Samsung is throwing down another 7 megapixel cameraphone — 7.7 to be precise — but this time they’re adding DMB and a whole lot of screen love. The design for the B500 is similar to their SCH-V770, but to make room for the extra pixels they’ve transferred the keypad to a slide out form factor. Despite this they manage to keep the phone reasonably thin at 0.7-inches, while still tossing in a 3x optical zoom, video out, and a T-Flash slot. No word on price or availability, but we’ve got our guesses, and they aren’t “free” or “USA”.

More info

From Engadget

Throw out every gizmo and gadget you own—this is all you need. It can do everything: order alcohol, pizza, has a pee break alert, “Adams Mode,” L button, mood button and it can even call up Spock to help you operate the damn thing. Best of all: a sex button. Sorry ladies, I am off the market now, this is my new girlfriend.

Canon’s new flagship is LOADED! [DP Review]
From Gizmodo

 

Casio announced their new 6 megapixel digital camera, the notably smaller Exilim EX-Z600, which features a 2.7-inch display, 3x optical zoom, and “anti-shake” DSP (which uses high ISO settings to avoid blurring, and somehow doesn’t sound nearly as reassuring as proper OIS). Should be out sooner than later, but we don’t have any official word on price and release just yet, so keep an eye out come PMA next month.

More info

From Engadget

 

Remember the Sleeptracker, the digital watch that could purportedly track your sleep rhythms and wake you only when you’re likely to be optimally refreshed (i.e., not when you’re in the middle of a deep sleep or heavy-duty REM cycle)? Well, it’s got a stylish big brother now, in the form of the aXbo, a sleek alarm clock that communicates wirelessly with a wristband that does basically the same thing as the Sleeptracker: it keeps track of your movements throughout the night, gauging how deeply you’re sleeping by how much you’re thrashing. You set a window during which it can wake you, and it waits for the right moment within that space. Of course, the aXbo won’t help you sleep better, but it could help you wake up feeling a little more refreshed — if you don’t mind shelling out €200 ($241) for the privilege.

[Via I4U]

Product page

From Engadget

Dutch powerhouse Phillips is poised to introduce (though only in its home base in the Netherlands for now) the VP-5500, a Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP telephone. What makes it so special? Well, it’s powered by Linux, so it’s automatically awesome. As far as features go, the VP-5500 comes with a built-in VGA camera that rotates up to 240 degrees, letting you check yourself out as you chat with a friend. Not only that, but you can hook it up to a TV and have it output a slideshow of all the photos you’ve taken. To make it future-proof, Phillips designed the phone to be updatable via Wi-Fi, opening up all sorts of neat, Linux-powered possibilities.

Phillips VP-5500 VoIP Videophone [eHomeUpgrade]

From Gizmodo

 

I’m still reeling from this KDDI phone by Naoto Fukasawa (the latest in the au design project series). The English version of the flash site has not been added, so I’m hoping one of our Japanese-speaking readers can supply more accurate details in a few hours. From what I can tell, this has an organic EL display (similar to the Sony NW-A1000 Walkman)—so that smooth top surface of the phone is one big display. This is particularly useful for using the FM radio and the rest of the audio features, because this is a music phone (50MB of memory, from what I can tell, and a miniSD card slot). It also appears to be compatible with the Yamaha NX-A01 cellphone speaker system. Flip the handset open—it’s white on the outside and black on the inside—and neon is packing a 240 x 320 TFT screen, 1.3 megapixel camera and a whole lot of other stuff I can’t translate. The neon is one of 7 new models on tap from KDDI’s au design for the spring.

 

au Design Project neon [Product Page (via mocoloco]

From Gizmodo

Linksys has released a pair of Power over Ethernet wireless network extenders that need only be tethered to a router with networking cables to receive both data and juice. While not quite as convenient as the AuraGrid that we saw at CES (which works over existing cable wiring), the WAP54GP and outdoor WAP54GPE (pictured) seem like good solutions for small offices, larger buildings, or cable-less homes with dead spots. Security is solid on these devices, with WEP, WPA, and upcoming WPA2 support via a firmware upgrade, along with MAC Address Filtering. Available immediately for what Pocket-lint claims is a pretty steep $332 for the WAP54GP and $648 for the WAP54GP, although we saw them on Newegg for $200 and $400, respectively.

More info

Engadget