The Connected Circuit

This has been an exciting week for Android fanboys. First Motorola unleashes their Android device, the CLIQ aka the Dext and LG announces their first Android device, equipped with a 3″ touch screen and a horizontal slide out keyboard. Spec details are scarce, and it isn’t known whether or not LG went as far as to make a custom UI a la Sense from HTC of MOTOBLUR from Motorola, but it’s assurdedlly a very exciting time in the mobile landscape.

--written by Peter To--

Palm has officially announced the second device to be outfitted with its webOS mobile platform. Previously leaked as the Eos and now officially known as the Pixi. The Pixi loses the slide out keyboard for a candy bar form factor, yet still keeping a full qwerty keyboard. It slims down to a mere 0.67″ thin (by comparison the iPhone 3GS is 0.48″), but doesn’t lose the capacitive touchscreen or the number of pixels.

What’s does this have:

Palm’s also introducing what they’re calling the “Artist Series”, which includes backplates not unlike those for the myTouch on T-Mobile, adding some flare to those Pixi’s out there. The back plates are also fully compatible with the touchstone wireless charging accessory and right now comes in five different variations.

It looks like Palm’s been hard at work not only with getting a new device out the door, but adding some much needed software additions and tweak,s as well. Palm has added LinkedIn and Yahoo to your synergy contacts, Yahoo to the messeging application, and rouding it out with an official Facebook application.

What it doesn’t have:

It loses the shiny metal click button at the bottom right below the gesture area, WiFi and gets a slower processor (a Qualcomm MSM7627 as opposed to the pre’s TI OMAP 3). It still does not have a microSD card slot, but keeps the 8 GB internal storage. Since this phone is coming to Sprint, expect it to be a CDMA only device, so those expecting this to be that first GSM webOS device, you’ll need to wait a wee bit longer.

Be sure to keep an eye out for this soon on Sprint, for an unknown price point. As this will surely be aimed at the Centro crowd, Sprint will most likely shoot for a price of around $99-$150, which is after a two-year agreement, of course. Read more about the Pixi here on Palm’s site and the full specs here.

--written by Peter To--

Is all this gadgety news coming out of IFA in Berlin making things hard to keep up? Well no worries, here are highlights and what you may have missed.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

For those who want a camera that’s as powerful as a dSLR in a compact package, take a gander at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1. The second micro four third digicam that won’t break your wallet. The GF1 features a 12.1 megapixel Live MOS sensor, 720p HD video recording, a 3-inch live view LCD, built-in flash and an HDMI out all in a small and compact size. The downsides: it’ll costs you $900 for each of the two kits, a 20mm/f1.7 lens and a 14-45mm/f3.5-5.6 zoom lens. You also won’t find a viewfinder here, but you can purchase one sold separately. Check out ther presser here and the product page here, as well as a nice first impressions from dpreview here.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2

The much rumored and quite leaky XPERIA X2 is now official, successor to the wild unpopular, but amazing XPERIA X1 the X2 will feature WinMo 6.5, 8.1 megapixel camera and that infamous panel UI that Sony Ericsson concocted. Check it out here at Xperiancers and their flickr stream here for more gadgety pr0n.

The Sony VAIO X

Not much is actually known about this, since Sony really just pre-announced this thing to be announced later this year. All that’s know is that it has a carbon fiber shell, a half-inch thin, has an 11.1″ display, weighs under a pound and a half, has battery life that “lasts all day” and may or may not come with an Atom. What I do know for sure is that this “ultraportable” with netbook specs will be guaranteed to costs more than twice the price of the most expensive netbook out. Check it out here on Engadget.

Canon EOS 7D

Priced at $1,699 (body only), this 18 megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor full manual control, 1080p HD recording monster from Canon is coming this September.Presser here, spec page here, and a hands-on from Dpreview here.

RS 180

Think A2DP stereo bluetooth is awesome, well take a gander at Sennhesier’s first Kleer wireless 2.4GHz ‘phones, the RS 180 (pictured below), RS 170 and the RS 160. Expect CD quality tunes with the industrial over the head look. Sennhesir, also announced the successor to the popular, PX 100 and PX 200, the PX 100-II and PX 200-II.

Nokia X6

A capacitive touchscreen device (other than the N900) finally makes it out of Nokia with the X6. With a dual LED flash, 32 GB of storage, 5 megapixel camera, 3.2″ touchscreen, TV out, and a mere 0.55″ thin. Did I mention that this “comes with music”?

Other mentions:

For you photo buffs: Leica M9 and the Leica X1 was officially leaked. Nokia’s less notable other announcement the X3, an S40 series non-touchscreen slider phone, equiped with a 3.2 megapixel cam, 16 GB storage and decicated music keys.

--written by Peter To--

Two days ago the guys over at Plastic Logic announced their partnership with Barnes & Noble as their exclusive ebook store provider now they are poised to replicate the experience of Amazon’s Kindle Whispernet experience with their partnership with AT&T as their 3G data provider. So what do we not know yet? If you’ll have to pay a monthly fee for using AT&T’s service and whether or not you’ll be able to enjoy connectivity on the global scale.

Full Press Release below:

“PLASTIC LOGIC EREADER WILL WIRELESSLY CONNECT
USING AT&T 3G NETWORK

eReader Built for Mobile Business Professionals to Debut in 2010

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, JULY 22, 2009
–
Plastic Logic announced today that AT&T’s*
3G network will provide the mobile broadband connection for the Plastic Logic Reader,
the eReader created for mobile business professionals, when it launches in 2010.

The Plastic Logic Reader, which is also Wi-Fi enabled, is the ideal companion for busy,
on-the-go business professionals who want to keep up to date on key information and
who need to read and review multiple documents throughout the day. The Plastic Logic
device is about the size of an 8.5 x 11 inch pad of paper, less than a ¼ inch thick and
weighs less than many print magazines. The innovative eReader features the largest
screen in the industry and an intuitive touch screen user interface.

“We’re extremely proud to be able to offer the Plastic Logic Reader with the nation’s
fastest 3G network through AT&T. This alliance is a pillar in our strategy to provide
mobile business professionals with a device that delivers a great reading experience,
and is fully connected through 3G and Wi-Fi to deliver easy access to digital content,”
said Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic.

The Plastic Logic Reader is unique among its competitors due to its plastic display,
which is based on the company’s revolutionary plastic electronics technology. The
eReader features the first ever commercial high-quality plastic display and an
outstanding E Ink reading experience. Its battery lasts days, instead of hours. Designed
specifically with mobile business users in mind, the Plastic Logic Reader will connect its
users with their desired business and professional newspapers, books, periodicals and
magazine content and will support the document formats business users need, including
PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents.

“The Plastic Logic Reader is an impressive device and we look forward to providing the
wireless connectivity that will keep business professionals connected to the news,
information and entertainment they desire while on the go,” said Glenn Lurie, president-
Emerging Devices and Resale, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “There is
tremendous market potential for electronic reading devices and we look forward to
powering this revolutionary device with the nation’s fastest 3G network.”

Users will be able to connect to content and download it wirelessly through AT&T’s 3G
network, which offers the best wireless coverage worldwide. Built on the GSM family of
technologies, the de facto wireless world standard, AT&T’s 3G wireless network brings
enormous economies of scale to electronic manufacturers who are eager to cost-
effectively incorporate wireless technology in specialty devices. AT&T devices work in
more than 200 countries and regions. AT&T is also the nation’s largest Wi-Fi provider,
with more than 20,000 hotspots in the United States and more than 90,000 hotspots
globally in 89 countries through roaming agreements.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Pricing and availability of the Plastic Logic Reader will be announced when the product
begins shipping in early 2010.

To stay current with information on the Plastic Logic Reader, please visit
http://www.plasticlogic.com.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc.
under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

About Plastic Logic

Plastic Logic’s mission is to lead a revolution in the way people acquire, organize and consume
information. We are using our proprietary technology leadership in plastic electronics to create a
range of innovative products. Our first product, an eReader for mobile business professionals, will
enter the marketplace in 2010. Founded in 2000 by researchers out of the Cambridge University
Cavendish Laboratory, Plastic Logic has research and development in Cambridge, England; high-
volume, state-of-the-art manufacturing in Dresden, Germany; and executive management,
product engineering, sales and marketing headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more
information please go to http://www.plasticlogic.com.”

--written by Peter To--

Looks like those BlackBerry fanboys on Verizon and Sprint have finally got what they’ve been waiting for, a new and updated Blackberry, in the form of the BlackBerry Tour. Get it while its hot at your local Verizon and Sprint for $199.99 on-contract, $499.99 for those not eligible for upgrades.

Key highlights below:

• 480×360 LCD
• 256 MB Built-in memory W/microSD card slot
• aGPS
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• 4.7 OS platform
• Qualcomm MSM7600 processor
• Fully-functional World Phone that supports global roaming on 3G networks
• Quad-Band: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks
• Single-Band: 2100 MHz UMTS/HSPA networks
• Dual-Band: 800/1900 MHz CDMA/EVDO Rev A networks

RIM

Sprint

Verizon

--written by Peter To--

When Google first announced that they were creating a mobile platform, I was decidedly very excited. But almost year later, there is still only one Android device out, the G1 by HTC. The extremely open solid platform that Google created, free for everyone to use was out and about and no one was taking advantage of it save one, HTC. Many companies have promised to have Android devices out by the end of this year, but HTC is the first one up to show off a real device running Android. Today marks a pretty big day for Android with the official announcement of the HTC Hero and the highly customized Sense UI and a first for mobile devices with built-in Flash support.

Hardware-wise, the specs of the device are not mind blowing, but they are not unspectacular either. It has a teflon coated back, a 3.5mm jack, 3.2″ HVGA (480x320) capacitive touchscreen, a Qualcomm® MSM7200A 528 MHz CPU processor, 288 MB of RAM, 5 megapixal autofocus cam, GPS, quad band GSM phone (900/2100 MHz for HSPA), and a digital compass, but lacks a physical keyboard.

Reminiscint of Touch FLO3D for Windows Mobile devices, Sense UI is the new skin created by HTC. Both very slick and stylish, the new UI has the ability to add widgets, HTC’s own or a third party, moves relatively seamless and has highly customizable home screens. HTC also went through the trouble of creating their own virtual keyboard that seems to rival that of the iPhone’s and has haptic feedback. The biggest news is that HTC with the help of Adobe has built a Flash player into the browser and is capable of playing videos straigt from Youtube, though it isn’t 100% yet. Seemless is hard to the describe how Sense UI actually works, so check out the embedded videos below.

Read more here, here, here, here, and here.

--written by Peter To--

The iPhone 3GS launch is almost upon us, but before you pack your sleeping bag, lawn chair and a gallon of coffee to wait in line to get Apple’s new cream of the crop gadget, there are a few things you should know.

For those existing customers who are going in expecting to be able to acquire this at the subsidy price at $199 for the 16 GB and $299 for the 32 GB, you had better check to see if you qualify to actually get the iPhone 3GS at the discounted price. You can check by either calling *639# on your existing phone (you should receive a message stating that you do), call AT&T or check your online account. Don’t forget that AT&T will be trying to charge you an $18 “upgrade price”. With some smooth talk, you may be able to get yourself out of it. AT&T is, also, extending the upgrade to customers who have purchased their iPhone 3G in July, August, or September 2008, but be sure to check with the AT&T before you go in and realize that you were not eligible and had to pay the early upgrade price of $399 for the 16 GB or $499 for the 32 GB.

Many Apple and AT&T stores will be opening an hour early to fulfill many of the pre-orders at 7 AM, be sure to call ahead. There will also be many devices on hand for individuals, but at a first come-first serve basis only. Also be aware that the early pre-orders did sell out, so if you are expecting to see one at your doorstep on July 19th when you didn’t jump the gun in time, don’t be surprised if you don’t see it tomorrow. Apple has also requested that carriers hold their shipments until tomorrow for those who have pre-ordered, some may be lucky and have theirs ship a day or two early, but all reports indicate that it won’t. It’ll be a waiting game for that man in the brown tomorrow. With this useful information on hand, be safe and enjoy your shiny new gadget!!

AT&T deets here

Some Reviews below:

Engadget – Josh Topolsky

Gizmodo – Jason Chen

WSJ – Walt Mossberg

NYTimes – Dave Pogue

Wired – Steven Levy

USA Today – Ed Baig

CNET – Kent German

--written by Peter To--

Ever get bored with the robotic voice on your GPS device? Taking a page out of Mio’s book with its Knight Rider GPS, TomTom released a voice pack from everyone’s favorite donut- eating balding Springfieldian dad Homer Simpson. This makes the most boring family road trip into much less of a bore.  The cost, $12.95; the awesomeness level, 11. I’m still waiting for the Ay Karamba from Bart, but this would be something I would spend the extra doh on.

Listen to some samples here

--written by Peter To--

With Apple’s long awaited keynote finally over and the smoke finally clearing from all the hardware/software announcements, it’s time to assess the implications of what they announced. It wouldn’t be much of an assessment without knowing what they actually announced, so here it is:

iPhone 3GS

There was much speculation on what the new iPhone would have and what would actually change, from having a rubberized/matte back finish to having a front video camera for video conferencing. Sadly, there were no outside cosmetic changes. All the changes dealt with what was inside, both the hardware and software.

Hardware changes:

Unfortunately, Apple wouldn’t reveal the details of the new hardware specifications, just that it was “twice as fast” as the iPhone 3G, leading many people to believe it has double the amount of RAM and, possibly, a slight processor speed bump. We won’t find out until someone gets their hands on this thing come June 19th and does a full teardown.

The much awaited addition of in-house video recording, editing, straight uploads to Youtube will now be standard in the iPhone 3GS, sorry iPhone 3G users this is an iPhone 3GS feature only. The camera will also see an upgrade from the non-autofocus 2 megapixel lens to a 3 megapixel autofocus camera that can record video at a resolution of 640 x 480 at 30 fps. Although, the iPhone 3G is actually capable of recording video (as long as it was jailbroken), for whatever reason, Apple has made it a feature of the iPhone 3GS only. It will also have a special macro mode and the ability to geotag both your video and photos.

The iPhone 3GS can also support a max downspeed of 7.2Mps, as long as the cell provider can support those speeds that is, which AT&T is not one of them. Small changes also include, the support for Bluetooth 2.1, an anti-fingerprint coating, built-in Nike+, voice control, and a slight increase in battery life.

Late addition, I was able to find a detailed article from one of my favorite hardcore tech sites AnandTech on the new CPU/GPU, which is, ironically, the same one in the Palm Pre, an ARM Cortex A8 with a PowerVR SGX GPU with a clock speed of 600 MHz and 256 MB of RAM.

My personal favorite update is the addition of the digital compass. GPS on phones has been a welcomed addition, but I have never been able to tell which direction I would actually need to walk. I would always need to walk a few feet before I knew if I was going the right way. This fixes that, telling you the exact direction of where you would need to walk. Small change, but one that makes this lost soul follow the right path.

Software:

With the announcement of the iPhone 3GS comes the official announcement of iPhone OS X 3.0. I have been using the beta, now in GM, for the past month or so and it brings some nice additions (some that should have been in 1.0), such as universal search, a landscape keyboard, MMS and tethering

Some caveats, although 3.0 finally enables MMS and tethering (it was also available in the betas other than beta 5), that’s going to be up to your cell carrier. So if you’re in the US and on AT&T, it won’t be ready come June 19th. AT&T is blaming it on network limitations and they’re still trying to figure out pricing, both pretty lame excuses seeing as all the other carriers around the world are well prepared for it and both have been available for years now. I’ve been able to send and receive MMS’s on my Bold since I got it, which was at launch on AT&T. Apple is planning on an iPhone 3.0 OS release on June 17th, so be prepared for a software upgrade soon you iPhone owners.

$99 iPhone 3G:

In my opinion, this is probably Apple’s most earth shattering announcements of the entire keynote. All speculation was that Apple was going to release a 4 GB lower price model, the $99 iPhone rumor started way back even before last year’s MacWorld. It brings the iPhone to level of affordability to almost anyone who wants it. I’m gonna predict market saturation of iPhones will come rather quickly now.

Other hardware announcements:

New Macbook Pros:

The 13″ aluminum Macbook is probably Apple’s fastest product to go obsolete, announced in October 18, 2008 at MacWorld, only lasting a mere eight months. But all’s good, as Apple decided to up the ante on the specs that were on that Macbook model by adding some extra battery life, though with a non-removable battery, a media card reader, and cut the price a few hundred dollars and dubbing it with the Macbook Pro moniker. Other than the glossy screen and the chicklet style keyboard, I’m pretty psyched to see this model out. It may very well be my next computer purchase. Interesting tidbit, you can apparently boot from a flash card. Oh and Apple is drastically cutting prices on the aluminum Macbook, most likely to clear stock for the new Macbook Pro models.

Other software announcements:

Official announcement of Snow Leopard, but without the cool new Marble UI, as well as a new iLife ‘09 update. The cost is an update edition to Snow Leopard is $29 and $49 for a family pack, down from the $129 cost that was for Leopard. For those who don’t know what Snow Leopard is, it’s one of those dot upgrades Apple has been pushing out since the release of OS X, but 10.6 focuses more on the background enhancements and performance tuning. Enhancements include 45% faster install, a reduction in 6 GB of disk space, more support for 64-bit applications, parallel processing, Microsoft Exchange support, new interface for Quicktime, as well as the use of the hardware acceleration via the GPU, a new dock and expose. Sorry all you PowerPC Mac users, this is for Mactels only. Safari 4.0 finally falls out of beta and into your desktops, all the details here. Some interesting notes on Safari 4, it gets 100/100 from the Acid3 test, has HTML 5 support, CSS 3 web font support, a new Javascript rendering engine, is supposed to be the fastest browser ever, built-in web developer tools and cover flow integration.

What wasn’t announced:

The Apple tablet, why? I honestly don’t think the world is ready for it and it probably wouldn’t be much of a big seller for Apple. Contrary to what most people believe, not all of Apple’s products sell well, take a look at the Apple TV, the Macbook Air or the Newton. Tablets, also, don’t do very well with the mainstream and if Apple is going to make this a multi-touch screen, which they would most likely do, it would render it useless to graphic designers needing more precise pen input from a digitizer a la the Wacom. For all of those who want your own Apple tablet and have that extreme dough to spend, jump over to Axiotron and grab a Modbook, which is essentially a Macbook modded with a digitized Wacom screen sans the keyboard, pricing is $1249 if you would like to mod your existing Macbook or a starting price of $1569 for your very own freshly modded Macbook with very barebones specs.

Matte/rubberized back on the iPhone:

All the rumors and leaks out there centered around one new design, but was ultimate proven wrong with the announcement of the iPhone 3GS. The speculation is that Apple or AT&T put out a “fake” FCC filing and photos to deter or spur on much of the hype and rumors going into WWDC. Others think that this was an early design that Apple scraped for whatever reason. It’s a shame that this one didn’t come true because that matte finish device was starting to win me over.

Front Video Camera:

I’m going to have to say this was AT&T’s fault. Video chatting and streaming is a pretty data intensive application, especially for AT&T extremely spotty service. I have a feeling that this wasn’t even a reasonable feature for AT&T and it was killed very early on.

Afterthoughts:

Before Apple officially announced that they were going to create a phone, many of your traditional phone companies waved them away, saying how this PC vendor doesn’t understand the mobile phone market. Two years later, the iPhone is quickly becoming as synonymous as its iPod is. Mobile computing is drastically changing the way we go about our day to day lives. Apple understood that and knew that the traditional form factors wasn’t really cutting it and threw everything out and started from scratch. With a melding of fresh UI design paradigms and Apple’s own view of simplicity and slick designs, Apple won over many converts, including myself. Apple’s game changer mentality is forcing all those around them to innovate or die and pushing manufacturers to one up each other. I’m hoping to see that many manufacturers don’t falter and fail under the pressure and create truly innovative devices. Palm is the first one to actually create a device/OS that rivals Apple’s own, I’m hoping I’ll see other manufacturers follow. The future in the mobile computing world is at its beginning stages and is one to watch.

Read more here, here and here.

--written by Peter To--

Apple’s World Wide Developer’s conference is almost upon us and the Interwebs has been swirling with Apple rumors. Here is a round up of the latest rumors people are expecting to see out of Apple’s keynote this afternoon, that’s 1 PM EST.

Of course, everyone is expecting the announcement of a brand new iPhone. The leaked pictures is supposedly of an iPhone with a matte back finish, looks slightly thinner, has a faster processor, twice the RAM, with twice the amount of storage at  16 GB and 32 GB capacities. The new iPhone is supposed to feature a front camera with the ability to record video, a feature that was not available on either the iPhone 2G or 3G models. It’s also rumored that with the launch of the new iPhone will come the official annoucement of the iPhone 3.0 OS, which has been in beta stages for developers since last year. Features of the 3.0 OS will include universal search, push notifications, Internet tethering, MMS and video/voice recording.

Other rumors include, Apple releasing a smaller 4 GB capacity iPhone for those who do not need the extra storage space, lowering the cost for those who have wanted an iPhone, but could not afford one.

As far as non-iPhone rumors go, Snow Leopard is expected to have its official announcement, but the Marble UI is not expected to be included in this announcement.

There are, also, rumors of Apple finally releasing an official tablet with multi-touch, so think of it as a much larger iPhone.

The Macbook Pro line is to get a slight refresh to its line with the possibility of a built-in 3G modem and flash card slots.

Finally, Steve Jobs is supposed to make his triumphant return back to Apple.

With the recent launch of the Palm Pre, you can’t help but think that Apple will be stealing much of Sprint’s and Palm’s thunder come 1 PM today. I am decidedly pretty excited in whatever Apple will be announcing this afternoon.

Read more here, here, here, and here.

Plenty of sites are live blogging the keynote. If you would like to follow along , go here, here, here or here.

--written by Peter To--