Gadgets @ Home

TUAW’s rumor has partially been confirmed just now when Best Buy officially reported that iPhone 3G’s sales at its retail locations will start on September 7th.

Best Buy has been after the iPhone for some time, but the report indicates Apple was reluctant to do business with the retailer over concerns about the potential for creating a market for unlocked iPhones; however, with the iPhone 3G causing lines at Apple and ATT stores creating long lines, Apple needs additional retail outlets to meet the brisk demand, AppleInsider notes.

Let’s wait and see if RadioShack will join the suit, which I personnaly really doubt.

Jon Peddie in his blog is trying to figure out why iPhone is so expensive. And why its price goes up with every new release instead of falling down as it is common in the consumer electronics world.

My new phone cost more than my PC or TV

I’m getting ready to buy the iPhone. I mean buy it, not lease it from AT&T. I’ve been saving my allowance, and taking bottles and cans to the recyclers, and I’m getting close to the $700 needed (plus taxes) for the 16 GB 3G iPhone, I can hardly wait.

While I’m waiting I watch a little TV on my new 32-inch HD LCD TV that only cost $449 from Circuit City. And when I get bored with TV, I turn to my new $649 Dell Inspiron notebook with a 15- inch screen.

Soon I’ll have everything I need, and all of it for under $1,000 each, although I better hurry because I know the next generation iPhone will probably be $999 plus taxes.

How come, I wonder, everything else in the universe electronic goes down in price or stays at the same price with added functionality and the iPhone goes up? Isn’t that what Moore’s law is all about?

Does Apple and AT&T know they’ve broken the law? Will they get arrested and have to go to jail? OMG – if Apple has to go to jail, what’s going to happen to all the Apple stores - will they be bought by CompUSA or Circuit City?

And how come a puny 3.5 inch 480 x 320 pocket computer costs more than my 15.4 inch 1680 x 1050 notebook computer, or my 32-inch 1900 x 1080 TV? Why does a smaller screen, with a less powerful processor cost more? I used to think I understood electronics and economics, but now, well now, I don’t know if anybody does.

You gotta give Steve Jobs credit, he is a disruptive force, breaking the law and changing the rules.

Source: Jon Peddie Research

What do you get by merging a half-a-century-old technology (as in rotary dial phone) with a modern technology (as in GSM)? You get a Portable Rotary Cellular Phone or Port-O-Rotary for short. And this is what guys from SparkFun offer at a modest price of $200 (or $250 for a fire-brigade-red model).

They describe their invention in details (along with schematics and programming code) on their website at SparkFun Electronics. It’s a fun and educational read, so head there and read it. There’s a lot of fine pictures there too!

To be fair, there were other attempts on a rotary design (like the ones below), but most of them never left the Photoshop stage, so they don’t really count.

What do you do when your are way behind your rivals in current mobile phone offerings, constantly loosing your market share, bleeding money and are late with the production of your next flagship (which still is a generation worse in some features then offerings by others) for more then 2 months?

I’m talking about Motorola and it’s MOTO Z10 smartphone that was supposed to go on sale last October.

Well, you start leaking the details to the press through your branch managers, about what an awesome line-up of phones you have planned for the next year. And then start copying meaningless design/co-branding additions, your rivals did months ago, and add bundles to a year old flagship you have now.

Enter Motorola Z8 Ferrari Limited Edition:

In addition to Ferrari colors and logos, MOTO Z8 Ferrari Limited Edition comes bundled with 2 Ferrari videos, pre-registration to the official Ferrari site (www.ferrariworld.com), custom Ferrari wallpapers and ringtones, direct links to to online Magazines like Top Gear, Auto Express, GQ, Esquire and Autosport, and a bundled “The Bourne Identity” movie.

I’m sure it will appeal to some diehard Ferrari and MOTO fans, but otherwise it’s just plain old Motorola Z8 RIZR phone.

And it won’t even be available for Christmas. MOTO Z8 Ferrari Limited Edition will come on sale through Ferrari Store and major Motorola retailers in Q1, 2008.

Source: http://www.unwiredview.com

 Well, they say “tastes differ”, so some might like it, and some will not. But we’d have to admit that it’s different. F310 Serenata is a result of Samsung’s cooperation with Bang & Olufsen (B&O) - a Danish company known for its “out of the box” thinking when it comes to design of consumer electronics, be it a remote control, speakers or even a DVD player.

Samsung Bang&Olufsen Serenata phone will have 1.8 Mbps HSDPA connectivity, 4 GB of on-board memory, big speaker, 2.4″ 240×240 px touchscreen capable of displaying 262K colors and a click wheel navigation to sort through your music collection.

The price will be set around $2000 USD. It will measure at 63×109,5×19,7 and weight 136 gr.

According to B&O, Serenata can actually function as a decent home entertainment system.

Source: Unwired View.

Yes, you heard it right. The much hyped Google phone (aka gPhone) is not a device, but a software platform based on Linux OS.

Not much details were revealed on today’s press conference. What is clear is that no new phones using Google’s platform (called Android) will appear till the second half of 2008.

The Android platform is a brain child of Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others. The SDK for the platform is scheduled for release on 12th of November. 

The Symbian OS providers (namely Nokia and Sony Ericsson) along with such major carriers as AT&T, Verizon and Orange are obviously not convinced, so they didn’t join the Google’s boat.

Andy Rubin, Director of mobile platforms at Google, made a vague announcement of the new platform in his blog. Om Malik in turn asks questions in his blog about the viability of Android and its licensing scheme in the already saturated mobile market with only one manufacturer (HTC) commited to releasing Android-based devices in the near future.

Well, we’ll see how it will all turn out. In the mean time, Apple’s iPhone remains unchalenged.

Continuing the never-ending battle of Korean giants Samsung announced the new Giorgio Armani-Samsung luxury mobile phone. Giorgio Armani presented the new mobile phone at a press briefing in his Armani/Teatro in Milan before his Spring Summer 2008 Women’s fashion show.

Quick Specs:

• GPRS/ EDGE Tri-Band (900/1800/1900)
• 3 Megapixel camera
• 2.6″ QVGA TFT LCD (262K Colors) display
• H.263, AAC+/MP3/WMA, MPEG4, AAC, e-AAC+
• Bluetooth 2.0 / USB 2.0 high-speed/  MTP 2.0
• Mobile Printing (BPP, PictBridge)
• micro SD external memory slot
• Bluetooth Stereo Headset (A2DP)
• Full Touch Screen & Touch UI
• Size: 87.5 x 54.5 x 10.5 mm / 85g
• 880mAh battery

Read the details at Esato.com

The most feature-rich (and FREE) internet browser for mobile devices is shipping its 3rd Beta for version 4. It has numerous improvements over previous Beta including support for RSS feeds and ability to synchronize your phone Web links with those of other mobile phones or computers. Good stuff! Go check it out.

Changes since Opera Mini 4 beta 2
-Added Link support
-Added Speed Dials
-Added RSS feed support
-Added shortcut *+0 for feeds
-Added shortcuts for speed dials (*+[speed dial number])
-Added function to ask the transcoders for the title and favicon of a new bookmark or speed dial
-Stylus devices can now scroll shortcut help overlays
-Changed “Fit to width” to “Mobile view”
-Changed “Autozoom” to “Show overview”
-Low, medium and high image quality setting
-Images fit better to the screen (no panning)
-Improved BiDi support
-Page position and scaling is now preserved after reload of page
-Stylus devices without pointer motion events should be able to scroll anyway, just not in realtime
-Faked transcoding progress when using feeds
-Show numbers in ordered lists
-Improved stylesheet handling
-Focus highlight now looks inactive when loading
-New and improved server side cookie handling

Handango is giving away one (1) high quality, fully-functioning mobile software application for FREE on Fridays! The free app is available from 12 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. CST on Friday only and must be downloaded during that time period. In addition, the promotion features other applications at a 25% discount throughout the week.

Just visit www.handango.com/FreeAppFriday for details.

All you have to do is complete a short survey. Handango will then send you an email with a link so you can download your free app. They are calling the promotion, “Free App Friday.”

You can also get 25% off Award Winning applications everyday while promotion lasts.

Those of you who are lucky to have FM radio in their cellphones would probably know that you need to connect your headset cord (which acts as an antenna) in order to get FM signal. Right? Not anymore!

Laird Technologies introduces its RadioAnt ™ antenna. This technology provides an FM antenna solution that can be incorporated directly inside a handset device, offering improved performance, minimal size, ease of installation and low cost.

reports Wireless design and development magazine.

Laird Technologies’ RadioAnt ™ antenna is a leading-edge miniature internal antenna circuit providing the combination of FM, impedance matching and signal amplification. The internal active FM antenna circuit provides performance similar to or better than a passive corded headset.