Tag: bluetooth
MWC 2009: Solio Communicator – a solar-powered hands-free kit
Tucked away amongst the smaller stands at MWC 2009, slightly crowded out by the Samsungs and Nokias of this world, is a little company called “Better Energy Systems”. They have a subsidiary called Solio, who make solar-powered kit for mobile phones.
You might have heard of them – a quick browse of Solio’s site suggests that Saol – a Masai Junior Elder from IIkinye Village in Kenya – is a power user, as is Ian Davis, from the Polar Challenge expedition. Best of all is the picture of President Barack Obama looking decidedly overwhlemed when being presented with his Solio Classic.
But this post is about the Solio Communicator, which by all accounts is a rather novel product. It’s a hands-free kit, but charges with solar power, so you just stick it to your car window and never think about the battery ever again.
If you live in some Arctic climes where you don’t get sun very much for half the year, then it’s also chargable off the cigarette lighter port, a USB port or a wall adaptor. It’s compatible with all Bluetooth-enabled phones, and will retail for €80 (£70ish). Available mid 2009.
MWC 2009: LG's G910 "Touch Watch" and Arena phones get official
Wow, things move fast from prototype to production these days. The LG GD-910 that we saw at CES is now the LG G910 Watch Phone, and due for release later this year.
It’s got a 1.4″ touchscreen face, HSDPA, and video calling capabilities. There’s also a text-to-speech engine for reading out texts to a bluetooth headset, and voice recognition stuff too. For maximum geekiness, precede every voice command with “Computer:”.
As well as the Touch Watch, there’s also the Arena, previously written about here. We were promised specs and a release date, and by jove, we’ve got them. Or most of them, anyway.
There’s a 3″ touchscreen, running at WVGA resolution. It supposrts DivX and Xvid codecs. It can record DVD-resolution video, and video at up to 120fps for super-slo-mo playback. There’s 8GB of internal memory, and that can be expanded by another 32GB of MicroSD action.
There’s an immensely joyful 3.5mm headphone socket, and the aforementioned HSDPA, GPS and Wi-Fi. There’s a 5-megapixel camera, too, and geotagging for photos. There’s a tonne of inbuilt Google apps, too. All this is packed into a 105.9 x 55.3 x 11.95mm shell.
What’s missing? Well, I’d like a flip-out QWERTY keyboard, and maybe an upgrade on that camera, but beyond that, I can’t think of too much. The Arena seems like a very capable handset. I hope that it delivers on its promise, but I don’t think it’s topping the N97 in my “can’t wait for” phone list. How about you?
Lightbulb/speaker mashups suddenly all over the web
Okay, ‘all over the web’ is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but just the other day, we spotted the Soundbulb over at Yanko Design. Today, I spotted this concept Bulb-Sound-Speaker over at Crunchgear. Two lamp-speakers in a week? I’m calling that a trend. Before the end of the month, we’ll be swimming in the things.
Silliness aside, it’s quite a cool concept, and could prove useful in public places – restaurants, elevators, etc. Of the two, only the Soundbulb works as a light as well, but they both rely on Bluetooth to ferry the music around the place wirelessly. Would I use one of these? No. Do I think they’d sell? Most definitely.
(via Yanko Design and Crunchgear)
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13" White Macbook gets a sneaky upgrade
Bought a Macbook recently? Start kicking yourself, because Apple has just announced a sneaky upgrade to the 13″ white MacBook which pumps up the capabilities of the diminutive, but popular, machine to the standards of its unibody compatriots.
The machine pumps the processor up to a Core 2 Duo with faster 1,066MHz FSB, a doubling of RAM (2GB, rather than one) and a considerably nicer integrated graphics unit. Bluetooth’s upgraded from 2.0 to 2.1, too.
It hasn’t hit the UK store yet, only the US one, but I suspect us Brits will get the same upgrade within a matter of days. In the meantime, if you were planning a purchase, it might be worth waiting a day or two until the UK store updates too. Price is still the same.
UK Apple Store (via Engadget)
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Bargain of the Week: Jabra SP5050 Bluetooth Speakerphone
Welcome to a new feature on Tech Digest — Bargain of the Week. Each week, I’ll take a look around the web for the best tech/gadget bargain I can find, and report back to you.
Now, there are deals all over the Internet, so I can’t promise to always find the best deals all the time. If you know of some amazing discounts on a product, drop me a line.
This week’s product is the Jabra SP5050 Bluetooth Speakerphone, a slim, plug-n-play speaker that you can use on the move with any Bluetooth mobile phone. Answer and end phone calls, voice dial, automatic pairing, DSP noise reduction, night driving mode, and up to 12 hours talk time…
Sony debuts wireless DB-BT101 headphones, and MDR-EX36SC two-in-one headphones
This morning, Sony quietly added the DB-BT101s to its online catalogue. These rather attractive phones are wireless, and connect via Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, so they’ll happily work alongside a bluetooth laptop, PDA, mobile phone or MP3 player.
Those are the all the details we’ve got right now, but they do look lovely, so here’s hoping they’ll get some sort of Western release, along with some tangible specs, in the near future.
Zimku iPod speakers by Parrot & Phillipe Starck – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and apparently anti-gravity
Even if I didn’t know what these things were, I’d want them in my home. For the record, you’re looking at a set of speakers with an iPod dock on top. That’s the cruel description.
To give these $1,500 beauties their dos, their designed by genius French nutball, Phillipe Starck…
Marantz launches Bluetooth wireless iPod dock and hi-fi receiver
We’re pretty selective about what iPod docks we cover at Tech Digest, given that there must be hundreds of them floating about now and they’re all much of a muchness. However, we like Marantz, so the latest Bluetooth wireless iPod dock is definitely worth a mention.
First up, the dock looks good. It’s compact, holds the larger iPods at a nice angle (pictured is the iPod touch), and should fit in anywhere…
RXS Bluetooth adaptors let you hook up your MP3 player
RXS has just launched a couple of Bluetooth adaptors for MP3 players that’ll let you stream your tunes over to a Bluetooth-capable car stereo, or pair of speakers or headphones. There’s an iPod version (pictured above) and a rather clunkier version that plugs into any 3.5mm headphone jack that’s available.
The iPod version weighs just 4.5g, sits nicely against against your iPod, and comes in black, white and silver. The 3.5mm version is much bigger, contains a rechargable battery, charged via USB, with 10 hours of listening time battery life, and comes in white and black.
If you own a Bluetooth enabled car stereo or set of headphones, then these are a brilliant way to get stuff hooked up. They’re not the best-looking accessories in the world, and a little pricy at £30, but if you need the connectivity, then they’ll provide it.
RXS
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SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: Polaroid PoGo Printer
Here’s the Polaroid PoGo. It’s a photo-printer. Lucy checks it out above. It’s Bluetooth, it’s fast, and it’s only £90 or so. The little prints that you get out are 2″ x 3″. Remember that refill cartridges will cost you extra, so budget in for those, too, if you planning to get one.
Polaroid PoGo Printer
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