New Sony Bravia ad: Paint the town red. And yellow and blue
TelevisionsFor all its troubles, Sony seems to be the first big tech company to embrace the idea of advertising as content. In this digital age, where we can fast-forward past ads with our PVRs, or go to places like YouTube where there aren't any ads in the way, advertising has to be its own reason to watch.
Sony's first Bravia ad was a terrific example of this: borrowing the techniques and aesthetic of installation art, it was simply footage of thousands of coloured balls bounding down a hill in San Francisco, with a lovely indie theme tune. It was everyone's favourite ad -- a Sunday newspaper even included a making-of DVD of it.
LG Shine: Photos of the Chocolate phone's successor
Mobile PhonesToday LG added a new slider phone to its Black Label Series that includes the very popular Chocolate phone. The new handset is called the LG Shine (pictured) and comes in a stainless steel casing. It's currently only available in Korea, but will come to the UK some time early next year.
The Shine measures 51mm by 98mm by 14mm and weighs 115g. It features a mirror-like front section that hides an LCD colour screen. The front section of the phone also houses a scroll wheel for easy navigation. Hopefully, this new interface will be easier and quicker to use than the Chocolate's.
Other features include a 2-megapixel camera, expandable memory slot and an MP3 player. We're impressed with the stainless steel casing but we'll wait until we've got our hands on it for our final judgement. Continue reading...
Gaming gets serious with 'Global Conflicts: Palestine'
Games and GearCrave has just discovered Global Conflicts: Palestine -- a forthcoming game based on the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territories. In it you play a journalist who arrives in Israel with the task of navigating between Palestinian and Israeli sources to get a story.
We initially suspected it to be a cheap and somewhat distasteful attempt to court controversy and shore up sales. After all, the games industry has a knack for developing violent, misogynistic titles that serve little purpose other than to destroy kids' minds. The Grand Theft Auto series puts you in the shoes of a carjacking hoodlum, Mortal Kombat lets you decapitate your friends for no good reason and Dead or Alive is little more than a tech demo for showcasing realistic breast jigglage. Continue reading...
Kanguru Flash Drive Max 16GB: Not big or cheap
AccessoriesIn 1972 the most memory you would be able to carry around with you was 1.5MB, on a large and unwieldy 8-inch Memorex 650 floppy disk. You could just about fit Bohemian Rhapsody in MP3 format on that, but the bit rate would make it sound like it was being sung through a straw.
Now you can get up to 64GB of memory on a USB memory stick the size of your thumb. A US company called Kanguru makes and sells the Kanguru Flash Drive Max, which has a maximum capacity of 64GB. However, that particular model costs about 1,000, so we thought we'd show you the less expensive 16GB version (pictured). Continue reading...
Photos: LG Joy and Samsung i520
Mobile PhonesToday Crave went along to the Symbian smart phone show. The event is held every year and we expected to hear the same old 'smart phones are the future' speech and see some interesting new Symbian applications. However, what we didn't expect to see were LG and Samsung's new phones running on the Symbian OS.
The LG Joy (pictured left) is based on the Symbian OS v9 and S60 3rd edition feature pack 1. It features a 61mm (2.4-inch) colour screen, expandable microSD slot and HSDPA (3.5G) connectivity for broadband-like speeds on the go. It also boasts a 2-megapixel camera for snapshots and a VGA one for video calls. Considering how many features it has, we were really impressed at how light it felt.
This is the first time LG has used the Symbian OS on a handset, and from what we saw it's not bad. Strangely enough, it feels more like a Nokia to use than a LG, which may or may not be a good thing.
Samsung also launched a handset based on Symbian OS v9 and S60 3rd edition feature pack 1, called the SGH-i520 (pictured right). The i520 also features HSDPA connectivity and a 2-megapixel camera. Other features include a 58mm (2.3-inch) colour screen, A2DP Bluetooth stereo connectivity and an expandable microSD slot. Expect a full review of both handsets soon. -AL
Photo credit: Andrew Lim/CNET.co.uk Continue reading...
McDonalds' free Trojan: "Would you like malware with that?"
MP3 PlayersMcDonald's: posterboy for the western world's obesity pandemic, and now the first fast-food restaurant to give away a free computer virus with every meal. A McDonald's promotion in Japan gave away 10,000 USB-stick MP3 players loaded with ten free songs -- and one free Trojan horse. The unexpected gift was the 'QQPass' Trojan -- an insidious program intended to steal login data from a Microsoft Windows PC.
According to reports, just plugging the McDonald's sponsored USB key into a computer running Microsoft's beleaguered Windows operating system will infect the system. Cynics point out this is isn't the first time that sticking something from McDonald's into a valued possession has caused problems -- until now it's always been the human mouth, though.
FlyBook V33i HSDPA: Frustration at your fingertips
LaptopsDialogue isn't the biggest name in the laptop world, but tech-heads absolutely love the Taiwanese company's FlyBook series. We've just been sent the FlyBook V33i HSDPA, which as the name suggests comes with a high-speed downlink packet access module and SIM card that gives you broadband (1.8Mbps) Internet access wherever there's a 3G mobile signal.
Physically, it's nearly identical to the standard V33i, which means it's gorgeous to look at but damn-near unusable in many respects. We love the almost dirty-looking matte-red finish, and its ultra-petite dimensions (it's a couple of inches longer than a standard paperback book), plus the funky 8.9-inch 1,024x600-pixel display, but what on Earth was Dialogue thinking with that keyboard? Continue reading...
MyMobileAuction.com: Don't bother if it's stolen...
Mobile PhonesIt seems as though the Carphone Warehouse isn't content with just selling brand-new mobile phones. This year it launched its TalkTalk broadband service and last week it bought the UK division of AOL for 370m. Today Carphone Warehouse launched yet another service, a mobile phone auction site dedicated to selling and buying your mobile phones.
It's called mymobileauction.com, and it works in a similar way to eBay, but the clever bit is, unlike eBay, there are some security measures for rooting out stolen mobile phones. The system uses your phone's IMEI number, which you can find out by pressing *#06# on your keypad. Continue reading...
Dell E207WFP: £155 20-inch monitor shocker
MonitorsSomeone at Dell has made a terrible, terrible mistake. We're not sure whether it's the marketing folks, the work experience boy or pesky hackers, but we've just seen an official press release listing a new 20.1-inch widescreen monitor for $289 (155 -- WTF?).
At that price, you'd think the E207WFP was made of old pencil shavings, but it's actually pretty good -- according to the specifications we've been given. It has a 5ms response time, runs at a native resolution of 1,680x1,050 pixels and has an HDMI connector with HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content) protection, so it's ready to play forthcoming copy-protected video. And it costs 155.
Dell's press release says it's aimed at gamers and video- and photo-editing enthusiasts (that's pretty much everybody), and we'd have to say that on face value it has absolutely no competition. You'd be an absolute idiot to buy anything else in the 17-20-inch segment. Continue reading...
Palm Treo 680: Swansong to the Palm OS
HandheldsToday Palm announced the Palm Treo 680, which comes in blue, orange, white and red (as pictured). It looks very similar to the Palm Treo 750v, which was announced last month, but it doesn't run on Windows Mobile. Instead, the 680 runs on the Palm OS version 5.4.9 and will be one of the last Palm phones to run on the original Palm OS, as the handsets are moving to a Linux-based OS next year/>.
According to our sister site ZDNet UK, "Palm sold its PalmSource OS division to Japanese firm Access last year -- it is now called Access Linux Platform (ALP). PalmSource will be no more and instead Palm Inc who make the Treo range among other devices will use the ALP platform. The Palm emulation environment within ALP is set to stay for at least a while, so old Palm applications will continue to work, but analysts say the new OS will still have a lot to prove." Continue reading...
Mobile Clubbing hits London's Liverpool Street station
MP3 PlayersNothing will quite beat the massive impromptu pillow fight we witnessed outside St Paul's Cathedral two years ago, but as flash mobs go, yesterday's Liverpool Street Station rave was still something to behold. Flash mobbing rose in popularity with the Internet and involves gathering large groups of complete strangers together and making them perform bizarre acts en-masse.
Using text-messages and emails, the organisers of these events arrange for their 'mobbers' to meet in a public space, sometimes with props -- in the case of Pillow Fight Club, pillows, and in the case of yesterday's rave, iPods. Continue reading...
Crave 14: Reading with an E
GadgetsRory Reid, Chis Stevens, and ZDNet's Rupert Goodwins want to take you for another aural ramble through the twisted streets of gadget city in the latest Crave Podcast.
You'll thrill to talk of budget software from Tesco; you'll chill to hear about screaming mobile phones; and you'll scratch your chin when you hear about virtual offices in an online world.
Xbox 360 Gears up for War (and Christmas)
Games and GearThat's enough of waffling on about the HD DVD drive -- what about the games we saw at Microsoft's splendid do yesterday? The event was intended to highlight what Redmond has up its capacious sleeves for the Christmas season. This will be a hugely important Christmas for the Xbox 360 in the UK, now that the PlayStation 3 is delayed until March, so it has to make the biggest possible impact.
One surefire way of doing that is signing up the best console football game and preventing it appearing on PS3. Yes, Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 6 is nearly here and it's a 'next-gen exclusive' to Xbox 360 (ie not PS3 but everything else). We had a quick kick around and weren't massively impressed. The graphics aren't a massive leap forward from Pro Evo 5 and the licensing of team names has been even further removed from reality. The gameplay was pretty much the same old brilliant Pro Evo, although we found finding a man with a pass and making a tackle more difficult than before. Continue reading...
Xbox 360 HD DVD drive: Hi-def peripheral
Games and GearMicrosoft had a swanky little event in a penthouse overlooking the Thames this morning and one of the many bits and bobs on show (check back soon for the games) was the Xbox 360's HD DVD drive.
This does exactly what it says on the tin: it's an add-on to the next-gen console that plays HD DVD movies at 720p resolution (games will continue to come on standard DVDs). It looks a lot like the Xbox's runty little brother, and indeed it leans on big bro for most of its video-processing gubbins. It has its own power supply (what? That massive brick can't power this too?), plugs in via USB, and shoves its hi-def video goodness out through the Xbox's component out. Continue reading...
Mobcharger: Extra power when you need it most
Mobile PhonesIf you've ever found yourself waiting for an important call and your mobile phone starts to make that familiar low battery beep, then you know how frustrating a mobile power shortage can be.
Fortunately, a company called Mobcharger has come up with a fun set of disposable batteries that simply plug into your phone and give you up to 60 minutes more talk time and 480 minutes more standby time -- enough juice to forward a few funny text messages, phone your mum and dad and call your mates to find out where they are.
The Mobcharger battery is flat so it will fit in your pocket easily, however once you plug it into your phone it needs to stay plugged in. It only costs 5 -- which isn't a lot to pay if you need to make that all important call -- and it comes with a range of different connectors that will fit mini-USB devices and Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson phones. Make sure you get the right one for your handset. Continue reading...
PDT Eye-Theatre: An eyeful for your iPod
TelevisionsCrave was tantalised by the idea of the PDT Eye-Theatre. Would it afford relief from squinting at the beautifully clear but frustratingly small iPod screen? Would it finally allow us to enter the William Gibson-esque world of virtual reality immerso-specs? And why does the set make us look so like Star Trek's Geordi La Forge?
We also liked the price tag. It's a nice looking device, and at 150 it's certainly cheap. The last one we can recall was made by Olympus in 2000 with a hefty price tag of 1,000.
Our first mistake was in having bad genes. If you wear glasses, you're in trouble. We're not saying that this personal multimedia viewer is anti-people with specs, but if you haven't got contact lenses, it doesn't want to know you. Continue reading...
Formac Disk Mini 120GB: Jong-sized HD video transporter
AccessoriesNow that high-definition video is de rigueur for any filmmaker worth his fashionably distressed Diesels, we all need something to cart captured footage around in. While old-school DV ate up a polite 13GB per hour, HDV (the consumer HD format used by Sony) binge-eats an outrageous 38GB to 50GB per hour. If you want to move projects around, you're going to need something like this pocket-sized Formac Disk Mini 120GB.
We're hardened cynics in this arena -- victims of multiple hard disk failures, not to mention the flashbacks that still visit us after the 1GB Iomega Jaz drive fiasco of 1999 -- but in our preliminary tests the Formac Disk Mini performed well. Last night we loaded it with a 50GB HDV video project we're working on and took it across London. The project survived two Tube zones in a rucksack and delivered its payload gracefully onto another machine. Continue reading...
How do I print from my mobile phone?
I've just bought a Sony Ericsson K800i and it takes great photos, but what's the best and easiest way to print them out? Continue reading...
Sony Ericsson W850i vs Nokia 5300
Mobile PhonesNeither Nokia nor Sony Ericsson has been particularly keen on the slider form factor. Compared to the likes of Samsung, they have merely skimmed the surface of the slider phone market. However, it seems like they're slowly changing their minds and two of their latest phones to adopt the slider style are the Nokia 5300 and the Sony Ericsson W850i.
Both models are pitched at music fans and include dedicated music buttons and expandable memory slots so you can store all your favourite tunes. They're both about the same size and weight, feature cameras and both of them slide, but are these two phones identical? No. Continue reading...
Evergreen CF-to-IDE adaptor: Boot like a banshee
AccessoriesAnyone who watched the memory test on their 1986 IBM XT click over at boot-up like a rusty odometer knows that kids these days have no patience. But those who find even the Hammond-like speeds of modern boot times too much to bear can use this to spice things up. It's a Compact Flash (CF)-to-IDE adaptor.
"You have just spoken to me in Finnish," you're thinking. What is this devilry? CF is the removable memory used by some digital cameras and IDE is the very fast interface most computers use to communicate with internal hard-disk drives. In theory, you could install a light OS like Linux on your CF memory card and boot off it at superhuman speed through your internal IDE interface. Damn, it sounds geeky, but it gives us a neck mohican. Continue reading...
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