“Enough keyword searches, just answer my question!” is the plaintive cry of one James Fallows as he bemoans his experiences in the world of search engines while trying to get answers to relatively simple questions such as - “How has California’s standing among states in per-student school funds changed since the 1960’s?”. He goes on [...]

The Inquirer proclaimed today that the PDA is dead. We’ve heard that story before, and, as we reported here, Sony seems to have come to the same conclusion several months ago. The article goes on to predict that the PDA market will evolve into 3 different segments :

A business-oriented compact computing device [...]

The new iRiver U10 MP3 player has an unusual, button-less user interface. Music play is managed by pushing on the edges of the screen, which in turn pushes down on switches hidden under the QVGA LCD screen. ReignCom’s iRiver unit has high hopes for this new “direct click system” way of controlling devices. [...]

Today’s Palm Beach Post has an article on gadgets might prove helpful before, during and after hurricanes. The 15 gadgets that are noted in the piece can heat and cool food, as well as provide power, light and communications. Hmm … the info provided by the Palm Beach Post seems [...]

The Swiss Army Knife just keeps getting better. The 1GB version was announced back in March, and reviews are becoming available. Those reviews are very complimentary, so much so that we nearly feel compelled to go out & get one. With a read/write speed of 8/7 MB/sec, performance isn’t bad either. And [...]

“The 4th Screen” is a term invented by Dario Betti at Ovum, and refers to the delivery of video to a fourth platform … the cell phone. The other three ’screens’ being the old standbys : the movie screen, the TV and the personal computer. While the phrase doesn’t seem to be used much [...]

At CommunicAsia 2005, Samsung also introduced the SPH-M7000, which has a QWERTY keyboard hidden under its QVGA screen. The phone also provides PDA functions via Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, and game support via the Intel Marathon Graphic Accelerator and the joystick. A fully-featured phone, it also has Windows Media Player 10, supports [...]

Samsung has made a big splash at CommunicAsia 2005, that ICT trade show that runs in Singapore from Jun 14-17. Samsung did so by introducing 50, yes fifty, new phones, including a couple with QWERTY keyboards. One of those phones is the SGH-D550. Its a double-hinged phone that rotates to tuck the QWERTY [...]

The Monolith MX-3010 is a new small form factor MP3 player from Estarlab. Size and weight-wise, its very similar to the H10 Junior - at 38 x 77 x 17 mm and 50 grams - however, the battery life is only rated at 22 hours. Estarlab website

Nokia unveiled 7 new phones yesterday : the 6280 3G slider phone, the 6270 quadband slider, the 6111 camera slider, 6060 GSM clamshell, the 6265 a 2MP slider phone plus the 2255 clamshell handset and the 2125 candy bar. The 6280 has a 2-megapixel camera and a VGA camera and supports WCDMA 2100 [...]