Portable

Sony’s VAIO G1 Lappie With Flash Memory
Large pools of envious drool and “gimme! gimme! gimme!” saliva were found dripping around the desks at Digi Lifestyle after Sony’s latest version of the superlight Vaio G1 laptop was spotted on t’web.
Previously released as a featherweight 2.1 pounds laptop sporting a 40/80GB hard drive and 12.1 inch display, Sony have just cranked up the VAIO’s desirability rating to wanton craving with the news of a 32GB Solid State Disk option.
With the hard drive ejected and replaced with super silent, super fast, super durable solid state flash memory, the laptop can now claim to be the world’s lightest 12.1-inch laptop, registering a butterfly-untroubling 1.89-pounds.
Without a hard drove rattling away inside, the standard battery life has been extended by half an hour, giving a very generous 6.5 hours in total. Users investing in the longlife ‘L’ battery can enjoy a battery life that will leave even the Duracell bunny in need of a fag and lie down, with Sony claiming a whopping 12.5 hours of use.
As well as the 1,024×768 pixel (XGA)screen, there’s also an Intel 945GMS Express video card, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, a Type2 PC card slot, memory stick PRO/DUO and SD card/MMC slots, Gigabit Ethernet, modem and voice input/output.
Its dimensions may be small (277 x 215 x 23.5-25.5mm) but the price tag is a bit of a heavyweight beastie, with the base unit starting at around 229,800 Yen – adding up to a hefty $545 premium over the 40GB hard disk option.
Source
10 April, 2007
iPod Hits 100 Million. Celebs Fawn All Over The Place
Yesterday, Apple announced that it had shifted its 100 millionth iPod, making it the fastest selling music player in the history of the known universe and quite possibly beyond.
The iconic iPod first appeared in November 2001, with Apple going on to introduce a host of different models, including five generations of the original iPod, two generations of the iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle.
With the Apple PR backslap machine set to ‘turbo,’ Steve Jobs issued a statement personally thanking, “music lovers everywhere for making iPod such an incredible success.” And he means that most sincerely, folks.
Never one to knowingly underhype his own products, Jobs continued; “iPod has helped millions of people around the world rekindle their passion for music, and we’re thrilled to be a part of that.”
As ever, celebs were lining up for a piece of the profile-boosting action, with Mary J. Blige apparently suffering some sort of strange pre-iPod amnesia, claiming that she found it “hard to remember” what she did “before the iPod,” before going on to claim that the player was, an, err, “extension of her personality.”
John Mayer, another GRAMMY award winner (and quite possibly the owner of a degree in corporate fawning) was also ready and willing to crank up the gush-o-meter, announcing that the “iPod experience has kept the spirit of what it means to be a music lover alive.”
We’ve no idea what on earth that means. But we know it’s poppycock.
10 April, 2007
BBC TV & Radio Trial On UK 3G
The BBC are going to start of a trial to syndicate a range of its television channels and radio networks via 3G to mobile phones within the month.
Three UK operators will be taking part, Orange, Vodafone and 3 giving subscribers to the trial the ability to watch BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three streamed on their mobiles. Beyond some sports programmes and programmes where they don’t have the necessary rights.
As well as the TV channels, eight radio stations will also be included – Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 6 Music, BBC 7 and Asian Network.
Appropriately enough the announcement by Richard Halton, BBC Controller of Business Strategy, was made at the Broadcast Mobile TV Congress.
The BBC haven’t done a great deal of content on mobiles, not that they’re not keen on it, as you’ll be able to tell from the comments of Richard Halton, “The BBC believes that mobile content is an important part of the broadcasting landscape and is looking at ways in which mobile devices will shape services of the future for licence fee payers.”
They hope to learn lots from this trial, as Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC said, “The findings, combined with quantitative and qualitative consumer research, will inform the BBC’s future mobile strategy.”
We’ll keep our eyes on this.
30 March, 2007
LG-Google Handsets Coming From Deal
LG have signed a deal with Google to put some of their mobile services pre-loaded onto its handsets.
LG have committed to release at least ten new mobile phone and will jointly market them as LG-Google handsets.
The apps covered by the deal are Google Maps – which lets people view maps and satellite imagery, find local businesses, and get driving directions, Gmail – the Java-driven, mobile focused version of their email service and Blogger Mobile – which, err … lets you blog while on the move, using images taken from the mobile phone.
Mr. Paul Bae, Vice President of the Product Planning Team at LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company really wants us all to know that “LG’s mobile devices, combined with Google, will provide consumers with easy access to their favourite Internet services even without a PC and make it easy for them to stay connected while in motion.” Wooo!
As we know LG don’t just do mobile phones, but a whole panoply of electronic bits, with a major focus on the home, so it’s interesting to hear from LG that they’ll be extending their relationship with Google to “develop digitalized home in the future.”
The financial terms of the deal were not revealed, indeed it’s unclear if LG will be sharing the income Google will derive from its advertising.
LG are being a little tarty about this. It’s not too long ago (end of 2006) that they signed a deal with Yahoo to pre-load Yahoo! services, including Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo Messenger on many of its mobile phones. Clearly that wasn’t an exclusive deal and it will have covered different handsets we imagine.
28 March, 2007
iRiver T50 PMP Coming Soon

We generally can’t get too excited about the launch of yet another Personal Media Player – after a while they all start to look the same to our product-swamped eyes – but we have to say iRiver’s new T50 PMP looks rather special indeed.
Perhaps inspired by Swiss chocolate Toblerone bars, the T50 comes in a natty triangular form, with the metallic, industrial-styled casing looking like it could take a few tumbles down the Alps too.
A tiny 1-inch 128 x 64, 65k colour CSTN LCD display gives status feedback and if the promo pics are anything to go by, it’s a mighty fine looking little screen too.
The player comes with 1GB of onboard flash memory and offers an impressive 52 hours of playback from a single AAA battery – a pretty impressive tally if it manages that in the real world.
Multimedia support comes in the shape of MP3, OGG and WMA DRM10 audio playback, and it can also read BMP images (although you’ll need your own built-in macro lens to see much on that diminutive screen.)
The unit also packs in a handy FM tuner and voice recorder, with functions controlled by a wee joystick.
Produced in black or white finishes, the T50 measures up at 2.9 x 1.2 x 1.0 inches and will be available in Japan for around 10,000 Yen ($85) from 14th April. There’s no news yet of a UK/European release. Bah!
Specifications:
Product Type Portable Audio Player
Weight 32 g
Dimensions 73.1 x 30.9 x 27.3 mm
Interface Type USB 2.0
Storage type Flash
Capacity 1 GB
FM Radio Yes
Voice Recording Yes
ID3 tag support Yes
Supported audio formats MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA
Signal-to-noise ratio 90 dB
Battery type AAA Alkaline
Rated battery life (audio) 52 hours
Picture formats BMP
27 March, 2007
TVMini Express Shipping With The Tube Software
For those of you who have been wondering who will be supplying the software to Miglia following their falling out with Elgato, you need wait no longer.
Miglia have not only signed a deal with software suppliers Equinux, but have a package available already with the software, called The Tube. They’re calling the hardware and software bundle the TVMini Express.
Simon Ellson, CEO, Miglia Technology enthused about their new partners, “‘TV from a different perspective’ is our mantra and Equinux undoubtedly provides the most effective ‘starter’ application to allow Miglia customers to watch, record and put TV on their iPod, easily.”
Equinux are confident with the swift reaction of the software, as they tell us it was written “from the ground up” in Cocoa, Apple’s object-oriented application environment designed specifically for developing Mac OS X-only native applications. ie it wasn’t written for Windows and ported over to the Mac.
All of our US readers who might be getting excited about this will have to bite their hands in frustration. As Equinux point out at the bottom of their page, “DVB-T is not available in the US, Canada and some other regions, so TubeStick will not work in those countries.”
TVMini Express is available now with a retail price of £39.95, €49.95 or $69.
TVMini Express
23 March, 2007
The PerCushion: The Comfiest Phone In The World
Try as we might, we can’t think of the last time we said to ourselves, “You know what? We could really use a Bluetooth enabled cushion,” but the good news is that if ever such a thought should cross our minds, urbantool.com has the answer.
Their new Bluetooth-enabled perCushion comes in the shape of a large curvy cushion (pretty hugging lady optional) and sports an integrated microphone and speakers.
Lovingly created from cotton velvet with a comfy inner foam core, the 66cm long PerCushion lets recumbent chatters connect to their mobiles via an embedded a Bluetooth device lurking within the padding.
Powered by a rechargeable lithium ionic battery, call status is displayed via a series of LEDs, which indicate if the, err, pillow is in active standby mode or taking an incoming call.
Naturally, such an extraordinary daft idea comes with some an extraordinary daft marketing guff:
“Remember the times before our mobile digital lifestyle, when communication with a close friend stood for something emotional and touching. It can again with the soft and relaxing perCushion. Your cell phone notifies the digital cushion wirelessly, via Bluetooth and enables you to pick up the call while relaxing on your sofa.”
Although we couldn’t argue with anyone claiming that it’s the most comfortable phone on the planet, the idea of someone actually sitting at home talking into a cushion would suggest the presence of magic mushrooms to us.
Sadly, despite the perCushion being debuted at CeBIT, we’re not sure if it will ever get past the concept stage. But we still kind of like it.
www.urbantool.com
19 March, 2007
Bling Player Screams Steal Me
As if the life of the portable music player listener isn’t hard enough to survive already, MediaReady has brought out a new range to attract the eye of street magpies – the Bling Player.
As you might guess from the name, the Bling Player has rather a lot of bling-esque stuff stuck to it. The young dudes and dudesses at Digital-Lifestyles tell me that this is referred to as being “iced out,’ or at least it used to be – street phrases move fast.
There’s two models available DOGTAG or SKULL’N’BONES, which MediaReady tell us creates “a new kind of fashion statement.”
The Bling Player is a 2Gb Flash player with FM radio built into it, capable of storing 30+ hours of music or 16+ plus hours of video. We hear that it “will ship to leading consumer electronics, clothing, and jewellry retailers,” starting April 2007.
The price of $199 will possibly mean that prospective purchasers will need to sell a bit of their current bling to own it.
MediaREADY Bling Player
14 March, 2007
They Want Your Pod! Brixton On iPod Alert
Although some may already feel that walking around Brixton is akin to taking a stroll around another planet, we began to think we might have been transported to a parallel universe when we spotted bright garish yellow billboards appearing all around town exclaiming, “THEY WANT YOUR POD!”
The signs were appearing everywhere – on lamp posts, railings and street furniture – warning the denizens of Brixton that large dark silhouetted shapes were hell bent on taking their “POD.”
Fearing a Day of the Triffids-like invasion of Coldharbour Lane, we took a closer look and saw that the boards were illustrated by a large black blob of a humanoid facing up to a thinner humanoid sporting the trademark white cable of the Apple iPod player.
In smaller text underneath the screaming headline, “BEWARE” the sign goes on, “Street robbers are targeting persons using mp3 music players in this street!”
It turns out that far from warning visitors of an impending alien pod-snatching mission, the signs are part of the ‘Safer Lambeth’ initiative by the Metropolitan Police.
Although the sign doesn’t actually tell you what to do to prevent being ‘jacked’ (© Richard Madeley ), we guess the iPod imagery is a way of advising music listeners ecstatically flailing their limbs a la iPod advert that they should show a little more discretion on the mean streets of Brixton.
Of course, being Brixton, it was only a matter of hours before the sign was joyfully subverted, with stick-on labels in the same colour and typeface altering the message to read:
“THEY WANT YOUR POD – BECAUSE YOU TOOK THEIR SOUL.”
13 March, 2007
Creative Slim Down Vision M and W MP3 Players
In the highly competitive MP3 player market, every single ounce of extraneous lard could result in lost sales, so Creative’s boffins in Japan have been working hard to slim down their popular Zen players.
Fresh outta hi-tech Fat Farm, the new Zen Vision M and W models have managed to reduce their bulk by 15% on previous versions while wedging in a bigger hard disk.
Vision M
Looking at the vital statistics, the Creative Zen Vision M measures up at a pocket pleasing 62x104x19mm (slimmed down from 22.1-mm to 19mm.)
The rather desirable little fella weighs in at a light as heck 170g (and that includes the battery) and comes with a 2.5 inch colour screen.
Despite its featherweight form, the device manages to pack in a fairly generous 60GB of storage, which should be enough to keep punters entertained on all but the longest journeys (British Rail delays notwithstanding).
Vision W
The Zen Vision W has also spent time on the juddery slimming belt machine, and now comes in a 134x75x22mm package (slimmed down from 26.4mm to 22mm) and weighs 280g, including battery.
There’s also 60GB of onboard storage and a generous 4.3 inch display, although some may be wondering what happened to the 80GB and 100GB models.
When?
At the moment, there’s only been an announcement on the Creative Japan site, so it may take some time before us Brits can get our grubby hands on these puppies.
Source
13 March, 2007