Its Electronica

BenQ rolled out its Mobile Internet Device at the MWC ‘08, bringing the following specifications to the table :-

• 4.8″ touch screen display at 1,024 x 600 resolution
• WiFi connectivity
• HSDPA connectivity
• Shake control system

Certainly, the last feature is the most interesting of all although I’m not too sure how intuitive it can get. Hopefully it’ll be easier than pressing buttons when you want to control menus or manipulate navigation windows. The BenQ Mobile Internet Device also sports a VGA camera and is powered by Intel’s Menlow platform. There is no word on pricing and availability.

Looks like word on the street has it that the Olympus E-330 DSLR will get a replacement in the form of the E-430, if a post on Photo-Forum.net is to be believed. The E-430 is tipped to come with a 12-megapixel sensor, a live view, flip-out 2.5″ LCD display, a wired remote option, a higher continuous shooting rate and a larger raw buffer. What is most convincing would be the image posted that looks real, but until Olympus makes an official announcement, this is relegated to the rumor mill.

Panasonic’s Titanium Flat Road EB is one racing-type electric bicycle that helps you amble along with the power of electricity. A full charge provides up to 10km of range within thirty minutes. In addition, Panasonic has thrown in SLIM (Smart Lithium-Ion Integrated Management System) on this bike, where SLIM is a small computer that tells you just how much juice your bike has and the battery level. Talk about exercising without having to actually pedal.

Sending robots to a battlefield is the dream of many a general as there won’t be any human lives at stake, but robots are not yet smart enough to make their own decisions on the battlefield. Enter HARV 0- the Head-Aimed Remote Viewer system that features a mounted remote video system on the robot complete with gyro equipped VR goggles for the user, allowing the robot to look wherever your head moves to. HARV has shown its capability in trials of improving mission performance by up to 400%, and comes with the following :-

36:1 optical zoom

Night vision Camera

Laser Target Designators

Stereo Audio

The only drawback would be its high price tag of $40,000 - but then again, surely there is no price high enough for a human life, is there?

Posted Feb 13th 2008 4:06PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones, Features

Here it is folks, the latest and greatest that Google has to offer — the new Android SDK. As you can see, they’ve made some major cosmetic changes, as well as added some functionality. Why tell you about when we can show you, though? Take a look at the gallery below and see it all for yourself.

Gallery: New Android SDK gallery

The blackberry Remote Stereo Gateway is all set to be released at the end of this month, retailin for $79.99 a pop. Hopefully with the release of this, RIM will also perform an overhaul on its BlackBerry Media Player in addition to offering some sort of service that enables the purchase of music over the air. Well, things are starting to look up for the BlackBerry now where being a portable audio device is concerned although it still has a long way more to go.

The humble cell phone is not good only for making calls and sending/receiving text messages, it also comes with a plethora of other functions which have added a whole lot of value to our busy lives. This interesting fishing game known as “Ippon Zuri” (pole-and-line fishing) rewards successful players with home deliveries of fresh fish caught in the real world - making me wish that McDonalds or Burger King have some sort of equivalent scheme to reward us ordinary folk. Since Ippon Zuri enables players to eat what they catch virtually, chances are you won’t be as successful as your character in Animal Crossing, Golden Rod or not. Only subscribers of NTT DoCoMo in the Fukuoka area who register at the Ippon Zuri site and pre-pay for the games will be able to enjoy the benefit of this game. Three games will set you back by 1,000 yen.

Posted Feb 13th 2008 3:34PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones

In case you’re not clued into the developer’s loop when it comes to all things Android, you might not be aware that there’s a brand-spanking-new version of the SDK out right now, replete with new apps, a new skin, and tightened-up functionality. In fact, it’s almost like a whole new OS. Keep your eyes on us, as we’re whipping up an in-depth gallery so you can get a taste of what’s to come from the Google camp.

Take a look at our extensive gallery of pics right here.

[Via Hello Android]

Hounded by the growing number of irate users about its absurd privacy policies, the social network drama queen Facebook said it will add a one-step option enabling users to easily and permanently delete their accounts.

Currently, many Facebook users are complaining about the deactivation option because it still retains personal information on the site’s servers. In defense, Facebook claims many users are quite fickle and they tend to come back to reactivate their accounts for various reasons.

Last Monday, the fast growing company has added an alternative wherein users must notify its Facebook staff via e-mail for deletion of their accounts. Unfortunately, there are some complaints that it failed to remove some accounts despite getting in touch with the company’s customers service. I suppose this is the main reason why the company is looking for another option to delete these accounts permanently.

Now, there is a Facebook group called “How to permanently delete your Facebook account” which acts as the unofficial guide for its 7,000 confused members on the proper account deletion process.

In the era where social networks represent our permanent records online, these companies must be more sensitive about privacy issues and devise ways to help users protect their rights. Otherwise, they will have to face a community of outspoken mob.

Read [New York Times]

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To make a long story short, CureHunter is an uber search engine for medical publications. Because it has been designed from the ground up for that purpose, it performs better in this nice than let’s say a Google. Medgadget has a very good post on the subject.

Today’s news is that CureHunter is now available on mobile phones. That said, it works best on something with a very nice 800×480 display like this Sharp WS011SH or like the uber Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 that we mentioned earlier this week.