IBLOG SPACE

Watch-phones may teeter on the border between awesome and awful, but HP’s latest project for the US military sounds like it might definitely fall into the former category. The company is apparently creating a custom next-generation watch that has – inevitably – been internally nicknamed the “Dick Tracy watch”, and will use a new flexible display that can show maps and other strategic information while on the battlefield. The flexible plastic display panels will be combined with similarly-flexible printed solar cells, providing the super-frugal screens with power without needing to install huge, cumbersome batteries. HP have been developing the printable display technology for the past ten years, eventually coming up with machinery that can lay down a mixture of transistors, acids and metal coatings onto a 50 micron-thick plastic layer. HP reckon the displays will eventually show up in consumer technology such as laptops and ereaders, though the first uses could be in stores as dynam

Vodafone UK have thrown their hat into the bada ring and announced that they are taking preorders for the Samsung Wave S8500 . Priced from free on a new contract, the Wave S8500 will arrive on June 1st 2010 complete with a 3.3-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 5-megapixel autofocus camera and a 1GHz processor. Samsung are pushing bada as their new “smartphone for the common man” platform, which means you get an app store together with all the expected social networking integration from a smartphone, but a more affordable price. We grabbed some hands-on time with the Wave S8500 back at MWC 2010 and, despite our initial skepticism about bada’s positioning, came away impressed by the handset itself. The Wave S8500 will be free on new Vodafone contracts priced £25 per month or above, assuming you’re willing to sign up for two years.

As we said about Aigo’s E500 Android MID earlier this week, the reason the Huawei SmaKit S7 has us so intrigued is because Huawei themselves have already brought Android-based devices to market. The metal-bodied SmaKit S7 runs Android 2.1 Eclair and, while its exact processor is unknown, is capable of smooth 720p HD video playback according to zol.com.cn. There’s also a 7-inch WVGA touchscreen – resistive in this pre-production unit, but apparently a capacitive screen will be on offer when it goes on sale – microSD card slot, USIM slot for the integrated voice/data model and a 2,200mAh battery. Huawei have modified the basic Android 2.1 UI with their own more finger-friendly interface, and from the video below it looks pretty slick. Of course, there’s no telling when – or even if – the SmaKit S7 will go on sale outside of China, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed since it would be nice to see some more competition for the Dell Streak. At 0.6-inches thick it’s certainly bag-frien

One of the most expensive and highest-end brands in the home theater market is Bang & Olufsen . The company makes some of the most expensive home theater gear you will find today. Last time we spoke about the company’s HDTV sets it was for the debut of the new BeoVision 10-46 46-inch HDTV. B&O today have unveiled another new HDTV in the BeoVision line called the BeoVision 8. The set is a 40-inch unit with a 240Hz refresh rate to reduce motion blur and provide a sharper and clearer image. The set also has dynamic contrast, but B&O is mum on hard specs for the unit. B&O is known for their sound systems and speakers and they put a nice sound system into the BeoVision 8 HDTV. The set has a down firing bass speaker and front firing units for clear speech in movies and TV shows. The set will land at Bang & Olufsen retail locations this summer for $5400, which is a low price for the company.

Fifteen times around the world every day; that’s the distance Nokia’s Ovi Maps guides users every day, and with the quiet introduction of Ovi Maps SR4 (v3.0.4) that number is likely to get even bigger. The first significant update since Ovi Maps went free four months ago, Nokia have already passed the 10m download mark and, while they’re not talking updated figures quite yet, are still apparently seeing a new download every second. Ovi Maps SR4 brings with it over 2m kilometres of newly navigable roads, boosts points of interest (POI) to over 25m and speeds up zooming and searching, not to mention slipping in Qype reviews and recommendations. We sat down with Marcel Duee, Places project manager on Nokia’s Ovi Maps team, for an update on why SR4 is special and what’s still in the pipeline. The first thing Ovi Maps users should see is increased speed, both of the app itself and of the positioning lock. Nokia have developed their own WiFi triangulation system, which now means you’re more

Normally when we talk about gear from Adesso, it’s a keyboard aimed at the general home user or the HTPC fan looking for wireless tech. Today Adesso has announced a new gaming keyboard that sounds very nice with full mechanical keys. That will perk the interest of many gamers out there. The keyboard is called the MKB-135B and can connect to computers via USB and PS/2 ports. It works with Windows and sells for $99.99. The keyboard is full-size with 104 keys that promise to withstand 20 million keystrokes. The mechanical keys offer lots of audible feedback and should provide great typing feel. Adesso also uses an N-key rollover feature that lets the user push up to six keys at once. The keyboard also has a pair of USB 2.0 ports, audio and mic jacks on the side. The MKB-135G is available now.

Asus has several different displays for computers already on the market. The company has announced a slick new series of monitors called the ML Series LED monitors today. The new line includes the VG236 and PG276 3D monitors as well as the PA246Q professional monitor. The new displays will be shown off at Computex. The screens all share many of the same features like full HD resolution and mercury-free LED panels. Dynamic contrast ratio across the board is 10,000,000:1 and the panels have 2ms response times. The VG236 is a 23-inch monitor and the PG276 has a 27-inch screen. 3D effects on both screens work with the NVIDIA 3D Vision kit that uses active glasses. To support 3D both screens have 120Hz refresh rates and offer DVI, YPbPR, and HDMI inputs. The PA246Q professional display uses a P-IPS panel with wide viewing angles. Asus will also be showing off a new LED projector at Computex that is small at only 400cc in volume and weighs under a pound.

I mentioned a few days ago that RadioShack would be offering the HTC EVO 4G handset for the Sprint network in its stores and was taking pre-orders on the device with a $50 gift card holding your handset. We have heard lots of rumors about pricing on the EVO 4G and Sprint has now made that price official. Just as the rumors suggested, the HTC EVO 4G will sell for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate directly fromSprint. RadioShack is taking a Best Buy style approach though and is the better place to get the handset with the same $199.99 price without having to mess with mail-in rebates. The folks that pre-order the EVO 4G with RadioShack will also get a $20 in-store accessory credit, if the pre-order is placed by May 31. RadioShack will also be selling unactivated EVO 4G handsets for $499.99. Look for our review of the EVO 4G later this week.

They say if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Samsung wasn’t throwing any wrenches, but it had enough people throwing balls to set a world record for the largest dodgeball game ever. The game was held to celebrate the launch of the Samsung Reality on the Verizon network. Samsung held the massive dodgeball game at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. The game had 712 players and used 600 dodgeballs. The blue and yellow team faced off and pelted each other with balls. Ultimately, the blue team won and Samsung selected ten players from the winning team in a random drawing to win Reality phones. I would like to see some stats from the game like how many geeks took a blow to the face and how many were whacked in the gonads. The nads seemed to be the top targeted area in middle school, which was the last time I played dodgeball.

French company eviGroup have begun selling their Android-based Wallet MID , with prices for the 5-inch touchscreen device kicking off at €199 ($246). The Wallet has an 800 x 480 resistive touchscreen, WiFi a/b/g/n, 1GB of flash storage and a microSD card slot; it runs Android 1.5 on a Samsung ARM 6410 533/667MHz processor. Battery life from the 2,000mAh pack is estimated at up to 6hrs continuous use or 24hrs standby; that’s less than an iPad, of course, which has quietly become the “standard” in companion device expectations, but then again the Wallet is – at 132 x 87 x 14 mm – considerably smaller. It still fits in a miniUSB and 3.5mm headset port, and includes an integrated microphone and speaker. eviGroup are bundling the Wallet with a car mount and charger, as well as headphones and a USB to miniUSB cable. The basic matte finish model with a soft-touch back is €199, while the chrome finish version is €219 ($271). We’re expecting a review unit soon, so check back for full covera

Sceptre has been selling and making TVs for a while now and usually they are unique with different colors available than the plain silver or black you usually find. My favorite set from the company was the X240CC-FHD covered in shiny chrome. Sceptre has a new set that is thin and LED backlit. The screen of the new set is 24-inches wide and it has a 1 million:1 dynamic contrast ratio. The panel response time is 5ms and the set sports SRS TruSurround HD taking up to 6 channels of surround sound and playing the sound over the two speakers of the TV. The TV offers full 1080p resolution and the monitor is 0.69-inches thick at its thinnest point. Other features include dual HDMI ports, a USB port for music and photo playback, and the base is detachable. The TV is at Sears, Target, and NewEgg for $399.

Microsoft offered up its cheapest wireless mouse to use its fancy BlueTrack sensor late last year called the Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 . The mouse was originally offered in grey or pink colors and sold for under $30. Microsoft has now added three new patterned mice to the series for the same $29.95 asking price. You can now get colorful mice in Wave, Folk, and Geode patterns (left to right in the picture above). The mouse looks better with a pattern than in that boring gray color. Other than patterns, you still get the same ambidextrous design and tiny nano USB adapter. I love those plug in and forget adapters that you don’t have to worry about losing or breaking. The BlueTrack sensor lets the mouse track on just about any surface

All the way back in early 2007 we mentioned Excito’s Bubba super-compact home server , a palm-sized FTP, media and backup store, and now the company has updated things with the Excito Bubba Two. As before, it’s pretty darn small – 4.5 x 1.8 x 7 inches – and, since the enclosure is fanless, quiet too; choose an SSD model and it’s silent. For basic users it can be as straightforward as plug-and-play, whereas for those who prefer tinkering the full Debian Linux underpinnings are available to muck about with. Various storage sizes are available – up to a 2TB HDD – and power consumption with a 1TB drive is said to be just 7W. While there’s only room for a single 3.5-inch drive internally, the back panel has two USB 2.0 ports and two eSATA ports for adding further storage; alternatively you can hook up a USB printer and use Bubba Two as a network print server. For most it’ll be the media server functionality that’s most promising, with Bubba Two compatible with UPnP, iTunes server, PS3 an

fujitsu have outed two new mainstream notebooks, the LifeBook A530 and the LifeBook AH530 . Each has a 15.6-inch 16:9 widescreen display – available with glossy or matte finishes – together with a choice of Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, 500GB of HDD storage and optional Gobi 2000 WWAN. There’s also standard WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a DVD burner, while graphics are taken care of by Intel’s HD GPU. Connectivity includes HDMI, a multi-format memory card reader, VGA, three USB 2.0, gigabit ethernet, audio in/out and an ExpressCard 54 slot. Fujitsu reckon owners will see up to 4hrs runtime from the standard 4,400mAh 6-cell battery. No word on pricing or availability as yet, but we’d expect the two new machines to arrive soon.

Google’s “Smart TV ” platform is expected to make its debut in a few hours, when the US west coast wakes up for the second day of Google IO, and now that debut looks all the more likely with a premature mention of the technology on the IO press page. TechCrunch did some rudimentary URL fiddling and found a page-holder saying “Insert Android press release/TV press release”, pretty much confirming that there’ll be an announcement about what’s believed to be a system of internet-connected set-top boxes running Android. According to earlier rumors, Google have been working with Sony and Samsung on a way to better deliver online, streaming content to HDTVs. Exact details of the system are unknown, but there has been talk of anintermediary set-top box that would daisy-chain between the TV and a cable or satellite STB. That would perhaps placate some of the established content providers, yet still give Google a foot in the home entertainment door. SlashGear is at Google IO and will be bri

As I complained bitterly about in my skeptics’ review of the iPad, one of the more frustrating aspects of owning an Apple tablet outside the US has been the inability to access the App Store on-device. It’s become something of a habit to hit the icon first thing of a morning, just to see if Apple have switched it on, and this morning that paid off: Apple have begun activating on-device App Store access for iPads outside of the US. A quick glance at Twitter and our inbox shows that the same thing is happening in countries other than the UK, too. The international iPad doesn’t go on sale until May 28th – just over a week away – but Apple are obviously getting things up to speed well in advance. Although it was possible to access the US App Store as long as you had a US iTunes account, the thorny issue of having a credit card with a US address meant the easiest way to get software onto an iPad was to download it in iTunes and then sync it across. Incidentally, SlashGear’s dedicated iP

Gadgets from the past keep popping up, don’t they? This time around, we’ve got the big brother to a camera that jumped onto our radar late laster year. The Cerevo Cam was only sold in Japan, but it featured the ability to upload your pictures to your favorite social networking sites, courtesy of its built-in WiFi and 3G connectivity. This time around, though, things get a little bit more real-time, as the Cerevo Cam Live! now features Ustream capabilities. And, lucky for Cerevo, it’s the first digital camera to do so. The Japan-based Cerevo is happy with their new camera, which they’ve lovingly called the Cerevo Cam Live!. Owners will be able to livestream video from the camera, which will then be put on Ustream’s site, without having to upload from a PC or any other piece of hardware. Video will be streamed through the CIF, 352×288 reoslution, format, and the battery at a full charge will give you about two hours of livestream energy. The best feature, though, is the fact that the Ca

If you’re a fan of Apple, or maybe even just the iPhone itself, then when all of these iPhone HD leaks started happening, you probably got pretty excited. But, then it leaked again, and again, and now you’re probably just tired of seeing all of the same images again, over and over. More than anything else, you want to see something new, if you’re going to see anything at all. Well, here’s a new frame that looks strikingly similar to the ones we know to be the iPhone HD’s. However, there’s something different about it. It’s white. It’s not like that’s a new color option for Apple’s iPhone. It’s been pretty popular since its adoption with the iPhone 3G. Popular enough to have an iPhone 3GS model, too. But, unlike the previous version before it, the iPhone HD, if it does come in white, looks like the whole thing (or at least what we can see of the front bezel/frame) would come in the lighter shade. The photos are unconfirmed at this point, and this would probably be pretty easy for someo

A lot of questions went unanswered when Google originally announced Chrome OS . Like, what would we do with that Chrome OS Apps page? Well, it only took several months, but here we are with an answer. Thankfully the wait seems to be worth it, as Google have just pulled the curtain off their Chrome Web Store. And, yes, this does look a whole lot more promising than the Google Phone Store. The Chrome Web Store is a web app store. It’s designed with full HTML5 support, and it’s meant to make playing games a lot easier. Well, that, and do just about anything else you might want to do, all within Chrome OS. For example, while there was a fun demo of Plants vs. Zombies shown off, another piece of software that was shown off was called Dark Room. A full-featured photo editing service, it’s going to cost only $4.99 when the Web Store launches later this year. They also showed off a functioning demo of LEGO Star Wars, which is a fully rendered 3D title, and looked mighty impressive for function

Gateway doesn’t want to be left in the wind when it comes to news today, and they’ve managed to work up quite a good bit of press about their ZX Series of All-in-One PCs. This time around, the series is getting a bit of a refreshing addition, in the fact that two new models are being introduced. Please welcome the Gateway ZX4300-01e and ZX6900-01e. The names have a ring to them, don’t they? Just roll right off the tongue. The first of the batch, the ZX4300-01e, features an AMD Athlon II X2 235e processor, ATI Radeon HD 4270 graphics, and a 640GB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive. The first thing you’ll notice is the large, 20-inch touchscreen UltraBright LCD with 1600×900 resolution. It’s offered with Windows 7 Home Premium Edition, 64-bit, and it has 4GB of DDR3 dual-channel memory at 133MHz. It has a wireless mouse and keyboard, and has integrated WiFi 802.11b/g/n. The ZX4300-01e will be available at a major electronics retailer starting the first week of June, and will start at $749.99. Add

Luckily, Verizon Wireless doesn’t announce netbooks as quickly as it does their cellphone line up. That gives the wireless carrier a far more compelling reason to release decent devices, instead of just piling up a bunch of hardware that no one would want. This time around, we’ve got the HP Mini 210-1076NR, or the HP Mini 210 for short. It’s not the best netbook that Verizon Wireless has in stock, but it certainly does fall right in the middle of the current stock. It features the N450 1.66GHz Atom CPU, a 250GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM. There’s Windows 7 Starter Edition pre-loaded, and it will only cost you $149 after you sign a new, two-year contract. So, you are getting a basic netbook here, for sure, but at least it’s not the worst one on the market. That puts Verizon Wireless’ netbook stock at the Gateway LT using Windows XP ($50), the HP Mini 210 with Windows 7 Starter Edition ($149), and the HP Mini 311 with Windows Home Premium ($199). Basically, you’ve got options, and as fa

Today, Google opened up their opening keynote for Google I/O. It’s entire purpose was to talk about the Web, HTML5, and how it all can work together to move the standard forward. Part of that movement is open sourcing as much of the Internet as humanly possible, so hopefully you’ll welcome WebM with open arms. It’s a brand new, open-source video format that Google hopes will hit the mainstream. Essentially, Google is trying to open up the VP8 codec, which they acquired when they purchased the company On2. The WebM is a container that is based on VP8 video and Ogg Vorbis audio, along with Matroska. More than anything else, Google is proud of the power consumption of the new format, saying that it will work great on mobile devices like netbooks, tablets, and handsets. Additionally, to make sure the movement starts in the right way, Google said that beginning May 19th (today), all video uploaded to YouTube in 720p and up will be encoded in WebM. Right now, Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firef

It’s strange what you can come across while out and about in town; SlashGear bumped into a developer friend of ours today, and they just so happened to have a Nokia N8 burning a hole in their pocket. With Symbian^3 still not ready for public consumption powered-on shots of the smartphone weren’t allowed, and it’s worth noting that this is still prototype hardware, but it’s some of the most impressive pre-production hardware we’ve seen. It’s also surprisingly light, with the anodized aluminum chassis adding up to a handset that’s sturdy but won’t weight down your pocket. Think considerably lighter in the hand than, say, a Google Nexus One. We had our doubts initially about the bright orange color scheme, but in the metal it’s far more attractive than in press shots. Meanwhile the slightly curved edges make for comfortable hands-feel, though we do wish Nokia had added a lens cover for the 12-megapixel camera since that whole portion of the back panel does extend considerably. Of cou

This is totally out of the blue, but we were just hit up with a screen shot suggesting that T-Mobile USA will be launching a portrait QWERTY handset from Nokia on June 16 known as the E73 'Mode. ' As is evidenced with theNuron, T-Mobile has a tendency to assign trademarkable names to Nokias in its lineup that are known elsewhere in the world by their model number only, so we imagine that this phone will end up launching globally simply as the E73 as it takes over the E72's throne as Espoo's top productivity beast. More on this as we get it, but in the meantime, check out a bigger shot of the phone after the break.

It's been a long time coming, but after countless delays in getting the auction underway, bidding on nationwide 3G spectrum in the world's second most populous market has ended -- and four companies appear to have come out on top. Most of the Indian markets only had three licenses available, so you'll likely be doing some roaming if you travel much, but Reliance, Bharti, Aircel, and Tata have all come away with significant swaths of airspace. And how much did it end up costing for the privilege of delivering high-speed wireless 'round these parts? After kicking off India-wide bidding for one slot at 35 billion rupees (about $773 million), the auction wrapped up at 167.51 billion rupees ($3.7 billion) after some 183 rounds of bidding in just over a month. Now, the hard part: actually building those 3G networks. Chop chop, guys!

Whoa there, vaquero -- don't get too excited just yet. As with just about every other gratis backup service on the web, there's a catch you should know about with mSpot's latest endeavor. The free limit is right around 2GB (exact size is TBD), so if you've got more than a second generation iPod's worth of audio, this here service will only serve as a tease. For those who fall under that threshold, there's plenty to love, and if you're down for ponying up, you'll be able to secure 10GB for $2.99 per month or 20GB for $4.99 per month. Launched today at Google I/O, this "freemium" music cloud service essentially syncs your entire music library (either in iTunes or a user-designated arrangement of folders) with mSpot's servers -- provided your library is less than 20GB, of course -- and then makes it available anywhere. Phones and other computers should have no issue tapping in (though only Android will be supported out of the gate), and the a

Assuming you resisted the temptation to either root your Hero or update it with the recently leaked 2.1 firmware, this is your very first chance to finally slap a dash of Android future on your senescent device. Sprint has at long last made the update available, though it isn't quite yet ready to download from its site. Fear not, the good folks behind the yellow network have put together a guide on upgrading through your phone and we'll link up the download as soon as it's ready for consumption. Time to start enjoying that Google Maps Navigation magic and all the other goodies constituting Eclair's delectable filling.

You didn't think Germany was gonna have all the Palm fun, did you? The UK is keeping pace with its longtime nemesis by matching the May 28 launch date for the Pre and Pixi Plus on O2 , and has even supplied us with a handy reference sheet containing all price plans available for the handsets. You'll find it after the break, but sadly it'll only be of interest to true WebOS enthusiasts. There's nothing south of £25 ($36) per month available, and if you want a reasonable call allowance, you'll have to get on into the £30 and above bracket. All contracts do at least come with unlimited texts and data, but overall the cost seems too steep to entice us, what with all theDesires and Bolds floating around at better price points.

The biggest outstanding question about the Wildfire has now been answered by at least one carrier -- T-Mobile will be delivering HTC 's student-friendly handset at the £20 ($29) per month price point on two-year contracts. Frankly, that's a bigger financial commitment than we'd expected to have to make, but it will presumably include unlimited (which in T-Mobile lingo means a 3GB fair use policy) data use and a healthy allowance of calls and texts. If that doesn't rub you up the right way, look out for Virgin Mobile to reveal its pricing in the near term, having announced it'll be carrying the phone via a tweet.

Get ready to rumble, the latest Gartner and IDC smartphone numbers are out to give us a pretty good idea of how things shape up globally. Remember, IDC measures vendor shipments while Gartner measures actual handset sales to end users. So what does the data tell us? Well, to start with, in terms of smartphone devices, Gartner claims a 48.7% increase in smartphone sales of 54.3 million units in Q1 2010 compared to Q1 2009 -- IDC pegs growth at 56.7% on 54.7 million units for the same period. Both estimates easily outpace the 17% or 21.7% growth in worldwide units of mobile phones moved according to Gartner and IDC, respectively. IDC's list of top 5 smartphone device makers (pictured after the break) has Nokia at the number one spot repeating its 39.3% share as it did in Q1 of 2009 while RIM is down slightly from 20.9% in 2009 to a 19.4% market share in 2010. Apple (up from 10.9% to 16.1%) more than doubled its device shipments in the last year as HTC (up from 4.3% to 4.8%) and Motor

Following in the footsteps of Coca-Cola, Facebook is seeking to feed your addiction with a new zero version of its online service. 0.facebook.com leads users to a stripped down, text-only version of the social site, which will incur no data charges from your carrier. Of course, you won't be able to access any other sites or rich media without paying for it, but at least the core functionality of reading your friends' witty status updates and writing satirical responses will be there free of charge. This service is being rolled out primarily in the so-called emerging markets, though more mature environments like Belgium, Denmark and Finland are also present on the list (available after the break). SFR in France, 3 in the UK, and Australia's Telstra are also going to be joining in soon. Guess it's just a matter of finding a pliable carrier to accede to offering the minimal bandwidth necessary in exchange for being Liked by Facebookers.

Surprise: Japanese carriers are announcing literally dozens of phones at once. Okay, look, that's not a surprise at all, but bear with us, because there are a few shining jewels in here amongst the seemingly endless array of WVGA displays and one-seg tuners from NTT DoCoMo and KDDI au, both of whom have announced their Summer 2010 collections of handsets this week. Of note, two of the models from DoCoMo -- the Fujitsu F-06B and Sharp SH-07B are capable of shooting 1080p video, while KDDI's SH008 from Sharp, S003 from Sony Ericsson, and CA005 from Casio all feature sensors of 12 megapixels or larger. Several of the devices can also be used as WiFi hotspots, and Hitachi's trick Beskey for KDDI has interchangeable keypads that change the shape of the keys, not the layout -- a bit superficial, perhaps, but we're all about choice. DoCoMo is also launching a handful of smartphones: the Lynx SH-10B from Sharp (not to be confused with the old Atari handheld of the same name) t

If you like living on the brutal, life-altering bleeding edge the same way we do, odds are you've got iPhone OS 4 beta 3 installed on that 3GS of yours -- assuming you have an iPhone 3GS, naturally. That also means that you'll likely be interested to hear that beta 4 is now out and ready for you to download, install, and not brick your phone if everything goes according to plan, just as long as you've got access to an Apple iPhone Developer Program account. Go forth, intrepid readers -- and do report back on your exploits, won't you?