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The Nokia N97 sports a 3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel (16:9 aspect ratio) resistive touchscreen display with tactile feedback and slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It’s heavily focused on social sites like Facebook with its “always open″ window to favorite Internet or social networking sites. The N97 also features HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, 3.5-mm head jack, and 32GB of on-board memory. With a microSD expansion you can go up to 48GB total memory. The battery is capable of up to 1.5 days of continuous audio playback or 4.5 hours video.

Continue reading Nokia N97 Sweet!…

Tags: HSDPA, mobile phone, Nokia, Nokia N97

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Original post by nafiz

HTC’s Touch HD is arguably the best touch-screen Windows Mobile-based phones you can buy. In fact, even before the HTC Touch HD, I always felt HTC mobile phones were the best Windows Mobile phones you could buy. I own an older HTC-based “Apache” XV6700 Windows Mobile with a cooked ROM upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.1 and I’m still pretty happy using it. I still consider my xv6700 one of the top 5 Windows Mobile phones available. Installed on it I have a standalone Youtube player, TCPMP Media Player, Opera Mini, HTC Streaming Media Player, Java (Jbed), Skyfire browser, and more. It does the job and I especially like the slide-out keyboard. I’m not into the iPhone touch-screen’s keyboard or the new Blackberry Storm for that matter. I find tactile keyboards work best for typing lengthy emails.

Comparisons between the new HTC Touch HD and the Apple iPhone will no doubt be made, since they both offer large touch-screens. In fact, the Touch HD beats the iPhone’s screen with it’s 3.8″ WVGA (480 X 800 pixel) screen vs. 3.5″ (320 x 480) for the iPhone. It beats the iPhone in size and resolution! In addition, unlike the Apple iPhone, Windows Mobile apps can run in the background, which is important for IM & VoIP apps like Skype. You have to jailbreak your iPhone if you want to enable background processing. What’s up with Mr. Steve Jobs? He can be anally retentive sometimes when it comes to “controlling” Apple products.

Continue reading HTC Touch HD…

Tags: 3.5G, Android, HSDPA, HTC Touch HD, iPhone, mobile phone, Windows Mobile

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Wireless

It’s not the first carrier to hop on the netbook bandwagon, but India′s Reliance Communications looks like it could be about to boost those global netbook sales numbers even further, with it announcing that it plans to offer free mobile broadband-equipped netbooks to anyone willing to sign a two-year, $30-a-month contract for its NetConnect service. What’s more, while the complete specifics are still a bit light, Reliance has apparently partnered with Intel, Acer, Asus, HCL and Lenovo for the deal, which seems to suggest that you’ll be able to get the Atom-based netbook of your choice, or at least choose from a decent enough selection.

[Via GigaOM]

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Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Gaming

Are the blatant rockist tendencies of Guitar Hero and Rock Band ruining your enjoyment of those otherwise brilliant titles? Of course they are — we noted your b-boy flava from two blocks away. But don′t sweat it because Genius Products, 7 Studios and Quincy Jones III have your niche in their sights and will happily sell you Scratch: The Ultimate DJ when it hits the stores sometime in Spring 2009. With a game controller designed by Numark (known worldwide for its DJ controllers — there’s an example for you after the break), the game will be available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and feature tracks by “many” (as yet unnamed) hip-hop artists. Trevor Drinkwater, President and CEO of Genius Products promises all and sundry “a cutting-edge game that captures the vital energy of hip-hop culture.” And here we thought they were cynically jumping on the Guitar Hero bandwagon! We stand corrected.

Continue reading Scratch offers Numark-controlled Guitar Hero for hip-hop heads

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Original post by Joseph L. Flatley

Filed under: Gaming

There was a time — back in the mid-’90s — when Diamond Multimedia was tops in the burgeoning graphics acceleration game. Those days are apparently long gone (and look to stay that way) thanks to recent quality assurance issues affecting many of the company’s 512MB Radeon HD 3800 series cards. Those manufactured between January and July of this year are said to suffer problems ranging from a complete lack of power management to plain ‘ol “poor soldering.” Alienware saw a 10-percent failure rate and shipped back its entire stock, canceling any further dealings with the company. For the record, Diamond doesn’t actually manufacture these, acting as a reseller for GeCube, but perhaps was lax in its testing and now is perhaps being lax in its disclosure. The company has indicated that not only is there no problem with its products, its gone so far as to state that “Diamond manufactures the most reliable graphics cards in the industry and our customers’ satisfaction is our first priority.” Alienware would beg to differ.

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Original post by Tim Stevens

Filed under: Displays

Remember way back when everyone and their third cousin twice removed was hopping on the SideShow bandwagon? Yeah, those were the days. We’ll admit, we still think SideShow has had a lot of promise, but you know what they say about a technology without support. At any rate, Mini-Box has decided to offer up a (comparatively) inexpensive way for folks to indulge in a minuscule auxiliary display, and while the $49.95 PicoLCD 4X20-Sideshow won’t provide any looks at high-res widgets, the basic blue display is a real champ at showing off stock prices and birthday reminders. Worst case scenario? You can probably use it in a random DIY project that you’ve been meaning to get to.

[Via SideShowDevices]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Transportation

To date, since production began in March, 27 Tesla Motors Roadsters have been delivered. Now the production rate is expected to ramp considerably thanks to a deal with BorgWarner to build the enhanced “Powertrain 1.5.” The Telsa designed, single-speed gearbox is expected to help provide 30% more power allowing the Roadster to once again accelerate from 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds as it did with the original, flawed, two-speed transmission. It’s also more efficient resulting in an extended, 244-mile range (221 miles currently) from a single charge. All Roadsters equipped with the interim transmission will be upgraded free of charge. Tesla says that it will now ramp production to 10 Roadsters per week, hitting 20 per week within a few months, and 40 per week by early 2009. Most of which we expect to find riding the PCH in total, luxurious, battery-powered silence.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

It looks like the Pandora project is really coming together nicely. EvilDragon has just posted this video on the GP32x boards of a development model up and running. It’s pretty exciting stuff if you’re a homebrew fan (and we know you are), featuring demos of the device smoothly running emulators like PicoDrive, PSNES, booting up a build of Linux, and even getting its Quake 2 on (at high frame rates and looking crystal clear). It’s still going to be awhile before we’ve actually got our grubby mitts on one of these, but this is certainly doing a good job of whetting our appetites. Watch the video after the break and see for yourself.

[Thanks, Chris]

Continue reading Pandora project demoed on video, shows off hardware, Linux, and Quake 2

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The creative cats and kittens at Obscura Digital have put together a stunning piece of performance art / data manipulation demo which combines their proprietary multi-touch software with Musion’s Eyeliner 3D holographic projection system. Like that BMW installation we saw recently, this is one of those odd combinations of technology and art which is best seen in action rather than described — so check out the video after the break and see the work in all its mind-bending glory.

Continue reading Obscura Digital projects multi-touch “hologram,” blows all sorts of minds

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

We know you’re not really down with digesting any more catchphrases, but the technology formerly known as Ultra Low Power Bluetooth / Wibree is now being dubbed Bluetooth low energy. Now that we’re clear on nomenclature, you may be thrilled to know that CSR showcased its recently unveiled BlueCore7 dual mode (Bluetooth low energy and Bluetooth Ҟ.1) chip at a Bluetooth SIG Medical Working Group meeting. According to onlookers, the handset was able to transfer data to another nearby mobile using just 3 frequencies rather than 32, resulting in an unquantifiable decrease in power consumption. Sounds like a winner on the surface, but we have this weird that mass adoption of this tech is like, years away.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Paul Robichaux, is a Microsoft MVP, a Mac user since 1984, an iPhone user since July 8th of last year, and an Exchange admin since 1995. So he’s got the technical credentials to know what he’s talking about when he blasts the new iPhone’s issues with Microsoft Exchange integration.

Here’s a teaser:

I should point out that Exchange ActiveSync is a protocol that supports lots of different content types and protocol option. Apple, like most other EAS licensees, has implemented a subset of EAS. I’m complaining about Apple’s implementation here, not EAS itself.
…
…
There are a number of other Windows Mobile 6 features missing here: for instance, you cannot flag or unflag messages for follow-up; you can′t set out of office messages or timings, and the device will frequently complain if you try to throw away a message that a client- or server-side junk filter has already moved elsewhere. The extremely convenient press-and-hold shortcuts that WM provides (like “d” to delete or “m” for move) are of course absent here, too.

Bottom line: mail is prettier on the iPhone.

Ouch! Pretty doesn’t cut it when you want email productivity. That along with several other problems he had with Exchange integration takes away one of the new iPhone’s main selling points. I was actually thinking about picking up an iPhone this week and one of the main reasons was the built-in Exchange support in the iPhone 2.0 that the previous version lacked. Now I′m having second thoughts. Might stick with my Windows Mobile phone after all.

Tags: activesync, Apple, cell phone, email, Exchange, iPhone, Microsoft Exchange, mobile phone, Windows Mobile

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Original post by nafiz

Tom Cross, a TMCnet blogger, is not happy about his iDead iPhone. He’s lost all his iPhone songs, contact information, favorites, vmail and everything else. AT&T couldn’t even recover his voicemail password, thus he was forced to wipe all of his current voicemails and start from scratch. Ouch!

And don’t forget all the iPhone outage issues and activation problems. Maybe it was a good idea I decided to skip the iPhonemania yesterday and wait till things die down a little. iPhone 2.0 can wait till all the kinks are worked out.

Check out his post titled iHate My iPhone Because its iDead

Then check out his follow-up post.

Tags: Apple, AT&ampT, iDead, iHate, iPhone, mobile phone, wireless

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Original post by nafiz

8×8, Inc. the provider of the Packet8 VoIP broadband service today announed it has added the Apple iPhone to the list of over 450 mobile handset devices now supported by the Packet8 MobileTalk international calling service. Launched back in November 2007, MobileTalk adds inexpensive calling to the iPhone 2.0 which launched today.

Unlike the truphone iPhone application I blogged earlier today, the Packet8 MobileTalk is web-based interface, so unlike truphone there is no dialer application to download. Instead, it uses a customized web-based dialer, accessible via a standard data plan or WiFi connection, to route calls to a unique local Packet8 access number and then on to the Packet8 digital VoIP network. Once the call has been initiated, the data connection is no longer engaged and the call is carried to completion over the cellular provider’s network with only Packet8′s low international calling rates applied. So one advantage of Packet8 over truphone is that it also works over the 3G data connection and not just WiFi. (see details as to why)

MobileTalk features mobile international calling rates such as $.01 per minute to China, $.02 per minute to the U.K., $.03 per minute to Mexico and $.059 per minute to India. Not too shabby…

“With the tremendous adoption rate of Apple’s first generation iPhone and today’s release of the new 3G version, the potential market for the Packet8 MobileTalk service has increased exponentially,” said 8×8 Vice President of Sales &amp Marketing Huw Rees. “The iPhone version of MobileTalk is even simpler to install than our version for other smart phones and our beta users were generally thrilled with its ease of use and quality.”

Over 450 Windows, Palm, RIM, Symbian-based and iPhone mobile phone models, including the entire family of Blackberry phones running version 4.0 of the operating system and above, and 25 Nokia models running the Symbian OS, are now supported by the Packet8 MobileTalk service. A complete list of supported devices can be found at http://www.packeҐ.net/mobile_services/supported_phones.aspx.

Customers can sign up for a Packet8 MobileTalk account at http://mobiletalk.packet8.net.

Tags: 8×8, Apple, iPhone, mobile app, mobile phone, Packet8, Packet8 MobileTalk, voice over ip, VoIP

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Original post by nafiz

Want Truphone on your iPhone? Truphone enables you to make VoIP calls on your iPhone over the internet using your WiFi connection (sorry - won’t work over your cellular 3G connection)

Truphone′s native VoIP client for the iPhone was developed with Apple′s own SDK and is available at the online iPhone App Store. Still, I wished it worked over the 3G connection. Wonder how long it will be before someone jailbreaks iPhone 2.0 and allows a truly native VoIP app that works over WiFi AND the 3G cellular data connection. Then life would be good!

Hat tip to Greg Galitzine for the news and image.

Tags: 3G, Apple, cellular, Greg Galitzine, jailbreak, mobile phone, SDK, truphone, VoIP, WiFi

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Original post by nafiz

As the Apple iPhone ver 2 launches today, Apple had some outage issues with their website.

Late yesterday/last night, Apple users could not access their accounts. Additionally, the TUAW reported today (6:20am Friday) that The Apple Store US is down, though it’s up now. The outage last night was a planned outage that was part of the Apple’s transition to MobileMe. Essentially, their .Mac accounts’ data was being moved to MobileMe, a $99/year service lets people view, update and sync e-mails, calendar appointments & contacts, as well as share files across iPhones, Macs and Windows PCs.

As iPhone mania continues to run rampant today, just take a breather. If you can’t access Apple’s iPhone web services to download new apps or the Exchange email integration isn’t working, just put the iPhone down, go outside, scream at the top of your lungs, “Curses you Steve Jobs for not planning better!”, then go back inside look at your precious new newfandangled iPhone and just be glad you own one.

Tags: Apple, Apple store, iPhone, mobile phone, outage

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Original post by nafiz