There are so many things in the Diamond that are iPhone-ish. Like Samsung’s Armani phone and LG’s Prada. Lotsa whistles.
However, the iPhone world order is such that the iPhone thrives on a lot of third-party apps and support, and pervasive decadent iPhone culture. For the competition, chipping away at such world order is tall order.
Verdict: Nevertheless, I like it. Very eye candy (if only because iPod has become so commonplace).
I know it may seem like most of my recent posts have been on the I-phone, and that is true, but it has to be said that the I-phone really is the product to beat. And if current rumors are true then it will be getting even better.
It is almost certain that the new I-phone will have the capacity for 3G, which will both make it easier and quicker to use, but make it more accessible to people in countries where 3G is less available than Wi-Fi, such as Italy. It also may include a QWERTY keyboard which is becoming very popular and would solve one of the problems with the I-phone, and that is that the keyboard is often quite difficult to use especially if you have large fingers! It will also (probably) come with the ever more popular GPS which will mean that it will be even MORE popular!!!
Yes, the years favorite phone/gadget/apple product has yet again made moves that will increase its ever fluctuating sales. This time its not price cuts, or promise of a 3G version but a move that will see the I-phone available to more people and will give more options. This is the news that British phone company Vodafone, having failed miserably in their bid to sell the i-phone in Britain and Germany, have secured a deal that will allow them to sell the ever popular handset in 10 countries: Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.
This is good news in many ways: firstly those in the countries named will now be able to get this ‘revelation’ for themselves. It also means that, as normally happens when competition arrives, the prices (or rather the cost of the price plans available) may well decrease which in tern may make it more affordable for many people, thus increasing teh number those who can buy it.
All in all this is a positive move, but one that leaves us feeling a bit sorry for Microsoft. Not.
Water energy. It’s clean. It’s tantalizing. But it’s hardly news if you’ve been listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the big downside to water as energy source is that splitting water to obtain hydrogen is a bit clumsy and expensive at this stage. Samsung claims that its technology in the form of a micro-fuel cell has solved some problems of existing technologies.
Estimated to be in the market by 2010, the micro fuel cell will be able to power devices for 10 hours.
Today O2 announced that as of tomorrow (16/04/08) until June it will be cutting a sweet £100 off the I-phone until June. Although this only covers the 8Gb version (the 16 Gb will continue to be priced at £329) it is still great (or at least better) value for money, and a deal that I am sure will leave a sour taste in all current I-phone users.
However the question that has been aroused by this action is, unsurprisingly, why? The obvious and easily the most likely answer is that sellers are clearing the way for the 3G I-phone, which is is expected (no coincidence here) in June, which is set to expand the current I-phone capacities. The reduction may also have something to do with the unconvincing sales, and that this is a method to improve them so as to keep in line with sales targets, both of which would fit perfectly together.
So, if you want an I-phone and think its too expensive then tomorrows your early birthday, but just hope that reductions in tarrif will follow the reduction in price!
Now you CAN have a life and work/blog. The iPhone multi-touch display combined with the Safari browser is the perfect platform from which to blog on the go, thus allowing you to take the blog mobile!
This is a must have for me. Now I’ll be consistant with posting, be on top of my game, and have to think of new excuses for why I can’t blog!
So, it’s good to hear that mobile blogging tools are about to hit the iPhone. WordPress is apparently going to hit the iPhone very soon - perhaps with the launch of the AppStore. Matt Mullenwag, lead man at WordPress, will only admit that there is a mobile device that has a WordPress client “built in,” and that “you can probably guess which one that is” - but we’ll take that as confirmation that WordPress is coming to the iPhone.
HELL YEAH.
Six Apart will also be throwing a TypePad blogging application into the fray. “Six Apart pioneered the mobile blogging experience with an iPhone-optimized blog service,” said Chris Alden, CEO, Six Apart. “We’re taking it to the next level with our native iPhone application for TypePad that’s already in development.”
The third-party applications do away with the need to blog through a web interface, and will no doubt offer the benefits of speed and offline blogging to iPhone lovers. Until these WordPress and TypePad application hit the market, you might do well to check out WordPress plug-in (WPhone) that optimizes the WordPress interface for your iPhone (read: it’s EDGE-friendly). I personally would rather use the full WordPress interface, but I only use it in conjunction with a WiFi connection.
We all know that the almost indestructible, go anywhere, super macho Hummer is the ultimate in off road/on road/red carpet transportation. Just about the only place you don’t want to take it is in a cramped Wal-Mart parking lot. But, do you know about the equally tough cell phone?
Hummer is launching the second generation cellphone, the HT2 made by French telecom company ModeLabs. Inspired by it’s vehicle namesake the HT2 is made of an all metal case to match the Hummer’s grill and wheels. I do have to say that it does look pretty sharp.
The HT2 Hummer phone is loaded with amazing goodies such as 500 hours of work time on the full charge and dual SIM. It comes with a 2 megapixel camera, mp3/mp4 player, is Bluetooth compatible, carries 11 MB of built-in memory and a microSD card slot to scale up the memory capacity.
To cap that off the HT2 Hummer phone has an impressive 176 x 220 pixel TFT display that supports 256,000 colors. While the HT2 phone won’t be breaking any type of iPhone sales records, or replacing anyone’s Sony XPERIA X1, it is pretty fashionable. Is that even allowed in the world of tech and gadgets?
It’s a hummer. It has to be alright.
The HT2 Hummer phone is slated to be ready in Russia (WTF??) in the first quarter.
How hyperbolic I can get. Anyway, 2014 isn’t that far but that’s the year designer PeterKoren plans to release this futuristic phone concept called Flash. What an unimaginative name (Adobe would be damned), but that’s beside the point. The designer’s Modyfirewebsite is in gibberish/Greek/Chinese but I can feel its thoughts being directly projected to my brain, even after I realized the site’s also in English. At first, the phone looks like a cross between either a lighter or a shaver, and a projector. More pictures, and okey, I get it. The Flash phone projects a virtual operating system anywhere. This idea, too, isn’t very original as it evokes the Virtual Keyboard by iBIZ. Nonetheless, the phone’s design is cool.
Verdict: In 2014, I’m not sure if it would be rude to aim the Flash wantonly at someone you’re trying to hit on.
The decisions in the world of smartphones continues to get harder and harder. Sony has announced that their new multimedia phone, that is going to be a major rival to Apple’s iPhone, will be running Windows Mobile 6.1.
The Sony XPERIA X1 is still going to be the coolest multimedia smartphone to be released. I am looking forward to getting my hands on it, not just because of the cool design or the ergonomically correct slider, but because of the pretty cool features that the XPERIA will be loaded with.
7 Gadgets.com has given an impressive listing of the features of the X1.
Camera
• Auto focus
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• Photo light
• Video recording
Music
• Bluetooth™ stereo (A2DP)
• Media player
• Music tones
• Windows Media Player™ Mobile
• 3D games
• FM radio
• Java
• Video streaming
• Video viewing
Internet
• Internet Explorer® Mobile
• RSS feeds
Communication and Messaging
• Polyphonic ringtones
• Speakerphone
• Vibrating alert
• Video calling
• Email
• Picture messaging (MMS)
• Predictive text input
• Text messaging (SMS)
Connectivity
• aGPS
• Bluetooth™ technology
• Modem
• Synchronisation
• USB support
• WLAN
Windows® Mobile® Operating System
• Microsoft® Outlook Mobile: email, contacts, calendar, tasks
• Microsoft® Office Mobile: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Internet Explorer® Mobile
• Windows Media Player™ Mobile
• Windows Live™
• Exchange ActiveSync®
• Voice control
• Utility Applications: file explorer, calculator, pictures & video, notes
Facts and Figures
Size: 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm
Weight: 145 grams
Available colours
Solid Black
Steel Silver
Main screen: 65,536 colour TFT
Resolution: 800 X 480 pixels
Size: 3 inches
Memory
Phone memory: up to 400 MB
microSD™ memory card support
Look for the phone during the second half of this year.
Originally there were radar guns. Then came the invention of a radar detector. But now a California inventor has turned to something new - a cell-phone social network that aims to share information and help members avoid getting speeding tickets by issuing real-time cellphone warnings when they approach speed traps.
Pete Tenereillo is the man behind the idea, and his firm, Trapster.com, partly relies on Skyhook Wireless, a Boston company that provides location-based positioning services based on WiFi access points.
Trapster, which bills itself as a speed-trap sharing system, also depends on Global Positioning Systems, which uses satellites, and other systems that use cell towers to determine the exact whereabouts of an individual cellphone user who is running high above speed.
Here’s how this warning system is supposed to work: Go to Trapster.com and sign up for free membership. Next download it to your cellular. According to Tenereillo, most newer generation cellphones and personal digital assistants can support Trapster.
Now when you’re motoring about and spot a police officer with a radar gun, hit “pound one” on your cellphone. Trapster knows your location, and if any other Trapster members are driving in the vicinity, they’ll get an audio alert on their cellphone when they near the speed trap: “Live police! Live police!”
For cellphones with screens, members can also see a road map of their whereabouts with speed traps clearly marked.
Trapster is planning an official launch in early April.
It would seem that Trapster would need a critical mass of members for its speed-trap early-warning system to be effective, with input coming from many widely dispersed cellphone-equipped motorists.
But according to Tenereillo, that isn’t necessarily the case. A video-sharing network like Youtube.com has a “high leech rate,” he said; in other words, only a tiny fraction of users are sharing content and posting videos, while maybe 95 percent of visitors to the site are simply viewing videos and not contributing videos of their own.
But so great is the public aversion for speeding tickets that nearly half of Trapster members in beta testing have contributed data.
“My leech rate is only 60 percent,” Tenereillo said proudly.
One subject he won’t discuss is how many cellphone users have signed up for Trapster so far.
“With a Web 2.0 business, that’s like telling people your Social Security number,” Tenereillo said.
Trapster sounds cool enough, but what about a business model?
While companies have approached him about advertising on the Trapster network, a Trapster bottom line isn’t an immediate concern, said Tenereillo, 46, who claims to have made enough money from writing code for networking products giant Cisco Systems Inc. that he is at the moment gloriously free from the immediate need of a positive cash flow from Trapster.
Now you CAN have a life and work/blog. The iPhone multi-touch display combined with the Safari browser is the perfect platform from which to blog on the go, thus allowing you to take the blog mobile!
Pete Tenereillo is the man behind the idea, and his firm, Trapster.com, partly relies on Skyhook Wireless, a Boston company that provides location-based positioning services based on WiFi access points.
