Gadgets Mobile

With over 165 million people in their community of users, Mozilla and it’s well loved Firefox browser should surprise no one when they say they mean business. After all, Firefox is the one tool that links everything we as Internet consumers do together, from Flickr to Amazon to MySpace to Facebook. But when was the last time you considered Firefox as a platform in itself, and thought that without it, none of these other so-called platforms would even have a chance to exist?

OK, there are other browsers like IE, Opera, and Safari, but besides the point, Firefox is the great unwashed platform that you’ve nearly ignored. The number of Firefox add-ons keep growing every minute, and it’s quite possible that the services provided by other web sites (let’s say for example, Twitter) will soon be integrated into Firefox as a built-in feature, negating the need for you to access the said web site. And except maybe for the Apple iphone with Mac OS X, Firefox would have no other clear competition. Or at least it shouldn’t have. So if you’re a developer or advocate of a platform other than Mozilla’s own, take heed and rethink your strategy. Unless you want to bite the dust, that is.

Read [CNET News]

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Both Garmin and Kenwood have come together, with the former agreeing to supply navigation devices on an exclusive basis to Kenwood’s line-up of in-dash automotive electronics for this year. They will collaborate when it comes to print, radio and online advertising, including a website and Point of Purchase materials to help keep customers well informed. Each of these navigation components by Kenwood and Garmin will feature pre-loaded maps of North America or Europe, depending on which continent it is going to ship to. Some of the optional features made available on these new units include Satellite Radio, HD Radio, Bluetooth, high-speed ipod audio and video control among others. Image courtesy of I4U.

The headline says nearly everything. What it doesn’t tell you is that this incredible MAME case required just about every skill there is in order to build it: Furniture making (the box is scratch built from MDF), electronics, programming and, of course, Time Travel.

The one-man show behind the MAME TARDIS, Simon Jansen, is more geek than you’ll ever be (this is the guy who rendered the whole of Star Wars in ascii animation). Take a look at the extensive, painstakingly detailed how-to on his site, and be thankful Jansen didn’t build the arcade emulator into KITT (Jansen describes Knight Rider almost perfectly as: “The Hoff and his camp car”.

Building a MAME console inside a TARDIS [Asciimation via Retro Thing]

Another day, another GSM phone that comes in the form of a watch. This time, we have the M600i to tickle our fancy, being unlocked and ready to hit the airwaves in Australia and Europe.

This M600i watch mobile phone comes with features like a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera, touchscreen hand writing messaging, MP3/MP4 player, Video recording, Bluetooth connectivity, and an Internet browser. Its support of extensible microSD memory cards makes it extremely attractive for your next phone choice. This Dual band 900/1800MHZ mobile phone can be used for worldwide except North America. Call your cell phone service provider to confirm.

It retails for AU$340, and you ought to use this with a Bluetooth headset of some sort since you would look (and sound) rather daft, carrying out a conversation where everyone else around you will be able to hear.

Fake? The guys at TUAW posted this screenshot of the forthcoming iphone App Store, provided by Aaron from Monster and Friends. After several connection error messages, was presented with this screen.

We’re not sure if this is the legit 2.0 iPhone software or just the iPhone emulator in the SDK, but what we do find amusing is that the top two placeholder applications, Checkers and Facebook, are likely a good reflection of what will actually come to pass.

Are these the first screenshots of the iPhone AppStore? [TUAW]

Appstore UI First Real Pics [ModMyiFone]

At the cost of sounding ancient, Madonna is bringing in her 50th birthday in a very unique way. She plans on making seven tracks from her upcoming album, Hard Candy, available to Vodafone customers before its April 28 release. According to the Times Online, songs can be downloaded for 24 hours before being replaced by the next track.
[ Source ]

With the Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell series all carrying the Tom Clancy name, you can see how important it is to developer/publisher Ubisoft. Therefore, in a bid to secure its continued use, and to save a bit of money, the company acquired the intellectual property rights to the Clancy name.

The actual sum paid for the rights has not been disclosed, and it is thought a further two payments are required over the next couple of years. The purchase is thought to be giving Ubisoft around US$7.8 million a year in profits, however, making it a worthwhile investment.

Speaking of the acquisition, Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, said:

After ten years of a highly successful collaboration which has seen the creation of blockbusters that set standards in the videogame industry, such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, today, acquiring the perpetual property rights of the Tom Clancy name for video games and related projects is a major event … The future of our industry lies in our capacity to create and develop brands that captivate consumers and that present myriad of opportunities for the full spectrum of entertainment, be it video games, books, movies or other media. The Tom Clancy brand is recognized around the world for offering exciting video games, films and books. The most recent example of such value creation through brand management is the EndWar book, based on the video game story, which has been in the NY Times top 10 Paperback Mass Market Fiction bestseller list for the last four weeks. Capitalizing on the strong franchises that we’ve built over the past 10 years, we will take the Tom Clancy game brand to the next level of the global entertainment industry.

That Ubisoft has paid out for the name suggests we can expect to see all of the games carrying the Clancy tag to continue for the foreseeable future. We may now see new franchises created that also take advantage of the branding and offer some different gameplay on multiple formats.

Interestingly, the deal not only secures the use of the name on games, but also “ancillary products including related books, movies and merchandising products.” So, you can pretty much guarantee Ubisoft is going to publish a lot more supporting products for its games series as well.

Read more at GamesIndustry.biz and the Ubisoft press release.

Posted Mar 24th 2008 10:31AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Desktops
It’s been just a little over a year since we saw Cybernet’s zero footprint, keyboard-only computer — now the company has upped the line with new features (but mistakenly stripped that shiny red paint job). The new systems — which harken back to the glorious days of the TI-99 — now support Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad chips, sport the GMA X3100 graphics chipset, up to 4GB of RAM, a slimline optical drive, and can astonishingly handle expansion via a Mini PCI and PCI-e slot. The all-in-one combos start at $629 and head marginally skyward from there.

[Thanks, stagueve]

Samsung and Nails Inc. are going to launch the SGH-G600 Belle slider handset in the UK and will be available in an exclusive basis from Phones4u. This special edition comes in a sleek purple finish and each purchase will get three bottles of nail polish in matching purple box. While the specs remained the same.
[ Source ]

Google may not have won the C-block spectrum the company had campaigned for to be open, but in the end, it got what it wanted. USA Today is reporting that Verizon Wireless was the big winner in the FCC auction after paying US$9.4 billion for licenses, which includes enough spectrum to cover the entire country. The C-block spectrum will be made available once all television stations switch over to digital broadcasts as required by law beginning February 17, 2009.

Google had campaigned the FCC to force the winner of the C-block to keep it open to any device or any application. By Verizon Wireless winning the C-block, the company further advances its intiative to create a network that is open to any device or any application, which the company launched back in November. Another big winner in the auction, according to the report, was AT&T.

I’m a little sad Google didn’t win the C-block, but I am not surprised. I think other wireless companies were more willing to write a larger check for the spectrum than Google. In the end, I think Google simply made a bid to back up the campaign it launched to keep the spectrum open. Since that is what happened, it wouldn’t have really benefited Google that much to own the spectrum, since it is not a wireless company and wouldn’t have an immediate use for it anyway.

Read more from the USA Today article.