Digital-Lifestyles – Page 290 – Digital-Lifestyles pre-empted and reported thousands of articles on the then-coming impact that technology was to have on all forms of Media. Launched in 2001 as a research blog to aid its founder, Simon Perry, present at IBC 2002, it grew into a wide ranging, multi-author publication that was quoted in many publications globally including the BBC, was described by the Guardian as 'Informative' and also cited in a myriad of tech publications before closing in 2009

Digital-Lifestyles pre-empted and reported thousands of articles on the then-coming impact that technology was to have on all forms of Media. Launched in 2001 as a research blog to aid its founder, Simon Perry, present at IBC 2002, it grew into a wide ranging, multi-author publication that was quoted in many publications globally including the BBC, was described by the Guardian as 'Informative' and also cited in a myriad of tech publications before closing in 2009

May You Live In Interesting Times, Festival Preview (1/2)
We find it hard to explain how excited Digital-Lifestyles is about ‘May you live in interesting times’, the pseudonym given to the Cardiff Festival of Creative Technology starting in Cardiff on 28.Oct. Karen Price does a great job of capturing the range of events that make it up.
Watch out on Digital-Lifestyles after the event for a series of podcasts from there.
Part two of this preview is also available.
It’s a fact of life – almost everywhere we turn we are surrounded by technology. From mobile phones and digital cameras to TVs and video games. But as well as making our lives easier and providing us with entertainment, more and more artists are now turning to everyday technologies when they create their work.
This will be highlighted during a new three-day festival which is taking place in Cardiff 28th-30th October 2005.
May You Live In Interesting Times – a title taken from a phrase used in a famous speech once made by Robert F Kennedy – is being staged across the Welsh capital as part of the Cardiff 2005 celebrations, and is a major highlight of Cardiff Contemporary, which is promoting the visual arts throughout this month.
Despite being the first event of its kind in Wales, it includes a line-up of international artists, speakers, sponsors and partners who will take part in a series of residencies, commissions, and a two-day conference.
This is all supported by a programme of artists’ projects, outdoor events, screenings, music, performances and projections.
“The event will be held at various sites across the capital and will illuminate the city with dynamic and individual work using a range of new and existing technologies,” said festival co-director Emma Posey.
“The festival will provide a platform for national and international audiences to access the very best works that utilise digital technologies.”
It is already being recognised as a major international event, attracting attention as far and wide as Brazil, Holland, Japan and the USA.
The festival’s Website offers browsers from all over the world the chance to take part online via its live streaming and pod casting.
“We have received lots of positive responses so far both from inside and outside Wales,” said Posey.
“We want to create a vibrant creative technology sector in Wales, with the festival celebrating this every two years.”
The festival’s other co-director Hannah Firth is keen to stress the accessibility of new technology and its use by artists and the public in their everyday lives.
“New forms of technology are commonplace, from mobile phones, computers, digital cameras, videogames and the way we watch television,” she said. “These technologies influence every aspect of our lives, if we like it or not. The festival looks at how artists are using this everyday available technology, not for its own sake, but as an additional tool in expanding their ideas.”
Richard Higlett, Visual Arts Coordinator for Cardiff 2005 added “May You live in Interesting Times is an important addition to the Capital’s cultural calendar and an opportunity to see art made using digital technologies by Welsh and Internationally respected artists. The festival is a reflection not just of the way art is made today but is about art which is resonant, depicting the current condition of society at the start of the 21st century.”
Karen Price is Arts Correspondent for the Western Mail.
Part two of this preview is also available.
May You Live In Interesting Times
Chapter
Bloc
Cardiff Contemporary
20 October, 2005
Nokia Unveils L’Amour Collection
Mobile phone giants Nokia have announced three new phone models aimed at the “style-conscious” market.
The new models, the 7360, 7370 and 7380, are to form part of Nokia’s ludicrously named “L’Amour Collection,” expected on the market in the first quarter of 2006.
Alastair Curtis, Vice President of Design at Nokia’s Mobile Phones division was on hand to trot out the airy-fairy waffle, “For many consumers, the mobile phone has truly become an extension of their personal style – it is a fashion statement as well as an advanced communications device.”
Like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on steroids, Curtis continued, “Every detail of these products, from the nature-inspired graphics to the velvet-lined pouches, has been carefully considered with the style-conscious individual in mind. We are very confident that consumers who appreciate design and attention to detail will fall in love with the L’Amour Collection.”
The PR team were clearly caught up in the general arty-fartiness, trotting out a load of tosh about how the Nokia 7380 was a “reflection of discerning taste”, the Nokia 7370 “designed to make heads ‘turn’ and the Nokia 7360 somehow managing to exhibit “charming, graceful and compact” qualities.
Trying our best to avoid the loud klaxon noise emanating from our nearby BS Detector, here’s the phones in more detail:
Nokia 7380
Desperately described as a phone for “trend-setting men and women who enjoy being the centre of attention,” the highly distinctive 7380 looks like it’s come from the same bonkers design studio as the 7280.
Sporting a keypad-less form and clad in leather with a mirrored display, the slimline fashion phone packs in a 2-megapixel camera with 4x zoom, an MP3 player and intuitive voice dialing.
Fashionistas can expect to fork out around €500 (~£340, ~$600) for the 7380 and should be able to start strutting around and making dramatic mobile fashion statements in Q1, 2006.
Nokia 7370
Employing a sliding keypad, the Nokia 7370 comes with a 2-inch QVGA colour screen (320 x 240 pixels), stereo speakers with 3D sound effects and a 1.3 megapixel camera (8x zoom) onboard.
The designers have gone to town on the fascia, emblazoning it with “beautiful patterns, etched into the elegant metal trims” which are contrasted by “leather-inspired faceplates” which, somehow, add a “romantic appeal and an element of the exotic.”
To be honest, we’d be a bit worried if we met someone who found their mobile phone romantic, but I guess it takes all sorts.
The Nokia 7370 comes in two colour schemes, coffee brown and warm amber, each with matching graphics and screensavers.
The phone should be knocking out for around €300 and available in Q1, 2006.
Nokia 7360
Looking somewhat more conventional but still, apparently, a phone for “trend-conscious men and women” (albeit cheapskate ones), the bottom of the range Nokia 7360 comes with an integrated VGA camera, stereo FM radio and MP3 ring tones.
It also sports the same silly ‘designer tag’ sticking out the side of the phone as the rest of the range, and is available in the two “signature L’Amour Collection colour schemes”, i.e. brown and amber.
The phone will cost around €200 and gyrating down the nearest catwalk in Q1, 2006.
Nokia
20 October, 2005
137m Broadband Subscribers In OECD
Figures just out from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), report 137m broadband subscribers throughout the OECD countries and that’s up 18m since the last figures, six months ago.
It’s interesting to note that voice and video services are increasingly being provided over these connections.
Korea continues to be top of the list with 25.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, with The Netherlands following up close behind with 22.5, mainy due to comprehensive cable penetration.
The strongest growth over the last two reports, ie 12 months has been Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway and the United Kingdom.
The US is at 12th position (14.5 subs per 100), with the UK sitting one slot lower at 13th (13.5 subs per 100).
Over all of the countries, DSL is still the preferred method (61.2%), cable modems at around half those levels (32%) and what they describe as ‘other technologies’, ie fibre optics, LAN, satellite and fixed wireless sitting at 6.8%.
The ‘other technologies’ have enjoyed the the highest percentage growth in the past six months, growing 13%.
Looking at absolute subscribers numbers, the US is way out in front at 42.6m, followed by Japan (21m); Korea (12m); Germany (8m); UK (8m); France (8m).
Enjoy all of the delicious details at the OECD site
20 October, 2005
The Genius of eBay Buying Skype
Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay appears to be justifying eBay’s decision to purchase Skype.
There’s been much talk that eBay overpaid for Skype, at $4.1Bn if they hit earnings targets.
My view is that they actually got a bargain.
Meg Whitman is right that “in the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the ‘Net will trend toward zero,” and she sees that happening “in the next three to six years.” I’m assuming that she means all phone calls, as Net-based calls are currently free and it would be very worrying if she didn’t know that already.
With Skype, they’ve bought the biggest name in VoIP. Not just software-based VoIP (which Skype currently is), but all VoIP.
Whitman’s view? “Our belief is that the winner in this space will be those that have the largest ecosystem. What I mean by that is: the largest number of registered users, the largest number of voice minutes, the largest number of developers who develop the platform, the best product … that users are willing and want to pay for.”
I’ve always admired the genius of Skype, building a telecoms company, the equivalent of BT’s or AT&T’s retail business, but with a near-zero infrastructure cost to them – certainly zero compared with either of the previously named giants. Skype simply piggy-backed on their expenditure.
When I put this to Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s CEO, as I interviewed him in the build-up VON in Stockholm, he smiled wryly. He’s good at that.
While Vonage went the route of building IBM, needing hardware where it was installed, Skype went the Microsoft route, software. We all know who won there.
Skype knew that the hardware would follow as their user numbers became irresistible. Cleverly they would take license fees from the hardware producer, while making their service more attractive.
___What does eBay add?
Well there’s the obvious reasons …
They’ve got huge amounts of cash, as eBay is so profitable, clearly useful, but in the grand scheme of things, so what?
More interestingly they’ve got 168.1m registered users, ideal to grow Skype’s currently 57m registered users.
As I commented at the start of September, eBay’s interest
reflects the company’s quest for new product categories and international markets, or they could integrate Skype into the service, offering purchaser and seller to talk to each other. Another option could be to use Skype’s ability to host group discussions as a way of strengthening communities with the same interests.
This is all good for the short to middle term, growing Skype’s acceptance.
__The killer
I think the killer is slightly further out.
To set the scene – keep in your mind Vodafone, but more abstracted.
eBay own the ‘network’ through Skype.
Skype is a strong brand, with people already talking about Skyping each other. OK, currently it’s not global like Vodafone, but add a bucket-load of eBay cash and that’ll change.
That in itself is strong.
Here comes the interesting part. Search on eBay today for ‘Skype‘ and it brings up 1215 1310 items, mostly USB handsets.
We’ve been watching the market in these add-ons, and have even reviewed a few of them. This market is at a very early stage, but already, we’re seeing design applied to some of these.
When Skype goes beyond being implemented on PocketPC’s it will work without the underlying Operating System. Becomes embedded and significantly cheaper.
What pops out of the end of this is a low-cost mobile handset that speaks a number of wireless protocols and when combined with paid for or free WiFi access (which will be everywhere by then), gives you a serious competitor to a mobile phone.
Hell, eBay/Skype could even create a reference designs or two.
eBay will be in a fantastic position of sitting between the handset makers and the public. Like a global ‘phone shop’ for these devices – collecting a commission for each handset sold – without the shop, stock, support or after-sales care.
It may be that eBay haven’t thinking along these lines, but I’d you’d have to doubt it given the amount of money they’d spent on it.
Update: I’ve not had time to read all around the comments on Skype since the deal, but following writing this, I found an excellent blog on it by Mark Evans. I’d heartily recommend it.
20 October, 2005
Sony VAIO XL1 Digital Living System
Sony are keen for us to ‘redefine’ our living rooms with the release of their new VAIO XL1 Digital Living System, a twin box offering combining a high-end multimedia PC with a 200-disc media changer/recorder.
Clad in natty silver and black casings, the combo runs on Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and connects to a television via an HDMI cable, outputting high-definition video and multi-channel digital audio in a single connection.
Boasting unique functionality as the result of a “close collaboration with Microsoft”, discs inserted into the changer are automatically detected by the PC which connects to the Web (via wired or wireless network) to download any available metadata, including jewel case covers and artist information.
A similar process takes place for movies, where an in-depth synopsis and star, cast, director and producer details etc are automatically downloaded and made accessible onscreen through the included wireless keyboard or remote control.
Sony has innovated once again by introducing a product that is a monumental step forward in defining the way consumers enjoy digital entertainment,” insisted Mike Abary, vice president of VAIO product marketing for Sony Electronics in the US.
“With the XL1, users can still manage all their meaningful entertainment content such as downloaded music, home movies and personal photos. But the really groundbreaking functionality is the additional ability to easily organize, sort, and access packaged content – all of the DVD movies and audio CDs that have been traditionally relegated to a bookshelf,” he added.
There’s no denying that the recording functionality seems mighty impressive to us, with the XL1 able to automatically and sequentially record up to 200 audio CDs from the media changer to the hard drive.
Users can also record a series of television show episodes to the hard drive, and transfer them to blank DVDs stored in the changer
Beating in the heart of the XL1 A/V system is a powerful PC boasting an Intel Pentium D dual-core processor, half a gig of DDR2 memory, PCI-E graphics and space for up to three SATA hard drives (RAID ready).
To ensure that your late night listening pleasure isn’t spoilt by the sound of a mass of Boeing 747-like fans starting up, the XL1 system uses liquid-cooled components for quiet operation.
The Digital Living System will be sold as a package and will be available next month for about US$2,300 (~£1,300, ~€1,930).
Sony VAIO XL1
19 October, 2005
On-Demand Product Reviews, Your Chance
We were sitting around, thinking we were all very clever coming up with the products that we thought readers of Digital-Lifestyles would like to see around xmas time, when one of the throng (Mike), came up with a great idea. Why don’t we ask the readers, rather than second guess them.
Once an idea like that’s been out in the open, it’s pretty hard to think that it should be done in any other way, so today we unveilled the quick-to-fill-in form that will let you contribute.
It’s only going to take seconds to fill in, so give it a go …
Digital-Lifestyles xmas review suggestions
19 October, 2005
Motorola Phone Sales And Profits Soar
Mobile phone heavyweights Motorola, have reported bumper earnings for the third quarter, with profits more than tripling after record sales.
Purring contentedly over a ‘none more black’ balance sheet, Motorola announced that the results for the three months until the end of September revealed a net profit of $1.75bn (~£1bn, ~€1.46bn), compared to $479m from the same period last year.
Handsets were up 41% year-on-year with quarterly sales soaring 26% to a new high of $9.42bn, from $7.5bn for the same period in 2004.
The world’s second largest maker of mobile phones also managed to grab a bigger share of the global mobile phone market, barging their way to a fat 19% slice – up 5.5% over the year, and up 1% since the second quarter of 2005.
Since Ed Zander took over as the company’s CEO in 2004 Motorola have been on a roll, with sales and profits heading in a stratospheric direction.
“We are very excited about our third quarter results and overall performance year-to-date… Excluding re-organisation charges, all four of Motorola’s businesses grew profitably during the quarter,” said a deeply chuffed Zander.
During the last quarter, Motorola managed to ship 38.7 million mobile phones, including 6.5 million of its fashionable slimline Razr units and a quarter of a million iTunes music phones.
The US company is now forecasting pocket-bulging fourth-quarter sales of $10.3bn.
Motorola
19 October, 2005
Gmail UK -> GoogleMail – The background
Going into Gmail today we noticed “Google Mail in the UK” highlighted in red on the top line. Ever curious, clicking it revealed that from today, 19 October 2005, all new accounts created in the UK will use the domain googlemail.com, not the previous Gmail.com.
Sensing a story, we dived onto Google news to find a number of publications had got there first. Figuring if you can’t be first, be thorough, we present the following.
The details below come from extended digging and a long conversation with Shane Smith, CEO of Independent International Investment Research (IIIR), the company in dispute with Google over Gmail. At the end of the piece is a copy of the press release from Google.
There has been a long running trademark dispute in the UK between Google and an UK AIM-listed company, Independent International Investment Research (IIIR), who claim trade mark confusion with their G-mail service.
Given it has been such a long running dispute and anything that Google is close to is so news worthy, it’s not clear why it’s taken so long for this to get on to the news radar.
Google’s free email service, Gmail, started in April, 2004. IIIR’s Mr Smith told us that on that day he’d sent a letter to Larry and Serge at Google pointing out that IIIR already had a service called G-mail, and suggested that at this early stage, they could quickly change its name to GoogleMail to avoid confusion. There was no reply from Google central.
IIIR’s G-mail is an email service that is part of their offering to their clients, enabling them to send IIIR’s research to their clients clients (if you follow). G-mail is an abbreviation of the full name – Graffiti-mail.
Speaking to Smith we learnt that IIIR felt that they had common law in certain jurisdictions, but in their words, “to ensure protection”, applied for trade mark protection in the EU block and the US. Surprisingly this was not something that Google had done already.
Discussions with Google did start, at this point on a friendly level. Smith told us that Google requested that IIIR get an independent valuation carried out for a basis for their discussions, which they duly did.
Back in December 2004, IIIR received a valuation report from Valuation Consulting Ltd putting the value of the trademark at between £25m-£34m.
The document is an interesting read with the crux of it being …
“that a large amount has been written about the free email based service using the Mark and that to re-establish the brand presence would be very costly for Google, we are confident that conservative assumptions should yield a solid valuation as follows.
We have used a very conservative royalty rate of 0.5%, applied to Google’s annualized revenues of $3,224million to give revenues of around $16million attributable to advertising promoted by use of the Mark. Using a very conservative multiple range of 3 to 4 to capitalize this amount gives a range of values of, say, $48million to $64million or, using an exchange rate of 1.9:1 £25million to £34million.”
Smith told us that following this Google rejected the reports findings and counter-offered an amount “seemingly picked out of thin air”, that “couldn’t be justified”.
To add to the complexity of this tale, there’s a separate dispute in Germany over the Gmail name, by a company separate to IIIR (as mis-reported in many publications). Back in September, this other company had their injunction against Google upheld (PDF).
Reading through past press releases of IIIR it’s clear that one of their concerns has been having sufficient funds to pursue Google, whose pockets are significantly deeper. In their September release we not that IIIR points out that “the Board (IIR’s) notes that it has received three expressions of interest in providing finance for costs of litigation and these approaches will be explored further.”
Given Google’s world-shattering valuation, it’s hardly surprising (if not a little disheartening) to hear that there are people queuing up to find a dispute with Google.
__We wonder …
We’ve been wondering for a while at Digital-Lifestyles towers, why we’ve been seeing news stories to the right of email in Gmail, rather than the pure commercials that were previously being shown. Given IIIR’s estimated values are based on a percentage of Google advertising revenue, we wonder this has lead to the new mixture of news stories and advertising.
There was a buzz around the office when we wondered if the use of the new googlemail.com domain is a chance to get a better/more personal username on the service. A dash to the browser and some frantic keying later revealed nothing of the sort. It appears that the both gmail and googlemail accounts are drawn from the same pool.
Another thing we learnt reading through the papers prepared for IIIR is that Google didn’t invent the technology behind AdSense themselves, they bought a company back in April 2003, Applied Semantics, who provided it. This was news to us.
__Summary
When I asked what Smith thought of Google’s Don’t be evil mantra, he suggested they might add that “to be pretty nasty is OK.”
We’ve got no idea who is right and who is wrong here, we’re just reporting what we’ve been told. We leave the legal wrangling to overpaid lawyers.
It’s clear that many Gmail users are pretty unhappy today, Smith said he’d received a large number of mail from Gmail users asking why he was ‘bullying’ Google.
————————–
Google’s Press statement – On record
From today, Google is changing the name of its web-based email service, Gmail, to Google Mail in the UK.
Another company has claimed the rights to Gmail but their applications are still pending and they have not provided sufficient evidence to establish common law rights based on use in the large number of countries it claimed use. In spite of the tenuous nature of their claims, we still tried to resolve this matter through negotiations.
This company has been very focused on a monetary settlement. We went back and forth trying to settle on reasonable terms, but the sums of money this company is demanding are exorbitant.
We are still working with the courts and trademark office to ensure our ability to use the Gmail name, but this could take years to resolve, and in the meantime, we want our users to have an email address and experience they can rely on.
We also want to relieve both Google and our users of the distraction of the dispute, so that Google can focus on providing a great product, and our users can enjoy a consistent, positive email experience.
So, we are voluntarily making the switch from Gmail to Google Mail and have now begun to issue new users ‘@googlemail.com’ addresses.
Starting October 19, 2005, all new accounts will have @googlemail.com addresses. We believe this is the most simple solution rather than having what could be years of distracting negotiations and disputes for the company and uncertainty about the name for our users.
We want to reassure our users that the service itself it not changing: all messages are being sent and delivered as before
On background
- Google first offered the Gmail service on April 1st, 2004. Immediately after we offered this new product – which made front page news worldwide – the CEO of a company called Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) filed a trademark application in the US for the name ‘Gmail’.
- IIIR’s G-mail (note that IIIR uses the mark with a hyphen but filed for Gmail without a hyphen) is a feature in IIIR’s Pronet financial analytics software that a Pronet user can click on to send a report to someone else who also has Pronet software.
- It appeared that our product and their feature seemed to have two different audiences and uses, and were fairly distinct from one another. (We do not believe their product is a web based email service; to say that it is would be like saying Picasa is an email service because it allows you to email photos.)
- Shane Smith, IIIR’s chairman and chief executive, contacted us in June 2004 and claimed rights to ‘Gmail’ and sought a “business solution”; in other words, they wanted money.
- In usual circumstances, when a trademark owner who cares about and wants to protect the rights of their mark approaches the user of the mark with a claim, they take a fairly standard number of actions: they seek to prevent further use (often through a cease and desist or an injunction) and determine ways to reduce consumer confusion.
- IIIR did not take any of these standard courses – they did not ask us to stop using the name until almost a year after first contacting us and never went to court to ask for an injunction – they just asked us for money.
- Gmail is obviously a name we care about and millions of users around the world are now familiar with, so we of course began negotiations—starting with asking for details of their product and instances of their usage of the name.
- While we only received more letters and a few company brochures, we really wanted our users to keep the name Gmail and thus we went back and forth trying to settle on reasonable terms. IIIR rejected our offers.
- Bear in mind that IIIR’s claim to rights in the Gmail mark is tenuous at best. They do not have a trademark registration (they have a pending application). They do not use Gmail, they use G-mail (with a hyphen). They don’t use G-mail for an email service.
- During our negotiations, we asked for evidence to support their assertion that they had common law rights in 80 countries, and evidence of their actual user base. To date, they have still not sent us that information. But they have continued to ask for money.
- Last June, more than a year after Gmail was launched and over which time the product had become well liked by users, IIIR finally asked us to stop using the name.
- They asserted that our use of “Gmail” was not respecting their intellectual property rights and was tainting the integrity of their business.
- At the same time, Mr. Smith decided to go to the UK media with his story, despite having asked us to keep our discussions confidential. When we tried to respond to media inquiries, IIIR became incensed and provided more alleged ‘information’ about our confidential email discussions.
- Trying to work things out has become distracting, and annoying. We feel like we are being taken advantage of.
- We believe that we have a good case for the trademark rights, and would be willing to leave it up to the courts to decide. Unfortunately, this process can take years.
- We do not want new users to constantly wonder whether they’ll need to change their email address. We do not want users caught in the middle of what has become a very public debate. We do not want to be continually distracted by this while we’re trying to build a better email service.
- So starting October 19, 2005, everyone in the UK will see Gmail as Google Mail. All new email accounts we issue will be @googlemail.com accounts.
- This change seemed a good way to resolve this to the benefit of our users.
19 October, 2005
Bent Bulgarian Border Officials Caught By GPS
Two thieving Bulgarian border officials were caught red-handed after their attempt to steal a high tech phone from US ambassador John Beyrle was foiled, thanks to the handset’s built in GPS tracking device reports The Inquirer.
Apparently, Beyrle was travelling from Varna to Hungary and it was during the customary x-ray inspection of hand luggage that his expensive phone went walkabout.
The Ambassador kicked up a fuss, but airport staff and customer officers all claimed that they hadn’t found the phone.
The purloining picaresque pair looked like they’d got away with pocketing the phone until Beyrle flipped open his laptop, activated the phone’s GPS (Global Positioning System) and waited to see where it would appear onscreen.
It turned out it wasn’t far away, nestling deep inside the pocket of the bent customs official.
Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry said the two policemen would be fired and prosecuted and their superiors disciplined following the incident.
The Inquirer Website also reports that it’s considered fair game for dastardly bureaucrats to swipe the electronic gadgets and expensive gizmos from foreigners passing through Bulgaria, with a large amount of foreign post regularly disappearing.
Faced with such large scale larceny, regular travellers to the country may be wise to consider fitting GPS tags to all of their belongings.
GPS underpants anyone?
The Inquirer
19 October, 2005
Nuvi: Garmin’s Mini Marvel Offers GPS, MP3 And Audio Book
Quickly earning a We Want One Now Please accolade, Garmin have announced the nüvi, a feature packed GPS travel assistant the size of a deck of playing cards.
Packed into its diminutive dimensions (3.87″ W x 2.91″ H x 0.87″ D, 5.1 ounces) is a portable GPS navigator, Audio Book Player, traveller’s reference, and MP3 player.
Songs can be loaded onto the SD card using drag-and-drop.
Sporting a 320 x 240 pixels (3.5″ diagonal) 64k TFT touch screen display, the nüvi’s built in GPS provides automatic routing, turn-by-turn voice directions, and finger-touchscreen control via a built in speakerphone.
For the easily bored traveller, the nüvi packs in an MP3 player, audio book player from Audible.com, JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, and calculator.
Garmin are claiming that the built-in lithium ion battery offers between 4-8 hours of battery life.
There’s also optional language and content support from software packages such as the Language Guide and Travel Guide.
The Language Guide
The Language Guide uses data provided by Oxford University Press and provides a multilingual word bank, phrase bank, and five bilingual dictionaries.
With the guide, travellers can look up and translate more than 17,000 words or 20,000 phrases per language with a text-to-speech interface letting users talka da lingo.
Travel Guide
The optional Garmin Travel Guide has a ton of travel information on tap including reviews and recommendations for restaurants and tourist attractions.
The information is integrated with nüvi’s GPS functionality, so that hungry drivers can be guided to the nearest eatery, with the nüvi’s text-to-speech functionality keeping eyes on the road.
The nüvi comes in two flavours:
nüvi 300
Sold exclusively in Europe, the nüvi 300 comes with approximately 200 MBs of internal memory for storage of supplemental maps, MP3s, and audio books (available from Audible.com). Pricing to be announced.
nüvi 350
This top of the range configuration contains full European mapping and is compatible with the GTM 10 FM TMC traffic receiver, making it easy to calculate new routes to avoid snarl ups.
The nüvi 350 comes with an A/C charger and provides around 700 MBs of internal memory for storage of supplemental maps, MP3s, and audio books.
Garmin have only announced domestic US pricing so far, with the North American versions (pre-loaded City Navigator NT maps of the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico) retailing for the rater precise amount of $969.22 (£555, €810).
Availability is expected sometime in November 2005.
Garmin
18 October, 2005