Monday, February 11, 2008
Gadgets
Four Crazy Radio Concepts to Celebrate National Inventor’s Day
11:53PM Addy Dugdale | Today is National Inventor’s Day, in honour of Thomas Edison, and Giz is going to celebrate it with some designs from the Work In Progress show by students at London’s Royal College of Art. There are no less than four concept radios in the show, including this one by Mikael Silvanto, which melds a slide rule with an iPod-esque analog radio. The other three, including one which uses QR codes to hook up graffiti artists with pirate radio stations, are below. More »
Hardware
Noise-Suppressing Mobile Chip Will Slay “Can You Hear Me Now?” Guy Forever
11:44PM Matt Buchanan | A new sand-grain-sized chip by Audience being demoed at MWC kills extraneous noise (better than current software-based suppression) so they can, even if it sounds like you’re skydiving at the time. Basically, this speck of silicon wonderment chills in between the mic and the phone’s circuitry, where it maps sound as a 3-D matrix, scraping away up to 25 decibels of garbage, leaving just your deep baritones or whiny squeal. Besides letting your singing voice come through the way it was meant to be heard, dumping the excess baggage saves bandwidth, giving stingy-ass network providers a reason to push for this thing as well. [NYT] More »
Phones
An Army of First Official Android Prototype Phones Invading MWC
11:16PM Matt Buchanan | In addition to the chipmaker ARM, everybody and their mother is showing off their own flavour of the first official prototype Google Android phones at MWC today: ARM, Texas Instruments, Marvell, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics, to name a few. Definitely expect some first gropes of Android on real hardware later today—hopefully these are the droids we’re looking for. [Yahoo!/AP] More »
Phones
Samsung i200 Cheapo Windows Smartphone Spotted at MWC
10:53PM Gizmodo US Edition | Arne from the::unwired got a glimpse of Samsung’s SGH-i200 smartphone on display at the Microsoft booth. Rumored to be unveiled today, it has 3G connectivity with Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard, and is supposedly aiming at the cheap-ish smartphone market by costing around $320. Nicely grabbed photo there, Arne. Expect more details soon. [the::unwired, Mobile review] More »
Phones
Samsung and B&O Join Forces for the Dual-Slider F400
10:49PM Addy Dugdale | Behold the latest offering from Samsung and B&O: the 3G, dual-slider F400. Slide the front upwards and you get your keypad, slide it down and your B&O speakers heave into view. As well as the 2.2-inch QVGA display, there’s an RDS-enabled FM radio and MicroSD card slot. Price is expected to be around the 380€ mark, which is around 600 of your buckeroonies, when it launches in March. [Tech Digest] More »
Phones
Samsung G400 Flip-Phone has Two Touchscreens, 5MP Camera
10:33PM Gizmodo US Edition | The new G400 gets its “Dual-Touch Chic” surname thanks to a touchscreen on the inside and outside of its skinny metal frame. We do, however, wonder what what the hell it’s for—controlling its music-playing functions perhaps? Measuring in at 4.1 x 2.0 x 0.6 inches, this is Samsung’s first go at an all-metal flip-phone but, other than shiny looks and those “chic” touchscreens, it’s pretty similar to other top-of-the-line Samsung cells. The G400 has a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, 2.2-inch inner display, RDS FM radio, 100MB of memory and expansion via microSD. Available in April/May for around $490. [Mobile review] More »
Phones
Samsung Makes Its Point With 17 New Phones at MWC 2008
9:53PM Addy Dugdale | Mobile Review is reporting that Samsung has as many as 17 new mobiles to drop at MWC 2008, including the G810. We’ll bring you the best and most interesting here on the Giz. More »
Announcements
Postcard from Barcelona as Jesus and Blam Hit Mobile World Congress
9:34PM Addy Dugdale | Dear Readers, Well, two out of three ain’t bad, I guess. I was meant to be joining Blam and the guy in the red hat, Captain Zissou oh yeah, Jesus, I think his name is, for a couple of days in Barcelona, but I have been struck down by a nasty, virulent, ectoplasm-producing cold, so I’m staying home. Never mind, while they go out and fondle sexy new phones in Spain’s second city and keep you informed about the hottest mobiles and smartphones on offer this year, I shall see if I can break the world record for continuous sneezing. UPDATE: Oh, and to anyone who is speculating that J will play fast and loose with booth babes, I can categorically say that it won’t happen—unless the booths are furnished with chicks who look like this. More »
Phones
Motorola Z6w Nothing More than an Updated Z6c
8:34PM Addy Dugdale | The third in the trio of “new” phones being shown off by Motorola at WMC 2008 in Barcelona this week is not really a new phone. Instead, the Z6w is just a Wi-Fi version of the Z6c but with a cradle added for good measure. Another pic and full specs after the jump. More »
Phones
