All 4 Toys

Not that we haven’t seen compact-themed cellphones before, but we’d argue that the Imobile phoneV588 is about as suggestive as it gets. This dual-band GSM “handset” looks more like the next big thing from Cover Girl than your next mobile, with a circular form factor, pop-up lid, a built-in mirror and a design that would’ve totally worked in Princess Diaries. If you’re curious about hard specs, you’ll find a 2.6-inch LCD, an integrated MP3 / MP4 player, speakers and USB connectivity. Oh, and your guess is as good as ours on the whole “dialing / texting” aspect. Freshen up your social life for just $119.99.

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Guard your retinas, fashionistas — this one’s bound to burn. Data Ltd has just loosed its latest ultra-rugged tablet PC, and it’s quite clear that the gains in rigidity come at a severe cost to style. The DLI 8400 is actually rather diminutive for a tablet, weighing just three pounds and packing a 7-inch sunlight-viewable LCD. Other specs include a backlit QWERTY keypad, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, built-in WWAN, 2GB of RAM, twin hot-swappable batteries (good for nine hours of use) and a shock-mounted HDD or SSD. Naturally, the IP54-rated enclosure is home to Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom CPU, and there’s a plethora of ports for field workers with gobs of peripherals. The Q2-bound rig gets going at $1,795, and while there’s no telling what kind of beating this thing can survive, it’s obviously done well to walk away from that awful plummet from atop the ugly tree. [Warning: PDF read link]

Filed under: Tablet PCs

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While folks who residing in the UK will receive the HDC-SD10 and the HDC-TM10 from this June, Panasonic also introduced another world’s lightest Full HD camcorder in the Japan land, known as the Panasonic’s HDC-TM350. Features included a 3MOS image sensor totaling 9.15 Megapixel (3.05*3) resolution, 12x optical zoom, 30x digital zoom, 5.1 channel audio recording, a 2.7-inch LCD display, a SD/SDHC card slot, and has a built-in 64GB flash memory which promised can record up to 8-hours of high-def video quality. The HDC-TM350 will supports MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codecs, while audio are compressed using Dolby Digital 5.1ch codec. Price and release date still unknown.

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At last, we have the first partners in Google’s quest to make your personal power consumption visible on your home computer. As the thinking goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. So Google wants to give consumers near real-time visibility to their consumption and usage patterns via Google’s PowerMeter software and utility-supplied “smart meters.” The hope here, is that those aware of their energy consumption habits will change them to save money, and in turn, the planet. The initial list of partner utilities represent millions of homes spread across cities and country-sides in the US, Canada, and India:
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You had to know we’d see a flurry of iPhone rumors and news as the Apple community reacted to the Pre’s official price and launch date, and right on schedule, we’ve got whispers that Cupertino’s next handset will be announced at WWDC, feature an OLED display and a glowing Apple logo, and launch on July 17. There’s also a longer list of detailed specs, but for the most part they’re just a combination of that matte black casing leak from February and those Chinese specs from last week. So are they the real deal? Well, the source and the site they’re on seem a little shaky to us, but the specs themselves don’t seem too far-fetched — OLED screens are getting cheaper and more prevalent, and we’re almost certain to see bumps in camera resolution and storage, so even if they are totally made up, we’d venture to guess they’re more right than wrong. That’s just us, though — check out the full spec list after the break and tell us what you think.

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Theres little info about all this right now, but Bookeen will release its new pocket-sized e-book reader named Cybook Opus from next month. Just like other device on its class, the Cybook Opus can handle for Adobe ePub and PDF as well as other text files. Othe features include a 200dpi screen, 1GB of internal storage, 12 different font sizes and customizable layout, even will has equipped a motion sensor.

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Asus’ Eee PC T91 has gotten its first review ahead of the reported late May / early June UK launch, and those cats at TechRadar seem quite smitten with the swivel-proficient touchscreen netbook. Battery life is said to be solid, though points are deducted for not being replaceable. Some issues with the resistive touchscreen also plagued the pre-production model, and while the company assures those kinks are being worked out, we can’t help but worry they’ll invariably still find their way into the finished product, and that glossy display will no doubt keep the memories of fingerprints long after you want it to. Despite these concerns, the review gives much love for the overall performance, video playback, build quality, and keyboard. At £449 ($688), it ain’t the cheapest option on the market, but we do appreciate Asus straying a bit from its tried and true netbook formula. Now how about news on a stateside release, eh?
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Samsung is getting ready to release its TouchWiz UI-ready touchscreen phone under AnyCall brand, know as the Samsung B7300. Powered by Windows Mobile 6 OS, the B7300 will come with a 3.2-inch 320400 LCD touchscreen display, a 3.2 Megapixel camera, built-in GPS receiver, FM tuner, Bluetooth connectivity, and a sliding keypad. The Samsung B7300 is compatible with Quad-band GSM/EDGE network.

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Like subscription music services? You know, like Microsoft’s Zune Pass where you pay $14.99 monthly and keep up to 10 tracks each month forever. Sure, renting music at $180 per year can be a drag for those stuck in a Classic Rock phase, but for those who like to explore, what if we told you that Napster was about to cut that price to $60 per year and let you keep a handful of tracks forever on the side? Well, it’s true. Starting tonight, Napster will unleash its new $5 per month deal that gives subscribers unlimited, streaming access to Napster’s full library of music stuffed with 7 million tracks from major and independent publishers. To sweeten the deal, Best Buy’s music service will even let you keep up to five unrestricted “CD quality” MP3 tracks each month. Honestly, what’s keeping you? Wouldn’t you rather have this than a $5 Mocha Frappuccino? Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Napster relaunching, again: $5 per month streaming plus five free downloads

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