Even before wrist watches—and now mobiles—replaced the pocket watch in the everyman’s wardrobe, pulling something out of a pocket and flipping over a cover just to tell the time was known to be inconvenient. (Wait, isn’t that how mobile phones work now?) This Cobalt concept, on the other hand, improves the pocket watch by shoving a small computer inside, letting you get temperature, your email, the time, the date, text messages and all kinds of nonsensical crap inside. Yeah, the interface is a bit cluttered, but the idea of shoving a connected PDA inside a pocket watch is something we could get behind—that is if our mobile phones didn’t already do the same thing. [Yanko Design]
Today in a surprise announcement in New York City, Garmin announced the nuvifone, a full-fledged GSM HSDPA smartphone built on its own operating system with GPS navigation at its core—but e-mail and web browsing close to its heart, and a camera built in too. No pricing or carrier announcement has been made yet, though its likeliest compatible network is AT&T given the technology. (When T-Mobile launches HSDPA, it too will be suitable, and possibly more attractive than AT&T.)
With visions of the MacBook Air hovering tantalisingly before us, one designer took a page from the now-dead Palm Foleo and has docked the iPhone into a really barebones 12″ chassis—essentially nothing more than a screen, keyboard and USB ports. Willy Yonkers, its creator, thinks that if you kept it simple it could sell for as little as $US150. Too bad it’s a pipe dream, even if it looks a bit fugly. [Willy Yonkers via Yanko Design]
According to Ubergizmo, i-Mate’s working on a Palm Foleo-like UMPC/PDA device that has a 1024×768 display, a built-in keyboard, an 80 (!) hour battery, and a price point of only $300. However, this shell is just a “shell” (like its name), and uses one of i-Mate’s Windows Mobile Ultimate smartphones as a base/processor. That makes sense with the VGA and XVGA display out on the phones, and is slightly more reasonable than what the Foleo was trying to do. [UberGizmo] More »
From rumour to fact, we’ve watched as HP has revived their iPaq line. The first two units will be coming out in just two days, on October 8th. Featuring Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, identical 624mHz processors and WM6 Pro, the cheaper 110 will run $299 while its older brother the 210 will cost $399.
Of course, with contract, they’ll cost you a lot less. Wait. They’re just PDA’s, or, “phone companions” as the models are called in HP’s press release. And there are no contract rebates for “phone companions.”
Those leaked pics and specs for a new line of HP iPAQs turned out to be spot on, U.S. model numbers aside. Led by the formidably spec’d iPAQ 900 Business Messenger smartphone, the lineup consists of another smartphone (600 Business Navigator, the 900′s QWERTY-less little bro), two “classic handhelds,” (the 100 and 200, “classic” meaning Wi-Fi, no cellular) and a jazzed-up GPS unit (300 Travel Companion). Press release laying it all out after the jump.
Rumblings of HP’s return to the hand held world are looking more solid with a complete lineup of very legitimate looking iPAQs. We’ll run you through it wham-bam-thank-you-ma’m style. Hit the jump and let’s do this thing. More »
This is either a technological breakthrough or a sign that the medical profession is getting lazier by the minute: Aranz Medical’s SilhouetteMobile PDA was designed to diagnose how bad a wound is, and monitor its progress as it heals. With lasers. Fully disgusting illustrated “Wound Measurement Report” after the bloody jump.
