Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Over at Brighthand, rumors that Dell’s next Pocket PC, the Axim X3, will be based on a concept design from Samsung and Microsoft, cost less than $150, and have a 3.5-inch color display. Read
Nokia is shipping its first 3G cellphone, with J-Phone in Japan and Mobilkom in Austria being the first carriers to offer the 6650. Read
I don’t even know where to begin with this. Qinetiq, a British defense research lab is working on “intelligent” airline seats that could alert the cabin crew to passengers acting in a nervous or anxious manner who could turn out to be terrorists. The seats have pressure sensors that connect to a central computer and…
From TEN Technology, the first wireless remote control for the iPod. The naviPod does require that a somewhat ungainly infrared receiver be popped into the top of the iPod, but it gets the job done. Comes in versions for all three generations of iPods. Read
He might be the leader of the Free World, but he apparently doesn’t know how to ride a Segway HT. President Bush crashed taking a spin on one while visiting his parents in Kennebunkport, Maine yesterday. He was not injured. Which is good, because if he had been hurt, it would have been really hard…
Philips’ iPod clone, the 15GB HDD100, is finally set to come out here in the US. It’s perplexing that given all of the advantages that Sony, Philips, Samsung, and all the other massive consumer electronics companies have over Apple, that none of them have been able to come out with a player that can seriously…
A new Motorola cellphone from Nextel that’s specifically designed for use by police officers. Says the Washington Business Journal: The company will market the phone as a way for first responders to broadcast color digital images like mug shots or photos of missing children to fellow law enforcement personnel in the field. Read [Via PicturePhoning.com]
Apparently terrorists used cellphones to detonate their bombs in those attacks last month in Riyadh that killed thirty five people, including nine Americans. Lest this news induce a new round of panic about cellphones and their risks (that they cause brain cancer or that they interfere with airplane navigation systems, etc), terrorists have been using…
Something to look forward to: Pioneer is licensing TiVo’s software and service, so there should be a new line digital video recorders coming out from them sometime later this year. Read
Late last year lots of WiFi manufacturers jumped the gun a bit and started putting out wireless cards and base stations that adhered to the draft standard for 802.11g (a higher speed successor to 802.11b), knowing full well that the final standard could turn out to be substantially different. The inevitable result has loads of…
MobileBurn gallery of photos of the bejewelled Samsung SGH-T500, a so-called “Ladies Phone” which comes with a calorie counter and a display which can also be used as a mirror. For the Asian market only, it’s doubtful that Samsung would be foolhardy enough to release the SGH-T500 here. Read
MacWhispers reports that Apple has contracted a plant to manufacture a new 15.4-inch Powerbook, which would be slightly bigger than the 15.2-inch Powerbook currently on the market. Read
A powered exoskeleton for the disabled from Active Link, a new company Matsushita. Read [Via BoingBoing, Translated from Japanese using Babelfish]
When I was about eight years old my best friend’s father was a pilot in the Air Force. He was stationed at the now-shuttered Castle Air Force base, and for months my friend and I begged him to take us to there to play in the fight simulators. We figured it’d be like the ultimate…
We think this might have everything we’ve been waiting for: It’s a new wireless digital entertainment hub from Philips combined with a home-theater-in-a-box. The MX-i6000 comes with built-in 802.11b for wirelessly streaming audio and video off of the Web or the hard drive of a PC, a five-disc changer that can play CDs and DVDs,…
Some disappointment over at Forbes with Palm’s new Tungsten C, the one with built-in 802.11b: Using a Tungsten C is rather like driving a Ferrari over cobbled streets in a mountain town. It needs the wide-open road to show its paces. The Tungsten C’s great appeal is its wireless connectivity to the Internet. But once…
A new refrigerator from Mitsubishi that uses a “mixture of high-density minus ions and low-density ozone” to keep fruits and vegetables fresh for five times longer than a regular machine. Someone call Mentos. Read
There are a couple of ways to make Xbox more interesting. One way is to play people for money. The other is add an electroshock feature to the controllers. It almost seems like they’re begging for a lawsuit, but TechTV has a guide on how to do this. Read
A new handheld scanner that can detect the presence of a cancerous tumor just by being waved over a person: The device, which looks a little like the metal detectors used in airports, works because different types of body tissue resonated in different ways when exposed to a fluctuating frequency of microwaves given off by…
We almost forgot, besides all those new laptops, Gateway also has its first Pocket PC coming out soon, but there are few details on what it’ll be like. Read