Archives for April 2010

Flip Slide HD Official

Cisco have now made the Flip Slide HD camera official. Cisco managed to change a number of features to make using the camera a better experience. On the front you’ll find a large 3 inch resistive touch display that is home to all the devices controls (previously physical buttons were used). The Flip Slide HD also slides open to reveal a capacitive touch slide where you can swipe through movies you have captured.

Cisco have added a 3.5mm headphone jack to the Slide HD along with a HDMI output. The camera can capture at 720p HD resolutions (same as the Mino HD). There is no image stabilisation on this model of the camera though.

Storage has also been increased and can now capture up to 16GB of video which equates to 4 hours of uncompressed and 12 hours of compressed video. [Read more…]

Opera Mini iPhone App Approved and Ready for Download

Opera have announced that their Opera Mini browser for the iPhone and iPod Touch has now been approved by Apple [AAPL]. The application is being made available over the next 24 hours depending on where you are. I tested in the UK just now and it was available to download for free.

The application was submitted to Apple on March 23 shortly after Mobile World Congress (where it was first demoed). After many people speculating that it wouldn’t be approved, we actually find now it actually is.

The Opera Mini iPhone browser comes with quite a big claim too with Opera saying it is capable of being up to 6 times faster that the native Safari Browser built in to the iPhone. This is all thanks to using server side compression of HTML and images making sure that the actually downloaded data is kept as small as possible, thus saving download time needed. [Read more…]

WePad Tablet Pricing and Launch Details

We first mentioned the WePad a few weeks ago and from what we saw, we were quite impressed at the alleged specifications. The whole WePad device seems to revolve around doing things that the iPad cannot do. Features such as a camera have been included allowing for video calls to be made. An SD card slot has been included along with USB and the ability to multitask.

The WePad Tablet runs the Android operating system from Google [GOOG] and has access to the Android Marketplace to download applications.

Overall it looks quite impressive and we hope that the CPU and graphics chip are up to scratch making it run smoothly. Update: It has an Intel Atom N450 CPU and no NVIDIA although it does support full HD, so perhaps another quicker than Intel chip.

From what we hear there are a couple of versions with one being WiFi only costing ‚¬449. This will have 16GB of RAM. [Read more…]

Tesco iPhone Tariffs Updated

Tesco Mobile have made changes to their iPhone tariffs that include several new 12 month contracts. Prices are as follows…

For a 12 month contract paying £35/month you can get the iPhone for the following prices…
iPhone 3G 8GB – £100
iPhone 3GS 16GB – £200
iPhone 3GS 32GB – £275

If you want to get a free iPhone 3GS (16GB) you can pay £45/month on a 24 month contract. [Read more…]

Virtual Potters Wheel

As far as I can remember back, I don’t think we have ever covered the subject of pottery here at gadgetvenue. So, here we have perhaps the worlds first pottery gadget that uses 3D technology with an old art.

The device consists of a 3D scanner that tracks movement of your hands. The 3D scanner part is referred to as a Virtual wheel. This technology is combined with a 3D printer that converts ceramic powder in to a solid form and then cools it down.

So, you create your virtual potter subject and once done, you send it to print and it gets built for you as you designed it. [Read more…]

Microsoft to manage Windows Phone 7 Firmware Updates

Microsoft [MSFT] have confirmed that they will be taking responsibility for providing firmware updates to Windows Phone 7 devices when the new OS launches. Right now, Microsoft leave that to the device manufacturers.

Updates will arrive on Microsoft Windows Phone 7 devices in a couple of different ways. For small updates, they will be received over the air (OTA) using either a 3G connection on the phone or the WiFi connection if available. Larger updates will be downloadable in the Zune Manager software and when tethering a phone to a computer, you’ll be able to update your device.

In my opinion, MS looking after the updates will be a good thing as all users should be able to get the latest updates around the same time. The current method of device manufacturers pushing out updates could cause some phones on some networks to get delays, for example the same phone on the Orange and T-Mobile networks could see Orange customers with a new firmware and T-Mobile lagging behind. With a central coordinated system it should allow all users of a specific phone to get that update when it is made available. [Read more…]

Google Docs Upgraded

Google [GOOG] have launched a major update to their Google Docs service that brings several new features to the free service. This includes a redesigned spreadsheet application, document app and a drawing editor. As well as improving each of the services, Google have also created group chat functions within each app.

The whole upgrade to Google Docs revolves around collaboration whereby Google believe this part of the service lacks. Several people can update a single document that can then be destroyed by a bad save by someone. The new version brings in more tools to make it run like desktop versions and also includes the ability to mark-up character by character.

Google Docs now makes it possible to see real-time what others are writing on the opened document. As the other user writes it is immediately updated on your screen. Up to 50 people can work on a document simultaneously. [Read more…]

Nokia Everyone Connect Event

An event by Nokia [NOK] is happening in the next 14 hours that nobody really knows much about. Some believe it could be related to Ovi Maps Navigation although that was recently pushed in an event in London.

Over at Mobile review we heard that the event isn’t related to the Nokia N8 which is a shame, but with a bit of investigating they found out that the event could be related to a new messaging solution called Nokia Messaging. [Read more…]

Apple iPad Jailbreak by Geohot

Geohot has managed to Jailbreak the Apple iPad. The iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2 and within days of the iPad being launched Geohot managed to post the encryption keys on his site followed the day after by the image above showing Cydia and Blackra1n on the home screen of the iPad.

On the blog post about the encryption keys he simply says (after publishing the keys) that “This is more exciting than a lot of you realize.”

We should be hearing more soon about how it will all work, but from what we can gather, it will be an update to Blackra1n where you simply tether the iPad, load up Blackra1n and a few moment later your device will be jailbroke. [Read more…]

Google Tablet in the Works

Google [GOOG] are getting in to the tablet game by creating a Google Tablet. This particular tablet computer they will be making will run the Google Android OS rather than Chrome OS and from what we hear, it will be created by Google (or perhaps as the Nexus One is… created by HTC but sold exclusively by Google).

We have heard of Google Chrome OS based tablets previously, but from what we understand now, Google is actually planning on running Android on this particular tablet. It isn’t clear if they will just run plain old Android 2.1 for example, on the tablet where everything is just spaced out more on the screen, or if a specific Android Tablet Edition OS will be made. [Read more…]

Palm, Inc. Looking for Buyers – HTC, Dell, Lenovo and More Interested

Reports today are indicating that Palm, Inc. are actually looking for buyers. Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) are reported to be wanting buyers and wanting bids in as quick as this week.

Three companies are known to be interested at the moment which includes HTC, Lenovo and Dell and there could be others too. Dell have also made comment through a spokesperson although HTC and Lenovo have declined to comment so far. Other companies that could be in the running for Palm include Huawei and ZTE who are not as mainstream in terms of known brands although they are certainly not small companies. [Read more…]

iPhone OS 4 – Apple Scrubs “Google” from Safari Search Button

When loading up the Safari browser on your iPhone you’ll see an address bar at the top left raking about 2/3 of the screen width along with a smaller search box just next to it with the word Google inserted. When taping the search box the keyboard pops open and the word Google can be found on the bottom right of the keyboard… this is changing.

Apple [AAPL] in their latest iPhone OS 4.0 have actually scrubbed out Google [GOOG] from the box and keyboard in what looks to be a move to distance themselves from the company. The iPad running it’s current OS also has Google replaced on the keyboard with a generic “Search” added to the device. With in the iPad, users have the option to default search to either Google or Yahoo!, so it seems like Apple are not wanting to tie themselves down to just one search function. On the iPad when selecting a default, the small box at the top does show the default search setting, but the keyboard just has that generic search added. [Read more…]