[photopress:sony_vaio_talking_mouse.jpg,thumb,alignleft] It looks like there is a tendency to multifunctionality at the accessories’ market. Today I’ve found two mice: from YapperNut and Sony. Both devices are similar in essence (mouse converting into VoIP supporting receiver), though have different design and, undoubtedly, price
In the case “Who was the first” I guess Sony looses, but in the case “Who will skim the cream off” the situation is vice versa.

[photopress:kng_ipod_dock_dj.jpg,thumb,alignleft] A Japanese company KNG, which specializes in customer electronics and accessories, has presented on the CES a couple of new dock station for iPod, as AVING says. The design of DJ and Robot is pretty cute, plus the guys are moving with the iPod’s featuring music. If only I had an iPod

[photopress:gigabeatLarge.jpg,full,alignright]Just announced! The Toshiba Gigabeat S Series Portable Media Center offers a vivid 2.4″ color display and an extended storage capacity, so you can take your favorite digital media with you. Download recorded TV shows from TiVo Series2 or feature-length movies from movie studio Web sites, and then watch them on your Portable Media Center or a TV. Listen to music and download album art from online music providers. Tune into your favorite FM radio station with the unique FM tuner feature. Create impressive photo shows set to music, or enjoy interactive gaming with integrated audio for Microsoft Xbox 360™. Available Spring 2006.

Features
Compact dimensions with up to 60 gigabytes (GB) of storage space
FM radio tuner
Extended battery life (20 hours of audio and up to 5 hours of video)
Familiar Windows Mobile software navigation
Compatible with popular media file formats, including .wmv, .wav, JPEG, and MP3
Media download from Media Center PCs
Recorded TV download from TiVo Series2
Audio integration with Xbox 360
Available in Metallic Blue, Piano Black, and Piano White

Accessories

Earphones
Power adapter
USB cable for PC synchronization
A/V cable and output
Carrying case

Specifications

Display: 2.4″ QVGA (320 x 240) LCD screen
Storage: 30 GB or 60 GB hard drive
Battery hours: 20 of audio/5 of video
MPU: Freescale i.MX
System requirements: Microsoft Windows Media Player 10

Toshiba

[photopress:W398.jpg,thumb,alignleft] I’m a proud owner of Motorola E398 (actually, patched yesterday to ROKR E1). What was a surprise when I’ve seen today on Engadget a brand new Chinese cell phone Shuoying W398 – a twin brother of black version representative of Motorola Family. The impostor’s specs are cooler than of the original’s tube: a dual-band GSM/GPRS handset with a 2.0-inch LCD screen, a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, and a TransFlash memory card slot, MP3 and MPEG4 media player, but a nasty 100 song limit. And it doesn’t support iTunes as my fresh firmwared Motorola E398.

The Korean group LG has just presented their latest model, the LG-KW9200. Quite a nice design, and the phone is compatible with GSM and CDMA networks (hence the name World Phone). Granted, it’s not the first that offers these featured, but the previous one was quite bulky and the design wasn’t very nice either. It also offers a 1.3MP camera and MP3 playback functions. So if you’re a worldwide road warrior, this might just be the phone for you.

As per techdirt article, Verizon starts Wireless music download offering that would let you transfer songs to your phone if you bought them online (for $1/song) or let you pay twice as much if you really, really, really needed the song immediately and wanted to download it directly to your phone over the air. That wasn’t that surprising, as everyone had pretty much expected it.
However, PCS Intel is claiming that signing up for this program on your phone might have some nasty side-effects that could interest some anti-trust lawyers. It’s using Microsoft technology to handle copy protection, and apparently if you upgrade your phone to support Verizon Wireless’ music store you will no longer be able to play MP3s on your phone. Basically, the new phone software proactively stops any attempts at playing MP3s — which PCS Intel claims was part of the agreement Microsoft made with Verizon Wireless. If they were going to do this, then they wanted the phones to be exclusively set to play Microsoft’s format. If true (and some additional support would be nice) that should set off quite a few anti-trust alarm bells somewhere. PCS Intel claims to have an internal memo from Verizon Wireless discussing this issue, and saying that should anyone complain, they’re to be given a refurbished phone with older firmware, but that users are not to be warned ahead of time that an upgrade will wipe out their MP3-playing abilities. If this is true, it looks bad for both Verizon Wireless and Microsoft.

In my opinion, it is not only weakness of Verizon’s, but of all the “campaign cells for $1″, where a provider imposes his services on the subscribers. Actually, you mustn’t be a Tech Guru to update firmware with a USB-cable. Thanks to Google it is not a problem to find one in the Net.

PS On the picture (left to right): Microsoft Corporation Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, Palm, Inc., President and CEO Ed Colligan and Verizon Wireless President and CEO Denny Strigl announce a strategic alliance to expand the Smartphone market with a new line of Treo Smartphones from Verizon Wireless at a press conference in San Francisco, Sept. 26, 2005.

GSM smartphone Nokia N71
GSM phone Samsung SGH-P300

[photopress:DMB_PT_LP1800.jpg,thumb,alignleft] Pantech & Curitel has just unveiled 2 new DMB phones in Korea, the PT-L1800 for LG Telecom and the PT-K1800 for KTF. Quite a success from a design point-of-view, and these phones offer more than DMB too (MP3 player, digital camera, GPS, QVGA TFT screen, …). But sorry to disappoint you, these are Korea-only devices …

More photos

[photopress:card_handheld.jpg,thumb,alignleft] This card would make mp3 players like iPod history and most PDA’s and cell phones look bulky and old. It is called “All-in-One Card” or AIO Card” (or Advanced Input Output Card) It has almost everything you need in a modern gadget and more.

AIO card is a thin client. It is like a remote display on a card over wireless. It means all its processing, and storage remains on a powerful server. It uses the same thin client technology found in Sun Rays. It only needs a small processor that does nothing but send the touch and other inputs to a server, and the server sends the display and sound back. Since all the storage is on a server, it gives you virtually unlimited storage for your data, pictures and songs. (unlikes iPods and mp3 players which have a limited memory)

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At the beginning of the year Russian Telecommunication Minister Leonid Reiman had a meeting with president Putin and reported that 84% of Russian population is cell phone users. But what was a surprise when Putin claimed that he doesn’t own a cell. It is really a surprise, because it is rumored that his wife is a co-owner of Megafon – one of the biggest Russian Cell Operators.