Sony’s Bluetooth wristwatches may do a neat job of buzzing to alert you that you’re phone’s ringing if it’s not in your pocket, but until now they’ve been kinda gruff. The upcoming MBW-200 versions are different, aimed squarely at the gadgety woman. Dubbed “Sparkling Allure,” “Contemporary Elegance” and “Evening Classic” they auto-pair via Bluetooth, have an OLED number display and let you mute or reject the call from the watch, as well as control a phone’s music-player functions. Sony’s also drummed up support to outline the femininity of the design (no, really!) by getting three young women tennis players to model them, but not mentioned pricing. Pics and press release below.
In collaboration with Nissan and NTT DOCOMO, a Japanese mobile operator, Sharp has developed what they claim is the first mobile phone that also functions as a keyless entry and ignition device for cars. Rather than building a new system from the ground up, Sharp has simply opted to include Nissan’s existing Intelligent Key technology in a phone. The system will function like any of the many other wireless keyfobs on the market today, authorising the driver to enter, exit and start his or her car without ever poking any keys around.
As well as tweaking its Gorillapod flexible gripping tripod design in the Gogo model, to support all sorts of gadgets, Joby’s now applied some real beefing-up techniques to its original camera-tripod version and created the Gorillapod Focus, designed for heavier camera gear. Made from aluminium so it weighs just 499 grams itself, it can nonetheless support pro-video or SLR equipment that weighs up to 5 kg, and of course fasten it/dangle it from all sorts of places you wouldn’t normally mount your cameras. The Focus is due soon for a similarly beefed-up price of $US150. [GeekyGadgets]
The Rovio is quite definitely revving up for its September 26th launch with a bunch of new promo videos from WowWee. If you weren’t already intrigued by the web-controlled roving webcam, then you will be after watching this teaser: it looks like it does a pretty fab job of manoeuvring while streaming video and sounds. I do wish the camera vertical angle was more adjustable though.
USB hubs, schmUSB hubs: jam this 5-in-1 charger cable into the back of your machine and you’ll be able to charge-up/sync five different gizmos at once. That’s if you have an iPod, a PSP, a Nintendo DS, aGBA and a device that connects via mini-USB. Not rocket science by any means, but a handy way of simplifying your desktop wiring clutter, and good for computers with few USB sockets (I’m looking at you, Mr. MacBook Air). Out now for $US14. [Gadget4All via BoingBoingGadgets]
Google gets it. They understand. While they’re thinking about starting their own countries and creating a whole new mobile platform (and rolling around on rollerblades while doing it), they understand that regular folk are struggling, especially at the petrol pump.
That’s why they’ve launched a gadget for iGoogle which tells you the price of any petrol station in Australia. They update the information twice daily – so the information is going to be fairly accurate – and you can search either by suburb, price or brand.
You can download the gadget for your iGoogle homepage here. It’s a free download, so there isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t use it, unless of course you prefer to walk or catch public transport. In which case – kudos to you for being better than the rest of us…
Whoever said that print was dead? Popular Science, one of the world’s biggest men’s magazines, has launched in Australia this week. Why should you care? Because they care about the gadgets, and that makes them like you (and me).
The new mag promises to deliver a heap of content, from the latest tech to sports, vehicles, health and engineering. The first issue is on the newstands now for $8.95, and from the looks of that weird looking bike thing on the front cover, it might be right up your alley.
The launch issue’s press release is after the jump, if you need convincing why you should read the mag…
[PopSci]
Need some wireless internet love, but without the hassles of a 24-month contract? Have oodles of money to spend? Then Telstra’s got the pre-paid wireless internet solution for you!
The Big T has released its own pre-paid wireless internet solution. For $149 you get yourself that wireless modem you see in the pic above, plus $10 worth of credit. The cost of the actual data varies, ranging from $20 for 150MB to $100 for 6GB.
Credit expires within 30 days. Unless you buy some more credit that is, in which case it carries over to the next month.
We bag Telstra’s data pricing (and rightly so), but for some people, the Big T is the only option, especially in outback Australia. So it’s good to see them offering pre-paid for those customers who wouldn’t necessarily have the coin to sign away two years of their life on wireless data.
[via Lifehacker and Tipster Stuart - Thanks Stuart!]
Sony have a mandate to have 90% of their products networked connected within the next couple of years. That’s a pretty big task, no matter who you ask, but one that the company is actually moving towards fairly quickly thanks to a little technology we like to call DLNA.
The first Sony Ericsson phone to feature DLNA is the C905 Cybershot snapper, which comes with Wi-Fi, an 8.1-megapixel snapper (and typical camera functions like face detect, BestPic and a Xenon flash).
Connected to other DLNA devices on your network, you can use the C905 to access and view content stored on your PC, PS3 or other DLNA device. Or, you can access content (like photos) from your phone on your PS3, without having to plug it in.
The C905 is looking to land in Australia in October. And if you happen to be a Mac user and therefore aren’t impressed with the whole DLNA thing, then you’ll be happy to know that the C905 is also one of the first Sony Ericsson phones that is OS agnostic – so you’ll be able to sync your content between your phone and your MacBook.
We’ve seen Sony’s Sountina speaker on Giz before, but yesterday at their UCHI event, Sony were showcasing the speaker for the first time in Australia. For those whose memories are lacking, the Sountina is a vertical speaker that uses some weird kind of tech to both do away with the need for stereo speakers, as well as maintain a consistent volume in 360 degrees no matter how close you are to the speaker.
As you can see from the video above, it’s a funky looking device. The whole volume thing is actually really disconcerting – while it may seem a little bit louder closer to the actual speaker, you can walk about 5 metres way and it still sounds like it’s the same volume. And even when you’re standing right next to it, you can still hold a conversation without raising your voice or gesturing like a monkey.
Sound quality was pretty good in the mid to high range, but the bottom end was distorting like it was in pain. It may have been something to do with the fact that the speaker’s base was just sitting on concrete, but the sound was still shaking around all over the place in the low end.
