic, pump out tunes from your nano in ultra-tinny sound, dock. Think of it living up to its Zeppelin name: loud, brash, occasionally bombastic, but always brilliant.

It packs a five-inch woofer for extra bass and cranks out a massive 100W of power. Basically, it makes your current stereo look as weedy as Amy Winehouse on a midnight corner shop run.

This is definitely a gadget that'll last right through the year. Just slap in your iPod and rock on.

LG Secret

2008-12-05T09:47:00.001-08:00

LG serves-up a touch screen delight with the odd mark against it

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.

Be sure to check out our video review above for a closer look.

Nokia N82

2008-12-05T09:45:00.000-08:00

The latest N-Series phone is Nokia's best yet. Great camera, speedy web, brilliant maps and stunning good looks.

Nokia clearly doesn't like to mess around. Already in 2007 they've raised the mobile stakes with the N95, made GPS standard cellular fare with the Navigator and thrown in the 8GB toting N81 for good measure.

And now, we have the N82. Laden with more goodies than Santa's sleigh, it's a sure sign that Nokia is the out and out leader when it comes to multimedia mobiles.

Snap-a-roo

The 5-megapixel camera is a winner. Equalling the N95's peeper is no mean feat, and with a Carl Zeiss lens and proper flash, snaps are crisp and sharp. With face detection, it's ideal for group shots of everyone barrelling around in dank, smelly nightclubs. Add an accelerometer for viewing in landscape and this really is a beast. In fact, it's so good, you can leave your point and shoot at home. This'll do the job just as well.

Likewise, video is excellent and is even more fun thanks to the TV out cable that comes bundled with the phone. Instant clips of your missus brewing up , or just covert CCTV of scallies trashing your wing mirrors. Great.

Web monkey

Web-wise, HSDPA keeps things ticking along nicely, and, like other N Series mobiles, navigating pages is dead easy.

As for mapping, Nokia has come a long way since we first tried to find a route to the nearest pub and waited 15 minutes for a GPS signal on our fledgling N95. Nokia Maps more than hold their own and the satnav is quicker than a post-natal Paula Radcliffe.

Symbian's S60 software is, as ever, great to use and none too sluggish. We can't wait for the touch version to drop in 2008. and if Nokia can keep up their end, then a certain Apple product could be in for some serious competition.

Samsung Omnia i900

2008-12-05T09:43:00.001-08:00

Whatever it says it is that's what it's not...

We've all seen "that" advert and the Samsung Omnia seems to be advertised everywhere apart from the back of cereal boxes, Samsung have gone all out with their all singing, all dancing, "does everything apart from wipe your rear" mobile phone, but should we believe the hype?

At first glance the Omnia, looks like the Svetlana and the Tocco as PingPing, measuring in at 112mm long compared to the Tocco at 98mm. It fairly light, so won't cause any unsightly bulges while being carted around in your trouser pocket, but the build quality is not that fantastic, the plastic back makes it feel a bit cheap.

Now, the touchscreen. Samsung has in the last year wheeled out the Armani, the F490 and the Tocco, all touschreen, none have improved. It's much the same story with the Omnia. It's sticky and unresponsive, you touch one thing it does another. Whilst scrawling through our contacts we managed to almost call our mum to thank her for the great night, and inadvertently called the doctors to order a heart-attack inducing meat feast pizza. Trying to cancel said mistake is even harder; the cancel button is the size of a pin, miss it and you go on loudspeaker for all and sundry to hear your blunder.

Snap happy

Bypassing the touchscreen, the features on the phone are pretty good. Once we managed to cancel changing the date for the umpteenth time, we got to the snapper. 5MP, with zoom and a Xenon flash, pictures are detailed, even at full zoom. It's packed with more settings than you can shake a stick at. For those with a nervous disposition there's the anti-shake function, and the sport mode worked well as we tried to capture Gazza after hearing the news his local had opened early.

Movie mogul

Other multimedia functions included on the phone are a movie and music player. With the massive 3.2-inch screen and the inbuilt accelerometer, switch to wide screen and watch movies. Sounds quality on both the film and music is impressive and pictures on the screen are detailed and clear, but battery life did take a beating during our movie marathon. On average it will last about four hours.

Internet explorer

Boasting Windows 6.1, the Omnia has push email, and the complete Windows package. Set up is fairly simple, slot in the disk to your PC for a simple set up and we were hooked onto our emails within minutes. Internet on the other hand is a slow burner. We couldn't get any signal on our 3G in most areas and when we did it was sluggish and web pages took an age to load. Get your self on Wi-Fi a and you'll be sorted, with the large screen web pages are easy to read an load up quick fast. Downlading and internet exploring again drains the battery, so a wee fix of "watchcheesemature.com" will see your battery run flat.

We were impressed by the Omnia, in terms of multimedia it's a power house, the battery life could do with a bit of juicing, but our main bug bear was the touch screen. For all the good things this phone can do, we just couldn't get to them. Imagine owning a Bugatti Veyron, but having the keys for a Fiat Panda. It's just cack.

Netbook spec showdown: Acer Aspire One, Asus Eee PC 901, Dell Inspiron Mini 9, HP Mini-Note, MSI Wind, and LG X110

2008-12-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

LG X110 Netbook

LG Mini-note 2133 Netbook

Asus Eee PC 901 Netbook

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook

Acer Aspire One Netbook

Linux or Windows? 3-Cell or 6-cell? HDD or SSD?

Really, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to netbooks, UMPCs, subnotebooks or shameless Eee knock-offs - call them what you will - but these are big dogs, setting the benchmarks against which all others should be compared.

How do they compare each other though? Spec war armies, ASSEMBLE!

CPU

Acer Aspire One - Intel Atom N270, 1.6GHz

Asus Eee PC 901 - Intel Atom N270, 1.6GHz

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 - Intel Atom N270, 1.6GHz

HP Mini-note - VIA C7-M, 1.2 GHz

MSI Wind - Intel Atom N270, 1.6GHz

LG X110 - Intel Atom N270, 1.6GHz

RAM

Aspire One - 512MB (1GB optional) DDR2 533 MHz

Eee PC 901 - 1GB DDR2

Mini 9 - 512MB or 1GB

Mini-note - 1GB or 2GB (Vista) DDR2 667MHz

Wind - 1GB DDR2

X110 - 1GB

Display

Aspire One - 8.9", 1024 x 600 pixels

Eee PC 901 - 8.9", 1024 x 600 pixels

Mini 9 - 8.9", 1024 x 600 pixels

Mini-note - 8.9", 1280 x 800 pixels

Wind - 10.1", 1024 x 600 pixels

X110 - 8.9", 1024 x 600 pixels

Weight

Aspire One - 0.99kg (NAND flash model with 3-cell battery), 1.26kg (HDD + 6-cell)

Eee PC 901 - 1.1kg

Mini 9 - 1.04kg

Mini-note - 1.27kg

Wind - 1.15kg (3-cell), 1.3kg (6-cell)

X110 - 1.19kg

Connectivity

Aspire One - 802.11b/g, LAN, GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA

Eee PC 901 - 802.11b/g/n, LAN, Bluetooth

Mini 9 - 802.11b/g, LAN, Bluetooth (optional)

Mini-note - 802.11b/g, LAN, Bluetooth, 56K Modem

Wind - 802.11b/g, LAN, Bluetooth

X110 - 802.11b/g, LAN, 3G HSDPA optional, GPS optional

Storage

Aspire One - NAND Flash (8GB) or HDD (120GB)

Eee PC 901 - SSD (12GB or 20GB)

Mini 9 - SSD (up to 16GB)

Mini-note - HDD (120GB)

Wind - HDD (80GB)

X110 - HDD (80GB or 120GB)

Aspire One - Linpus Linux, Windows XP Home

Eee PC 901 - GNU Linux, Windows XP Home

Mini 9 - Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP Home

Mini-note - SUSE Linux, Windows Vista Business

Wind - SUSE Linux, Windows XP Home

X110 - Windows XP Home

Colours

Aspire One - Brown, White, Pink, Blue

Eee PC 901 - Black, White, Pinky-red - with petals or something.

Mini 9 - Black, White

Mini-note - Sort of grey

Wind - Black, White, Pink, White with love hearts

X110 - Black, White, Pink

Battery

Aspire One - 3-cell (3 hours), 6-cell (6-7 hours)

Eee PC 901 - 6-cell (7-8 hours depending on OS)

Mini 9 - 4-cell (unknown)

Mini-note - 3-cell (2.25 hours), 6-cell (4 hours)

Wind - 3-Cell (3 hours), 6-cell (5.5 hours)

X110 - Unknown

Which one will you get?

Battle of the Touchscreen phones: Nokia Tube, Apple iPhone, LG Renoir, Samsung Omnia

2008-12-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

Four phones, four touchscreens - which one has the best spec?

So the Nokia Tube has finally dropped, and you know what? It's actually quite good. This isn't the high-end N Series touchscreen we all hoped it would be, but it's still a very tasty product with an amazing touchscreen nonetheless. So how does it fare up against its button-forgoing rivals? Here's the vitals stats:

Storage capacity

Nokia Tube: 8 juicy gigabytes to fill up.

Apple iPhone: 8 or 16GB flash options await, but there's no card port for expansion.

LG Renoir: 8GB out of the box, with the option to expand via micro SDHC.

Samsung Omnia: Comes jumping out of the box with a competitive 8GB, but 16 is reachable through micro SD card.

Display

Nokia Tube: 3.2″ 640x360 pixel resolution, 16M colour touchscreen display, with haptic feedback.

Apple iPhone: A glorious 3.5" touchscreen with 480x320 pixel resolution.

LG Renoir: A 3.0" 240x400 pixel TFT number

Samsung Omnia: 3.2" TFT Touchscreen tech running 240x400 pixel resolution.

Camera

Nokia Tube: The Tube isn't the most snap happy of the bunch, but a 3.2mpx autofocus camera with dual LED flash has the iPhone licked.

Apple iPhone: The skeleton in the iPhone's closet, the 2.0 megapixel camera is almost archaically weak in comparison to the others here. There's not even a flash!

LG Renoir: A simply stonking 8.0 Megapixels of photographic prowess nestle in the Renoir's bowels. Auto-focus, face recognition, a 16x digital zoom and Xenon flash also join in for the ride.

Samsung Omnia: A handsome 5.0 Megapixel cam with LED flash produces some top drawer images.

Connectivity

Nokia Tube: 3G UMTS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS

Apple iPhone: Super-fast 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and A-GPS with Google Maps (sadly without 3d mapping).

LG Renoir: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G HSDPA mean Geo-tagging, speedy surfing and GPS are all accounted for.

Samsung Omnia: 3G HSDPA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a custom GPS satnav system with 3D mapping..

Media player

Nokia Tube: As part of Nokia's XpressMusic range, so comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a penchant for tunes, as well as an old timey-FM radio.

Apple iPhone: The meat the iPhone's meat stew, music is handled supremely well by a built in full iPod and connectivity to the all-powerful iTunes. The only gripe is Apple's budget bundled earphones.

LG Renoir: There's no radio, but MP3 and AAC are taken care of by LG's own player. In terms of video, there's DivX playback and Dolby technology.

Samsung Omnia: The Omnia sells itself as a real jack-of-all, so there's a decent music and video player in there for a myriad of file types. The only gripe is the poor touchscreen that suffers from some serious lag.

Operating System

Nokia Tube: Nokias first phone with the S60 Symbian touchscreen operating system doesn't feature multi-touch technology, but is very slick all the same. Big plus points are won for its love of all things Flash.

Apple iPhone: OS X iPhone keeps everything running smoother than a swimmer's cap. The mulit-touch tech makes zooming, pinching, grabbing, turning and surfing so easy it's like you were born with it.

LG Renoir: There's no sign of a Windows OS, SO IT APPEARS THAT THE Renoir is running on a custom built LG OS. Could be a fatal mistake.

Samsung Omnia: Windows Mobile 6.1 makes for smooth operation (apart from the sluggish touchscreen, of course).

HP 2133 Mini-Note PC

2008-12-05T09:22:00.001-08:00

Cool and sophisticated or cheap and basic?

The Mini-Note oozes confidence and a company at the top of its game. The style and finish is high-end and everything, put simply, just works.

Weighing 1.27kg, it's a heavy machine but the feel of the device is reassuringly robust. The keyboard is close to full size - HP claims it's 92 per cent the same - and is an absolute pleasure to use. The battery pack sticks out of the bottom, which makes it a pain to carry, but when it delivers well over three hours of juice, we're more than satisfied.

The only let down is the choice of processor; the VIA CF-7M, which is slow to run multiple applications. However, with 2048MB of memory, (and 120Gb storage) there is enough headroom to handle Windows Vista reasonably well.

True, this notebook can't compete with the original Eee PC on price but it's not trying to. If you want style, sophistication without making compromises, the Mini-Note PC is the only choice for you.

SanDisk's 16GB microSDHC and M2 memory cards

2008-12-05T09:18:00.001-08:00

The only trouble is downloading enough choons to fit onto the cards

Considering we've had one of each for close to a week now, we're surprised it's taken SanDisk this long to formally introduce the 16GB microSDHC and M2 memory cards today, after months of rumours.

True, they're just memory cards, nothing to get particularly excited about - until you hear just how many songs and photos you can squeeze onto them and play via your mobile phone.

Available in October in the US, Europe and Asia, they're a must-have for anyone with a mobile phone featuring an expandable memory port, such as the Samsung INNOV8 i8510, which we tested the microSD card on. Coupled with the i8510's internal memory of 16GB, this gave the phone an impressive 32GB of storage.

Depending on the bitrate of the choons and videos you're transferring to the cards, you can squeeze on between 3,000 - 4,000 tracks and around 16 hours of video footage. Whilst we didn't test the limits on how many photos a 16GB card can hold (it would've taken us years to snap that many on the i8510), supposedly 16GB can fit 15,000 or so pics on. Anyone who actually tests that gets our ultimate respec'.

Transferring MP3s and video onto the cards was a dead-easy process, with a couple of options available - including hiding the small cards in a microSD card adaptor, or just connecting the mobile (with the card inside) to the PC.

Available in October, the 16GB microSDHC will be £45 and the 16GB M2 card will set you back a steep £60.

Sonos BU150 review

2008-12-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sonos is back in the zone with its latest multi-room music bundle

There are about a bazillon network music streaming devices available, but in terms of both style and operation, Sonos products are usually several cuts above the competition. The three elements that make up the new BU150 bundle look like they were designed up by a very close relative of Apple's Jonathan Ive; all retro-spaceage white plastic and gently brushed aluminium.

In fact, the BU150 isn't vastly different to previous Sonos bundles; wider wireless range is probably the most significant improvement. In the box you get an amplified ZonePlayer 120, a smaller un-amplified ZonePlayer 90 and the same iPodesque colour screen/scrollwheel remote control we've seen before. The ZonePlayer 120 can be plugged straight into a pair of un-powered speakers (and a separate subwoofer if you like your bass as meaty as a branch of Dewhurst's), while the ZonePlayer 90 can be hooked up to your existing living room hi-fi via analogue or digital inputs. Further ZonePlayers (up to 32) can be added to the setup.

Setup is so simple it could be performed by a cluster of blind badgers with their front paws tied behind their backs. The system uses its own proprietary wireless network, so you don't need to bugger about with anything like encryption keys. The only hitch is that at least one of the ZonePlayers needs to be hard-wired to your router, which isn't always convenient, depending on where in your home your router actually lives. Adding a Sonos ZoneBridge (£70) or some Homeplug power-line networking adaptors (around £40 for a pair) would solve the problem, but the BU150 is already nudging the upper regions of the price ceiling. The other minor drawback is the system's inability to play protected tracks bought at the iTunes store. Piffling quibbles aside, there really isn't a better piece of music streaming kit out there.

Porsche Design P'9522 mobile phone launches

2008-12-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

This is the Porsche P'9522 - a mobile phone designed by Porsche. I can hear you already thinking "it's got an expensive name on it - the features are going to be practically non-existent". Well, tell your thoughts that they're wrong, and should shut up - it's actually surprisingly high-specced.

The phone case is milled from a single solid aluminum block and a single sheet of scratchproof glass! It's got a 2.8" touchscreen OLED display! It's got built-in Wi-Fi and GPS! It's got a fingerprint scanner! A fingerprint scanner, for god's sake!

The bad news? You're not going to get this in the Carphone Warehouse or Phones 4 U. It's being sold in Porsche shops and "exclusive specialist stores", like Harrods and Selfridges, only. It's being sold for considerably less than its predecessor, the fliptastic P'9521, which costs €1200 (just over £1000). The P'9522 will cost somewhere between £600 and £800.

Fingerprint recognition Porsche takes on the Vertu and the Meridiist

Last year, fashion phone fans (try saying that after a Babysham or two) were treated to the first ever Porsche Design mobile phone, the P'5921 flip phone.

Looking uncannily like a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, the Porsche P'9522 candy bar adds a fingerprint recognition touchscreen into its luxurious package, which allows you to access different applications with different fingers. Bond-style!

There's also a 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and built in GPS to allay fears of another expensive blower that puts style way before substance.

You'll probably need to be a Porsche driver to afford one though. They're out this month and will be priced between £600 and £800 from Harrods and Selfridges (Not Carphone Warehouse then, bruv?). If that's the case, it's a corking little matching accessory for your brum brum.

Check out our hands-on video report for the full lowdown on the latest in mobile opulence.

Nokia Tube 5800 Xpress Music phone announced

2008-12-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

Could this be the first genuine contender to the Apple iPhone's touchscreen crown?

The ink's not dry on your Nokia N96 contract yet, but the Finnish favourite has thrown another hellacious handset into the mix. Its first ever touchscreen offering!

As expected, Nokia has officially announced the 5800 Express Music phone we've come to know as the Tube.

Hot details include a 3.2" full touchscreen it's calling "the best mobile screen of all time."

Interestingly there's four differing input methods to suit all the horses and all the courses. A full-screen qwerty keyboard, handwriting recognition, a traditional phone keypad on the screen and a plectrum (it is a music phone, after all).

There's a 3.2-megapixel dual flash camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, and 8GB of storage for your music that Nokia hopes you'll be picking up from the new Comes With Music service. They've also packed in some pretty powerful speakers too and we'll have more on that once we've had a hands-on.

One of the key innovations allows you to store your four favourite contacts, complete with photos, on the home screen storing your entire history with that person. Messages, emails and calls exchanged as well as Facebook status updates through the RSS feed. Neato.

Speaking of the internet, the 5800 is fully compatible with Flash meaning you'll be able to browse "the whole internet". A not-so-sly dig at its biggest rival, the iPhone.

Perhaps the biggest positive is the price. You'll be able to grab this phone now for just 279 Euros on pay-as-you-go. About half the price of the iPhone. Sweet.

Killer DS consoles at large

2008-12-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

DS Lite turns DS alight

Fake Nintendo DS handhelds are hitting the UK - and they could serve up a nasty surprise on Christmas morning.

HM Revenue & Customs has apparently seized hundreds of counterfeit Nintendo DS and DS Lites, all of which came complete with dangerous power adapters. So when you plug in your new purchase, you could be one step from a meltdown or even worse, setting the house ablaze.

The DS consoles are being sold for around £40 from mainly overseas retailers, which makes for a tempting offer compared to the usual £100 price tag. If you've ordered from abroad, bought one from a bloke in the pub or even on a car boot, it might be worth checking for marks of authenticity. Those include the full paperwork, the British Safety Standards mark and a box wrapped in cellophane.

Anything else and it could all end in tears, a fire engine, insurance paperwork and a long stay in a cheap hotel.

Sony Ericsson G700 Phone

2008-12-05T08:15:00.001-08:00

Sony Ericsson presented its new G series lineup known as G700. The G700 phone features a 2.4-inch touchscreen that supports 240 x 320 pixels resolution, and up to 262k colors, a 3.2-megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, FM tuner, and Bluetooth. It has 160MB memory and accepts Memory Stick Micro (M2) memory cards.

The G700 measures 4.2 x 1.9 x 0.5 inches (106 x 49 x 13 mm) and weighs 3.5 oz (99 g).

iPod FM Audio Transmitter

2008-12-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

iPod FM Audio Transmitter
Become a DJ yourself by beaming the contents of your iPod to your very own radio. By acting as a tiny short-range transmitter, this clever little device turns the output of your iPod into an FM radio signal

The $20,000 Diamond-Encrusted Nokia 8800

2008-12-05T08:05:00.001-08:00

The Nokia 8-series has always been about design over functionality (at least for experimentation purposes)—and Swiss company Knalihs Athem wants to make that even more true. They are promising to come out with a limited run of only 20 Diamond-Encrusted Nokia 8800s, placing over a thousand diamonds (we’re told the total weight is 6.75 carats) on each unit.

We’ve also been told that the phone can be personalized with “name, initials, lucky number, logo and almost about anything of your choice.” Since this is all about looks, we’ll shut up now and let the pictures they sent us do the talking..

LG KF750 Secret: What’s Hot, What’s Not

2008-12-05T08:04:00.001-08:00

We’ve used the LG KF750 Secret, the third model in LG Mobile’s “Black Label” series, has been used for a couple of weeks. Enough to determine what’s hot, and what’s not.
What’s Hot

* Good looks
* Compact size goes well with sleek suits and petite handbags
* Deep feature set
* The display really is scratch-proof
* HSDPA-capable
* Did we say it looks good?
* Responsive

What’s Not

* Lacks WiFi (but it’s the only feature lacking though)
* Camera doesn’t deserve the “5.0 megapixel” label
* One proprietary port for charger, headphones, and data cable (i.e., you can only do one thing with it at a time)
* 900 mAh battery = too little portable juice
* Chrome framing gets scratched easily
* Loves fingerprints
* Touch controls more gimmicky than useful

By loading lots of features into a very thin phone, LG has made the Secret value-packed at any price (check out Google Product Search). Yet we can only recommend this phone based on its beautiful exterior.

That Nokia N78 Looks Damn Interesting

2008-12-05T08:03:00.001-08:00

As we’ve learned more about the Nokia N78, we’ve dreamt even more about it. Think of this phone as an improved N82, with the same:

* quadband GSM- and HSDPA-capability
* built-in camera with flash
* standard 3.5mm audio jack
* WiFi and Bluetooth
* TV-out, and FM radio

The N78 is also the first phone we’ve heard about that can actually transmit FM signals, meaning it’s possible to share music with nearby radio phone owners. But best of all, based on the pricing info we’ve uncovered, the N78 is cheaper than the N82!

Here’s a spec summary courtesy of Technograph:

* GSM (850/900/1800/1900 Mhz) and HSDPA (2100/900 Mhz) capable
* 113 x 49 x 15.1 mm (length by width by thickness), 101.8 grams heavy
* QVGA color display
* WiFi (802.11 b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0
* 3.15 megapixel camera with flash, secondary camera for video calls
* GPS and FM receivers
* 1200 mAh battery
* microSD slot (accepts up to 8GB), 76MB internal memory
* Symbian OS, S60 3rd Edition (3.2)

The Nokia N78 is priced at the upper 400s, based on Google Product Search.

Samsung U800

2008-12-05T08:01:00.001-08:00

Are you looking for a new mobile phone? If so why not check out the Samsung U800
today.
Samsung Electronics, one of the world’s top five mobile phone vendors, is well known for its flip phones. As a matter of fact, Samsung is currently one of the major players in this segment of the global market for mobile phones.
An example are great phones like Samsung U800 digital camera cell phone by Samsung that allows accessing the web and Samsung U800 mobile phone that allows multiple messaging capabilities. This amazing mobile phone comes with a light weight at just 90.4 grams and consists of extremely sleek dimensions of 111 x 46 x 9.9 mm. It is a beautifully crafted handset, which is available in various eye candy colours such as Soul Gray, Metallic Black, Soul Pink, Platinum Silver,Amethyst Violet and Soul Red. This phone has a large internal memory of 1 GB.
This memory should be enough for most of them if you want more space then use an external microSD card of up to 8 GB. In short Samsung U800 Soul is really an impressive mobile. The another highly useful feature of the Samsung U800 is the Internet browser called WAP 2.0/xHTML.
This wonderful feature allows the users to do surfing in their handset and lets them to check any website easily. The users can manage and complete various important works just by sitting at their home.After a long boring and hectic day, you can switch on the excellent quality music player of Samsung U800.Samsung U800 come with great sound capability. You can listening radio or MP3, because samsung U800 support Mp3 and radio FM receiver.
With a headset, you can listening your favourite music MP3 or FM radio anywhere, anytime and whenever you want.
The Samsung U800 also allows you to listen to the radio, thanks to its FM tuner with RDS system. Coming complete with a host of customisable menus, the Samsung U800 from Samsung packs a host of great features into an amazingly compact package.The Samsung U800 Pink and the Samsung U800 are just two of many new phones to be released from the Ultra range of Samsung mobile phones.
So, the next time, you want a mobile phone model that has the looks, style and functionality, you can go for the latest mobile phones from Samsung. Acquire one of these handsets and discover a world of possibilities at the tip of your fingers!To get some of the best mobile phone deals and sim free mobile phones on latest mobile phone models in UK, please visit the site:http://www.dialtosave.co.uk