Digital Technology for Digital Living.
August 03, 2004
Siemens SK65 Business Phone.
The Siemens SK65 brings a funky new keypad layout, and integration with BlackBerry push email, push-to-talk, and bluetooth to the Siemens range. The most obvious feature is the new rotating X shaped keypad with a QWERTY key layout for faster messaging. It looks as though the keypad also has support for all the extended punctuation characters without having to hit a button 9 times.
As well as that funky layout, it also has a 2.05″ TFT display with 132×176 pixels and 64k colours, 30 MB of user memory, USB, IR and Bluetooth communications, but forgoes a camera, external storage support and mp3 player.
There will be three versions available, the only difference between them seems to be with the email handling. Two models will have BlackBerry support and the third will use regular ISP based email. It should be available in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America in November, and other areas shortly after. We obviously fall into the ‘other’ areas, unfortunately. No word on pricing yet, and Siemens Australia know less than we do.
Ben | Comments (3) | Mobile Phone, PDA, Portablegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
August 01, 2004
Bluetake BT420 Bustin Grooves.
The International Herald Tribune’s Gadget of the Week (gee their name makes it sound so regal) is Bluetake’s i-Phono BT420. These little beauties use Bluetooth (yes, the word of the week is Bluetooth) to transmit audio from any device that has an audio jack. That’s not all, they’ll also announce that a call is coming in on your mobile, stop playing what you’re listening to, and allow you to answer it without taking the phone from your pocket or briefcase. It does this using the phones bluetooth connection and a handy little microphone that tucks away in the headphones. You can pre-order them in Australia online via Expansys for $AU305.95. You should also check out the compatibility list because not all features are supported on all phones.
Gadgets boy | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, Music, Wirelessgadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
RoadSnoop, Bluetooth For Your Tyres.
blueserker discovered RoadSnoop, a product by Nokian Tyres, who incidentally come from the same company roots as Nokia in Finland. The RoadSnoop is a sensor professionally installed on the wheel using a high-grade stainless steel band. This means it can be attached to any tyre for any car. It then sends tyre pressure to a receiver via Bluetooth. The aim of the device is to signal when there are changes in tyre pressure which can help avoid dangerous situations. Different tyre pressure can also effect fuel usage and tyre wear, so over time the system can help save money.
The Australian dealer for RoadSnoop is Asterbrook, based in Brisbane. We contacted the owner, Mark Swan, who is more than happy to field any sales enquiries via email (found at RoadSnoop’s Dealer page). Currently the approximate price is about $AU450 for one car.
According to the RoadSnoop web site the goal of the technology is to have a Safety System that reports on road and weather conditions, tyre wear, and the pressure required for different loads. It looks like it’ll get the data via an onboard internet connection.
Gadgets boy | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, Motorised, Wirelessgadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 31, 2004
New Pokia Phone Accessory On eBay.
Yes, Pokia, not Nokia. Nicholas Roope, Creative Director at Poke, uses old phone handsets and rewires them so they work with the latest phones. It seems that this has become chic all of a sudden, with articles in Italian style magazine and the Home section of the New York Times. Yahoo! News in the UK has an article on the handsets. If you’re keen you can bid against Hollywood producers for his latest one on eBay. It works with Sony Ericsson handsets such as the t68i, t610 and the k700i. You’ve got 5 days, with current bidding at £29 (approximately $AU75). A recent one sold for about $AU285. Hey, it gets the chicks. “When you take it out in social situations, the first thing that happens is people say: ‘Does it work?’ And then inevitably you say: ‘Phone me on it.’ Then you have their number.”
Gadgets boy | Comments (1) | Mobile Phonegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 29, 2004
New HP iPaqs.
There’s still no official word on the HP Australia web site, of course, but the last couple of days has seen news of the launch of the new HP iPAQ range. MTekk has news that they will land here in October.
It looks as though mobile phones and PDAs are going to meet somewhere in the middle, the specifications on the top of the range h6350 (the h6315 is not coming to Australia), are rumoured to include a quad band GSM/GPRS phone, Bluetooth and 802.11b support, built-in VGA camera, an SDIO supporting SD card slot and Windows Mobile 2003.
With specs that impressive, one can also expect an impressive price tag, no doubt. Even though there’s no word on official pricing, we’re not expecting the price to leave us much change from A$1200, if any.
Now that Sony has exited the handheld PC market, maybe we’ll see the two remaining major players (HP and PalmOne) turn up the heat on each other a little. Who will be able to pack more functionality into their devices?
Ben | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, PDA, Portablegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
Mobile Phone Cameras Outsell Digital Cameras 6 to 1.
Digital Connect News has an article on the rise of mobile phone cameras and its effect on the photo printing business. For anyone here in Australia who has bought the new Nokia 7610, they’ll find a voucher for use at any Fujifilm store to get some free prints. We did a little exploration and found that printing a standard 6×4 print would set you back $AU1.50 a print. The price varies depending on the number of prints you get, being as little as 60 cents when you print 50 or more. You can find Fujifilm locations here.
However, before you rush in, phone blasting a bluetooth signal ready to walk out in seconds with your print, our investigations found that many machines haven’t been upgraded to use the wireless standard yet, and they still require an hour processing time by their professional system.
Update : (August 9 2004) We’re starting to see some Bluetooth kiosks in the wild. First one spied in a Kodak store.
Gadgets boy | Comments (0) | Digital Camera, Mobile Phone, Wirelessgadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 27, 2004
Motorola Gets Good Press.
Motorola’s mobile phone devision has gone through some tough times in the last few years, losing market share and getting a reputation as a slow moving company that lacks innovation. When Ed Zander left Sun Microsystems and joined the company as CEO he had his work cut out for him. He’s been there for too short a time to say if he is making a difference, and the recent spate of press may have been set in motion long before he arrived, but there is certainly some buzz around the newly announced RAZR V3 and Apple iTunes collaboration.
The rumour is that the V3 is a V600 with a new case. Other than the anodised aluminum case and chemically etched keypad everything seems the same, MP3 ringtones (check Mobiledia for user experience of V600 MP3), MPEG 4 video, quad band, bluetooth, and digital camera. Our guess is there is a software update in there as well. So, with the new exterior, rather than measuring 24.5mm it is now 13.9mm deep (thin according to Motorola). The V600 currently retails for about $AU779 (less on a plan). I’d guess we’ll see the V3 in Australia just in time for Christmas, and for around $AU999 outright.
It makes sense for Motorola and Apple to collaborate. Ed, from his time at Sun, knows how important it is to partner with software companies. Apple wants its iTunes software, and more importantly its store to be as wide spread as Coke. Hopefully we’ll see an iTunes Music Store in Australia before the 2005 release of the new Motorola phones. The song capacity will vary depending on the phone memory, but initial speculation is it’ll be about a dozen.
According to the New York Times (registration required), Jobs said, “he called Motorola’s chief executive, Edward J. Zander, soon after Mr. Zander took over in January to suggest that the two companies work together on the project”.
Update : (July 27, 2004) Mobile-review.com already has a review of the V3.
Gadgets boy | Comments (1) | Mobile Phone, Musicgadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 26, 2004
Australian Telecom Magazine Awards 2004.
Australian Telecom Magazine has announced the finalists for the
5th Annual Australian Telecom Magazine Awards 2004 that will be held in Sydney on September 22. This year they’ve made voting available on the web by way of a form, so we guess that means anyone can vote, as long as you don’t mind the spam that will follow. Required fields include name, address and email. It’s an interesting mix, given that there is a “Best Network Hardware Supplier” in with a “Best ISP” and “Best Mobile Phone Retailer”. It is an industry magazine of course, so it’s not aimed at the home user. There are some obvious omissions, but a shorlist’ll do that every-time. We’ll keep you posted when results are announced in September.
Gadgets boy | Comments (0) | Broadband, Mobile Phonegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 25, 2004
Skweezing The Web.
Greenlight Wireless has announced version 2.0 of Skweezer. Skweezer is an application that compresses web pages, reformatting them for the smaller display and as such speeds up the downloading of the site and reduces the cost. The interesting thing about Skweezer is it is all web based, no application to download to your device. Simply subscribe for $US14.99 a year and you can use the service from any of your many devices (that’s right, I know you’ve got more than one).
In a quick test we registered for the 30 day free trial, and this site, Gadget Lounge, compressed from 427.7K, on a standard internet connection, to 280K via Skweezer on a Nokia 7610. A saving of $AU3.24 if you use 2.2 cents per KB that currently seems to be the standard in Australia. Not bad, but the page would still cost you $AU6.16. Having said that, if access is required to the internet from your phone or PDA, it could still work out to be a worth while saving for pages not formated already for portable devices. It does also offer a text only option, which would have cut the size down significantly more.
Link thanks to Geekzone.
Gadgets boy | Comments (1) | Mobile Phone, Portablegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 19, 2004
$5.56 For This Page.
NEWS.com.au has an article today stressing the slow take up in Australia of internet enabled and camera mobile phones when comparing it to the global average, Camera mobiles usage behind.
“The Mobinet 2004 study of 5,800 mobile phone users in 15 countries reports that Australia’s internet enabled phones (IEP) penetration rate is 36 per cent, below the global average of 47 per cent and well under market leaders South Korea (83 per cent), Japan (79 per cent) and Germany (63 per cent).”
Is it any wonder that this is the case when at today’s pricing this web page alone would set you back $AU5.56 if you download it to a mobile phone (253.1KB @ 2.2 cents per KB).
Richard | Comments (0) | Mobile Phonegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 16, 2004
Nokia Lifeblog.
Nokia’s recently released 7610 phone works with new beta software called Lifeblog. The software runs on your PC (Windows only) and the 7610 allowing you to sort your “photos, videos, text messages, and multimedia messages into a clear chronology you can easily browse, search, edit, and save”. It’s not a weblog, given there is no way to move the images to the internet, so we’re a little confused by the blog term, but it operates on the PC in a similar fashion. It’ll be a hit with the thumb tribes.
Richard | Comments (1) | Mobile Phone, Softwaregadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 15, 2004
Sony Ericsson’s P910i.
| Sony Ericsson has announced the update to their high end smart phone, the P910i. Changes include 64MB memory (up from 16MB), 262,000 colours (up from 65,000), 1GB Sony Stick Duo support, and “a fully featured keyboard on the back of the flip for easy text input”. |  |
Richard | Comments (1) | Mobile Phonegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
July 09, 2004
Nokia 7610 Available In Australia.
Nokia’s latest Symbian phone with an inbuilt 1 megapixel camera, the 7610, has finally starting to hit local stores. Vodafone is advertising a $AU350 price on a $60 monthly plan, and Optus has them for $AU499, $AU429 or $AU199 on their Optimiser 55, 77 and 99 plans respectively. Outright purchase appears to be between $AU847 and $AU999 depending where you buy it from. Australian IT has a review.
Update : (July 13 2004) A B Digital reseller in Carousel offered the phone on the 77 plan for $AU249.
Richard | Comments (0) | Mobile Phonegadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
