Nintendo UK have officially announced the Wii Speak Channel, and confirmed that the online chat service won’t launch in Europe until December 5th. Using the Wii Speak microphone, which plugs into the Wii and will be released at the same time as the Channel, up to four separate users from anywhere in the world will be able to talk. Voice functionality will also be built into future Wii games, the first being Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City.
The first user videos of the Meccano Spykee WiFi robot are beginning to emerge, demonstrating the open-source ‘bot in action. Courtesy of Sven comes this first clip, a full demo of Spykee in its constituent parts, then assembled and terrorizing some children. He also shows the internet interface, through which you can control Spykee from anywhere with a network connection.
As image support on mapping apps becomes more common, photo GPS geotagging is becoming more popular. However the number of cameras supporting the functionality out-of-the-box is still small, and that assumes you’re in the market to upgrade anyway. Sellgino Telecom have an alternative, however; their GS-200 ‘GPS Photo Tour’ is a standalone GPS receiver and logger, that comes with software that will analyze your images and match them up with location data.
In a move to further the transition from standard home phones to that of phones with similar features as our cell phones VTech has created a new cordless home phone that is capable of signing onto and messaging people using the following services: MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, and AOL Instant Messenger. All you have to do with this phone to get these amazing extra features is connect the base station to your computer. I mean, it has a full QWERTY keypad and can also work with VoIP services, how much more amazing can a home phone get without adding a cellular chipset to it?
This platform is for setting up your VoIP network. It has the ability to be upgraded and works with all sorts of VoIP communications devices. It even has integrated desktop and network applications.
Just because it was intended for use on IP based phone networks doesn’t mean Panasonic was naïve enough to leave out the old fashioned analog telephone service as an option as well. Furthermore, it looks fairly easy to use whether you are connecting via IP or POTS.
Not content with announcing a new video conferencing system, Siemens have in fact unveiled a whole new protocol: called OpenScape Unified Communications Server, it integrates high-definition video, desktop video, voice and messaging into existing VoIP or PBX based systems, whether provided by Siemens or from another company. At CeBIT 2008 today, they presented three products based on OpenScape UC: the OpenScape Video range comprising three HD camera-toting devices and a PC soft client. Top of the range is the VHD 600, with an HD camera, CD-quality microphone and a codec that can bridge up to six parties on a single video conference call.
We did a story not to long ago about VIA’s NanoBook which looked unmistakable from this notebook. Except VIA’s model didn’t have a phone built in, it was more of a clock/alarm/thermometer type of thing, other than that and the name just above the keyboard, I can’t tell the difference.
We first saw magicJack all the way back in October, where we managed to kick off an argument about truth in advertising in the comments; now PC Magazine have got one of the adaptors in for review, to see whether YMax’s claims are true. To recap, the magicJack device is a matchbox-sized gizmo with a USB plug on one end (to go into your computer) and a standard RJ-11 phone jack on the other, into which you plug a standard landline phone. The big selling point is unlimited national calls for $20 a year.
This 2-button plus scroll wheel mouse has a couple of other functions as well, namely it has a built in speaker and microphone so you can use it for VoIP calls. The mouse is a low 800dpi optical mouse, but that should be sufficient for on the go as you probably wouldn’t be caught dead with one of these unless you were on the go.
SlashGear Japan
