Samsung SGH-T749 Highlight available for 149.99 USD

To watch SGH-T749 video, click SOURCE

T-Mobile and Samsung have announced the SGH-T749 Highlight, an attractive touchscreen feature phone with high-speed HSDPA 3G data connectivity. The Highlight features a 3.0 megapixel camera, Bluetooth support, an on-screen virtual landscape keyboard, and more.

Like most T-Mobile phones available now, users have access to myFaves so that they can easily connect with their best friends and family. With an on-screen virtual landscape QWERTY keyboard, users can type out email and instant messages to their friends quickly and accurately.

On the multimedia end of things, pictures and video shot with the Highlight's 3.0 megapixel camera should appear vivid on the device's 240 x 400 pixel, 16 million color TFT display. Music can be stored on removable microSDHC^(INFO) cards and the device can even play music in the background while users complete other tasks.

The T749 uses a proprietary Samsung operating system called TouchWiz that offers a lot for a feature phone. Users can drag their favorite widgets onto the home screen for easy access to quick, real-time information. They can also use a 'magnifier' to quickly scroll through letters of the alphabet in their contact list.
The SGH-T749 Highlight is available today for $149.99, after a $50 mail-in rebate, with a new two year agreement and qualifying data plan.

To watch SGH-T749 video, click SOURCE

Google Voice App in Blackberry and Android handsets soon

SOURCE

Google Voice is headed for Blackberry and Android handsets, potentially turning smart phones into your hub for managing voice mail, all your contacts, and making low-cost phone calls, according to reports surfacing on the Web today.

The news, which by early this morning hadn't yet officially been posted on Google's own Voice blog, could be huge for mobile phone users who will be able to take advantage of all the cool features included in the Google Voice service. It also has the potential to irk wireless carriers by turning them into essentially "dumb pipe" providers, as Om Malik points out in a blog post.

The Blackberry and Android applications were privately demonstrated yesterday by the creator of the original mobile application, which was originally called GrandCentral before being acquired in 2007 by Google, according to the GigaOM blog. The imminent release of the new applications was also reported on Google Voice's Twitter page early this morning, promising that more details about the releases would come today.

The Google Voice application for Blackberry and Android handsets will reportedly allow you to:

* Play voice mail messages from your Google Voice account

* Send and receive SMS messages, bypassing wireless carrier fees

* Read and store transcripts of voice mails

* Allow you to save money on long distance phone calls

Calls initiated from your cell phone using Google Voice are carried over your wireless carrier's network and are not VoIP calls, according to reports.

Late last month, Google began sending out a limited number of invitations for users to sign up and try Google Voice. You can still send in a request for the service.

To read more on this, click SOURCE

Blackberry Tour

Good news to all Blackberry fans! This good news is from cnet.com; have fun reading.

Unlike its smartphone competitors, the BlackBerry Tour is not offered exclusively on a single carrier network. Instead it will be available on two carrier networks: Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. Each carrier is set to launch the device on Sunday. Making its phone available on multiple carrier networks is not unusual for RIM, which sells its products on all four major carrier networks. But typically carriers don't make the devices available on the same day. In some ways, the non-exclusive arrangement could help RIM sell more devices because it greatly increases the potential sales base. But it might also hurt, if carriers focus more marketing attention and budget on promoting their exclusive phones.

 

It's yet to be seen how popular the new BlackBerry Tour will be. But at this point any new device from BlackBerry is likely better than none.

"Sales of the Tour are key in our opinion, as our checks indicated RIM may need strong July and August sales to meet its guidance," Walkley said in his research note.

The new phone, which sports Bluetooth, GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a full QWERTY keypad, and a high-resolution screen offers everything that BlackBerry lovers have come to expect. And it also comes equipped with a Quad-band radio that allows the phone to be used internationally on both CDMA and GSM networks. The addition of the 800MHz and 1900MHz radio for CDMA is particularly important for users traveling to Latin America and parts of Asia where CDMA is available on these frequencies.

The device is likely to appeal mostly to business customers, particularly those who travel, and existing BlackBerry users. While Sprint Nextel also plans to market the phone to consumers, the carrier plans to target these customers first.

"Clearly there is already a strong base of BlackBerry customers, and many of them are business users," said Tim Donahue, vice president of business marketing for Sprint. "And we want to make sure they have access to the latest and greatest BlackBerry device out there."

To read more on this, click here.

DELL's FastTrack service

I got this from Dell's website:

"The FastTrack program offers select systems that ship out from the factory the next business day and include some of our most popular upgrades. Note that customization options are limited on these systems. Limited time offer. Limited quantities available. Credit card, PayPal, and Dell Preferred Account orders only."

Check out DELL FastTrack! This service makes Dell's most popular laptops delivered to the consumers in a day or two.

To know what items are offered, click here.

Meet Sony's New Lifestyle PC

"Practically every netbook uses a 1,024 X 600 resolution; the Lifestyle PC's native resolution is 1,600 X 768. 

Such a resolution can fill up the screen, for instance, with three file Explorer windows without any overlap. There's even a Windows Arrangement button (next to the mouse buttons) that will neatly tile your application windows together. Increasing the resolution of such a small screen could cause problems with text, but text and icon sizes were tolerable and the potential of watching a video while Microsoft Word and Powerpoint are fully opened on each side is very compelling.

The target audience is primarily women, but Sony plans to extend its reach to college students and young professionals. According to Sony, women aren't too concerned about what's inside the system; how it looks is more important. The Lifestyle PC's polished exterior and different color options, including green, white, and red, aren't any different than what other netbooks are offering."

To read more on this, click here.

Leak: Sony Ericsson RACHEL and KIKI

"The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Rachael phone is based on the Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon platform, that provides a 1GHz CPU and dedicated graphics acceleration. The connectivity options of the chipset are also top-notch with Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G with HSDPA all onboard.

The fully-touch operated phone comes complete with an 8-megapixel autofocus camera, a 3.5 mm jack and a standard miniUSB jack. Probably the best part of the Sony Ericsson Rachael is its 4" touchscreen that will to come with the exciting WVGA resolution (800 x 480 pixels)."

Along with the Rachael, leaked another Sony Ericsson handset, nicknamed Kiki. It packs a really extraordinary design that is nothing like we've previously seen from Sony Ericsson. According to the source, the Kiki packs some innovative display technology, where the image gets projected on the glass surface on the screen, making it possible to create a 3D screen image.

To see read more on this, click here. 

Greenpeace: Guide to Greener Electronics

The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our three demands are that companies should:

    * Clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances.

    * Takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.

    * Reduce the climate impacts of their operations and products.

The use of harmful chemicals in electronics prevents their safe recycling when the products are discarded. Companies scored marks out of 51 this has then been calculated to a mark out of 10 for simplicity.

Each score is based solely on public information on the companies website. Companies found not to be following their published policies will be deducted penalty point in future versions of the guide.

The guide is updated every 3 months. The current edition was published on July 1, 2009.

To read more on this, click here.

New Karma sedan from Fisker Automotive

Among the different alternative-fuel strategies playing out, Henrik Fisker is betting big on plug-in hybrids. At a recent dinner speech, he said plug-in hybrids, or PHEVs, will be the dominant type of car for the next 10 to 15 years. And he has reason to hope that will be the case as his start-up company, Fisker Automotive, launches the Karma sedan, with its PHEV power train, in June of next year. 

This hybrid system, called Q-Drive, uses two rear-drive motors, a lithium ion battery pack that runs longitudinally down the center of the car, and a gasoline engine as a range extender under the hood. The Q-Drive produces 400 horsepower and has already undergone significant testing by Quantum Technologies.

 

The Karma is supposed to go 50 miles on electric power only, after which the engine will kick in to power the electric motor. The driver will be able to choose between stealth and sport modes, as Fisker calls them, with the latter relying on more electricity generated by the gas engine to go from 0 to 60 mph in under 6 seconds. Fisker pointed out that the power train is currently being tested around the company's Irvine, California headquarters in pick-up truck mules.

A solar roof will come standard in the vehicle, which, in a sunny climate, adds 7 to 8 miles per week of drive time. Cabin technology in the Karma is controlled with a 10.5-inch touch screen with haptic feedback.
The Karma will be offered in three trims, dubbed Eco Standard, Eco Sport, and Eco Chic, ranging from $80,400 to $98,900, after a $7,500 PHEV tax credit. The Eco Chic model does away with leather seats standard in the other models in favor of vegetarian-friendly materials and salvaged wood.

To read more on this, click here.

Mozilla's fastest: Firefox 3.5

 
Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5, the latest edition of its open source browser, one year after its release of Firefox 3.

The update went through four betas, incorporating JavaScript fine-tuning and other improvements, resulting in the fastest version yet, according to Mozilla.

Mozilla was unable to provide an interview for this story in time for publication.

Five Times as Fast

Firefox 3.5 includes support for a new private browsing mode, native support for open video and audio, and location aware browsing.

However, it is the performance upgrades -- particularly the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine -- that Mozilla is touting the most: On complex Web sites, Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3, and it's 10 times faster than Firefox 2.

Support for open video and audio is now native to Firefox 3.5, available to users without the need to install plug-ins.

There are also new privacy controls in Firefox 3.5; the new private browsing mode, for example, does not store anything from a surfing session online. Also new is the forget-this-site feature, which can remove all traces of a site from the browser. Another feature, clear recent history, removes all activity from the past few hours.

To read more on this, click here.

Apple iPhone 3GS unlocked

George Hotz, the 20-year old hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has released a jailbreaking application for the iPhone 3GS codenamed “purplera1n.” It’s currently Windows-only (Windows 7 not supported), and requires the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware.

Hotz mentions in a blog post that the jailbreak for Mac is “coming soon.” The iPhone Dev Team did release a unlock for 3.0 which did not work on the iPhone 3GS, but Hotz’s version does (although it doesn’t free you from your current carrier).

Hotz goes over the process of the jailbreaking on his blog:

    Connect your iPhone normally. Click “make it ra1n”. Wait. On bootup, run Freeze, the purplera1n installer app.

To read more on thi, click here.

Is it true that Apple iPhone 3GS easily overheats?

 

"It's not yet clear how badly, if at all, some iPhone 3GS devices are overheating. Also unclear is the number of handsets affected. Assuming that number is greater than zero, the cause of the sizzling phones remains a mystery. Some users are blaming GPS, while others are blaming game playing. Some are speculating it's a battery issue, while others suspect faulty power management in the iPhone 3.0 software.

 ...there are accounts percolating in the Applesphere that suggest 3GS batteries are quick to overheat. A French Web site -- Le Journal du Geek -- included a photo of what appears to be a 3GS that overheated to the point of scorching."

To read more on this, click here.