SlashGear Japan
We’ve all been there: you’re just about to leave the house and your great aunt Jessica calls to remind your uncle Horace (who has been living with you since the accident) that they’re going out for a joint haircut and Pimms morning at the church hall. There’s no paper to hand, no pen either, and your taxi driver already has the meter ticking. All you can do is attempt to chew open a minor vein and scrawl a basic message on the wall, hoping that you’ve enough time to call by the hospital for a quick suturing. Bloody inconvenient.
Step forward into the slightly milky light Philips, who have come up with a solution that will save all those annoying self-harm hospital bills as well as organise your home. The “In Touch” concept is a message board with a difference – it’s a huge LCD touchscreen. In the above scenario all you’d have to do is touch the blue light at the bottom right on the screen and record a quick video message, which would be saved in uncle Horace’s personal inbox. If Horace is afraid of moving images (they steal your soul, don’t you know) you can write directly onto the screen with a stylus and store that virtual Post-It instead. MMS and SMS compatible, “In Touch” will alert people when there’s a new message.
Sadly it’s just a concept at the moment, but if we all threaten to hold our breath until our faces go blue then Philips might just agree to manufacture it.
In Medieval times, forces laying siege to a city would catapult rotting horse carcasses over the city walls. Anybody splashed with this equine warfare would be pretty much guaranteed of dying. Well, Philips must be hoping its competitors will meet a similar fate when it drops its slinky LX1000 Media Centre PC, a £999 slice of compact loveliness based on the Korea-only 
The Nano is one of the sexiest DAP around, hands down. If I had to pick a runner up at gunpoint, I’d pick Philip’s GoGear SA9200. It’s every bit as appealing as the Nano. Aside from its stunning 9cm long, and weighs next to nothing at 48g; it’s packed with features to rival the Nano. The interface displays rich icons, and easy control via Sensory Touchpad SuperScroll for tapping, dragging or swiping a finger on the smooth surface for navigating through menus and to select titles. The buttons glow a soothing blue color that compliments the 1.7-inch color screen, that also display photos. The battery will last upwards of 14-hours of continuous playtime. There’s support for MP3, WMA, and compatible with PlaysForSure.
I’ve never really been all that impressed by Skype phones that connect via USB. My feeling is that, if VOIP is to properly take off with non-techie people, the proviso that “it’ll only work if your PC is turned on” just isn’t acceptable. So I’m pleased to see that the small group of ethernet phones – that plug directly into your router – has been joined by the Philips VOIP841.
