Swedish gadget blog Fosfor got their hands on the svelte O2 Cocoon phone, and were gracious enough to produce an unboxing gallery. Not only is the phone simple and elegant, but so is its packaging. We’re big fans of this newcomer, from its clean lines to the incorporation of a hidden LED display. Hopefully this will spur some better design into the industry. [Fosfor] galleryPost('cocoonunbox', 4, 'o2 Cocoon Unboxed');
Signalmap is a neat webapp that lets you punch in your ZIP code and your cellphone provider and see how the reception is where you live. Not only can you use it to gauge where the best place is to make your call, you can compare the four big providers so you can see which one is best suited for you (based on your home and work location). Of course, the signals are all user-contributed, so there’s no guarantee that providers themselves haven’t gone and flooded the site with slightly higher than usual signal ratings. [Signalmap]
AU: Any Google Maps coders out there up for the challenge of making this happen in Oz? I would love to have a resource like this to turn to! My one concern, though, is that I can have very different signal strengths within a few feet of my desk… -SB
Readers keep sending their photos to the No-Prize iPhone Fake Transparency Picture Reader Contest. The weekend is here, so why not use the opportunity to create your own and send them? Maybe one of you cooking on the grill? Or in a bikini showing your belly button —specially if you are Gizmodo’s only female editor? Interested? Read the rules after the jump.
AU: I’ve posted this as more than brief this time because they’ve opened up entries to pretty much any cameraphone you like. Go have some fun! -SB
In the realm of horrible Simpsons knockoff toys, this Homer Simpson Robosapien has to be one of the worst ever. Shall we count the things wrong with it? First, it’s not even the real Homer’s voice. Second, well, it’s a piece of crap. Watch the video to see Shiny Shiny struggle to get the thing to work. [Shiny Shiny]
Not only is the iPhone getting its third-party cherry popped, the Helio Ocean is now running third-party apps now as well. The first proof of concept app is Opera Mini, the small-ish browser from Opera that lets even lousy phones browse like a star. To get it to work on your Ocean (even though the default Ocean browser is just fine for us), just follow the directions on Heliocity. After you’re done, you may want to check to see how you can support them to get even cooler apps on the Ocean. [Heliocity]
That’s what is reported to be a 40D, the successor to Canon’s 30D prosumer flagship. The highlights of improvement appear to be a live view LCD, boosting the MP rating from 8.2 to 12 or 13, and Small RAW image format. Sounds fanciful, especially as we’ve heard all sorts of other numbers out there for MP ratings in the past. Either way, I love the 30D, so am excited for the successor. And I can’t wait for the official news, whatever specs that will bring. [Northlight Images] galleryPost('d40leakedgal', 4, 'D40, Maybe');
Monster Cable, which we’ve thoroughly tested in our own hands, have announced if you purchase one of their C4L—which have the price of $99 for 1 meter—you get the guarantee that the cable will meet or exceed all HDMI performance requirements for the next five years. We’d still recommend you get a cheap cable that meets today’s specs and when 4K res over HDMI comes, you upgrade to another cheap cable. [Electronic House]
Unlike this CEO desk, which just looks like it’s made out of LEGO but actually isn’t, this LEGO desk consists only of 35,000 pieces of LEGO bricks. Some details:
AU: And let’s not ignore that grandfather clock over his shoulder! That colour scheme tells me that’s also a LEGO construction. Nice. -SB
Dell is totally latching on to what is sure to be the wave of the future with their new project: a tablet. Yep, the Wang Computers Dell Latitude XT tablet looks to really grab the exploding tablet market by the horns, featuring the sorts of specs that’ll make tablets as popular as UMPCs, if not more popular than UMPCs. Hang onto your hats.
