Just yesterday I was saying to my fiance that I’m all gadgetized: phone, PDA, GPS, laptop, MP3 player. What could I possibly want more? I never thought, though, that all my gadgets are using good-old batteries, that that they need recharging once (or many times) a day.
Information released by Nokia reveals that they will take another step towards energy-independent cell phones, besides embedded solar cells: they’ll make the phone charge itself from the radio waves that surround us in excess. Experiments until now show that they can harvest about 3-5 mW of power, enough to juice up a phone with a depleted battery. The frequency range will be between 500 megahertz and 10 gigahertz – so there’s plenty of band to catch.
The technology will be improved, and other low-consumption devices that will profit from this will be the MP3 players. There’s still one question: what if I go to the countryside, where emitting antennas are far, and there’s where I would need the power most? Do satellites count in?
Sonos Controller is an iPhone application that can manage the same audio hardware and music libraries as the CR100 unit. For example, it can control your music library, switch/link zones on the fly, adjust the volume, and many others. It is practically a software emulation of its relative CR100. You can easily search a title or artist, or listen to your MP3 library in another room helped by the already-known intuitive interface of the iPhone.
In addition to your music library on your computer, NAS or Time Capsule, Sonos brings Pandora, Sirius, Rhapsody and Napster control right to the iPhone, plus support for 15,000 new radio stations and Last.fm.
Gizmodo has presented a video material made by the iPhone Dev Team, showing how to access the Apple processor in the case of iPhone 3G.
The baseband processor controls the connection between the phone and the mobile network, meaning that downloading a software should soon allow an iPhone 3G user to use his device in another network than the one set by Apple.
You surely remember the buzz around the first iPhone model and those who managed to hack it, for being used outside the four networks supported by Apple. iPhone 3G proved itself harder to hack, because it seems Apple has changed the technology to make it harder to use in other networks. You can unlock the iPhone 3G and use it in another network by modifying the SIM card, but what the iPhone Dev team is trying to prove is a software unlocking method, that you only have to download and install.
There haven’t been many requests for unlocking the iPhone 3G, because the model was distributed on a much larger scale worldwide. Anyway, there still are countries like China, that don’t have access to this gadget and there also are users that want to use their iPhones in other network than the one Apple set for their home country.
Some of the things happening to big guys, like Apple and Sony, with their new marvelous devices seem hilarious, at least to me. Now I find out that Apple, in its huge iPhone glory, has found out that their power adapter for countries on the American continent and Japan is faulty, and sometimes remains stuck in the wall socket.
They recall their faulty adapters and change them with new, redesigned ones, distinguishable by a green dot on their back. The users can either wait three weeks for the new adapter to come via an on-line order, or they can change it starting October 10 at the nearest Apple retail store. They have to bring in their iPhone and the old power adapter.
Meanwhile, patchy solutions are offered: charge your iPhone via your computer’s USB port, or via a third-party adapter or car charger.
Hilarious as it may be, it’s no big deal if this occurred, compared to what would have happened if Apple’s operating system had failed like its big brother, Vista. What would Apple had done? Apply a patch?
The first mobile phone using Google’s own operating system, Google Android, will probably cost $199 – a similar price to Apple’s iPhone, according to the press speculations.
The phone, that only has a slide-out keyboard, is made by HTC and will be sold by the US subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom, T-Mobile USA. The device will be launched during an event taking place in New York, on September 23rd. Continue reading »
Being announced with flowers and red carpets for a long time now, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia finally got an official launch date. By the end of this month it will begin to be sold first in Sweden, then in Germany and UK, and at a latter date it will be available on almost all the existing markets. Continue reading »
The company announced that it has upgraded their advertising system, known as Platform-A, to be able to show ads for iPhone owners, while they browse the Internet.
When a user visits any of the iPhone sites of AOL or a partner site, for example, the company will submit an ad banner in a particular format or even the website of the advertiser. Continue reading »
Just yesterday I was saying to my fiance that I’m all gadgetized: phone, PDA, GPS, laptop, MP3 player. What could I possibly want more? I never thought, though, that all my gadgets are using good-old batteries, that that they need recharging once (or many times) a day.
The company announced that it has upgraded their advertising system, known as Platform-A, to be able to show ads for iPhone owners, while they browse the Internet.