Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Great article over at Brighthand about how Palm has violated many of its own design precepts with its new Tungsten T handheld. Read Amazon – Tungsten T
New Palm OS smartphone from GroupSense, a not very well-known name. There aren’t a whole lot of details available about it, but it looks like it does have a built-in digital camera and is about the same size as regular cellphone. Read
It looks like SONICblue, the maker of ReplayTV digital video recorders, the Rio line of MP3 players, and whole bunch of other audio and video gadgets, is about to declare bankruptcy. Trading has already been halted in the stock. Not sure how this affects anyone with a subscription to ReplayTV’s monthly service, or whether this…
New box from ViewSonic that lets you hook up to four A/V components (like a PC, cable box, DVD player, VCR, video game console, etc.) to the same computer monitor. But the real lure here is that the NextVision N6 HD Video Processor has a built-in TV tuner and also accepts high-definition TV signals. Read
Brand new way to embarrass yourself and your friends in public: there’s a pub in North London where you can get drunk and via a Bluetooth network upload all of the most salacious pics on your cameraphone to a giant screen television where everyone can see them. Read
Wired News on the some of the many new cellphones introduced at the big CTIA trade show this week, like LG’s new 4050 GSM handset and Samsing’s SPH-i700 Pocket PC Phone. Read
Tiny new Sony Vaio palmtop computer. The PCG-U101 runs Windows XP, has a 7.1-inch screen, a 30GB hard drive, built-in WiFi, and a special four-way controller so it can be held like a book. Sadly, it’s only available in Japan. Read
HP’s PSC 2110, which combines a color ink jet printer, scanner, and copier, is on sale at Amazon for $155.99 after rebate, and to sweeten the deal they’ll even throw in a $40 gift certificate towards a future Amazon purchase. Amazon – HP PSC 2110
If you ever worked with a laptop actually in your lap you’ve probably discovered just how freaking hot they can get. Sandia National Laboratories is apparently working on a new way to keep laptops (and by extension, laps) cool: The Sandia technology uses small (less than hair-thickness) copper “wicks” to transport methanol—and waste heat—from one…
Prototype of a 20-inch display from Taiwanese company IDTech that uses OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diodes). These are going to be replacing LCD screens really, really soon, since they’re brighter, thinner, use less power, and will eventually be cheaper to produce than LCDs. Read
Cellphone numbers are going to start showing up in directory assistance sometime next year: Individual carriers would determine whether subscribers would have to pay to be unlisted. Other privacy options are possible, too. For example, wireless phone users might choose to be unlisted but willing to receive a short text message, sent through the directory…
Frank McPherson thinks that the best way for Microsoft to solve the problem of cellphone manufacturers (Hando, Samsung, etc) backing out of running Redmond’s new Smartphone operating system on their handsets would be to simply buy one. He suggests Motorola. We haven’t seen too many instances of Microsoft buying hardware companies outright and when they…
GirlHacker’s put together a list of everything going into to the generously stocked, and apparently very large, gift bags being given away to presenters and nominees at this weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony. Besides the usual stuff you’d expect to find like Hermes beach towels, Givere chocolate truffles, and gift certificates to day spas, there are…
After five years, it looks Apple has finally killed off the original iMac. And about time too, we never really thought the original iMac to be deserving of all the hype, and certainly the design trends it inspired (remember how three years ago everything looked like an iMac?) won’t be missed at all. Read
Danger’s been showing off a new version of its Hiptop mobile communicator with a color screen at the big Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association trade show this week. Should be out by summer, and hopefully settles the rumors that T-Mobile was dropping the Hiptop entirely. Read [Thanks, Joel]
Sony’s gone ahead and built a TV tuner that fits into the Memory Stick Duo slot of its Clie line of handhelds. No word on when this might actually become available. Read
Concept design from Texas Instruments for a Pocket PC Phone that combines GSM and GPRS with Bluetooth and WiFi. The only problem is that so far TI hasn’t found any manufacturers yet that want to build the Wireless Any Network Digital Assistant, or WANDA as its called, so don’t hold your breath waiting for this…
Apple bills the PowerBook G4 as a portable video editing studio, but DVLine’s new ProLaptop, the first with a 128MB video card, looks like a pretty good option for PC users. Read
Verizon Wireless has just launched the first wireless service to use the new EV-DO network. Forgive us if we greet it with a big yawn: EV-DO looks like yet another “high-speed” connection which overpromises and under delivers. EV-DO has a maximum connection speed of 2.4Mbps, but 150Kbps is more what you should expect. It’s just…
Better not plan that jewel heist over SMS. The police have known how to wiretap a cellphone for some time now (60% of wiretaps these days are for cellphones), but until recently they couldn’t intercept digital photos sent from a cameraphone or text messages. Such a relief that they’ve finally figured this out, though we…