Some interesting developments over in the world of GPS devices. The folks at the Encyclopedia Britannica have decided to sue TomTom, Magellan Navigation, and American TV and Appliance of Madison – stating that they infringed on its patents for a computerized map system.

The lawsuit was filed on May 21st in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. According to the lawsuit, the company seeks to block the defendents from further infringement of the patents and also asks the court for damages on behalf of Britannica.

How a company who made their namesake in encyclopedias is suing about computerized map systems is beyond me.

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Technorati Tags: Encyclopedia Britannica, GPS, TomTom, Magellan,

Nokia introduced one other 3G mobile phone today called the Nokia 6500 Classic. Made of anodized aluminum, the 6500 Classic measures in at only 9.5 mm thin yet features 3G support as well as 1GB of internal memory – enough to store a good chunk of music for the music lovers out there.

Featueres of the new Nokia 6500 Classic include:

• WCDMA 850/2100
• GSM/EGSM 850/900/1800/1900
• Series 40 platform
• Measures 109.8 x 45 x 9.5 mm
• Weighs 94 grams
• 12.5 day standby time
• 5.5 hour talk time
• QVGA 320 x 240 display with 16.7 million colors
• Anodized aluminum body
• 2 megapixel digital camera with 8x digital zoom and dual LED flash
• 1GB of internal memory
• Unified MicroUSB port for charging data and audio
• Music player supporting MP3, AAC, eAAC+
• Video player
• Integrated hands-free speaker
• Bluetooth
• Dual band 3G technology
• WCDMA: max download 384 kbits; upload 128 kbits
• GPRS multislot class 32, up to 53.6 kbps
• EGPRS multislot class 32, up to 296 kbps

You can find the full fact sheet here. The Noka 6500 Classic can be found at the nokia6500series.com website here.

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Technorati Tags: Nokia 6500 Classic, Nokia

Nokia introduces a new 3G mobile phone called the Nokia 6500 Slide. Yes the 6500 Slide is indeed a slider phone (I would never have guessed) and features a 3.2 megapixel digital camera, Carl Zeiss optics, TV out jack, and a beautiful stainless steel finish.

The Nokia 6500 Slide features:

• WCDMA 850/2100
• GSM/EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 support
• Series 40 3rd edition
• Measures 96.5 x 46.5 x 16.4 mm
• Weighs 125 grams
• 3.2 megapixel digital camera with Carl Zeiss optics – back camera
• Back camera features dual LED flash and 8x digital zoom
• back camera can also video record at 640 x 480 and record in H.264 or MPEG4
• Front camera can video record at 176 x 144 and capture in H.263
• 13 day standby time
• 6 hour talk time
• 2.2 inch QVGA display (320 x 240) with 16.7 million colors
• Supports WCDMA max download of 384 kbps and upload of 128 kbps
• Supports GPRS up to 53.6 kbps and EGPRS up to 296 kbps
• TV out function
• Built in apps for Flickr, Adobe Photoshop, and PictBridge
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• Music player supporting MP3, MP4, AAC, eAAC+, and WMA
• microSD slot
• micro USB support
• Bluetooth support
• 2.5 mm A/V connector

You can find the fact sheet on the Nokia 6500 Slide here. The phone is expected out in Q3 of this year. The Nokia 6500 Slide has a website at http://www.nokia6500series.com/ (where you will also find the 6500 Classic phone)

Technorati Tags: Nokia 6500 Slide, Nokia

Nokia announced their latest high end mobile phone – the Nokia 8600 Luna. What makes the 8600 Luna particularly interesting is the bill of materials used to create the body. The body is made of stainless steel and features opaque smoked glass covering the keymat. From afar (since we don’t actually have it here), the Luna certainly looks stunning. This slider phone has the following features:

• Quad band GSM phone – 850/900/1800/1900
• Series 40 platform
• Measures 107 x 45 x 15.9 mm and weighs 143 grams
• 10 day standby time and 3 hour 40 minute talk time
• Main display has a 240 x 320 resolution with 16 million color support
• 2 megapixel digital camera
• QCIF video recording (176 x 144 resolution)
• High quality stainless steel metal covers
• Translucent smoked glass over keypad
• MicroUSB connector
• Pulsing light under keymat
• Integrated music player supporting MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+
• Bluetooth support
• 2.5 mm audio connector

You can find additional information about the new Nokia 8600 Luna here at www.nokia8600luna.com. The data sheet can be found here.

Technorati Tags: Nokia 8600 Luna, Mobile Phone, Nokia

If you’re looking for a combination Blu-ray/HD DVD drive for your computer, LG Electronics has the product for you. It’s called the LG GGW-H10NI Super Multi Blue BD Drive/HD DVD Reader. Given that LG was the first to release a combination Blu-ray/HD DVD home player, it’s not surprising to see them introduce a computer oriented drive as well.

The GGW-H10NI supports read/write capabilities to a Blu-ray disc while also supporting the ability to read and play HD DVDs. Sorry – the drive does not write to both formats – only to Blu-ray.

Here’s the list of key features:

• BD-RE/R read and write compatible
• HD DVD-ROM read compatible
• Up to 50GB of storage per disc for Blu-ray
• SATA interface
• Supports DVD+-R DL discs
• High speed media support
• 4MB buffer

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I’m going to back up a few days here and talk about the latest product announcement from Microsoft. The product is of course the Microsoft Surface and it’s billed as the first commercially available surface computer. So what exactly is Surface? In it’s current form, it’s basically a tabletop based computer with a new user interface completely driven by touch. There’s no keyboard or mouse here – one interacts with the system through “natural gestures, touch, and physical objects.” Think this is all a research project? Not at all folks – note that Microsoft stated it’s a “commercially available surface computer.” This means you’ll soon find Surface systems at places like hotels, restaurants, and public venues.

The Microsoft Surface utilizes a massive 30 inch touchscreen display on a form factor that resembles a table. There’s no Windows GUI here (thank god!) of course. Surface employs a new user interface that invites you to touch the display and interact with it in a variety of ways. According to Microsoft, there are four main attributes to Surface:

• Direct interaction – users can “grab” digital information with their hands, interacting with content by touch and gesture
• Multi-touch – Surface computing recognizes many points of contacts simultaneously – up to dozens of items at once
• Multi-user – several people can gather around the surface together and interact with the computer
• Object recognition – users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses including the transfer of digital content

What’s particularly cool about the Surface computer is it’s ability to be customized to the individual needs of the buyer. The Surface computer can be deployed in a hotel lobby or bar where users can interact with the system to get guest services, order drinks, look at points of interest around town etc. They’ll also be able to easily pay for their services by placing their credit card or hotel card on the Surface computer.

Surface could also be used at retail store fronts to provide product information whenever a product is placed on the display. Case in point, T-Mobile will use Surface to allow users to find out product info and pricing on phones placed on the surface.

As you can tell, the Surface computer isn’t about to show up in your local retail electronics store anytime soon. The computer is between $5000 to $10000 right now which means only high end businesses and the super rich will be able to obtain the computer. According to this article over at News.com, Gates would like to get the system price down to around $1000 dollars someday – making the Surface computer a more ubiquitous part of the digital home. Note – Gates does mention that he doesn’t plan to get a Surface computer for his home (read the article for why)

If you’d like to see the Surface in action, make sure to check out Microsoft’s webpages on the Surface computer here. There’s plenty of online videos demonstrating how the system works and what the possibilities are for surface computing.

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[Check out the press release]

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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage last night – together mind you – at the D5 conference, along with Wall Street Journal columnists Kara Swisher and Walk Mossberg. The four of them talked about the relationship between Jobs and Gates over the last several decades, the impact that each made to the computing industry, what lies ahead and all sorts of good stuff. You can see a summarized video clip here at the News.com article or you can find it on the D5 website here. It’s a great video clip actually with both Jobs and Gates adding compliments to one another as well as minor quips to one another. At the end of the talk, Jobs appears to even be a little broken up by this walk down memory lane. Good times folks.. Good times.

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Technorati Tags: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Apple CEO, Microsoft Chairman, D5 conference

Seriously, I love Taiwanese companies sometimes. Some of the names that they give to their products are simply hilarious. Case in point – a company called Onnto has announced a new hard disk drive RAID system called the O’TOSTORE Datawhale. Yes. the Datawhale. That name definitely got a chuckle out of me!!

Onnto’s O’TOSTORE Datawhale products are 2-Bay based RAID systems that use 3.5 inch SATA Hard Drives. With the Datawhale system, you’ll get simplified RAID management, flexible connectivity, hot swap support, and easy HDD access. There are three models which all offer advanced RAID storage management options, including RAID 0, 1, amd JBOD support.

The three O’TOSTORE Datawhale models break down to the RS-M2TS which provides an eSATA connector, the RS-M2UF which provides a USB 2.0 connector, and the RS-M2BF which provides a USB 2.0/IEEE 1394b connector.

The new Onnto O’TOSTORE Datawhale product line will be on display at Computex 2007.

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Technorati Tags: Onnto O\'TOSTORE Datawhale, RAID

On the eve of the introduction to the 160GB version of the Apple TV device, it seems only fitting that there would be an editorial piece that slams the Apple TV product. This one comes from Fortune’s editor-at-large, Brent Schlender, and it’s entitled “The trouble with Apple TV”.  Brent makes several good arguments as to why the Apple TV device is indeed a “dud” – even alluding to how Apple TV is so “Zune-like”. OUCH. While I pretty much agree with all of his main points, I can’t necessarily say it’s a dud quite yet. If anything, I look at the Apple TV as more of a “networked iPod” than anything else. Perhaps this isn’t exactly what Apple desired of the product but it’s what people have come to recognize the product as unfortunately. Apple TV excels in it’s ability to deliver music and in some ways photos to the living room. It’s television/video capabilities have yet to be fully utilized and in fact, the machine as a whole is still rather underdeveloped in many ways (and perhaps underpowered?). We’ll have to see whether Apple will continue developing the Apple TV device down the road.. but if the rumors about the possible demise of the Mac mini are true, then perhaps Apple TV is actually here to stay after all.

[Check it out - thanks to Erin]

Technorati Tags: Apple TV, Apple TV is a dud

DXG USA (honestly – this is the first time I’ve heard of them) has announced a new digital camera to hit the market called the DXG-711. The DXG-711 is a compact digital camera with a  7 megapixel resolution, and a large 2.5 inch high resolution LCD. Here’s the feature rundown:

• Less than 1 inch thick
• Digital voice recording functionality – record direct to MP3
• Integrated 32 MB of flash memory
• Supports Direct Printing
• 7 megapixel resolution
• Video recording at 640 x 480 at 30 fps
• USB connection
• SD slot
• 15 different scene modes including Sports, Fireworks, Best Shot, Blur Reduction, Face Chaser, Monochrome, Sepia, Vivid, and Night View
• 3X optical and 4X digital zoom
• 2.5 inch LTPS screen
• Built in flash
• ISO 400 sensor sensitivity

You can purchase the DXG-711 for a suggested retail price of $149.99. Again.. who are these guys??

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Technorati Tags: DXG USA, DXG-711, Digital Camera