Eclectic Electronics

Stuart Hughes-crafted 22-carat solid gold Apple iPhone 3G

Posted: 05 May 2009 05:40 PM PDT

Want some iPhone bling bling? Apparently, a person called Stuart Hughes, caters to the ultra-super-duper high-end luxury phone business. He encrusts mobile phones with diamonds or gives them the Mida’s gold touch.

According to Stuart Hughes site:

Gold has long been synonymous with wealth, opulence and nobility. Men and women have lusted after gold ever since its discovery seven thousand years ago.

Gold has been admired and valued for its warmth, beauty, sensuality, and its spiritual richness.

Gold is still the ultimate metal, continuing to provoke in us profound and powerful feelings, fulfilling us spiritually and sensually, connecting us to each other, to our pasts, to our futures. Our emotions are reflected in it. Our lives are enriched by it.

I wonder how much weight is added because Stuart Hughes specifies the device as having “solid gold” and not just gold-plated.

The Stuart Hughes-crafted 22-carat solid gold Apple iPhone 3G can be yours for an astonishing £22,995 (approximately $34,660 USD).

If you don’t prefer Stuart Hughes’ flashy 22k golden iPhone but still want something that screams bling!, then consider Continental Mobiles’ Apple iPhone 16GB with gold trimmings. A lot less gold, £1,249 (approximately $1,880 USD), for a lot less in price.

[via ideeli and überphones]

Cowon S9 32GB portable media player with 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen display, now available at Amazon

Posted: 05 May 2009 01:00 PM PDT

The stylish and elegant-looking Cowon S9 portable media player is almost the perfect way to enjoy your favorite movies, TV shows, photos, and music on the go.

It features a 3.3-inch 480 x 272 resolution AMOLED touchscreen display, FM radio/recorder, built-in microphone for voice recording and would you believe it also has Bluetooth A2DP headphones support and a built-in Flash player?

AMOLED displays are apparently 1,000 times faster than LCDs, which means no ghosting trails or blurry images. AMOLED also boasts low-power consumption compared to other displays which leads to longer battery life.

The S9, according to manufacturer specifications, will give you up to 55 hours of music playback, up to 11 hours of video playback, and up to 350 hours of stand-by sleep mode on a single charge. Although, of course, people know by now that these figures are significantly overrated. Expect around 70-75% of the ratings above, in the real world.

Package includes the Cowon S9 PMP, earphones, USB 2.0 cable, user’s manual, CD and quick start guide.

The recently available, sleek-looking 32GB version can be yours for $299.99. Amazon seems to be out of stock right now, but you can purchase this PMP from the JetAudio guys themselves! 16GB and 8GB variants are also available via Amazon.

[via PMP Today]

Nokia introduces Point & Find service/software

Posted: 05 May 2009 12:00 PM PDT

Holy artificial intelligence Batman Nokia!

According to the video demonstration of Nokia’s Point & Find, you can virtually point at anything (movie posters in this case) with the camera of a supported Nokia phone and it will give you most (if not all) the information you need for that particular object/thing/place/whatever it is. An alternative to pointing your camera at the object would be good ol’ text entry on your Nokia mobile phone.

Apparently, Nokia’s Point & Find also appears to be able to read barcodes. Just point the camera on the barcode and it will find all detailed information about that particular product.

Funny how the Nokia Betalabs Blog says that information is accessed in real-time. I wonder what connection it uses to achieve that. You can go to this page if you want to know more about Nokia’s Point & Find. If you’re nice enough and want to give Nokia some feedback regarding your experience (and possibly frustrations) regarding the service/software, then go here.

If you live in the USA and UK, you can try it out. I believe can download directly if you pretend are from the US, the UK option will send a link to your mobile phone where you can download the software. Symbian Series 60 3rd Edition devices are what appears to be supported.

See the video below to see how it actually works.

[via Nokia Betalabs Blog and ZOMG its Cj]

Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) now available for download

Posted: 05 May 2009 11:00 AM PDT

The official minimum system requirements for Windows 7 has recently been announced. Acer is reportedly spreading the word that their Acer Z5600 all-in-one PC will be loaded with Windows 7. Does this mean that Microsoft’s new operating system is almost upon us?

Microsoft wants you to test the software by simply using it. Yes, it’s that simple. While using the Windows 7 operating system, the PC will automatically (and anonymously) send Microsoft engineers information regarding the tweaks, bug fixes, changes they’ve made during the Beta phase of Windows 7.

You can download the Microsoft Windows 7 RC here. Do note that the RC will expire on June 1, 2010. But starting March 1, 2010, the operating system will shutdown every 2 hours. You will be notified two weeks prior to March 1, 2010 about the shutdowns. An installation of a non-expired version of Windows 7 is required if you don’t want those shutdowns bothering you.

[via Electronic Pulp]