Sprint today announced the Samsung Instinct s30, a follow-up to one of their best-selling phones ever, the Samsung Instinct M800. The Instinct s30 will bridge the gap between feature phones and smart phones by offering third-party programmers unusually free access to its features, according to Sprint.
On the surface, the Instinct s30 looks a lot like a rounded Instinct M800. The two devices are almost exactly the same size, though the s30 is lighter – 3.9 ounces rather than 4.2 ounces. Both devices are dominated by big 3.2″, 240×432 touch screens. Both have 2-megapixel cameras, both use Sprint’s 3G network to connect to the Internet, and both support visual voicemail and Sprint’s streaming video and downloadable music services.
The s30 comes with the Opera Mini 4.2 Web browser, but you can download that onto the old Instinct, too. The s30 also comes with instant messaging built in. Considering that our major complaints about the M800 were about the Web browser and IM, these are very good changes to make.
Just like the M800, the s30 has a Speech to Action button, which allows users to access a wide range of functions with voice commands, including GPS navigation.
Wireless pioneer Kyocera has been playing in the affordable end of the cellular swimming pool for the past couple of years, and they seem to think the water’s fine. At the CTIA Wireless trade show today, they rolled out two phones that upgrade popular, existing phones for budget carriers.
The Kyocera G2Go M2000 texting phone looks to me like an upgrade to the Virgin Mobile Wild Card. It’s a black and gray candybar-style phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for texting. It has a big 2.4″, 320×240 screen, a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth and a MicroSD memory card slot. At 4.4″ x 2″ x .7″ and 4.2 oz, it’s bigger and heavier but noticeably slimmer than the Wild Card.
As the M2000 doesn’t have the AWS frequency band, it probably won’t come to Cricket or MetroPCS, but is almost a sure thing for Virgin.
The Kyocera Laylo M1400 looks like a follow-up to their slim, budget-priced S1300 phone, which I reviewed on Cricket. This phone kicks things up a notch from the almost painfully basic S1300. It is a black slider phone with a 2.2″, 320×240 screen, a VGA camera, Bluetooth, and a WAP browser. At .7″ thick and 3.175 ounces, it’s bigger and heavier than the 2.5-ounce S1300, but you’re getting a lot more here. The M1400 supports the 850, 1900 and AWS bands, so it could appear on Virgin, Cricket, MetroPCS, or even Verizon or Sprint.
Kyocera didn’t announce prices or dates for their new phones – that’s dependent on carriers picking them up.
Well, well, what’s this? We just received a ton of information on that hot little Acer Hornet nettop we’d heard about a while back, and if this pile of documentation is as real as it looks, this thing could be the holy grail of cheap HTPCs — not only does it support 1080p video playback over HDMI, the “Media Center” version will indeed come with a Wii-like remote that can be used for gaming as well as media control. Specs look more than decent for the targeted $149-$299 price range: the low end model pairs what sounds like an Atom N230 with 1GB of RAM and an 80GB drive preloaded with Vista Home Basic, while higher end models get 2GB of RAM, a 160GB drive, and a “Boxshell” quickboot OS in addition to Vista Home Premium. All this plus super-quiet sub-26dB operation and a slick diamond-shaped chassis designed to hang off the back of your flatscreen? We’re potentially in love — when you gonna make our dreams come true, Acer? Full spec chart after the break.
P.S. We know that upper-right image is a ripped Nintendo press image, but this slide actually leaked from elsewhere a month ago — and unless someone’s decided to go way beyond the usual fakery by meticulously crafting the 20-page technical and supplier info document and lengthy presentations we received today, we’re thinking this is actually real and not some April Fools thing. Let’s hope!
Update: DigiTimes has it from “industry sources” that the Hornet will launch in China on April 8th for below $299.
This isn’t the first Dreamcast mod we’ve seen around here, not by a long shot — but it’s surely one of the most elegant. Built around a 15-inch LCD, this guy is a scant 2 1/4-inches thick, but it gets up to 3.5 hours of playtime on a full charge, sports an A/V out, one watt stereo sound, and a custom-built tray loading GD-ROM — just the thing for playing House of the Dead 2 on the go. We won’t belabor the point — just make sure you check out the mod-licious video after the break.
Samsung kicked off CTIA by announcing a WiMax touch-screen device. At an event at the swanky Wynn Encore Hotel, Sammy showed off the Mondi, which crams laptop- and Netbook-worthy features into a compact design.
Using PCs to do what Nintendon’t, YouTube user renebarahona is running Wii games in HD resolutions through the Dolphin emulator. One peek at Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 720p is enough to make any of us wonder what a world where Nintendo didn’t hate HD (even yanking 480p capability from the Gamecube, we’re still not over that) would be like. These games aren’t merely upscaled like DVDs, they’re being rendered in a high resolution natively with extra anti-aliasing Xbox 360 BC-style, producing surprisingly crisp visuals. Check out the embedded videos after the break (remember to hit the HD button) for an example, including how to set this up on your own computer.
The “grunge father,” along with biodiesel pioneer Johnathan Goodwin, are developing a commercially viable electric power system in a 1959 Mark IV Lincoln Continental, which they hope will get the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon and take the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.
Neil Young with his dog, Carl, in the video for "Johnny Magic."
(Credit: NeilYoung.com/copyright Shakey Pictures)
Young’s classic “Long May You Run” could have been a proper theme song for the project. Instead, he’s written new material about the LincVolt, featuring the crisis in the car industry and the economic downturn in general.
In “Fuel Line,” he sings about the car‘s technology: “Awesome power of electricity, stored for you in this big battery.” In “Johnny Magic,” about the prize he’s aiming for, “she goes long range on domestic green fuel, 100 miles a gallon is the Continental rule.”
So far the concept album has received mixed reviews both in the music and green communities.
Sprint has made it official that it plans to release a red version of its LG Lotus messaging phone. It will have the same textured design as the purple version, and will have the same features as well.
Features include a 2-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, GPS, EV-DO, a …
Forget leaving notes on the fridge or carrying a laptop to the kitchen as you attempt to make scallops for dinner. PC makers are betting that consumers will spring for a sleek, new touchscreen desktop instead — a machine perfect for web surfing, leaving notes and checking internet videos.
Four major PC makers including Dell, HP, Asus and now MSI have launched ‘kitchen PCs’ — inexpensive all-in-one systems with touchscreens instead of keyboards.
MSI Wind, a Taiwanese manufacturer better known for its netbooks, became the latest entrant to a new category with its 19-inch touchscreen PC on Tuesday called the Wind Top AE 1900. Pricing and availability weren’t disclosed.
The move to touchscreen desktops is a trend that’s expected to be big with consumers, say analysts. "It’s the convenience factor and the design," says Richard Shim, an analyst with research firm IDC, "especially at the current price points."
At about $600 to $800, kitchen PCs could be to desktops what netbooks have become to notebooks today: cheap, cheerful alternatives to overpriced, overpowered machines.
Kitchen PCs offer a stylish form factor, a touchscreen interface to get to e-mail, weather forecasts, calendars, news or recipes — all wrapped up with an attractive price tag.
HP kicked off the touchscreen desktop business with its TouchSmart PC nearly two years ago. But since then companies such as Asus, Dell and now MSI Wind have rushed in to offer a similar product at lower prices.
All-in-one systems cram the computer’s guts (the CPU, hard drive and memory) into the display, much like Apple’s iMac. What sets them apart though is the touchscreen display at a price that’s easy on the pocket.
An Asus Eee Top kitchen PC costs just $600, while Dell offers its Studio One 19 PC at $800.
In the last few years, desktops have been steadily giving ground to notebooks in terms of sales. Increasingly craving mobility, consumers are steadily passing over desktops in a bid to get laptops and netbooks.
PC manufacturers hope ‘kitchen PCs’ is a way to revive the desktop computer.
"The traditional desktop is not in an explosive growth stage anymore," says Ian Lao, senior analyst with research firm In-Stat. "The combination of the touchscreen and desktop seems like a hit for now."
Most consumers will find kitchen PCs easy on the eye. Asus and MSI offer an iMac-like aesthetic, while Dell gives users the option of having fabric panels framing the display in colors, such as blue, red, black and pink. The idea is to make the desktop feel less like a consumer electronics product and more a home decor accessory, John New, marketing executive for Dell told Wired.com recently.
Meanwhile, home users are no longer that concerned about the raw computing power of their home desktops, says Lao. Most users simply want to watch YouTube and Hulu, play with Facebook and upload photos. A kitchen PC is better suited to these activities than a Dell Inspiron tower.
Shim, who owns an all-in-one system himself, says he uses his to stream online radio and watch YouTube while he’s in the kitchen. "All-in-one systems aren’t expected to be the primary systems," he says. "And its not just one killer app on them. It’s the idea of doing many different small things from one easy location in the home."
Here’s a round-up of the newest ‘kitchen PCs’ to hit the market:
Asus Eee Top
Specs: Intel Atom N270 processor, 1 GB memory, 160 GB hard disk drive, Wi-fi, 15.6-inch display. Read Wired.com review of the Asus Eee Top PC here.
Price: $600
Availability: Currently available
Dell Studio One 19
Specs: Choice of Intel’s Celeron, Dual Core Celeron, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad Core processors. Choice of Nvidia’s GeForce 9200 or 9400 graphics, up to 4 GB of memory, 750 GB of hard disk drive, six USB ports, web camera and optional Blu-ray disc player. Has 18.5-inch display.
Price: $700 for a non-touchscreen model and at $800 for a touchscreen version
Availability: Currently available in Japan. Expected to start retailing in the United States in a few weeks.
MSI Wind Top AE 1900
Specs: Intel Atom 230 processor, 160 GB hard disk drive, upto 2 GB RAM, Wi-fi, DVD drive, Windows XP operating system. More details here.
A month ago, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) revealed that 1.8 million households were still waiting to receive up to 3.3 million coupons needed to buy TV converters for the national DTV transition.
This week, the NTIA is saying the coupons have been shipped, the waiting list is clear and that it’s accepting new applications.
I’m wondering if maybe this isn’t completely correct, as I asked for two coupons and have yet to receive them. Maybe they just cleared the slate clean without finishing the shipping and they’re building a new, improved, clean database.
According to the NTIA, the coupons shipped out faster than before through help provided in the economic stimulus package. It provided $650 million to the whole of the converter box program, and $90 million of it is due for outreach and DTV education programs. Not all of it has been used.
With the money, the NTIA has been able to use first-class mail to send the coupons and enhanced the agency’s fraud and abuse checks program. As PC World notes, this also has allowed the agency to cut the processing time of application from three weeks down to nine days.
Two months ago, the DTV Delay Act postponed the transition from analog to digital signals for over the air televisions from Feb. 17 to June 12. Shipping delays (and a budget shortfall) with the coupon program was among the reasons regulators cited when they were negotiating the delay.
Originally enacted in 2005, the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act compels U.S. TV stations to only broadcast digital signals, which will improve the picture quality of TV programming and frees up airwaves for emergency responders.
But if a significant number of people can’t receive those emergency signals through their TVs, the transition presents a potential danger to public. The latest numbers say that close to 4 million people in the U.S. have not switched over to a digital signal.
The NTIA recently said that with the budget boost, it now has close to 12 million new coupons ready to distribute.
If you haven’t kept up with the news, here are the three options you (or more likely, your older relatives) have regarding the DTV transition: a) You can connect your TV to a cable, satellite, or PPV service (their respective boxes are DTV-compatible), b) buy a new TV that includes a digital converter, or c), keep your old TV and buy the converter box.
If you still need to apply for a coupon, or you need to re-apply to receive one that has expired, go to www.DTV2009.gov, or call 1-888-388-2009.
What about you guys? Have you applied for a coupon in the last three months and did you receive it? If not, please let me know.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
