PMP Today

The EL-GT-1249 from the Gyeonggi Small & Medium Business Center is said to be first and foremost a PMP, playing MPEG-4, MP3, WMA and ASF files. It also does GPS, allowing turn-by-turn voice guidance and door-to-door navigation. DVB-T/H and DMB broadcasts are supported as well.

The device has a 4.3-inch touchscreen TFT LCD with a 4:3 aspect ratio. A 400MHz ARM9 processor does the dirty work, while the OS of choice is Windows CE 4.2. The EL-GT-1249 has 64MB of SDRAM and supports up to 2GB of internal memory. If that isn’t enough, you can plug in SD and MMC cards up to 2GB in capacity. A/V-in capability is standard, as are 1.5W speakers, a USB 1.1 port and an FM transmitter.

[via global sources]

The guys over at Wired Blogs may have too much time in their hands but they did make a pretty hilarious discovery. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the Zune logo. But check out the mirror image:

Yes, I actually checked it for myself and placed a mirror in front of the Zune logo. And holy crap, it does say anus! (Er. No pun intended.) What’s even more messed up is that on an interview for Business Weekly way back in 2004, Bill Gates said that Microsoft would probably steal some of the limelight from Apple in the digital music business with a new service that allows users to play subscription music on mobile devices. The name of the service? Janus.

Could that be why the Zune first came out in brown?

[via gadget lab]

Rumors have started to circulate of an unnamed player in the mobile industry has just ordered over 8 million touch-sensitive screen from Balda, the same manufacturer that is supplying Apple’s multi-touch screen. Eight million hi-tech screens is a huge order, too huge for any other cellphone manufacturer besides the Finnish giant (Samsung, which currently holds second spot among handset manufacturers, is an unlikely candidate for this mystery touchscreen client since the Korean manufacturer, apparently, already has its own touchscreen strategy.) The orders have been scheduled for a 2008 release, as immediate as could be hoped. If there is any doubt that this Balda customer is Nokia, take a look at the post previous to this one.

[via cellular-news]

Nokia launched five new phone, at least two of which are truly new. Though the N81 gaming phone is an impressive convergence device, we have yet to see Nokia flex its technological muscle towards the iPhone market… in other words, touchscreen. The demo (below) doesn’t really show Nokia’s future touch technology to be all that different to iPhone’s, but the voice over had these inteersting parting words: All these experiences so elegantly simple. It’s what Nokia always has and always will deliver. Maybe it’s just me, but does this sound like Nokia is dismissing the technological breakthroughs on the Jesus phone?

The video demonstration of Nokia touch after the break.

[via engadget] Read the rest »

Nokia has made the N-Gage gaming service official for several Nokia phone models. Don’t expect serious portable gaming on low-end models, but Nokia’s S60 phones, the fun has finally begun.

“As we expand our focus from a dedicated game phone to a gaming service, we are making getting and playing games even easier,” Jaakko Kaidesoja, head of Nokia’s gaming business, said. “The N-Gage service combined with powerful devices, world class titles and brands, and interactive social networking features, takes the mobile gaming experience beyond traditional boundaries.”

EA SPORTS(TM) FIFA 08, The Sims(TM) 2 Pets, Tetris®, and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR are only a sample of the games being developed for Nokia phones. But just announced are Snakes Subsonic and Bounce Boing Voyage, which will be available for you if you own an S60 Nokia phone beginning November 2007. Don’t worry, you can try out the games before you buy them. Nokia is confident you’ll have to, anyway.

The Sony Walkman A810 PMP has just been released to U.S. consumers. It is the A800 that we’ve seen launched for European markets. It’s the exact same walkman with MP3, ATRAC, WMA (non-DRM), AAC (non-DRM) music formats support and video playback on its 2-inch QVGA screen at 30fps. It has a tie-in with Sony Pictures Resident Evil Extinction and, indeed, you can view a preview of the Mila Jovovitch film on horizontal here.

[via electronista]

The MD300 from Shenzhen Liuniu Technology does PMP on the cheap, with no built-in memory. It’s strictly BYO CF or 1-inch micro-HDD. Well, what you get in return is support for MP3, WMA, JPEG, TXT, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX (3.11, 4X and 5A), Xvid, AVI, MOV and VOB files.

Display is done via a 3.5-inch, 16 million-color TFT LCD with a resolution of 960×240 pixels and a 4:3 aspect ratio. The MD300 also has a built-in microphone, line-in audio recording and a USB 2.0 port. Operating time is 5 hours for video and 10 hours for audio, with charging done in 3 hours. Dimensions are 99×75.4×20mm.

[via ec21]

Sorry AT&T, but your monopoly on the iPhone is over. A few days ago, iPhoneSimFree.com successfully created an unlock software solution, allowing those outside the United States to finally own a fully-functional iPhone. The unlock process is fairly simple and only takes several minutes. As soon as you put the non-AT&T SIM card on the iPhone, you go through the usual activation process if you have the right tools (e.g. iASign). Everything works the same, save for Visual Voicemail, and an extra option appears if where you can select your preferred network if you don’t want to use roaming.

This method is restore-proof but is not necessarily upgrade-resistant. Meaning, should Apple come up with a new upgrade that will nullify the SIM unlock, the software may not work anymore. So far Apple hasn’t said anything about what they intend to do with this new development.

iPhoneSimFree intends to release the software within the next 48-72 hours, so watch out for it! I wonder if they’re going to get the $100,000 promised by FreeiPhoneForMoney.

[via engadget]

Well, the Nokia N81 turned out to be much more interesting. It’s not just Nokia’s new multimedia phone, it’s a gaming phone. Whoopee! The N95 will be announced as an 8GB multimedia computer in a black casing. The Nokia 5310 XPressMusic is a beautiful slider while the 5610 XPressMusic is a beautiful candybar. The 5700 XPressMusic is just way cool (because it’s black). It’s one gigantic offering from Nokia in 5 tasty hi-tech pieces.

More pictures to follow. Read the rest »

Samsung has announced their two new Bluetooth PMPs for the States. The Samsung YP-P2 boasts a 3-inch QVGA widescreen with MPEG-4, WMV 9/10, WMA and MP3. Besides being a photo viewer and text reader, it has an FM tuner, a voice recorder and is 10mm slim. It comes in black, red and white.

The YP-T10 is a 7.8mm-slim player with a 2-inch QVGA screen. It supports MPEG-4, WMV 9/10, WMA and MP3 like the P2. Photo, viewer, text reader, FM tuner and voice recorder, the T10 is available in black, purple and white. The P2 comes in 4gb and 8GB versions while the T10 is only available in 4GB. Both players support WM10 subscriptions and DNSe 2.0 technology and will be available this September.

[via i4u]