New Technologies

World’s first portable hd radio

Best Buy’s Insignia is the world’s first portable HD radio, allowing users to enjoy high quality digital FM radio on the go.

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Meh. Who am I kidding? Best Buy is selling it for $50 (USD)! You can buy an mp3 player with a built-in FM tuner for that price. I also think that it’s too big for a radio player. Wait a couple of years and HD radios will be smaller and cheaper.

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Besides, the Zune HD will have a built-in HD radio receiver, so if you’re going to buy a portable HD radio player, I think you’ll get more bang for your buck with that.

Flailing around with project natal not limited to xbox: it’s coming to windows

Fans of Minority Report, the interfaces in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, and other future tech freaks take note: in an interview with CNET, Bill Gates says Microsoft hopes to incorporate Project Natal, revealed at this year’s E3 Expo, into Windows. Dedicated Technabob readers and people who’ve seen Microsoft operate over the past, well, forever shouldn’t be surprised.

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As someone with a love-hate relationship with the mouse, this could be really exciting to me. I might even switch back to Windows! It might be worth it to be able to really flip through my music and photos when I flip through my music and photos, though the whole idea of manipulating nothingness would probably take some getting used to.

Just as with everything else Project Natal-related, there’s nothing concrete here, just an interview, a remark, and a dream, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Quantum touchscreen dual sim media phone wants to be an iphone

The Quantum CVFD-M46 crams in all the features you’d expect in a multimedia mobile phone, and it sells for under $100, fully unlocked.

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The Quantum offers a 3-inch touchscreen display, and is loaded up with a variety of mobile applications, including a calculator, contact manager, clock, FM radio, games, MP4 video player and voice recorder among other things. The quad-band phone works on all GSM networks worldwide, and has dual SIM slots so you can switch between two mobile accounts with the flip of a switch. The phone also supports Bluetooth connectivity, including A2DP and AVRCP so you can play music or even operate remote-controlled devices over Bluetooth.

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There’s also a built-in video/still video camera, but it maxes out at a paltry 640×480 resolution. And just like the iPhone that it so desperately wishes it were, it even has a motion sensor which detects when you switch from landscape to portrait modes. And unlike the iPhone, it already has MMS support out of the box. Did I happen to mention that it has a built-in TV too? Too bad it’s analog, so it probably doesn’t receive anything in the US now that analog broadcasts are done. For those of you in other countries where analog TV still works, you can tell us how well it works.