touch

The iPhone of digital photo frames?

It's hard to say whether this is innovative or just another company jumping on the touch-based gesture bandwagon, but Pandigital's announced a new line of digital photo frames with "intuitive" touch controls. Not surprisingly, the line's called PanTouch, but what's weird about it is that the whole touch part doesn't apply to the screen itself but the frame around the display.

What's this mean exactly? Well, check out the image and you'll notice that good looking index finger is touching the edge of the frame, not the screen itself. The press … Read more

HTC Touch Dual coming to U.S.

Good news, good news! At CTIA, smartphone manufacturer HTC announced that it will offer the HTC Touch Dual through Best Buy stores this quarter. And the news gets even better, as the unlocked quad-band smartphone will ship with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition and wait for it...it will include support for U.S. 3G bands.

Already available in Europe and Asia (of course), the HTC Touch Dual is the next-generation of the HTC Touch, and alleviates some of the text entry pains of the original Touch by providing a slide-out SureType-like keypad. You'll also still get the … Read more

Verizon Wireless XV6900 is white hot

Last but not least of today's Verizon smartphone news is the Verizon Wireless XV6900.

In a nutshell, the XV6900 is the carrier's version of the HTC Touch, which has been available in GSM and Sprint flavors for a little while now.

The XV6900 does get a fresh coat of paint, stepping out in a vibrant white, but it seems everything is pretty much the same under the hood. You still get the TouchFLO interface that lets you navigate the phone's menus with the swipe of your finger; a 2.8-inch touch screen; Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition; … Read more

Kodak's touch-screen digital photo frame

Digital photo frames are really just expensive gift ideas for people you don't know how to buy for.

We've all got a few of those types on our lists every year. And now there's a kinda cool feature for one of them: Kodak now makes the Quick Touch. While you don't have to touch the area of the frame where the photo would be (fewer greasy fingerprints!), the border can be swiped with a finger to advance through a collection of digital photos.

One of these will set you back $120, $180, or $230, depending on … Read more

Wolfson snub points to late-summer iPod launch

Expect to see new iPods arrive around the usual time later this year, say around September or so.

Wolfson, a high-end audio chipmaker, notified shareholders Thursday that it "has not been selected by a major Tier 1 customer for inclusion in the next generation of its portable media players, expected to be launched during the third quarter of 2008." Sources told Reuters that "major Tier 1 customer" was Apple, and that the snub came from new versions of the iPod Nano and iPod Touch.

Apple has held a third-quarter iPod event for the last three years, … Read more

Typhoon Touch accuses TabletKiosk, others of patent violations

Typhoon Touch is working its way down the tablet PC food chain.

After suing Dell and Motion Computing for allegedly infringing on two of its patents for portable computers with touch-screen technology, Typhoon, and licensing partner and co-plaintiff Nova Mobility Systems, said Tuesday they are targeting three more potential infringers: Xplore Technologies, Electrovaya, and Sand Dune Ventures, which makes tablet PCs under the brand TabletKiosk.

Typhoon specifically cites Xplore's iX104C series of tablet PCs, Electrovaya's Scribbler SC4000 tablet, and four of TabletKiosk's ruggedized tablets. Typhoon, a Seattle-based firm that creates and acquires patents, has only licensed its … Read more

Heated touch screen fights computer chill

If you work in icy storage warehouses or happen to do most of your computing in an igloo, you may want to know that Glacier Computer, a designer and distributor of rugged industrial computers, is out with a heated touch screen for its Everest line.

The warmth solves a challenge that arises when the computer is being transported back and forth between sub-zero environments and areas above freezing--in and out of a freezer, for example.

"This activity causes condensation and then a refreezing of that condensation, making the screen unusable by the operator," explains Dan Poisson, director of … Read more

What's driving Microsoft SharePoint adoption?

Microsoft's SharePoint has now topped $1 billion in licenses and is perhaps the fastest-growing product in Microsoft's history. What is driving that growth? The same thing that has driven all of Microsoft's most successful products: Microsoft removes complexity (and cost) from existing markets, as Craig Roth notes:

To a certain extent, the excitement about SharePoint has really been a reflection of disillusionment with existing collaboration, content management, and portal products. The people that are interested in SharePoint - despite already having incumbent alternatives - see at first glance a product that may finally provide easy-to-use, inexpensive, web-based collaborative solutions.

Love them or hate them, Microsoft does lower the bar to computing. Its products can be shoddy (SharePoint is no winner in that department - just try scaling it) but that's a trade-off many are willing to make in order to have something, anything that works reasonably well at a reasonable price.… Read more

Rumor: Hulu headed to the iPhone

Update: a representative for Hulu tells us: "Currently there is no plan to announce Hulu on the iPhone/iPod. We are focused on a free, streaming, ad-supported service."

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MacRumors.com is reporting a "page 2" news item about Hulu.com rolling out a version of the video service that's been specially designed for users of the iPhone and iPod touch later this week. Presumably having seen what the BBC has done with its iPlayer streaming service, it would only be available over Wi-Fi because of EDGE network limitations. The move would also mark the … Read more