Author: Daniel Sung
Vodafone launches 50p per day browsing and May Day freebee
All Vodafone customers, PAYG or contract, will be able to surf the web from the comfort of their own phones for absolutely zip all day tomorrow.
The one day offer is to celebrate the launch of a new data tariff from the network giant that gives a daily flat rate of 50p so that casual users don’t need to worry about clocking up monumental bills when they browse.
Not a ground-breaker of a deal but I’ll certainly be ditching my £5/month bolt-on in favour of it.
Motorola Ironman Android phone planned for Q3 launch
We all love a good phone leak and the surprise from Motorola today is that their leaked phone might indeed actually be good. This is the Android-running handset codenamed Ironman which should be out by the end of Q3. That’s around September to anyone living in the real world.
No proper specs aside Wi-Fi, 3G, high-end CPU, top camera and something that looks rather like a touch sensitive QWERTY judging by the picture. Most interesting bit of Motorola kit I’ve seen in the last 12 months.
(via BGR)
Dead pixel as seen from Google Earth
This is an artist’s impression of a dead pixel. But step closer. It gets better. This 82cm x 82cm square of burnt grass isn’t just an organic version of a screen problem because when viewed from 1km above on Google Earth, this square will appear as a dead pixel on your monitor in real life. Clever, eh?
Congrats to Dutch artist Helmut Smits for that. If anyone can find the pixel, then let us know. I’m guessing Rotterdam would be a good place to start.
(via psfk)
D-Link launches DIR-825 modem – aka the "route-master general"
It’s not every day I consider spending £129.99 on a wireless router but then it’s not everyday you meet the D-Link DIR-825. Naturally, we’re talking draft-N wireless here, backwards compatible with all the other standards and it goes without saying that all four of its LAN connections are gigabit Ethernet.
There’s also a gig WAN port too as well as a USB Shareport where you can plug a printer or other such device that can then be accessed wirelessly by any computer on the network. The router supports quadband wireless at 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies for separation of signals and an easier way to prioritise your bandwidth between simpler browsing tasks at the lower level and the likes of HD streaming at the top.
You’re getting a better penetrating and faster signal and it still manages to maintain the green standards that D-Links to have in place. It also supports the IPv6 should the rest of your equipment be sufficiently advanced. It’s available from now in the UK.
D-Link Buy it
RUMOUR: Palm Pre to launch on 7th June
Word has it through a document leaked from US network Sprint that the launch date for the Palm Pre will be 7th June, one day before Apple’s WWDC.
We’ve known that the hugely anticipated handset was promised in the first half of 2009 and, with the six month period running out, leaked sales staff training instructions a few weeks back and a casting call for the promotional ad to air in June, it would seem to fit.
The really ballsy part, if it’s true, is the utter confidence Palm must have in their product to think they can overshadow whatever Apple decides to launch in the way of a new iPhone the following day. There’s been a few rumours that it’s a tablet and low end iPhone we’ll be seeing in which case the Pre would stand out. Perhaps a few of the ex-Apple employees over at Palm still have some buddies on the inside.
(via Mobile Crunch)
PSP 2 RUMOUR: Dates and details on the "PSP Go!"
Ignore the picture but word has it from a bloke who knows a bloke at Sony that the PSP2 will not have a number or code but instead a subtitle, such as the PSP monkey or PSP Armageddon or such. The best guess out there at the mo is that it’ll be the PSP Go! in line with their PSP services already released, but I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in that.
What does make sense are some of the details which suggest that the handheld will be unveiled at E3 in June, it’ll be out in the last quarter of 2009 and it will indeed have the much drawn slide-out screen. Whether it’s of the 800×480 pixel touch variety is another matter.
There’ll be just the one analogue joystick and one d-pad, no UMD disc drive but it will come in two iterations of 8GB and 16GB built-in flash memory. There’ll be 100 classic titles available for download at launch, including Gran Turismo, and, fingers crossed, it should be something special to fight off the DSi at one end and the iPhone 3G at the other.
Good luck Sony. Don’t think I’ve ever said that before?
(via 1UP)
Wii-Dum, Wii-Step & Wii-Skab – Nintendo controllers beginning to border the ridiculous
With the Wii Fit proving to be bigger than Jesus right now, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to see more Nintendo controller accessories thrust into the market, but somehow it is, especially when we’re talking dumbbells, a step and a skateboard.
You can fit the WiiMote straight into the 1.7lb WiDums and use them to tone your triceps in WiiFit, Jillian Michaels, Golds Gym Cardio, EA Sports Active and Fitness Ultimatum 2005. What fun they all sound like. In three months time, they also double as very handy paperweights.
The unfortunately named WiSkab attaches directly to the Balance Board and allows you to tilt and pump in all kinds of directions as if you were gliding on wheels or snow. It’s the size of a full size skate deck and will work with Skate it, Shaun White Snowboarding and We Ski and Snowboard.
Last of all is the Aerobic Step which raises you Balance Board up to a height of 4″ for an authentic step class experience. It’ll support up to 350lbs, so provided you can get yourself up to stand on the thing, then it’ll work for you. It comes with rubber pegs to stop you sliding around the floor and, like the other two, it ships from CTA Digital from 29th May. No word on the pricing just yet but I’d plump for around the £30/40 mark.
Zara on EA Sports Active:
Susi on Wii Fit:
HP ProBook laptop series – business with Blu-ray
HP (does anyone call them Hewlett Packard any more?) are getting all professional on our collective consumer butt by encouraging our business aspiration with such words as glossy and noir to describe a range of mostly black laptops they call the HP ProBooks. Hmmm, that name rings a bell?
What they’re offering are the 15.6″ 4510s and 4515s, and the 17.3″ 4710s ProBooks. Each comes with an LED lit 16:9 display not a hint of mercury in sight. Just as with Dell, you can spec these things up and down more or less at will but on the whole, you’re looking at around a 2.1GHz processor with two cores either made by Intel or AMD and ATI Mobility RadeonTM HD 4330 512MB graphics units, and as much RAM as you’re willing to pay for.
Blu-ray ROMS are as standard along with the slightly odd integrated numpad.
You can find more details on them over here with prices starting from £345. Expect your machine of choice to be pushing the £475 mark if you want a few reasonable extras.
LoJack laptop tracker service launches in Europe
If you’re the kind of person who likes to take your laptop out and about with you, whether or not you actually do work or just want a reason for sitting in Starbucks on your own, then you might be interested to hear that some software is about to hit UK shores that will track your computer should someone half-inch it while the diuretic that is caffeine works its magic on your bladder.
LoJack of Laptops embeds itself in the firmware of your machine either in the factory or at the user end and it sits so damn tight that it’ll survive reformats, OS re-installations, HDD removals, re-imaging and just about any other operation beginning with r.
Once stolen, and the service activated, your pilfered PC will do the forensic mining of key captures, registry scanning, file scanning, geolocation, and other investigative techniques to work out where it is, who’s got it and to get the authorities on their ass. How satisfying would it be to catch someone red-handed?
Naturally, LoJack don’t come cheap with a year’s subscription at £45.49 for Windows and Mac. It might be worth opting for insurance instead and buying yourself a brand new, upgraded model in the event of capture. You’d just better hope they don’t dig out your bank details.
Absolute Software
HTC Magic Video: Hands on with the UK's second Android phone
I met up with Vodafone this morning to take a look at one of the hottest handsets of the summer, the HTC Magic known to some as the G2, known by all as the second Google Android phone available in the UK.
Straight up, it’s obvious that this handset is the looker of the two Android siblings at the moment. It may not be a particularly orginal form with the iPhone two years old now but I like the way they’ve taken “the chin” and turned it from a jutting Jimmy Hill to a more handsome Robert Redford. Take a look.
This missing flash will wind you up if the camera is the most important feature for you but otherwise there’s very little to complain about. It comes loaded with Android 1.5, aka Cupcake, meaning you can take video and upload straight to YouTube and Picasa, and there’s no longer the need for a hard keyboard. The virtual one seems certainly no worse than the iPhone’s.
The battery’s a slight improvement on the G1 with a 1340 mAh capacity which should see you out a a full day of heavy use before it’s time to plug in again.
A single small USB port at the bottom means you’ll have to use the in-box 3.5mm adaptor to fit your preferred headphones in, but it’s good to see they’ve had the issue in mind.
All in all, an A1 phone. Still time to get a fiver off the monthly tariff if you order today. £30 a month for 18 months grabs you a free handset, 600 mins and “unlimited” data and texts to the tune of 500MB per month and around 3,000 messages.
The handset is only available in white in the UK but that’s no bad thing until you dirty it up with your muddy paws.
HTC Magic spec sheet
