Gizmodo

Color BlackBerry coming A BlackBerry with a color LCD screen should be out by summer.
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good_g100.jpg In Brief

The Good news from Dell

The big news from Dell and Good Technologies has turned out to be that the two companies are going to work together on a new wireless handheld that should be out next year, and that Dell will start selling Good's BlackBerry-like G100 email pager later this year.
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In Brief

60GB Nomad Jukebox Zen

Apple's 30GB iPod has only been out for a couple of days, and it's already been rendered obsolete. The newest version of Creative's Nomad Jukebox Zen, announced just today, will have double the storage capacity - 60GB - and cost a $100 less. Of course, the iPod still tops the Nomad in terms of design.
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DPReview on Canon's PowerShot S400 In-depth look over at Digital Photography Review of Canon's new four-megapixel PowerShot S400. They give it high marks, calling it the "best of the ultra-compact four megapixel class."
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travelsound.jpg In Brief

Creative's new iPod speakers

It doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense, since they have their own competing line of MP3 players, but Creative has couple of new speaker sets designed to match Apple's iPod, the Creative I-Trigue 2.1 I3350 for home use and the portable TravelSound i300 (pictured at right).
Read [Thanks, Jason]

belkinbattery.jpg In Brief

External battery pack for the iPod

Eric Smith wrote in yesterday wondering whether Apple had done anything about the rather poor battery life of the iPod, which dwindles from about ten or eleven hours on purchase to about under an hour or two a year later. Well it's not clear whether or not they've corrected the problem with the new iPods, but Belkin has done something about it and come out with a Backup Battery Pack for the iPod that works with rechargeable or regular AA batteries and adds about fifteen to twenty hours of life.
Read [Via MacMinute] More »

In Brief

Don't try this at home

The cellphone stupidity continues: some clueless person in Australia decided to try and recharge his phone by putting it in the microwave, which, not surprisingly, caused the battery to explode. The local fire chief said, in a truly masterful piece of understatement, that the incident is, "a timely reminder to people not to put things in the microwave other than food - and this includes phone batteries or using your microwave to dry your clothes."
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airsupply.jpg In Brief

Some very popular gadgets

Sales of PDAs might be down, but the New York Times reports on some gadgets that are selling well during these uncertain times: the Air Supply MiniMate, a battery-powered portable air purifier that hangs around your neck (guess what people are using that for); the Evacuchute, a parachute designed to b e used for escaping from fires in skyscrapers; and the TrackIT Sonic Laptop Alarm, which goes off it is taken more than forty feet away from a special transmitter you keep on your keychain.
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Sprint to carry Sony Ericsson Bluetooth phone Sprint plans to carry one of the first CDMA cellphones to come with built-in Bluetooth, the T608 from Sony Ericsson.
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Amazon sale on Netgear Router Amazon sale on Netgear's RP614NA 4-Port Cable/DSL Router. Just $44.99 after rebate.
Amazon

actuality_systems.jpg In Brief

3D crystal ball

A few companies have 3D monitors in the works, but Actuality System's new three-dimensional display takes the cake. It's not a regular LCD monitor that tricks the eye into seeing a three-dimensional image - it's a glass sphere that looks like a crystal ball that creates a "360-degree spatial display" that can be viewed from any angle.
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In Brief

On cellphones in airplanes

Rich Brome of Phone Scoop and David Schloss weigh in on a recent post about whether or not cellphones are actually a threat to aviation. David writes that,
In researching a piece on Lufthansa's broadband connectivity equipped plane (which I got to fly to Germany) I found out that the ban on cellphones comes from the FCC not the FAA. There have been a few cases where pilots have experienced glitches in their readings, and had the cabin crew check to see if phones were in use, and they were. But that's circumstantial at best.
And Rich writes in that SAS recently became the first airline to allow the use of cellphones in flight as long as the radio is off, and that trying to make a call in the air isn't such a good idea anyway:
Actually trying to call someone using your phone probably won't affect flight safety, but at cruising altitude, it probably won't work, and if it does, it could wreak havoc on the cell phone network. The networks are designed with the assumption that you're on the ground, where there are usually only a handful of nearby towers within range. But at 35,000 feet, you'll typically have simultaneous, clear line-of-sight to dozens of towers, some very far apart from each other. Plus, you're moving much faster than you ever would on the ground. Because of those issues, even if you just leave your phone switched on and don't talk to anyone, it can cause all sorts of problems for the cell phone network.

In Brief

Cellphones could replace housekeys and carkeys

The Inquirer on an inventor who has figured out how to use a cellphone as a wireless key that can,
open a variety of locks whether it's a car, your front door, the garage or office doors. For example, you can open your own front door for somebody else if they are talking to you on their mobile phone and standing outside your front door.
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The Digital Photo Library From I/OMagic, a new portable 20GB hard drive designed for storing digital photos. The Digital Photo Library has slots for CompactFlash cards, Smart Media, Memory Stick, MultiMediaCards, and SD cards.
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ntag.jpg In Brief

Intelligent name tags

It's sorta like Friendster, but in the real world: electronic name tags that can store personal information and wirelessly share it with other people around you. The nTag, as it's called, has 128K of memory, a two-line display, and built-in infrared. The idea is that besides just putting your name and where you're from you could also list your hobbies or favorite movies or whatever, and so that people with similar interests could automatically find each other:
When two attendees come within 3 to 5 feet and their nTags are facing each other, information is shared between the tags, using invisible infra-red beams of light. George Eberstadt, an nTag company co-founder, says the system uses advanced software to figure out what information to show on the tags' displays. And the algorithms aren't looking for just 'matching' information, but for topics that would hopefully 'break the ice' and generate social interaction."
Read [Via BoingBoing]

Amazon deal on 512MB Viking CompactFlash memory cards
Viking 512MB CompactFlash memory cards are on sale at Amazon for less than 100 bucks after rebate.

Amazon

In Brief

How to stop cellphone tossing

Leigh Weimers of the Mercury News suggests one way to get people to stop throwing cellphones at baseball players, which as we noted yesterday, is becoming something of a problem:
Instead of throwing the phone back and pressing charges, the player keeps the phone. He uses it to call every friend and relative he knows — here, overseas, everywhere. Then he calls one of those high-priced phone-sex talk lines and runs up a huge bill. And if the phone owner complains, the players replies, "Hey, I was only talking to yo mama.''
Read [Via TechDirt]

blackipod.jpg In Brief

You can get your iPod in any color you want as long as it's white

What in the hell is this all about? A photo of a sinister looking all-black iPod has turned up in an article in Fortune magazine, anyone know if this is the real deal? Apple announced its redesigned iPods yesterday, but it didn't say anything about them coming in any other colors besides white. And honestly, that's the way we like it. The last thing we want to see are a bunch of gaudy blueberry and lime-colored iPods.
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