Esquire offers up rumbling, flashing handbag for mobiles (Unlocking Mobile)
Esquire offers up rumbling, flashing handbag for mobiles
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables We know, it’s a little late for Christmas, but you can bet your bottom dollar that lucky lady of yours is already thinking long and hard about that lovely holiday in February. For the dame who already owns that iPod purse and laptop-toting satchel comes Esquire’s latest rumbling handbag made to alert the carrier (and her posse) whenever a phone call comes in. Apparently, the bag sports a built-in battery pack (powered by AAA cells), a vibration function “three times as powerful” as those found within your mobile, flashy LEDs galore, and a few compartments for less important things like wallets and timeless family photos. Notably, the designer does a decent job from keeping this technologically-inclined purse from taking a dive in the fashion department, but as with most luxury bags we’ve seen these days, expect to pay a hefty premium for those style points whenever this thing lands. Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-timeOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Hitachi does 800 x 480 display for phones
Filed under: Cellphones, Displays Heck, plain ol’ QVGA displays on phones are still a fairly scarce commodity in some parts of the world, but Hitachi knows you want… nay, need more. VGA, perhaps? Nope, keep going; think wider. Hitachi has officially started pumping out copies of its 2.9-inch, 800 x 480 cellphone display, promising web browsing experiences that could finally catch up with the 3G data speeds modern handsets are offering. The company points out that such crazy-fresh resolution typically leads to crazy-fresh battery drainage thanks to increased backlight brightness requirements, but engineers have apparently put in some late nights miniaturizing the circuitry and designing a new pixel structure to minimize power draw. Better yet, the panel promises a 170 degree viewing angle and a 400:1 contrast ratio. Only thing left, it seems, is for some scrappy manufacturer and/or carrier to step forward and announce a killer device wrapped around this sucker. Why do we get the strange feeling we should keep our eyes on NTT DoCoMo for that? Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-timeOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
HTC Athena (X7500): a UMTS/HSDPA quad-band UMPC?
Filed under: Cellphones, HandheldsOk kids, hang onto your hats and dose a grain of salt. According to the lads over at Mobile-Review, the HTC Athena (X7500) is a much hotter and much more highly spec’d device like we thought (hoped) yesterday when it first graced our pages. Certainly, none of this is confirmed, but that beefy Windows Mobile PPC Phone Edition device is now rumored to be running on a 624MHz Intel Bulverde processor pumping away beneath a 5-inch, 262k-color VGA (640×480) touch-sensitive display. It’s overall thickness is in part explained by the fact that it spins either an 8 or 10GB disk drive while a 2100mAh Li-Poly battery provides up to 6 hours of talk, 300 hours of standby, or 8 hours of WMV video playback. Those specs certainly make more sense. Better yet, it’s said to come in two flavors: one for Europe, and a UMTS/HSDPA quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE flavor for the US unlike initial reports. Other notable features include GPS, a standard 3.5-mm jack for headphones, 2 megapixel cam with LED plus another cam up front for video conferencing, dual stereo speakers with 3D surround, USB 2.0 and another USB 1.1 host, TV-out, 802.11b/g WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP/AVRCP profile support. The unit weighs in at 12.3-ounces (350-grams) / 5.24 x 3.8 x 0.78-inches (133 x 97 x 20-mm) making that QWERTY (barely) usable as a table-top keyboard and not some awkwardly held thumbpad. Estimated to be priced between $1,500 and $2,000 which makes it a non-starter for most, if true. Maybe this is HTC’s first take at their UMPC after all. Be sure to hit the read link for the complete list of specifications.[Via PhoneArena] Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-timeOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Samsung’s SCH-V960: “world’s first” optical joystick phone
Filed under: CellphonesWe’ve seen and felt some sorry, craplastic navigation devices over the years. So pardon us while we effuse hope over Samsung’s latest “world’s first,” the optical joystick cellphone. Though not bad, it’s not the SCH-V960′s specs that get us going: EV-DO data, 2 megapixel camera, 2.12-inch 240×320 display, Bluetooth, GPS, and microSD expansion to store your media. Rather, it’s the new joystick with optical sensors which, according to Sammy, reads and reacts to your finger movements for “quick and hassle-free” navigation through the menus. The phone also touts a “smart lighting” featuring to automatically control the brightness of the LCD and keypad to help squeeze a bit more life out of the battery. This 18.6mm /102g phone hits Korea later this month. Don’t be too surprised to find the new optical stick popping up across Samsung’s lineup of audio players, digicams, and UMPCs in the near future. Who knows, maybe they’ve got an iPod Click Wheel on their hands… or not. Another picture after the break.[Via AVING]Continue reading Samsung’s SCH-V960: “world’s first” optical joystick phone Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-timeOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
NYC taxis to map out dead zones in mobile networks
Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, WirelessWe’ve already seen an influx of hybrid vehicles take their places in the mammoth fleet of New York City taxis, and now that the Taxi 2.0 will reportedly sport GPS tracking an built-in televisions, what else is really left to implement? Stockholm-based Ericsson has apparently seized the opportunity in using the random, perpetual motion of NYC’s yellow mainstays to better itself (read: make some coin), and has recently received permission from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to install small devices “about the size of a computer modem” into cabs in order to “feed information about signal strength and clarity to engineers.” The research, which has already been completed in other areas of the world, is being conducted in the Big Apple on behalf of a yet-to-be-named carrier, and it purportedly hopes to more accurately map out dead zones in mobile phone networks. Currently, “at least one fleet” has signed up to participate, and others could join in considering the royalties that will be paid out for tagging along on those zany routes through the city. Of course, this whole system should be relatively invisible to cab riders, but a continual voice recording of furious (and disconnected) passengers could probably work equally well in pinpointing those dead spots.[Via Textually] Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-timeOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Spectec rolls out microSD-packin’ SDIO GPS receiver
Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, StorageIf that handy SD slot in your Treo (or similar smartphone) has gone lonely long enough, you’ve probably been waiting for “that killer device” to slam down in there and boast about. Thankfully, that time has seemingly come, as Spectec’s latest SDIO GPS receiver packs a whole lot of functionality into a minuscule (and sleek) package. Unlike alternative GPS attachments for your handset, the SDG-810 provides a SiRF Star III 20-channel tracking adornment, is WAAS-enabled, and sports a microSD slot to carry up to 2GB of excess data (like maps, for instance) since your original flash memory slot just got occupied. While pricing information wasn’t readily available, this nifty smartphone must-have should be available in your neck of the woods (read: everywhere) real soon.[Via GearDiary] Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-timeOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: cellphones.engadget.com