Oki Electric Industry intros “world’s smallest MP3 chip”
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable AudioAs decreasing chip sizes seems to be all the rage these days, Japan’s Oki Electric Industry isn’t missing out on its own opportunity to go small. The company recently announced that sample shipments of the “world’s smallest MP3 playback chip” were being dispersed, and that manufacturers of cellphones, PDAs, MP3 players (clearly), and essentially anything in which MP3 playback could be crammed into should take notice. The minuscule module — dubbed the ML2011 — packs an MP3 decoder and 650mW amplifier onto a 3.6mm x 4.2mm wafer, and can be conveniently paired with Oki’s reference board and “SoundLib” software in order to bypass that whole headache-inducing “playback software development” phase. If you can spare just a tad more room, and want something that’s instantly mountable, the 5mm x 6mm QFN-packaged version is also on the horizon. While pricing details were kept under wraps, Oki plans to ramp up full scale production by December, and will probably lobby mighty hard to get under the hood of Motorola’s next cash cow.[Via CrissCross] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Roll your own TiVo with a VCR and a cell phone
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment Our peeps at Hack A Day just came across this sweet mod that combines a cell phone with a VCR — you know, the one you’ve been keeping on the off-chance that you might want to watch that tape your parents shot of your vacation to Sea World back in ’85. We’re not sure if it’s the VHS nostalgia or classic Ericsson, but something about this rig really makes us want to put away our mobile-enabled TiVos and Media Centers, and get back to basics recording our shows the hard way. It’s just more rewarding that way, ok?[Via Hack A Day] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Boy Genius drops shots of the BlackBerry 8800!
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds Everybody’s favorite scoopster is at it again over at Engadget Mobile. This time Boy Genius got his hands on pics for three different editions of the BlackBerry 8800, and has kindly shared them with the world. Treo killer? You decide. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Palm briefly confesses to Treo 680, 750 for Cingular
Filed under: Cellphones Dear Palm,Why is it that you have such a devil of a time keeping a lid on your product pipeline? It seems like in those precious few moments when your carriers aren’t leaking documents describing unreleased Treos, you’re doing it yourself. No bother; we already knew darned well Cingular would be getting a pair of new handsets from you, freshly freed of their pesky external antennas, in Palm OS and Windows Mobile flavors — we just wish you’d make it a little more challenging to scoop the deets sometimes. Anyway, you’ve got a crowd of Palm fanatics anxiously awaiting your 680 and 750 here in the US, so let’s get this show on the road, shall we?Love,Engadget[Thanks, William and Jon] Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
BlackBerry 8703e for sale on Verizon’s site
Filed under: Cellphones We told you it was coming, we told you how much for and when, and now the BlackBerry 8703e is on Verizon’s site — yours for $249 with a two year contract, or $399 for a one year contract. We’re a little sick of writing about this thing, so please, go get it (or not), and let’s all enjoy our Sundays, shall we?[Thanks, Phil] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
New switch puts an end to exploding batteries
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops Check it Sony, ’cause if necessity is the mother of invention then you’re about to be calling the ETRI daddy. Coming a bit too late for some, ETRI (Telecommunications Research Institute of Korea) have developed what they call a Critical Temperature Switch to prevent exploding batteries in mobile devices. Smaller, but more reliable than ceramic sensors, the new switches use a Mott Metal-Insulator Transistor or MIT, to prevent batteries from swelling and exploding in a violent discharge triggered by overheating. Ultimately, ETRI expects to integrate over 16,000 of the Critical Temperature Switches or 5,000 explosion-proof systems into a film just 2-inches in diameter. For the time being, they are looking for partners to develop their commercially ready technologies into product. Hey Sony, you paying attention? Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
German researchers unveil a euro cent-sized projector
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets, Home EntertainmentYou’ve already seen the slew of projectors that we at Engadget are wont to write about regularly. But what you probably haven’t seen is this euro cent-sized projector created by crafty German engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering in Jena. The 16mm (0.6 inches) wide projector works by shooting a laser at a single vibrating mirror, and although it works with red and blue lasers, the scientists say that green diode lasers aren’t yet small enough, preventing the projector from hitting a full range of colors — so hold off on thinking you’re going to be watching “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat” from a thumb-drive sized device in the near future. Dr. Peter Schreiber of the Fraunhofer Institute told the BBC that such a device could be eventually embedded into cellphones or PDAs. We’d love to be able to project a movie from our phone, but sadly Dr. Schreiber didn’t tell the Beeb how big the projected image is, how much it will or currently costs, nor when it might be available — not even a rough estimate, like 2014. Why must you be so coy with us, Fraunhofer Institute?[Thanks, Ndric] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
BlackBerry Pearl won’t ring in your pocket
Filed under: CellphonesAnyone who’s had the good fortune of seeing a Pearl in the flesh knows that it’s one extraordinarily good looking phone, particularly by BlackBerry standards. Unfortunately, where we come from, phones that don’t ring are called “paperweights” — which is exactly what the Pearl becomes when the trackball gets nudged. You know, like if it’s in your pocket, or your purse, or pretty much anywhere besides a stationary counter top. As it turns out, when the phone rings, the handset immediately silences the ringer with even the slightest movement of the trackball, regardless of whether keylock is enabled. While we do appreciate the Pearl taking the initiative for us and ignoring phone calls so we don’t have to, there is an occasional situation where we like to make the decision ourselves, and until RIM issues a fix users simply don’t have that option. Strangely, two Engadget editors patiently attempted to explain the issue to a RIM representative this week at CTIA for several minutes without success; we think the first step to RIM issuing a fix would be for the company to understand the problem, so we could be in for a bit of a wait. Maybe the words we were using were too big? Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
Nokia firmware scare bricks E70s
Filed under: CellphonesAs we recently reported, Nokia’s been dabbling with the whole do-it-yourself firmware upgrade phenomenon as of late. We applaud the effort — in our opinion, getting the latest and greatest software for your devices should never be any more challenging than connecting a cable to your PC. Murphy’s Law being what it is, though, initiatives like this are never going to be without their flaws. Many E70 owners who gave the update process a whirl in the past few days (present company included) were horrified to find that the procedure magically transformed their multi-hundred-dollar bundles of S60 joy into paperweights in just a handful of minutes. It happened to us, and it’s not pretty; the phone teases you by turning on and dutifully displaying the “Nokia” logo, but that’s as far as she goes. Rumor has it Nokia did the right thing by pulling the offending firmware and quickly replacing it with a new one, but that’s little consolation for the folks bidding farewell to their handsets as they get shipped off to Nokia service centers around the world. We’re going to give the upgrade another shot with our fresh E70 today and we’ll pass on the word if we end up with a second brick — wish us luck.Update: We’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that we don’t have another bricked E70 on our hands. The bad news is that the latest and greatest firmware being offered by Nokia isn’t yet available for the US-friendly E70-2 variant (which is what we have). Let’s go, Nokia! Americans want faster refresh times when switching to landscape mode just as much as Europeans do! Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
AnyDATA intros ADU-E100D USB EV-DO modem
Filed under: Cellphones, WirelessOkay, so maybe these USB EV-DO modems would be a bit more lovable if they were in dongle form, but they’re still a reasonable alternative if your ExpressCard slot is busy handling other (likely frivolous) activities. AnyDATA’s ADU-E100D is a tad larger than a standard business card, but will only add about 4 extra ounces to your trusty knapsack, and sports an integrated battery as well as USB 2.0 connectivity. The modem is based on Qualcomm’s MSM 6500 chipset, is backwards compatible with 1xRTT, supports EV-DO 3G speeds up to 2.4Mbps (down) and 153.5kbps (up), and allows sending / receiving of those oh-so-urgent SMS messages during data operations. Although details regarding pricing and availability aren’t yet known, the snazzy blue ADU-E100D should be bringing that EV-DO goodness to your notebook (or desktop) real soon.[Via TG Daily] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsSPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Source: cellphones.engadget.com
