Filed under: Cellphones

We know that Scandinavians have a reputation for high-tech and ultra-liberal attitudes, but this one may be a bit over the top. Laura Beloff, an artist who seems to have a penchant for her cellphone and for fruit flies, has built what she calls “The Fruit Fly Farm” — a wearable sculpture involving a transparent acrylic ball that contains a bunch of fruit flies munching away on a piece of rotting fruit. A cellphone is positioned so that its camera can take a picture of the swarm in action upon receiving a text message from the public; the snapshot is then uploaded to a website for posterity and is also sent back to the sender as a reply. If you want to get your own shot of these amazingly boring insects, you’ve got until November 30 to text +47 92096767 (Norway), after which time the shirtless dude walking around in the Norwegian winter wants to get some clothes on.

[Via Textually]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

Airbus, that robot-friendly aeroplane company, has filed a patent for a device that generates “electromagnetic interaction in an airplane”. No, this isn’t some kind of revolutionary fly-by-magnets technology, it’s actually a slightly oddball idea intended to solve the most common of airborne travel ailments: jetlag. The device, which in the event that it is ever put into service, will be integrated into passenger seats, supposedly has the capability to “prevent and reduce the occurrence of jetlag, reduce the danger of passengers suffering from thrombosis, and increase general well-being by promoting relaxation, sleep and stress reduction”. Ever seen those stone magnets that people put around their wrists to “increase blood flow?” This device looks like it would operate the same away, but in an electromagnetic form. We won’t question the validity of using magnets to keep people healthy, but we are puzzled at the logic behind introducing randomly fluctuating electromagnetic fields onto packed airplanes. Surely (don’t call me Shirley!) the thought that this could potentially interfere with the pilot’s ability to fly the plane crossed the minds of the researchers over at Airbus? Especially considering the common “please turn off your cellphones” announcement that pilots make at the beginning of every flight (FYI, cellphones emit electromagnetic fields). Maybe a wiser course of action would be to focus on cheaper in-flight Wi-Fi, keeping passengers’ minds off the fact that they’re floating round a tin can far above the world, resulting in less stress and therefore, by Airbus’s own logic, reduced jetlag.

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Filed under: Cellphones

The stealthy BlackBerry Stealth slinks behind the scenes no more. It’s the BlackBerry 8100 and it’s got a camera, microSD slot, EDGE data, and media playback functionality — just like we’d expected (so where’s the damn WiFi?). This should be due in November on Cingular (no guarantees), but something tells us to expect an even earlier launch on T-Mo. Perhaps it’s the T-Mo branding. We can’t tell you much else as of right now, but big ups to Random Asian Dude for the hookup. Click on for a bunch more pics.

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Samsung always seems to bring the goods whenever they roll out the goods, be it a new TV, cellphone or cellphone with TV. And by “goods”, we mean hot product models. Here are the top 10, in an order that we felt like putting them in.

10. These models above are notable just for their Korean to non-Korean ratio. It’s not often that Samsung finds off-peninsula models to demo their goods—and for good reason. Look at the way the middle one’s angling that cellphone! The glare just blinded my whole family.

Click through to see the rest.

9. This model clearly has the four cellphone fan-display down pat. The camera captures her friendly smile while showing off Samsung’s new sliders, but what it doesn’t capture is that she has 13 fingers to hold up those phones with.

8. Blu-ray enabled PC. Very nice. No points off for this one, save for our general tepidness towards anything Blu-ray.

7. We couldn’t decide what to focus our attention on when we first saw this one—the huge Samsung screen or the model’s gorgeous gams. After 20 minutes of our eyes darting back and forth, we decided to take a nap. That was a good day.

6. Like a reader noticed when we first posted about Samsung’s digital photo frames, either those photos were taken the same day, or that lady should probably change clothes once in a while. Nice frames though.

5. Pow! Pow! If you liked the legs on #7, you’ll love the double action for Samsung’s Anycall slider phones. Sophisticated, yet kind of slutty at the same time. We heard that young woman in the red is actually the daughter of LG’s CEO. He was furious.

4. This one’s notable for being one of the only male product models Samsung’s used. What? Oh.

3. ARE YOU AS EXCITED ABOUT THIS SAMSUNG PORTABLE DVD PLAYER AS I AM?! HUH!? MY FACE IS CONTORTED BUT THE CAR’S NOT EVEN MOVING!

2. Does the model on the right have a lazy eye, or is her thousand-yard-stare a result of Samsung’s lackluster whatever-that-is that she’s holding. Enthusiasm, kid. That’s the ticket! Try and be more like #3.

1. And our number one Samsung product model shot is of…some PCs or something. The one on the right is a looker, while the one on the left brazenly insults my manhood. Thanks lady, but the wife , my secretary, the kids, some lady at a bus stop, my mechanic, and grandma can handle that find on their own. – Jason Chen

The CECT has a large 2000 mAh battery that provides its most compelling feature, the 1000 hours of standby time. Coupled with 10 hours of talk time, 2.2-inch touchscreen display, 32MB internal memory, transflash slot, and 4 megapixel camera, this cellphone may be the best thing to come out of China since Yao Ming.

But unlike Yao, this boy's going to do all his playing in the mother land. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Yesky via Slashphone]

The Pantech PG-6200 has stats that, on a Friday afternoon, I can’t even pretend to care about. What does make me perk up is the Pantech’s fingerprint scanner that can be used for biometric security. Scan your digits to lock and unlock the phone. Sweet, eh? Stats? Oh fine. Those, and more details, after the jump.

The phone is a clamshell with a 2-megapixel camera, that can capture MPEG-4 video. The phone is EGSM, at 900MHz, and has PCS support, too. (or, more likely, that’s a different model.) Not very impressive in it’s support for frequencies. And yet, more:

• Internal Display: 30.096 mm x 37.62 mm (1.9″), supports up to 262K colors in 176 x 220 pixels
• External Display: 18.144 mm x 24.192 mm (1.2″), supports 65K colors in 96 x 128 pixels
• 7 lines for text in basic mode with 18-pixel font
• Two programmable “Soft” selection keys; five-way scroll/selection key
• Melodies:MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, G-MIDI, SP-MIDI, C-MIDI, SMF, XMF, RTTL, IMelody
• Integrated UXGA (2MP) CMOS camera
• Resolution up to 1600 x 1200
• MPEG4 Video recording/replay up to 30 f/s (QCIF size)
• MPEG4 Video maximum size QVGA
• Self timer function (5 sec or 10 sec)
• Phone display used as a viewfinder
• Photo Gallery for image storage and editing
• 3 image quality options: Fine, Normal, Low
• Flash light supported
• Weight: 92g
• Dimensions: 87.0 mm x 43.6 mm x 20.9 mm

– Brian Lam

Pantech PG-6200 [ via Mobilewack ]

This BenQ-Siemens handset is sweet piece of kit, with its 3.2-megapixel camera, and 240 by 320 pixel screen. But it's more remarkable for its dock — a mighty throne that acts as a charger, PC sync cradle, speakerphone, and alert system that glows when you've missed a call or received a text message. Europe only, although it's tri-band GSM signal should work in the US if you can import one.

– Brian Lam

BenQ-Siemens SL91 [Slashphone]

Tom Cruise, the Myspace user? You better believe it. Cruise, king of all thing Scientologific, is also a pretty big Helio fan. He was the first user of the Helio Myspace phone. He was also involved with the shooting of the first two Helio commercial and rumor has it that he had some odd demands on set. According to Gearlog, Cruise demanded $1,000 worth of sushi and then bailed on the filming and the sushi, allowing it be consumed by the Helio filming staff.

In related batshit Tom Cruise rumors, word around the block is that our little scientologist has gotten bored with his absurd religion and has invested in a hip wireless carrier. There are only three words to describe Cruise and his crazy antics. What. The. Fuck. – Travis Hudson

Does Helio Have Tom Cruise’s Money? [Gearlog]

Filed under: Cellphones

Just in case the last set of pics of Motorola's sleek new Canary KRZR flip phone weren't enough for you, Engadget Mobile's got a few more hands-on shots of Verizon's version of this highly-anticipated handset. So if you're one of the millions of people who will end up buying this followup to the RAZR -- or if you just want to see what all the fuss is about -- head on over to our sister site and check out the full gallery...

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Slightly less gaudy than the million dollar diamond encrusted phone, this Illusion line of phones from Goldvish is made of at least 140 grams of gold. Add to that, the handful of diamonds on the front, including what looks like the numbers on the phone spelled out in diamonds, we’re going to say this will be quite expensive as well.

What’s that we hear? Is it the cries of a thousand starving children, silenced by the ring—my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps—of this cellphone? – Jason Chen

Goldvish Illusion Cell Phone [Sybarites]

Listen up you thin form-factor Motorola lovers, the next phone to complement your Q, RAZR, and SLVR has just gotten one step closer to hitting the shelves by getting FCC approval. The phone, named the RAZR K1, has been approved as a quad-band GSM and EDGE phone. Check out all of our hip-hoppin’, be-boppin’ Canary coverage here.

Now it is time for a little off-topic discussion. So it seems every damn day another new device gets some kind of FCC approval. Does it honestly take a lot of work to get something approved from the FCC, or does some intern just sit at the FCC desk with a giant “approved” stamp? Any insiders know what kind of rigorous steps are involved in getting approved? Leave a comment or shoot me an email, you can find my e-mail address over on the left. Teach me a thing or two and you may earn yourself a comments invite. – Travis Hudson

FCC Approves Motorola Canary, Officially Called K1 [Phone Scoop]

Eat your heart out Zach Morris. The retro brick phone is making a triumphant return thanks to Hong Kong manufacturer, Micro-T. It’s big, it’s ugly, it’s gaudy and it will likely make the ladies weak at the knees. This retro brick phone has gotten a few non-retro upgrades that include a LCD display, polyphonic ringtones, text messaging and a SIM card. There is no price point, and the only order information in an e-mail address from this odd company, but the effort to get one of these may be worth it if you really want Kelly to go with you to prom. She loves cellphones. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [11-fingers]

Cingular releases its first HSDPA phone with the LG CU500 flip. The CU500 has a swiveling 1.3 megapixel camera, music keys, microSD, stereo Bluetooth and weighs 105 grams.

The phone has a pretty average talk time of 3.5 hours, but it’s the first phone to use the new HSDPA network, so quit complaining. But, the HSDPA is only available in select markets for now, so check your area before plopping down for the LG.

The phone isn’t on the Cingular website yet, but we’ll update when it is. – Jason Chen

Product Page [LG]

LG CU500 Launched for New Cingular 3G Service [Mobiledia via Phone Scoop]

Pretty funny ad for Helio, the phone phone phone damn it, the phone company with MySpace Mobile.

Interesting setup that's actually happened to us once! You could not believe the reactions our parents gave when we came home with an Asian man that one time. – Jason Chen

Helio's First Commercial [iSee Video - Thanks Vincent!]

Even though I blasted Verizon earlier today, I am happy to announce that they will be officially carrying the line of LG Chocolate phones that have been making waves overseas.

The Verizon LG Chocolate page doesn't have much information besides a nifty interactive rotatey phone model and a "Tell me when it is available" link, but a previous rumor about the Verizon availability suggested an October 7 release. Given that there is already a product/teaser page up for this phone, lets hope it is sooner. Thanks, Chris. – Travis Hudson

Edit: We got a hot tip straight from an insider's mouth. The anonymous tipster dropped a solid date, August 7. Be prepared, be very prepared. Thanks, T.

Teaser Page [Verizon Wireless]

Reader James writes in about possible upcoming Helio plans:

So I was reading through what seems to be a Helio sponsored community site: Heliofriends.com and one of the mods dropped that tomorrow a $200 rebate will kick in on the Kickflips through this site. Which means the Kickflips are free after the rebate.

Also, tomorrow is supposed to be the start day for a new price plan. $65 all-in data/500 min. This was also mentioned in a seperate thread.

Looks like they are trying to lower the price to bring some of the fence sitters down.

-James

Pretty cool James. Part of us think they want to start lowering prices offer a new rate plan because of their lackluster subscriber numbers. Add to that the recent troubles of VK Mobile, the manufacturer of one of their two handsets, Helio may be in need of some cash. – Jason Chen

Update: To clarify, the heliofriends.com site isn't associated with Helio. They're the ones offering the rebate—Helio has nothing to do with it. Also, the new $65 plan came about because some subscribers didn't need the 1000 minutes, so they made a $65 plan to sit between their $85 plan and the a-la carte. So, heliofriends isn't "helio sponsored", and they're not lowering rate plans. Just adding a new one.

Ah, the Sidekick 3, with its IMing, emailing, texting and credit card erasing capabilities. Wait, credit card erasing?

A couple guys started experimenting with the SK3 once they found a pen sticking to it when they removed the former from a bag. They went on to find that the magnetic latch that allows the SK to do the “cool flippy thing” is really powerful. When open, it can hold up a regular table knife. When closed, it’s still able to hold up a fork.

So what does this do to that credit card sitting next to the Sidekick in your pocket? It obliterates the stored data. These guys took an expired card and ran it through a terminal to test whether it was recognized—it was. After sticking the card up next to the closed SK3’s magnet, subsequent swipes produced absolutely nothing on the terminal. It wasn’t even recognized as a valid card.

Someone ought to go try this with the card inside of a wallet and see how thick of a wallet is necessary to protect your cards, driver’s licenses and badges. For now, you may want to keep them in separate pockets.– Jason Chen

Sidekick 3 Warning: Sidekick 3’s Magnet Will Erase Your Credit Card in Under a Second [The Internet Patrol - Thanks Phil!]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

So Palm has officially announced one of those three Treos we were promised at the end of last year, and just as we expected, this Windows Mobile 5 AKU2-powered model will be sold exclusively overseas. Unfortunately the company neglected to include a detailed spec sheet in its press release — more information will be available closer to the as-yet-unspecified launch date — so all we really know at this point is that it’s destined for Vodafone’s 3G UMTS network in several European countries. Also unclear is how this model relates to other upcoming Treos we’ve seen under such codenames as Hollywood, Lowrider, Nitro, and Lennon — we sure wish Palm would be a little more forthcoming with its product roadmaps. As usual, though, you can always count on us to bring you every little bit of Treo news we get our hands on, even if Palm and friends don’t give us much help putting it in context.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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To follow up on our previous post about Nokia suing Telsda Mobile and Song Xun Da Zhong Ke Electric for copying their Nokia 7260 phone design, here's a gallery of some Telsda's other phones—strangely reminiscent of other phone manufacturers.

Not only is Nokia being ripped, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung have all been subject to the sincerest form of flattery. At least Telsda labels their phones with their own brand, instead of passing it off as a "Morotola" or a "Stony Erecsson". – Jason Chen

Nokia takes action against Chinese Cloners [Mobile Gazette]

Instead of having two separate screens on a flip phone—one larger inside and one smaller outside—this patent allows one larger screen to rotate to be displayed both on the inside and outside. This means possibly having the screen auto swivel so you can see the same UI when the phone is closed as you do when it’s open. It may allow you to dial just from the contact list when the phone’s closed, instead of having to flip open the phone to make a call.

The upside is that you can keep your phone closed more often, but it exposes the screen to the elements. Sony Ericsson is also shooting at a broad target with this patent:

“The mobile terminal of the present invention is not so limited and may find utility in other electronics devices and applications…a Personal Communications System (PCS) terminal that may combine a cellular telephone with data processing, facsimile and data communications capabilities; internet/intranet access devices; organizers; a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) that can include a radiotelephone, pager, internet/intranet access, Web browser, organizer, calendar and/or a global positioning system (GPS) receiver; wristwatch keypad devices; and a conventional laptop and/or palmtop receiver or other computer system that includes a display.

It’ll be interesting to see what develops. – Jason Chen

Patent Application [USPTO via Mobile Scraper via Mobile Mentalism]

A judge got so pissed when an elderly woman's cell went off that he stepped down from his seat, ordered her to hand the phone over, and chucked it out into the hall. The phone was, of course, broken when the woman went to go get it. After that, the judge wanted the deputies to confiscate all cellphones in the room.

I mean sure, you may get pissed that cellphones are going off, but if you're a judge, you probably shouldn't be acting like a jerk on the job. Best of all was his non-apology after the incident. "I regret that I had to take such severe measures." That's pretty much telling a guy you punched "I'm sorry your face got in the way of my fist." – Jason Chen

Judge shows just how much he hates cell phones [CNET]

VK Mobile, makers of one of Helio’s two handsets, has filed for bankruptcy. There has been speculation that Helio has gone two months with only a couple hundred subscribers, claims that have been denied by Helio. The Korea Times also speculates that VK’s bankruptcy will send ripples to Pantech, the maker of Helio’s other handset. The Times also thinks that only Samsung and LG, the two largest Korean cellphone manufacturers will eventually survive.

What does this mean to you? Well, Helio’s performance so far—performance which sparked the 100 subscriber rumor— isn’t making any handset makers jump for joy. And since the poor performance of the MVNO affects the hardware manufacturers, and vice versa, this probably isn’t a good time for any of the three companies. Meaning, if you sign up for a Helio plan now, be on your toes for possible changes in the future.

We’re not saying don’t get on Helio—what they offer is pretty darn impressive—we’re just saying that readers might want to watch what’s going on with the two phone makers, VK and Pantech. – Jason Chen

VK Bankruptcy May Trigger Chain Reactions [The Korea Times]

Here is hip-hop mogul, Just Blaze, posing with the Motorola Canary. Just Blaze is well known for being a connoisseur of all things cellphoney, so it is no surprise that he managed to get his hands on the Canary. Thanks, Adam. – Travis Hudson

This ad is only running in Canada, but it’s cool enough to show to everyone in the States as well. Read the behind-the-scenes on how they pulled this off after the jump. – Jason Chen

Movie Clip [Nokia.ca]

More Behind The Scenes (2nd Link on the right) [Heliozilla]

Thanks Richard!

We started out with the idea that we needed to make something that was visually stunning, and then build a concept around that. Secondly Nokia is a fairly refined brand, and the piece needed to have a a certain grace to it to reflect that. The idea of blowing things up came fairly quickly, and we visualized a slow-motion ballet of assorted electronics being destroyed, and then reassembling into the phone. Shooting on black and lighting the objects as if we were shooting a jewelry ad gave a nice polish to offset the violence of the explosions.

Then it was off to the internet to research the technical site of shooting at really high frame rates, looking at sample footage and finding the right camera. Shooting film was simply out of the question, as the look of the explosion we wanted required shooting at frame rates of about 5000 frames per second. After looking at numerous high-speed video options we settled on the Photron Ultima cameras, which could shoot as fast as 6000 frames/sec at 512 x 1024 resolution. The Ultimas connect directly to a laptop via firewire, which controls the camera and downloads footage from the camera buffer. With the camera in standby mode it continuously records footage to the buffer, and when you hit the trigger it will retain a specified amount of pre-trigger footage and then continue recording until the buffer is full.

Next challenge was lighting. Because of the incredible speed of the explosions we had to shoot with a 1/10,000 shutter so the fragments wouldn’t blur. Combined with a 6000 fps we calculated we’d need close to 100,000 watts of light to adequately light a target area of about one square meter. On set we could only leave full lighting up for about 60 seconds before our props would start smoking.

Most of the props were modified shells of actual items. We had purchased several of each so we could do multiple takes, and had two cameras running for each take so we had lots of angles and footage to work with. We used shells of flat-screen TV’s so the screens could be replaced with tempered glass or breakaway glass (each gives a different effect), and the props were filled with bits of circuit boards, assorted parts and bits of glitter. The phone model was built at 300% scale, as blowing up a little 10cm phone would look a little underwhelming.

The pyro we used was primarily detonation cord, we didn’t want too much flame. Being able to review a take and reshoot allowed us to adjust the amount and placement of the charge for each shot.

This may not be 100% legal, but this site claims to generate an unlock code for your Nokia phone for fre