It has taken the Bluetooth headset industry a remarkably long time to twig that we don’t want to use one headset for listening to music, and then frantically rip it off to use another Bluetooth headset for answering the phone. Anycom has the one… at a price.
The company has announced the blue bsh-100 headset [right] which, at first sight, is just another of those “hang-on-both-ears” stereo headsets for iPod users. Except for the little black bit jutting out of the right earpiece. That’s the audio input device, or microphone. [see left]
It’s described as “a wireless unit that offers multiple settings for hi-fi stereo headphone for digital audio, Bluetooth headset with attachable microphone for use with mobile phones and PC peripheral using a USB Bluetooth adapter for gaming, chat and VoIP.”
And (if it works as described) the best feature will undoubtedly be its ability to connect to your PC and your phone at the same time. If a call comes in while you’re listening to streaming audio, it will switch to the phone. Of course, this won’t work if you don’t also have a Bluetooth transmitter on your PC, and so you may have to buy one.
And the icing on the cake: a Bluetooth audio gateway. Without further details (actual hands-on reviews!) this is probably going to seem more wonderful than it can in reality be: but what we’re hoping it will do, is allow you to plug several audio inputs into it, and switch between them – from landline phone to Skype, from Skype to iPod, from iPod to mobile phone.
Price in the US has been announced at $120 (~£68~e102) for the headset, and $29 (~£16~e24) for the audio adapter.
Guy Kewney write extensively, and quite brilliantly, in lots of places, including NewsWireless.net
TiVo and Yahoo are linking up to provide a reasonably extensive collaboration.
We understand that both companies see this as a cross-promotion service, so moines haven’t been exchanged. Proof of the promotion for TiVo are see at the bottom of the Yahoo page explaining the service, where non-TiVo owners are given the chance to buy a machine for $49 after rebates.
The programming your Tivo remotely part of the deal mirrors the deal they did with AOL a number of years ago, but as we mentioned, gives Yahoo an output in peoples TV rooms.
The best thing about Samsung’s press photos is that they always feature groups of attractive young ladies deliriously happy to be touching their latest products.
Coming in two parts – the laptop and its detachable 19″ screen – we were confident that we’d be in for double the fun and, sure enough, we were rewarded with happy-clappy shots of two ladies near-ecstatic to be fondling the electronics.
Happily, Samsung have had the nous to ensure that they used standard monitor connectors too, so that the laptop can be connected to a bigger screen (for giving a corporate presentation, for example) – and even the display can be used with a different PC.
Full technical details, pricing and availability is yet to be announced, but we can tell you that the laptop packs a whopping 19″ WSXGA+ (1680×1050) HDTV compatible screen and is powered by a Pentium M770 (2.13GHz) CPU.
Helped by big European growth, global PDA (personal digital assistant) shipments whizzed up 21% in the third quarter of 2005, according to analysts Gartner.
The biggest shipment rise was recorded by Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry device, growing 52.6% in the third quarter as the company extended its lead as the top dog worldwide PDA vendor.
Overall, the Western European PDA market grew 53.4% in the third quarter of 2005, with 1.2 million units shipped.
It’s almost always worthwhile upgrading the cheapskate headphones that invariably come bundled with MP3 players and phones – especially if you’re currently strutting around with a pair of 
The closed-type Fontopia design is powered by super-small 9 mm drivers kitted out in Spinal Tap black with go-faster silver accents (they’re also available in Mac-like white, but that’s just asking for trouble).
Fujitsu Siemens have launched the “first handhelds with fully integrated GPS functionality”, the Pocket LOOX N500 and Pocket LOOX N520 PDAs.
Powered by an Intel XScale PXA270 312 MHz CPU, the devices come with a SD/MMC slot (with support for SDIO), USB 1.1, IrDA and Bluetooth, with the Pocket LOOX N520 offering integrated wireless LAN 802.11g Wi-Fi.
There’s also a ton of Fujitsu Siemens-branded applications bundled in the package, including Voice recorder, AudioPath and Key Look, along with a Microsoft Mobile suite including Excel, Power Point, Outlook and Internet Explorer.
Panasonic has announced a new range of attractive music players with battery lives that make the Duracell bunny look like a fag-smoking sloth in lead boots.
The SD350V/ SD300V models come with a smaller display (5 lines), less fancy navigation buttons and a battery claiming up to 94 hours of SD audio playback.
The site also bangs on about Panasonic’s “Double drive in side phone” which, apparently, has separate drivers for bass and treble raising, the, err, “shelter density”.
The SV-SD750V/700 measures up at 87.3x46x11mm and 48.4g, while the SV-SD350V/300 is marginally smaller at 87×40.5×10.3mm and 47.9g.
After weeks of frantic speculation that a video-capable iPod was on the way, Apple have sure enough announced the very thing at their event in the California Theatre in San Jose and BBC Television Centre in the UK.
New iMac G5. A bit faster, but the big thing is FrontRow. It’s Apple’s Media Centre-killer. The new Apple Remote, a svelte 6 button remote control that looks like a shuffle, controls any media you have on your iMac. Makes the MS Media Centre 26+ button remote look very wrong – too tech. Simplicity reigns. iSight camera is built in. Parallel output to bigger screen, projector. Price is very tempting starting at $1,299 (17″ £899 inc vat, €1379) (20″ £1199, €1799).
Video-capable iPod. Next gen iPod with 30% thinner than current generation player but with a bigger 2.5″ colour screen. 320×240 QVGA (quarter VGA), but not wide screen as rumoured. Video playback supports MPEG-4 and h.264 playback. 30Gb & 60Gb. S-vdeo out through the doc, but video will appear pixelated on full size TV screen. The 30GB should go for $299 (~£219~€349), and the 60GB for $399 (~£300~€469). They’re on the Apple online Store and will be shipping next week.?
“It’s never been done before, where you could view hit TV shows and buy them online the day after they’re shown,” Jobs said. While this may be true that people have not been able to _Buy_ it, but let’s not forget that the BBC has the iMP trial running, where you can get shows straight after they’re shown – but for nothing.
Hardcore outdoor types with lantern jaws will be whooping in their Goretex trews at the prospect of getting their hands on the new rugged Archer Field PC Pocket PC by Juniper Systems.
Also bundled in the package is Microsoft ActiveSync 4.0, Terminal Services Client, Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, MSN Messenger and Pocket Internet Explorer.
The 2006 world championships draw closer and if you‘ve not yet considered your Christmas gift list, this might be just the thing you were looking for.