Android-Powered Samsung Moment Comes to Sprint

At CTIA in San Diego, Samsung and Sprint took the wraps off the Android-based Moment, a touchscreen handset with a full QWERTY keyboard. This is the second Android handset Samsung announced this week, following the Samsung Behold II on T-Mobile. The Moment will be available on November 1 and will cost $180 with a two-year contract. The Moment costs the same as the HTC Hero, Sprint's other Android offering.

The Moment has a 3.2-inch AMOLED display, a technology that is becoming more and more common on Samsung handsets. A few of the benefits of AMOLED include better battery life, thinner hardware, crisper colors and a wider viewing angle. The Samsung Impression, an AMOLED handset we saw a few months ago, demonstrated the high quality of AMOLED display. I expect the Moment's display to be of the same caliber.

The Moment has five hardware buttons lying below the screen: Talk, End, Home, Back and Menu. It noticeably does not have a dedicated Google Search button, which many Android handsets have, such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G. Like other Samsung phones, the Moment has an optical mouse. I'm not really a fan of the optical mouse; I found the Samsung Omnia's mouse jumpy and not the easiest to use. I'll save my opinion for the Moment's mouse when I get hands-on time with it.

Samsung said that the Moment's 800 Mhz processor will make Web browsing faster, provide smoother video playback and allow more multitasking. The Moment has a generous 32 GB of external memory, but no word just yet on how much internal memory it has.

The Moment has a 3.2-megapixel camera with a flash, autofocus and video camcorder. For comparison, the HTC Hero has a 5-megapixel camera. Other features include visual voicemail, turn-by-turn GPS, Wi-Fi, calendar sync, Exchange support, a 3.5-mm headphone jack, stereo Bluetooth. And, because it is an Android phone, you get a suite of Google apps like Gmail, YouTube, GTalk and more.

I'm interested to see how the Moment stacks up against other Android offerings, such as the Motorola Cliq (which has a similar form factor), the Samsung Behold II and the HTC Hero. Which Android phone is the most enticing to you? Check back for a hands-on review and further impressions of the Moment.

Read more...

Japan’s Robots Face Hard Times

1. Japan’s legions of robots, the world’s largest fleet of mechanized workers, are having a tough time finding work as the country suffers its deepest recession in more than a generation. Here, robots work on new vehicles at a Nissan plant in Japan.

2. Yaskawa Electric's industrial robots in Tokyo. Many robots are now being idled or returned as more manufacturers cut back on production, dealing a blow to the robotics industry.

3. The recession has also injected a dose of reality into Japan’s humanoid robotics projects. Here, a robot washes a cup during a demonstration at Tokyo University.

4. A chef robot. With citizens 65 or older approaching 25 percent of the population, Japan was also banking on robots to help take care of retirees and the elderly.

5. In Japanese pop culture, robots have long been portrayed as friendly helpers. Here, a robot by the Japanese robotics company Tmsuk.

6. The Roborior by Tmsuk. The watermelon-shape virtual house-sitter on wheels has a video camera and infrared sensors. It has struggled to find new users, and a rental program was scrapped in April because of lack of interest.

7. Sony pulled the plug on its robot dog, Aibo, in 2006, just seven years after its launch. Though initially popular, Aibo, with a price tag of over $2,000, never managed to break into the mass market.

8. The i-Sobot, a toy robot that can recognize spoken words, from Takara Tomy. The company has sold 47,000 of the bots since they went on sale in late 2007, but sales have faltered and the company has no plans to release further versions.

9. Toyota's violin-playing robot. Some say Japanese robotics projects tend to be concentrated on humanoids or futuristic to the point of being far-fetched, and can't be readily brought to market.

Read more...

Up to speed with Snow Leopard

Despite Snow Leopard's late start for Thailand, I have now been running it trouble-free for almost two weeks. Some applications needed updating.With every major update to OS X, some developers do not start upgrading until the release: there is always some catching up. Then, while Snow Leopard was still fresh, Apple announced new iPods and a new version of iTunes.

Page for sorting apps in iTunes 9.

Many users have been pleased with Snow Leopard, but are still on a process of discovery. Local retailers report that some customers had problems, but investigations suggest they missed two important steps: checking the disk and backing up data. Macs are not magic and do need maintenance as I have written here many times: this is particularly important before upgrading.

About two weeks after the release of Snow Leopard, Apple provided its first update - to 10.6.1 - covering a number of issues. The Downloads page at the Apple site also shows updated drivers for Brother, Canon and HP printers. As the "Gold Master" was fixed before the release of the most recent update to Flash, users should download the updated plugin for Safari.

Faster starts of applications are apparent, as well as better computer startup times, including waking from sleep. The time it takes for my MacBookPro to enter sleep has also been reduced, although not to the almost-instant times of newer machines.

This is considerably more than a cosmetic update and many new features are available. Most, however, are invisible to the ordinary user. They are aimed at increased system efficiency, better APIs for developers (the Application Programming Interface), including cache and memory management. For users, the new look Services is much more powerful than before. I will be looking at this soon.

Part of this system makeover is Grand Central Dispatch, a technology at the basic Unix level of the operating system which allows the operations of a program to be distributed throughout the OS and use all available cores in the processor. Apple released the Grand Central Dispatch technology last week to the Open Source community.

Snow Leopard is a 64-bit operating system and many programs Apple includes take advantage of this. The Finder, Mail and Safari, as well as most of the underlying system processes, are now 64-bit, including all Apple System Preferences. My installed third-party preferences are all 32-bit. To use these, System Preferences must be restarted (it then operates completely in 32-bit mode).

Some Apple applications are not 64-bit. Perhaps we can expect updates for these sooner or later. These include iWork (Keynote, Pages and Numbers) and iLife, as well as Aperture. Included in iLife are iPhoto, GarageBand, iMovie and iTunes (http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology).

At a media event on September 9, Steve Jobs, making his first public appearance for months, announced new iPods and an updated iTunes - version 9. I hope to be looking at some of these new iPods soon, especially the iPod nano with video, as they are already in the shops here (http://www.apple.com/itunes).

The new (but 32-bit) version of iTunes also has some iTunes Music Store services (which will not be available to Thai users). The iTunes interface, however, introduces a number of improvements that may benefit several users here.

I was pleased in July 2008 when the App Store became available in Thailand as it was one of the ideas I had pressed for in San Francisco the previous January. In January, I made a couple more suggestions, both related to my own user experiences.

The first concerned the large number of apps I have on the iPod touch and trying to organise these: drag one, and they all move. I suggested a feature in iTunes that would allow this to be done on the computer. Apple has gone one better and allowed moving of apps in iTunes, plus moving of pages - a page could be set up with related apps then moved further forward.

Another wish has been half-granted. I use podcasts frequently. I like to browse these in iTunes and subscribe with a single click. To do this, I need to change to an online store that shows podcast lists, like the US Store. A few podcasts have copyright restrictions, but these are controlled within the subscription process by the creator and not as part of the iTunes online store.

Within that podcast section is a valuable area, especially for those in teaching, called iTunesU, which contains input (text, sound, video) from scores of universities in the US, UK and other countries.

There is still no podcast section in the Thai App Store, but iTunesU is now directly accessible and I urge local users to take advantage of this.

An iTunesU tab also appears when the iPhone is connected. This page and others in iTunes have a similar style to the new page for organising apps and a user's downloads can be organised more easily.

One and a half wishes out of two? Great minds think alike.

Read more...

How Could IPhone MMS Crash AT&T's Network?

All the hand wringing over the Friday launch of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) on AT&T iPhones may be misplaced for a service that hasn't been a huge success on most other phones.

Apple let down iPhone watchers and owners when it announced in June that iPhone 3.0 software would support MMS but implied that AT&T would not yet allow it. The service launch was delayed several times, with exclusive carrier AT&T citing the need to make sure its network was ready. The feature will finally become generally available on AT&T iPhones on Friday when iTunes delivers a carrier settings update for the wildly popular phone. The carrier has said it expects "record volumes" of MMS traffic after the launch. MMS lets people send pictures, audio recordings, video clips or contact information along with an SMS (Short Message Service) message.

However, the service in question has been out for years on other handsets and hasn't exactly taken the mobile world by storm. In 2008, MMS made up just 2.5 percent of all messages sent from phones worldwide, meaning about 97.5 percent were SMS text messages, according to ABI Research. ABI expects the MMS share to grow to just 4.5 percent by 2014.

Given the amount of data that iPhone fans are already using on AT&T's network, for Web browsing, video, e-mail and social networking, it would take quite a popularity breakthrough for MMS to drag down the infrastructure through sheer traffic, analysts said. However, the carrier's fears in one respect may have been justified, said ABI analyst Dan Shey.

Several factors have dampened the popularity of MMS, according to analysts and industry observers. A big one is that the messages still don't always get through.

"Interoperability between carriers has always been an issue, and that's why MMS usage hasn't really taken off," Shey said. Delivering multimedia content from one phone and one network to another can be complicated with photos and gets even more involved when it comes to video, with large file sizes and multiple available formats, he said. What's attached in an MMS, 98 percent of the time, is just a picture, he said.

Another problem has been the complicated user interfaces on some phones and networks, which at times have forced senders to go through several steps to attach their content and recipients to go to a link within an SMS and provide a password along the way. The iPhone streamlines this process for iPhone users but not necessarily for the recipients of their messages.

The economics of MMS may not be attractive for either users or service providers. Even though each message uses a lot more network capacity than an SMS, which is limited to 160 characters of text, they typically count the same as an SMS against a bundled plan, Shey said. As a result, carriers haven't had an incentive to market the capability, he said.

And users of advanced phones now have alternatives to being charged for sharing content with their friends. For example, it's possible to post a photo to a Facebook page directly through Facebook's iPhone application.

Carriers will eventually figure out a way to monetize user sharing of content, but it probably won't be through MMS, said Mark Jacobstein, CEO of iSkoot, at the Mobilize conference earlier this month in San Francisco. Jacobstein is a serial entrepreneur in the mobile data world whose current company develops a variety of phone software. "The problem is not demand but implementation," he said.

The increase in MMS traffic from iPhone users isn't likely to put a much greater strain on AT&T's network, said In-Stat infrastructure analyst Allen Nogee. The carrier's current woes stem from having to deploy new base stations for 3G while selling a hugely popular handset that subscribers love to use for data, he said. Most customers won't just send one big MMS after another and overload the network, Nogee said.

However, AT&T may have had good reason to make sure its infrastructure was ready for MMS, ABI's Shey said. Even if the new feature doesn't swallow huge amounts of overall capacity, all those messages eventually need to be separated out and sent through an exchange point called an MMSC (MMS service center). AT&T's engineers may have set up that infrastructure for a smaller number of messages and then faced the prospect of MMS becoming possible on all iPhones.

If they learned anything from the experience of watching data traffic grow exponentially after the iPhone itself hit the market, they may have wanted to beef up the MMS portion of their system before the new feature hit all those phones, Shey said.

"All operators are just fanatic about ensuring that their network is not overutilized," Shey said. "I'm sure the network folks got involved and said, 'We'd better test this.'"

Read more...

Blackberry's Japanese debut on September 26th

NTT DoCoMo has announced they'll be releasing the "BlackBerry 8707h" to corporate customers on September 26th. The 8707h is a "Global Model" of the BlackBerry 8707, offering support for W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS, so it can be used outside of Japan as well. It seems to be some sort of adaptation of the 8707v available for Vodafone (whoops) in the UK. Specifications include a 320 x 240 color screen, Bluetooth, 64MB of memory.

Specs-wise, the 8707h does not support Japanese. However, the device does support Namimail, a Japanese reading/input solution offered by NTT DoCoMo USA. Namimail can be used on most modern Blackberry devices, even those on carriers in the USA, so this might be one of the first and only times in history that a handset in the states actually has the same capabilities of a handset in Japan.

Read more...

Evergreen mice with integrated USB hubs, microphones

Evergreen will be releasing two new low-cost mice on their "Shanghai Donya."

The first is the DN-UM2B, which features an integrated 2-port USB hub on the mouse's USB connector. Also, there's a cable winder. It's an optical mouse that uses USB 2.0, and it'll go for 999 yen.

The second is the DN-UM3K, which provides the same 2-port USB hub, but also adds an integrated microphone.

Read more...

Buffalo offers USB One-Seg TV tuner, recording supported

Similar to the Logitec USB One-Seg TV tuner we posted last week is the "Choi Tele (DH-ONE/U2)" from Buffalo.

It seems Buffalo's offering is a bit more meaty. It offers decoding for resolutions as high as 320 x 180, can handle iEPG, and includes a handy-dandy 3 meter extension cable. Best of all? It's cheaper -- Logitec's offering was slated for 14,000 yen, but Buffalo's offering is 12,075 yen.

The included viewing/recording software is called "PCastTV for One-Seg."

Read more...

Olympus to bring out cameras with wooden casings

There's some new threeeeeeeeeeeee-dimensional wood molding technology from Olympus that takes Japanese Cyprus wood and compresses it so it's harder than industrial plastic. Add a nice finish and you get wood that's moldable for manufacturing yet hard enough to be used as casing for standard consumer electronics. Obviously Olympus's immediate plans include using the new technology on their digital cameras.

Read more...

MusicMug blends music, mug

Not a whole lot to say about the MusicMug from Idea International that you can't guess from the pictures. Or the name, for that matter.

It's a ceramic mug with an integrated (passive) speaker on the bottom. Plug the cable into your iPod or other portable audio device, put it in the cup, and you've got a portable audio system fit for even the most spartan of living environments. As for why the mug doesn't have a handle, Idea International's Chief Designer, Masato Tokuno, stated in the below interview with ITmedia that he didn't want people mistaking the MusicMug for a coffee mug, pouring coffee all over their music player. Likewise, he didn't want people to have to worry about where to grab the MusicMug when transporting it. Retails for 3,990 yen.

Read more...

DoCoMo to release FOMA card with HSDPA support

Up first today is the "M2501 HIGH-SPEED," a Motorola-made FOMA card with support for DoCoMo's new HSDPA services. It'll go for somewhere close to 15,000 yen.

HSDPA offers a sustained download speed of about 3.6Mbps, but you might want to be careful as DoCoMo doesn't offer a fixed-rate data transfer package for PC access. That said, software included with the M2501 will allow you to make voice and video calls, so there's a nice amount of utility present. It should also be useful overseas, since it supports GSM as well -- you can use the data features in 83 different countries, and make voice calls in 145 countries.

Read more...

Panasonic "Words Gear" book reading device

The "Words Gear" is a new portable book reader/media player from Panasonic sporting a 5.6" display with a resolution of 1024 x 600. The "E Sensor" that sits next to the screen is a touch-sensitive control device shaped like the letter E, allowing you to control the device's functions with one finger.

The Words Gear can handle audio, video, still images, and electronic books stored on cards inserted in its SD card slot. It supports "SD-ePublish," which supports CPRM, for copyright protected content. The battery life is about 6 hours.

Slated to launch in tandem with the new device is a new company jointly established by Panasonic, Kadokawa Mobile, and Tokyo Broadcasting, dubbed the "Words Gear Corporation." The company will be handling the production and distribution of content for the device, primarily via saidoku.com, whose "image character" is none other than Kaori Manabe. Hubba hubba.

Read more...

Buffalo keyboard features integrated Skype receiver

Similar in nature to Sony's Mouse Talk, the BKBU-SKJ109/SV from Buffalo combines a standard PC peripheral with a Skype handset.

In addition to being your run-of-the-mill 109-key (+13 hotkeys) Japanese keyboard, the BKBU has an integrated receiver for taking Skype calls. The phone portion is Skype Certified, so it's "officially working with Skype" as far as we're concerned. Retails for 6,993 yen from early October.

Read more...

Sharp adds another viewing angle

Sharp and Sharp Laboratories of Europe announced their "Triple View" technology today, which builds upon their existing Dual View technology by adding a whole other viewing angle.

This development means that three people seated at different angles facing the same screen will each see a different image. Billy on your left sees a picture of a truck, you see a picture of a trout, and Bubba to your right sees a picture of a shotgun.

Sharp's own English press release offers more technical details. According to the Impress Watch article, a single LCD with a resolution of 533 x 480 dots is split into three different signals with a Parallax Barrier, giving each virtual "screen" a resolution of a mere 177 x 480. Not exactly earth shattering, but at least the technology now exists.

Read more...

SoftBank's 13 "launch" handsets

You wouldn't want a bunch of handsets out in the wild without your own company name on them, so SoftBank has announced 13 handsets to "launch" alongside the new brand.

Luckily SoftBank is continuing the tradition of putting out English press releases and information alongside Japanese press releases and information, so you can head over to the official page for more information. Just so we're clear, the handsets are:

• 910SH, a Sharp handset with 5MP camera and 2.4" display
  
• 910T, a Toshiba handset with 1GB of internal memory, Bluetooth, and music player
  
• 810SH, a Sharp handset with a VGA display and "elegant design"
  
• 811SH, a Sharp handset with a VGA display and 21mm thickness
  
• 810T, a Toshiba handset with "Advanced Simple Mode"
  
• 811T, a Toshiba handset with audio playback and GPS
  
• 705N, a NEC handset with 16mm thickness and "stylish design"
  
• 705NK, a Nokia handset with 3.2MP camera and bar design
  
• 705P, a Panasonic handset with a 14.8mm thickness and one-push button open
  
• 705SC, a Samsung handset with 12.9mm thickness and sliding mechanism
  
• 706SC, a Samsung handset with a 12.3mm thickness
  
• X01HT, a Windows Mobile smartphone known elsewhere in the world as the hTc Z, with HSDPA support
  
• C01SI, a CF connectivity card with HSDPA support.

Read more...

Zentek to introduce SDIO One-Seg tuner

Zentek Technology Japan has announced that they've developed a One-Seg tuner that conforms to the SDIO standard. SDIO is "SecureDigital Input/Output," which allows devices to use their SD card slots as though they were external device slots.

The new SD One-Seg tuner should be available in the first quarter of 2007, but only as an OEM device; thus we'll probably see it rebranded or offered by another company before it makes its way to consumers. The new device should bring One-Seg reception to devices with SD card slots and SDIO compatibility, such as PCs, PDAs, multimedia players, DVD players, car navigation systems, and even digital cameras.


JVC's "Slim HD-ILA Optical Engine" reduces rear-projection TV thickness by 40%

There's some new technology from JVC called "Slim HD-ILA Optical Engine" that allows rear-projection TVs to have a drastically reduced thickness, to the point that they can be mounted on a wall. The new engine has allowed JVC to reduce the thickness of its 56" rear-projection TV from 47cm to about 27cm.

The new technology is pretty heavy on technical details, but basically, the use of a concave mirror allows the light coming from the projector to be more focused than when using a convex mirror. This in turn means the projector can be closer to the mirror, allowing for a smaller body size.

Read more...