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Aperion has announced the Zona Wirless Surround Speaker System, which accomplishes wireless rear speakers differently than competitors: by using powered surround speakers.

The TK-421 is the first case sporting an actual QWERTY thumb-keyboard, one that folds away when not in use. It’ll be available in November for $49.99. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20017395-233.html” class=”origPostedBlog”iPhone Atlas/a/p

Sanyo’s new Vero for Sprint offers functional features in a simple flip-phone design that’s vaguely reminiscent of the Motorola Pebl. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20017426-85.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Dialed In/a/p

It sure started out as something promising. When Nokia spun off its Home Control Center technology to There Corporation last year it seemed that easy DIY home automation and power management was just around the corner. Yet here we are, almost two years after first hearing about the effort with nothing but a convoluted mess of unfriendly ZigBee and Z-Wave (to name just 2 “standards”) home automation products to choose from. There is hope, small as it may be. There Corporation just announced that it’s working with Mitox Oy to conduct a pilot in Finland for customers of Helsingin Energia (Helen) using a There-provided web-based solution built around the ThereGate. It allows individuals to monitor their total power consumption in real time as well as the individual devices and systems that consume energy. Better yet, There Corp employs a “rate control concept” that automatically adjusts power usage to hours when energy costs less based on simple guidelines programed by the user. Unfortunately, There Corporation’s focus is on Nordic countries until 2012 before looking to dominate European home energy management in 2015. Call us crazy, but this market seems ripe for domination by a major consumer electronics company right now, not in 5 years.

Continue reading There finally piloting Nokia’s Home Control Center in Finland

There finally piloting Nokia’s Home Control Center in Finland originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been eager to see a flood of Bluetooth keyboard peripherals for the iPad and iPhone ever since iOS 3.2 brought support to the platform, but unfortunately it looks like the first wave of iPad cases will all feature the same rubbery keyboard module. Yep, that’s Kensington’s new KeyFolio Bluetooth keyboard case above, which is the latest riff on the AIDACASE KeyCase Folio Deluxe we just reviewed. (And remember, the KeyCase Folio Deluxe is itself a rebrand of the KeyCase iPad Folio — confused yet?) Yes, there’s nicer contrast stitching and presumably higher-quality synthetic leather, but it doesn’t look like Kensington has improved the actual keyboard or created a more stable way to hold the iPad up, which means this thing probably isn’t worth the $99 price of admission unless you’re crazy desperate for an all-in-one keyboard case solution. (You’re probably not.) Truth be told, we’re actually sort of saddened to see Kensington go the cheapo-OEM-rebrand route — we’ve come to expect more from the company. Here’s hoping the next round of iPad keyboard cases is somewhat better.

Kensington KeyFolio rebrands AIDACASE iPad keyboard case, doesn’t make it any better originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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