I was a little jet-lagged and failed to pick a winner for our caption contest. To that end, we encourage you, the readers, to pick the best caption and that caption writer will receive an Aliph Jawbone. Voting closes tomorrow, Tuesday, at noon. UPDATE – Looks like BinaryBiker (“seamen” line) takes it. Thanks for playing! {democracy:27} → Read More
There’s no telling if this product will ever ship, but PacketVideo was showing off a little “transmitter” for WiFi-enabled — and, presumably, non-WiFi — phones that allows you to serve content to almost any handset. They showed it at MWC last week and the little puck-sized server was sending video to a stock iPhone. It’s all very pie-in-the-sky, letting users… → Read More
[photopress:scaled.IMG_1359.JPG,full,pp_image] Proof: It was not a total sausage party. There was sausage, obviously, but it was chorizo. It has been said that there is no party like a CrunchGear party because a CrunchGear party never comes to an end. This, friends, was true about our strange little meet-up in a weird paella place near the Fira last Wednesday where I got to meet some cool… → Read More
http://www.crunchgear.com/video/player.swf?movie=neo.flv Just converted Neo’s promo video for your wee-phone-loving edification. Don’t say I never gave you nuthin’. → Read More
Well this is interesting. As manufacturers make bigger and bigger handsets, Dubai-based Neo is making one of the tweeist handsets known the man. The 808i has a 4-megapixel camera, WiFi, and plays MP3s and MPEG4s. It’s also small enough to be ingested by a Shi Tzu. They should be available in the US shortly, with no carrier mentioned. I suspect this will be an online sales play although the… → Read More
http://www.crunchgear.com/video/player.swf?movie=gesture.flv I lost quite a bit of this video but here’s a look at GestureTek’s EyeMobile system that uses a phone’s camera to create a gesture-based experience for maps and games. It worked really well and could be a way to add interesting interactivity features without adding an accelerometer to the package. Product Page → Read More
Engineer and all-round-nice-guy Marty Cooper told some gathered reporters and industry folks that he likes the iPhone… and Samsung and Motorola phones, but for different reasons. He did, however agree that it’s not as good as everyone says but he does enjoy using it. He was talking about the future of mobile and his point was fairly simple: have faith. Things can and will get better… → Read More
I just wandered over to the Spice booth to see their weird optical-disk-reading phone. It was pretty clunky and I probably wouldn’t use it, but that won’t stop the rest of the world from giving it a go. A lot of us forget that IP-based media, in the aggregate, is unfairly distributed. Overlay a heat map on the globe and you’d see white hot action in most of Asia, warmish action… → Read More
[photopress:scaled.IMG_1301.JPG,full,pp_image] Yesterday I asked you all to name this block guy. He’s still nameless but he got drunk last night and his head fell off. → Read More
http://www.crunchgear.com/video/player.swf?movie=blom.flv Saw a very cool demo of an upcoming technology by Blom. It’s basically oblique, rendered navigation in three dimensions. The company takes aerial pictures of an area and extrapolates the angles and shadows to make 3D buildings with all the features of the real buildings. It only works on PCs now, but their oblique photography is in… → Read More
SpinVox gave me a doll with a block for a head that I will attempt to photograph in various compromising positions. I’d like the CG audience to name him. There will be no prize, but you can always caption our MWC sailing girls. For some insane reason, SpinVox made hundreds of these little guys and you can go to the website and sent a message and some interns will change the position of the… → Read More
We will hold tomorrow’s TC/CG/MC meet-up at the Cafe del Sol, Av Paral.lel 182, right down the street from the Fira. I’ve received quite a few emails already but RSVP with the subject line “BCN MEET-UP” to john @ crunchgear.com so I can put together a head count. Apparently a bunch of strangers in a law office wasn’t quite a good idea. Remember: this is TOMORROW, Feb… → Read More
http://www.crunchgear.com/video/player.swf?movie=jcb.flv Need a phone for your next manure-picking-up job? Have we got one for you. It’s the JCB Toughphone. They’re selling it in the UK right now and there’s a 3 year warranty and IP54 rating for splash, shock, drop, and dust resistance. It has up to 4 hours of talk time and 200 hours of standby. Fun Fact #1: I just realized what… → Read More
We see Golla at almost every show and they keep showing off nicely designed cases and bags for laptops and mobile gear. Now they have a new line of backpacks and some sleeves for different sized laptops — up to 17 inches. They don’t quite fit in with the little booths selling “unified mobile development platforms” but it’s nice to see a bit of color. Product Page → Read More
[photopress:scaled.IMG_1282.JPG,full,pp_image] Fans of the solar powered Solio chargers will be pleased to note that the new Magnesium model will now power your laptops iPods and other low-power goodies and the Hybrid has a dual charging method which includes solar and wall power. The Magnesium costs $199 and the Hybrid costs $79.99. You may now go back to your granola-making, hippie. → Read More
Friends, welcome to the MWC 2008 caption contest featuring the SeaBees of the conference floor. The picture is sadly a bit dark but I’m sure you can make out their jaunty uniforms and sassy smiles. What, then, should we caption this image. The best entry, left in comments and judged by the CG staff, gets an Jawbone Bluetooth headset. Start captioning! The contest closes tomorrow at noon EST. → Read More
[photopress:scaled.IMG_1211.JPG,full,pp_image] It’s not quite vaporware, it’s not quite ready to ship, and it’s not quite first to market anymore. But don’t we all love the Readius, Polymer Vision’s foldable e-book? I saw the old girl again awaiting shipment “later this year.” She was even next to a bunch of shipping boxes, as if the Polymer Vision elves… → Read More
Here, in all its madcap glory, is the GPhone: Android running on test hardware that looks compelling but not quite ready for prime time. The interface was quite snappy — it was almost exactly as swift as the emulated software on any PC — and it looks good and tight with lots of nice transitions et al. Let’s say this is the emulator made flesh and leave it at that — the jury… → Read More
[photopress:kf700.jpg,full,right] Amazing bit of news here, but LG used this year’s MWC to debut some cellphones. Three cellphones, to be exact. From the low-end to the high-end (or nearest I can tell) there’s the KF510, the KF600 and KF700. The KF510 doesn’t real “do” anything and is more along the lines of a phone that carriers will give away—lots of silly… → Read More
[photopress:androidatmwccc.jpg,full,right] Android-based cellphones are somewhere on the Mobile World Conference show floor in Barcelona. There were rumors last week of an ARM-branded Android phone being at the show, and today AFP says we can expect to see models from Marvell, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics. While the first Android cellphones aren’t scheduled to… → Read More
[photopress:scaled.IMG_1205.JPG,full,pp_image] I was pretty down on Modu, which is essentially a module-based GSM system that consists of a tiny handset — no bigger than a business card and about a quarter-inch thick — and a bunch of “mates” or “jackets” that wrap around the phone to do different things. Now that I’ve seen it up close and talked to the… → Read More
The HTC Advantage, enhanced for your pleasure Not much new out of HTC this show. They updated the Shift to run Vista with the Origami Experience 2.0 (I saw these guys live at Red Rocks back in 1983 – great show) and an updated Advantage. They also launched the P3470 with TomTom Navigator in Europe. Nothing too earth-shattering but God do they do nice hardware. → Read More
Motorola just launched three phones, the W181, the W161, and the Z6w (the press page is missing so I added a placeholder). Do they excite you? Do you like them? With the introduction of the Wi-Fi enabled MOTO Z6w, Motorola is making it simple for consumers to enjoy seamless services on a single device. The GSM and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN)-compatible handset extends the consumer’s… → Read More
Huh… the 6210 has an accelerometer and a built-in compass along with GPS. Now that’s something interesting. Perhaps this could be their next work-out phone? The 6210 supports Maps 2.0 and has local maps pre-loaded on the 1GB memory card. It also has A-GPS. You can download free maps at maps.nokia.com. It has a 3.2-megapixel camera and MP3 player and will cost about 300 euro ($325). → Read More
The 6220 has a 5-megapixel camera with flash and geotagging. It will cost about 325 euros ($375) and supports HSDPA along with Nokia’s new Maps 2.0 application. It has a music player, FM radio, and supports microSD. Interestingly, it supports something called “widgets” which looks like an “always-on-top” system for weather, stocks, and all the other little info junk… → Read More
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