Devices Site

Posted Mar 31st 2008 2:18PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: Handhelds Bookeen’s Cybook Gen3 e-book reader has been a long time coming, but now that it’s out in the wild we’re finally starting to get some reviews of the device, including this fairly thorough one from the folks at The Future of Things. Unfortunately for those looking forward to the reader, they found it to be quite a mixed bag. On the upside, they found the device to be thin, light, small and fast, with it also boasting solid battery life and, most importantly, a screen that’s “very comfortable” to read, even outdoors. They were also impressed with the Cybook’s RSS support, and the Mobipocket format used for e-books. On the downside, the page flip mechanism proved to be “cumbersome,” and they found that the current firmware left a lot to be desired, with them even going so far as to say that it felt like it was “rushed to the market too soon.” They were also somewhat disappointed by the lack of SDHC support, and a lack of wireless connectivity (be it 3G or WiFi). They also point out, however, that none of the e-book readers out there are perfect, so if you’re in the market for one you’ll just have to pick the trade-offs you’re willing to live with.

Posted Mar 31st 2008 11:58AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Laptops
MSI seems to be in quite the contradictory mood, as that “Innovation with Style” slogan certainly doesn’t apply to the laptop it’s plastered on. We had to triple-check to ensure the VR340 wasn’t actually introduced ages ago, but in fact, this 13.3-incher is incredibly fresh. Packed within the way-too-heavy 4.85-pound frame is an elusive dual-core Intel CPU, WXGA panel, up to 3GB of DDR2 RAM, dual-layer DVD burner, a trio of USB ports, 5-in-1 multicard reader and a six-cell battery for good measure. Mum’s the word on a price, but chances are that won’t hurt too many feelings.

[Via FarEastGizmos]

In a move that’s stunned the market, Nokia has made an agressive bid for Apple for a whopping $159 billion. Alarmed by the rise of the iPhone, which is set to net Apple $3 billion this year and up to $45 billion next year according to market analyst Piper Jaffray, the giant Finnish phone maker has decided its best option is to buy Apple outright in a deal that makes Microsoft’s bid of $44 billion for Yahoo! seem like chicken feed. According to reports, Nokia intends to spin off Apple’s existing computer business, but keep its successful music and phone divisions. The plan is to ultimately incorporate ipod and iPhone technology, the iTunes service, and Nokia’s famed high-end mobile phones into one super-phone that will single-handedly challenge the mobile phone market, mobile music market and the GPS market all at once. An insider at Nokia says the new super-phone, called the N-iPple, will feature the same user interface as the iphone, together with many of the high tech innovations that Nokia’s N-Series is famed for. The insider claims the list will include: HSDPA aGPS 7 megapixel camera with auto-focus DVD quality 60fps video recording (similar to the LG Viewty’s)

Posted Mar 31st 2008 10:44AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: HDTV, Media PCs, Storage Okoro Media Systems has been offering up well-spec’d HTPCs for quite some time, but it has finally seen fit to jump on the flash-based storage bandwagon. The firm’s new ZX series of Extreme Digital Entertainment Systems gets going with the OMS-ZX100, which comes standard with a 32GB SSD (for the OS and such) and a 1TB HDD for media storage. Moreover, you’ll find a 3.0GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA’s 256MB GeForce 8600 GT graphics card, Blu-ray / hd dvd playback and your choice of “any automotive color” on the chassis. ‘Tis a shame it costs $5,995 to even join the ZX100 club, but look to spend even more if you’re hankering for a built-in CableCARD tuner and WiFi adapter.

The HTC Touch has been rebranded as the XV9600 for Verizon, featuring a white color scheme that is easy on the eyes. Other than the cosmetic change and the new unpronounceable model number, everything else remains the same including HTC’s custom TouchFlo front-end software, a 2 megapixel camera, and Office Mobile editing. The XV6900 also boasts the superior 3G Internet access accompanied the black Sprint and Telus versions of the Touch. The XV6900 will be available from Verizon sometime next month, retailing for $350 with a 2-year contract.

Sony Ericsson has released its first 3G/HDSPA phone for the US market, the Z750a through AT&T. Aside from its high speed internet connection, the Z750a is also an affordable and stylish clamshell phone. However despite its sleek look, the Z750a is also packed with other useful features such as; reflective mirror clamshell casing and OLED reflective display screen that illuminates when a user is receiving calls and displaying caller identification. It also displays battery usage and life, text message alerts and other valuable information.

The Z750a also features a media player that supports numerous media file types, it has a built-in 26MB internal memory plus a memory stick slot for Memory Stick Micro that offers up to 8GB of additional storage, email, a 2.0-megapixel camera, full HTML web browsing capabilities and stereo Bluetooth support.

The Z750a will be released in April for $49.99 after $100 mail-in-rebate. The Z750a will be available in early April and come in three colorful designs – mysterious purple, phantom grey and rose pink.

Product [Sony Ericsson] Read [Business Wire]

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Motorola has been working on a 5 megapixel camera phone in collaboration with Kodak for what seems like years. Finally, the partnership might be about to bear fruit with the launch of the new Motorola Zine ZN5 camera phone at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas tomorrow.

The Zine will be the first phone released since Motorola split itself in two in an attempt to stop the company’s mobile phone division slipping even further into the red. This won’t make the Zine any good, though, as it still comes from a company whose last innovation was to paint the RAZR pink and sell it as a new phone!

More pics and derision after the jump.

Indeed, you get a sense of how bad the new Zine will be when you read that it looks like the ROKR E8 (see the above pic - it’s the phone on the left), which didn’t exactly set the world on fire, and despite having a 5 megapixel camera (which will therefore lead to some pretty huge files), will only come with EDGE connectivity. Yup, that’s right - not even 3G let alone HSDPA, just super-slow EDGE, which gives data transfer speeds not all that dissimilar to ye olde dial-up!

So, prepare for a lot of Motorola hype tomorrow when CTIA Vegas opens its doors, but expect to be sorely disappointed. Motorola’s mobile handset division is in deep trouble at the moment because it failed to compete in terms of style, features, marketing and any kind of understanding of what the consumer actually wants; don’t expect all that to change just because the company has spun off its mobile handset division.

[Source: UnwiredView]

I may love Twitter, the site where you have 140 short characters to tell the world what you’re up to, lovers may love Twitter, but I do understand that Twitter’s not for everyone. Some people don’t want to share the details of every thought, meal or bathroom break with the rest of the Internet and find the constantly updated details of other people’s every thought too much to keep up with.

If you’re one of these people, allow me to introduce you to the anti-Twitter: dawdlr. As the website puts it, “dawdlr is a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: what are you doing, you know, more generally?”

Instead of typing in what you’re up to, you send dawdlr a postcard detailing your activities, and some are chosen for the site. (Current postcards include “trying not to look back” and “enjoying living in London”). It’s basically a humdrum version of Postsecret, as well as a satire on our rush-obsessed society.

If you want to join in, you have plenty of time: the site’s updated around twice a year, with the next update due on May 21st.

Hop to it! Or y’know, don’t . . .

There is a new Suunto Core watch in town, and this one, like its predecessors, cater to folk who love the great outdoors, especially climbers, mountain bikers and other adventure sports enthusiasts. It allows you to track both your altitude and bearings while being smart enough to alert you of oncoming storms so you won’t be caught unawares. All this is made possible by Suunto’s own ‘ABC functionality’ mantra that includes an altimeter, barometer and compass. The compass itself is electronic, so there will be less chances of it malfunctioning compared to a standard model. The new Suunto Core watch comes in a choice of half a dozen colors and has different straps to choose from.

Press Release

Legendary British nature documentary maker David Attenborough (you may be familiar with his work if you saw the groundbreaking and epic Planet Earth has developed an oddly effective new way to film his favourite subjects - reclusive wild animals - in their natural habitat.

For his new program, Tiger - Spy in the Jungle, currently showing on BBC1 in the UK (and no doubt in America and the rest of the world soon), he got exclusive footage of tiger cubs, and was able to follow them from newborns to adulthood thanks to an inventive new filming technique. Trunk cams.

Yes, somehow Attenborough and his team got elephants to film the action in India’s Pench National Park, using cameras made to camouflage with their trunks. (I swear this isn’t an April Fool).

You can read more about this revolution in nature documentary making here, but I still don’t understand how the elephants were persuaded to participate. I hope they at least got union rates.