Sci-fi movies often present us with omniscient villains who are able to track the most minute actions of their underlings and foes. Rarely do we get a glimpse into their surveillance systems, but you have to imagine that some of the more rudimentary "employee evaluation" hardware will not be too far off from KDDI's latest. The Japanese cellphone giant has unveiled a new system, built around accelerometers, that can detect the difference between a cleaner scrubbing or sweeping a floor and merely walking along it. Based on new analytical software, stored remotely, this should provide not only accurate positional information about workers, but also a detailed breakdown of their activities. The benefits touted include "central monitoring, "salesforce optimisation," and improvements in employee efficiency. We're guessing privacy concerns were filed away in a collateral damage folder somewhere.

KDDI concocts snooping mobile phones, line managers rub hands with glee originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Andrew Liszewski

The Bugatti Veyron’s million dollar price tag is somewhat justified given what the car is capable of, but I’m afraid I can’t say the same for this ‘Bugatty’ car-shaped cellphone. I mean it’s got all the basic features one would expect to find in a candybar touch-screen cellphone these days, but $200 for a run-of-the-mill, quad-band, gray market handset that doesn’t include a warranty whatsoever is asking a little much. In fact if the price tag doesn’t scare you off, the warning posted by UCables right on the product page should:

Warning:
1. China Mobile Phones does not come with CE certification marking. Any purchase is at your own risk.
2. You solely accept the full risk of any package (or part thereof) being detained by customs for whatever reason and acknowledge and agree that you will not hold IPmart liable for such packages or loss, for whatever reason being unable to be delivered to you.
3. You will also not hold IPmart responsible if the mobile phone does not work within the network coverage of your mobile phone service provider.

So in other words, proceed with caution.

[ 'Bugatty' Car-Shaped Cellphone ] VIA [ GadgetReview ]

By Chris Scott Barr

AT&T has received a lot of grief over their 3G speed and reliability, mostly from iPhone users. Being an iPhone user myself, I tend to agree with such statements. It’s usually not too bad, unless you’re in a crowded area where other people may be sucking up the bandwidth. While I can’t make any direct comparisons, my Sprint 3G card consistently loads pages on my laptop faster than my phone’s 3G connection through AT&T. What’s interesting is that a recent PC World test of the four major carriers, AT&T came out on top for speed and reliability for 3G.

In almost every city tested, AT&T had faster upload and download speeds than the other three carriers. In fact, on average they were 67 percent faster. It sounds like Apple might not be so crazy for sticking it out with AT&T. Granted, their coverage map is still a bit spotty, which means most areas aren’t able to see this awesome speeds.

VIA [ PC World ]

Looks like the rumors we heard were true: august cordwainer Puma has teamed up with Sagem to make a phone -- and it's quite a looker, too. The Puma Phone (as it's called) is a lightweight little guy that boasts an integrated solar cell for charging and charge indicator to let you know how you're doing on juice, a QVGA TFT 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen, plus a 3.2 megapixel cam with LED flash and 6x zoom. It also packs in GPS, a compass and geotagging, plus it's got a host of 'sporty' features (pedometer, stopwatch and GPS tracker)... if you're into an active lifestyle. This bad boy can be strapped to your arm when you're on the go, but don't blame us if it doesn't score you any points with the passersby. The Puma Phone will be available throughout Europe in April of this year -- no word on pricing or availability elsewhere yet. The full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Puma joins forces with Sagem to birth the Puma Phone

Puma joins forces with Sagem to birth the Puma Phone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey there, Mini GD880 -- we've seen plenty of you around here lately -- but we were beginning to wonder if you'd ever get totally, completely, 100 percent official. Well, here we are, day two of MWC, and it was definitely worth the wait. LG's latest featurephone packs a 5 megapixel cam, WiFi, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, and integrated FM radio into a frame that's just 10.6mm in depth and weighs just 99 grams -- about as thin and light as it gets. It also boasts continual over-the-air syncing via LG's new Air Sync service, making it a pretty smart phone -- for a featurephone. The Mini GD880 will be available throughout Europe beginning in March, for an as yet undetermined amount of cash money. The full press release is after the break, but if your heart is filled with desire for this beast, you can hit up the hands-on and impressions in the more coverage link for more photos.

Continue reading LG Mini GD880 finally gets a full on announcement at MWC

LG Mini GD880 finally gets a full on announcement at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Toshiba spits out K01 QWERTY slider at MWC

Toshiba spits out K01 QWERTY slider at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba's just let slip its MWC press, and here's what we've got: the TG01's successor... the TG02. It's a minor update to the original, and yes -- it's exact to that early prototype roadmap leak we saw way back in April. On offer here, we've got this 9.9mm badboy with a 4.1-inch capacitive WVGA touchscreen, 1GHz processor, and a newly retooled 3D menu to boot, running Windows Mobile 6.5. All in all, as we said, a pretty minor update to the handset. There's no firm information for now as to when the TG02 will launch, or how much it'll cost. We'll let you know when we do. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba updates TG01 handset with the TG02

Toshiba updates TG01 handset with the TG02 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know what's really annoying? Teenagers. Even more annoying? Teenagers inventing legitimately useful things and getting awards for it. Meet Alexander Kendrick, the 16-year old inventor of a new low-frequency radio that allows for cave-texting, which isn't some fresh new euphemism, it just means people can finally text while deep underground. How deep, you ask -- well, Alexander's team of intrepid explorers went far enough (946 feet) to record the deepest known digital communication ever in the United States. What you see the young chap holding above is the collapsible radio antenna, though plans are already afoot to ruggedize and miniaturize the equipment to make it more practical for cave explorers and rescuers. Way to go, kid.

Teenager invents low-frequency radio for underground communications originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Gaurav Kheterpal

There is some good news - Google Voice is finally available on the iPhone. However, the bad news is that it runs on your iPhone’s browser and not as a native application. Google has been trying hard to convince Apple to allow Google Voice on iPhone but, no dice.

Google then simply decided to take the matter into its own hands and developed a web version which can be accessed by any HTML browser running on the iPhone. It is recommended to add shortcuts to your home screen for the most important features such as Dialer, Compose SMS, Inbox and Contacts. Something is better than nothing and Google Voice running on the browser is certainly better than no Google Voice on your iPhone.

[ Google Voice ] VIA [ CSMonitor ]

For the nitty gritty of how Nanosys' proprietary LED backlighting technology works, check out our earlier coverage here -- what you really need to know is that the company promises a significantly wider color gamut from its displays, while reducing power consumption by up to 50 percent. Quantum dot LEDs have shown their faces before, but now there's the big hulking heft of LG Innotek -- LG's component manufacturing arm -- behind what Nanosys is offering, which indicates we might actually see the release of nanotech-infused displays within the first half of this year as promised. The early focus appears to be on mobile phones, which gives us yet another next-gen feature to add to our list of requirements for our next phone. Check out the full PR after the break.

Continue reading Nanosys and LG Innotek agree deal for newfangled LED-backlit displays

Nanosys and LG Innotek agree deal for newfangled LED-backlit displays originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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