Mobility is the definitive word for the new technological era. The UMPC is the ultimate solution for mobility. You can have a cool gadget with PC functions right in your pocket. Asus R2H is one of the lightest UMPC on the market. It weights 830g and its dimensions are 234mmx28mmx133mm. The R2H is an amazing device. A large 7″ LCD touchscreen is the gate to solve your businesses. It can display up to 1,024×600 pixels.

Asus R2H has an ergonomic interface design. The ultra mobile PC has complete function keys laid out on both sides of the front panel, including mouse, scroll buttons, hot keys as well as on-screen keypad, all at the finger tips. It features built-in webcam and fingerprint authentication for security reason. That way, only the entitled users can access the data stored in. The device runs Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Touch Pack software. The connectivity is the top priority of R2H. It has Bluetooth and WLAN 802.11 a/b/g. It also features a built-in GPS making R2H a real travel guide. If you plan to use the device for a lot of typing then you should use the USB keyboard that come in the package. For other operations stylus is recommended or just your finger tips. Asus R2H is powered by an Intel Ultra Low Voltage Celeron M processor running at 900MHz and onboard 256MB, DDRII 533 memory. It has one SoDimm socket for expansion up to 768MB DDRII 667 DRAM. The R2H comes with a 60GB hard drive. Need more storage? No problem. You can use the SD card slot for that. Asus’s R2H price is around $950. It’s not expensive, but not cheap either. If you ask me, I would say it is a good choice for mobility.

If you thought installing a LCD display in your car is a hard task you haven’t seen Sony’s XVM-F65WL wireless LCD display. This device needs only to be powered an requires no extra wires for video or audio input as it receives that trough a built-in wireless adapter.

For example you can connect this LCD to other Sony DVD players that have built-in WiFi and it will automatically play both the video and audio on that DVD. However the audio signal can also be received using a set of wireless headphones if you don’t want to disturb the person driving. If you are still not convinced that we are a dealing with a cool gadget here are some of the most important features:

6.5″ color LCD video screen
infrared wireless headphone transmitter (for up to two sets of headphones)
one set of wireless headphones and a wireless remote ships with the product
two audio/video inputs
audio/video output
built-in speakers

All in all a pretty cool device to complete the XPlod series in your car. However a huge setback is the price of $449.99 (not including the actual DVD player).

IXI Mobile has announced today the Ogo 2.0, the successor of their well known Ogo product. The new device is meant to bring the hype around the Web 2.0 to the handset world as it features a full QWERTY keyboard to enable faster communications and faster interfacing. Also the producer emphasized the multimedia experience by including a pretty large LCD display, a built-in speaker and a microSD expansion slot as a memory card can provide fast transfer and storage for all your pictures, videos and music.

The first device in Ogo2.0 category is the CT-25E which will first be available only in Switzerland with the following features:

Size [mm] - 118 (L) x 69.5 (W) x 20.2 (H)
Weight [g] - 150
Keyboard - 5 row QWERTY or QWERTZ
Navigation - 8-way navigation, menu selection wheel, application hard keys, talk/end & volume
Display - QVGA 320×240 TFT 64k colors
Sub display - 132×32 pixels, mono STN
Memory - 32MB RAM, 64MB Flash
Connectivity - Bluetooth 2.0, optional WiFi (802.11 B/G) on CT-25EW
Wireless - GPRS/Edge Quad band 850/900/1800/1900 class 10
Battery life - 4hr talk time, 160hr standby time
Removable memory - microSD
Connectors - Mini-USB (charging and synchronization), stereo 2.5mm headset connector
Operating system - IXI-Connect OS 2.0

Having communication as its main objective, the company added important features like IM (instant messaging) client support, email, web browsing, RSS feeds support and PDF, DOC, TXT, PPT office file support. The real innovation in this device is the OgoClip, which is a piece of hardware that can be added for increasing the functionality of the device (like a camera or any other gadget). We are really looking forward to see how this idea will work in the future IXI devices as we expect the Ogo2.0 family to enter other markets too.

Sonos have found a very nice solution for your home, a solution that wouldn’t require any more wires. It’s about wireless speakers. They became more and more popular even to those professionals with fine ears. It looks like Digital Plumbers of London which is a sound integration company for hi-fi systems is trying to take advantage of the Sonos technology to implement it in their speakers.

Each speaker will have inside the ZP80 wireless hub from Sonos and a digital amplifier created specially for Digital’s Plumber Free Speakers. These guys are professionals and a good thing is that they will not only sell you speakers, they have the system setup to rip your CDs collection into a NAS (network-attached storage) box with a lossless format.

So what you get you may think? You get the guys from Digital Plumber to install for you the two speakers, the Sonos touchscreen controller and the NAS for a price of about $6800 (£3,500). Worth it? Get back to us with the answer.

[via Cepro]

Samsung unveiled two WiMAX devices at 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. The new models are: the SPH-P9000 and SPH-M8100. The WiMax technology offers high-speed data service and wireless internet. For this reason, WiMAX is considered the first step to the 4G wireless broadband.

Samsung SPH-P9000 is more a like a UMPC than a mobile phone. You can see it in the picture above. The P9000 has a 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM memory, 30GB hard disk, WiMAX and CDMA EV-DO. The 1.3 megapixel camera can be used taking images or chatting. The full QWERTY keyboard is a plus for this mobile device. It runs Windows XP, so you will have a little PC in your pocket.

The next model, Samsung SPH-M8100 is the world’s first Mobile WiMAX PDA phone. The phone supports video conferences and television streaming via terrestrial-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB). This pocket pc phone runs Windows Mobile and has many multimedia capabilities: a 2.8″ touchscreen, two cameras and TV-out. Other features are Bluetooth with A2DP, built-in RSS reader, VoIP and push-to-all applications.

The SPH-P9000 and SPH-M8100 will be launched in South Korea in the first half of 2007. We don’t know nothing about the retail price, but you could expect some expensive services at least this year.

Immediately after the official announcement of the new Windows Mobile v6 operating system, a first batch of phones ready for the next mobile OS have also arrived and one of them is Hewlett-Packard’s iPAQ 500. Branded under the name Voice Messenger, the product is a new smartphone meant at customers from the business arena allowing numerous office oriented functions.
The quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE iPAQ 500 series will include Bluetooth v1.2, and WiFi 802.11 b/g wireless connectivity support. As a display HP used a 2.0” Micro-reflective 176×220 pixel color LCD screen which offers a decent resolution while working with Microsoft Office files and other productivity tools (e-mail client,calendar).

While presenting this product, HP emphasized the voice commands of the iPAQ 500 smartphone, commands that are designed to provide better functionality while working.

HP announced the iPAQ 500 will be available starting this very Spring for customers in the US, but the pricing and international availability have not yet been disclosed.

Genius plans for protecting the environment are turning into the SlimStar 820 Solargizer desktop kit. They’ve been awarded with CES Innovation 2007 Award. The SlimStar 820 Solargizer is a 2.4GHz wireless laser desktop combo that includes a solar keyboard and a mouse. Besides the solar energy, the keyboard uses AAA batteries or can be recharged via USB cable.

Genius SlimStar 820 has some pretty interesting features, as for example the 17 programmable hotkeys. The mouse features 4 buttons and a 4D scrolling wheel: left/right, up/down. It also has a 1600/800dpi resolution. You can get a nice desktop kit and protect the environment in the same time for $170. What do you say?

Universal remote controls are very useful. First you don’t need to keep so many remotes on your table and second you don’t have to buy many batteries. Kameleon One for All does all the job. Kameleon says it is the easiest remote control you’ll ever use. It has an Electro-luminescent touch display panel featuring dynamic screens and icons that illuminate one the keys for the device in use. Oh man, it looks very futuristic!

The Kameleon’s technology is quite impressive. For example when you pick up the Kameleon remote, the once dormant keys immediately awaken and are ready for action. The animated icons from the top of the remote tell you which device is ready to use. It’s very simple to find the right key, because the proper keys are illuminated when using a device. In addition, Kameleon One for All remote allows you intuitive access to more advanced functions for the same-size remote as the classical ones.

A special feature is the Home Theater Mode. It is used to combine multiple key functions, for controlling different devices, into one screen to control equipment integrated within the Home Theater environment simultaneously without the user needing to change specific device modes. The price for Kameleon 8-in-one remote is around $120, much cheaper than Logitech Harmony 1000.

No, I am not going to write on a Lord Of The Rings related subject, but on a new remote controller by Philips meant at replacing all your other ones and to provide there functionalities plus some little extra.

The first thing you notice about the RC9800i is the greater than average size of the device. Actually, it is more similar with a tablet PC than with regular remotes as it has a 3.5″ touchscreen LCD display, built-in speaker, 32 MB of memory, 5-way cursor WiFi 802.11 b/g and a USB connectivity. However, the size has no negative effect on the overall appearance of the device as the design is both stylish and functional as you can probably see in this picture.

But you probably won’t buy this product based only on its good looks and you are more interested in what it can do. Let me start by telling you that Philips made a device capable of controlling everything you own that has its own remote controller (only for IR-infrared- and wireless signals, not RF -radio frequency-). How does the RC9800i make this possible? You need to use the remote controller you want the RC9800i to emulate and you need to use all the functions you plan on using. Once a signal is detected from the old remote you can set it up in the universal remote and you have to repeat this action for every device you want to control.

In the end you will have a remote to control all your devices, that can also allow you to preview pictures or listen to the MP3 files on you PC thanks to the wireless connection at a cost of about $600.

We are all fans of wireless connections and it seems that if it’s free it’s better. True. I love drinking my cup of coffee while surfing for news in various locations in my town, but there are a few (which I don’t usually visit) that like charging for WiFi internet. Pay-per-use internet. Why you ask? I am asking the same question! There is however a new piece of hardware, the WiFi Liberator Toolkit that opens up “private wireless nodes to encourage the proliferation of free networks and connectivity across the planet.”

It is mainly used to retransmit the paid WiFi connection for free, to your friends. Like that you turn the locked node into a free node where everyone can connect for internet access. This new WiFi Liberator device is only available on Apple laptops (OSX 10.3 or later) right now but will soon be able on Microsoft Windows, too. Here’s a list of what you would need to unlock Pay-per-use Wireless Networks: an USB wireless network adapter and the WiFi Liberator software.
Depending on how well this new product will be marketed I am quite curious what will happen to all these new pay-per-use internet providers. Will they give in, and make our days easier?
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