Tech Digest

Bluetooth keyboard

Looking for a proper wireless keyboard for your Symbian or Pocket PC based smartphone? Now available from Widget UK is the Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard .

Manufactured by Think Outside , it's a full size unit with 18mm spacing between the keys. Its folding design and light weight (just six ounces) means you can slip it into your trouser pocket (though you may get a few funny looks). It costs £99.

Sharp's portable home cinema

Not that much to get excited about at Sharp's product launch last week. But there were a couple of things: its first portable digital music player (yes another iPod killer, the HRGB201) and a range of unusual looking home cinema products.

Pictured is the £250 DVD-HTX1, a 5.1 channel wall-mountable surround sound system with vertical loading DVD player. Also on display was the QTV5, a personal home cinema system for a kid's bedroom. It looks much like a standard ghetto blaster but also incorporates a DVD player and single Scart. Finally, another bedroom solution is the 5 DVD microsystem, the XL-DV50. Compatible with MP3 encoded discs, it can display MP3 track names on screen

Blackberry goes Bluetooth

O2 customers in the UK, Germany and Ireland can now hook up the Blackberry to Bluetooth headsets and car kits for the first time.

As well as integrated Bluetooth for wireless connectivity, the new Blackberry 7290 features a quad-band phone (GSM/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 MHz) for US and European roaming, brighter colour display and enhanced memory (32Mb flash memory and 4Mb SD RAM).

Other features include high resolution (65,000 colour) screen, QWERTY keyboard, SMS, organiser, Internet/Intranet capabilities and support for corporate and personal e-mail.

For more information click here

Interactive recording on Sky+

Sky has introduced a new interactive recording feature for Sky+ users. Those wanting to watch tonight's Champions League games can go to the Sky Sports Extra programme guide to choose from eight live games - including Chelsea v Porto and Rosenborg v Arsenal.

Just press the record button and an automatic prompt appears asking you which of the games you want to record. It's possible to record one video stream while watching another live game or record two scheduled interactive video streams while watching another previously recorded programme from the Sky+ Planner.

For the fixtures list click here.

In addition to the interactive recording option, the Sky+ planner has been recently upgraded to give viewers increased sorting capabilities so you can find programmes by genre as well as recorded programmes still to be viewed and already viewed. As of 30th June 2004 there were 397,000 Sky+ subscribers.

IRiver's 1GB Flash player

One gigabyte of Flash memory? That's more like it. Being able to store a sensible amount of music suddenly makes iRiver's latest flash-based player, the iFP-900, look a whole lot more appealing. The player, which is also available in 256MB and 512MB capacities, is being touted as the company's flagship model for the Christmas period. The small, silver player includes a 1.2-inch colour LCD display screen with 260K colours that can be used for showing JPEGs and BMP image files. The battery life will apparently supply up to 40 hours of music playback.

Other features include an FM tuner, direct recording from the radio, built-in microphone and an alarm clock. There's also a combined analogue and digital line-in so you can record form external audio signals. All in all, some nice features on the little players. Shame they're still so pricey. The RRPs are set at £169 for the 256MB model, £224 for the 512MB one and £270 for the 1GB version.

Product Page

Toshiba's 60GB music player

Toshiba's latest 60GB Gigabeat is part of a new range of Gigabeat F Series music players. All three players (the other two are 10GB and 20GB) use Toshiba's new 1.8-inch hard drives, with the 60GB version the first of its kind available. The design is a bit of a change from the company's other Gigabeat models, with a more iPod-like shape to it. The 2.2-inch colour LCD sets it apart, however, and the plus sign-shaped control pad also gives it a more individual look. Battery life is cited as around 11 hours. There's still no current plans to launch the players over in Europe, but Tosh hasn't yet ruled it out altogether. It's puzzling that the company is content just to sell to the Japanese market when it would surely do so well over here.

Read

Ogo Messaging device

The Ogo messaging device is a strange little machine that uses mobile phone technology without actually being a mobile phone. Instead, it's designed to work as a text only device that lets you send Instant Messages, emails and text messages without including any voice capabilities. The intended market is the youth market, since they're the ones sending all the IMs and texts. The qwerty keyboard means you'll be able to knock out an awful lot of text at a reasonable rate, which should keep the service providers happy. There's no definite news on which companies will be carrying the handset, but it definitely looks set to appear on the UK market fairly soon. Pricing in America is currently $99 for the handset and $17.99 a month for the messaging plan.

Ogo Key Features & Highlights

Details from the press release:

Ogo is packed with features, including:
▪ “Clamshell” design unfolds to display large, color screen and keypad;
▪ Full QWERTY keypad and 8-way navigation joystick pad;
▪ 4K color display;
▪ Compact size and weight: 11.5 cm x 7.5 cm x 2.5 cm (closed) and 4.8 ounces;
▪ Special “hot keys” for simple navigation --- including a special “emoticon” button for inserting emoticons into IM chats and an “Ogo” button to view all active messages and chats on one screen for easy multitasking;
▪ Instant messaging on all three leading providers --- enables users to view and conduct unlimited chat sessions with buddies on Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL® instant messaging services;
▪ E-mail on all three leading providers --- send and receive unlimited email from Yahoo!, MSN and AOL® accounts;
▪ Text messaging or SMS (Short Message Service) --- send and receive unlimited text domestic messages to and from standard wireless phones;
▪ Consolidated inbox --- view all e-mail and text messages in a consolidated mailbox or sort by individual account;
▪ Special animated features --- Assign unique sounds and visual animations to different IM friends/contacts so users hear a different sound when each IM contact comes on-line or sends a message;
▪ Access to e-mail from other select Internet Service Providers and POP3 accounts at no additional charge;
▪ No annual service contract --- automatic credit card payment for new activations;
▪ “Grab-n-Go” self-activation --- on-device activation wizard gets users up and running themselves.

Griffin iBeam – Flashlight and Laser

Two new plug-ins from Griffin. This time there's a torch and a laser pointer that can be plugged into the top of your iPod or iPod Mini. Although you can only fit one in at a time, they're being sold as a pair. The iBeam package costs $19.99 and will start shipping by the end of October. The kit is available on pre-order now on Griffin's website.

Griffin

Sharp Mebius Muramasa CV50

$1750

The lowdown
Forget the Sony X505, forget the JVC Mininote, this is the smallest laptop out there. So much so, that it’s probably more accurate to call it a sub-notebook. Those that remember the old Psion Series 7 will have a good idea of what to expect.

What’s good?
It looks great. The stormtrooper-white shiny plastic casing won’t suit everyone, but we were sold. The lovely clear screen helps to keep your mind off how tiny it is, while the inclusion of a touchpad (instead of a pointing stick) – and such a usable one at that – is a big bonus. There’s also two separate slots for an SD and a CF card and wireless.

What’s bad?
Having the full version of Windows XP is all well and good, but since everything’s shrunk so small that you can barely see it, it really does limit your use. The keyboard is also too small to use properly – you’ll be limited to two-finger typing.

Do you need it?
We could live with the keyboard if the screen was just a little bit bigger. If you can afford it, it will make a nice little organiser and word processor with added functionality. For anyone else, there’s more practical laptops to spend your money on.
6/10

www.icube.us

Nice speakers from Eclipse

The Eclipse TD 712z speakers are rather interesting-looking, don't you think? To quote the press release:

"With the superior impulse response of the ECLIPSE TD series, and its uncanny ability to connect coherent sound images and precisely reproduced spatial information, the listener can forget the speakers are there and can feel as though they are transported to the time and place of the original recording."

No idea what that all means, but it sounds great.

Get bigger boobs using a mobile phone!

In what must be the best story we've heard for a long time, the Inquirer is reporting on a Japanese man who claims that the correct ring tone can "subliminally increase the breast measurement of anyone who listens to it". Hideto Tomabechi is already famous in Japan as the counsellor responsible for deprogramming brainwashed members of a doomsday cult. According to him, the special tune encourages the brain and body to move unconsciously, causing breasts to grow larger. Who knows what happens to fat blokes' man-boobs, but we're keeping an ear open for the willy extending ringtone that we hope will be Hideto's next best-seller. Apparently, the website selling the ringtone at 300 yen has had more than 100,000 hits.

Read [via The Inquirer]

HP's multimedia Laptop

The Guardian has a piece about HP's Entertainment Notebook PC. The Pavilion dx1000 comes with a seleciton of features that make it more of a home cinema system than the average laptop. As well as the 14-inch widescreen (the very least you'd expect from a consumer laptop these days) there's a set of integrated Hardman Kardon speakers, which should help to improve the usually tinny quality you get from most laptops. There's also HP's own QuickPlay system, which lets you watch films and listen to music without having to boot up the Windows OS first.

Digital camera with 20GB hard drive

We're fairly sure this is the first of its kind: a digital camera that comes with a built in hard disk drive. The 3.1-megapixel camera is from Vivitar and comes with the catchy name of DVR390H. The camera itself is actually an attachment that plugs into the hard drive along with a flash. The hard drive provides the 3.6-inch LCD preview screen for taking shots and also for creating mini slideshows.

The device will also record MPEG4 video, playback MP3 and MP4 files, act as a TV/video recorder and act as a digital voice recorder. All this crazy converging, however, will suck the life out of the batteries, leaving you with just 3-4 hours of power. It sounds like it's only coming out in Australia for the time being, but we'll let you know if we hear any different.

Read [Via Gadget Lounge]

Sony changes its mind about MP3s

Sony's somewhat unexpected decision to add MP3 capabilities to its digital music players suddenly makes its players look a whole lot more appealing. Previously only compatible with the company's own music file format, Atrac, portable hard drive players like the NW-HD1 now stand a much greater chance of offering serious competition to the iPod. The VGF-AP1 already offers MP3 playback and the company is aimiing to launch newly MP3-compatible devices later this year. Software upgrades for those who already own the music players will also be available.

One of the best things about the decision is that it will be far easier to use other downloads services and there will be no more faffing about converting files on your PC before copying music across. Sony Connect is one of the less user-friendly online music downloads services around, so the company should probably think about giving that a bit of a revamp before it loses all its customers to other sites.

Read

Review: BlackBerry 7100v

£from free

The lowdown
The original BlackBerry had a pager-style design befitting its role as a corporate email tool. With an eye on consumers, Vodafone is offering the BlackBerry 7100v, which keeps the push email system but looks and feels like rival smartphones such as the Orange SPV E200.

The Qwerty keyboard has been jettisoned in favour of keys in which one button houses two letters. Users press the button and, in theory, the SureType predictive text system works out the words. However, the keyboard is slower than the original.

What’s good?
The 7100v, which costs from nothing to £82.50 plus monthly fee, boasts more storage (32MB), an effective web browser and is relatively easy to set up. It is a superb email device - especially for corporate customers who get messages forwarded the moment they hit the company server.

What’s bad?
However, it is hard to recommend to consumers, since messages are only forwarded every 15 minutes and there's no way of instantly accessing messages by pressing a receive button. The keyboard is also big drawback. The other Blackberry devices may not be the most attractive handsets around, but a major selling point was the ease with which you could compose emails on the qwerty keypads. The decision to double up the letters on each number keys makes typing far more confusing, and it is likely to reduce the 7100v’s popularity in the long run.

Do you need it?
You’re a lot less likely to reply to every email that gets sent your way on this model, which isn’t going to make Vodafone too happy. If you just want to check your emails on the road, it’s ideal, but those hoping to compose long messages on a regular basis will be disappointed.
6/10

www.vodafone.co.uk

Nokia remote camera

Along with the replacement for the 6600 smartphone - the 6670 - Nokia has also upgraded its Remote Camera, the strange digital camera for the more security-conscious among us. The Remote Camera, which now offers 1-megapixel shots and a flash, allows you to keep an eye on your home when you're out by monitoring for any movements and snapping a picture as soon as it senses anything. The images are then sent over to your phone via MMS or email using the in-built GSM transceiver. The updated camera also includes video and audio capturing, a zoom function and Bluetooth for controlling the unit.

The camera can also be set to just send you regular pics at set intervals, or you can text it telling to send you one. One of its weirder features is that it can send you a notification when a minimum or maximum temperature has been reached and view a graph of the past 24 hours' temperature history. Not sure why you'd need that, unless maybe you're keeping your greenhouse at a specific temperature in order to cultivate very rare flowers, but that seems like a pretty niche audience for Nokia to cater to. Maybe we're missing something.

Read the press release

Nokia unveils 6600 replacement

In spite of its pug ugly design and dull grey finish Nokia’s 6600 has gone on to become one of the most successful smartphones so far.

Well the good news is that its replacement – the 6670 – has all its functionality of the 6600, plus a few extra features yet is wrapped in a casing that’s a slightly smaller and thicker version of the gorgeous 7610.

Like the 6600 the 6670
is aimed ostensibly at the corporate market – but just like its predecessor there ought to be plenty of consumers takers too.

The 6670 runs the Symbian operating system with the Series 60 interface. It has a comprehensive selection of e-mail facilities including the ability to read most attachments. It also offers personal information management apps and its web browser is compatible with PDF files. Annoyingly, unlike the 7610, the wonderful Opera web browser isn’t fitted as standard.

Other features include the same one mega pixel camera as the 7610 (arguably the best on a phone at the moment), new editing facilities for the shots users take, music and video courtesy of a Real player, a 65k colour screen and Bluetooth.

Nokia recently claimed that the 7610 was the best selling one mega camera smartphone – which we found a tad amusing as in our books it is the only one mega pixel equipped smartphone on sale in the UK. Nevertheless, judging by the amount of 7610s we see being used it certainly seems to have chimed with consumers. Can’t see any reason why the 6670 isn’t also a big hit, though, like the 6600 chances are that many of its buyers will only use a small proportion of its features.

It goes on sale in Europe in October.

Sony Ericsson's clamshell 3G handset

More Vodafone 3G handsets. This time it's Sony Ericsson's turn. The V800 has a rotating 1.3-megapixel camera with an integrated flash for taking night shots. (It's not clear if you can also use it for shedding some light on night time video calls, however.)The clamshell design is slimmer that Sony Ericsson's previous 3G behemoth, the red Z1010. We're quite partial to that nice flared bottom, which helps to make the big barrel camera look less ungainly. It's got a small external colour screen, Bluetooth and Sony's Memory Stick Duo expansion card slot. We're hoping that, like the Japanese, we get the choice of three different colours as well, but we're not holding our breath.

Product Page (Japanese)

Motorola's 3G Vodafone handsets

Motorola's contribution to Vodafone's newly-announced 3G service may look familiar to regular readers, since the company announced a range of 3G handsets back in February. First the E1000, which which we ran a story on after the Cannes launch in Feb(read). The phone's one of the smallest 3G handsets you're likely to see for a while. It's candy bar style with a 1.2-megapixel camera and Bluetooth. There's also an MP3 player and integrated AGPS services for mobile location.

The V980 has a clamshell design with a colour external LCD and is supposedly an entry-level handset aimed to attract more customers to 3G services. Finally, the C980 candy bar phone looks about as compact as the E1000 and, judging by the picture of the girl with bubblegum, we're guessing it's also aimed at the entry-level market.

E1000 press release

First 2-megapixel cameraphone for the UK

Vodafone is fairly slim on the details when it comes to what features its new 3G handsets will include. However, from what we can gather there will be at least one 2-megapixel cameraphone in the group. Sharp's V902sh handset includes a 2.02-megapixel digital camera, which makes it the first to be launched in the UK. The inclusion on an optical zoom means you'll actually be able to take proper close up images without the usual crappy blown-up pixel effect you get on the digital zoom cameras. We're also pretty sure that it's got a swivel screen, so you'll be able to use it like a proper LCD preview screen. Somewhat unusually for a modern clamshell, the V902 has no external LCD screen for caller ID info. Looking at the design, Sharp seems to have gone down the Sony Ericsson route of making the phone look like a camera on the back. The idea being that you hold the phone in landscape rather than the usual portrait when taking shots. It's also got an SD card slot on the side of the casing.

The V802sh handset joins the increasingly growing lineup of 1.3-megapixel handsets on the UK market. From the shots it looks like the 802 will share the 902's swivel screen design - although there's no sign of an optical zoom lens. Again, there's no external LCD. Both handsets will include Bluetooth.

[UPDATE: Looks like the 902 does have an outer screen after all - the camera is on the front of the handset along with a tiny LCD screen, although it's unclear if it'll give much more info than the time and signal strength.

Click on the link for more images.

902 Front Image

802

November launch for Vodafone's 3G consumer service

Vodafone has announced that the UK launch of its 3G Live! service for consumers will be in November. The network also announced details of ten new 3G handsets that will be available across its group (though not necessarily the UK) before Christmas.

Apart from offering details of the handsets the release says very little about how Vodafone intends to launch and market its 3G services for consumers in the UK. The handsets, which include models from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung , Sony Ericsson and Sharp have apparently been developed to enable consumers to make the most of the 3G video services which we presume means music and video downloads and streaming and person to person video calls.

Among the highlights are the first phone with a two mega a pixel camera and also optical zoom and autofocus, and phones designed for audio and gaming applications.

More details of the handsets shortly.

Designer skins for your laptop

Fashion designer, Roland Mouret, has teamed up with Intel this year (last year it was Julien MacDonald, you may recall) to develop some "skins" for women to stick onto the front of their laptops. The skins are all based on Mouret's Cruise collection and are available for free. They're only coming out in limited numbers, however, so you'll have to be quick to get hold of one.

Our sister site, Shiny Shiny, went along to meet the designer and take a look at the products.

Read

The new PlayStation 2 announced

The PSTwo announcement we were talking about was made today. As predicted, Sony is launching a slimmer version of the PlayStation2, which is half the size of the original with a network card built-in for broadband internet. In a somewhat controversial move, Sony has opted not to follow in the footsteps of the slimmed down PSOne by calling the new model the PSTwo, and instead has just called it the new PlayStation 2. No doubt everyone will call it the PSTwo regardless. It will be out on the 1st November for £104.99 – the same price as the current PlayStation 2.

Canon's 16.7-megapixel camera

Canon’s announced about 400 new products today. Most notable is the EOS-1Ds Mark II, the company’s flagship model. What this means, of course, is that it’s super-specified and very expensive. 16.7 megapixels are on offer, which is an improvement of just under six million pixels on the previous 11.1-megapixel incarnation. The camera can produce images that convert to 50MB TIFF files and it also comes with the option of adding a wireless adapter so you can add wireless b or g capabilities. It’ll set you back around £5999.99.

There are three new Digital IXUS models, the £319 IXUS 40, £249 IXUS 30, and the £460.99 IXUS i5. The first two are out in October and the i5 follows in November. There’s also a new range of compact photo printers under Canon’s new Selphy sub-brand, a data projector (again under a new sub-brand) called the XEED SX50 and three new CanoScan scanners. And that just about wraps it up.

EOS-1Ds Mark II release

Digital decks for your Mac

Not quite the minimalist design you’d expect from an Apple add-on, but nevertheless Hercules Technologies has just released a new version of its DJ Console that’s compatible with Macs. The console is designed to allow users to play and mix MP3 and other music files like they could with a normal set of record decks. You can also do more fancy stuff not possible on record decks, like loop segments of a track and add effects in real-time. The press release is keen to point out that it's got 28 buttons on it, which seems more than satisfactory to us - even though we have no idea what they're all meant to do. The Console has been designed to be portable and connects to Macs via a USB connection so you can get your mobile discotheque on the road in no time. It’s out on 18th October for around £199.

More info

Indie labels give Apple a good bashing

The continued failure of Apple’s iTunes to secure deals with the independent record labels in the UK is causing a round of tutting and sighing within the music industry. The indie labels have been roundly criticising iTunes, and the downloads service continues to go without bands and singers such as Franz Ferdinand (this year’s Mercury Music Prize winners) and Eric Prydz, this week’s number one in the singles charts.

One of the more baffling aspects of the continuing saga is that Apple has actually signed a deal with some of the labels, such as Domino and Ninja Tune, but just hasn’t got round to adding them to the library. Chrysalis Music Group, meanwhile, is still waiting for the paperwork to turn up – as are a number of other companies.

Since independent record labels makes up around a quarter of the UK sales, you’ve got to wonder what Apple’s playing at. Napster and Sony Connect have managed to sort themselves out, so what’s taking Apple so long?

Read more

Denon adds HDMI to DVD

With DVD players selling for £50 in Tesco, manufacturers have got to come up with some pretty compelling reasons to get you to fork out a lot of money for one. Superb AV perfomance, a wealth of features and compatibility with just about every disc available are the three biggies in our book and it appears Denon’s latest DVD player, the DVD-2910 has three. It is actually one of the company’s mid-priced players (replacing the DVD-2200 from last year), retailing for £599.99, but yet is stacked with high-end components, such as PAL Progressive Scan, and it will play pretty much any type of disc, including high end audio formats such as DVD-Audio and SACD. It also supports WMA, MP3 and JPEG file formats.

However, its most appealing feature is that it is one of only a few DVD players to offer an HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) socket, (often called digital SCART) which provides digital to digital video connection.

Read

Roadstar portable TV

Roadstar’s latest addition to its LCD range is the LCD5014SIL. This portable, palm-sized LCD TV has a 5-inch TFT screen and can be used either with batteries or plugged into the mains via the included AC adapter. It’s got UHF/VHF auto tuning buttons on it, which can be customised into whatever order you like, while the audio-visual input means you can plug it into a VCR or DVD player should you want – although, we’re not sure why you actually would want to. Also included is a calendar and a computer puzzle game should you grow tired of the television. Yours for just £149.99.

Roadstar

PSTwo rumours run riot

Our sister site, Games Digest, has been speculating about the possibly imminent launch of Sony's new Playstation. Apparently, Sony is set to hold a big press conference tomorrow, which could mean either of two things: the first PSP to make it to the UK, or the PSTwo, a cheaper version of the PS2. This cut-down version could potentially be on shelf as early as October. More news as and when we get it.

Read

Wearable USB memory key

So, it’s another Flash USB drive. What’s special about this one from Imation? Well, the company is marketing it as a “wearable” memory key, in keeping with the latest craze for gadgets you can stick on like jewellery. Thing is, this one hasn’t been designed as a pendant to go round your neck, it’s just a nicer-than-average-looking dongle that’s got a loop hole in it so you can attach the supplied neck strap. Still, it’s quite a well-designed little drive, with a swivelling cap design, which means you won’t lose the lid. The USB 2.0 Swivel Flash Drives are available in 128, 256 and 512MB capacities.

Imation

At last - a good role for 3G

We hadn’t really considered the implications that video calls could have for some people. Until we got a press release from 3 in Sweden, that is. Apparently, the company has an awful lot of deaf customers, thanks to the opportunity video calls give those with hearing impairments to use sign language over the phone. Because of this, the company has just launched a special web page with sign language pages (see here) and is working with the Swedish Deaf Organisation (SDR) to evaluate and develop 3G services that will help signing people over in Sweden. Nice to know that 3G can be useful after all.

JVC's tiny camcorders

Nice little gadget from JVC. Unfortunately, the Everio GZ-MC200 and Everio GZ-MC100 digital camcorders have only been launched in Japan so far, but we’re hoping to see them over here by next summer (by which time the Japanese will have got something even smaller and nicer-looking and we’ll still feel jealous). The camcorders support MPEG2, Dolby digital audio AC3 and NTSC picture formats, have a CCD chip with 212,000 pixels, an optical 10x zoom and a digital 200x zoom. There’s also apparently a 1.8-inch LCD screen, although we’re not entirely sure where that’s kept. Can’t see it on the pic. Footage is stored ona CompactFlash card with JVC offering a 4GB CF-Card micro-drive from mid October.

Read

Watch UEFA matches online

Football fans will be delighted to learn that can watch every match in this season’s UEFA Champions League over the internet. UEFA.com is supplying video and audio content via its broadband service for every game from the group stages right up to May’s final. The service will cost £29.95 for the entire season, for which you’ll get video highlights and live audio commentary, footage of every goal scored and a daily video news bulletin. There’s also a live audio match commentary service available for £9.95. Try out the service for free first with a week’s free trial for UEFA.com Action.

Read
UEFA

Easy Music could make life very difficult for iTunes

Good old Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Not content with terrifying the airline companies by setting up one of the cheapest flights operators in the country, the entrepreneur has just confirmed that he’s made a deal with UK music downloads company, Wippit, to set up a rival to iTunes and Napster. The company, called Easy Music, will be charging as little as 25p for some tracks, which is just stupidly cheap. We’ll be waiting to see how Apple, Napster and the rest respond to this news, but there’s a good chance that this will start up a pricing war that should only benefit the likes of us.

You may recall our recent report that Stelios is also setting up a budget mobile phone network. Read article.

3 prepares for Vodafone 3G launch by cutting tarrifs

3 may have struggled to drum up quite as much interest as it would have liked for its 3G video features like person to person video calling, but the company has done a decent job of tempting people in with its extremely attractive tariffs. This has developed a weird situation where the company that offers the most high tech services on a mobile phone, has a fair proportion of customers who couldn’t give two hoots about all that 3G nonsense and just want to save their pennies.

The rumour doing the rounds that Vodafone is soon to launch its own 3G service for consumers could very well be the reason that 3 has announced plans to shave even more off its already very competitive tariffs. With the deals the company’s offering now, it will be very difficult for Vodafone to offer similar prices for 3G since it would mean dramatically undercutting what it charges existing customers for the normal service. Over to you Vodafone.

Read on for full details of 3’s new pricing plans.

All three new contract plans cover any network any time for calls and now also text messages.

Talk and Text 200. This offers 100 voice minutes and 100 text messages for £20 a month for 12 months.

Talk and Text 600. 500 voice minutes and 100 text messages for £30 a month for 12 months.

Talk and Text 900. 750 voice minutes and 150 text messages for only £40 a month for twelve months.

Pentax Optio S5i

Nothing too groundbreaking to note about Pentax’s Optio S5i digital camera, except to say that it’s a nice, compact 5-megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom lens. It weighs just 105g, and is, apparently, smaller than a pack of cards. The Quick button function is a nice little idea, allowing you to set an action to the shortcut key so that you can pick your favourite setting without having to go through lots of menus. There’s also 21 shooting modes and a 1.8-inch LCD preview monitor. It’ll be out at the end of the month for around £280.

Pentax

Robot that eats flies and stinks of poo

What could be better! A robot that eats flies and then uses the energy generated from that to power itself. The robot lures the flies in with a bait made from human turd, making it probably the best robot ever invented. The fly-eating poo bot is the product of Chris Melhuish's ripe imagination, along with his team of experts at the University of the West of England in Bristol. And while you may think a robot such as this is typical from a nation fixated with toilet humour, they haven't just come up with the idea for the sake of it. The EcoBot II (as they've rather spoil-sportingly dubbed it - think of the fun they could have had) is being designed so that it can go bumbling off on its own into remote or inhospitable areas to measure things like toxins in the air. The eating flies bit is just a sideline for this "release and forget" machine.

Read more

Oakley Thump MP3 Sunglasses

Oakley’s getting in on the portable audio market with the release of its Thump MP3 sunglasses. The shades come with a 128MB or 256MB music player built in that can play MP3 and WMA files. The headphones don’t actually stick in your ears, but rather “float by” them, and you can adjust them to get the best balance between external noise and the music. If you want to carry on with the music, but don’t want to continue wearing sunglasses, you can just flip the lenses up. You’ll look like a half-wit, but what does that matter. Judging by the press pics you have to be either Goldie or Vin Diesel to pull the things off anyway.

A USB 2.0 connection means you can transfer files across from your computer, and the battery has enough power to run for six hours.

Read

iLap for Powerbooks

We usually laugh mockingly at laptop holders. They're rarely the most attractive creations and invariably look more like something you serve up tea on to your bed-ridden grandparent than something you'd actually want to perch on your own lap. However, we're making an exception for this lap stand. That's because the iLap, designed specifically for Powerbooks (but we're sure you could shoe-horn in any old laptop) actually looks quite nice. The blurb says it's been made from "aluminum with sand-blasted and silver anodized finish", which we think means it's made from brushed metal, but just said using longer words. So if you want to make lap-top tapping that little bit easier, you can buy yourself an iLap for $49 (for the smallest one).

Read [Via Red Ferret]

New Palm-based Smartphone surfaces

Group Sense has never launched a PDA over here, but a couple have turned up via import in recent months (on Expansys, for example). We’re hoping that the company’s latest will show up on these shores at some stage so we can play with one. Pictures of the device have just appeared on the company website. The Xplore M28 is a Palm-based smartphone running Palm OS 5.4, which many are assuming is PalmSource’s ‘Garnet’ platform for smartphones.

Other specs for the device include a Texas Instruments’ OMAP processor with 32MB of SDRAM and 32MB of Flash ROM. The 2.2-inch LCD is a touchscreen panel, and the front panel slides up to reveal a keypad, as with previous models. A VGA digital camera and MP3 player are also included, along with an SD/MMC slot for adding a bit more memory.

Read [Via The Register]

LG/Orange 3G phone unveiled

We might be easily confused, but nevertheless we do wish that LG would stop releasing 3G mobile phones that have virtually identical model numbers. After the arrival of the groundbreaking 8110 on Three – the first half decent 3G mobile – LG then unveiled the 8120 – the same phone with a little more storage.

Now the company has taken the wraps off the 8150. As far as we can tell the phone is the same as the 8120 with two crucial differences.

Firstly LG has upgraded the screen from 65k colours to 262k. Perhaps more importantly the handset won’t be available via UK network 3, instead it is likely to be sold over Europe as the hero handset of Orange’s 3G offering. Needless to say Orange hasn't confirmed a date for the launch of their handsets, or the consumer part of the 3G network for that matter, but the company did say that it would have some big news about 3G in September.

The well specified handset features video calling and playback, a VGA camera, MP3, POP3 e-mail and personal organiser facilities.

Philips re-invents the camera phone

Philips has confirmed that its innovative
camera phone will debut in the UK in January 2005 retailing for around £100.

The small candy bar shaped handset is the first to feature the Snap, Tag and Send system that gives users the option of adding handwritten notes or drawings to multimedia messages.

It also boasts a TV out mode that enables users to view images stored on the phone on a TV screen - an appliaction that is likely to widely copied.

Other facilities include a VGA camera, 7MB memory, a 65k colour screen, e-mail and voice command/dial. Battery life is rated at 250 hours standby and up to five hours talk time.

Vodafone first with new BlackBerry

Vodafone is to become the first UK network to offer one of the new breed of BlackBerry devices.

Due for launch in early October the Vodafone BlackBerry 7100v jettisons the pager style of existing devices for a more phone like form factor. The phone is also styled differently to the BlackBerry 7100t which T-Mobile unveiled in the USA last week.

It keeps that handset’s controversial keyboard, which features two letters per key and works in conjunction with a predictive text type system called SureType, but sports a more compact more stylish design.

In addition to the now infamous Blackberry push e-mail system, which sends a message straight to the device as soon as it hits an ISP’s server, the 7100V also boasts a calendar and contact storage.
Blackberry/Vodafone has also improved the storage capacity of the device which now boasts 32MB of memory.

Other facilities include compatibility with variety of formats including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat, Bluetooth, Quad band and an integrated speaker phone.

It also sports a Vodafone developed interface and is available in both consumer and business versions. There is however no integrated camera and very few entertainment applications.

The device price will range from free of charge to customers on Anytime 400 or
1000 to £82.50 for Anytime 100 customers.

Vodafone, which has also recently added the Nokia 7610 and VPA III to its smartphone portfolio stresses that it wants to offer its customers a range of choices in the high-end business phone area.

Siemens iPod style phone

The all pervading design influence of the Apple iPod seems finally to have reached mobile phones.

With its white finish and rectangular shape Siemens new clamshell, the SF65, certainly bears a passing resemblance to Apple’s ubiquitous music player.

The phone breaks new ground for Siemens in that it features a swivel action screen that according to the maker enables it to function like a proper digital camera.

The phone matches its billing too in that it sports a 1.3 mega pixel snapper with an integrated flash and a 4x digital zoom.

Also on board is a 65k colour screen, a pretty generous 18MB of memory, gaming options and polyphonic ringtones.

Those who might mistake for an iPod will be disappointed to discover that it doesn’t actually play MP3s. There’s also no POP3 e-mail compatibility or Bluetooth.

It is set to launch in the UK in January 2005.

Now it is file swapping via mobile phones

Nokia has announced its has developed a peer to peer system for phones that enable users swap image, video and even music files with other people’s mobiles.

Apparently Nokia’s research centre in Budapest has developed a system that works on the company’s 6600 handsets. At present it only works with image and text files, but the company is optimistic that soon large files such as MP3 music and video could be added.

I might be missing something here, but personally I can’t see networks welcoming this move. They already have a system for swapping image files between phones called Multimedia messaging. Can’t see the networks also ceding the potentially lucrative music download market to peer to peer technology at this stage without a huge fight either.

The key for consumers anyway is not about swapping images between handsets but getting those pictures off the phone and on to a PC or printing them out. Hopefully in this sphere we’ll see more solutions like the one offered by Cognima/Bonusprint

The company has also confirmed that it will finally start to offer the Secure Digital (SD) card, or more likely the mini version of the card, on its mobiles.

Most mobile manufacturers, with the obvious exception of Sony Ericsson handsets which sports Memory Stick slots, use SD and with Nokia's backing the card looks set to become an industry standard for handsets.

Amstrad debuts home videophone

As we predicted several weeks ago the new E3, the third generation e-m@iler internet phone from Amstrad, turns out to be a videophone with users able to see as well as hear the person they are calling.

The device, which goes on sale later this month for £99, or £179 a pair, features an integrated camera and a full colour screen as well as offering the e-mail, and internet functionality of previous e-m@ilers.

According to Amstrad the devices are simple to set up and operate and users can also send images from the phone to PCs and mobile as well as other E3s.

The video calls, which are paid for by the person who initiates the call, cost 50p plus the price of the existing phone call.

Interestingly the E3 will work with all telephone providers and not just with BT. There is however no international calling and users can’t use the device to make video calls to PCs or mobiles, just other E3s.

Another interesting snippet is that Amstrad says it subsidises the E3 via advertising, so users can expect to receive Amstrad approved junk mail filling up their in boxes.

Whether the E3 will be as mass market as Amstrad hopes is a moot point. Person to person video calling hasn’t really been a huge hit for 3G video mobile company 3. Initially this was because there simply wasn’t a large enough installed base of customers for it to work. More recent sluggish figures are possibly explained by a reticence on behalf of shy and retiring Brits to make video calls.

While there is undeniably a market for grandparents cooing over their children's offspring it remains to be seen quite how popular video calling, via both landline and mobile, will prove to be in the UK.

Finally one other quick point. The 50p charge for the video calls seems fairly reasonable, however on top of this users pay the fee for the call. It’ll be interesting to see if cable companies and smaller phone operators get wise to this and charge extra for this facility. At present many offer very cheap or even free calls to certain landlines.

Sky's latest Home Cinema kit

In a surprise move satellite and internet broadcaster Sky is to offer a range of home cinema equipment. Although Sky has arguably already dabbled with the hardware market via its Sky+ box, the arrival of branded Plasma screens and surround sound systems is new territory.

Will customers trust Sky as a brand over existing names like Sony and Panasonic? We are not entirely convinced. Still the company has a range of complete packages on offer.

The 42-inch Piano Black Plasma has a resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels, which should provide a pretty decent quality picture. It is accompanied by the Sky 330W Home Cinema System, with Dolby digital, DTS Pro Logic II and DVD/CD-RW with MP3 support. Included with the kit is a glass plasma stand and a four matching speaker stands. The whole thing costs £3,999 plus £150 delivery and installation. A package with a 32inch plasma screen is also available.

Alternatively, there’s the Complete Sky 27-inch LCD package (£1,999 plus £125 delivery and installation). This consists of an LCD flat screen TV, the Sky 330W Home Cinema System and those glass stands again. The 26-inch LCD (£1,299 plus £75 delivery and installation) and 17-inch LCD panels (£799 plus £50 delivery and installation) have an integrated DVD player with support for CD and MP3.

Finally, the 42-inch Rear Projection TV package (£1,499 plus £150 delivery and installation) comes with the 420W Toshiba Home Cinema System, featuring DTS, Dolby Digital and Pro Logic II. Once again, the sturdy glass stand and matching speaker stands feature.

Firewire Memory Key