Gadgety News

Good ol’ Auntie Beeb!

After bringing us the joy of the iPlayer the Beeb is going to be showing content from BBC One and BBC live online.

From the 27th November web visitors will be able to watch shows including Never Mind The Buzzcocks (fab!), EastEnders (never mind eh?) and Heroes (Yatta!) as they are broadcast.

BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies and BBC News are already broadcast on their channel websites.

Director of BBC vision Jana Bennett told BBC News that this move “completes our commitment” to make channels available online.

“From 27 November licence fee payers will be able to watch BBC programmes live wherever they are in the UK on their computers, mobile phones and other portable devices,” Bennett added.

Via - BBC News

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking “what the heck is that!?!”

Well, it’s the iCEphone of course.

The In Case of Emergency Phone is aiming to be the “Swiss Army knife of mobiles”  and dubbed as a micro-notebook by its manufacturer.

Well, it’s no surprise that things have gone this far as everyone is cramming more and more into their mobile blowers.

I saw the Asus R50a a few days ago and thought that was nifty - so what’s this got then?

For starters the iCEphone has software that can not only walk you through common medical emergencies like administering CPR, but it can one-touch dial your doctor, the nearest hospital and 911 at the same time.

The makers, Medical Phone, decided that the only way to get everything into a handset just larger than an N95 was to use a Jacobs Ladder-style hinge.

This funky hinge connects the 3 panels that feature a full QWERTY keyboard, a 3-inch 400 x 240 resolution touchscreen and a mouse / track pad.

Other goodies are dual SIM card slots, HSDPA support, quad-band GSM connectivity, GPS, a 3.1megapixel camera, WiFi and a 532MHz Freescale iMX31 CPU.

It’s almost out in Thailand and then should be hitting the UK sometime in Spring when it will cost around £700

If you want to see more………… feast your eyes on the vid below

Icephone site via UnwiredView

When Asus mentioned that they were gonna produce an Ultra Mobile PC that was going to be priced somewhere around the €500 mark I thought to myself, “well it had better be good”

Well, they’ve  done it and the Asus R50A is actually shipping at €1,475!

It’s up to whether you think that a pocket PC that runs Windows Vista with a 1.33GHz Intel Atom processor, a gig of RAM, a 32GB SSD hard drive, a 5.6” screen at 1024 x 600, three USB ports, a microSD slot, a wireless keyboard, and an external DVD reader / writer is worth the cash.

You get hooked up to all the good stuff via 802.11 b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G.

All in all it reads like a netbook but in a hand held stylee.

If you wanna earn those Geek-Points and have the cash - well, why not eh?
Pocketables

Sorry - this MacBook Nano has probably never seen an Apple let alone Cupertino!

Whether this is a little custom hack or there’s someone is making a living churning these funked MSI U100 types out from a lock-up “sarf of the river” I have no idea.

But these shiny-but-fake Mini Mac’s do come complete with Mac OS X installed and to be honest I think I’d have one - if only just to confuse everyone else!

Granted - whoever is dishing these out needs to give them a little more tweaking but I’m intereseted - contact me yeah? 

They come in black or white (guess which one I want) and here are the specs:

MSI U100 MacBook Nano
Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz
2G DDRII
10″ WSVGA LED (1024×600)
320GB SATA
1kg
MMC/SD/MS 4
Windows XP Pro + Mac OSX Leopard

Flickr via Gizmodo

This is a glimpse into the mobile handset future through Sony Ericsson’s eyes - date: 2012.

Ignore todays cutbacks to R&D budgets and the global economy shuddering to a halt

Whilst LTE and fast CPUs are no real surprise and Japanese superphones are already not to far from that 1,024 x 768 XGA screen resolution.

What is most interesting is the embedded camera sensors: Between 12-20 megapixels and capable of recording Full HD video.

Stacking on the MPs is all very well as long the optics and image processing are there and up to the job of supporting this resolution.  I also think that we’ll be needing a hefty bit of built in memory as well!

Anyone else think that a lot of these projection will be seen before 2012?

Yup, those know-it-alls at Wired are going to open their fourth annual store from November 21 until December 28 in New Yoik.

There will be more than 150 items including the latest electronics, toys and transportation, which can also be purchased online from November 20.

The Wired Store will also recognise four different charities, and is set to feature a brand new green section created by Adrian Grenier and Peter Glatzer of Reconcile Productions as well.

Is Christmas coming or something?

Wired

It looks like 3’s new Facebook phone is due to be unveiled officially next Thursday.

Three’s made no secret that its new handset will allow access to the social networking site and that they buddied up with INQ Mobile to manufacture its own-brand blowers.

INQ’s chief executive Frank Meehan even let slip to Reuters that its newest handset (the INQ1), will have a sub £125 price tag as well as offering “tight integration [between the phone’s] contacts book [and] with popular social sites like Facebook.”

So - I’m assuming that the INQ1 is the same beast as the 3 Facebook phone….

This “tight integration” of Facebook’s services will probably mean that you’ll see your friends’ status updates along with their names - which is hardly the bleeding edge of wowness to be honest.

Word is that the new handset will also hook up with Three’s Skypephone service which is very credit-crunch friendly of them.

INQ promises a full web browser using the same Webkit engine as the iPhone and T-Mobile G1, the ability to use the phone as a USB dongle for laptops and other software niceties, like an eBay tracker and Windows Live Messenger.

Let’s just see eh?

MP3 music downloads at seven big UK online stores are to be marked with this highly attractive, new and cutting-edge MP3 compatible sign. How cool is that? ~insert sarcasm where applicable~

It’s part of an initiative (to spend pointless money) led by the Entertainment Retailers Association to make consumers aware of the “advantages of the format and the fact that it can be used across multiple brands of music players and across PCs and Macs”.

7digital, Digitalstores, Tescodigital, Tunetribe, Play.com, HMV and Woolworths are all on board for the launch. The ERA digital chairman Russel Coultart said the move was to take the message to music fans “that they can legally buy downloads which are not locked to specific players or computers or mobile phones”.

7digital said consumers much prefer the MP3 format because it is so easy to use. If the MP3 logo is successful, it could be rolled out by the equivalent trade bodies internationally and Coultart also said it is in discussions with music retail organisations globally “to make ‘MP3 compatible’ an international standard”.

This is all very well but how long have MP3’s been with us? Surly it’s not far off from being old enough to smoke and drink? I would understand all this fuss if there hadn’t been a new version of this tech available – I’d call it MP4 or something

The other thing that confuses me about this ‘push’ is that MP3’s aren’t that great quality and now that even small players can manage 4gb why can’t we be upping the quality? Surly we should be pushing CD quality by now?

If it’s a problem about downloading – most people have access to broadband now (especially with all these mobile interweb dongles flying about the place – you don’t even need a BT line!).

Soon there will be a generation of music lovers that will expect that highly compressed low quality vibe – weren’t we dragged away from vinyl and promised a golden-age of high quality, high fidelity listening through a surround sound immersive environment at one point? Or did I dream it?

ERA credits MP3s with much of the growth of music downloads sales, which have risen 41% year-on-year to October this year, according to the Official UK Charts Company, and album sales are up 69% - Before anyone hails iTunes as the leader………….as far as I’m aware (and please correct me if I’m wrong) iTunes started by using MP3 but then quickly moved over to AAC……

~End Rant~

Asus, the name behind the popularity of Netbooks and no frills computing pioneers are set to put a stop to the smaller models.

If you’re after an Asus netbook with a screen smaller than 10-inches you’d better get your skates on!

The president of Asus has confirmed the company is intending to get rid of its older and smaller Eee PC models in favour of larger and more recent models such as the 1002HA model and S101. And it has no plans to unleash anymore netbooks with a display size of 10-inches or under.

The phasing out of the smaller models begins with the introduction of a $200 model for our American cousins.

My mind is still boggled as they created this niche and broke through - perhaps they’re quitting whilst they are ahead. Perhaps they can’t see longevity in this market.

Ah, remember the positive and forward thinking of last year……….those long summer days….

What do you reckon?

Tech Digest

The N7010 is pretty much a full featured laptop with its 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor, 16-inch 16:9 LCD, Blu-ray ROM drive and HDMI-out.

It also packs up to 4GB RAM, 256 MB ATI HD 3470 video card, SD card reader, 1.3 MP Camera, eSATA port, Bluetooth, 802.11N wi-fi and hard drives come as big as 320 GB.

Nice but nothing outstanding - so why have it on this wonderful blog?

Well - look at the pic a bit closer my friends…………go on - click the pic to make it easier for yourself!

The cool part about the Lifebook N7010 is the 4-inch, 480×272 pixel touchscreen integrated into the keyboard area.

It works as an application launcher, but according to Fujitsu’s Paul Moore, you can use it as a second (really teeny-small) screen, with the ability to drag whatever you want down to the second screen like any other external monitor.

Aside from the app launcher, its intended to be used as a CD/DVD control panel, or as a photo viewer.

This groovy feature is considered to be an industry first for laptops but it probably is worth noting that it isn’t connected in any way to Windows Vista Sideshow.

The N7010 will begin shipping on November 10 and will start at $1500 on the Fujitsu website.

Fujitsu

I downloaded this yesterday while it is still free

iTalk is a new sound recording app for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 2nd generation iPod touch.

This natty little app allows you to create one-touch, high-quality recordings which can be transferred over to your Mac or PC.

You’ll need to download the iTalk app from the iTunes App Store and whack it onto your iPhone/iPod touch for the recoding/playback bit while the buddy prog, iTalk Sync, runs on your computer to transfer recordings from iPod or iPhone for editing and sharing. 

iTalk Sync connects to your iPod touch or iPhone wirelessly via your local Wi-Fi network, with recordings saved as high-quality AIFF files, playable in iTunes and most other media players.

I’ve only had a quick play around with it and the quality sounds pretty good for a free app - handy for a quick recording of a riff before I forget it or a melody line that comes to me on the bus or tube - it happens!

Griffin’s iTalk is free for a limited time, and is now available at the iTunes App Store.

iTalk Sync is now available as a free download at www.italksync.com.

Grab it while it’s hot (and free!).

How time flies huh?

The gaming oscars that was the 26th Annual Golden Joystick Awards have already come and gone.

Long story short - Activision pretty musch cleaned up: Call of Duty 4 nabbed four awards (Multiplayer Game Of The Year, PC GOTY, Online GOTY and Ultimate GOTY), and Call of Duty 5 taking the One to Watch award. Oh yeah, and Activision won publisher of the year too.

As expected Rockstar also swiped three gongs: Developer Of The Year, Soundtrack Of The Year and Xbox Game Of The Year for Grand Theft Auto IV.

If you’re looking for a list of all the winners, well you’re in luck people!

The Sun Family Game of the Year: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Bliss Handheld Game of the Year: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Activision Blizzard Retailer of the Year: Play.com

The E4 Talent Mobile GOTY: Bejeweled 2

Nintendo GOTY Sponsored by Official Nintendo Magazine: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Nuts All-Nighter Multiplayer GOTY: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

BBC1Xtra Soundtrack of the Year: Grand Theft Auto IV

ARVATO Xbox Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto IV

PC GOTY Sponsored by The United Kingdom e-Sport Association: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

The Play.com One to Watch: Call of Duty: World at War

CVG.co.uk UK Developer of the Year: Rockstar

PlayStation GOTY Sponsored by Official PlayStation Magazine: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Publisher of the Year: Activision

Edge Most Wanted: Fallout 3

E4.com Grand Master Flash award: Stickman Madness

Games Radar’s Online Game of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Virgin Media Ultimate Game of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Whatchya reckon? Is this a true representation of the gaming industry over the last 12 months?

Is there games that shouldn’t be there and which ones shoulda?

Let me know

The Nokia N85 has been released in the UK and is a great alternative to the N96.

I loved my N95 and it was probably the best all-rounder of a phone that I’ve owned - the N85 looks to be more up-to-date in its looks with the sleek, black fascia. It’s also 5mm thinner than the N95 and weighs 128g.

Like the N95, the N85 is a dual slider handset.  Slide one way to reveal the keypad, slide the other way to reveal dedicated media keys.

The screen has also been updated with a state-of-the-art 2.5” OLED screen. This offers enhanced colour and contrast but also reduces power consumption.

It keeps the good ol’ Nokia 5mp camera with Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and duel LED flash.  All this ensures high quality happy snapping.

Videos are recorded at 30fps and a secondary lens on the front of the handset for vid-calls.

Now, unlike the N96 and its 16GB internal memory, the N85 only has 74MB internal dynamic memory.

However, it does have a ‘hot swappable’ microSD card slot available for up to 8GB.

The new Nok gives you direct access to the Nokia Music Store and has the all important 3.5mm jack socket. so you can use your fave cans.

A neat feature is the FM Transmitter. This lets you send your mp3 tracks over FM radio waves to the nearest radio tuned into the correct frequency. Clever; and perfect for use in the car!  No need to buy a little add-on.

Gamers will be pleased to know that the N85 features Nokia’s N-Gage gaming service.

The handset comes with 15 pre-installed game demos. Chose your favourite from the demos and Nokia will send a code to activate one of the games for free!

You can hook up to 3G as well as 3.6Mbps HSDPA, EDGE, GPRS, WiFi connection and A2DP Bluetooth.

I reckon this is a great, cheaper option to the N96

If you are a thoughtful citizen such as I am you will have noticed the lack of rubbish receptacles in the lovely London.

This is mainly due to the scare of bombing terrorists leaving their deadly trash and destroying people and places.

Well, London will be the first city to test out new bomb-proof bins.

Not only will they take your fast-food cartons but they’ll also rock LCDs that stream travel info and news.

These were developed by British company Media Metrica and weigh one ton each.

Testing took place in the deserts of New Mexico for five years to ensure they are completely, totally indestructible, can absorb heat from explosives, prevent shrapnel spread, and extinguish “fireballs.”

Surly a Friday night around Barnsley would’ve tested them better and been cheaper

Via Engadget

Happy birthday to this gadget blog. Happy birthday to this tech blog. Happy birthday dear Jay’s Gadget News.  Happy birthday to yooooooooooooooooou!

Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog! Blog!

Well, what started off as a test to see if there was room for another gadget and tech blog site a year ago has slowly gained enough of you lovely readers for me to carry on writing about things that have caught my eye and that you (hopefully) find interesting.

My first posts (ie not ones dragged over from my temporary test site) were posted this very day 12 months ago - I know, how Goth to choose Samhain/Halloween to start a blog

I would like to take this moment and space to thank all of you for coming here and making this place feel loved - whether you were here from the very start or have only just found this place.

If there are anythings that you would rather see more/less of now is your chance. Either email me or just leave a comment here and I’ll do my best to please - the new look was prompted by a comment a lo, it was done.

So, thanks once more and here’s hopefully to another year of gadget grooviness and tech tremendousness

Much gadgety love

Jay

Softbank has just come up with this rather interesting mobile TV add-on for Japanese iPhone and iPod owners.

it’s a separate unit with tuner and aerial that retransmits the signal over Wi-fi to the phone.

The rechargeable device will give about three hours of TV eye-candy and connects to a special iPhone app that’ll be distributed free when the device hits the streets in mid December!

It’ll cost somewhere around the $100 mark but also doubles as an iPhone battery top-up when you link it via the dock connector.

Just gotta wait for it to be adapted and shipped over here.

AVWatch

Ok, so this is a bit like, “my dad’s bigger than your dad” but for you mobile computing junkies the question of who has the best WiFi access is a serious matter.

Well, London continues to be the world capital of WiFi with an amazing 12,276 access points - this is according to the latest from the annual Wireless Security Survey conducted by RSA.

London beats New York City by roughly 3,000 whilst Paris rules the year-over-year increase category with a stupendous 543 percent gain over last year!

NYC did manage to capture the top spot in the much coveted ‘corporate encryption’ category, with about 97 percent of corporate access points now employing some type of encryption, while about 20 percent of London’s business access points remain totally, completely, embarrassingly, nakedly unprotected.

The last figure is all the more startling when married with what Richard Thomas said at the RSA Conference Europe 2008 on Wednesday.

He stated that there had been 277 data breaches reported since last November. Thirty of which were classed as ”serious incidents”, in both the public and private sectors and are still under investigation.

Hmmm………….

But YAY LONDON! 

Slashdot

The Sony Rolly has always been an enigma to me.

Ok, it’s cute - It’s probably one of the cutest small speakers around.

But.

It’s a portable, trundling, dancing speaker - but the sound isn’t great for £250.

It’s a music player able to stream via A2DP Bluetooth or play from its internal flash but there’s no place to shove your 3.5mm lead.

 Sony are now updating it - and it will be controlled by YOU!! MWAHAHAHAHH!!!

Ahem.  Next month, Japanese Rolly buyers will be able to get the new SEP-50BT version complete with Bluetooth controls thus allowing them to make Rolly dance and spin like a performing monkey-bot all directed via their mobile phones.

I can imagine the high jinks and thoroughly wicked japes to be had through controlling the egg-shaped dancing speaker under somones chair and then unleashing a choice cut from ‘Cannibal Corpse’ as the little mp3 player starts its own circle pit :) 

The new system will actually give you control of up to seven of the little blighters at the same time using a mobile phone or laptop.

I reckon it’s time for some synchronised dancing……….

Gizmodo

This is great!

I see the point of having a mobile signal on the tube, on planes and trains but there’s so many people that’s going to abuse this.

A commuter rail company here in the UK (C2C) will install cellphone signal-blocking film on train windows in order to keep the peace.

The film, which was developed in America, prevents cellphone signal from entering (and leaving) the train. With no signal getting through, people won’t be able to talk, loudly or otherwise, on their cellphones.

HURRAH!!!!

This film will only be installed on cars that are designated as quiet cars - you know, the ones that are there to stop the endless prattle of “I’m pulling out of the station now” or “so, what do you fancy for dinner..”.  The film will merely help ensure that the—no phones!—part of the quiet coach takes place.

Now, if only they could get a film that ensures hand-held games are muted when not used with headphones and that headphones do not have audio-leakage…………..

Read the full Daily Mail article - it’s priceless

Daily Mail via CrunchGear

pic credit

Some more limited edition greatness in time for Halloween - this time in the form of some portable speakers.

The “Headphonies” iPod speakers range includes 5 figures created by several artists (including Frank Kozik), and 2 blank versions that you can decorate yourself.

I wouldn’t expect fantastic definition from these arty speakers but those who have heard it claim that the sound is “surprisingly good.”

Each viny toy speaker collectable will be sold in 500 to 1000 limited quantities starting on November 30th.

Unlike most collectables (I collect vintage Rado watches if you want to treat me ) these are a more than reasonable $30 apiece.

Headphonies via SpankyStokes via Ubergizmo