Gadgets – Page 24 – Digital-Lifestyles

Nokia 330 Auto Navigation Announced

Nokia 330 Auto Navigation Announced Nokia has announced its first dedicated personal navigation device covering all of Europe-land, the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation.

The Nokia 330 includes full Europe coverage, sports a large 3.5 inch colour touch screen, spoken directions and comes with a raft of multimedia widgets to keep le continental traveller ‘appy.

Featuring an integrated GPS receiver, the Nokia 330 device comes bundled with a 2GB memory card containing the preinstalled Europe-wide map data aling with detailed travel information.

The Nokia 330 uses the ROUTE 66 Navigate 7 application and views can be flipped between 2D/3D and day or night views, with options to change the language or volume of the spoken guide.

To help stave off boredom in Brussels and ennui in Eindhoven, the Auto Navigation also includes a music player, photo viewer and video player (but don’t go watching Rocky V when you’re driving folks! Well, we wouldn’t recommend you watch it any time, but that’s a different story).

Nokia 330 Auto Navigation Announced And now some corporate guff

“Consumers are increasingly eager to use personal navigation devices while driving and we are delighted to introduce the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation device to meet this demand,” purred Razvan Olosu, vice president, Multimedia Enhancements at Nokia.

“Nokia 330 Auto Navigation complements the recently announced GPS and navigation solutions from Nokia.”

Nokia 330 Auto Navigation Announced “Finding your way across Europe is simple with this comprehensive navigation package, including an integrated GPS receiver and European maps,” he added.

The Nokia 330 Auto Navigation is expected to turn up in “select channels” in Europe during the fourth quarter 2006 for around EUR 360 – £240 (sans le taxes).

Nokia

AMD Complete ATi Purchase

AMD Complete ATi Purchase AMD, the second largest microprocessor manufacturer has complete the purchase of graphics, chipset and CE specialist ATi Technologies in a deal worth around $5.4Bn.

From day one they’re talking a new game – “Fusion.” The integration of the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) at the silicon level. Interestingly they claim this will give them a significantly increase in performance-per-watt – benefitting both portable devices, by giving them longer results from batteries, and more efficiencies for mains-powered computers, vital in the world we’re entering with a need to keep an eye on power consumption. The Fusion products are expected late 2008/early 2009.

Phil Hester, AMD senior vice president and chief technology officer summed it up, “With the anticipated launch of Windows Vista, robust 3D graphics, digital media and device convergence are driving the need for greater performance, graphics capabilities, and battery life.”

AMD Complete ATi Purchase The capabilities of graphics processors have been gathering pace over the recent years to the point where they come close to rivaling the main processor themselves.

To get hold of ATi, AMD are splashing $4.3Bn in cash and also handing over 58m AMD shares. $2.5 billion of the cash mountain comes courtesy of a term loan from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding. The intention to do the deal was made in July this year.

At the time of the original announcement there was some speculation that ATi rival, nVidia would sell to Intel. This didn’t come to pass, possibly because already has a strong graphics chip division. To minimise the impact of todays deal on nVidia, Mike Hara, Nvidia’s vice president of investor relations, told Reuters, “It reinforces our philosophy that we don’t want to be tied up. I don’t think anything changes. In fact, what we’ve already felt and seen I think gives us the energy to push faster.”

AMD

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million As the smartphone market continues to explode, Microsoft has revealed its bullish ambitions to keep on doubling sales, year on year.

Last year’s total of six million mobile phones running Microsoft Windows software represented a 100 per cent increase on the previous year, and according to the head of Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices division, the company are hell bent on shifting even more.

“We want to make 100 percent again this year and to grow further at this rate in coming years,” he told the German Euro am Sonntag newspaper.

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million According to research firm Canalys, worldwide shipments of smart mobile devices rose by 55 percent year-on-year in Q2 2006, with the Symbian operating system remaining the most popular with a 67 per cent market share.

Although Microsoft is in second place, it lags a considerable distance behind with just 15 per cent of the market, followed by Research In Motion (Blackberry) on 6 per cent.

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million It looks like the smartphone market is going to heat up in coming months too, with Research In Motion’s new Pearl smartphone offering a camera and music functions.

RIM’s co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis were also hoping to double their users ever year, adding that the market for mobile emails was, “huge, and we’re just at the beginning.”

Elsewhere, Palm’s eagerly awaited new Treo 680 looks set to be hitting the UK by the end of November, after computer retailer Expansys announced that they expected unlocked models to be in stock by the end of November.

We’re not sure if they’ll be getting the full range of funky colours, but we’ll be pwning that natty Orange Treo as soon as we can get our hands on it.

EW-700 WiFiFone Announced By Samsung

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 Announced Currently causing something of a stir on the floor of the Korea Electronics Show is the WiFiFone EW-700, a Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP smartphone running Windows Mobile.

The all-black phone is a collaboration between Samsung and Korean, big-name cordless phone maker Eidicom, and sports a slightly unusual keypad layout, with navigation controls sat in the left hand corner of the handset and the phone keys shunted to the right.

This leaves the ‘call’ and ‘answer’ buttons in the bottom left hand corner of the handset which seems far from ideal to us.

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 Announced The EW-700, looks a fairly plain, clunky beast too – in fact the photos we’ve seen have something of a pre-production air to them – but it’s not short of features.

The phone offers Samsung’s latest “Post-PC mobile multimedia processor”, an “embedded OS/Device driver,” web browser, Instant Messaging and an MP3 and video player keeping customers entertained. We figure there must be some kind of memory card expansion available, but seeing as all the pics released so far only show the front of the camera, we can’t be sure.

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 Announced We’re yet to get full specs either, but the screen looks like a 320 x 240 pixels jobbie to us, and there’s also a 2-megapixel camera with camcorder function onboard, a voice recorder, hardware MPEG engine offering full frame video and Wi-Fi and infrared connectivity.

As for pricing and availability, we haven’t the foggiest right now.

[From Aving USA]

Google Maps For Palm Treo Review (95%)

Google Maps For Palm Treo Review Although it was announced as part of the forthcoming Palm Treo 680 smartphone package, Google has already made its Google Maps application available for free download.

Described by Google as being, “months in the making,” the company describes the 425k download as “the fastest, slickest version yet” of their mobile-optimised Google Maps application, offering real-time traffic reports, detailed directions, integrated search results (search for cafes/bars etc and get addresses and the option to call them with one click), fast downloading detailed, draggable maps and even satellite imagery.

Installation
Installing the Google Maps was easy enough, we just pointed our Treo browser to google.com/gmm and downloaded the program over the air. Users can also download the program from to their PC from http://www.google.com/gmm/treo and then hotsync the file over to their handheld in the usual way.

We ran Google Maps from our SD card with no problems.

Looking up locations
Loading up the program, we were prompted to type in an address (or ZIP code, postal address, latitude and longitude, intersection etc) and we were astonished by the speed that the map appeared on screen – even though we were connecting via GPRS. This baby is fast!

The maps download as small, separate tiles, so only new segments need to be downloaded as you were scroll across pages using the Treo’s five-way controller, or by dragging the map across the screen.

Overlaid, opaque zoom in/out buttons let you decide the level of detail, and a ‘find nearby business’ menu gives you the option to search for local hotels, cafes, bars etc with the results appearing onscreen as numbered markers.

Google Maps For Palm Treo Review Clicking on an icon provides more address information and a button to phone them up, as well the ability to get turn by turn driving directions to and from any given point.

Best of all, downloaded maps are stored locally, so you can look up the area you’re visiting and have the map ready for viewing – even if you can’t connect to the web.

A minor niggle is that there’s no option to store downloaded data on to the Treo’s memory card, so stored maps burn up precious internal memory, but you can at least chose to delete all data on program exit.

Traffic updates
With Google Maps you can call up comprehensive information on traffic conditions in more than 30 U.S. major metropolitan areas (with partial information available for other states) with the driving directions offering traffic estimates to avoid congestion.

Highway traffic speeds are represented by different colour overlays (green for traffic flowing at over 50mph, Yellow for 26-50mph etc), and you can download satellite maps for onscreen maps.

You can search and view UK locations, but there’s currently no local business or traffic information available, although Google says it’s working to increase availability.

Conclusion
Google Maps is a truly remarkable product that adds near GPS-like functionality to the entire range of modern Palm OS Treos (700p, 680, 650 and even the venerable Treo 600 smartphone) – and all for nothing!

Of course, it won’t be able to tell you where you are, but so long as you can find a street sign, you’ll be able to nail your location, download local maps, locate and call up nearby shops, businesses and bars and even get traffic updates and satellite images.

It’s easily one of the best products we’ve ever reviewed for a Palm phone – any smartphone, in fact – and it’s a ‘must have’ application for map fans, travellers, amblers and business users alike. And it’s free, Goddammit!

Features: 90%
Ease of use: 90%
Value For Money: 95%
Overall: 95%

Logitech Buys Slim Devices

Logitech Buys Slim Devices Logitech has announced that it is buying Slim Devices for $10m cash plus a possible performance-based payment tied to certain revenue targets. The news came on the same day as their best-ever Q2 sales, which reached $502m.

Slim Devices has been selling their Squeezebox WiFi music player since 2004, continuing to improve the product through subsequent releases. The device pulls music from PCs, distributing it via Ethernet, or Wirelessly about the home.

Latterly they’ve moved into the higher ground of products, by bringing out the Transporter. Featuring high quality components, it also differs from the Squeezebox by actually have some controls on it, as well as a remote control.

Logitech currently sell some devices for playing digital music from your PC, as SlimDevices does, but they haven’t exactly set the market on fire.

Junien Labrousse, Logitech SVP of the Entertainment and Communication Business Unit explained their reasoning for the purchase, “One of the main reasons for this acquisition is the development capabilities of the Slim Devices team. The technical level of this group is a key asset that we fully intend to leverage.” He also confirmed the concerns of some of Slim Devices current customers “[they] will function independently, keeping the spirit of advance audio technology and strong product innovation.”

We think it’s a good move by Logitech, as Slim makes good-looking devices and Logitech generally don’t. As well as the technology they’ll be gaining, we hope that they’ll also focus the product design within the Slim Devices team.

Logitech has the ability to take Slim Devices music players through their considerable retail connections, moving slim from the Geeks favorite, to a mainstream products.

Slim Devices
Logitech

Vodafone Lets Rip With A Seasonal Blast Of 3G Phones

Vodafone Lets Rip With A Seasonal Blast Of 3G Phones Mobile phone giant Vodafone has unwrapped its winter collection of phones which it hopes will work their way into Santa’s sack.

The seasonal 3G handset line-up features phones capable of downloading websites at broadband speeds and includes new handsets sourced from South Korea’s LG Electronics for the first time.

In the face of slowing sales, Vodafone is keen to get punters forking out for higher-paying 3G services and hopes that its new range of ten exclusive 3G phones will get the cash tills rattling at Christmas.

Vodafone Lets Rip With A Seasonal Blast Of 3G Phones The full range adds up to no less than 24 Vodafone Live with 3G handsets featuring onboard mobile TV; 14 Vodafone Live with 3G handsets featuring Vodafone Radio DJ music service and six 3G broadband handsets – sourced from Motorola and Samsung – delivering HSDPA.

HSDPA
HSDPA – that’s High-Speed Downlink Packet Access to those not hep to the latest acronyms – enables super-nippy access to multimedia extras like mobile TV and music downloads, along with faster laptop access when the handset is used as a modem.

The HSDPA technology should provide speeds of 1.8 megabits per second to start with, rising up to the giddy rate of 14mbps in the near future.

Vodafone Lets Rip With A Seasonal Blast Of 3G Phones By comparison, existing 3G networks can only muster up a comparably sloth-like rate of just 384 kilobits per second.

“This range of handsets extends Vodafone’s lead in 3G and offers a wide diversity of choice for our customers,” purred Vodafone global chief marketing officer Frank Rovekamp.

Vodafone

Fox Uses Smartphone To Transmit Live TV News

Fox Uses Smartphone To Transmit Live TV News It wasn’t quite ‘citizen journalism,’ but a Fox News cameraman first on the scene of last week’s small plane crash into a New York Upper East Side apartment building managed to stream live footage to his TV network using a standard Windows Treo smartphone.

Scott Wilder was just twenty blocks away when news of the crash broke, so he hot-footed it to the scene, whipped out his phone and was able to report live from the scene using a hand-held Palm Treo smartphone.

The Palm Treo 700w-series mobile was fitted with special software made by CometVision, which lets users transmit video over non-3G networks, using a custom codec that uses much less bandwidth than would normally be required.

The software was set up to automatically connect to a computer at the Fox News studio with one button, and then send an e-mail to notify network producers about the live stream.

Fox Uses Smartphone To Transmit Live TV News Not surprisingly, the live picture quality won’t be kick-starting a bumper blow-out of Fox’s broadcast cameras on eBay quite yet, but it’s a great example of how mobile technology is making newsgathering faster and open to more people.

Thanks to his phone, the Fox News cameraman was able to send streamed live updates from the scene long before rival networks were able to rock up with their snazzy satellite trucks, and opens up possibilities for more advanced citizen journalism in the future.

Comet Video Technologies
[From: Reuters/Hollywood Reporter]

Orb MyCasting on Nokia N80 In US

Orb MyCasting on Nokia N80 In US Orb MyCasting has been grabbed by Nokia to be bundled in with the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, in the US only.

When US N80 owners are swanning around, they’ll be able to watch live TV, videos, listen to music and podcasts and video images on their PC. Not just that, but they can set programs to record on their PC from their mobiles.

The TV and media companies have not, to say the very least, been particularly keen on letting people do this. We’ll see if they come out against Nokia.

Back in August this year, Orb MyCasting were keen to “share”, that 19 months after the service was launched, they’ve had over 1.5m hours of digital media transfered over their service – equivalent to 125 years of media-idge. Interestingly up to 45 minutes per user per day, on average.

Orb has similar deals with companies such as AMD, Vodafone, Hauppauge, Intel and Creative Labs.

Programming video recordings is not unique – Sky TV has been offering this since July this year through their Mobile Sky+ Programming

Orb Networks

Sony NW-S700 Walkman: Noise Cancelling

Sony NW-S700 Walkman: Noise Cancelling Sony have released the latest of their Walkmans – with the added bonus of having noise cancellation built in. It’s the first for a portable music player.

Over recent years Bose has done very well from their noise cancelling headphone, particularly from regular plan travellers attempting to negate the horrid din.

The headphone that comes with the NW-S700 Walkman, named 13.5φEX, have built-in microphones that capture, examine and then neutralises the surrounding noise. They call it Clear Audio technology.

The neat little player comes in 1Gb, 2Gb and 4Gb capacity and has a stunning charge to playback ratio. For all of you with soooper busy lives, a 3 minute charge will give 3 hours of playback. Those who are more relaxed, a maxed out charge will give 50 hours of playback.

There’s built-in audio encoding, letting you record for an analog source directly and it comes in violet, black and pink.

One of the options that you’ll be able to get for it, is a Bluetooth Audio Transmitter, letting you send the music via stereo bluetooth to your ears. Expect to see lots of this feature soon.

It’s going to sell for £189 starting in November – just in time for you little cousin’s xmas present.

It sounds like a great idea, that we can’t wait to get our hands on.

SonyStyle Euro site