The Truphone currenly only lets you ring other Truphone and Google talk users via a WiFi network. (So slightly more limited than an iPohne as you need ana vailable connection)  This is all via VOIP so once you have converted you iPod touch to an iPhone you will be able to make 100% free calls to other users.

Truphoen have also announced that the app they have created to allow calls from an iPod Touch will soon be able to make calls to landlines and mobiles, current pricing structures are currently in creation.

Personally I think this is great news for iPod Touch users who wanted a bit more flexibility with their device.  The Truphone iPod touch to iPhone conversion software is available to download on the Apple iStore! for Free!

First lets cover the basics, this phone is similair to many stand alone personal internet devices, but this device contains both a sliding screen and a full QUERTY keyboard.

This phone, while having the telecommunications functionality also has a GPS function which is used by the device not only for route finding but also to automatically update all your social website accounts with your location and to tag images you take with were they were taken!

The home page itself has links to several social networking sites, but it is fully customizable for anyone who would like different websites at the click of a finger.

Under the hood of this beautiful device we have more surprises than you could shake a rabid chincilla at.  For starters the device has 32GB of storage BUILT IN! with flash upgrade capacity of an extra 16GB.  It has a media player built in, and WiFi for at home browsing and file transfers.  On top of this it is fully 3G compatable for ont eh move browsing and downloading.

The camera on this device is a top notch 5 megapixel godsend which is surprisingly good in low light and normal situations. It has the good ol’ Carl Zeiss lens so you are guaranteed a high quality shot!

While this phone has broken the trend of touch screen, better for texting but worse for web browsing, I do predict it will be a massive success on it’s release in Europe in the beginning of 2009.  For 550 euros though the N97 is a little pricy for many people!

The MP3 player itself has a standard but adequate 16gb hard drive and 1.6 inch lcd screen.  When teh sun isn’t out it has a USB power adapter to refill the old power cells!

Many users may find it’s control system unintuitive though, especially in the face of products such as the iPhone!

While it is interesting to see Sky pick up this service it may be too little too late, with only one major record label supporting it many users may be upset that they cannot find all the songs they want!

On the plus side thought the tracks sony release wil be 100% DRM fre, meaning you can swap and change the MP3s between your devices without any worries of incompatability.

There is no news as of yet as to how much this will cost, how many songs you will get or even if they will be downloadable straight onto your set top box, watch this space for more information!

Fans of the Apple iPhone went frantic this weekend as pictures were released showing the Apple iPhone 3G in all its slim lined Glory.

While specs have still not been confirmed for the Apple iPhone 3G they are set to be impressive. One of the major drawbacks of the original iPhone was its slow download speed from the iTunes service, this looks set to be fixed with the broadband speed downloading offered by 3G. the Apple iPhone has been a fantastic product and has excelled in bot the US and European markets. Seeing a new, sleeker faster version of the IPhone 3G is something we are all looking forward to! It is however expected that the new Apple iPhone will be fully WiFi Compatable

Of course as with many early release photos there is a high chance that these may be fake, several people have noticed that the lock button is missing on the red phone. THere is however some Contention over this though as it would be expected that the ‘red’ version would be released later, as part of the anti – AIDS campaign.

Icetech, a leading Energy Technology Specialist have released the Solar i9005, a reliable hard wearing Portable Solar Charger. The Solar i9005 is not quite as portable as many would like, but measuring in at less than 6 inces long and around 3 inches wide you do not see many people complaining.

The charger comes with a massive array of attachments, not to mention USB charging capability. This means it is possible to charge anything that requires upto 9v of power, so its got your phone, MP3 Player, iPod or even many portable DVD players covered.

While most people wouldn’t use this it costs as little as $70, making it a great utensil for anyone on the move. I know when I am doing a two week road trip around Europe this year, one of these babies will be on the car dashboard all the way!

The sunglasses also allow you to enjoy your music via MP3 playback. Built-in earbuds provide super convenient listen capability and can be hooked out of the way when not in use.

$99.99 at ThinkGeek

The Haier Elegance measuring 9.1 x 3.5 x 1.8cm (3.6 inches long) has been declared as the world’s smallest music phone, the phone also packs in MP3 player (128MB, expandable by 1GB via Micro SD), FM tuner, Stereo Bluetooth, OLED display and Tri-Band GSM. You get three hours of talktime, but a pretty decent 11 hours MP3 playback.

It’s a little bit on the expensive side of the scale with a price tag of $330

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Vixy allows you convert a Flash Video / FLV file (YouTube’s videos,etc) to MPEG4 (AVI/MOV/MP4/MP3/3GP) file online. It is using a compressed domain transcoder technology (outline in Japanese). It converts FLV to MPEG4 faster and less lossy than a typical transcoder.

Try Vixy

One thing that immediately comes to mind is that it resembles a mobile phone but in fact it’s just an MP3 player.If it was a phone it would have been a good rival to Apple’s iPhone with it’s sexy looks.

This lightweight MP3 Player has a heavy portfolio including an innovative touch screen, FM radio receiver, and built-in speakers. The K5 enables you to share your music experience with others. A mini boom box, this revolutionary MP3 player defies engineering forces of nature by squeezing a high-end music player complete with a slide-out speaker into a slim compact form.

Gizmodo and CNET has done in depth reviews of this products (with video) so check out the links:

Gizmodo

CNET

What is Any Video Converter ?

It’s a free software that enables you to convert almost all video formats including DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, AVI to MPEG-4 movie format for iPod/PSP or other portable video device, MP4 player or smart phone and It also supports any user defined video file formats as the output.

more

Who need more?..i want to Download

A rather intresting news concerning Apple’s forray into the phone market with it’s iPhone is that the company plans to sell the phone ‘unlocked’ which simply means that you are required to insert a GSM subscriber identity (SIM) card, the good thing about this move is that it now opens up most of the world as the target market instead of just the US.

If Apple decided to be tied down by the likes of Cingular or T-Mobile than there will not be marketing for the iPhone abroad, Apple could potentialy stand to make alot of money if they decided to go with Cingular or T-Mobile but they have decided to leave it ‘unlocked’.

On another note the iPhones are expected to be released within the first six months of next year as Apple has assigned the task of completing 12 million units of the iPhones to Taipei based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.

This is cool news indeed, i’m looking foward to owning an iPhone sometime in the future

More on Bloomberg

Priced at around $250 to compete with Apple’s 30 gig iPod, Microsoft will launch a digital download store à la iTunes, where Zune owners can buy songs for about $1 each and albums at prices comparable to iTunes’.

JONATHAN SILVERSTEIN of ABC writes:

With Apple in firm control of more than 70 percent of the digital media player market, Microsoft has its work cut out for it, even though close to 70 percent of Americans don’t even own a player yet.

David Pogue at New York Times writes:

“Competition is good and all. But what, exactly, is the point of the Zune? It seems like an awful lot of duplication — in a bigger, heavier form with fewer features — just to indulge Microsoft’s “we want some o’ that” envy.

While Walter S. Mossberg over at Wall Street Journal writes:

Overall, the iPod and iTunes are still the champs. Still, I expect the Zune to attract some converts and to get better with time. And this kind of competition from a big company with deep pockets and lots of talent is good for consumers in the long run.”

Full Rerviews:

ABC News

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

“There’s a certain amount of trouble that Apple can give us, but not enough to stop this,” Monique Farantzos, managing director at DoubleTwist told Associated Press.

“We believe we’re on good legal ground, and our attorneys have given us the green light on this.”

Source and More: BBC

Have fun finding and downloading music with Google at g2p

g2p is a product of i-hacked

Yes, you read that right it is indeed OSIM that has launched an MP3 player, but what would an MP3 player be without a massage feature!, especially since OSIM are the ones who built it.

The OSIM iGoGo is a standard MP3 player with two remote massagers that can be applied to your body (thanks to the included gel pads).the iGoGo can give you one of the seven different kinds of preprogrammed massage, synchronized to your music. The pads are wireless, communicating with the player via RF technology, so no worries about getting tangled in some very unrelaxing wires.

The price for this nifty product is a cool $500

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The Napster MP3 player is a 512MB version of the SanDisk Sansa m230 portable music player, which in addition to providing space for 512MB of WMA or MP3 files has an FM tuner, built-in microphone for voice recording and a backlit LCD display.

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Samsung plans to complement their store with their renage of MP3 players much like what Apple does with iTunes.

Samsung has tapped MusicNet to provide the library of songs for the store, which will likely offer both a monthly subscription and individual downloads. MusicNet currently powers Yahoo! Music Unlimited and MTV Networks’ URGE, which was developed with Microsoft and will be the primary service in Windows Media Player 11.

Do we really need another music store? what are they gonna offer that others haven’t?
Quiet a dumb idea if you ask me.

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The record won’t last for long though, that’s a definite thing in the ever changing tech world.

The e280 holds up to 10GB of music with optional 2GB microSD Card.

In conjunction with the rollout of the e280 and in preparation for the holiday season, SanDisk has lowered its prices on the entire Sansa e200 line of products, including the existing 2, 4 and 6GB models.

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Are you a millionaire who loves digital music? than the TrekStor i.Beat organix Gold MP3 Player is just the player for you.

Here are some technical details of the player, some (those non-millionaire type) will say that the iPod is way better in looks and economy, but hey your a millionaire don’t listen to those folks…here’s some juice:

# Large, 1 GB memory holds loads of tunes (MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, and OGG formats)
# Two-color OLED screen displays ID3 tags, FM radio station info, and equalizer visualization
# Designed with two headphone jacks for sharing music with a friend
# Measures 2.95 x 1.26 x 0.63 inches (WxHxD)

What makes the Gold the most expensive MP3 player in the world? Gold, of course. Oh yes, and diamonds. The casing of the organix Gold is cast in 750 gold (18 karat) and it is adorned with 63 diamonds (one-karat). No MP3 player is complete without being wearable, so TrekStor embellished this player with a small chain that includes beautiful aquamarine gems. Jewelers Wenthe in Mannheim, Germany put over 100 hours of painstaking handiwork into this exquisite gadget.

Buy Now!

Sony will launched Mylo (My Life Online) next month, the Mylo is a personal communicator and we’re bound to see similar products poping up in the marketplace very soon.

With the Mylo you can now chat with your pals with Yahoo! Messenger®, Google Talk® or Skype®, check and send e-mails and even browse the net with an Opera browser via Wi-Fi.
It will also have a media player, a 2.4″ LCD display allowing to view videos on the move and comes with a flash based memory of 1GB which can be expanded with Sony’s Memory Stick Pro Duo cards.

More…

The player can support files like JPEG,MP3, AVI, MPEG 1 & 2, WMV, and ASF video files and comes in capacities of 1GB and 2GB.

The K-PEX 100 measures 3.7″ x 1.8″ x 0.57″ (9.4 cm x 4.5 cm x 1.4 cm and weighs 0.14 lbs. (65 g).

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This gadget will have more appeal to the older generation…or maybe this would be a perfect gift for your dad!

Introducing the USB Turntable.

The USB Turntable can be used for two things, First it can convert all those LP’s of your that have been lying around into the popular digital format -MP3 via USB, simply plug this chic little turntable into the nearest USB port, fire up the idiot-proof Audacity software and start converting your collection.

Secondly:

featuring adjustable gain, anti-skating control and high-speed vinyl recording function, the belt-driven USB Turntable can also be connected to any home stereo with CD or auxiliary inputs. This means you can spin your records through your regular system when you’re not converting them.

This gadget will suck £119.95 off your wallet/card.

For the full review and purchase options – click here

Kuro Dock claims it has the record for producing the smallest and most compact iPod dock available for your iPod nano, measuring just 48 x 54 x 16mm and weighing 72 grams.

The Kuro Dock connects to your PC via USB 2.0, It also features a stereo line out port so you can connect the Kuro Dock to your home stereo.

The Kuro Dock is available for £31.99 at iPodWorld

It was on the cards for some time now. Microsoft’s ‘iPod Killer’ as the rumors were has now become official and is called Zune.

This is what Microsoft had to say about Zune:

“Today we confirmed a new music and entertainment project called Zune. Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year. We see a great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together.”

So..expect to hear alot of “Zune” this and “Zune” that in the next couple of months.

Source

The second generation of iPod Nano is set for release next month (August) and is set to unveiled by Steve Jobs at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Nothing much is expected to change except that the new 2nd generation Nano will have larger capacity hard drives (probably 6GB and/or 8GB). They’ll also be available in a wide range of colours, including some that feature a full metal enclosure.

Separate rumblings suggest that Apple has procured a large number of 40GB and 80GB 1.8-inch hard drives for use in an updated 5G iPod. While it’s not known when an exact announcement regarding the higher capacity iPods might take place, the new models are not expected at WWDC.

Source: ThinkSecret

ZuneLive.com follows in the vein of previous Microsoft domain – Live.com.

Looks like Microsoft’s stance is to add the word “live” in their products as Apple adds “i” to it’s range of products eg. “iPod”.

Some technical people decided to do a whois on the domain and found that the owner of ZuneLive.com was a certain man named Jack Spurr from Nova Scotia,that prompted many to disregard it from Microsoft because they never did register a domain under a person’s name instead they would always register a domain name under the Microsoft Inc banner.

But ZuneNation did a little research and found out that at least two other previous Microsoft domains were under the name Jack Spurr (Live.com and MicrosoftGadgets.com).

Full Article

The Diamond Crypto Smartphone

Peter Aloisson has done it again,this time around he was roped in by Moscow-based JSC Ancort Company and help them design the world’s most expensive mobile phone,The Diamond Crypto Smartphone – costing a cool $1.3m.

The phone has sections of rose gold as well as 50 diamonds embedded into the cover, including 10 blue diamonds.

This baby also uses powerful encryption technology to provide added security to it’s user..great for Paris Hilton i suppose .

JSC Ancort said the phone offers SMS, MMS, E-mail, Internet, WAP, JAVA support and a media player.

Built on the Windows CE operating system, the phone also features a high-resolution colour TFT display and enough storage capacity for about 4,000 numbers.

Source

There’s a bit of buzz on the net right now about Apple’s next move regarding their popular music player – the iPod.

According to rumors,the next step for Apple is to produce an iPod that talks!

According to the patent filing, Apple is billing the technology as a safety feature that will eliminate the need for eye-to-iPod contact in settings, such as driving a car or walking across a street, that require full attention.

Now..that would definitely set them above the rest,as the MP3 player market has been so saturated with iPod look-a-likes.

Source: Yahoo