A week ahead of its scheduled launch, smartphone bigwigs i-mate have revealed details of their latest model, the JAMin.
Despite its name, the PDA/phone doesn’t come with Bob Marley ringtones or blow sweet wafts of ‘erb in the owner’s direction, but certainly offers redemption in the spec department.
According to i-mate’s site, the JAMin has a top rankin’ set of features, offering quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 64MB of RAM and 128MB of ROM.
Switching from a 416 MHz Intel processor to a 200 MHz TI processor (we know it sounds like it must be slower but they’re not directly comparable), i-mate have stuck with the JAM form factor, adding a different button layout and twice the ROM.
With Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11g Wi-Fi connectivity onboard, there shouldn’t too much waiting in vain, with the PDA-style smart phone purring along on Windows Mobile 5.0.
Also known as the HTC Prophet (and O2 XDA Neo), the phone shouldn’t stir it up in the pocket department, measuring a compact 10.8 x 5.8 x 1.8cm and weighing 150g. Memory expansion is taken care of courtesy of a SD IO slot
Powered by a 1200mAh battery, the JAMin comes with a large 2.8in, QVGA (240 x 320 pixel), 65k-colour display.
Users looking to shoot the sheriff can take advantage of the two-megapixel camera – with macro shooting mode – fitted on the back of the phone.
We’re couldn’t get any positive vibrations out of the rubbish camera provided with its predecessor, the JAM, so let’s hope i-mate have stirred it up in the resolution department.
The JAMin is expected on the streets of Babylon soon for around £440 ($770, €643) without an airtime package.
Several thousand rural surfers across Europe suddenly found themselves sans le Internet after European-based satellite broadband provider Aramiska unexpectedly slammed shut its operations with just five hours’ notice.
The Community Broadband Network (CBN) is organising efforts to help Aramiska customers find an alternative satellite broadband supplier, with their director, Adrian Wooster, commenting, “The Aramiska issue totally caught our members unaware, and is causing many problems for rural businesses beyond simple connectivity; the Aramiska service was also hosting many Websites and has been offering file storage capabilities for businesses.”
Looking for new sources of revenue beyond their Internet telephony service, Skype have announced a deal with Warner Music Group to flog ring tones and artist images.
“We are excited that more than 70m Skype users around the world will now have the ability to enjoy content from Warner Music artists,” said Alex Zubillaga, executive vice-president in charge of digital strategy and business development at Warner Music (that’s some job title – we wonder if he meets people saying, “Hi, I’m Alex Zubillaga, EVPICODSABD at Warners?”)
Ringtone sales have proved a surprise hit for mobile operators and content providers, coining in an astonishing $4bn in worldwide sales in 2004 – around 10 per cent of the $32.2bn worldwide music market.
For the first time in its long history, Eastman Kodak is generating more annual sales from digital imaging than from film-based photography.
But it’s not all good news though, with the company reporting that total losses could top an eye watering $1 billion, as a result of the hugely expensive restructuring demands required by a potentially risky shift to digital. 
The company is still half way through the arduous task of restructuring the business for the digital world, and has already laid off some 25,000 workers.
Fortunately for Kodak, Christmas proved a highly profitable period with sales of its EasyShare Printer Docks surging 95%, and sales of kiosks to drugstores and other outlets up 23%. 
Google have released version 4 of their popular toolbar for Web browsers, with groovy new features to lure more visitors to their sites.
The Bookmarks functionality has also been enhanced to allow users to create and label bookmarks that can be accessed from any computer – something noticeable missing from arch-rival Internet Explorer.
By ramping up the feature set Google is hoping to grab a larger share of Web users (and thus more advertisers) and steal a march on Yahoo and Microsoft who both offer their own toolbars.
The average laptop is stuffed full of data worth more than half a millon quid.
According to the study – taken from 1,700 quantitative interviews with general employees and IT managers – over three quarters of respondents (80 per cent) laboured under the misconception that their employer had a safe copy of all the emails on their PC.
We raved about the auto-everything Fujifilm F10, so when we heard that they were producing an updated version of the camera offering more manual controls, we were happy to dust off the chequebook and place an order.
We remain impressed with the results, with the high ISO rating letting us capture natural-looking images where other cameras would be reaching for the flash or crumbling into a noisy mess.
With no new dedicated controls to control aperture and shutter settings, exposures had to be adjusted through a rather clunky interface that involved doubling up the main four-way controller and central MENU/OK buttons – not always without confusion.
For folks seeking a simple, all round point and shoot camera, the F10 remains our first choice, but for photographers keen to take advantage of Fuji’s outstanding low light abilities with the ability to control exposure manually, the F11 is well worth the extra £30 or so.
Shutter speed 3 – 1/2000 th sec
In a significant new development, Channel 4 will be allowing their viewers to watch their new comedy program, ‘The IT Crowd’ online and on-demand in advance of their TV broadcast.
The online debut is a first for a terrestrial broadcaster in the UK and apes a similar strategy employed by US network NBC, which launched the US version of The Office online last year.
Channel 4 are saying that this is the first time that they’ve premiered a full episode of a new series, adding that they find it “particularly exciting ” to be airing such a “high profile and apposite programme.”
The program has already received substantial online coverage already with sites like MSN, Yahoo! and Wanadoo running features, and Channel 4 are hoping that the coverage will help in pull in viewers.
After many years of trotting around town with pockets stuffed full of a Palm PDA and a mobile phone, we decide that an all-in-one PDA/smartphone combo would be the best way to reduce our ostentatious trouser bulge.
The left hand side sports the camera button, volume control and voice memo switch, none of which are particularly well placed (it’s all too easy to fire off the voice memo/camera switched when turning the handset on).
Performance
News has broken that two men in the UK have been found liable for file sharing their music. The first ruling of its kind in the UK.
Having been found liable, the two are now exposed to the BPI’s legal fees. Given the City law firms the BPI use, where it’s not unusual to pay £200/hours for their services, it’s going to be an expensive business. BPI have stated that “Total costs are estimated at £13,500 and damages are expected to take the bill even higher.”