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Tuesday, 11 December 2007 16:33 |
The "green" trend is moving into everyday electronics gadgets and Finnish Nokia wants to lead the way. At least with their marketing efforts.
Last week it was their first "environment friendly" Nokia 3110 Evolve marketing initiative. This week Nokia came up with a futuristic Nokia Eco Sensor Concept.
The concept The concept consists of two parts — a wearable sensor unit which can sense and analyze your environment, health, and local weather conditions, and a dedicated mobile phone.
The sensor unit will be worn on a wrist or neck strap made from solar cells that provide power to the sensors. NFC (near field communication) and RFID (radio frequency identification) technologies will relay information from the sensors to the phone or to other devices that support RFID technology.
Both the phone and the sensor unit will be as compact as possible to minimize material use, and those materials used in the design will be renewable and/or reclaimed. Technologies used inside the phone and sensor unit will also help save energy.
To help make you more aware of your health and local environmental conditions, the Nokia Eco Sensor Concept will include a separate, wearable sensing device with detectors that collect environment, health, and/or weather data.
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Read more... [Nokia Eco Sensor Phone concept]
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Tuesday, 11 December 2007 16:29 |
 Nokia today announced that the City of Maastricht, Netherlands has selected Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite as their standard platform for mobile applications. The solution enables the administrative officers of the City of Maastricht to integrate 900 Nokia Eseries devices into the Cisco corporate IP telephony system and synchronize contact and calendar details. Furthermore, the city will offer wireless email to some of the employees. To ensure an easy roll out and management of all services, the City of Maastricht is using Nokia Intellisync Device Management. The deployment of the service has started and is estimated to be completed in the beginning of next year. "Mobile working is increasingly important wherever business is conducted. The efficiencies and the cost-savings it delivers are important criteria for a city such as ours," said Marc Lustermans, project manager, City of Maastricht. "We have selected Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite as our standard mobility platform given the modular structure of the mobileware which means that it can grow and be customized according to our evolving mobility needs today and tomorrow." |
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Read more... [City of Maastricht builds mobility from the ground up with Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite]
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Monday, 10 December 2007 21:22 |
Video recording on cellphones is set to reach high definition (HD) quality in a few years' time, an executive at the world's top cellphone maker Nokia said on Wednesday.
"It's coming. Technically, we are a couple of years away," Nokia's Chief Technology Officer Tero Ojanpera told Reuters in an interview. "It's still a few years away."
Cellphones have had cameras, and the ability to use them as camcorders, for more than five years, but only this year did Nokia start to sell a model, the N95, which records television quality video.
Better quality could boost sales of pricey multimedia phones and also hit camcorder makers such as Panasonic (6752.T), Samsung (005930.KS) and JVC (6792.T) just as the success of camera phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson (6758.T)(ERICb.ST) has hurt the still camera industry.
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Read more... [Nokia sees HD video on cellphones in a few years]
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Monday, 10 December 2007 21:16 |
Motorola Inc. shares rose Thursday after a senior official of the cellphone maker affirmed its fourth-quarter outlook. The remarks by chief financial officer Tom Meredith came at an investor conference in San Francisco with Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola in the process of changing chief executives. Ed Zander's resignation last Friday had prompted concerns among investors that the company could be in the midst of another disappointing quarter. Meredith said he expects improvement in both sales and profit from the company's handset business, continuing the progress made in the third quarter. President and chief operating officer Greg Brown will succeed Zander on Jan 1. Motorola shares increased 37 cents, or 2.4 per cent, to US$16.12 in afternoon trading. |
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Monday, 10 December 2007 21:10 |
Nokia today announced a deal with The Cloud, Europe's leading wireless broadband provider, which will see its customers gain free access to the new Nokia Music Store whilst on the move at any one of over 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots.
With a single account, music lovers can access the Nokia Music Store via their laptop computer or directly from optimised Nokia devices through Wi-Fi, beginning with the Nokia N81 and Nokia N95 8GB. Individual tracks cost 80p each with albums from £8. The Nokia Music Store also offers a monthly subscription for PC streaming for £8.
Nokia Music Store customers will experience fast download speeds and a seamless user experience over a Cloud Wi-Fi connection, allowing them to download tracks in seconds, rather than minutes. Cloud Wi-Fi networks are available in wide range of popular locations including McDonalds, Coffee Republic, BAA airports and across London's Square Mile. Just select 'Wi-Fi Zone - The Cloud' as an access point to start browsing and downloading.
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Read more... [Nokia makes deal with WiFi provider The Cloud to offer free access to Music Store]
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Sunday, 09 December 2007 14:19 |
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AT&T has announced that they have begun expanding their empire. They have started to convert 200 Cellular One stores across 16 states into the more familiar AT&T Stores, and will start to offer their stable of mobile phones to all former Cellular One subscribers. The transition is expected to be completed in 2008. |
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Sunday, 09 December 2007 14:04 |
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Just in time to bring the joy of the iPhone to all your loved ones this holiday season, Apple has increased their purchasing limit on iPhones to a whopping 5 per person. The previous limit of 2 iPhones per person was enacted by His Jobness in order to ensure that there would be enough iPhone-cheer to go around. Apple has announced that, with sufficient iPhone stock on hand, customers can now buy up to 5 iPhones per transaction. |
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Sunday, 09 December 2007 14:02 |
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When Steve Jobs announced at the January 2007 Macworld that the iPhone wouldn't come with a stylus and would be exclusively finger-tip controlled, some wished the stylus hadn't died and that one could somehow still be made to work on the iPhone's screen.
Now, nearly a year later, Ten One Design LLC have unveiled the US $24.95 Pogo Stylus with matching clip that clips onto the back of the iPhone and the iPod Touch, with sales seemingly only currently available from the Ten One Pogo site with delivery through the mail.
Quite how the Pogo manages to simulate the input needed from a live finger isn't explained at Pogo's site, the creators say that the soft and durable tip of the stylus has been "engineered using a patent-pending technology to simulate the touch of a finger on the Multi-Touch display".
They readily admit that it isn't a 'real' answer but is instead 'management speak for a trade secret' which they're not yet willing to divulge, undoubtedly lest competitors figure it out and start churning out copies.
Ten One Design say that the Pogo stylus is ideal for tapping the on-screen keyboard letters for SMS messages, Notes, email, entering URLs, or any other use of the keyboard, and is 'precision-formed to the perfect size for keyboard keys'.
The stylus is also said to be great for playing iPhone and iPod Touch games, navigating photos, lists and web pages, letting you pan, scroll, select menus and make a selection, and zoom by double-tapping, with multi-touch zooming not possible with only 'one' finger.
The tip can also be used to 'buff away' an 'accidental finger smudge'.
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Read more... [Pogo Stylus touches iPhone's screen instead of your finger]
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Friday, 07 December 2007 22:12 |
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VoIP provider Jajah has released a web app today that helps you make international calls on an iPhone without going totally broke. The Jajah web app looks like the iPhone's dial pad, and like the iPhone it uses an address book to store contacts. After selecting the person you want to call, though, things get a little funky.
You hit the person you want, then Jajah calls you back and acts as the middleman, using VoIP to connect you to the other party's landline. You are still using your plan's minutes on top of Jajah's VoIP rates, so it makes no sense to use this for calls within the US. While calling cards provide less expensive options to communicate with people overseas, you don't always have a card. This is more of an option of convenience, letting you worry about things other than calling card PIN numbers.
Another advantage is that Jajah members may also call other Jajah members for free, that is, without paying the VoIP service fee. While Jajah's product is far from perfect, it's a start. |
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Friday, 07 December 2007 22:01 |
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Until Apple gets into gear and makes good on their hidden iPhone gaming references, we're going to have to rely on third-party developers to bring gaming to our iPhones. The "Lights Off" game is the first truly native iPhone game application and takes full advantage of the iphone's touch-screen. There are tons of web-based gaming apps (as well as the NES emulator and proof-of-concept Doom app) out there, but what good are they when you don't get any wireless reception (or run less-than-perfectly) .
"Lights Off" works just like it sounds - you're goal is to turn off all the lit-up squares on your screen. Tap a light to toggle up to four surrounding squares. If the square is lit, it turns off. If it's turned off, it lights up. Once you've turned off all the lights, you move to the next level. It's simple and fun - and it's always the simplest games that are the most addictive (we've had hour-long battles of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" with a friend).
As these third-party apps go, you'll have to Jailbreak your iPhone to get the "Lights Off" game installed. But, the hack is relatively benign and you'll reap all the benefits of a jail-free life. |
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