Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
Intel are launching a new portable reader device that is designed for those with vision or reading-related disabilities such as blindness or problems with vision in general. The Intel Reader can be used to capture text from printed material and once captured it converts it to a digital form for magnification or audio playback.
Inside the device has a camera along with an Intel Atom processor that allows relatively fast conversion of printed material to digital text or audio. [Read more…]
XDA Developers are full of good information today. We literally just wrote about Google Maps Navigation hacked on to the T-Mobile G1 and now we see a new HD2 has been taken apart to show what exactly is inside the casing of the giant screen phone.
As can be expected, the pictures of the innards show the usual bunch of chips on circuit boards along with the camera, screen connector, antenna and more. [Read more…]
Yesterday a challenge was set on the XDA Forums to see if any users could manage to get Google Maps Navigation to work on the T-Mobile G1. The thread was opened at 8:32pm last night with an answer to the problem being provided at 3:36am this morning with full instructions how to complete the hack.
Alright… i’ve yet to be able to identify the specific lines yet… but here you go.
I was able to get navigation using the 2 build props attached.
I used SU File Browser and adb to do this. You can do it all with adb but between the 2 i was able to do things faster.
Mount system as rw
delete build.prop and build.trout.prop
(or you may modify yours to match, and skip the next step)
push the new build.prop and build.trout.prop to /system/
delete /system/app/Maps.apk
delete /system/sd/app/com.google.android.maps.apk if present
delete /system/sd/dalvik-cache/data@[email protected]@classes. dex
REBOOT you have to reboot for the phone to re-read the build props
install the new maps.apk — i did adb installif you do not get Success then you missed something. update: after all is working.. you may put your old build props back
Last Friday saw the release of the Motorola DROID which is the first smartphone to run the Android 2.0 OS. Reports are showing that perhaps 100,000 phones were sold in the first weekend of it’s launch. Verizon at the weekend had 200,000 DROID handsets made available and most of the stores sold at least half the stock indicating that perhaps 100,000 were sold in total.
The information came from Mark McKechnie of Broadpoint AmTech Inc who has also indicated that Motorola expect to sell 1 million phones based on Android software this year and 10 million in 2010. [Read more…]
RIM and EA recently showed off what the BlackBerry will be capable of game wise in the near future. A video of Need for Speed can be seen below running on a BlackBerry and as you’ll see, the graphics look fantastic for a mobile device.
The graphics are down to BlackBerry supporting OpenGL ES that allows 3D gaming and graphics to be used on a BlackBerry device.
GL ES Support Enables 3D Games and Graphics for BlackBerry Smartphones
With OpenGL ES support, Java developers will have the ability to build 3D games and graphics for BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry OS 5.0 and higher. The OpenGL ES support is available through an update of the BlackBerry® Java® Software Development Kit (BlackBerry Java SDK). A beta version of the BlackBerry Java SDK 5.0 including OpenGL ES support is available at
Just yesterday ASUS launched the T91MT over in the US making it available to buy from Amazon.com. If you have your eye on the new Tablet netbook and are not sure how the multi-touch interface works then check out the video below.
The T91MT runs the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system that allows a number of multi-touch functions to work on the device. A look at the video shows that it runs quite smoothly although I’d prefer to see it actually running live than seeing a promotional video. [Read more…]
Just a few weeks ago we mentioned that Adobe had launched Photoshop for iPhone that allowed easy editing of photos on the iPhone. Adobe have now announced that Photoshop for Android is now available that allows you to also edit photos on your Android phone.
Adobe describe the Android version of photoshop as allowing you to drag your finger to crop, adjust colour, apply effects and perform a number of adjustments of your photo. [Read more…]
Nokia [NOK] have announced that the first batch of Nokia N900 handsets are now shopping. The N900 is a Maemo 5 device that has been spoken of quite a lot since first hearing about it. The phone will be priced at around 500 Euros SIM Free of course with contracts and subsidies lowering that cost significantly.
‘The Nokia N900 has generated a lot of interest since its public launch in August, which has been reflected in the device preorders. What’s exciting is the Maemo software, which takes its cues from the desktop computer and offers a full browsing experience like no other handset. We believe the Nokia N900 will be a very compelling device for people who are passionate about technology.
We’ve seen our fair share of weird and wonderful USB flash drives here at gadgetvenue. Today I came across perhaps the best ever…. The Stig USB Flash Drive.
The Stig flash drive has 8GB of storage capacity and connects to USB 2.0 that transfers data at a rate of 480Mbps.
The best description in the comments over at Play.com in the UK is that it’s called “the memory stig”. [Read more…]
Amazon in the US have started to ship the ASUS Eee PC T91MT tablet. The T91MT is a newer version of the standard T91 with MT referring to multi-touch. The netbook tablet runs Windows 7 Home Premium and has an acceptable 5 hour battery life.
Spec wise it has a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor along with 1GB of DDR2 RAM (with the ability to take up to 2GB). For storage you get a 32GB solid state drive along with 500GB of free online storage courtesy of ASUS. [Read more…]
Just a few weeks ago Apple [AAPL] launched a new range of iMac’s that have screen sizes of 21.5″ and 27″. A number of new configuration options were also announced which includes a new Core i5 and i7 quad-core Intel processor. Although lower spec models have already been shipping, we now hear that the quad-core versions have also started to ship.
Putting a more powerful processor in your new iMac isn’t cheap though. For the standard spec quad-core (Core i5) the cost is $1999 which of course can further increase if you decide to go for more than the standard 4GB of RAM. If you opt for the Core i7 then add another $200 to the base cost of the machine. [Read more…]
AT&T [T] have announced a new USB model that allows mobile broadband at speeds of up to 7.2Mbps. The timing of the announcement comes as they are rolling out the new 7.2Mbps service in various locations.
The USB Modem it’s self is just as interesting as any other USB modem although I guess if we were to pass comment on it we’d mention it looks like it has some sort of fancy swivelling USB connector to allow it easier access to awkward ports on a laptop. [Read more…]
