Filed under: Cellphones

 

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Filed under: Cellphones

While we first got wind of a EDGE Evolution rollout from Ericsson, Nokia Siemens isn't about to let one of those young upstart carrier equipment manufacturers steal its top-of-the-heap EDGE thunder, and has just announced the "launch" of its Dual Carrier EDGE software solution, marking the first steps of rolling out EDGE Evolution to the company's radio portfolio. The software upgrade doubles current EDGE speeds to 592kbps, and will be available from Q3 2008 onwards. Nokia Siemens won't stop there, though, EDGE is going to get another bump not too long after that to EGPRS 2, with download speeds of 1.2Mbps and uplink speeds up to 473kpbs. What's unclear at the moment is what existing phones (iPhone, we're looking at you) will be able to manage this with a firmware update, and which ones are going to be stuck in the past, but we're hoping for a good bit of the former.

[Via GigaOM]

 

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Although the A200 has been on store shelves for a tick since its US debut at CES, we wouldn't blame you for clutching that $700 / $900 tight until a handful of reviews hit the 'net. Thankfully, that time has come, and here's what we're hearing. Overall, the highly anticipated successor to the A100 was deemed a "solid entry-level DSLR that doesn't really stand out in its very competitive field," but that's not to say it's not worth checking out. When viewed in isolation, most reviewers found the build quality, built-in image stabilization, battery life, dust reduction system and respectable image quality to be above average, but those already slinging an A100 will find very few reasons to upgrade. Still, critics on the whole found more to love than despise about Sony's A200, so be sure and give those eyes a workout on the review links below if you've been fiddling with the idea of picking one up.

Read - PhotographyBLOG (4.5 out of 5; Highly Recommended)
Read - Steve's Digicams ("...a worthy competitor in the entry-level market...")
Read - CNET (7.0 out of 10; Very Good)
Read - Digital Camera Resource Page ("...reminded me a lot of my experiences with the Pentax K10D...")

 

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Filed under: GPS

Looking out the window while driving is way overrated. The new hotness, in Korea at least, is super-detailed 3D maps that leave nothing of your route to the imagination. Thinkware's iNAVI K2 is just such a device, with purty 3D graphics showing up on its 4.8-inch 800 x 480 screen. There's 8GB of memory, 256MB of RAM, and a fancy "geomagnetic 3-axis sensor" that helps keep mapping on track, but face it, you're going to buy this to see if they mapped your house. It'll be available for 549,000 KRW, about $561 US.

[Via NaviGadget]

 

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Filed under: Networking

Although Comcast has been beating around the proverbial bush about its data-meddling ways, it seems the pressure from the recent FCC investigation efforts have forced it to play nice. Reportedly, the firm is getting set to (begrudgingly, we presume) announce that it will "stop targeting BitTorrent on the internet." More specifically, the cable company will purportedly "boost broadband capacity" in order to make things speedier all around, but details on this tidbit were unsurprisingly absent. Nevertheless, BitTorrent has also agreed to make its software "more efficient," but those hoping that Comcast would leave well enough alone are in for even more disappointment. The outfit still plans on managing traffic on the 'net (standard practice, we know), but Tony Werner, executive VP and CTO, noted that it was "working hard on a different approach that is protocol-agnostic during peak periods."

[Thanks, Mike and Kenneth]

 

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Filed under: Laptops

Last year's PWN 2 OWN contest at the CanSecWest security conference went over way better than expected (read: exploits were glorified), so this year, organizers have spiced things up by letting hackers have their way with three separate machines. The Linux, OS X and Vista-based rigs were all setup as similarly as possible in order to "make sure the attack surface was the same on all of them." For attendees in Vancouver, there sits a $20,000 top prize -- which dwindles with each passing day as restrictions on attacks ease up -- but it can only be acquired if an all new zero-day cyber roundhouse kick is used. Anyone here going to give it a go? You get to keep the freshly victimized laptop too, you know.

 

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Filed under: Laptops

Last year's PWN 2 OWN contest at the CanSecWest security conference went over way better than expected (read: exploits were glorified), so this year, organizers have spiced things up by letting hackers have their way with three separate machines. The Linux, OS X and Vista-based rigs were all setup as similarly as possible in order to "make sure the attack surface was the same on all of them." For attendees in Vancouver, there sits a $20,000 top prize -- which dwindles with each passing day as restrictions on attacks ease up -- but it can only be acquired if an all new zero-day cyber roundhouse kick is used. Anyone here going to give it a go? You get to keep the freshly victimized laptop too, you know.

 

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Filed under: Robots

The always jam-packed ROBO-ONE competition in Japan was more heated than ever this year, with bi-ped robots tackling others and ripping them limb from limb. Okay, so maybe that's somewhat of a stretch, but you can rest assured some serious throw downs, um, went down. Interestingly enough, we heard that an i-SOBOT competition was also included (infighting, anyone?), and that the Maru family's King Kizer took home the gold. That's all well, fine and good, but we know what you're after -- take a (long) look at the hundreds of photos waiting in the read link below.

[Via MAKE]

 

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Filed under: Portable Audio

Those darn kids -- they just don't listen! And soon, according to a report, they won't physically be able to listen. It seems that modern teens, with their cloaking jackets, space telephones, and telepathic headsets fail to obey the simplest tenet of leisure-time music enjoyment: keeping their iPod and Zune volumes at a semi-natural level. In focus-group discussions, researchers found that high school students in the Netherlands were aware of the potential hearing loss which can be caused by high volume listening, yet had no immediate plans to crank their jams at anything but 11. Typical of our misguided youth, the teens feel that they have a "low personal vulnerability" to hearing loss -- researchers also noted that they believed they were bulletproof, could fly, and would never, ever lose touch with people who signed their yearbook. The study's findings suggest that the answer to this problem may lie with manufacturers of hardware and solutions like volume caps or warning lights, rather than with the self-control of the end user.

 

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Filed under: Networking

We like to think that NTT, Japan's dominant telephone company, is a serious corporation. So when NTT DoCoMo issues a press release claiming to have successfully demonstrated the world's first "molecular delivery system for molecular communication," we figure this must be significant. The technology and biochemistry at the foundation sure seems to be. In an experiment, NTT DoCoMo confirmed the use of synthesized DNA to transport specific molecules through the body. The process converts chemical energy into mechanical work so there's no need for an external power supply or control mechanism. The hope then is to one day plant a "biochip" in a cellphone which can read "excitement, emotion, stress or disease" from the simmering juices (blood, sweat and tears) pooled inside the meatsicles of "living organisms." This is where things start to fall apart. Seeing as how this is Japan, that ambiguous target audience means you and your pets. Robots too, just as soon as they get skin. And when the English press release claims that a bio-chipped phone could be applicable to "fortune telling" -- well, we've lost all hope.

[Thanks, StopSpamming]

 

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