Nokia unveils Maemo-powered N900 internet device

Mobile handset-shaped gadget will offer "computer-grade performance". Nokia announced the launch of N900 the company's latest mobile internet device running its Maemo software and it will be showcased next week At Nokia World Conference.

Shaped like a mobile handset, the N900 has a touchscreen plus slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a Mozilla-based web browser, an ARM Cortex-A8 processor and up to 1GB of application memory.

Nokia claims this processing power will offer "PC-like multitasking" so users can run many applications simultaneously, switching between them using Maemo's dashboard.

Connectivity-wise, the N900 will support Wi-Fi and HSPA, while its browser will support Flash 9.4. There's 32GB of storage plus a microSD card slot, and a five-megapixel camera. It will be priced around 500 Euros.

There's already speculation about what Nokia's activities with the Linux-based Maemo OS means for Symbian, which it uses for its other smartphones. It will be interesting to see how this whole story of Maemo vs Symbian will pan out.

CollegeHumor Shows Parallels Between 'Net Speed & Women

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

CollegeHumor shows us that, just like the Internet, some women are easier to access than others. To all of you Internet users and abusers out there, take a load off and enjoy the story of a lonely computer just looking for a little connection.

$24,000 for just a Haircut

Who would pay so much money for just a hair cut? In what must be the priciest ever trim, Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the world’s richest men and the Sultan of Brunei, is reported to have spent in excess of $24,000 on his most recent haircut.

Prompted by his fear of catching swine flu, the Sultan of Brunei outlaid £11,000 (US$18,000) to fly his favorite barber, Ken Modestou, from London in an isolated private luxury cabin on board a Singapore Airlines flight.

Modestou runs a barber shop at the Dorchester Hotel in central London and normally charges his clients just £30 for a haircut, but the billionaire sultan pays him thousands of dollars for every haircut, as well as paying for his flights and putting him up at a luxury hotel for a few nights.

Surely there must be other better ways of spending that much of money instead of just a simple hair trim.

Twitter adding location sharing features

Twitter announced its plans to introduce location sharing to users' tweets, launching a new API enabling developers to add latitude and longitude to any post. According to the microblogging giant, location sharing promises to add new context to each tweet--for example, Twitter users could switch from reading the tweets of accounts they already follow to reading tweets from accountholders in their neighborhood or city, expanding the platform's relevance as users look to share information on local events ranging from concerts to natural disasters.

Twitter will initially release the new geolocation API to its developer partners. Most of the mobile applications people use and love are built by Twitter platform developers.

Microsoft’s New Smart Phone - The Fune

What if Smartphone runs on Vista and AO? haha...have a good laugh...

Nokia introduces its first mini netbook

Nokia has unveiled the Booklet 3G, its long-rumoured netbook. It has a ten-inch display, and is powered by Intel's Atom processor. Its Windows-based device packing an Intel Atom processor, HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, and Ovi integration.

It promises 12 hours of battery life, 3G/HSPA data connectivity built in (plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), and access to the Ovi suite of services. That includes the Nokia Music Store, and the Ovi Suite synching tool. The netbook also has an HDMI port for HD video out, a front-facing camera that will support video calls, and A-GPS - which will be used for an Ovi Maps widget for location-based services. It'll weigh in at 1.25kg, and probably be running the trouble prone Vista.

It’s difficult for me to get excited about the Booklet 3G as not only is it late to the party, but it doesn’t appear to offer much more than the netbooks already on the market. I expect Nokia will try to use its Ovi services to help differentiate the Booklet 3G. But Ovi is available from any current computer right over the web, so there’s no “netbook specific” feature there. Can't see how Nokia is positioning itself in this crowded netbook market.

Dell Smartphone Finally Out but only sold China

Looking at the picture above of the Dell Mini 3i, it seems like another Chinese made iPhone. Sometimes i wonder why most of the new phones are developed looking like an iPhone. I m sure they can try harder to make it look anything but iPhone.

The Dell smartphone story has been around for a while now on the possibility of an iPhone-like model as far back as September last year and as recently as last week. However, the wait is over as its now made official by Dell that the new phone will be launched on in China for the first time.

As predicted it runs Open Mobile System (OMS), which is a version of Google Android developed by China Mobile to incorporate their own download services, which is displayed on a 3.5″ capacitive touchscreen. A 3 megapixel camera can be found by flipping the phone over, plus there’s a MicroSD card slot and Bluetooth too.

So far, it looks generic but it gets worse, as the Mini 3i is a 2G phone and lacks Wi-Fi just like any other phones made for the chinese market. My pick is the phone will likely be heading down the sink without trace, especially if the rumoured China Unicom/Apple iPhone deal does go ahead. I m not sure how it will compete with the locally made brands let alone the top phone manufacturers. Expected alot more from Dell.

LG Watchphone

Orange UK have gained exclusivity over this gadget and will be launching it at their Bond Street Station store in London on the 27th August. Sounds exciting right with a phone on your watch?

Orange are now promoting the GD910 as a ‘handmade’ luxury gadget and will be making it available for a limited time only - although they don’t state just how long this ‘limited time’ will be. But we all know the drawback with luxury gadgets, they wear a luxury price tag, and the watch phone is no exception. It’s going to cost £500! Pretty pricey from my standpoint. You can probably buy one with alot more feature from China for alot less.

High Tech Cooking

Sometimes employees can be a hassle when times are rough, these culinary robots are solving huge problems for Ramen Noodle Shop in Nagoya, Japan.

The culinary robots are actually two rather large arms that perform (with great precision) all the necessary steps to prepare customer’s orders. These two arms make up to 80 bowls a day and never get tired.

It makes for a quiet kitchen area which, if you’ve ever worked in fast food before is a manager’s dream.

Online Girlfriend Recruiting by Peter Chao

There is now a new way available for those that are single to broadcast their single status and find a partner on the internet. Peter Chao is now looking for a potential girlfriend of his dreams by posting a video on YouTube with a list of criteria that his “girlfriend-applicants” must satisfy. You are going to laugh your ass off listening to Peter.

China Mobile earnings stall as slow take up on 3G

China Mobile has reported a slower as expected 1.4% increase in its first half income, thanks to the economic slowdown, rising mobile penetration rate and increased competition. The world’s largest mobile operator by subscriber numbers recorded a net profit of $8.09 billion.

However, quarterly profit fell for the first time since it listed 12 years ago with net income at $4.42 billion.

Subs increased in the first half by 35.87 million to 493 million, but only signed up just under 1 million users on its TD-SCDMA 3G service.

Despite the declining subscriber growth and the slow uptake of 3G, China Mobile experienced strong growth in its VAS services, such as mobile music, mobile gaming and M2M, which contributed 28.1% of its total revenues.

The company expects rural areas and new VAS services, including its new Mobile Market app store, would continue to be the drivers for the growth forward.

China Mobile is expected to remain the dominant operator for the next five years, its biggest challenge is 3G. If it cannot make TD successful or quickly move to 4G networks, it is in danger of losing its high-end customers. China Mobile would need to pump in more funding for handset development as the initial funding of slightly less than $100 million is just too small to resolve the terminal issue.

The USAA Lets You Cash Cheques from Your iPhone

The USAA has created an iPhone app that eliminates the need for going to the bank to deposit your cheques.

The USAA iPhone app lets users snap a picture of the front and back of their cheque and deposit it into their account. While only currently in use for active-duty military personnel, this app is a cool step towards no bank lines. While definitely not an app for those who don’t trust technology, this seems like a cool new development in easy banking.

Apparently it's been downloaded 150,000 times since its launch earlier and processed over $1.5 million in deposits in its first three days.

Granted, any typical bank branch probably processes tens of millions of dollars in deposits each day. But it's still kind of cool that you can do it from your phone.

China Unicom orders 5m iPhones

China Unicom is banking on an iPhone frenzy this September, as the mobile service provider has bought five million of the handsets from Apple, according to IB Times. The $1.46 billion (about 10 billion yuan) inventory buy comes just about two weeks after the companies reportedly signed a three-year deal that gave China Unicom exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in China.

China Unicom will sell the 8G iPhone for about $350 (2,400 yuan) and the 16G for about $700 (4,800 yuan); IB Times’ source estimates that Apple will generate roughly $100 per unit in profit, a sharp contrast from the $400+ it has been estimated that Apple gets from AT&T.

But given the competition the iPhone will have in China from established smartphones, fake iPhone clones, and Dell’s rumored phone with China Mobile, Apple likely had to concede in some areas so that it could take its first crack at the Chinese market. Its certainly a handicapped iPhone taking into consideration that wifi will be excluded, even iTouch has wifi!

While full terms of the deal are still unclear, the consensus is that the China Unicom arrangement won’t be nearly as profitable for Apple as its partnerships with cell phone companies in other countries, since it doesn’t include sales subsidies. Without the subsidies thrown to the subscribers, I cant see what are the driving factors to own an iPhone, you are better off buying cracked iPhone with all the features included.

Sara's secret

This ad for Sara's secret made me laugh so hard.

The new Samsung Jet Interactive website

I like the website launched by Samsung to promote its latest Jet mobile phone model. Ready, Set, Jet is an interactive test that makes you discover the phone features. Good sound design, good pace, nice visuals. Check out out.

Samsung and LG gaining global handset market share

New data published today by Strategy Analytics reveals that global mobile phone shipments in the second-quarter declined 8 percent compared to a year ago. The research firm said that global shipments reached 273 million units in the quarter, down from 297 million units in 2Q08.

The decline marked the third consecutive quarter of market contraction, but was an improvement on the minus 14 percent recorded in 1Q09 (the industry's worst ever quarter of growth) and minus 11 percent in 4Q08.

The best performances in the study came from South Korean firms Samsung and LG, both registering their highest ever market shares, 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Their success was attributed to "robust demand" for their touchphones and QWERTY phones.

Samsung's market share has almost doubled in the last seven years (from 10 percent) in 2Q02, while LG now has a greater share than Motorola (5 percent) and Sony Ericsson (5 percent) combined. Meanwhile, market-leader Nokia shipped 103.2 million handsets in the quarter, down 15 percent from 122.0 million units a year ago, and its growth rate underperformed the industry average for the fourth quarter in a row. Its market share declined from 41 percent to 38 percent as shipments declined in all regions except China. Motorola and Sony Ericsson recorded the largest declines, down 47 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

Among the smaller vendors, Apple's global marketshare edged up to 1.9 percent in Q2 2009, from 1.6 percent in the previous quarter. The firm shipped 5.2 million iPhones worldwide in the quarter.

Jackie Chan Segways into Future in a Kaspersky Ad

Kaspersky’s Internet Security Solutions has a new ad campaign that is making waves around the world wide web. The video depicts Jackie Chan sporting a “Kaspersky” helmet, floating on a Segway towards what appears to be the future, and kicking the crap out of what must be computer viruses.