May 2006

Samsung D520 Ultraslim Launches In Europe
Pulling out its big book of alliteration, Samsung have declared their new D520 phone to be full of “Stylish Simplicity and Stunning Sophistication.”
The slim’n’trim D520 offers tri-band connectivity (GSM 900, 1,800, 1,900 MHz, GPRS) and measures just 101 x 46 x 15.9mm and weighs a lightweight 93g.
The sleek black Samsung sports a ‘slide-up’ design and a simple interface dominated by a 262k, 176 x 220 pixels colour screen.
There’s a 1.3 megapixel camera onboard, Video Recording (MPEG4), a music player capable of playing MP3/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/WMA files and Bluetooth stereo support.
Storage comes in the shape of 80MB of internal memory with USB connectivity but – strangely – no card expansion slot.
Kitae Lee, President of the Samsung Electronics Telecommunication Network Business, was positively beside himself with joy about the phone, “Samsung mobiles truly understand the wants and needs of our active consumers.
“Samsung is excited to present new slim models to our customers around the world, and we will continue to reveal new models to fit our customers’ needs,” he continued.
The SGH-D520 should be appearing on the shelves around Europe any time now.
SGH-D520 specifications
Network GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
Size Dimensions 101 x 46 x 15.9 mm
Weight 99 g
Display Type TFT, 256K colors
Size 176 x 220 pixels
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (64 channels), MP3
Vibration Yes, – Dual speaker
Call records 20 dialed, 20 received, 20 missed calls
Card slot No – 80 MB embedded memory
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
HSCSD No
EDGE No
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v1.2
Infrared port Yes
Internet browser XHTML browser
USB Yes
Features Messaging SMS, EMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML
Games Yes + downloadable
Camera
Type: 1.3 Mpixel camera
Effects/camera settings
Quality settings
Mosaic photo
MultiShot
Night mode
Portrait mode
Phone display used as a viewfinder
Video recorder
Self-timer
Max. resolution: (camera) 1280 x 1024 pixels
Misc
– Java MIDP 2.0
– MP3/MP4/AAC player
– T9
– SyncML
– Document Viewer
– Organizer
– Voice memo
– Built-in handsfree
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion
Samsung
3 May, 2006
UltraWiFi:The Cloud Introduces Flat Fee Wi-Fi Tariff
The Cloud has announced plans to roll out a new flat-fee Wi-Fi tariff in the summer, slashing the current high cost of accessing the Internet on the move.
From 1st July, the company will be introducing its UltraWiFi package that offers an unlimited flat rate tariff for £11.99 month.
Called UltraWiFi, the package is subject to a 12-month subscription, with a ‘pay-as-you-go’ version available for folks who don’t fancy being tied to a year-long contract.
The extra freedom of the ‘pay as you go’ version comes with a sting though, with your twelve quid giving you just a week’s unlimited access.
Still, even that price is a vast for improvement on the current wallet-draining £5 an hour charge currently demanded by The Cloud.
Hot in the city
The UltraWiFi service is due to start up at the same time as The Cloud pulls the big ‘on’ lever for its new city centre hotzones service.
This will give blanket Wi-Fi coverage in Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford, as well as the London boroughs of Kensington, Chelsea, Camden and Islington.
The Cloud’s chief executive George Polk said that his company has been working their Internet-enabled socks off to “make the Wi-Fi mobility world real” (whatever that means).
“By removing price as a barrier and structuring it so people can now be connected all the time at no additional cost, UltraWiFi enables a world where your computer, your music player, your camera or your low-cost VoIP phone is always connected to your Internet world,” he added.
The Cloud
3 May, 2006
Yahoo Tech Shopping Site Launches
Search engine big-boys Yahoo have unveiled a shopping site for consumer electronics backed up by expert advice and user-contributed reviews.
Shoving their size nines into a market long dominated by CNet Networks, the new Yahoo! Tech shopping and advice Website will offer hundreds of thousands of products with user ratings and reviews.
Spod-free advice, no anorak required
Yahoo is hoping that by offering a site free of the spoddy techno-jargon of gadget enthusiast sites, consumers will warm to their no-nonsense, straightforward approach.
“What we are trying to do is to make it simple to choose and use the technology that is easiest to use,” said Patrick Houston, general manager of Yahoo! Tech, formerly editor in chief at CNet.
“We built Yahoo! Tech for people who might not have the time nor inclination to learn about bits and bytes,” he added.
The magazine-style site will use Yahoo’s tried and trusted community tools to help users find information about products and prices and share their opinions with friends, family and other consumers.
Using an attractive and simple interface, products can be sorted and filtered by price, brand and expert rating with the option to compare online prices for the best deal.
Where consumers are looking to spend money, advertisers are always ready and willing to slap up enticing banner ads, and Hewlett Packard, Verizon Wireless and Panasonic have already signed up.
Content
Yahoo will be populating the site with content from “trustworthy publications from around the Web who may or may not be official content partners,” as well as their own staff editors and writers, and Yahoo! users.
A weekly video clip called ‘Hook Me Up’ will dish out ‘geeky wisdom’ to haul heel-dragging technology Luddites into the bright electronic age, aided by Yahoo’s ‘Emergency Makeover Technicians.’
The company is also reported to have licensed reviews from the “Dummies” series of How-to books, Consumer Reports, PC World and PC Magazine.
The new Yahoo! Tech is currently focussed on the U.S. market, with Houston saying that there are no imminent plans to expand into other countries.
http://tech.yahoo.com/
2 May, 2006
MobiBLU B153 and VCube Ship With Pre-Installed Podcast Software
Proof that podcasting is moving further into the mainstream comes with the news that MP3 players from mobiBLU will be shipping with preinstalled software designed to download podcasts with just one click,.
The itsy-bitsy mobiBLU B153 and mobiBLU Cube MP3 players will be supplied with Podcast Ready’s myPodder software which makes it easy to get download podcasts on to the devices.
Using the service, podcast-hungry mobiBLU MP3 owners can slap their players into any Internet-connected computer to access myPodder, where they can then update, subscribe to and manage their podcasts.
Available in English from today (with Japanese, Korean and German versions debuting in June), the Podcast Ready service also provides a podcast directory with one-click podcast subscription.
It’s not just about Apple
With a wagging finger and nodding head, Russell Holliman, founder and CEO at Podcast Ready sighed, “There is a huge perception that podcasts are for Apple users only, and if you’re not using an iPod it’s a difficult process.”
Holliman hopes that their new software will prove that anyone armed with an MP3 player can join the Podcast revolution – and the market is potentially huge.
Research firm In-Stat estimates that MP3 player unit sales will rocket to 286 million by 2010, way up from last year’s 140 million sales.
The Players
MobiBLU’s B153 is a neat little fella with enough juice onboard to let you listen to around 150 hours of battery life based on playback of 128kbps, 44.1 KHz, non-DRM MP3 files – long enough for even the most self-obsessed podcast.
Battery life slips down to a still-impressive 100 hours when using WMA DRM files.
The player includes an FM Tuner, voice recorder with built-in microphone and comes in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB storage capacities.
Suggested retail price for the 2-GB MP3s are $129.99 (£71, €103) and $159.99 (£87, €126), respectively.
The appropriately named mobiBLU Cube is, at 0.94″ square, one of the smallest in the world and comes with a large OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display.
The teensy-weensy square player comes in 256 MB to 1GB configurations, with all models managing to wedge in an FM tuner.
The 1GB model is currently retailing in the UK for around £130, but look out for a mobiBLU Cube2 coming soon!
Mobiblu
Podcast Ready
2 May, 2006
Man Vs Machine
Tuesday 2 May-Tuesday 16 May 2006 The events feature Do-It-Yourself robots (or how to make a robot in ten minutes!) and a demonstration from the next generation of robot to be used on Mars. Also up for discussion is how computing is affecting creativity and how military research into robotics is set to change the landscape of war forever. Experts at the Dana Centre events include scientists from the University of Aberystwyth’s Intelligent Robotics department and Dr Chris Langley from Scientists for Global Responsibility, who will outline the extent of power the UK military has over the development of science and technology. As the world enters a new age of robotics, the Dana Centre – the Science Museum’s bar and café for adults to discuss contemporary science, technology, the environment and medicine – asks: what are the implications of a cyborg society? Dana Centre, 165 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5HD www.danacentre.org.uk
2 May, 2006
Napster Offers Two Million Free Tunes
In an attempt to grab a bigger slice of a music download market currently dominated by Apple’s iTunes, Napster is letting users gorge themselves on the 2,000,000+ tracks in their bulging catalogue. All for free.
Sounds too good to be true?
Well, there is a big catch: songs can’t be downloaded – only streamed – and you can only listen to a song five times before you have to buy it for 99 cents or sign up for a monthly subscription.
Napster’s new service certainly trumps rival RealNetwork’s Rhapsody program, whose punter-luring, free streaming music offer only extends to a miserly 25 songs per month.
How it works
The freebie web-based service uses a Flash application to provide a basic music player interface along with windows for album art and the inevitable advertising.
Working on Flash-enabled Windows, Macintosh, and Linux machines, there’s no need to install any specific software.
Pirate downloaders looking to sneakily snaffle the freebie music will be disappointed to learn that the streamed music is of lower-quality than Napster’s commercial offerings.
Napster CEO Chris Gorog was keen to draw parallels with his company’s once infamous past, “This is the closest we have ever come to the original vision of the Napster service that swept the world in 1999 – except now, it’s legal.”
Gorog believes the boom in online advertising will pay dividends for Napster’s new advertising-supported business model, noting that their website currently averages 2 million visitors a month.
Napster’s service works with selected players from iriver, Creative, Dell, Samsung, Gateway and others but, crucially, not Apple’s iPod, which enjoys a thumping 77.6% market share, according to the NPD Group.
Napster/
2 May, 2006
Macintosh Users Excluded From Channel 4 ‘Lost’ Downloads
Channel 4 is offering a UK online exclusive of the entire first series of the cult hit show, Lost.
From today, fans of the slightly unhinged drama can download full episodes of Lost on to their PCs.
Every episode from first season has been made available, with brand new episodes from Season Two being made available one week after transmission on Channel 4’s website.
You’ll have to be quick to watch the new series online though, as episodes one and two will only be free to view for two weeks (until May 11th 2006.)
Once that deadline has passed, viewers will have to whip out their credit cards and purchase each episode for 99p via a secure registration system.
Obsessive fans hoping to work out the dark complexities of the series by analysing each show in infinite detail will be disappointed to learn that it’s only possible to watch episodes for a 24 hour period on a single PC before the pesky thing goes into auto-destruct,
Mac users already miffed to find that the series isn’t available on iTunes will be even more annoyed to discover that the Lost downloads are only available to PC users with Microsoft Window Media Player 10.
System requirements
Lost video is only available to UK users using Windows Media Player 10 or above.
Windows 2000 or XP
Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6
A broadband Internet connection of at least 500 kbps
Flash Player 6.0 or higher
Internet Explorer’s “Privacy” settings set to the default “Medium” setting
Firewalls and pop-up blockers disabled
Channel 4: Lost
2 May, 2006