Geeks are like megalomaniacs: when it comes down to it, it's really all about the power. Without juice, all your fancy gadgetry is just dead in the water. We've covered a number of solutions for your power needs, but among the very slickest are the USBCELL batteries from Moixa that let you recharge via your USB port.
Now Moixa's looking to bring the same convenience to your cellphone with the USBCELL for phones and portable devices. The batteries are going to be available in a number of popular form factors, including major phones and Blackberries. They'll be available later this year. No price is announced yet.
One wonders how the cell phone manufacturers, who often advise against using third-party batteries, will react to this. I'd imagine the USBCELL's would be pretty handy as backup batteries, especially when you're on the road.
[via Chip Chick]
The IEEE, official winner of the "acronym most fun to pretend its a word" contest, may not have yet approved the next generation of local wireless networking, but that doesn't mean they're not hard at work on other sorts of wireless technologies. Wi-Fi's big brother, WiMax, has just received a bump to the ol' standard in the form of increased throughput.
And they're not dumb: they're raising the speeds to 1 Gbps and mandating backwards compatibility with existing WiMax radios. In the time-honored tradition of the alphanumeric jumble, this flavor is being called 802.16m. That's right: it's delicious 'M' WiMax.
As if that wasn't enough, IEEE says that 'M' will meet the International Telecommunication Union's standards for the 4G wireless standards (that's what we get once we pass 3G, natch). The date for 'M' is hovering in 2009, but with that whole 802.11n thing still on the plate, that could probably change. And given that the deployment of even non-M WiMax gear is still pretty sparse, I wouldn't delay any purchases.
[via Engadget]
Cell phones have rapidly become one of the most indispensable gadgets for your average person on the street, letting you contact anybody you want anywhere you want, at any time. One remaining tether still exists: that life juice that keeps your cell phone charged and happy. Sure, you could carry extra batteries or your charger, but those have their own inconveniences.
Consider instead an Wind Up Phone Charger, which lets you recharge your cell phone by using only the power of your mind. Or, I guess, your hands. Which is somewhat less impressive, but still useful.
The Wind Up Charger is compatible with plenty of cellphones from the major manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung), but hit up the link above for the full list. It'll run you about $12, but could save you a bundle if you're ever stuck without your charger.
[via Ubergizmo]
Motorola's apparently out to hold onto its crown for sexy cellphones. The folks who brought us the RAZR, the SLVR, and the SCPL are now rolling out the MOTORIZR Z8. What are the ingredients in this delicious new handset?
Well, if we're taking it strictly by the numbers, there's 90MB of internal memory, expandable via microSD card, a 2 megapixel camera with 8x zoom, a 2.2" screen, Bluetooth, all packed into an HSDPA package. It also supports email, two-way video calling, and a veritable alphabet soup of messaging protocols.
But it's the slick form factor of Moto's latest handset that's liable to rack up the praise (or criticism). The bottom part of the phone curves, molding more comfortably to your face—think of it as clamshell meets slider. Expect it to be the phone all the characters on TV are carrying—at least until the iPhone comes out.
The Z8 is expected to show its head this spring, though price, carriers, and regional availability haven't yet been released.
[via SCI FI Tech]
We mentioned the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet way back when; I got a chance to see one up close not long ago, as a friend of mine owns one. It's a pretty slick little machine, though it did have its fair share of shortcomings.
Nokia hopes to fix that with the next iteration in the line, the N800. Ars Technica's Eric Bangeman took an in-depth look at the N800 to see not only how it stacked up to its predecessor, but also to see how it lived up to its name. How did it fare?
That gets to the heart of what the N800 is: an Internet Tablet designed to keep you connected to your online world wherever there is a WiFi connection available. And it does remarkably well at that. I've used it on several evenings to surf the web while watching TV in the living room and it's perfect for that. I think the best way to describe the feel of using the N800 is that it's like using a very small computer rather than a PDA or smartphone. I attribute that experience to the high-resolution display and applications included with the tablet, especially Opera and Flash.A version of Skype is supposedly on its way for mid-year; if anything, that very well might be the killer app for the N800. The Internet Tablet certainly isn't for everyone—its lack of cell phone capability will relegate it to second best for many people—but it's a niche device with a promising future.If you don't have an 802.11b/g connection nearby, you can still watch videos, listen to music, play games, read PDFs, and more, but the N800 really shines when you're kicking back and surfing the web.
Man, the future is almost here (isn't that always the way? How come it never gets here?). I'm talking rollable, foldable displays. Admit it, we've been jonesing for these things since we saw those sweet communicators on Earth: Final Conflict (if you know what I'm talking about, congratulations: you've just earned serious geek cred, which is redeemable for a swat on the head).
Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision have designed a cell phone with a foldable display, the Cellular-Book. The phone will surface some time this year, though only in Italy to begin with. The polymer-based display is obviously the high point of the device; it can extend up to five inches, display up to 16 grays (sorry, video fans), and its high contrast and high reflectivity mean that it's easily visible even in sunlight.
The Cellular-Book goes on display next week at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. No firm price or availability have been announced yet. And major props to the concept designers that included "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in the graphic above (larger version here).
[via Uber-Review]
I missed the initial announcement on Seagate's Digital Audio Video Experience (DAVE) device the other day. No excuses; I just fell down on the job. Mea culpa. I'm here now, though, and I intend to make up for it. Here's the deal.
DAVE's a small device that contains storage (in the form of a 10-20GB hard drive), along with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Its end goal is to become a storage place for your portable devices, such as your cell phone; you can transfer data back and forth off the DAVE via wireless. There's also a small mini USB port on one side, should you choose to go the wired route (and, presumably, to charge this thing). The device itself is pretty tiny: it weighs 2.5 ounces, and measures just 3.5 x 4.7 x .47 inches. They claim that the rechargeable lithium battery will last ten hours in use, and 14 days in standby.
While packing all that technology into a package that small is impressive, the question remains as to how useful people will find this. While 10-20GB is a big boost on the currently available capacity of cell phones, it doesn't sound like it would be that useful for portable media players, most of which hold much more data. As for mobile phones, if people are going to carry two devices anyway, why not carry a media player along with your phone? Robert Scoble thinks it'll be handy for the iPhone—a good idea, but a rather limited market.
Seagate's not selling DAVE outright, but rather is promoting it as a platform for partner companies to take advantage of. No price at the moment, but availability is targeted for second quarter.
[via Gizmodo]
Can we please stop the whole gimmicky cellphone branding phenomenon? I'm talking about Motorola's new RAZRmaxx V6 Ferrari Challenge Mobile Phone Limited Edition, a name so long that I'm totally just copying and pasting it. Motorola teamed up with Ferrari to produce this model which is basically just the RAZRmaxx with a Ferrari logo slapped onto it.
Okay, so it also has a different red lighting scheme and its startup noise is a Ferrari F1 engine (which, I have to imagine, heard through an external cellphone speaker probably sounds more like a lawnmower). Also there's a bunch of photos of Ferraris to use as your wallpaper. This is me doing the big whoop-dee-doo.
Technologically, it's got support for HSDPA, a 2 megapixel rear camera and VGA front camera. It'll drop on January 29th for $635 before subsidies. Hey, Ferrari, stick to making cars, not silly deals, capiche?
[via New Launches]
