The A626 is a stylish new PDA unveiled by Asus on Friday. The small device is just 1.57 cm (approx. 0.6″) thick and it weights less than 158g (less than 6 oz.) so you might think it doesn’t pack a lot of features. On the contrary, inside the 11.7 x 7.08 x 1.57cm stainless steel packaging Asus included an Intel XScale processor clocked at 312Mhz, 128MB Flash ROM, 64MB SDRAM and a 3.5″ anti-glare touch screen.

Based on these hardware specifications the A626 PDA includes applications for both multimedia and office. Together with the Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, A626 includes a WiFi 802.11 b/g built-in adapter that makes work with internet extremely easy as customers will have access to email, browsing and many more functions. The operating system of choice for this PDA was Windows Mobile v5.0 and this enables audio and video playback (MP3, WMA, WMV, etc.).

Asus is reporting that the A626 PDA is only available in China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and that Thailand and USA will soon have it too. However we yet know nothing of plans for launching this device on other markets.

Archos have announced their new portable media player - 704 Wi-Fi. The PMP has a wide 7″ touchscreen display (800×480 pixel resolution) and it weights only 22 ounces. The wireless device is equipped with 802.11g Wi-Fi and 80 GB hard disk. Archos 704 Wi-Fi supports a wide range of audio and video files: MP3, WMA, AAC, AC3, WMV, AVI and MPEG4. For office applications, Archos has PDF reader and Opera browser. The retail price for Archos 704 Wi-Fi is $549.99. An optional feature is the DVR station dock to record TV shows thanks to the built-in TV tuner.

[Credits: Engadget]

Elecom has launched a new series of Prumie mice. This time we talk about wireless mice. The M-P2DUR model has a USB slot for the wireless USB dongle. The mouse supports 800 and 1,000dpi. An extra button - “+1 button” - gives the user the possibility to operate 31 different functions with the Elecom software. The device is powered by type 3 alkaline batteries. The mouse works in a 10m range. The mice are available in Japan for 5040 Yen, which means $43.

Founder of Wi-Fi TV, Alexa Kanakaris, is the guy that believes in this new idea of bringing wireless TV directly to your vehicle. They are an internet based TV company with hundreds of channels, and are now trying to expand by seeing possibilities for vehicles and cell phone users, that would be able to watch friends’ movies, video clips or the local TV station.

The idea is not really bad since they invented DVD players in the back seat of your car, but honestly think of what the price will be for this technology to install it. Would it be for all of us? Not even close. I am also thinking about who’s going to use it, because if you don’t spend a lot of time in your car, traveling a lot this is not going to be a good investment since listening to music, chit-chatting or watching the land out the window is usually enough to spend your time. And if you buy this new system for your kids, make sure Wi-Fi TV have some cartoons programs for them in the back.

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I really like smartphones because they often try to mimic the performances of today’s computers for portable devices. However a more interesting fact is that some of them manage to do that… at least to some extent. It is my opinion that the S710 is one of those devices and I will try to convince you of this fact in the following paragraphs.

When searching for any device, the first thing you look is the design, and the small (101.5 x 50 x 18.6 mm ) S710 will certainly impress you. Even if the device has a full QWERTY keyboard, that is not visible at first because it only slides out when needed. The only disadvantage to the design is in my opinion the regular number keypad that simply takes out space which could have been filled with a larger display. I also think HTC should consider using the dual slide out keyboardsfor their upcoming products as competitors already begun including this in their new smartphones. However, even with the normal keypad, I find the 2.4” LCD display sufficient for most tasks although I would have preferred a slightly larger one.

Moving out to the hardware features I must confess I really like what this device packs. First of all we have a TI’s 201 MHz processor accompanied by 128 MB of RAM and 64 MB of SDRAM that provide the computing power of the S710. A 2 MP camera, a microphone and a 3-in-1 speaker were also added to the list of mutimedia features. For receiving a boost in storage capacity HTC included a microSD slot to accommodate appropriate memory cards as customers may want to take your pictures, music or any other files on the mobile phone. As for the mobile phone part rest assured this phone will function almost anywhere as it is compatible with the GSM/GPRS/EDGE Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) mobile telephony networks.

As for the software, the HTC is a Windows Mobile v6 phone and it has all the features of that OS (operating system). It includes both multimedia features like playback for the most common audio formats (AMR/AAC/WAV/WMA/MP3) and office tools like email, browsing and calendar functions. All in all I must say a very useful and cool device suited for both work and entertainment.

There is a draft from IEEE about the 802.16.m standard which promises to deliver in one or two years, wireless speeds of up to 1GB. The 802.16m 1GB speed is based on the MIMO technology (multiple-input / multiple-output) which is already used on certain 802.11g/n routers. For example the 54Mbps routers are capable o theoretical speeds of 108Mbps by using MIMO.

IEEE 802.16m will not be a part of the WiMAX standard but the Committee assures us of compatibilities between these two standards. It will also be 4G compatible with the future wireless networks offering much higher speeds. These things will only happen in a couple of years from now on, when the CDMA2000 or the current WCDMA will be long history being replaced by OFDMA.

Current 802.16m specifications include:

• Very low rate Data: = 16 kbps
• Low rate Data & Low Multimedia: = 144 kbps
• Medium multimedia: = 2 Mbps
• High multimedia: = 30 Mbps
• Super high multimedia: 30 Mbps ~ 100 Mbps / 1 Gbps

However there is a small thing that should be taken into consideration. The IEEE Committee announces that the military will help into developing the new IEEE 802.16m standard for higher transfer speeds on mobile devices, so this means it may not be released right away on the market but will be first tested by the military. Nice one!
[via DailtyTech]

AnyDATA Corporation has great things to be proud of, because they have launched the smallest and also the fastest USB modem for HSDPA Wireless broadband access, ADU-610, that will bring up to 7.2 Mbps on your notebook, home computer or PDA. The modem seems great. It comes with PC support, even with Vista drivers, has it’s own battery, two indicating leds and the dimensions are 35 x 93 x 10 mm.

The internal antenna of ADU-610 is designed for high-speed connections worldwide on every carrier with HSDPA or UMTS. However if the network doesn’t support 3G and is a 2.5G network the modem will go up to 384 kbps. The modem works all over the world on 2.1GHz frequencies, 1800 and 900 MHz GSM networks and is already used by carriers in Korea. Read more on AnyDATA.

In the last year Apple has developed the next generation wireless technology 802.11n. The new wireless technology delivers greater performance, more range, and improved reliability. In comparison with older wireless standards like 802.11g or 802.11b, the Apple’s 802.11n adds a technology called multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), a signal processing and smart antenna technique for transmitting multiple data streams through multiple antennas. The result is up to five times transfer speeds and up to twice the range compared to the earlier 802.11g standard.

The new AirPort Extreme Base Station is using the 802.11n wireless standard. The AirPort Extreme Base Station is compatible with older standards 802.11a/b/g and it has built-in firewall and three Ethernet ports. The device is priced at $179.