Tech Gadgets Reviews

Sprint’s current lack of support for MMS or PictureMail in their network might be ending soon, as Chief Marketing Officer John Garcia reveals plans that they are working on something with Microsoft for Windows Mobile devices. In a response to a customer’s query, John said:

“We’re working with Microsoft to build a PictureMail application that will work on their Windows product to give you a similar experience as our other products. As some of you may be aware, currently, you can actually do this on a Windows product, but you have to do it through e-mail or Bluetooth. We realize this is cumbersome. We’re working to enhance this for you soon.”

So it seems that Sprint has been listening to all the requests of customers who wanted support for MMS after all. The only problem is we still don’t know how long they will take to roll this feature out officially. And they better hope that MMS is still alive when they finally come around with something like it.

Via [WM Experts]

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[Web 2.0] For those who are not familiar with Simulscribe (soon to be renamed PhoneTag), it is a service that you can setup to intercept your mobile phone voicemails and have it send it to you, translated in text via SMS or email. When using email, the message comes with an attached audio file containing the original message. Previously, email notifications came from a mailbox@my.simulscribe.com address with a subject like “SimulScribe from (xxx) xxx-xxxx” that was not really actionable.

With the contact list integration, the system will search for the caller’s number in your contact list, find the matching contact name and/or the company name and send you a message as follow:

From: contact-email (contact name)
Subject: SimulScribe from contact phone number
Translated message: message

Now, you can take action by replying via email directly to your contact address or by calling back, knowing who it is who called you. The system is also smart enough to use the contact name text information when translating the message. In the past, it was difficult to guess how names were spelled, especially if they are foreign names. Everything happens in the back-end and should be instantly available to all users, on all phones – that’s smart. 

If you don’t want to use the officially sanctioned Wii nunchuk, there is always the wireless Kama model from Nyko. It is already available for sale online despite having an official retail launch date that lies somewhere in May. Choose to pick one up today and you will be in the running to pick up a limited edition grey, black, pink or gold unit that sync wirelessly to your Wiimote adapter. This limited edition cannot be found in stores, but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will surface on eBay sooner or later at an exorbitant price.

Samsung today announced two new portable devices called the Samsung S2 ‘Pebble’ mp3 player and Samsung S3 Slim Portable Media Player. The players have been developed to fit comfortabley in your hands, they are also are offered in many different colors (black, white, red, green and purple) and are the perfect fasion statement for on-the-go entertainment. The main feature in the product is Samsung’s Digital Natural Sound engine 2.0 (DNSe) technology which provides High-Quality acoustics that are optimized for playback through a set of earphones.
“Samsung is excited to reveal our newest portable media players with designs that offer consumers a unique, yet subtle way to express themselves while enjoying their favorite mobile entertainment,” said Reid Sullivan, Vice President of Digital Audio and Video Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. “With the S2 and S3, consumers now have more compact and thin MP3 and portable media player options to choose from without needing to sacrifice overall functionality or multimedia playback.”
[Source]

The Nokia 3606 is a clamshell phone offering a 1.3 megapixel camera as well as the following features:

* external music playback buttons
* Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support
* quad-band CDMA (800/1700/1900/2100MHz), supports new AWS frequencies
* Nokia’s S40 user interface
* 2″ 262k color TFT, 176 x 220 pixel resolution main display
* 1.2″ 262k color TFT, 128 x 128 pixel resolution secondary display
* Record/Playback video
* 15MB memory
* microSD card slot

Via MobileBurn.

by Richard Lawler, posted Apr 23rd 2008 at 12:46PM

There’s no other way to say it, DivX is on a roll in 2008 (that small Stage6 stumble is already a fading memory). If support from Blu-ray players and videogame consoles wasn’t enough, DivX Certification has snaked its long arm directly into HDTVs, with “over 80 models” from HP and LG slapping on a sticker indicating users can simply plug a USB drive in and play their entirely-legitimately-owned content. Expect that number to grow, since DivX is also working with AMD, Chips and Media, Broadcom and Trident to include support in other chipsets powering digital TVs near you. Now how about we see some of that content?

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Tall, sleepy air travelers, rejoice! The Cozy Suite manages to stretch legroom by two inches while fitting airplane seats into the standard economy class 32″ pitch. It does this by offsetting the seats diagonally: they still point forward, but each chair sits behind its neighbor. This staggered arrangement also means that there is space to put in a padded side section to lean against and get some proper mile-high shuteye.

What’s not to like? More legroom (and at 6′3″ I really appreciate every last inch I can get) and a comfy place to park my noggin while falling asleep to the Gadget Lab podcast (it’s your soothing voices, guys, not the content). The only problem might be in holding a conversation with your neighbor. Ideal for avoiding pesky tech-blog autograph seekers but not so good if you’re traveling with friends.

The best news, though, is that these are not just concept cocoons: Delta is actually installing them in it the economy sections of its Boeing 767s and 777s by 2010.

Product page [Thompson Solutions via DVICE]

Back in March of last year, Microsoft acquired a company called Tellme. The company was known for its voice recognition technology which was incorporated into a free mobile search service available at 1-800-555-TELL. Now instead of offering simple directions or information via voice, Tellme has a hybrid service.

The service includes a software download which displays information on your phone rather than simply providing a voice response. The software also now integrates with GPS, if supported by the phone, so that local information is automatically provided for directions and local businesses. That means there is no need to type it in.

Utilizing the enhanced service you can use your voice to find a business and Live Search results with business address, driving directions and an option to call the business will be displayed. Say the name of a movie theater and driving directions to the theater along with an option to buy tickets will come up. “Traffic” will get you traffic conditions of major routes through Live Search Maps. “Weather” will get you a five day forecast for your city or one you are traveling to. “Driving directions” will access step-by-step directions to a destination. The new version of the Tellme software, which includes local results, is available for blackberry phones and will soon be available on future Helio devices.

Read more from the Tellme press release.

Brian’s Opinion

Many people wondered what Microsoft would do with their purchase of Tellme. Well, this latest version of the Tellme software should answer that question. Not only was Microsoft impressed with Tellme’s voice recognition technology, they also wanted to integrate their online services into Tellme’s service.

Having Tellme on your phone is a little like having your own personal assistant. There’s no need to risk typing while driving. Simply program your phone to speed dial Tellme and a wealth of information is within reach. All you need to access it is your voice and your phone.

This service will no doubt catch on. It’s frankly just too easy to access the information you need. Even if your hands are free to type you’ll probably be more likely just to call the service to access the information. I am sure that is what Tellme and Microsoft are hoping for.

Apple may not be recession proof, but it’s doing surprisingly well for all that investor hand-wringing and stock trashing nonsense that went on earlier this year. While the company wasn’t able to repeat its record-breaking first quarter performance, it did set a March quarter record for revenue and earnings and once again beat Wall Street’s estimates.

Indeed, it would appear the stagnant economy is having virtually no effect on Mac sales. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the company sold 2,289,000 of the computers during the quarter, a 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. That’s more than two and a half times the overall market growth rate for PCs, too.

Interestingly, it appears that MacBooks, Macbook Pros (and yes, even MacBook Airs) are continuing to fly off the shelves. Apple said laptops saw unit and revenue growth of 61 and 58 percent over the same period last year. Even more surprising, unit and revenue were actually up, 7 and 5 percent, respectively, from Q1. Yes, that would be the record-breaking holiday quarter. While Apple didn’t break sales down into precise categories, it’s safe to assume a lot of that money came from new MacBook Pro and macbook air purchases.

In total, the company reported revenue of $7.51 billion, up 43 percent year-over-year, which was also more than $500,000 above Wall Street estimates.

For the quarter, Oppenheimer said the company moved:

• 10,644,000 million iPods, representing one percent unit growth and eight percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter.
• 1,703,000 iPhones, which falls somewhere in the middle of analyst estimates which were 1.5 to 2 million. Total iPhone-related revenue recognized for the quarter was $378 million.

During the call, Oppenheimer also said Apple generated about $4 billion in cash flow from operations in the first half of fiscal 2008, which yields an ending cash balance of $19.4 billion. Not too shabby.

Regarding the ongoing iPhone shortage, COO Tim Cook would only say that Apple is still committed to hitting the 10 million mark by the end of the year. "At this point, both inventories in stores and the channel are low," he said. "We believe the reason for this is that there are more phones being bought with the intention of being locked, which is a significant number."

Unfortunately, Cook didn’t offer any estimates this time about what that number is, but he did say the company continues to see this trend "as a proxy for the worldwide demand for the phone."

"We’re on target to roll out into more countries in Europe and Asia later in the year," he said.

Figuring in those 1.7 million in iPhone sales for the quarter, that now means Apple has shipped about 5.7 million phones worldwide.

On a related note, Cook also told listeners that developer demand for the iphone SDK continues to be strong. So far, 200,000 developers have downloaded kit, he said, and more are being added each week.

As for the dwindling iPod sales, there weren’t too many surprises during the call. Oddly, it appears we’re starting to see a reversal trend when it comes to ipod revenue and unit sale numbers from a couple years ago. Whereas during the second quarter of 2005 and 2006, iPod unit sales were up 24 precent and revenue was down one percent. This quarter, sales were barely up a measly one percent while revenue was up 8 percent from the year ago quarter. That seems to confirm that those buying the now ubiquitous devices are opting for the higher priced models like the Touch and Classic.

Apple stock was down a fraction of a percent in after hours trading at $162.80.

We just got our hands on the 2100 Max GPS from Navigon, and while we are planning to bring you a full review, we wanted to take a few minutes and show off some pics. Just by looking at the 2100 Max, you can already see just how nice the unit looks, thanks in part to the shiny black exterior and the large 4.3-inch display. However, the 2100 Max offers so much more than just good looks, the unit is feature packed and comes with the very nice option to have your maps and points-of-interest upgraded every three-months with NAVIGON FreshMaps. Aside from the updates, the 2100 Max also offers reality view, turn-by-turn spoken directions, route planning, predictive text, speed assistant as well as branded-icons for your POI’s and much, much more that will will cover in the full review.

The Navigon 2100 Max is currently shipping and it retails for $299. Simply based on some quick first impressions, it seems to be well worth the money, be sure to check back for our full review to come, in the meantime enjoy the pics.

Keep reading for a few more pics…

Product [Navigon 2100 Max]

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