CNET live-blogged the event, which started at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT. I was dishing the latest news during the live blog along with CNET's smartphone reviewer Bonnie Cha.
The Torch is a touch-screen phone that is expected to rival Apple's iPhone and other smartphones, like ones using Google's Android operating system. AT&T, which as expected is the exclusive carrier for the new phone, has joined RIM for the announcement. The price: $199.99 with two-year service agreement.
Magic TrackpadThe new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer. It uses the same Multi-Touch technology you love on the MacBook Pro. And it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen.
Swiping through pages online feels just like flipping through pages in a book or magazine. And inertial scrolling makes moving up and down a page more natural than ever. Magic Trackpad connects to your Mac via Bluetooth wireless technology.
Portable Cellphone Add-On For Vision TestCell phones come with all kinds of applications these days, but researchers at MIT have developed one with the power to change more than just a Facebook status. Using a small plastic lens that clips to a cell phone screen, the software can determine a person’s vision prescription on the spot, making quick, inexpensive diagnoses of refractive vision errors a reality, especially in remote areas of the world.
The test itself is simple. The patient looks through a lens in the clip-on device at the cell phone’s screen, using the arrow keys on the phone’s keypad to move sets of parallel green and red lines around until they overlap. Do this eight times for each eye and the software in the phone can determine your prescription. The entire process takes no more than two minutes.
HP To Acquire Palm For $1.2 BillionHP announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion.
The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.
The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets.
Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.
The Self-Charging CellphoneNokia of Finland filed a US patent last week for a handset that recharges itself by harvesting energy from the owner's motion.
Nokia envisages a phone in which the heavier components, such as the radio transmitter circuit and battery, are supported on a sturdy frame. This frame can move along two sets of rails, one allows it travel up and down, the other side to side.
Strips of piezoelectric crystals sit at the end of each rail and generate a current when compressed by the frame. So as the user walks, or otherwise moves the phone, the motion generates electricity. This charges a capacitor which in turn trickles charge into the battery, keeping it topped up.
Wed Aug 04, 2010 4:35 pm|editor |
