Now here’s a smartphone that’s getting even smarter, in fact, the Orange SPV M3100 does so much stuff the company’s calling it a connected PDA. Running Windows Mobile 5.0, Orange says the phone is the first to support HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), an offshoot of the 3G wireless protocol that’s the latest attempt to bring you wireless broadband-like downlink speeds. It’s still able to communicate with conventional networks, too, such as 3G, WiFi, GPRS, and EDGE.

We’re digging the looks of this smartphone, with its slide-out keyboard that just might make it a viable alternative to lugging around a laptop. Although we’re not that crazy about Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0, Outlook users will like this phone’s direct push technology. Now available in the UK for 315 (about $600), no word on when we’ll be seeing the SPV M3100 stateside. – Charlie White

Orange Delivers Latest Signature Smartphone [Bios Magazine]
from gizmodo

Hitachi filled out their Wooo TV clan today with the introduction of 37, 32, and 26-inch LCDs and 37-inch plasma. Squeezing its way into the Wooo9000 series is the 37-inch W37L (pictured) offered with and without a built-in hard drive recorder. This LCD panel features a rather lackluster 1366 x 768 resolution for such a large screen with a 100:1 contrast ratio and 178-degree viewing angle. The W37L-HR9000 includes the built-in HDD recorder with 250GB disk, an electronic program guide for easy recording off the integrated hi-vision digital and analog tuners, and the ability to write shows to disc over compatible Firewire connected DVD writers. At the budget end of the Wooo family tree come the H90-series W32L and W26L LCDs and W37P plasma all with integrated digital/analog tuners. Both LCDs offer that same 1366 x 768 resolution which is more appropriate for these panel sizes while the 37-inch W37P chokes up a miserable 1024×1080 resolution. All the new panels feature 2 x HDMI, Japanese D4, Ethernet, and the usual suite of in/outs you’ll need. Expect to pay Â¥350,000 (about $3,040) for the W37L-HR9000 with HDD recorder (or Â¥300,000/$2,606 without) down to about Â¥200,000 (about $1,737) for that 26-incher. All these new panels should be available by September in Japan.

Read — W37L-H9000
Read — H90 series

From engadget

   

The Sony Ericsson M600i is one of the first Symbian OS v9.1 devices to be shipped with the new UIQ 3 user interface. UIQ made a name for itself on Sony Ericsson’s P series of devices like the P910. In fact, the M600i could easily be thought of as a scaled down version of the upcoming P990 QWERTY smartphone, with which it shares many features and internal workings. 

Based purely on its looks, it should not come as a surprise to most that the Sony Ericsson M600i is not tailored for heavy multimedia use. To start with, there is no camera at all in the design. What you do find, however, is a large and colorful QVGA (240×320 pixel) touch screen display and a respectable media playback capability.

Like UIQ devices before it, such as the P910, the M600i makes use of a touch screen, stylus, scroll wheel, and keyboard for navigation and text entry. That is where the similarities end for me, though. I was never a fan of the earlier UIQ systems, and always found them clumsy and unorganized. To be honest, my initial impressions of UIQ 3 in the M600i were similar. But after having spent a bit of time with the device, things started to make sense to me. There are plenty of inconsistencies in the user experience, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and have managed to adapt to the system in a way I never was able to with the earlier devices – devices that I have spent considerably more time with.

Call audio quality was good in general, though the squelch/noise reduction system seemed to be a bit agressive at times, almost clipping off the very start of word sometimes. The speakerphone’s audio qualities seemed pretty good. The M600 has no real profile support, but does have a silent mode that can be quickly turned on by long-pressing the # key, and an airplane mode that can be enabled when powering on of off the device with the power button.

While the M600i lacks WiFi and EDGE data, two systems becoming quite common in smartphones these days, it does offer UMTS 3G data capabilities, GPRS, infrared, and Bluetooth 2.0 support. If you prefer your connections to be wired, the M600 can also be used as a USB mass storage device with a USB cable – once the Sony Ericsson drivers have been loaded, that is. The M600i will charge off of a fast port USB cable, one of which is included in the box.

As you might expect of any device equipped with a QWERTY keyboard, messaging is one of the M600′s strong points. It also happens to be the source of one of its most critical bugs. While it supports 9 different push email solutions, including ActiveSync for Microsoft Exchange and BlackBerry Connect, my estimate is that most M600 users will make use of the more traditional POP and IMAP mail protocols for retrieving messages.

A number of the applications that come pre-loaded on the M600 are quite fine, not the least of which are the Calendar and the Quickoffice suite. The calendar app is very pretty and makes good use of the available screen real estate. It is fully featured, and supports recurring appointments, alarms, and even tentative events. I was most impressed by the week view of the calendar, though the fact that a tap and hold on the screen with the stylus only brought up a pop up menus for creating new events on days with no entries seemed to be another example of the operating system’s newness and need for further polishing. There was also a bug in the system that kept me from being able to save a Birthday event when I tried to add enter text in its Location field – it would ask me if I wanted to save when I tried to exit, I would click save, and it would stop. If I tried to exit again, the process started over with the eventual result being that I had to manually kill the application to get out of the loop.

See more applications thumbnail here and here

To see complete review visit mobileburn

The Sharp W-ZERO3 features an Intel PXA270 processor (416-MHz), a 640 x 480 2.8-inch display, 1.3-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, miniSD card slot, OneSeg TV expansion, USB connectivity, and a full QWERTY keypad. This phone measures 2.8″ x 5.1″ x 1″ and weighs 6.1-ounces.

[via Akihabara]
from techeblog

Big Tanks is the world’s first interactive open-air nightclub, made of “160 conventional 1000-litre water tanks.” Short overview (CG).

The plastic tanks are filled with luminous bulbs so that VJs can turn the whole structure into visual games. The electric bulbs are individually controllable and the walls of tanks can be used just like an oversized low-tech screen

[via w-m-m-n-a]
from techeblog

If you’re always looking to loosen bolts wherever you go, but hate that bulky wrench-pocket look, here’s the credit-card sized wrench substitute from the UK. Easy to carry and easy to use (sort of), the card works on metric sizes ranging from M6 to M14. Does that mean it won’t work on bolts in the US? If anything, carrying around a stainless steel card in your wallet means one more weapon you get to fling at would-be muggers. Available for 7.99 ($15). – Jason Chen

Product Page [The Dog House via Shiny Shiny]
from gizmodo

This remote controlled car looks like a little Moller Skycar for a reason. It zooms over grass, concrete, and dirt. But at 20MPH, it goes airborne. Whoosh! During flight, the vehicle can reach heights of 20 stories at 30MPH. And the racer only costs 60 bucks (plus $20 for a rechargeable battery that’ll last 10 minutes). Like Doc Brown said, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”– Brian Lam

Skycar [Moller]
Fly Wheels XPV [Jakks Pacific]
from gizmodo