FocuSoft Tech Blog

Verizon announces AD3700 global modem from ZTE
reMail Brings Speedy Full Text Search To The iPhone (Redux)
Review: Stuhrling Millenia XT
Samsung’s new compacts in person: front LCDs, GPS and WiFi don’t go to waste
PowerTraveller Uncages the Minigorilla for Charing on the Go
Mobile phone sales down, smartphone sales up
Conan Captures Clippy’s Horrific Response To MS Word Injunction [Microsoft]
Dell Mini 3i smartphone captured in pair of spy shots
Flipnote Studio: Nintendo DSi gets social drawing service in six languages
Hands On With Samsung’s Dual-Display Cameras [Cameras]

Verizon announces AD3700 global modem from ZTE

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 11:14 AM PDT

So here’s some interesting insight into the wild, rough-and-tumble world of wireless product launches: Verizon announced ZTE’s AD3700 USB modem today, a product that gained FCC approval over five months ago, which means it’s probably been getting a trial by fire on Verizon’s test labs since then. You’ve gotta figure that ZTE was working on the prototype for many months before FCC approval, so all told, this launch is probably a culmination of a solid year of work, cash, blood, sweat, and tears. Don’t you feel obligated to buy it now? Anyhow, the modem runs $79.99 after a $50 rebate when it launches on the 14th, which is actually a really solid deal considering that it’ll do EV-DO in the States and HSPA around the world for 3G service no matter where your job or your whimsical vacation travel habits might take you.

Filed under: Wireless

Verizon announces AD3700 global modem from ZTE originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read

reMail Brings Speedy Full Text Search To The iPhone (Redux)

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 11:01 AM PDT

95ff50a89050x150.png reMail Brings Speedy Full Text Search To The iPhone (Redux) Last May I wrote about reMail, a new iPhone application that brought full-text search to the iPhone. It was quite impressive (especially given that the iPhone lacked any search functionaly at all at that but), but the application had a few problems that kept it from really catching on, including a subscription fee and some possible privacy issues (it required users to hand over their Email login credentials). Today, that changes: reMail is launching an entirely new application on the App Store that should allay any privacy concerns and features a one-time price of $4.99.

The last version of reMail used relied on the company’s optimized servers, which were much more efficient at running search queries than most Email providers. However, that technique came with one caveat: it required users to hand over their login credentials. I pointed this out last time i wrote about the company, figuring that most people probably wouldn’t mind too much, but CEO Gabor Cselle says that it was a surprisingly common compliant — people are just unwilling to hand over that login data (which is probably a good thing). Fortunately, reMail 2.0 does away with this problem.

The new version of reMail downloads the entire contents of your Mailbox onto your iPhone, which it then stores locally. That may sound undesirable for those of us with large Email boxes which are many gigabytes large, but the reMail team has done an excellent job at compressing data for its search index: Cselle says that they’ve managed to squeeze 100,000 Emails into 500 megabytes (most Email accounts are only a fraction of that size). Searching itself works exactly as you’d hope, showing results only a second or two after you’ve typed a word.

Of course, the iPhone 3.0 software update finally introduced Email search to the iPhone, which may lead some people to wonder why reMail is even necessary. Cselle points out a few major benefits: for one, reMail’s search is around five times faster than the iPhone’s, and it searches full-text (the iPhone only searches headers during local searches). And reMail retains its full functionally offline, while the iPhone’s search often requires a data connection to search older messages.

As I’ve written before CEO Gabor Cselle is a guy who really knows Email: he wrote his Master's thesis on Organizing Email, worked on the Gmail team, and was also VP of Engineering at Xobni, which he left last year to pursue his own company. The company's backers include Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh, who built a little application called Gmail (they also co-founded FriendFeed). These guys know what they're doing.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Read the rest here:
reMail Brings Speedy Full Text Search To The iPhone (Redux)

Review: Stuhrling Millenia XT

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 11:00 AM PDT

a8eba099faSM1.jpg Review: Stuhrling Millenia XT The Stuhrling Millenia XT uses the same movement at the Centurion, but that’s where the similarities end. Where the Centurion was blocky, square and sharp edged, the Millenia has a very graceful curve, an almost elegant feel to it. Obviously based off of the classic “tank” style timepieces of the 1920’s, the Millenia brings that concept up to date in a big way.

View original post here:
Review: Stuhrling Millenia XT

Samsung’s new compacts in person: front LCDs, GPS and WiFi don’t go to waste

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:42 AM PDT

We just got a quick look at Samsung’s new trio, the TL220, TL225 and CL65, and outside of some pretty impressive specs, all three cameras offer a nice bit of innovation and looks in their own special ways. The TL220 and TL225 are the most interesting, with those snazzy front-facing LCDs. Luckily, that creepy clown picture from the press shots is just for entertaining children, and it’s easy enough to switch it to a live view of our charming, MySpace-ready face. Meanwhile the CL65 offers WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth 2.0 in a rather attractive package, and has a surprisingly usable WiFi upload interface for launching pictures and photos up to the wide blue internets. Check out a video of the TL225 (which bests the TL220 with a supercharged 3.5-inch LCD) after the break.

Gallery: Samsung TL220 and TL225 hands-on

Gallery: Samsung CL65 hands-on

Continue reading Samsung’s new compacts in person: front LCDs, GPS and WiFi don’t go to waste

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Samsung’s new compacts in person: front LCDs, GPS and WiFi don’t go to waste originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

PowerTraveller Uncages the Minigorilla for Charing on the Go

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:37 AM PDT

Today’s full of announcements, and the next one comes straight from PowerTraveller Ltd, which has just launched the minigorilla, a portable charger for netbooks and other mobile products that will give users up to six hours of extra power on their device.
MiniGorilla1

The minigorilla will provide charing power over a wide array of voltage levels, starting from a 5V USB socket to charge smaller peripherals, like iPods, other MP3 players, and hand-held gaming devices, which can be charged simultaneously. It also charges at 8.4V, 9.5V, 10.5V (for all those Sony Vaio users out there), 12V, and finally 19V. It weighs 265g and measures just 150mm x 83mm x 14mm. And instead of wondering how to use the thing, it comes with a single-button technology that allows users to simply choose which voltage they need, and then connect the appropriate tip and go.

Luckily, the minigorilla comes with 20 interchangeable tips for the most popular netbooks, which include Sony, Toshiba, ASUS Eee PC, Samsung and Lenovo, as well as tips for other popular devices. Apple fans can even join in the fun, as the mobile charger will fit the full line of current iPod products, starting from the Nano all the way to the iPhone. And, it’ll have enough power to charge your iPods five times, before the minigorilla needs to be charged.

It comes with a plethora of safety features, like voltage limitation protection, current limitation protection, and short circuit protection. At the heart of the minigorilla is a high energy Lithium Polymer rechargheable battery with a total energy capacity of 9000mAh. There’s even a solar power recharging option via the solargorilla, which is sold separately. The minigorilla is Powertraveller's third portable power solution for the IT market – it joins the highly successful powergorilla laptop charger and solargorilla solar charger launched in September 2008. The minigorilla will retail at £99.95.

See more here:
PowerTraveller Uncages the Minigorilla for Charing on the Go

Mobile phone sales down, smartphone sales up

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:30 AM PDT

no cellphones!
According to Gartner, worldwide mobile phone sales are down about 6% from the same time last year; yet the volume of smartphone sales has increased almost 30% in the same time frame. No doubt the uptick in smartphone sales is due to the release of cool new devices like the iPhone 3GS, the Palm Pre, and the various Android phones coming to market. As expected, Nokia remains king of the hill in terms of both regular and smart phones, though sales of their fancy new N97 have been extremely weak. Compare that with sales of Apple’s iPhone which enjoyed 500% growth in shipments! RIM is number two, yadda yadda yadda.

The whole announcement includes some pretty interesting figures for mobile sales. HTC is the number four smartphone manufacturer, while Palm ranks 10th, with just a little over 200,000 Pres sold. Microsoft holds 9% of the mobile OS market, slightly ahead of Android’s 2%, though expect those two to switch places by this time next year; and Symbian still holds 51% of the OS market.

See the original post here:
Mobile phone sales down, smartphone sales up

Conan Captures Clippy’s Horrific Response To MS Word Injunction [Microsoft]

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:30 AM PDT

Sadly, Clippy’s life played out much like a True Hollywood Story. Universally loathed, he faked his own death in 2007 only to resurface again in 2009 after a judge ordered a permanent injunction on Microsoft Word sales.

With his revenue finally dried up, he could no longer support the massive drug habit he developed over the last two years as a means of coping with his demons. This final injustice was simply more than Clippy could stand. Although, it’s hard to feel sorry for him because he just sucked so…so much. [Tonight Show]

Conan Captures Clippys Horrific Response To MS Word Injunction [Microsoft]

Read the original:
Conan Captures Clippy’s Horrific Response To MS Word Injunction [Microsoft]

Dell Mini 3i smartphone captured in pair of spy shots

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:23 AM PDT

Well, it’s looking increasingly like those very first shots of a rumored Dell smartphone that cropped up way back in June were indeed the real deal, as two separate sets of purported spy pics have now turned up showing an identical-looking phone. Better still, they also show the device powered on, offering us our first look at Dell and China Mobile’s customized Android interface for the thing. The Boy Genius Report also goes one step further with a complete list of the phone’s purported specs, which includes quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity, a 3.5-inch 640 x 360 display, a 3-megapixel camera with a flash (and support for 30 fps video), Bluetooth, A-GPS, and a microSD card slot for expansion, to name a few features. Head on past the break for one more, equally blurry shot, and dive into the links below for a few pics and details.

Read – Cloned in China, “Dell Mini 3i spy shots”
Read – Boy Genius Report, “Dell’s smartphone pictured again, spec’d, other Android details”

[Thanks, xleung]

Continue reading Dell Mini 3i smartphone captured in pair of spy shots

Filed under: Cellphones

Dell Mini 3i smartphone captured in pair of spy shots originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

Flipnote Studio: Nintendo DSi gets social drawing service in six languages

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:21 AM PDT

flipnote

There are seven million Nintendo DSi in the world now, and the system is the first in the DS series (total sales: 102 million) boasting Internet connectivity. And Nintendo just stepped up efforts to tap the handheld’s network effect by releasing Flipnote Studio, a social drawing app that’s available for free in the DSiWare store. It’s the first user-generated web service for the DSi.

Users can draw pictures (or use photographs), add sounds to them and remix their works in the form of simple animations reminiscent of flipping through a notepad. The so-called Flipnotes can be saved on the device and then uploaded to the web where they can be shareed with other DSi users. People can then view the animations, rate or leave a comment on them.

This is possible on Flipnote Hatena (Hatena is a web company Nintendo teamed up with to create Flipnote Studio), but DSi users can also send Flipnotes to a friend’s device, too.

The service debuted yesterday in North America and will be released in Europe tomorrow. Flipnote Studio will then be available in English, German, Spanish, Italian and French. The Japanese version was released in December last year and has seen more than 1 million uploads by users since.

Here is a pretty cool Flipnote video made by a Japanese user:

See the original post here:
Flipnote Studio: Nintendo DSi gets social drawing service in six languages

Hands On With Samsung’s Dual-Display Cameras [Cameras]

Posted: 13 Aug 2009 10:15 AM PDT

There is no lower form of photography than the arm-out self-portrait, but we all do it anyway. To their credit, Samsung’s TL220 and TL225 make shooting your Facebook profile shot a little easier.

Ignoring the screen for a second, the TL22x cameras are a decent get for the price, with 720p video recording, haptic touchscreens (though the interface isn’t terribly intuitive or responsive), and a full range of expected features for a midrange point and shoot. The only noticeable differences between the TL220 and TL225, which will ship at $299 and $349, respectively, are the 225’s aluminum body, larger screen and HDMI output. But anyway, the screen’s the thing people are curious about here, so here you go.

As you can see, it’s there. When the camera is off, you can’t see it—it goes black, and sits flush and invisible against an equally black camera face, at least on the test unit I saw. You turn it on with a direct tap of the finger, which I repeatedly had trouble getting to register, though I was told that was due to the fact that my test unit was a preproduction model. I’ll trust Sammy on this one, but a simple toggle button would’ve done fine.

The screen isn’t just for self-shooting, although it manages that just fine. It’ll also show playful images to get childrens’ and/or idiots’ attention. In the case of the default clown animation, “playful” means “disconcerting,” a fact which isn’t help by how difficult it is to navigate the menus to make him go away. No worries though: You’ll be able to download more animations from Samsung’s website, apparently.

Another simple function is a countdown timer, which gives you a numerical countdown to timed shots, letting you know exactly when to mug for tripod group shots.

At any rate, your first intuition was probably correct: front-facing LCDs are somewhat gimmicky, but they do what they say, making life easier for the internet-popular or extremely lonely. The catch would’ve been that the feature prices the cameras out of mainstream accessibility, but it doesn’t. So hey, why not? (This, I think, was Samsung’s design mantra here.) [Samsung]