Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Gaming

Joining the nearly endless amount of Nintendo DS hacks already in the wild is TobW‘s DS Sampling Keyboard, which “uses the DS’s microphone and touchscreen” to interface with a software-based sampling keyboard. A close contender to join our Music Thing series, this wonderous hack takes advantage of the wee machine’s excellent X / Y-axis controls as well as its built-in WiFi to beam the MIDI commands wirelessly. The program has been tested with Wifi, GBAMP, and M3, so “it should work on pretty much anything,” and provides a much less expensive alternative to those dedicated offerings. While musical gizmos are always more effective when seen heard rather than just heard about, be sure to click on for a front row seat to the YouTube demonstration.

[Via MusicThing]

Continue reading Nintendo DS doubles as wireless MIDI keyboard / controller

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

Filed under: Handhelds

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Tablet PCs

Step aside, Microsoft: that UMPC form-factor is officially played out. The new hotness is running “Leopard Mobile” on your iPod, which is no small feat considering the devices’ sub-100MHz processors and lack of a touchscreen or Internet access. Don’t think it’s possible? We were a bit skeptical at first too, but just click on the Read link and see for yourself — as we all know, YouTube won’t host a video until it’s been verified as completely legitimate.

[Via Engadget Chinese]

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Filed under: Displays

Some behind-the-"screens" work just completed by Samsung will soon enable many of the portable devices you enjoy to offer thinner and lighter touch panel displays. The Korean electronics giant has announced a new LCD technology called hTSP (Hybrid Touch Screen Panel) that will allow manufacturers to incorporate touch screen functionality directly into the TFT fabrication process, whereas most current touch-sensitive applications require a separate, sensor-laden printed circuit board (PCB) attached to the top of the display. So far the company is able to create LCDs as big as 3.5 inches using the new method, meaning that you can expect to see hTSP-sporting smartphones, PMPs, and nav devices on store shelves in the near future.

Filed under: GPS, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We see a lot of GPS-enabled foreign PMPs pass through here, but rarely are they being pitched by a mascot quite as appealing as Inkel’s Starfox-meets-Robin Hood spokesperson. Available in black or white, the WIDETOUCH 5.6 features — you guessed it — a 5.6-inch widescreen LCD for navigation and media viewing, 400MHz Samsung ARM CPU, and built-in DMB receiver on select models. That digital TV option hikes the price up to almost $600, but since this model will only be sold in Korea, things like pricing and availability probably don’t matter much to you.

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Filed under: Displays, Handhelds, Laptops, Portable Audio, Portable Video

After that "the display is the camera" stunt they pulled the other day, we really wouldn't put much past Apple's patent department, but this new new virtual keyboard patent of theirs does look vaguely familiar, wouldn't you say? It does seem that Apple didn't get that "two thumbs are better than one" memo, but they seem to have stuck with their usual conceptual artist for the mockup, and are bent on teasing us with touchscreen ideas. The patent also mentions some ideas for learned pressure sensitivity for the keyboard based on what you usually type, which sounds interesting, if a bit too smart for our tastes. Apple also has a recent patent for the iPod that have the device's screen mirrored onto a larger screen, and also allows for remote control and wireless file transfer between the devices. It's all well and good, but Apple has had a patent for wireless file transfer for a while now, so it's nothing to get too excited about.

[Via Mac Rumors]

Filed under: Handsets, GSM, GPRS

The Philips Xenium 9@9 series is traditionally a rather low-end group of candybar phones, but this new 9@9t isn't looking too bad. Sure, the miniSD slot, MP3 playback and 1.3 megapixel camera are fairly standard by now, but the phone features some sort of touchscreen, along with touting 30 days of standby -- if the text on the screen can be believed. The slim phone is also supposed to be tri-band GSM, but that's about all we have for info right now.

[Via Slashphone]

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops, Tablet PCs

It's been almost a year since the Clio NXT was supposed to ship -- so long ago in fact, that we sense the dull fog of disinterest descending upon you. See, the Clio NXT was (is?) the successor to the cult 1998-released WinCE laptop/tablet which is said to feature Windows CE.NET 5.0 (yes, CE), a 10.4-inch, 800 x 600 touchscreen LCD with 180-degree pivot, 802.11 WiFi, 64MB SDRAM / 64MB Flash ROM, near full-size QWERTY keyboard, and smattering of connectivity and expansion options including SD card slots, PCMCIA, USB, a headphone jack, mic, and video out. Well, out of the blue this morning we received a press release stating that Duke University's Fuqua School of Business will serve as "beta site" for the NXT and Data Evolution's other CE computing device, the Cathena ultra-light laptop. That's it -- no price (although we last heard $999 for the NXT), no expected start to this beta program let alone revised ship date... nothin'. In a market now flooded with reasonably priced tablets, UMPCs, and dirt cheap laptops, we're feeling, well, a bit jaded ourselves.

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops, Tablet PCs

What do you get when you mix one part OQO, one part Sidekick, and add a touch of UMPC? Apparently you get Averatec's new AHI concept device, that's what. Expected to be launched this fall for as little or as much as €500 or €900 ($600 or $1,090 US) depending on options, Averatec's aiming to launch their device with XP, a touchscreen (which we assume will take advantage of Microsoft's Touch Pack UMPC suite), WiFi, GPS, 3G data, and a six hour battery life in a 7.3 x 3.5 x 1.3-inch 24 ounce package. So yeah, basically this device might single-handedly solve just about every complaint the UMPC community (and we) have: price, battery life, keyboard, and wireless data. We'll believe it when we see it though, so keep your eyes out for Averatec this fall.

[Via The Reg, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

So what do you do to followup the launch of both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc machines? Drop a couple of ultra-portables into the mix, naturally. No, not ultra-mobile PCs, Fujitsu's talkin' ultra-portable with their latest P70S, T70S (pictured) and T70S/V line-up. First up, the P70S which pumps an Intel Pentium M753 (1.20GHz) processor to drive XP Tablet PC Edition on that 8.9-inch display. Rounding out the specs is a 30GB disk, 512MB of RAM in lightweight 990g (2.18-pound) package. The T70S, meanwhile, foregoes the touchscreen but brings a bit more power to the show with a Pentium M773 (1.30GHz) CPU, 512MB RAM, 10.6-inch 1280 x 768 screen, DVD-burner, 60GB disk, and Intel 915GMS video card. The T70S/V then gives the same specs but throws in an external digital (DMB we think) TV tuner for Japan. All-in-all, just a modest bump in specs from what they delivered last year in the T70K/T models. Picture of the T70S/V after the break.

 

Filed under: Handsets, Others, Windows Mobile, GSM

Akihabara News has some, um, news about a new Windows Mobile-powered handset from Lenovo that is, while not the first smartphone from the PC manufacturer that we've seen, certainly the most attractive. The i921 is said to rock WM5 (no confirmation on that, apparently, but we seriously doubt that they'd go the WinMo 2003 route), a two megapixel camera, Bluetooth, QVGA touchscreen, and MiniSD slot, and work on some unknown number of GSM frequencies. Not many other deets are known, such as pricing or availability, but if we don't see WiFi or UMTS in the specs, we keep on shopping, no matter how hot the phone looks.

[Via MobileMag]

Filed under: GPS, Transportation

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French site
caraudiovideo, whose specialty is pretty self-evident, have information on a new Windows CE-powered Pioneer GPS
receiver that is supposedly one of the first from the company to include built-in Bluetooth. The AVIC-S1 is a
"portable" model (meaning you can port it from vehicle to vehicle, but not on your geocaching expeditions)
that features a 320 x 240 touchscreen, SiRF III chip for greater accuracy, and what seems to be 2GB of flash memory
preloaded with European maps. Any of the included points-of-interest can be dialed on your cellphone via Bluetooth, and
a choice of 17 guidance languages will help you brush up on the native tongues as you travel around the continent. It’s
not really clear when this product will be released (if it’s not out already), or how much it will go for, but until a
US version is announced, those details are a moot point to the majority of you anyway.

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Filed under: Handsets, Sony Ericsson, GSM, GPRS, EDGE

At first glance, the new Sony Ericsson Z558 looks like nothing more than a rehash of the Z550 geared toward the Chinese market. By and large, that’s an accurate assessment, save for one critical detail: the new model packs a touch screen and stylus for handwriting recognition — a feature that seems like overkill for Latin characters, but thinking about Chinese puts things in an entirely different perspective. Much like the Nokia 6108 before it, the Z558 sports handwriting recognition for the sole purpose of making life a little easier on folks whose languages are composed of thousands of characters (though as you can see from the press photo, you can write in English too, if you’re into that sort of thing). Other features include a 1.3-megapixel cam, 18MB of internal memory expandable to 1GB via Memory Stick Micro cards, and a 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz GSM radio with EDGE; look for it in Z558c and Z558i variants for mainland China and the rest of the world, respectively.

[Via Slashphone]

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