If I want to watch a vampire movie I watch something along the lines of Blade. My wife on the other hand is a big Twilight fan and prefers her vampires all glittery and limp wristed. It’s hard to get away from Twilight and the latest product bearing the name has nothing to do with vampires. The Pure Twilight is a radio that has a dome on top that glows with all sorts of different colors as a type of light therapy.
The Twilight has a USB port that you can sue to charge your phone or other device. You can connect your MP3 player or iPod to the thing easily for playback. The lights are supposed to help you fall asleep and the clock has a timer that will turn them of altogether when you want them to.
It can be used for kids with built-in lullabies like twinkle, twinkle, little star’ and ‘rock-a-bye baby’ and it has natural sounds like waves to help you fall asleep. Pricing is unknown at this time.
What’s this? Two devices apparently of Microsoft origin in Verizon’s database prefixed by MSONE and MSTWO on the eve of Microsoft’s big presser — an event widely thought (and even announced) to be the unveiling of ProjectPink. We’re also seeing Sharp, the Sidekick manufacturer named on the Turtle and Pure looking handsets that passed through the FCC. Really though, “One” and “Two?” Surely those words are just placeholders awaiting today’s event before getting properly named, right? Who knows… when you’re believed to be launching a competing platform against your own Windows Phone 7 OS while simultaneously keeping the WinMo 6.x dreams alive for businesses, hell, anything goes.
Update:9 to 5 Mac is suggesting that the actual retail names of the devices will be Kin. As in next of, as in family. Since the company has an event in just a few hours, we’ll obviously know for certain very soon, but it does look likely given the use of Kin in the listing above.
Man, Microsoft is not even trying to be coy with its Pink launch tomorrow — these happy and attractive young people pictured on the livestream page are clearly being delighted by the “Turtle” portrait slider that keeps leaking all over the place. Or maybe they’re just stoked they can use SanDisk microSD cards with it — that’s how the kids react to removable storage nowadays, right?
In other news, Reuters says the phones won’t actually be called Pink, and that they’re likely scheduled to ship this summer, so that’s something, we suppose. Honestly, we just don’t know what Microsoft is going to offer here that’ll be more attractive to teens than Windows Phone 7 — we’re still hoping to be wowed tomorrow, but we’ve got a suspicion we’ll just be confused and sad. Which isn’t a bad way to market something to teens, we suppose. Microsoft Pink: it’s like having bad feelings.
P.S.- If you squint just right, that dude totally looks like a young Bill Gates. He also loves cuddles.
So, we just ran the whole SanDisk fiasco, and now it looks like the Turtle phone, which is the first of two handsets we should see this coming Monday. The video is super short, and it actually even includes a stock advertising image of the Turtle that leaked a month or so ago, but at least you get to see what the phone looks like plugged in, sitting next to a laptop, right?
Here’s the strange part. Windows Mobile 7. That’s what the author of the video calls the Operating System on the device, which they say that runs very smoothly. And it’s also very responsive. And, from what we can tell, that’s a good thing for any phone on the market. Unfortunately, the photo taker wasn’t able to get any video, or take any more photos than the ones you see in the slideshow, but this is better than nothing, right?
What do you think of the way it looks? It’s definitely round, no questioning that. And, depending on how the slide activates, this might be something that the teen demographic definitely takes hold of. On a personal note, though, we’re more interested in seeing the Pure in action. Just three days to wait. Consider our interest piqued, Microsoft.
Here’s a real quick, albeit pretty substantial leak from a company that should probably know better. Courtesy of PhoneScoop, SanDisk has spilled the beans on Microsoft’s big upcoming project. If you’ll recall, Verizon Wireless was last spotted teasing that something big was coming. And while there were all sorts of rumors swirling around which handsets could be included in that box thrown through a paper sheet. But, the general consensus was Project Pink from Microsoft. And, on top of that Microsoft gave us an invite to an event this coming Monday, April 12th. All the stars are lined up, and now we have a confirmation, that Pink is, indeed, the announcement.
So, what’s Project Pink? Well, so far, it’s two handsets: Pure and Turtle. We know that these handsets aren’t Windows Phone 7-based, but something different. However, we do know that, from screenshots we’ve seen, that they do use the same tiled interface that we’ve seen before. Secondly, we know that Microsoft is pinning these handsets, which we assume are the two we’ve seen before, as social networking oriented handsets. Texting, messaging, and social networking sites being the main focus.
We’ll have to wait to get any more details until Monday. It’s not long to wait. Just a weekend. But, thanks to SanDisk, we know that the handsets will at least support MicroSD card slots, and they will be compatible with SanDisk’s variations. So, that’s good news. Anyone out there looking forward to seeing more Turtle and Pure action?
It’s Wednesday. And interestingly enough, we’re probably not the only ones considering today “the day before.” The day before what? Well, it’s the day before we get to fire up our legendary, homegrown liveblogging system again. We’ll be at the iPhone OS 4.0 event, and hopefully you’ll join us as we detail what’s going down with the latest software update from Cupertino. Until then, we’ve got tonight’s Daily Slash. As we go forth, we’ll look into the best of the best in the R3 Media’s network. And in the dredge net, we’ve got the most notorious eReader rumored to make a retail appearance soon, and we have Nintendo telling the world that the iPad isn’t for gaming. Then we’ve got lightsabers that will save your from the dark. And finally, a cellphone that goes way out of its way to be ridiculous.
The Best of R3 Media:
The MyTouch Slide Shows Up in RadioShack: No, no. Not in stores. Well, not where you can get to them as a consumer, anyway. It looks like the MyTouch Slide has popped into a RadioShack inventory list. Unfortunately, the internal list doesn’t have a picture (because we’re hoping it doesn’t look like this), and it’s listed as coming soon. That soon seems pretty . . . Soon, especially if those rumors of a May 17th launch date turn out to be true. [via Android Community]
Apple’s iPad Gets Reviewed: The iPad is one of those devices that’s going to keep getting scrutinized for quite some time. If the iPhone is any indicator, it will keep getting scrutinized up until about the next one comes out, and maybe even past that. But, that’s not stopping the glowing reviews from being issued. Everything iPad reviewed the tablet from Apple, and while there might be some snags (that may get cleared up tomorrow), the overall assessment is that the new gadget from Cupertino is a nice addition to their line-up. [via Everything iPad]
Verizon Wireless Has New Phones Coming Soon: Who would’ve thought! Sure enough, there seems to be enough rumors floating around (or swirling around in a gigantic storm, if you prefer) that Verizon Wireless executives needed to push out a message to employees that they do, in fact, have some new handsets planned for release soon. There’s even more rumors about what the devices may be, and let’s face it: there’s good reason for those rumors. From the Android side of things, it could be an internal message saying that the HTC Incredible is set to launch soon. Or, if you want to remember Microsoft’s got something planned on April 12th, we could very well be seeing the Turtle and Pure hitting shelves soon. Your guess is as good as ours. [via SlashPhone]
The Dredge Net:
Amazon Kindle Hitting Target Stores April 25th: We wouldn’t be going out on too far a limb here if we were going to assume that Amazon, the house that built the Kindle, is a bit worried about the iPad. Yes, the Kindle may still be one of the best, if not the best singular eReader device on the market, but with the launch of the iBookstore and iBooks, the Kindle has some major competition. So, what’s the next step (besides launching a new device)? You start selling your product in brick-and-mortar stores. According to a snapshot of a Target inventory device, there’s a 6-inch Amazon Kindle device listed for purchase. The price? $259 (still). Rumor has it that the device will hit stores on April 25th. [via Engadget]
Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime Says the iPad Isn’t a Threat: First, this: “Clearly, it doesn’t look like their platform is a viable profit platform…” That’s the start of a very interesting quote from the President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime. The rest goes on to say that, because there’s more free downloads than paid ones, the iPad (and iPhone/iPod Touch by default) isn’t a threat to Nintendo, or any of its mobile gaming platforms. We’d have to second guess that a bit, considering reports from companies like Flurry, which tracks sales from Apple’s mobile devices, estimated that there were 30,000 games available in the App Store, and that all of those games bring in an estimated $500 million. Perhaps to Nintendo that’s a low number, but we don’t imagine that Apple, or Steve Jobs for that matter, is wondering if their platforms are gaming worthy. [via Kotaku]
Lightsaber Nightlight Will Keep You Safe From Shifty Sith: Are you a fan of Star Wars? No, a real fan. Because this nightlight is even worse than the bookends we’ve seen in previous editions of the Daily Slash. Well, perhaps worse isn’t the right word, but we will say that this is definitely a product for the hardcore. (Though, we could be wrong.) This lightsaber nightlight actually has seven different color modes, and you can change the color just from a button on a separate remote. The lightsaber light itself hangs on the wall, wherever you want to put it, and it looks like it might do a pretty good job of actually discarding some of those shadows. [via DVICE]
This Cellphone is Made of Marble. Really: There’s nothing much else to add here. This is a cellphone, made of marble. And yes, it’s going to be expensive. And yes, you’ll be stared at by pretty much everyone if you actually even think about getting this. A cellphone. Made from marble. What’s next? We’re almost afraid to ask. [via Gizmodo]
Unwilling or unable to wait for the next major trade show (CTIA in two weeks), LG showed off a king’s ransom worth of new devices to a bunch of journos in the Netherlands this week; most of it appears to be pretty low-end fare, but there were a few notables in the lot. First up, the Cookie Music extends the Cookie brand with Dolby Mobile tech on board (something LG’s been doing pretty frequently lately), a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a tweaked design that looks a little more futuristic than Cookies of old. Viewty was starting to feel like a forgotten marque, but not so — we’ve now got a GT400 Viewty Smile here featuring a 5 megapixel cam and scratch-resistant display. As QWERTY dumbphones go, we’d thought that the GT350 was the KS360′s true successor, but not so — there’s a new KS365 in the mix with revised styling but seemingly very little in the way of upgraded specs. The rest of the lot looks like pretty forgettable stuff — and seeing how LG operates, they’ll all be forgotten and replaced with revised models within a few months’ time anyhow. You know, Circle of Life and all.
Details on Microsoft’s Pink phones seem to be leaking all over the place this week, and we just got a huge piece of the puzzle: an extremely reliable source just told us the two Sharp-made devices will launch exclusively on Verizon, with a possible street date of April 20th. We’ve also got two more photos of the Pure and Turtle — which are legit, as far as we can tell — and some info on the Pink ad campaign, which will indeed be targeted at teens and twentysomethings and centered around that “truly madly deeply” line Microsoft employees have been tossing around lately. (Sort of explains that 4/20 launch date, right?) Whether any of this is good enough to overcome the fact that Pink seems to be a limited featurephone platform launching into a world of cheap smartphones remains to be seen, but this thing is definitely happening. New pic of the Turtle after the break.
Update: We’ve just heard that Pink will be coming to Vodafone internationally as well — which explains why we’ve heard of both CDMA and GSM variants of the two devices.
There’s a lot of rumbling in Project Pink land today, as Microsoft is seemingly nearing that magical time where its much-leaked Sidekick followup can finally see the light of day. First off, we’re hearing from a tipster that the phones (we’ve seen ‘Turtle’ and ‘Pure’ so far) will be exclusive to Verizon, at least at the outset — makes sense, given the CDMA radios we saw at the FCC. He calls the UI “hectic and colorful,” and also says that there’s still some serious cloud backup reliance, along with some desktop software to sync up with the cloud as well, and data plans that including a certain quantity of app downloads a month.
This is all fine and exciting, but it’s helped along by a couple of image leaks. Conflipper, well known among the xda-dev crowd, is teasing the Twitter world with some screenshots of the emergency dialer (which also mention Verizon Wireless), and a Facebook upload from the device, which can be found in the gallery below. The dialer is about as barebones as it gets right now, but there’s a bit of a hint of Windows Phone 7 Series in there to be sure. Finally, Gizmodo hit upon the hardware jackpot with a Mr. Blurrycam capture of the bigscreen ‘Pure’ QWERTY slider (pictured up above). If you really squint your eyes you can make out some of that “hectic and colorful” UI we’re hearing about.
They might not have been revealed at MWC, but that doesn’t mean the news flow on Microsoft’s long-rumored Pink phones needs to stop. Following the FCC entries that hinted at the future character of these devices, we now have word of an industrious hacker getting hold of the firmware for both the Turtle and Pure handsets. According to his data, the Turtle (believed to look like the square-ish creature on the left) will sport a 320 x 240 screen, while the Pure will have a more generous 480 x 320. Neither would encourage much hope for seeing these as the vanguard handsets of the Windows Phone 7 movement, but a litany of references to Premium Mobile Experiences would both confirm our earlier information and suggest that Microsoft is still going to hit us with something more than a simple feature phone. This is backed up by “a strong connection” to NVIDIA’s Tegra chipset, which would be powerful enough to service the rumored video and media management capabilities. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, separate codenames of Lion and Pride have been uncovered, indicating CDMA versions of the Pure and Turtle, whose names are attached to the GSM variants of the two phones. Now if we can just get a release date, we’ll be all set.
