T-Mobile has announced the availability of the new Sidekick 3 phone to it’s users out there. The phone will make it’s appearance tonight here in Hollywood and then it will be available first to current T-Mobile USA post-paid customers. The phone will available to the general public starting on Monday July 10th. Let’s quickly go over the new features of the Sidekick 3:

The phone is 20 percent smaller than the previous Sidekick device. It has a new built in trackball which makes it easier for one hand navigation. Other features include built in Bluetooth technology, an integrated MP3 player, removable battery, and support for Mini-SD cards.

The phone supports EDGE data networks and comes with three major IM clients - Yahoo, AIM, and MSN. There’s an integrated 1.3 megapixel digital camera, LED flash, and a full HTML web browser.

[Check it out]

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I hope you had a wonderful Father’s Day weekend - mine was nice and relaxing as I spent most of Sunday hanging out with the in-laws and cooking up a sweet BBQ. Gotta love grilling! It’s been a few days since I updated the site so let’s do a little catchup shall we?

The folks at Nokia have unveiled five new handsets for your talking pleasure. They are as follows - the Nokia 6275/6275i, 2875/2875i, 6151, 6080, and 1110i.

I’ll try and summarize the highlights here. The Nokia 6275 and 6275i are CDMA handsets. You get a 2 megapixel digital camera built in, a 262k color 240 x 320 QVGA display and a built in digital music player with support for up to 2GB microSD cards. The phone measures 4.3 inches long, 1.7 inches wide, and 0.7 inches thick and weighs only 105 grams.

The 2875/2875i are GSM phones from Nokia and feature a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, Bluetooth 2.0 support, 262k color 128 x 160 display. The phone measures 4.2 inches long, 1.7 inches wide, and 0.75 inches thick and weighs only 94 grams.

Both of the above phones have an integrated FM radio and support digital music formats such as MP3, AAC, and eAAC+.

The Nokia 6151 is a 3G handset with a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, 4x zoom, landscape mode, video recorder, 30MB of internal memory, FM radio, Bluetooth support, and Push to Talk support. The phone works on GSM networks and operates in WCMDA 2100 and GSM/EDGE tri-band networks.

The Nokia 6080 is a compact affordable phone targeting buyers in Asia. The phone features a digital camera and video recorder as well as a stereo FM radio, color display, EDGE support, and a Soduku game (oh yeah!).

Finally the Nokia 1110i is a phone designed for first time mobile users (are there any anymore?) with cost-management features, Nokia Pre-pad Tracker, and other features which reduce the cost of owning a mobile phone.

[Check it out via GizmoWatch.com]

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LaptopMag has posted a super quick review of the Logic3 i-Station Docking Station for the Apple iPod here on their site. Although the speaker system is indeed small, you do end up getting what you pay for which in this case isn’t a whole lot it seems. The speakers pump out decent sounds but don’t expect much bass at all from the unit (what do you expect from something so small though?). Plus LaptopMag found that iPods sitting in the cradle aren’t that secure since they have to hold a variety of iPod sizes. Here’s the verdict:

This is a decent accessory, but there are better options for the price.

[Check it out]

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The first two new product names from HTC are out. The new models are called the TyTN and the MTeoR which also happen to be the first tri-band 3G Windows Mobile smartphones. Spec wise, the TyTN has:

• Tri-band GSM support
• GPRS and EDGE support
• Wi-Fi support
• Bluetooth support
• Push Email support from Windows Mobile 5
• Slide out QWERTY keyboard
• 2.8 inch color touchscreen
• Jog wheel
• 2 megapixel camera
• Second camera for video telephony

The MTeoR features:

• 2.2 inch color screen
• Windows Mobile 5 with support for Direct Push Technology
• 1.3 megapixel digital camera

[Check it out]

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HTC, one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers that you’ve probably never heard,  has decided to begin offering handsets under its own brand name. Up until now, HTC has been the hardware manufacturer for many of today’s popular Windows Mobile based smartphones and handsets. HTC will often come out with reference designs and then other companies will pick up these reference designs and have HTC manufacture the phone (with slight modifications) for them. This has proven to be a rather lucrative business for HTC as they’ve become one of the largest vendors of Microsoft Windows Smartphones.

So now HTC is coming out from under the covers and will begin offering phones to places where other vendors are not already to.  It is of course a dangerous proposition for HTC since they obviously don’t want to piss off their fellow vendors and lose existing contracts. It’ll be interesting to see if HTC can walk the fine line of being both a manufacturer and a reseller of mobile phones.
In case you’re wondering what HTC stands for - it’s “High Tech Computer” - pretty boring huh?

[Check it out]

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If you’re a fan of Google Earth, then you might be interested to hear that there’s a new release out - this one is called Release 4 Beta and it features several new enhancements including:

• Textured 3D Buildings - So not only can you see buildings in 3D with Google Earth, you can see textures plastered right on the buildings. Bricks look like bricks, and glass looks like glass. Of course if there isn’t aren’t 3D models for the city you’re interested in, you could always add them via Google Sketchup
• Google Sketchup allows you to create your own textured 3D models and then use them in Google Earth.
• Finally, users can add and share data via KML format files which are loaded on demand to increase performance of the application.
• Google Earth is now available in French, Italian, German, and Spanish
• Improved support for GPS
• Improved terrain maps

[Check it out via TechDigest]

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BengalBoy is out with his look at the upcoming Motorola Capri slider phone here on his site. Oh word of warning - the pictures are steamy and we’re not just talking about phones here folks. Anyhow, the Capri (and the upcoming Canary phone) is Motorola’s successor to the successful RAZR and SLVR line of phones. Here are some of the interesting tidbits about the Capri from the review:

• Spring loaded slider
• 262k color LCD screen
• Bluetooth support including A2DP and AVRCP profiles
• 2 megapixel digital camera
• Integrated camera flash
• MicroSD support

Check out the rest of the preview after the jump.

[Check it out via TechEBlog]

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ASUS introduced a new LCD television set at Computex 2006. The new set is called the TLW32001 and it measures 32 inch diagonally. Features on the display include:

• HDMI support
• DVB-T suppor
• Class-T amplifier
• SRS TruSurround XT
• Subwoofer

No word on pricing or availability as of yet but stay tuned.

[Check it out]

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After the stock markets closed today, Bill Gates announced that he would be relinquishing his current role at Microsoft and would be gradually stepping away from the day to day activities of the company. Bill is currently the Chief Software Architect at Microsoft but he will be giving up that title effective immediately. He’ll stay on as a full time employee for the next two years and then starting in July 2008, he will become a part time employee and chairman of the company.

In the meantime CTO Ray Ozzie will assume the role of Chief Software Architect and Craig Mundie will assume the role of Chief Research and Strategy Officer.

So what is Mr. Gates planning to do now? Well - he plans on spending more and more time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and less and less time with Microsoft. Of course this doesn’t mean that Gates will disappear from Microsoft for good. I’m sure you’ll still feel his presence all around the company.

[Check it out]

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Cingular has announced that they will begin to offer Microsoft’s Direct Push Technology  to its business customers starting with the Cingular 8100 series and Cingular 2125 series phones. The Direct Push Technology will be made available to these phones via the Messaging and Security Feature Pack upgrade starting on June 19th. Direct Push Technology works in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 by allowing email, calendar items, tasks, and contacts to be pushed out to wireless devices. To make this all work, you’ll need Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 and an updated Cingular 8100 or 2125 phone with the client software.

The costs of the new services are as follows: $44.99 with a qualifying voice plan for the Cingular 8100. $29.99 with a qualifying voice plan for the Cingular 2125.

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