Leaked photos are one thing, but we do enjoy a video of a pre-release device to really see how it fits in the hand. Having seen the BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (aka Striker) a little over a week ago, now comes a video of the compact smartphone in action courtesy of Salomondrin. No word on how he acquired the Pearl 9100, but he gives a decent overview of its form-factor and the changes from earlier handsets.
Video demo after the cut
There’s a growing call to deliver desktop experiences on mobile devices, and in general that’s a good thing. I don’t want to be limited to cut-down, plain-text “mobile” versions of websites when I have a large smartphone display and speedy 3G connection that could readily handle the full version, and the push for full-HTML browsers (and things like Flash support) has already trickled down from a must-have on smartphones to a common feature-phone element. What’s lagging behind, it seems, is an understanding of how mobile device use differs from desktop use, and nowhere is that more evident than in social networking integration. Several devices promise to bring your online social life to the screen that’s always with you, but the experience is patchy at best.
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Shipments of the Motorola MILESTONE began in Germany a few weeks ago, so it's a little surprising that we've waited this long for an unboxing video. jkkmobile picked up one of the Android 2.0 handsets - known as the Motorola DROID in the US - and promptly opened it up on video.
Video unboxing after the cut
Not being a Harry Potter fan the “wearabouts clock” has passed me by, but this DIY location-indicating replica is impressive enough even without the back story. The concept is that rather than display the time, the clock’s numerous hands show whereabouts each family member is, according to various locations (or situations, such as “mortal peril”) around the clock face. As for the magic inside, our old friend the Arduino and a hacked Linksys router monitor Twitter for location updates.
The first generation of the system attempts to recognize the first few words in the tweet – it monitors a different Twitter stream for each hand – and then shuffles the indicators around to the appropriate point. If the message can’t be interpreted that way, it points to “read me”.
Video demo after the cut
From one Congo ultraportable to another; MSI’s Wind12 U230 notebook only got official on Friday last week, but already the 12.1-incher has been spotted up for sale in a Taipei computer show. NetbookNews grabbed some hands-on time with a 1.6GHz Congo MV40 ultrathin, in this particular case the 500GB model.
Video demo after the cut
Devices like Yamaha’s Tenori-On or the monome are great, but their pricing is definitely out of the “casual treat” range and well into “serious investment”. Stepping into the fray to sate your button-led retro synth whimsy needs, therefore, comes the $49.99 Bliptronic 5000, a battery-powered 8-bit synth that makes pattern-based music creation indecently straightforward.
Video demo after the cut
It’s been a while since we looked at Stantum Japan’s multitouch touchscreen offerings, but the company has obviously been beavering away in the meantime. They’ve demonstrated their latest prototype – based on the guts of a Dell Mini 10 netbook – which uses a resistive touchscreen to recognize unlimited points of contact. While we may be used to that sort of thing from capacitive displays, what the resistive technology brings to the table is responsiveness not only to fingers but any type of contact, whether stylus, key or even a paintbrush.
Video demo after the cut
There’s no real new technical data in this latest video of Sony Ericsson’s unreleased XPERIA X10, but it does give us a chance to see the Android smartphone cavorting with HTC’s HD2, Samsung’s Omnia II and that perennial favorite, the iPhone 3GS. Size-wise, if you thought the HD2 was too big then you should probably cancel your XPERIA X10 preorder, as the two look pretty darn similar; in fact, as the video after the cut shows, the X10 is actually a little chubbier than HTC’s WinMo finest.
Video demo after the cut
Fancy a sneak preview of what Christmas morning might be like for various tweenage kids expecting a new WowWee robot this holiday season? RoboCommunity’s appropriately-named Rudolph has picked up the company’s second new ‘bot, the Joebot, and has shared an unboxing photoset together with some hands-on feedback.
Video demo after the cut
Still curious about the First ELSE smartphone and its nifty user-interface? Various videos of the handset in action have emerged, including a five minute UI demo from the ELSE’s launch in London this week. The handset is based on the Access Linux Platform 3.0, onto the open-source underpinnings of which designers Emblaze Mobile built the sPlay menu system, which is intended to be navigated via the right-hand thumb.
Rather than digging through numerous menus and pop-up boxes, sPlay aims to keep a consistent UI throughout the ELSE handset. We touched upon its more headline-grabbing functionality yesterday – the phone will record voice calls and store them along with records of when the call was made, and there are GPS-linked contextual reminders which flag up alerts whenever you’re near a preset position, for instance a shopping list while you’re near a supermarket – but Emblaze are planning an app store and building up to an SDK release for more functionality.
Video demos after the cut
SlashGear Japan
