Gadget Access

Posted Mar 9th 2008 4:59PM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: cellphonesWhat the heck is going on here? Despite the overwhelming popularity of gizmo-heavy mobile devices in Japan, working with megacarrier NTT DoCoMo must be a losing proposition for many of its manufacturing partners, because just days after Mitsubishi’s announcement of its withdrawal, a fresh Nikkei report indicates that Sony Ericsson is raising the white flag as well to divert attention and resources to less saturated and more profitable markets. Apparently, DoCoMo will bear the brunt of the downsizing, while Sony Ericsson’s partnership with KDDI — a CDMA carrier — will continue. [Warning: subscription required]

Update: It turns out that Sony Ericsson intends to continue working with DoCoMo by initially delivering new models through mid ‘08, at which point it will start buying handsets from other manufacturers and rebranding them. In other countries this would be truly egregious, but as our Japanese bureau points out, DoCoMo lays out very strict requirements for each of its lines that would probably make it difficult to distinguish a true Sony Ericsson model from a rebranded model sourced from, say, Sharp or Toshiba.

Posted Mar 9th 2008 7:28PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Laptops
In a recent interview, Asus CEO Jerry Shen talked up the company’s newest edition to the Eee family, and also dropped a few more details on the forthcoming laptop. Apparently, the new set of miniature PCs will carry SSDs as opposed to the flash memory we saw in previous iterations, with sizes ranging from 8GB in the XP-equipped model, up to 12GB or 20GB in the Linux versions — though it’s hard to say why the smaller-footprint Linux would need more drive space. Shen also revealed that there are tentative plans to release WiMAX and HSDPA-enabled models sometime in Q3 of 2008, and he confirmed that come May the company will trade up from VIA CPUs to Intel’s Diamondville (er, Atom) chips. In addition, more colors are on the way, and the base price in the US will be $499 at launch — though that figure is expected to drop in the following months.

[Via Eee Site]

Posted Mar 9th 2008 2:08PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Gaming
Remember that Xbox 360 price cut we mentioned a few days ago? Well it appears that the Financial Times Germany is reporting that this Monday, Microsoft will trim the fat from the Arcade and Pro consoles, shaving €80 and €50 off the price tag, respectively. Of course, right now this is still unconfirmed by the boys in Redmond (or in any other official location), though the buzz in the community does seem to suggest that these cuts are coming. Hopefully if these become a reality, the company will break something off for folks on these shores as well — we need all the help we can get right now.

Update: See that photo above? it looks like that price cut really is happening. Good news for you, Europe.

[Via I4U News; Image via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

At last week’s Apple event, Steve Jobs went over the SDK release and how they hope to manage it.  Job’s lightly reviewed reasons Apple would reject an iPhone application; things like privacy concerns, content, or interfering with their business plan.  Somehow, Sun believes they’ll build a Java version for the iphone.

According to InfoWorld, Java is planning on running the Java Virtual Machine on the iPhone.  However, according to the iPhone SDK documentation, the use of plug in architecture isn’t allowed.  It will be interesting to see how Sun works around this.

From InfoWorld:

Sun came to the conclusion it could make a JVM work on the iPhone after taking 24 hours to look at information on Apple’s SDK. Sun saw nothing in the public statements preventing the JVM from being one of the applications enabled on the iPhone, said Klein. Apple released the SDK in conjunction with the beta release if its iPhone 2.0 software; the general release of iPhone 2.0 is scheduled for June.

From the quotes used, attributed to Sun officials and analysts, they seem to forget Apple has complete control over the apps and absolute control over what gets on (unjailbreaked, at least).

Read [InfoWorld] via [Ars Technica]

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Posted Mar 9th 2008 1:37PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Portable AudioWord on the street (and by street, we mean mostly British tabloids) is that Paul McCartney’s deal to sell the Beatles back-catalog is done, and the Greatest Works of Musical Art Ever Recorded will be appearing on the iTunes store “within months.” Of course, we’ve been hearing whispers about this for what seems like a million years, and since both Apple Corps and Apple are delivering “no comment” and “rumor and speculation” responses on the topic, we won’t get too excited. Still, there does seem to be some serious movement on this front, with everyone and their mother saying the lot is to be sold any day now for around $400 million — which is no small sum. We will, of course, keep you abreast of any developments which will lead to you stocking your music players with the Fab Four’s work.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Posted Mar 9th 2008 3:35PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones
Finally, iphone owners no longer have to mope around with a feeling of shame and embarrassment in their hearts: AT&T has blessed them with an “unlimited” calling plan. That’s right, if you so desire (and you do so desire, don’t you?), you can latch a $119.99 all-you-can-eat plan onto your super-device. Sure, it looks peachy, until you notice that despite your “unlimited” status, you still only get a measly 200 text messages, which is like a three-course steak dinner with no dessert. At least you’ll never again have to end a conversation with Mom because you’re worried about overages — though you’ll want to keep a close watch on those SMSs, since the prices seem to be constantly heading skyward.

[Thanks, impuLsive]

Maybe you were just surfing around for your next career or were up to something more sinful, when your boss decides to show up behind your back, literally. Instead of painstakingly trying to revive a decent screen on your PC, and in the process look like a silly baboon, you can now make a swift and smart move using the USB Smart Privacy Mouse and convince him that you were really being a sincere employee.

The USB Smart Privacy Mouse, as you must have already guessed, is for the wily amongst us. It has a “secret” button that can be configured to conceal any (and all) programs that you would consider private and instead bring up “decent” programs in times of need. So let’s say you are on a chat application, bitching about your boss and the devil himself walks in to say hello. Hit the button on the Smart Privacy Mouse, and voila – the screen displays the time report that you have been working so hard on. Happy boss, happy you. Smart indeed. Get wicked at $19.99.

Via The Red Ferret Journal.

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Back when I used a media PC in my living room, the most frustrating thing that I found was that I had both a keyboard and mouse sitting on my coffee table. Granted, most of the time I simply used my remote, but there were times where I would use my TV as a giant monitor for surfing the net and such, which meant I had a few choices. One, I could use a regular keyboard and mouse, which wasn’t fun. Another was to get an in-air mouse with a smaller keyboard (was a combo) which was better, but still not perfect. I never got around to trying option number three which I think would have been the best, a keyboard with a built-in trackpad.

This little number from Brando is a simple combo device that would likely be welcome in any HTPC environment. The keyboard isn’t full-size, but it more like that of a laptop. The trackpad makes it easy to navigate your screen without the need to keep a mouse on-hand at all times. It is wireless and runs off of four AA batteries. There are separate on/off switches for the keyboard and the trackpad so you can get the most life out of your batteries. You can pick one up for $57, which is close to what you’d pay for a decent wireless keyboard and mouse set.

Source: GeekAlerts

Posted Mar 9th 2008 7:08AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Storage
Samsung promised it was coming in March, and here she blows. The Spinpoint M6 is the first standard-height 500GB 2.5-incher available, at a lean 9.5mm, meaning you can cram it into most existing laptops unlike the 2.5-inch 500 giggers from Fujitsu and Hitachi. Samsung’s using some Perpendicular Magnetic Recording tech to cram everything in, stuffing three 167GB platters into the 5400rpm drive. The M6 goes for $299 and is shipping now. If DVD burning is more your pace, Samsung also just announced an “industry fastest” 22X DVD burner, the SH-S223. The SATA drive can stamp a 4.7GB disc in 12 minutes, and does dual-layer discs at a respectable 16X. No word on price yet for that one.

Posted Mar 9th 2008 11:38AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
Keeping with the Tangent tradition, the Quattro Mk 2 looks an awful lot like most every other tabletop radio the outfit cranks out. Nevertheless, this particular iteration pays no mind to DAB and focuses its attention on providing access to a smorgasbord of internet radio stations. Aside from featuring both integrated WiFi and an Ethernet port, you’ll also get WPA2 security support, FM tuning capabilities, a backlit LCD, a headphone jack and a auxiliary port for connecting DAPs / PMPs. Word on the street has the walnut and black models selling now for £179.95 ($362), while the glossy red and white versions demand an extra £20 ($40).

[Via Tech Digest]