Gadgets Mobile

Posted Apr 3rd 2008 9:49PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Misc. gadgetsLooks like Dell’s plan to trim $3B in costs from its budget is going to involve even more job cuts than the 8,800 already announced — speaking to analysts today, Michael Dell said that his company’s management had “identified a very significant opportunity” to cut costs, and that it was “aggressively going after it.” That means even more jobs will be slashed, apparently — a further 1,000 this quarter at least, but Dell wouldn’t say what the total would be in the end, just that it would be more than 8,800. Dell went on to say that no part of the company would be considered sacred as cuts are considered, and that Dell’s brass thinks that it’s “begun the journey to transform the company.” Cutting jobs is one way to do it, sure — but might we suggest focusing on delivering great products would also help?

Calling something “theft-proof” is like calling something “hack-proof”. As the Blu-ray inventors found out, it’s an open invitation to be proved wrong. Hubris aside, the TheftProof bike looks like a very smart concept.

Many cyclists remove the saddle and lock it to the frame. The TheftProof makes a virtue of this normally tiresome task and integrates a cable and lock into the seat, which can be removed to secure the wheels to the frame. You won’t want to use the cable to lock-down the actual bike: cables are too susceptible to cutting, but as a neat two-in-one solution, we like it. So do the judges at Core77, who awarded the TheftProof first prize in their Theft Proof Bicycles contest .

Theft Proof Bike Designs an More [Bicycle Design]

Thanks to an upcoming firmware update (version 20.0.016), the Nokia N95 8GB should soon be a lot more stable. Unfortunately, only two new features are being added: Automatic Screen Rotation (ASR) and support for “Combo Memory”. Just like the iphone, ASR gives the N95 the ability to auto adjust the image to landscape or portrait mode depending on the device’s orientation. The “Combo Memory”, on the other hand, is Nokia’s new term to describe the N95’s ability to partition part of its flash memory for ROM use and for user memory. Other than the two new features, the firmware focuses on a slew of fixes and stability issues. Highlights include: stabilized Bluetooth, USB, and WLAN connectivity, improved support for embedded video in the web browser, improved application switching, support for large number of files in the image gallery, and the ability to delete over 6,000 contacts with a single press of a button.

The new firmware should be available for download in a few days. Continue reading for the full change log.

New features:

* Automatic Screen Rotation (ASR)
* Support for new combo memory added

Browser:

* Improvement when creating a voice call from WAP page.
* Improvements to embedded video functionality in browser.
* Sending email via browser flash plugin improvements.

Messaging:

* Mail in HTML format handling from Gmail IMAP server improved.

Connectivity:

* WLAN connection stability improvements
* BT connection stability improvements with certain BT headsets
* USB connection stability improvements

Telephony:

* Voice call handling improvements after certain type U.S.S.D message receiving.
* Stability improvements to gallery for case when there’s lot of content in Gallery
* Improvements to switch application
* Voicemail icon handling improvements

Localization corrections:

* Deletion of all contacts now possible even more than 6000 contacts in phonebook
* Startup functionality improvements

Read [SlashPhone]

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Thirty-five years ago today, the first ever public cellular phone call was made by Martin Cooper. Cooper, who invented the portable cell phone, placed that call on April 3, 1973 while he was the general manager of Motorola’s Communications Systems Division. That first call, placed to Cooper’s rival at AT&T’s Bell Labs from the streets of New York City, was the beginning of a revolution that has changed the lives of three billion people worldwide. A cell phone call is a call to a person in contrast with wired phone calls that are to a place.

“People are mobile,” said Cooper. “Given the choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unfettered by the infamous copper wire. We vividly demonstrated that freedom back in 1973. In a time when there were no cordless or cellular phones, normally blasé New Yorkers gaped at the sight of me making a phone call while strolling down Lexington Avenue. The first cell phone was mammoth by today’s standards – weighing two and a half pounds and was 10 inches long. The phone could be used for only 20 minutes before the battery died.”

Although cell phones and service have come a long way in the past 35 years, Cooper and his wife, Arlene Harris were disappointed that cell phones were becoming unnecessarily complicated for many people. They decided to re-create the cell phone into a device that embraced the same simplicity as the original cell phone; a cell phone without a camera, mp3 player, or Web browser; a cell phone that was optimum for talking and listening.

Harris, herself a wireless and telecom industry veteran who has been referred to as the “First Lady of Wireless” and Cooper created the Jitterbug, a radically different cell phone and cellular service. The Jitterbug is now used by tens of thousands of people throughout the U.S.

Ms. Harris was recently inducted into RCR’s Wireless Hall of Fame – the first female innovator to receive that distinction.

Tags: cell, phone, wife, Wireless

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Mood Toast Stamp

Toast is a great snack and a favourite breakfast food. Why not make it more interesting by writing a message on your toast?You might think that it can’t be done without ink poisoning but it is simple really. All you have to do is press one of the mood toast stamps onto your piece of bread.  Then put your bread in the toaster like you would do normally. When the toast pops up, the message will be clear to read.Perhaps you want to cheer up a housemate or family member who has been down in the dumps making them breakfast in bed with “Good Morning” in their toast is sure to put a smile back on their face.  Or tell your better half how you feel with the “I Love You” stamp. After all, it is the little romantic gestures like this that make all the difference. Specifications: Two stamps in one pack, one saying “I Love You” and the other reading “Good Morning” Press the mood toast stamp into the bread and after it is toasted, the chosen message will appear

Technorati Tags: gadgets For Them

Now according to the product description, the 3-D IQ Sphere is supposed to train both your IQ and EQ, although I’m not too sure how the latter part is going to be trained. Will arranging a rounded Rubik’s Cube actually improve my EQ? At $9 a pop, I’d rather throw in an additional $10 to pick up Brain Age on my DS which offers me way more interactivity, and to be able to share the joys of Brain Age with friends and family will definitely increase my EQ no two ways about it

How Smart Is your Dog IQ test

You can have this for ?4.99

The iPhone Dev Team has released version 1.0 of its Pwnage utility. The app blows the lid off of any iphone allowing you to do essentially anything you want with the device. You can find Pwnage here.

For a full explanation of the benefits of Pwnage, please visit Matt Hickey’s in-depth run through over at CrunchGear.

Finally, and this is important, if you’ve somehow come in possession of iPhone firmware 1.2, make sure that it’s version 5A147. Any of the other versions, like 5A225c, floating around will not work and will simply brick your device.

The Buffalo DriveStation Combo4 is truly one peripheral that won’t be short of friends considering the amount of connectivity options found on it. It features the following :-

• USB 2.0
• eSATA
• FireWire 400
• FireWire 800 x 2

Compatible with Windows and Mac platforms, the DriveStation Combo4 comes in 320GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities which retail for $156, $184, and $319, respectively.

A cell phone is but a communications device at heart, capable of doing a little bit extra such as surfing the Internet, running IM programs, checking your mail, capturing your favorite memories in a digital photo and playing video and audio files when you’re bored, right? Well props to online shopping pioneer Amazon.com who clearly aims to pile on the pressure (and potentially, misery) upon its brick-and-mortar rivals by offering a new online shopping service known as TextBuyIt, letting Amazon account holders to just about search virtually all products on Amazon’s website with the option to purchase whatever captures their fancy.

According to Howard Gefen, director of Amazon Mobile Payments, “With today’s launch of TextBuyIt, any Amazon.com customer can now use any mobile device to shop and buy from Amazon.com, at anytime, anywhere they are. With TextBuyIt, if you’re walking out of a concert and want to buy a CD from the artist you just saw, or if you’re at dinner and a friend tells you about a great book you should read, all you have to do is get out your mobile device, send a text message to Amazon, reply to the response, confirm your order, and your item will be on its way.”

Amazon claims that it takes less than a minute for you to find a product you want, followed by a simple purchase procedure. Sounds pretty neat, especially if you already know what you want, but if you’re someone who loves window shopping (whether virtual or otherwise), I’d strongly suggest sitting down in front of a computer and take your time to browse through Amazon’s millions of items. After all, TextBuyIt is relatively lightweight in terms of text, which means plenty of contextual information apart from items and prices could lead to a potentially wrong purchase if you don’t know what you want. Do you think this service will take off in a big way?

Source: Information Week