It’s been a while since we had interesting news from manufacturers of standalone PMPs. The iVIDI from a company called INS Mobile in Korea is a 3.3-inch AMOLED PMP with WiFi, G-Sensor, FM radio, auto-rotation and e-Book support. It also has a TV tuner so if you have DMB TV in your country, you are likely to enjoy the clearest mobile sport cast on the iVIDI. No pricing or availability yet. Hopefully INS Mobile is planning to launch the iVIDI outside Korea.

Screenshots of the iVIDI GUI after the break.

[via gmp3, akihabaranews] (more…)

Whether the Apple iPad tablet is going to prove to be another Apple success or not this year is beside the point. Foxconn, the manufacturer of Apple products, says they can only make 300k iPads at launch. The Cupertino giant have planned to have 1 million iPads available but Foxconn can only meet leass than a third of this due to problems in multitouch supply. On the surface, this has nothing to do with the Wintek strike, but more on quality control issues. Rumor has it that the multitouch glass on the iPad is not as strong as the device demands. This rumor doesn’t surprise me at all. Carrying everywhere an naked 9-inch touchscreen would not doubt have “strength issues.”

[via electronista]

Archos has a new touchscreen device, and this time around, it’s taking aim at the iPhone’s equally impressive PMP twin, the iPod Touch.

The Archos 3 Vision boasts of a 3-inch touchscreen, FM radio complete with recording functionality, FM transmitter, USB 2.0 connectivity, 14 hours of music/4 hours of video playback, and 8GB storage capacity. Admittedly, the Archos 3 Vision is a far cry from what Apple has over at their stable since this PMP doesn’t even come with WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity. The iPod Touch clearly outclasses this baby in almost every department.

Be that as it may, the Archos 3 Vision should be a welcome treat for Archos fan boys looking for a basic PMP to add to their collection, and since its not heaping to the brim with features, it’s not that expensive either.

[archos via phandroid]

Here’s some bad news for you folks out there using a Windows Mobile 6.xx phone hoping to get a Windows Phone 7 software upgrade sometime in the near future. Natasha Kwn, Microsoft’s General Manager for Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, has revealed that there won’t be any upgrade available for current Windows Mobile devices as a result of the specific hardware requirements needed to run Windows Phone 7. This includes even the mighty HTC HD2 which, if not for the lack of the three buttons (back, home, and search) Microsoft will be standardizing in their new mobile OS, would easily qualify as a Windows Phone 7 smartphone. Probably the last upgrade Windows Mobile 6.5 users can look forward to is Windows Mobile 6.5.3 with the whole series set to be relaunched later on as Windows Phone Starter Edition once Windows Phone 7 officially rolls out.

This is definitely disappointing news for those looking forward to a software upgrade, but on the bright side, this will be a good excuse for you to ditch your existing Windows Mobile phone and just buy a new one.

[wmpoweruser via unwiredview]

If you remember one of the cutest e-Book readers we’ve seen, the Teclast K3, it’s already shipping. Taipower, the manufacturer, is calling it the Talking Portable Library. The K3 turns out to be cuter than the render photo. The 6-inch E-Ink screen does not support touch control and they weren’t able to make it talk during the video, but the specs gives assurance the Teclast K3 supports text to speech in English and Chinese. Price tag is $229. It has 4GB built-in with support for PDF, ePub, FBT, Teclast’s own SKT and others including music files.

[store via ereader-info]

In a deal that I personally foresee as mutually beneficial to both parties, Conde Nast just announced its intention to take “leadership position” on the new Apple publishing business for the iPad. Charles H. In an email by Townsend, president and chief executive of Condé Nast, he shared that “[Conde Nast] feel confident enough that consumers will want our content in this new format that we are committing the resources necessary to be there… How large a revenue stream digitized content represents is an answer we hope to learn through this process.”

GQ will already be available in April, Wired and Vanity Fair in June and The New Yorker in summer. Much of the magazine costs come from paper and printing. With the new iBookstore and iBook e-reader from Apple, serving issues of TNY, GQ, Vanity Fair, is likely to be much cheaper. How the advertisers will like it is another matter.

[source via engadget]

Take a look at this baby. Familiar? The E-book reader form factor is pretty much a dead end the way it is, which means the rectangular, tall and slim shape is the perfect shape for an e-book reader. Kind of like the shape of a book. Can’t change perfection and why would you. So far, no specs, details, yet besides what you see in the photo.

[via itechnews]

There have been some rumblings over the net that the Nexus One will soon be available on Verizon in the US apart from T-Mobile. This was further solidified when a CDMA-flavored Nexus One just got recently approved by the FCC. So, is there any truth to Verizon getting the Nexus One in the near future?

From the looks of it, it seems so and it might not be long before it becomes available to the public as March 23rd has now been leaked as its release date. This was disclosed by an anonymous Google employee though falling short of giving its possible retail price.

As most anonymous tips go, we’re taking this bit of news with a grain of salt until it’s officially confirmed. With that being said though, given that it’s gotten the blessings of the FCC already, it’s almost guaranteed that the Nexus One will be part of Verizon’s offerings, and it’s all just a question of when it will happen.

[neowin via android community]

We don’t know the name of this LG phone yet, but it is the first Windows Phone 7 device to be caught on video.

Microsoft’s Aaron Woodman gave everyone a sneak peak at this upcoming LG smartphone when he showcased this prototype at The Engadget Show wherein they discussed the Windows Phone 7 series. We’ve got very little information about the technical specs of this LG Windows Phone 7 device apart from the obvious slide-out QWERTY keypad and camera (5-megapixel) and flash at the back. They do, however, report that it also comes with a headphone jack and dedicated hardware camera, volume, and power buttons as well apart from the navigational keys and search button below the touchscreen display.

Is this the LG Apollo that could possible debut as early as September? We’re not quite sure, but we are hoping that it’s not since prior reports indicate that the Apollo should come with a 10-megapixel camera and not a just an average 5-megapixel imaging sensor.

[via engadget]
Pictures after the break. (more…)

The Palm webOS 1.4 update is now finally available and has begun to roll out over-the-air to Sprint subscribers in the US, and O2 UK, DE, Ireland, and Movistar clients over in Europe. This is the next major update to Palm’s proprietary mobile OS and packs a whole lot of goodies most notable of which is video editing capabilities with the option to easily upload to Facebook and YouTube.

Apart from boosting performance speed, it also comes with enhanced notifications allowing the LED in the gesture area to light up when a notification is received even if the screen is turned off. You can likewise now customize notification sounds in messaging and assign different alerts for new email messages on a per-account basis.

The webOS 1.4 update is compatible with both the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones. So, have you updated your Palm webOS device’s firmware yet?

UPDATE: This is now also available for Verizon Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smartphones.

[palm via bgr]