Watchphones, Tiny TVs and Other Shiny Objects at CTIA [VIDEOS]
October 12, 2009
Where’s wireless technology for devices headed? If this fall’s industry event, CTIA, is any indication, it’s heading in a myriad of different directions. Of course there was news of a Barnes & Noble color Kindle competitor, but there were also several handheld devices on the expo floor highlighting the latest innovations and trends in wireless technology.
Case in point, these three extremely unconventional gadgets. They include a watch that doubles as a smartphone, a mini television for consuming high-quality, live entertainment, and a tiny computing device that’s much smaller than a netbook but connects to the web over a 4G network.
The jury’s still out on whether or not any of these products will influence market trends, but they definitely have us wondering, what will they come up with next?.
1. K&S W Phonewatch
Want a watch that doubles as a touchscreen smartphone, MP3 player, camera, and video camcorder? It sounds like something straight out The Jetsons, but Kempler & Strauss debuted a product that does just that at CTIA.
Dubbed the W Phonwatch, the watch does tell time, but it also doubles as a touchscreen smartphone. It comes equipped with a micro SD slot, stereo MP3 player, camera, video recorder/player, and games. It’s also Bluetooth (Bluetooth)-enabled and works with a funky K & S Communicator. Of course why use the Communicator when you can just talk straight into the watch? Watch our video interview for a full demonstration of the watch/phone in action.
Price point: $199
Service plan: Carrier dependent
Fun fact: It’s not exactly waterproof, but it’s sweat-proof so you can take it to the gym. Just don’t try to take stealth video in the gym locker room.
2. FLO TV Personal Television
flo tv
Single purpose devices like the Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s soon-to-be-released eBook reader are the antithesis to all-in-one devices like smartphones and tablets. They’re not exactly mainstream, but they do appeal to niche audiences that want a device that does one thing extremely well.
In the case of the aforementioned examples, that one thing is reading electronic books. But Qualcomm, which just announced their personal handheld television, FLO TV, has applied that same logic to watching high-quality live and time-shifted television.
Just slightly bigger than an iPhone, the device comfortably rests in your hands or stands up on its own via the built-in stand, has a 3.5 inch touchscreen, supports up to 5 hours of TV watching on a full charge, and uses the FLO TV dedicated multicast network to provide a buffer and download-free experience.
It’s too early to tell if this is a hit or miss, but the product delivers on it’s single mission — a great TV watching experience. The television content is currently limited, but does include Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN.
Price point: $249.99
Service plan: $8.99 p/mo
Fun fact: You can channel surf with your fingers.
3. Samsung Mondi
This device is a bit of a head-scratcher. Launched a few months ago, the Samsung Mondi is not a phone or a netbook, but it runs on Windows Mobile, acts like a full-fledged computer with Microsoft Office Mobile, comes complete with a webcam for video chat, applications, a 4.3″ LCD touchscreen, 4GB of internal memory, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and is only slightly bigger than a typical smart phone.
On the one hand it’s a mobile internet device for more sophisticated computing and internet access over a 4G network (WiMAX) or local Wi-Fi, on the other hand it fits in your pocket.
It’s by no means the perfect device, after all women with fingernails may have trouble using the keyboard, and the touch sensitivity could be much improved, but it’s a very business appropriate device for productivity on the run. Is it the next great gadget? You tell us.
Price point: $499.99 (Best Buy)
Service plan: Carrier dependent
Fun fact: You can use it as a phone, with VoIP applications like Skype (Skype).
Twitter’s First Séance to Talk Dead Celebrities
October 12, 2009
Add this to the list of extraordinary (in every sense of the word) uses of Twitter. A psychic in the UK plans to conduct what The Sun is calling “the world’s first online séance” using the microblogging service. The name? You guessed it: Tweance.
The Tweance will take place on October 30th (to mark Halloween), and users are being asked to tweet their nominations for the four celebrities that they would like the psychic – Jaynce Wallace – to contact. She will then post the “Q&A” to Twitter (Twitter).
I’m not going to comment on Wallace’s supposed clairvoyance, but it does seem worth noting that there seems to be a promotional tie-in, as the Tweance Twitter account is promoting a store in the UK that sells Halloween costumes. Are there enough people wanting to talk to Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, or the late Michael Jackson to make it at least marginally successful? Probably so.
Meanwhile, which dead celebs do you want to hear from in 140 characters or less? Share your nominations in the comments.
Browse the Reality on Your Android Phone With Layar
August 18, 2009
There’s something very appealing (especially if you’re a tech geek) about the idea of augmented reality. Being able to see the invisible meta data in the physical real world around you feels like something from a sci-fi novel, and with the help of an Android (Android) application which just reached version 2.0, Layar, it’s now a reality.
Layar is a Reality Browser, which means it displays real time digital meta data on top of the physical world around you, as seen through the camera of your mobile phone. Point the camera anywhere, and you’ll see layers of information on top of real world objects; these layers can be real estate info, bars and shops, tourist information, tweets from users etc. Imagine sitting in an internet cafe and seeing what the folks around you are tweeting through you camera? Well, that’s exactly how it works.
Besides looking through the camera of your phone, you can also select map view, which then looks a lot like a regular GPS application. You can see points of interest (POI), and each one can be linked to video, sound clip, or a mobile site for more information; you can also play live location based trivia games, check route description to the POI and more.
With version 2.0, Layar has given access to its API to 500 more developers, which are currently developing more content layers. Having Twitter or Wikipedia (Wikipedia) info layers on your phone is nice, but Layar is going to need support from many more developers if the application is to become really useful. Current partners also include Brightkite (Brightkite), Yelp (Yelp), and Trulia.
As of now, Layar is available as a free Android application anywhere in the world, while support for other platforms, including the iPhone 3GS, is coming later. Check out a couple of funny introductory videos below.
New Facebook Lawsuit: This Time, Over Online Privacy Laws
August 18, 2009
When you are well known and have some cash in the bank, you’re probably going to get sued at least once in your life. When you are Facebook (Facebook) and you have 250+ million users, increase the amount of lawsuits by a factor of 10 or so. Yes, Facebook has been sued once again, this time for allegedly misleading members on the use of their personal information and for violating California privacy laws.
The Orange County lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Facebook users, according to the AP – a photographer, an actress, two children under 13 (despite needing to be 13 or older to legally use Facebook) and a “user of the original Facebook.” It seeks monetary damages, attorney’s fees, and a trial by jury.
As you’d expect, Facebook believes that there is “no merit to this suit” and intends to fight it. We could go on and on about past Facebook lawsuits, many of them similar to this one. There was the lawsuit seeking $70.50 in damages, the text messaging lawsuit, the iKimbo patent, a class-action lawsuit for Facebook Beacon, the famous ConnectU debacle, and most recently, Power.com suing Facebook over data ownership. We’re pretty sure this list is nowhere near comprehensive.
Look: Facebook faces these types of suits all the time, and most of the time they are either dismissed or settled. Yes, Facebook’s had some thorny affairs with privacy, but recently they’ve been moving in the right direction with Facebook Democracy. Allowing users to vote on their own Terms of Service and letting them vote on changes is more than most sites offer. Besides, this lawsuit complains about common practices being illegal, such as changing the Terms of Service. It essentially rails against Facebook for 40 pages on practically every one of its featurse.
From the parts that we’ve read, we suspect that this California lawsuit doesn’t worry Facebook very much at all.
iPhone to Become #1 Camera on Flickr
August 18, 2009
For the longest time, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi has been the most widely used camera on Flickr. With a 10.1 MP Lens, an image sensor vibration cleaning system, 9-point auto focus, and a mid-range price point, it’s easy to see why the Canon camera has been so popular with the photography enthusiasts on Yahoo’s photo-sharing website.
But while Canon has dominated, there’s another camera that’s been zipping up the Flickr charts. Actually, camera phone would be more precise, because we’re talking about the iPhone.
That smartphone, with its weak 2 MP camera and its lack of zoom, is now set to overtake Canon Rebel XTi as the #1 camera on Flickr (Flickr). This is according to Flickr’s Camera Finder graphs. Actually, as the LA Times has already caught, the iPhone has already passed the Rebel XTi on a few occasions as the two duke it out for the top spot.
So what does this development mean? First, it’s a reflection of the intense popularity of mobile smartphones and specifically the rise of the iPhone. You always have a camera in your pocket (and with the 3GS, a camcorder too). Just as important is that it’s easy to upload your pictures directly from your mobile phone to your Flickr account. That’s something most digital cameras can’t do, since they aren’t connected to 3G or Wifi connections.
This doesn’t mean people prefer lower quality images over the higher resolution photos that can be captured with cameras of the Rbel XTi’s quality. Instead, it’s a sign that the world is becoming a more mobile place. Being able to get your photos to all of your friends while on-the-go is part of that mobile revolution.
Digital Textbooks: 3 Reasons Students Aren’t Ready
August 18, 2009
For higher education students who spend an average of $702 per year on course materials, mostly textbooks, the prospect of going digital is an appealing one. Among the theoretical benefits of digital textbooks is the possibility of significant cost savings due to lower overhead costs — bits are cheaper than printed pages, after all. Unfortunately, students shouldn’t chuck their backpacks any time soon; there still exist some major hurdles that digital textbooks must overcome before they widely replace traditional, printed textbooks on college (and high school) campuses.
The benefits of digital textbooks are numerous: they’re potentially cheaper, they’re better for the environment (at least so long as you don’t continually need to upgrade your electronic book reader), they weigh less, they can be updated more easily, and they’re more easily searched. But for all that, a number of hurdles still exist.
1. Cost Savings Must be Greater
In theory, digital textbooks should cost a lot less than their printed counterparts. Textbook publishers will always have overhead costs (they must still compensate authors, editors, typesetters/designers, proofreaders, indexers, etc.), but the costs associated with physically printing, binding, warehousing, and shipping the book are eliminated when going digital. Further, many textbook publishers already publish electronic editions of their books. McGraw-Hill, for example, which is one of the largest textbook publishers in the United States, publishes nearly 95% of its books electronically.
In practice, though, the cost savings for electronic textbooks are miniscule. “Human Biology,” a textbook published by Pearson imprint Benjamin Cummings, for example, costs about $50 used, and about $80 new in its printed/hard copy form (according to BigWords.com). Via electronic textbook publisher CourseSmart, the digital version costs just over $70, a savings of about 12.5% over the printed version. However, the printed version can be kept forever or sold back at the end of the semester to mitigate costs, while the electronic version is automatically deleted after 180 days, and requires additional equipment, such as an ebook reader or a laptop computer. As a student, which of these options makes more sense?
“At the moment, there’s not a lot of [cost savings],” Tom Rosenthal, the senior manager of electronic product sales at textbook publisher Academic Press, told the Wall Street Journal. Those cost savings will have to become more significant for students to start opting for electronic texts over printed ones.
2. A Standard Format is Needed
When Amazon announced the larger format Kindle DX in May, and along with it a pilot digital textbook program at several major US universities to be launched this fall — including Princeton, UVA, Case Western, Arizona State, and Reed College — we called it “a game changer.” But it also raises a very important question about formats and ebook compatibility issues.
There are many different competing ebook formats and a huge number of textbook publishers that don’t all use the same format. If I buy a book on the Kindle, it may not necessarily be available on my Sony reader (and I certainly won’t be able to transfer that specific purchase from one reader to the other), and if I buy a book through CourseSmart, I need to use their proprietary software to download it. What that means for students in a practical sense is that vendor lock-in might prohibit them from going print-free even if they wanted to, because not all of their required course materials may be available for the reader or software they invested in. Because buying an ebook reader is a significant initial cost outlay, it’s hard to expect students to make that investment without assurances that all, or at least nearly all, of their required books will be available in that format.
With ebook readers expected in the next year from Plastic Logic, Hearst, and News Corp., and the much-rumored “Apple Tablet” on the horizon, things may only get more muddled.
3. Questions of Ownership
One of the most important stumbling points for the adoption of digital texts is the question of who actually owns the books. CourseSmart’s books, for example, generally only last for 180 days before being automatically deleted, which means that students are essentially renting them for a set period of time. That’s not a consideration students need to make when purchasing a hard copy book from a bookstore, where the answer to question of ownership is very clear.
Further, the recent Orwellian (literally) case of Amazon remotely deleting books from Kindle readers, has rightly raised a number of eyebrows. One high school student even filed a lawsuit against the ecommerce giant when, as he claims, the notes he had made on the book for school were “rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book,” as a result of the remote deletion.
“Amazon.com had no more right to hack into people’s Kindles than its customers have the right to hack into Amazon’s bank account to recover a mistaken overpayment,” said Jay Edelson, the lawyer who filed the case.
If students feel that they don’t actually own the textbooks they purchase, or that their books might be taken away before they are done with them (or that their notes might be damaged), they’re unlikely to embrace electronic textbooks.
Pakistan Independence Day Wallpapers
August 7, 2009
بسم اللھ الرحمن الرحیم
Asalam-o-Alaikum
“Mairay HathOan Aur Hontoan Say KhusHboo
Jati Nahi K Main Nay
Ism-e-MUHAMMAD {Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam}
Ko Likha BohaT Aur ChoomA Bohat”
Pakistan Independence Day Wallpapers | 14 August Wallpapers
Another beginning, another influx, another August; the happiness of feeling and celebrating 14th of August is on its bloom. The arrival of the month of August always brings a flood of patriotic sentiments & emotions along with the feelings of independence.
Here is the collection of Pakistan Independence Day Wallpapers:
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Pakistan Independence Day Wallpaper-1 |
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Pakistan Independence Day Wallpaper-2 |
GET FULL LIST OF PAKISTAN INDEPENDENCE DAY WALLPAEPRS:
CLICK HERE
Asalam-o-Alaikum
Muhammad Faisal Jawaid Attari
Huge Collection of Ramadan Wallpapers
August 7, 2009
بسم اللھ الرحمن الرحیم
Asalam-o-Alaikum
“Mairay HathOan Aur Hontoan Say KhusHboo
Jati Nahi K Main Nay
Ism-e-MUHAMMAD {Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam}
Ko Likha BohaT Aur ChoomA Bohat”
Ramadan Wallpapers | Ramazan Wallpapers | Ramzan Wallpapers | Ramadan Kareem Wallpapers
What is Ramzan?
Ramzan is the ninth month according to Islamic Lunar calendar. Ramzan (written as Ramadan) is derived from the Arabic root word ‘ramida’ or ‘arramad’ that means intense scorching heat and dryness, especially of the ground. Ramadan is so called to indicate the heating sensation in the stomach as a result of thirst. Others said it is so called because Ramadan scorches out the sins as it burns the ground. Some said it is so called because the hearts and souls are more readily receptive to the admonition and remembrance of Allah during Ramadan, as the sand and stones are receptive to the sun’s heat.
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Get Full List of Ramadan Wallpapers: CLICK HERE
Asalam-o-Alaikum
Muhammad Faisal Jawaid Attari
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