Gadgetstronics

by Donald Melanson, posted Jun 9th 2008 at 2:05PM
Apple’s just announced a push notification service for the iphone that it’ll provide to all developers. It’ll maintain a persistent IP connection to the phone and let a 3rd party server ping Apple’s notification service in order to push out notifications your device, which can be in the form of badges, sounds or custom textual alerts. According to Apple, the service will preserve battery life and maintain performance, not to mention work over WiFi or cellular. Look for it to roll out in September, with seeding to developers starting next month.

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Filed under: cellphones

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 9th 2008 at 10:03AM
You already knew Nokia’s evolutionary N96 was all set to be shipped in the fall, but it’s about time Nokia came clean with the release information on its leaked-out-everywhere E-series. While Anssi Vanjoki, senior executive vice president of Nokia Markets, didn’t specify model numbers, it’s widely assumed that the E66 and E71 handsets are included when he states that “a group of E-series multimedia computers” will be brought to market in Q3. No mention of a price or expected launch regions, but at least you’ve a quarter to circle in your date book, yeah?

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Seeking permission from the Federal Communications Commission (an no doubt buying … er … lobbying for the right to do so) the Motion Picture Association of America has requested a hearing from the FCC to determine if the MPAA has the right to allow video distributors to block digital video players from recording movies on television. Swell.

The practice, known as “Selectable Output Control,” is currently banned by the FCC. But with the deadline for HD broadcast rapidly coming in February, the MPAA is seeking a waiver to protect the Hollywood community, and DVD sales, when a movie is broadcast prior to DVD release.

The FCC proceeding, which includes a public comment period through July 7, was very quietly opened Friday. The MPAA, working on behalf of all the major studios, retained the services of former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy to clear away the red tape and keep their intentions hush hush until the public comment period had nearly expired. Fortunately, this quiet request has perked the ears of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRCC) who both oppose the waiver request.

The reason for the request is that the studios want to speed up their broadcast release schedule by releasing films through multichannel video programming distributors before DVD. Ordinarily, a movie’s three year distribution life goes from theaters, to airline and hotel pay per view, then DVD distribution about three months after that. The MPAA has assured the FCC that once films have run through the DVD sale/rental stage it’s blocking of a broadcast film will cease.

One has to appreciate the MPAAs position to a certain extent since High Definition movies, plus DVRs plus DVD burners equals a prescription for piracy. But it’s profoundly disturbing that Hollywood seeks the power to determine when we can and cannot use our own video property.

Hat Tip – Ars Technica

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Apple has announced the 3G iPhone, and it looks a lot like the leaked shots we have been seeing for the past month. The new iPhone has a plastic back, in black or white, which should reduce weight and also give a boost to reception. What buttons there are are all metal and the headphone jack, previously a recessed hole into which nothing would fit, has been replaced with a flush socket. Cue the sound of a third party product niche slurping down the plughole.

And the most controversial of the predictions has come true: Real GPS for the iphone

In Steve Jobs’ demonstration, the 3G speeds look good, at around three times faster than the current EDGE speeds. Battery life is up, too: 300 hours standby, 10 hours 2G talktime, five hours 3G talktime, five to six hours browsing, seven hours of video playback and 24 hours audio.

The new handset will cost $200 for the 8GB model and $300 for the 16 gigger. And in response to one of my major complaints, Jobs says that the $200 price point will be enforced throughout the world. The end of Euro price gouging? Fingers crossed. The new iPhone will ship on July 11th, starting with 22 countries and expanding to 70 by the end of the year.

Product page [Apple]

Falling victim to ever increasing competition in the tech world, SanDisk has announced that it is closing it’s Fanfare video download service and ceasing production on it’s TakeTV device, which we reported on last year. That didn’t take long.

In a very business-like and curt fashion, SanDisk informed users through the Fanfare Website that “Fanfare beta has come to a conclusion, and the Fanfare application will be disabled as of 5/15/08.”

That means it took only eight months from announcement to it’s demise, which follows on the heal of similar video download services like Akimbo and Moviebeam.

The difference, however, is that San Disk is not hanging their users out to dry. Even though the Fanfare download service has been discontinued, those who have already invested in the TakeTV hardware can still enjoy it thanks to the TakeTV drag and drop feature which allows users to fill their gadget with non-fanfare digital videos from the internet, TV, etc. TakeTV has the ability to watch DivX and it’s open source variant xVid, and MPEG4 videos.

This ability has made TakeTV more attractive to the BitTorrent crowd and less appealing to those seeking a more structured, iTunes style downloading experience.

Hat Tip – Crave

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Recently, I obtained some information about a company known as NaviSis, as well as their latest products. All of them are based on Thunderbolt and Lightning technology, which allows tracking of their digital pens “with the use of the difference of velocity between light and sound”.

Considering that the up-and-coming Windows 7 may use a lot of touch-based technology, it might be time to look into ways of interfacing with the computer that do not include the keyboard and mouse. Navisis is surfing the wave of the future with four products that can convert a Laptop into a Tablet-PC like touchscreen.

The first is the Tablet Mouse, a wired or wireless e-Pen type mouse that allows the user to draw on the table without a pad. It will record whatever it is that you are writing or drawing digitally, so you can use it later for whatever digital application.

The Navinote has a magnetic clip used to hold writing or drawing paper. Like the Tablet Mouse, it is designed to record what you write.

The Laptop pen is designed to clip onto an ordinary laptop, turning a screen into a drawing space. The EZ Canvas takes the concept of a screen into a drawing room and completely amplifies it, making it a place that Da Vinci could work on.

Navisis is a Korean company, so I’m not certain when their products will make it overseas, if at all. I suppose if the Digital Pen market ever takes off, Navisis will be leading the charge.

Source

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LG Electronics, world’s leading makers of cell phones, has come up with an amazing cell phone that offers advanced look as well as features to die for. As the name suggests, LG Verizon CHOCOLATE - BLUE ICE sports an attractive blue color body to give you a stylish look. Capture great images with the 1.3 mega pixel camera of LG Verizon CHOCOLATE - BLUE ICE that can be zoomed up to 2x.

Features

• Navigation Wheel.
• Touch Keypad with Vibration Feedback.
• Bluetooth Capable.
• Music Player with Dedicated Key.

LG Verizon CHOCOLATE - BLUE ICE lets you choose customizable sound effects and player themes. It comes with powerful speakers for music and also has a dedicated music key for easy access. LG Verizon CHOCOLATE - BLUE ICE comes with microSD Memory Port and enables you to store all your favorite music, photos and games.

Price and Availability

LG Verizon CHOCOLATE - BLUE ICE is available at a price of $ 299.99.

Source : LG

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Photos: Joe Brown/Wired

We’re not quite sure what this means, but we’ve received a tip-off that these boxes were just offloaded at a San-Francisco Apple Store. Curiously, they are marked "Jaguar", the same name as Mac OS X 10.2. Obviously, our first guess is iphone. Could these be the mysterious "Electronic Computers" which have been making their way into the country over the past few months? We’ll find out soon, and we’ll be dispatching a crack Gadget Lab reporter to the scene to take a look right after the WWDC Keynote speech.

Keep up with our coverage of the the WWDC 2008 Keynote at the Gadget Lab Live Blog

Perfectly built on the Kinergy Design, BenQ V2400W TV has been especially crafted to give the users a high-performance audio/video experience. Sporting a cool 24” LCD display screen, BenQ V2400W TV is considered as the world’s slimmest 24” widescreen lcd monitor. Incorporating touch pads, this television adds a sense of balance and enables you to make adjustments to your screen with just the touch of a finger.

Features

• 2 ms GTG Response Time.
• Senseye and Photo Image Technology.
• Dynamic Contrast Ratio for perfectly detailed picture.
• AMA designed for the supreme visual feast.

Providing you with HDMI, DVI and D-sub inputs, BenQ V2400W TV comes with a headphone jack. BenQ V2400W TV comes with Energy Star Certification that indicates it saves energy and doesn’t contribute to global warming. BenQ V2400W TV is also certified for Windows Vista Premium. The fact that BenQ V2400W TV comes with RoHS Compliance shows that it cares for living environment.

Price and Availability

BenQ V2400W TV is available at a price of $ 499.00.

Source : Benq

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Here’s an antidote for today’s inevitable Apple overdose, and a tale of a fetish older and more noble than the Cult of Mac. This is the Leica M3 Prototype No.0034, one of 65 made in 1952-53.

It’s a tribute to Leica’s engineering skills that this camera is still in “perfect working condition”. Or possibly a tribute to the obsessive Leica-philes who keep up their possessions untouched and unused, locked away in a small pit in the basement for years, hidden from human eyes and all the while begging for just a single photon to fall through their beautifully designed light-holes. In the end, though, Stockholm Syndrome sets in, and the little rangefinders come to love their captors, despite living on a subsistence diet of just one roll of Tri-X per year.

This particular camera escaped, briefly seeing the light (ƒ1.4 — lovely bokeh) before being whipped into the basement prison of another collector. The price? Around $38,000. We hope the new owner has time to enjoy his “ceramic pressure plate”, “reversed direction rewind knob” and “backdoor with film marker”. All whilst wearing latex gloves, of course.

Auction page [Westlicht via Amateur Photographer]