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Sony Ericsson is proud of its new slimline smartphone, the Xperia X1, and rightly so. The Swedes have packed in a full QWERTY keyboard, a 3″ display, a touch screen, a 3.2 MP camera, WiFi and GPS. The phone is a slider, and “bends” as the keyboard slides out, like the old Nokia banana phone, only twisted through 90º.On the inside, the X1 runs Windows Mobile, but skinned to look better. In the picture above (sorry about the blur. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people I had to elbow out of the way to get the photos) you see the application launcher. These icons swoosh and squirm around, 3D style, when you select and scroll them. It’s very pretty, but not very efficient. (Read the full post about ‘Hands on With the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1′…)

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Netflix has announced that it won’t support HD-DVD anymore. Instead they will only ship Blu-Ray movies. Previously, the company was stocking both formats, but at this point it probably makes financial sense to choose the installed based leader and that’s Blu-Ray. Obviously, the other factor is that most movies studios only create content for Blu-Ray. (Read the full post about ‘Netflix Gives Up on HD-DVD, Ships Only Blu-Ray Movies’…)

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Posted Feb 11th 2008 7:51AM by Sean CooperFiled under: Cellphones We had no luck getting pics of this guy last night, but yahoo, we had a chance to play today. Putting the KT610 through its paces — albeit in a crazy fast way — we were completely underwhelmed by the interface speed and the screen, when open, is in a pretty odd position to actually read. Aside from those little details, this is a pretty slick little handset, here’s hoping they sort the hardware to give it a little speed boost. (Read the full post about ‘Hands-on with LG’s QWERTY clamshell, the KT610′…)

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Ford is well known for their trucks, and the company has been wrecking their brains for the next big thing which will add a handsome amount to the company’s coffers at the financial year end. The answer to their dilemma? A system known as Work Solutions which sees a combination of wireless technology, new safety features as well as a fully functional in-dash computer that enables business owners to concentrate on getting the job done instead of mulling over what it takes to do so. The truck’s bed contains a Master Lock that ensures your tools don’t run off on their own accord thanks to a retractable 8-foot long cable and a spool housed in hardened plastic. (Read the full post about ‘Ford Work Solutions system’…)

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[MWC] We all know that cell phones do come in rugged versions, but those certainly aren’t beauties by a long shot. The Plantronics Explorer 370, on the other hand, is no cell phone but is actually a hardy Bluetooth headset that was developed to meet military-grade specifications where water, dust and shock resistance are concenred. Windscreen technology ensures that all your conversations will remain crystal clear no matter what environment you’re in, although I still think bone conduction technology holds the upper hand here. Battery life has been rated at 7 hours of talk time and 8 days of standby time, making the Plantronics Explorer 370 the first of its kind in the industry. (Read the full post about ‘Plantronics Explorer 370′…)

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Posted Feb 11th 2008 11:48AM by Donald MelansonFiled under: CellphonesIt’s been a long while since we’ve seen anything from NVIDIA on the cellphone front, but the company has changed that in a fairly big way today, with it showing off its first major cellphone applications processor: the APX 2500. As CNET points out, that chip is largely the result of NVIDIA’s acquisition of PortalPlayer back in 2006, and represents the company’s first attempt at building a true computing processor for cellphones. From the looks of it, they sure look to have gotten off to a decent start, with the chip itself (based on an ARM11 core) able to run at speeds up to 750MHz, and encode and decode 720p high-defintion video, opening up the possibility of some pretty capable cellphone / video camera hybrids. (Read the full post about ‘NVIDIA shows off APX 2500 cellphone applications processor’…)

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It goes without saying that after a long day at the office, you want nothing better than to unwind at the gym while getting all that stress out of your system. The AquaFit 19 Dual Temp brings together both fitness and hydrotherapy aspects, offering the ability to keep yourself cool even when performing the most vigorous of workouts. You will be able to swim stationary laps in this, row around just to work the upper body and arms or even jog underwater for a total cardiovascular workout. In the end, settle for a massage with fully adjustable, hydrotherapy jets for total bliss. (Read the full post about ‘AquaFit keeps you fresh’…)

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Posted Feb 11th 2008 12:49PM by Darren MurphFiled under: Cellphones Look out, world — ACCESS has just announced that it’s crawling even deeper in bed with MontaVista Software in order to “accelerate development of smart mobile devices.” More specifically, the two have released a “pre-integrated software stack combining the ACCESS Linux Platform with the MontaVista Mobilinux operating system,” which should purportedly hack down the engineering time required for DIY integration along with decreasing “associated costs and risks.” Reportedly, the ALP-Mobilinux software stack is up for grabs right now on the Texas Instruments OMAP2430 processor, and while specifics are unfortunately absent, we are told that additional hardware platforms will be added in the months ahead. (Read the full post about ‘ACCESS Linux Platform gets integrated with MontaVista Mobilinux’…)

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Posted Feb 11th 2008 6:16AM by Thomas RickerFiled under: Cellphones After Sony Ericsson’s big move into Windows Mobile territory (with help from HTC) you can be forgiven for thinking that Nokia might follow suit. Nevertheless, Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, brought down the hammer on those rumors by saying, “We don’t have plans to do Windows in mobile at the moment.” Read into that time-boxed, English-as-a-second-language statement what you will. Better yet for S60 series fans, he committed to launching the S60 touch-screen platform in the second half of the year. (Read the full post about ‘Nokia CEO: No plans for Windows Mobile, S60 touch-screen launch in 2H 2008′…)

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Camera Core reviews the Apple iPhone and writes, “The iPhone camera is simple. The built-in 2 megapixel camera is ok for indoor pictures with good lightning and no need of manual settings. But if you ever need to tweak some settings, you are in for a disappointment as there are no settings that you could tweak. A definite disappointment if you ask me…But in general, these auto-adjusted “point and shoot” pictures come out nice and in comparison to other 2 megapixel phone cameras the iPhone actually does just fine.” Read more about the Apple iPhone. (Read the full post about ‘Apple iPhone Review - Camera Core’…)

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