News from category ‘Hardware’

Here's a quick video review of the new iPod Touch 3rd generation.

via cnet

The Environmental Working Group (ewg.com) analyzed the radiation emissions from 1,268 cellphones.

Apple’s iPhone 3G has a maximum SAR of 1.39 W/kg when held at the ear. You can compare that to the 1.19 W/kg SAR for the iPhone 3GS. The lower the SAR the safer the phone is. The best phone was the Samsung Impression which had a max radiation of just 0.35 W/kg.

“The FCC limit for the head (SAR of 1.6 W/kg) is just two-and-a-half times lower than the level that caused behavioral changes in animals (SAR of 4 W/kg),” says the representative. “Thus, the brain receives a high exposure, even though the brain may well be one of the most sensitive parts of human body … and should have more protection.”

Here is a list of EWG’s top 10 phones, based on low and high emissions:

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TomTom presented their new Car Kit at IFA conference in Berlin:

The accessory is perfectly made, it has a large speaker on the back:

On the bottom we can find a mini-jack input and miniUSB:

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Navigon has decided to produce a Car Mount for iPhone (just like TomTom). This is a much simpler version that only allows to keep the iPhone in position and charge via the cigarette lighter or USB:

It will be avaliable in October and will cost less than $60. More advanced model with GPS module might appear later.

AT&T has issued a press release today announcing that MMS will become active for iPhone users on September 25.

We've been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches - and that launch date is: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. MMS will be enabled through a software update on that day.

AT&T points to the need for the company to build out its network infrastructure to handle the demands of heavy MMS messaging volumes as the primary reason for the delay in launching the service compared to carriers in other countries that have offered MMS since the launch of iPhone OS 3.0 in June.

As announced in June, MMS messaging will be included at no additional cost to users with an iPhone text messaging plan.

via macrumors

The site 9 to 5 Mac found a new virtual keyboard in the new recently released Mac OS - Snow Leopard. The new keyboard is much bigger (finger sized) and is located in an input method (keyboard) system pref. You can resize it as well to stretch all the way across the screen. This might be the first steps towards touchscreen hardware such as Apple's much-rumored tablet computer (also known as iTablet and MacBook Touch).

For comparison, here’s the old soft keyboard in Leopard. This is not a touchscreen keyboard.

Recentrly we've talked about Nokia and their willingness to enter into direct competition with the iPhone releasing new devices based on Linux. Now on the official Nokia website we can already pre-order the new mini tablet N900.

The operating system is the Maemo 5, that is based on Linux. It has an ARM Cortex A8 processor with 256MB of RAM for applications and other 768MB in virtual memory, so total is 1GB. So the multi-tasking is guaranteed. The graphics uses Open GL | ES 2.0, which is quite good.

The new operating system is much more flexible compared to Symbian. The Web browser is developed by Mozilla and is capable of playing Flash 9.4 movies and animations.

It looks like an iPhone but lacks the Home. It also has a sliding QWERTY keyboard. The screen resolution is 800 × 480 pixels (16:9). There are two cameras. The main has 5 MP with Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens and two LEDs for flash. The onboard memory is 32GB but can be expanded with microSD to additional 48GB.

The target price (tax excluded) is 500 euro. Nokia N900 will be available starting from October.

Here's a video that shows the Maemo interface in action:

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While most recent rumors have been swirling around Apple developing a 10" iTablet that would basically look like an oversized iPod touch, Gizmodo has a source, said to have been 100% reliable in the past, who’s telling them Apple is also planning 13" and 15" tablets, one of which… will run Mac OS X:

This source claims that the two touchscreen prototypes—made of aluminum, but on the shape of big iPhones—were in a factory in Shenzuen, China. One of them “was running Mac OS X 10.5.” When I asked, the source didn’t know if these were built for demonstration purposes, or if they were preproduction units. The company has a tight relation with Apple but “it’s not FoxConn.”

So maybe Apple is making small iPhone-like tablets and larger MacBook-like tablets.

via gizmodo theiphoneblog

Here are couple photos taken with Nokia N97 and iPhone 3GS:

The Nokia N97 takes 5MP photos while the iPhone 3GS takes 3MP photos. All the photos in this post are resized, click to enlarge.

iPhone 3GS photos are the left ones, Nokia N97 - right ones.

As for geotagging it was turned on for both devices. The iPhone 3GS successfully geotagged all 8 photos while the Nokia N97 was only able to geotag 2 of the 8 photos. The SIM card was in the Nokia N97, while the iPhone was in offline mode. A possible explanantion is that the GPS signal on the Nokia N97 is weak as discussed on Nokia’s forums.

Take a look at more photos:

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The $10 Octopus USB Cable has 10 different tentacles (ignore the fact that octopi usually have eight) to charge pretty much any mobile device you could own—most probably at a rate of 1 at a time. Specifically, that mix includes:

- Nokia 2.06mm (or 2mm)
- Nokia 3.5mm
- Sony PSP
- Motorola (V3 series) & HTC and other phones using USB Mini 5 pin as a charging port
- Micro USB (for Motorola V8...)
- LG
- Samsung (20P (s))
- Samsung (20P (M))
- Sony Ericsson Fast Port
- iPhone / iPod (for charging and Data)

Now why you'd ever be carrying around all of these devices at once, we cannot explain.

via gizmodo and usbfever

TomTom recently released a new video about the navigation software and the car kit for iPhone:

Apple has explored the ability to transfer a file from one cell phone to another during a connected call, according to a new patent filing revealed this week.
the new filing includes descriptions for sending text messages, e-mails, contacts, documents and more to a caller while two phones have established a voice connection.

"While a user of a mobile device is using telephony services, the user may want to send a message or a file to another part. To send this information, the user may have to disconnect the call, and then perform a lookup of the caller's contact information prior to being able to send the message or file. This multi-step process can be tedious for the user."

With this new method, you won't need to disconnect to send a file or some text data. Patent states that data could possibly be sent over a variety of network options, including GSM, GPRS, Edge, Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth.

via appleinsider

This not yet avaliable device has many names: Apple iTablet, MacBook Touch, Apple Tablet PC. Recently we wrote about possible specifications. Today we have a photo! French site posted this photo, suggesting it could be Apple's tablet computer. It looks like an Apple Tablet - a big iPod Touch. But, of course, could easily be fake.

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Access the Verizon data network on your iPhone using one handy device:

via cnet

Rodrigo, a Brazilian developer is working on a project called roqyBluetooth. It enables an iPhone and iPod Touch 2G to communicate with an external GPS receiver.

The connection is established via Bluetooth, the application will be released soon, but only for jailbroken devices.

via ispazio