Opinion - SlashGear

Posts Tagged ‘opinion’

Sony Ericsson patent application unveils sliding touchscreen phone

By James Allan Brady on Wednesday, Sep 26th 2007 No Comments

Personally, I don’t like it, based on looks alone. Say what you want about not judging a book by its cover, but I don’t like it. First of all it’s a reverse slider, that was a bad idea from the beginning.
sony ericsson touchscreen slider
The screen should always be on top in my opinion, especially when it’s a touch screen. Apparently they don’t think so, sure doing it this way decreases the chances of the screen getting broken in the pocket of its owner, but it doesn’t look near as good, or seem to offer as much instant functionality.

Continued »

Opinion : Why iPhone might not do well in Canada

By Michael Kwan on Tuesday, Sep 11th 2007 17 Comments

Even before the iPhone hit the marketplace, even before Steve Jobs confirmed its existence, the Internet was abuzz with the possibility of toying around with an Apple-branded cell phone. The fateful day came on June 29th of this year, treating Americans across the nation to a device that would marry their cell phone with their iPod. It’s a portable Internet device, a multimedia player, and a slick little puppy that has every fashionista clamoring for new cases and mods.

Opinion : Why iPhone might not do well in Canada

Continued »

Opinion – What Microsoft must do now to compete against Apple’s new iPods

By Michael Kwan on Friday, Sep 7th 2007 17 Comments

Realistically, Apple didn’t really need to do what it did on Wednesday to maintain its stronghold on the MP3 player market. After all, the iPod (in all of its variations) has something like a 75% market share. Other big names have attempted to challenge the iPod, but most simply could not compete against the marketing juggernaut headed by Steve Jobs.

Microsoft Zune2

Continued »

Going To College? Here’s A Lesson In Frugality

By James Allan Brady on Monday, Aug 13th 2007 7 Comments

So I, like several other people my age, am soon to return to college, and have to buy books for my classes. Last semester I took three courses and dropped close to $500 on books.

con manholdingstackofbooks

That type of bill for incoming freshmen or someone who isn’t expecting it, can be a real breath taker. So the guys over at The Consumerist were kind enough to come up with some ways you can save some money on books.

Continued »

T-Mobile UK leads race to secure iPhone exclusivity

By Chris Davies on Friday, May 11th 2007 2 Comments

Apple iPhone While Cingular is no doubt rubbing its hands together at the thought of all those Apple-hungry cellphone buyers waving cash at them and demanding to sign lengthy contracts come iPhone day (rumoured to be June 15th), over here in the UK there’s a fierce fight still being waged between networks to see who will capture the exclusive rights.

The British attitude to cellphones is an increasingly mature and demanding one; gone are the days when a so-called premium cellphone could command a premium price. Now it’s usual for even the most advanced handset to be given away free with a new contract, heavily subsidised by operators frightful of the market reaching saturation point.

Continued »

N95 VOIP crippling caught on camera; can carriers evolve?

By Chris Davies on Monday, Apr 16th 2007 1 Comment

In my round-up of Nokia N95 vox-pops I mentioned the depressing news that certain UK carriers had stripped out the handset’s VOIP support, obviously seeing that as a threat to their own stranglehold on voice calls. Well, if you needed any further evidence take a look at this video of an operator-modified N95:

Read on for more thoughts and a challenge…

Continued »

Standby myth debunked: modern conveniences are to blame for excessive energy quaffing

By Chris Davies on Thursday, Apr 12th 2007 4 Comments

Back in January I poured no small amount of scorn onto a product intended to save us all from standby-related power squandering. In the comments section for that post, an inventor called Karl Dorn pointed me to his own potential solution, a product which even appeared on UK TV show “Dragon’s Den” earlier this year and which garnered healthy investment from the capitalists there. Both addressed the casually-concerned’s latest eco-piñata: that leaving TVs, stereos, set-top boxes and computers on standby is a major cause of lost electricity. The Guardian’s Ron West decided to take this assertion direct to the plug, using a digital power meter to monitor exactly how much energy is taken up by not only gadgets on standby but common tasks around the home. The results are very interesting…

Continued »

Wire Photo Reprint Service illustrates breadth of internet creativity

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Apr 4th 2007 No Comments

It’s an old but nonetheless true adage that it doesn’t really matter how impressive the technology, what’s important is the way it’s used. Certainly a lesson learnt by many cellphone, computer and software companies, who have bolted every possible combination of high-tech frippery onto their latest-and-greatest, only to find that the damn thing is so complicated that you have to give away a free four-year PhD with it. If user stories are the grist to our tech mill, then, how about this one: it turns out that, rather than inspiring photos of religious ceremonies, jaw-dropping natural scenery or significant world events, one of the regular uses for Yahoo!’s Wire Photo Reprint Service is family producing hard-copies of images taken of their relatives serving in the armed forces overseas.

Continued »

More on Blyk: ad-supported cellphone service

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Mar 27th 2007 No Comments

Blyk logo Last year I linked toa MEX article on new European MVNO Blyk. Their attempt at a slice of the cellphone market pie was to offer free calls and text messages to the 16-24 demographic, in return for serving them up adverts. Blyk promised a dynamic range of promotional content based on continuous customer feedback; at the time, I wondered out loud whether there was any advertiser who could change their content in the two hours Blyk challenged.

Continued »

Beauty is no longer in the eye of the beholder

By Abby McVay on Monday, Mar 19th 2007 No Comments

I am a person who has a tendency to dislike conformity, not always, just some of it. One of the areas that annoys me is about physical beauty; I am one who refuses to conform to what a large portion of the public see as beautiful. I think a woman of any shape and size or age can be beautiful, she doesn’t need be a size 2 and be 25 years old. Two Australian scientists have invented a program that decides who is hot and who is not.
pinup gal-small Continued »