July 14, 2006, 5:54 PM PDT
2007 Lexus RX 350
Posted by: Kevin Massy

Lexus dropped of its swish 2007 RX 350 today, and before the parking attendant could slot it between all the other Lexuses in CNET's parking garage, we snatched the keys and took it for a spin. The 3.5-liter V-6 RX 350 is more powerful than the Lexus RX 330's (the car it replaces), generating a healthy 270 horsepower and enough torque to spin the wheels off the line. Engine tech is also upgraded in the RX 350, which uses dual variable valve timing to optimize performance and reduce emissions.

The only significant exterior difference between the RX 350 and the outgoing RX 330 is the addition of a grille below the front bumper. While the 5-door RX 350 is technically an SUV, it is cut from different cloth than some of the suburban tanks we have recently reviewed, such as the 2007 GMC Yukon and the 2007 Cadillac Escalade. While calling the RX 350 nimble is a stretch, its throttle response is good, and it displays passable handling and road-holding when thrown into corners, albeit with some noticeable body roll.

Our 2WD tester came with a Performance package, which includes sequential automatic transmission, four-wheel air suspension (with settings for rough-terrain, normal, and "spirited" driving conditions), adaptive HID headlights, and rain-sensing wipers. Inside, our RX 350 was decked out with the usual Lexus cabin luxury in the shape of ivory-leather trim with (imaginatively named) golden bird's-eye maple accents. Unfortunately, our test model came without many of the optional gadgets that will differentiate the RX 350 from lesser SUVs.

Most conspicuously, it came without Lexus's fifth-generation navigation unit, which so impressed us in the 2006 Lexus IS 350. Navigation--along with a backup camera and a Bluetooth hands-free interface--is available for an additional $2,650 or as part of the Luxury Value Edition package, which also includes an upgraded 11-speaker 210-watt audio system from Mark Levinson. This upgraded system needs to be outstanding if it is to rival Lexus's standard six-disc in-dash system, which we found to be by far the most impressive feature of our admittedly low-tech tester. While the display of ID3-tag information for MP3 and WMA CDs is limited to a single, truncated line of text, sound quality through the six speakers is awesome, with enough clear bass to blow the doors off and high-quality separation right across the range.

Other major tech options available on the RX 350 are a rear-seat DVD entertainment system with roof-mounted LCD screen and wireless headphones, adaptive (or in Lexuspeak: "Dynamic Laser") cruise control, and heated front seats. Safety features on the RX 350 are impressive, with ABS, electronic brakeforce distribution, variable stability control, and a tire-pressure monitoring system--all standard.

The Rx 350 bases at $37,400 but can approach the $50K mark when optioned up to the teeth.

Permalink | Post a comment

• See product information for 2007 Lexus RX 350 4dr SUV (3.5L 6cyl 5A)
• Read also: Car tech
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 5:24 PM PDT
Camera phone photography tips
Posted by: Nicole Lee

We've seen plenty of camera phones here at CNET, from low-end VGA ones to high-end 2-megapixel ones. We've even taken the liberty of showcasing the images we've taken in our handy dandy camera phone image gallery that compares and contrasts picture quality from different phones. Sometimes horrible pictures are caused by the camera's resolution, yes. But sometimes, just sometimes, they could also be caused by poor photography technique. Here are 13 cool tips in this digital photography blog on how to improve your camera phone photos. Some of the tips include getting close to your subject and keeping your lens clean. Most importantly is the tip on observing camera phone etiquette:

"There are many cases of camera phones being abused to take sneaky or voyeuristic photos. Ask permission to photograph strangers, consider restrictions on the use of cameras in places like theaters and concerts, etc."

We couldn't agree more.

Source: Digital Photography School and Hiptop3

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Cell phones
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 4:59 PM PDT
Helio's first TV ad
Posted by: Nicole Lee

Here's a fun little tidbit for the weekend. This is the first real television ad put out by Helio, the MVNO behind the MySpace Mobile phones. The star in this particular ad is the Helio Kickflip, arguably sexier than the other Helio phone, the Hero. And whatever you think of the ad's contents (I'm not sure if it's as funny as they wanted it to be), it certainly has that catchy youth appeal the company is striving for.

Sources: YouTube and Gizmodo

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Cell phones
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 4:49 PM PDT
Tick, a time tracker that keeps you on budget
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Tick, a time-keeping service currently in closed beta, was created to keep its developers from going over budget on their own projects. Unlike other time-keeping tools that are primarily focused around billing for time (see 1time), Tick is designed to help its users keep track of the time they've budgeted for projects so that they don't go over budget and cut into their profits.

Tick is one of those superelegant new Web 2.0 sites. It's simple and easy to use, and it appears to have just enough features to be useful. Users can set up multiple projects, clients, and workers, and quickly tell who has worked on what and which projects are running over their allotted time.

One thing Tick can't do is make your time budgets accurate, unfortunately. For that you might want to look at Devshop, a project management service with a unique "risk-based" scheduling philosophy.

Tick integrates with Basecamp for more robust project management. It doesn't yet integrate with a billing system, such as Blinksale, but the founders of Tick told me they're working on it.

A time-recording desktop widget is also in the works.

The service will be free if you are managing only one project, which can have multiple tasks. Paid plans, ranging up to $79 per month, will let you track multiple projects and employees.

Permalink | 2 comments

• Read also: Web 2.0, Work
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 12:33 PM PDT
The happiest cell phones on Earth
Posted by: Kent German

Disney Mobile started service last month, and we now have the company's two cell phones in our office for review. The LG candy-apple-red DM-L200 is a virtual carbon copy of the LG LX350, while the Pantech DM-P100 is a new design. A brief pass at the phones found an atrractive range of Disney content, but we have yet to try the GPS location services. Check back next week for full reviews.

Permalink | 1 comment

• Read also: Cell phones
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 12:18 PM PDT
LG's CU500 could launch Cingular Music
Posted by: Kent German

In addition to the update on its sexy Chocolate phone, there's more news out of LG land this week. The LG CU500 is now appearing on the company's Web site. Promised for Cingular, the LG CU500 world phone will offer a high-end range of features in a slim Razr-like design. Internal goodies include 3G support for UMTS and HSDPA networks, Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a digital music player, a MicroSD card slot, and stereo speakers. What's more, LG's site is reporting that the CU500 is compatible with Cingular Music for "the latest music and apps." Considering Cingular has announced but not yet unveiled the service, perhaps the CU500 will mark Cingular Music's debut. The CU500 is scheduled to launch July 17.

Permalink | 2 comments

• Read also: Cell phones
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 11:55 AM PDT
More on the LG Chocolate
Posted by: Kent German

As Nicole Lee wrote last month, LG's much-hyped VX8500 Chocolate phone is on its way to a Verizon Wireless store near you. Though there's still no word on the exact release date, the handset is now appearing on the Verizon Wireless Web site as "coming soon." You can sign up there to receive additional information on the Chocolate's availability. And you can be sure we'll keep you posted as well.

Permalink | 4 comments

• See product information for LG Chocolate
• Read also: Cell phones
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 11:28 AM PDT
Video sharing for small groups, with Fliqz
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

What's the best way to share videos with friends and family, but not with the entire world? YouTube is a fantastic video broadcast service, but it's not so good as a private hosting service. There's a new site, Fliqz, that wants to be a YouTube counterpart: a video-hosting site for the files you want to share with people you know, but not with anyone else.

Fliqz is set up around that idea: there is a very clear navigational system that lists your friends, their video albums, and the media inside each of the albums. Videos you publish can have one of three access levels: public (your videos will be available to anybody on Fliqz.com), private (anybody you send URLs to will be able to view your video), or private plus password. It's nice to have that level of granularity for access to personal videos, although Fliqz doesn't go the final step and let you manage individual users' passwords.

Fliqz has no storage limit, which is a nice feature. But it does have a functional upload cap: you can't upload files larger than 100MB via the Fliqz site, a serious limitation for home movies (arguably, users can recode their videos using a tool such as Windows Movie Maker, but who wants that extra step?). Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne told me the company will give those who ask FTP upload access if they want to upload larger files, but that manual step strikes me as another roadblock. And I don't like the current Web-based upload utility. Not only does it not show a progress bar, which is a drag when you're uploading a large file, but there's no protection against navigating away from the page during the middle of an upload. Imagine the fun of being 90MB into a 95MB upload on a slow DSL uplink when you hit the Back button by mistake. A desktop upload widget (which hopefully will allow both larger file upload and batch upload) is forthcoming, Wayne told me.

Wayne sees Fliqz as a video shoe box, a place for people to store and share home movies. The site has some good thinking behind it, but free video hosting is not a unique service, and before I can recommend this site, its core upload utility needs work. Personally, I'm using VideoEgg right now to share videos with family, and I don't see a need to change, although VideoEgg doesn't offer a shoe box interface like Fliqz does.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Web 2.0, Digital Video
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 8:59 AM PDT
Dispelling a myth: the Dell XPS 700 will NOT ship overclocked
Posted by: Rich Brown

It's been on Digg, and it's been on Engadget, but the rumors about Dell shipping the XPS 700 are incorrect. It started at TG Daily, the news arm of enthusiast site Tom's Hardware. The reporter apparently based his information on a Dell presentation given at a meeting hosted by Dell at the World Series of Video Games Summer Tournament in Grapevine, Texas.

If it were true that Dell is shipping already overclocked systems, it would have altered the score of our own XPS 700 review. Dell also probably would have sent us a system with the overclocked parts. Everything that showed up in our Labs arrived stock. But don't take our word for it. We asked Dell last night, and we asked again today. Here's the official statement from Liem Nguyen, a member of Dell's PR team.

"Recent demonstrations of the XPS 700 at the recent World Series of Video Games Summer Tournament used an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor overclocked by Dell engineers to show the potential performance that build-your-own enthusiasts can achieve when the processor becomes available. Dell has unlocked the BIOS so that customers can overclock the processor themselves, but at this time Dell is not factory overclocking the system."

Permalink | 5 comments

• See product information for Dell XPS 700 (Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800)
• Read also: Desktops, gaming
• Email to a friend | Print this post

July 14, 2006, 8:26 AM PDT
The time of your life, now in Web 2.0
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Recently two online projects surfaced that help users create time lines. Mike Yamamoto covered the SIMILE Timeline project on the News.com blog yesterday. It's a tool that makes it easy for developers to create very cool scrolling maps of time-based data, from minute-by-minute events such as the Kennedy assassination to millions of years of evolution.

SIMILE is an academic exercise; it's not something end users can use yet to create their own time lines. If you want to experiment with time lines today, try Dandelife, a tool that lets you sketch the sweep of your own life in a time line, with associated stories, pictures, and videos.

I found the process of creating a time line in Dandelife very straightforward, although one thing nagged at me: Who on earth would care about the detailed thread of my life, other than me? To be fair, Dandelife is still in very early development, and if its barely working Connect feature evolves into a way for a user to weave the thread of his or her own life into a fabric with other users' time lines, it could make for an interesting site, or at least a fantastic icebreaker for dating.

(Also of interest is Dandelife's bizarre revenue model.)

Google Maps and its competitors spawned a raft of sites that use the map as the central interface into data. SIMILE and Dandelife (and another life tracker, OurStory) are early experiments that do a similar thing, but using the time line as the interface. These two ideas will no doubt merge: mapping sites will get better relationships to time, and the time lines will end up displaying events on some form of map. I'm looking forward to those experiments.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Web 2.0
• Email to a friend | Print this post