Kyocera Strobe
[+] Enlarge photo

Permalink | 1 comment

• See product information for Kyocera Switch Back (Strobe)
• Read also: cell phones, CTIA fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

Cell phone games and content appear to be going all interactive. AirPlay is showing an application designed to make football viewing on a cell phone more interactive. AirPlay Football will let viewers make play calls before they happen while viewing a game on a mobile handset. Viewers will also be able to answer trivia questions, participate in polls, view game news, and compete against other users in their play calls.

Meanwhile Capcom Interactive introduced ESPN Poker Club, a new mobile game in the style of Texas Hold 'Em. Participants can create a unique identity by customizing the face, hairstyle, hair color, eyewear, and hat of their player.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: cell phones, ctia fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

Watch for a Samsung phone on an episode of the new season of The Office. The SCH-i830 is the most likely candidate to appear in an episode where the Dunder Mifflin crew goes to a faux trade show. We'd love to see Steve Carell on the phone with Verizon customer service.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: cell phones, CTIA fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

T-Mobile launched the Samsung SGH-T519 this week, a new candy bar model with a midtier set of features. Yet another slim handset, the T519, or the "Trace," as T-Mobile is calling it, is just 0.3 inches thick, which makes it even slimmer than the Samsung SGH-T509. Goodies include the quadband world phone support, Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera with video capture and playback, a MicroSD card slot, and support for the carrier's EDGE networks.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: cell phones, CTIA fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

Word on the cell phone street is that pink is about to become so five minutes ago. Though pink cell phones have proved to be very popular with manufacturers in the last year, indeed there are three various shades of pink Razrs, it appears the new color rage will be all about champagne. Several manufacturers are said to be preparing champagne-colored handsets, so stay tuned for more details.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: cell phones, CTIA fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

Samsung is banking on stereo Bluetooth headsets for the autumn season. The company showed us two models that incorporate earphones connected by a behind-the-neck wire. The stereo headsets can be used for making calls and listening to music. Though they're not the smallest models we've seen and they aren't terribly stylish, the fit seems comfortable and secure.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: cell phones, CTIA fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

I got a sneak peek at the Samsung D900 today and can report it lives up to its reputation as a slim slider phone. In fact, Samsung is going so far as to call it the "world's thinnest slider phone," but I'm sure that record won't last long. Still, the all-black D900 (a.k.a. "black carbon") is indeed sexy, and it packs a wide assortment of features into a body that is 0.5 inch thick. There's quadband world phone support, a 3.1-megapixel camera with video recording and playback, a Micro SD card clot, 80MB of internal memory, Bluetooth, USB support, and a digital music player. Availability isn't certain yet, but we expect it to be with a GSM carrier by the end of the year. Stay tuned for photos and video.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: cell phones, CTIA fall
• Email to a friend | Print this post

In an article on CNET News.com, Michael Kanellos writes about the carbon-fiber industry and how the material is becoming more cost effective and workable for automakers. The material has been used in a few cars, notably the Corvette Z06, to reduce weight without sacrificing rigidity and protection. With carbon-fiber prices possibly dropping to five dollars a pound, automakers can slip in carbon-fiber body parts in spots that will make a difference, such as roof and pillars, or make whole bodies out of the material. According to a quote from the article, carbon fiber is five times as strong and two times as stiff as steel. But with current steel prices at less than a dollar a pound, it's hard to see carbon fiber being competitive anytime soon. Here's a release from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that also discusses replacing steel with carbon fiber in auto bodies.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Car Tech
• Email to a friend | Print this post

Looks like little Rafe is not practicing safe MySpace-ing
[+] Enlarge photo

I am a brand-new parent, and I am already worrying about how I'm going to protect my kid when he goes online in a few years. Defense number one is active parenting, but there are also a lot of tools that will tell you what your kids are up to. Still, who wants to monitor every keystroke or Web page a child visits? A newish product, BeNetSafe, takes an interesting approach. It monitors social networks (MySpace and, as of today, Xanga) for your child's activity on the Net and reports to you if he or she is posting potentially dangerous information, such as phone number, hometown, or school. It'll also report to you who your kid's online friends are.

BeNetSafe won't tell you what your child is doing on the rest of the Web, in e-mail, in IM, or in chat rooms, but it does chaperone kids in their most popular hangout, and it does send you reports that a parent can actually read (as opposed to a typical 12-year-old's MySpace page). The company plans to launch monitoring of other social networks (such as Facebook) soon.

A child's safety is priceless, but BeNetSafe does seem overpriced for what it does, at $50 a year. Smart parents will also want to set up RSS or Google search alerts for personal information and practice other forms of safe computing. See Download.com's feature on family-proofing your PC for more.

Permalink | Post a comment

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

Windows Live image search
[+] Enlarge photo

Microsoft's new Windows Live search engine is officially driving the software giant's online services. Today, Windows Live Search begins to replace MSN Search, while the Live.com portal page and Windows Live Local's maps become final products. Google remains on top in the world of Internet search, but its assortment of Web-based products, such as the Writely word processor, lack the integration that Microsoft has built into its Windows Live collection.

And Windows Live Search attempts to add interface innovations that Google Search lacks. Along the right, a list of related searches, similar to those within Ask.com's layout, narrows down a query so that you can home in on, say, Turtle Island instead of Ninja Turtles. Along the top of the screen, Windows Live also links to lookups within Images, News, Local, QnA, and more. By visiting Live.com, you can start searching or sign in to build a personal portal that lets you subscribe to RSS feeds from within search results, and organize content within tabbed pages.

We like Live search's dynamic display of images. You can hover over thumbnails to read the dimensions and URL of origin. Don't think a result is relevant? Click a Feedback link to tell Microsoft so. Click an image, and you can view the Web page that it came from without leaving the window. On top of that, Live's Scratchpad lets you rename and save pictures to create your own collection--similar to the customization offered by Windows Live Local. If only we could scribble all over Web pages and save our notes.

Well, actually, Microsoft is attempting to allow just that with Windows Live Local. Redmond is planning to let you doodle on your maps with lines and shading, so that, say, you can mark up the secret route to a hidden hot springs, or a favorite dog-walking path. In addition to its business listings, Local will embrace white pages lookups so that you can find people, too. And close-up Bird's-Eye views are coming for 25 more cities, including Portland, San Diego, Phoenix, and El Paso. To see what we've tested so far, check out our 10 favorite Windows Live apps.

Permalink | 1 comment

• Read also: Web 2.0, software, Internet services, mapping, search
• Email to a friend | Print this post