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Konica and Minolta are going to merge later this year. Not sure yet what effect this will have on either company’s line of digital cameras (or on the market for digital cameras in general), but almost certainly there will be some scaling back in the number of models made available by the newly merged company.…
Today only, you can get a Motorola V70 for free with new service activation, and actually come out $50 in the black. The phone regularly costs $299.99, but comes with $300 in rebates for new service activation. Today only, Amazon has dropped the price to $249.99, but the $300 in cash back is still available.…
News.com preview of what to expect at CES, which kicks off tomorrow in Las Vegas. What to look out for: Smart Personal Object Techology from Microsoft, a new version of the Memory Stick from Sony called Memory Stick Pro, and a new home networking device from HP called the Digital Media Receiver. Read
Excellent column by Dan Gillmor on the shift in the technology industry away from Comdex, which is struggling to stay afloat, and CES, which continues to grow in importance. It’s just like All About Eve – but with technology trade shows! Read
Chinese scientists have built a robot that can do tai chi. The BHR-1 is 1.58 meters tall, can sense changes in ground level, and can balance itself automatically. That’s all fine and good, but if it could do karate, then maybe I’d be impressed. Read
Gareth Branwyn of StreetTech on the one gadget he would have asked for this holiday season: the AeroLatte. The AeroLatte couldn’t be cooler (or simpler). It’s nothing more than a battery pack/motor and a tiny circular whisk on a shaft. Stick it in milk (or juice or anything else) and it whips it up to…
Up until a few months ago ViewSonic mainly sold monitors. But then last Fall it introduced both a Pocket PC and a Tablet PC, and took its first steps into the PC market. Now they’re taking the plunge and are going to sell a full-fledged desktop, a PC that runs Windows XP Media Center Edition.…
The WalkieMusic MP3 Deluxe from the bizarrely named CyQ’ve isn’t the only game in town. Gabe Meister writes in that Teac offers a mini-CD MP3 player of its own, the MP-330. By the way, does anyone even know how to pronounce “CyQ’ve”? Is the name some kind of a weird joke? Read Amazon
DesignTechnica review of the WalkieMusic MP3 Deluxe from CyQ’ve (not sure whether the product or the company has the more absurd name), which uses 8cm CD-Rs for playback instead of larger-sized regular CD-R/RW discs like regular MP3 CD players. Read
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, a joint venture between IBM and Hitachi, plans to have a 4GB Microdrive out by the Fall. Microdrives are those mini hard drives that are just 1-inch big that fit into a CompactFlash slot. Read
Back in November, British manufacturer Sendo was about to introduce the Z100, the second cellphone to run Microsoft’s Smartphone OS, when it suddenly pulled the plug and announced that it would go with Series 60 from Nokia instead. No one knew exactly why, and neither company would give a solid reason for what happened. Sendo…
Whatever it is that Apple is planning to announce tomorrow at Macworld (speculation ranges from a video iPod, to an OS X Tablet PC, to a PDA), it looks like it’s going to be big. Read
It’s time for the Consumer Electronics Show again, the giant yearly trade show that takes place in Las Vegas every January. Some highlights: a 1GB SecureDigital storage card from Panasonic; a Personal Video Player with a four inch screen and room for ten hours of video from SONICblue and Intel; and a satellite TV dish…
Two new Pocket PC Phones that run on CDMA wireless networks (the type of network used by Sprint PCS and Verizon) debut today, the i700 from Samsung and the Multimedia Communicator from Hitachi. Both the i700 (pictured at right) and the Multimedia Communicator come with built-in digital cameras, but the Hitachi has an integrated keyboard…
Amazon’s having a post-holiday clearance sales, and one of the nifty little gadgets on sale is Phillips’ AX511117 Ultracompact Portable CD Player, which comes with 45 seconds of electronic-skip protection. Just $49.88. Amazon
There are now two handheld manufacturers signed on to produce handsets that will run Microsoft’s new Smartphone operating system, Compal, and now Asustek. Compal is beginning production this month on their first Smartphone, the AR11, which is expected to retail for a hefty $500 to $600. Read
They’ve discovered an entirely new way to annoy me: FPS have come out with a backpack that comes with flat-panel speakers. The idea is that people can walk around town blasting their music to everyone around them: The FPS Personal Backpack Audio System is a tough, lightweight backpack that employs a pair of patented, water-resistant…
The Daily Yomiuri has an interview with Yoshiaki Sakagami, chief engineer of Honda R&D, and the man behind Honda’s Asimo robot. Along with Sony’s SDR-4X, these new humanoid robots are the next wave of robotics, and are going to start showing up in people’s homes within a year or two. Read [Via BoingBoing]
Glenn Fleishman, of 802.11b Networking News, writes in that contrary to what ThinkSecret says, it’s not a done deal that Apple is going to support 802.11g in the next version of AirPort: I’ll definitely bet you that Apple, if it announces an AirPort 3.0 system at Macworld, will go for dual-band, probably summer introduction, not…
Oh, and it’s not quite as exciting as a video iPod, but ThinkSecret is confirming that an 802.11g Airport will be announced next week at Macworld SF. Read