Thursday, January 31, 2008

Garmin Nuvifone:cellphone GPS with


Garmin, one of the world’s leading GPS manufacturers announced their Garmin Nuvifone – their first attempt at mobile phone production.
The Garmin Nuvifone is entirely touch-controlled and offers some very nice features. The main focus is of course the built-in GPS and GPS navigation software. The software is the same as the one of the leading stand-alone GPS navigation systems on the market GPS Nuvi. According to Garmin the Google local search is also seamlessly implemented to allow quick searching of points of interest near your current location.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Mobile Phone reading Software for the Blind

K-NFB Reading Technology, a developer of assistive technologies, introduced what it claims to be the first mobile phone software that reads to the blind and the disabled.
K-NFB, a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind, is making its reading software available on the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N82 mobile phone. It will be the smallest text-to-speech reading device to date, the company said.

The software is part of a new product line called Reader Mobile that includes the knfbReader and the kReader, which allow a person to take pictures using the N82's built-in camera and read printed materials. This is enabled through image processing software developed by Kurzweil.

"So many people already carry cell phones. This innovation is exciting because it puts all of the functions that users need into one product, eliminating the need to carry multiple devices. The Reader's simple user interface makes it ideal for the growing number of blind seniors," said James Gashel, VP of business development at K-NFB, in a statement.

The software reads text out loud to the blind. While those with disabilities can use the software to enlarge, track, and highlight content in documents directly on their mobile phone. Documents stored in a phone can also be transferred to and from Braille desktop programs.

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Monday, January 28, 2008

Herry:A robot bowling ball thrower


United States Bowling Congress (USBC) has started a two-year study of bowling ball motion. USBC engineers have used a seven-foot tall robotic ball thrower nicknamed ‘Harry’ to test about 60 particle and reactive resin bowling balls in more than 150 tests. They’ve also used the ‘Super C.A.T.S.’ (Computer Aided Tracking System) to record the velocity of the bowling balls as they were rolled down the lane. The Super C.A.T.S. system is made up of 23 small electronic sensors installed on the lanes. USBC engineers will give their conclusions about the balls next month.

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Amazon.com announces to add MP3 Music store to international web sites


Amazon.com will start selling MP3 music files through its international Web sites this year, the company said Sunday. But details of the company's plans to expand its digital music service remain scarce.

"We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S.," Bill Carr, Amazon's vice president of digital music, in a statement.

Amazon began selling MP3 files without digital rights management technology on its U.S. Web site in September 2007, at prices ranging from US$0.89 to $0.99 per song, and $5.99 to $9.99 per album.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sony Ericsson S500i :Review


Sony Ericsson is known for its elegant and beautifully designed phones, and the S500i is no exception. Its sleek and sexy slider design sports a unique aesthetic that makes it look like it belongs in a high-end boutique rather than a cell phone store. And even though it's not a Walkman-branded phone, it comes with an onboard music player, as well as stereo Bluetooth, a 2.0-megapixel camera, a wireless Web browser, e-mail, and more. The S500i is available in Mysterious Green, Spring Yellow, Ice Purple, and Contrasted Copper. Since the S500i isn't offered via U.S. carrier, you'll have to purchase it unlocked at a rather steep price of $359.

Design
As we mentioned, the S500i is a very stylish and eye-catching handset. It has a classy and sophisticated appearance, and there are even glowing LEDs along the sides whenever it's activated, making it appear extra sparkly. Not only is the S500i sleek, it's also compact, measuring only 3.9 inches by 1.8 inches by 0.5 inch and weighing about 3.3 ounces. The S500i is one of a few phones that Sony Ericsson has manufactured in a slider design, the others being the W580i and the W850i. We like the slider mechanism quite a bit--the movement was smooth yet sturdy, and didn't feel too loose at all. There is a slight sloping curl along the chin of the phone that you can use to push the phone open, and to close it, you can slide your thumb down on the raised toggle--making the entire sliding process completely one-handed.

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Saturday, January 26, 2008

World`s thinnest laptop by Apple



Apple finally has entered the subnotebook market, introducing a lightweight laptop meant to please road warriors. But, typical of Apple, the company took a different approach from its competitors. The result is a beautiful, amazingly thin computer, but one whose unusual trade-offs may turn off some frequent travelers.

The new aluminum-clad MacBook Air, which I've been testing for several days, is billed as the world's thinnest notebook computer. Its thickest point measures just three-quarters of an inch, which is slimmer than the thinnest point on some other subnotebooks. And it employs some innovative software features, such as fingertip gestures for its touchpad that are similar to those on Apple's iPhone.

Apple refused to make the most common compromise computer makers employ to create their littlest laptops. Other subnotebooks -- a category generally defined as weighing three pounds or less -- have screens of just 10 to 12 inches and compressed keyboards. The three-pound MacBook Air, by contrast, features a 13.3-inch display and a full-size keyboard.

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Missing iphones?


Shortly after Apple and its iPhone partner announced their financial results, the analysts noticed that there could be a little bit of problem. It seems like there are few hundreds of thousands iPhones roaming unaccounted on the market. Let’s see what happened!

Earlier this week, Apple announced that is has sold 3,7 million iPhones until the end of 2007. On the other hand AT&T, the exclusive distributor of iPhone in the US, revealed during its earnings conference call that it has ended the last year with “just at or slightly under 2 million iPhone customers”.

As you can imagine, the analysts immediately noted the discrepancy and has started to search the missing iPhones and some explanations. iPhone is available also in Europe, but there are no precise estimations of how many mobile phones have been sold so far.


were sold in UK, Germany and France or in other European countries. Orange, France Telecom’s mobile division, confirmed that the French users have bought 70,000 iPhone during the first month of availability, instead of 100,000 forecasted. The iPhone was launched in France on November 29. In UK, Telefonica’s O2 said that on track to sell 200,000 iPhones by early January. There no estimations for the iPhone sales in Germany, except a statement made by an official back in November. He said Apple sold 10,000 iPhone in the fist day.

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