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Last December there was quite a bit of buzz about the Neonode N1, a tiny new cellphone with a touchscreen and a built-in digital camera that was rumored to run not on Microsoft’s new Smartphone operating system, but on Windows CE. Well it looks like the N1 is actually going to see the light of…
New Pocket PC from MiTAC. The Mio338 Plus has got some nice specifications – a 400MHz processor, 40MB of RAM, 64MB of flash ROM, and SD memory card slot, and a 3.5″ color screen – but lacks built-in WiFi or Bluetooth or much else to distinguish it from the rest of Pocket PCs out there.…
For those few people who own a PC with a USB 2.0 port but no LAN card, there’s a new USB 2.0-to-Ethernet adapter from SMC. Read
What we’d really like to own: a thin, light Tablet PC with a six- or eight-inch screen. Fortunately it looks like Toshiba, HP, and others are becoming more and more willing to take a chance and build computers that fall somewhere between handhelds and laptops. Read
New CD-RW drive from Plextor called the Plextor Premium that can squeeze 40 percent more data into the same disc, so a 700MB blank CD could potentially hold up to 980MB. How does it work? Compression is achieved by burning smaller-than-normal pits or holes into the surface of a blank disc—up to 40 percent smaller,…
ExtremeTech on how to build your own TiVo. Too bad it costs more than just buying one. Of course, there are no subscription fees to pay, so in the long run it’s not a bad deal. Read [Via LockerGnome]
Ok, so your cellphone has probably saved your life a few times. But this teenager’s cellphone literally saved him from death: someone shot him, and the bullet was deflected by the cellphone he happened to have attached to his waist band. Read
Reader Nick Bicanic writes in about another remote controlled electrical outlet system, this one from the same company behind those loathsome X10 spycam popup ads (who knew they even made anything else?): Here’s a link to a more useful kind of remote (one I’ve been using for a few years – both in the US…
Ok, so when it comes to surround sound there’s isn’t much to know about except the differences between Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS-ES, DTS Neo:6, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, and THX, all of which have either 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 channels, speakers. (The “.1” referring to the subwoofer, which doesn’t get…
A couple of new color cellphones from Nokia for the US market, the 3586i and the 6585. Both use run on the new high-speed CDMA 1xRTT network, and have 95×65 pixel color displays. The 6585 also has a built-in FM radio. Read
In Britain, asthma patients are getting Pocket PC Phones outfitted with special peak-flow meters which can monitor their breath strength and software that automatically emails their doctor the results. If the risk of an attack increases, the doctor can then send text message telling them to either adjust their medication or report to an emergency…
New portable keyboard for Japanese cellphones called the Rboard. Sure it looks a little silly attaching a tiny little cellphone to a full-sized keyboard, but the Rboard has its appeal. Due to a lack of patience (and dexterity), we’ve never been keen on tapping out text messages (or anything else) on cellphone keypad, but lately…
HP has quietly scrapped its h5600 line of wireless Pocket PCs. The line was never officially unveiled, but from early reports it looked like there would have been two models, one with GSM and GPRS, the other with CDMA. Both would have had built-in Bluetooth. Read
For our readers in Hong Kong who are really, really worried about getting SARS, a cellphone carrier there has started up a new service that will tell you all the places within a one kilometer radius that have housed persons with confirmed cases of the disease. Read [Via BoingBoing]
Even more evidence that Apple is planning a tablet Mac: they’ve signed up Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta to build a “Tablet PC-style wireless display terminal.” Read
Nokia’s first Bluetooth wireless cellphone headset, the HDW-2, is finally out, and Infosync is not impressed: During testing, however, we observed several instances where the headset ended up losing all contact if a number of other tasks were carried out on the phone, requring an on/off reboot to regain a connection. The range of the…
Appliance manufacturer Merloni Elettrodomestici is working on a washing machine that can read RF smart tags embedded in clothing and automatically know how best to wash them. And if you accidentally mix whites and darks, the machine can even you tell you what items you need to remove. Too bad pretty much no one sells…
ZDNet takes a look at what it calls the “Maserati of smartphones,” the P800 from Sony Ericsson. The P800, which is hitting the States right now, is just about the most eagerly awaited cellphone in recent memory. A few months ago some people were paying upwards of a thousand bucks to get one that’s been…
It’s been pretty clear for a while now that blue lasers are the future of optical storage. They use a much shorter wavelength of light than the red lasers that are used in CD and DVD players right now, meaning that more bits can be squeezed into the same physical space. The first high-definition DVD…
We’ve mentioned cd3o Network MP3 Player before, the digital media hub which lacks a display screen and instead uses a synthesized robotic voice called CD-DJ that reads out to you the names of the songs that are being streamed from your PC to your stereo. At the time we thought this feature sounded pretty cool,…