We all take the little vocoder in our mobile phones for granted. We just talk in one end, and listen through the other, thinking nothing of it. But, it’s essential technology for all wireless communications. The vocoder (voice encoder) processes your voice and digitizes it for transmission. The problem is that vocoder quality (and so…
Will: HTC Making More Moves, Phraze-It, And Nokia N95 PRON
Hey Dusan, you’re right, nothing’s worth a kidney. I guess it’s only worth a pinky or ear lobe – I can do without those. And, I like features (who doesn’t), but having more options and flexibility is better. Cough…WinMo…cough. Cough…craploads of software development…cough. The not-so-little-anymore smartphone manufacturer from Taiwan is making moves all over the…
Nokia Open Wins 4G Concept Phone Contest
Nokia’s Open Concept Phone is the product of a design competition held by Nokia for a new 4G concept phone. The Open Concept phone features a swing-arm that opens a touchscreen LCD. The screen kinda unrolls out of the arm and ‘opens’ up a lot touchable real estate and then closes into a barely-there diminutive…
Motorola Goes Retro With New StarTac Model – StarTac III MS900
No, it’s not that decade old flip-phone. Motorola is reliving the good ole’ days with a modern take on the StarTac. Motorola’s previous StarTac was one of the hottest phones back in its day, we remember Magic Johnson carrying on his hip when coaching games (wow, that really was a long time ago). We already…
N95 Destroyed! – Guts Lay Bare
Apparently, some stinkin’ rich bad-ass in put the hurt on his brand spankin’ new (and likewise expensive) Nokia N95 “smartphone.” It seems that in his post-relationship-breakup rage he was on edge (can you really blame the guy?). The Nokia N95’s failure to locate him with GPS and the constantly disconnecting GPRS connection pushed him over…
Leaked Photo Of The “Zante” – Sidekick X?
The best leaks are always unintentional, if sometimes unreliable. The latest such leak comes to us in embedded EXIF image data from a photo on Flickr. The EXIF info suggests that the pic may have been snapped with a “Danger Zante.” Now, this mention of a Danger Zante, may be referring to the Zante codename…
LG Issues Cease-And-Desist To Hong Kong Shops For Carrying LG SHINE Clone
Sam Chan, over at gearfuse, reports that LG has taken pre-emptive action against rip-offs of its uber-stylin’ LG SHINE phones. “Replicas” can hurt sales of popular phones, even before they start shipping. So LG made the move to squash the possibility of any “replica” gaining enough popularity to cut into LG SHINE revenues – by…
How Do You Design An Awesome Phone?
Well, we can’t go into exactly how to design a great phone, but hipstop over at Core77 found this great 5-minute documentary on the design of cell phones. The video features an interview with an industrial engineer, mechanical engineer, and “human factors” (whatever that means) expert from Motorola.
Divx Officially Gives Samsung F500 Certified Status
In another “world’s first” claim from the Korean electronics manufacturer, Samsung’s F500 phone, dubbed the “Ultra Video,” is being touted as the “world’s first” Divx phone. That’s great and all, but the claim just doesn’t have the same bite without a certified backing from Divx themselves – you can already play Divx movies on a…
Prevalent Phraze-It – Effortless On-Screen Typing For Pocket PC’s
Bulk adding keyboards on smartphones are a thing of the past! Well, at least if Prevalent’s Phraze-It Keyboard 2.0 works as well as they claim. Prevalent’s mission to save your fingers from “repetitive thumb stress from their thumb boards with tiny keys” is spearheaded by the “2.0” version of their Phraze-It on-screen keyboard. With only…