Love hands-on posts? The Cellular Guru certainly lives up to his name with a hands-on video of the yet-unreleased BlackBerry Magnum that you see above, where it seems to fall between the Bold and Storm smartphones, boasting a full physical keyboard that complements the click touchscreen display. The video won't reveal too much apart from it (the Magnum) being a prototype device without a fully working operating system. Nice to see that the keyboard has been enlarged for easier typing, while the optical trackpad and microUSB port keeps up with the times. Do you think it will be announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress next month?
HP did parade a slate device at CES 2010, and have added more flesh to it by unveiling a new video of it. Apparently, it will run on Windows 7 and come with a browser and a NYT application, although we hope to see a more polished final product. HP promises to roll out the device sometime this year, and we guess its pricing will have a lot to do with what Apple announces this coming Wednesday. Will Microsoft lose this battle to the fruity company as well after losing out on the Zune?
CES 2010 was a blast and here's a sample of what we think was the Best of CES. Check them out, give us your opinion, tell what what else you found was cool and worth looking at. Thanks for tuning in to our live blogging last Wednesday and thanks for following CES 2010 with us. Next month we will be at Mobile World Congress!
Parrot AR Drone
The parrot AR Drone has generated quite a buzz. Although we're not sure if it will actually be a commercial success, but it was very refreshing to watch a refreshing product from a company that is known for its Bluetooth hands-free products. Check out the video.
[CES 2010] Netgear unveils its DGN2200 wireless N 300 router at CES 2010, where it offers you superior range compared to your outdated DSL equipment. With ReadySHARE, you will be able to enjoy fast and easy access when it comes to sharing an external USB storage device. With everything taking just a single push of a button, the DGN2200 is no different thanks to its Push ‘N’ Connect button that connects devices securely. Other features include a built-in ADSL2+ modem that can be used with DSL Broadband. Apart from that, you will have OpenDNS-powered Parental Controls to prevent your little ones from accessing unsafe Internet content and applications - whether by intention or accident. In line with the green theme these days, the DGN2200 will also boast convenient power and Wi-Fi on/off switches to help energy conservation.
[CES 2010] Syabas Technology just launched Popbox, a set top box that aims at being a portal to your home (networked) content but also for web content. The box itself is quite small (7" long) but packs a video processor that should be capable of decoding the most demanding 1080p video files. It is fanless, so it will be absolutely silent, and it consumes only 15W. As a network device, Popbox will scan the content that is shared from your other computers or some servers. You will have access to your media files from your TV. Popbox supports an impressive array of formats and protocols (the list is at the end of this article).
Nokia is starting to promote its N900 internet tablet (we call it a smartphone) with this viral video. It's 2mn36 long and the end is pretty interesting. If you have not seen it yet, check out our complete review of the Nokia N900.
A video showing what is supposed to be a MotoDroid boot sequence has surfaced. There's not much to go on, but if you're really desperate for any kind of news about MotoDroid, here's your fix.
[DEMOFall 09] VIAAS is the new video surveillance “as a service” delivered over the web by Third Iris. “VIAAS is simple to install, provides the power of professional monitoring systems and delivers enterprise-class reliability without the complexities typically associated with video monitoring solutions. .. Cost of entry is less than one-fourth of equivalent premise-based systems and since VIAAS operates as a service, customers benefit from lower ongoing cost of ownership as well,” said Steve Roskowski, co-founder and CEO of Third Iris. VIAAS features include a video footage search engine, IntelEvents, that allow users to easily find a particular video (by date and time of capture) without having to browse the videos for hours. VIAAS cameras automatically connect via a broadband internet connection to the VIASS service, according to the company, no additional network configuration is needed.
Vringo and Marvel partnered to create mobile video ringtones based on the famous library of Super Heroes. Today, they launched a storefront and web-based editing platform http://vringo.marvel.com where fans can buy movie clips or create their own using Marvels' archives. Users need to have video-ready phones to view and send the Marvel movies, and they need Vringo-application compatible phones to turn the clips into video ringtones. Now you can be viewed as Wolverine, for example, when you call your friend using VringoForward technology. The first clip is free and additional clips will be charged $1.99 at http://vringo.marvel.com . The Vringo app is available for BlackBerry Bold, Symbian, Windows Mobile and J2ME devices.
You remember that Viewsonic had launched a bunch of Atom-based computers? Well, here's a hands-on video of the VOT130, courtesy of netbooknews.com. This particular Nettop should be capable of playing HD content... that's certainly smaller than my current living room PC, but can it record TV? No.
Every day, the dead tree publications become more digital, so does the New Yorker which appointed artist Jorge Colombo to paint its cover using Brushes, an application for the iPhone. He drew the magazine cover with his fingers while standing for one hour in front of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Time Square. Colombo likes the app which allows him to paint in the dark: “Before, unless I had a flashlight or a miner’s hat, I could not draw in the dark.” (When the sun is up, it’s a bit harder, “because of the glare on the phone,” he says.) Brushes Viewer, the companion application, allows to record a video of each step of the drawing, check out the video of Jorge Colombo cover for the New Yorker here. Jorge Colombo will create a new painting each week for the newyorker.com.
[Where 2.0] I saw Earthmine for the first time when it launched at DEMOFall 07: it offers a Street View-like application that has a better image quality than the Google application (at the time of launch) and provides various web 2.0 interactive tools. This street-level 3D mapping technology allows users to collect and use all kinds of geospatial data in urban environments (i.e. buildings measurements, urban inventory), which appeals to a wide range of markets including construction, engineering, architecture, real estate, infrastructure management, transportation.
To add more fun to its pretty serious offering, the company launched Wild Style City (http://www.wildstylecity.com), a virtual graffiti application that lets digital urban artists express their talent using various interactive geo-tagging tools. Wild Style City leverage earthmine's 3D mapping platform and the earthmine Flash Viewer API, which provides access to earthmine’s data library for Adobe Flash, Flex or AIR based applications (in beta). Check out the photo gallery, the demo or try it live, this application is super cool!
