mail2web.com Blog

Toshiba just released the world’s first HD DVD player for sale in Japan, the model HD-XA1.

The device performs output up and down-conversion among and between 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i.

Compatible with most optical media, except Blu-ray for some reason.

Toshiba Brings World’s First HD DVD Player to the Japanese Market – Toshiba Press Release, 31 March, 2006

Posted in General ~ No Comments

Samsung announces a new GPS-enabled slider phone, the SCH-V850. The phone has the usual-ish 262k 2 inch QVGA LCD screen, 1.3 MP camera, MP3 player, EVDO as well as video recording and playback.

The GPS system is Korea-oriented, provides route guidance, real-time traffic information. The underlying functionality is provided by means of the NATE Drive service which is a Korea-specific location-based service combining GPS and cell-phone networks to deliver a number of traffic, commercial, location and emergency services.

Samsung GPS phone come into the market – Samsung Press Release, 2006 03 30

Posted in Phones ~ No Comments

We’ve made note of the those nicely designed gadgets from Ambient Devices in the past. Now, Ambient has on offer the Forecasting Umbrella that incorporates a weather forecast data-radio in the handle.

If the probability of rain is 100% the light in the handle of the umbrella will flash 100 times per minute. A 60% chance of rain translates to 60 pulses per minute.

The data is sourced from AccuWeather.com and is delivered over pager networks.

Ambient Forecasting Umbrella – product website

Posted in General ~ No Comments

The Economist weighs in on the Open Source phenomenon, and finds it wanting. In a recent article entitled Open But Not As Usual, the Economist outlines some of the achievements of Open Source, some dubious on-goings and concludes with some cautionary notes.

The shining stars of the open source movement are portrayed as Apache, which hosts more than 2/3 of all websites, and Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia with more than 2.6 million entries. Open Source’s failings and vulnerabilities, in the magazine’s view, include not only a variation on the theme of too many cooks spoil the broth, but also that some of the cooks are crooks. A complementary if more personal perspective is provided by The Open Source Heretic.

Open Source is of course viewed as socialist and cooperative in its essence, and The Economist, seemingly troubled by the lack of funds changing hands, can’t quite comprehend why the apparently unmotivated and the probably unwashed continue to contribute.

Open, but not as usual – The Economist, Mar 16th 2006

Posted in General ~ No Comments

Samsung tries very hard to be the world’s first in many categories, and mostly succeeds in those endeavors. In the category of music sticks, Samsung now claims that their new music phone, the SPH-S4300 is the “world’s smallest music stick”.

There are in fact smaller music sticks available, such as the GPX MW-3805 128MB MP3 Music Stick, thus throwing Samsung’s claim into question.

Otherwise, the S4300 seems not to be a bad phone. It has 1GB of memory, a 1.3MP camera, 77.5gr, 86×49x21mm, FM radio, MP3 player and a video player.

World-smallest music stick phone – Aving News, 2006-03-23

Posted in Phones ~ No Comments

Here’s a striking view of the business end of that Airborne Laser (ABL) intended to shoot down ballistic missiles during lift-off. The main laser is a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser, aka COIL, with output at a wavelength of 1.315 µm. A good system overview can be found at Operational Implications of Laser Weapons, with some of the challenges described here and here.

In-flight testing of the ABL will start within a year – that pretty much guarantees that hostiles will start spray-painting their birds with infrared reflective paint within a year.

Officials Map Out Test Milestones for Airborne Laser – Space.com, 22 March 2006

Posted in Aerospace ~ No Comments

A new survey in the UK by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising reveals the extent to which those old standbys of pen and paper are falling into disuse. The IPA survey shows that almost all written communication today is electronic. Email is is by far the most popular way of communicating, making up half of all media consumption. Others utilize SMS (29%) and 10% communicate via instant messaging. That leaves just 13% of us who still insist on scratching out notes on paper.

Paper’s low numbers are even worse in the younger demographic: only five percent of 15-24 year olds use the stuff, and presumably it’s evil twin, the pen.

…might be time to divest those shares in The International School of Calligraphy And Handwriting.

TouchPoints Survey – IPA Press Release, 23rd March 06

Posted in General ~ No Comments

Korean cell phone maker KTF Technologies has developed the the world’s flattest phone. The new model EV-K100 measures 4.1 x 1.9 x 0.3 inches … that’s a mere 103.9 x 48 x 7.9 mm.

This CDMA phone weighs 60 grams, has a 1.8 inch screen, 165 MB of memory, an MP3 player and a 1.3 MP camera.

The K100 is about half the thickness of the then-thinnest Razr V3 launched less than 2 years ago … at this rate of shrinkage, look for 2-dimensional phones to arrive in a few years.

Slimmest Cell Phone Unveiled – Korea Times, 03-19-2006

Posted in Phones ~ No Comments

Samsung announced the general availability of it’s 32GB NAND Flash SSD at the Samsung Mobile Solution Forum in Taiwan yesterday. The company sees a bright future for these replacements for hard disk drives. Hwang Chang-gyu, head of Samsung Electronics made the following remarkable prediction at the event: “SSD will take over 30 percent of the current laptop HDD market within the next two or three years”.

Solid State Disks are ideal for the notebook market because they use about 1/3 less power and weigh less than 1/2 that of a comparable hard disk drive. In addition, SSDs provide about 3x faster data access and are more durable. Flash memory, however, is at least 10x more expensive than hard disks, so what Hwang is saying is that flash storage will decrease in price substantially over the 2-3 years.

Samsung Aims to Lead Mobile Revolution – Chosun Ilbo, Mar.21,2006

Posted in General ~ No Comments

Motorola renamed its A1200 smartphone to “Ming”, for its recent launch into the China market. The phone’s full feature set is available at Motorola Taiwan, and includes a 2.4-inch QVGA touchscreen, low weight of 100 grams, sized at 96 x 52 x 21.5 mm, PXA270 processor, Linux operating system and a 2 MP camera, that doubles as a business card reader.

The phone also has quad-band GSM/GPRS, the usual smartphone functionality, POP3 e-mail support, MP3 player, FM radio, Bluetooth, Opera browser for WAP and HTML sites, and a MicroSD card reader.

$517.

According to Motorola Hong Kong, “Ming means bright, clear, overt or open, clear-sighted, and to understand. The name MING was chosen to resonate more deeply with people in Hong Kong than a traditional model name or number can” … good to know for your next Asian product launch.

Motorola PDA – PhoneDaily News, 2006-03-22

Posted in Phones ~ 44 Comments