Fri October 15 2004
Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 - world's first HDD-based PDA |
08:11 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones Sharp announced that it will ship its latest Linux-based Zaurus SL-C3000 PDA into the Japanese market next month. What is hot about this device, beside the fact that it is running Linux OS, is the fact that it will be the first PDA to integrate a hard drive (4GB). Beside that the hardware specs look pretty much standard; the Zaurus is powered by a 416MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor, comes with 64MB of SDRAM and 16MB of Flash ROM, and features a 3.7in 640x480 LCD display. |
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CD-quality songs on mobiles |
05:37 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge Here's a very cool development in Japan: Japense mobile users will soon move to new frontiers in their passion for mobile telephones and pop music as customers will be able to download full-length, CD-quality songs to their cellphones. The Inquirer reports that KDDI, Japan's second biggest phone outfits, would offer a service of 10,000 songs with sound quality so good the music can be listened to on stereo speakers. Users can also use the tunes as ring tones. The service, which begins next month, is called "Chaku Uta Full," or "Full Ringer Songs." |
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Two different strategies: palmOne vs. PocketPC |
05:23 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge Larry Garfield from Infosyncworld looks at the different design strategies of palmOne and PPC-based vendors, and muses on what it says about the way they think. This is an excellent read and mirrors exactly what a lot of our members have been discussing lately: Where HP and Dell both think in terms of feature count, palmOne, rather out of necessity, tends to tailor its markets more. That's why, according to palmOne anyway, the T5 doesn't have Wi-Fi[...]That's not to say that palmOne doesn't need a bigger push. Next to the equally-priced non-novel but very flashy X50 Advanced, the T5 just doesn't seem impressive, even if it is one of the most feature-rich Palm OS handhelds to date. So what does the editor of the article suggest? -- That palmOne is better hurrying up to release a Cobalt handheld that could hopefully compete with the latest HP and Dell PPC devices. |
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Rio Carbon reviewed by PC Magazine |
05:08 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video Bottom Line: The Rio Carbon is a worthy competitor to the iPod mini, with a gigabyte more storage, great style, excellent sound, and extras such as voice recording and a built-in stopwatch. It charges via USB and doesn't need a driver or dedicated software. Click here for the full review. |
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Swedish Study: Mobile phones double tumor risk |
04:08 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge Using a mobile phone for ten or more years almost doubles the risk of developing acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor on the auditory nerve, reveals a study released on Wednesday by Sweden's Karolinska Institute (the Swedish Institute of Environmental Medicine). The risk was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held and there were no indications of increased risk for those who have used their mobile for less than 10 years, the Karolinska Institute said in a statement. Nature.com covers the news in more depth. Perhaps the only bright spot: Because only analog mobile phones had been in use for more than 10 years, the Institute's researchers said they were unable to confirm that tumours would also develop more frequently in users of digital (GSM) handsets. |
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Thu October 14 2004
Free audio downloads of US presidential debates |
08:18 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge Audible offers the 2004 U.S. Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates for free download at http://www.audible.com/debates. Any Audible web visitor can register, download, and transfer audio to any AudibleReady mobile device, burn standard audio CDs for playback away from the computer, or stream audio at the user's computer. |
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Wed October 13 2004
OQO review at NYTimes |
03:42 PM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones The New York Times has posted a surprisingly glowing review of the OQO (registration required, or use BugMeNot). They state that the price point will be at around $1900. They like most things about the unit, but they do enumerate several problems. The lack of a CD or DVD (obviously too large) seems limiting, though the dock sounds good and it does have built in wifi. The main input system is USB, but it's 1.1 instead of 2.0. The battery life is a dismal 2.5 hours! What the hell can you do in that time?! I'm really surprised by the proliferation of "mobile" devices that need to be powered up every couple of hours. Until this trend turns around, I'll stick to lower power devices that can run for at least 6-8 hours. |
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