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If you’re in Japan and you see someone put a teddy bear up to their ear it may not just be so they can hear the cute recorded bear voice. The person might just be answering a call. CScout Japan has reported that mobile provider Willcom showed off what they call a Bear Phone during the 2008 Good Design Expo. The Bear Phone or Kuma Phone, as it is called in Japan, can make and receive mobile calls. Up to four speed dial numbers can be used by pressing one of the bear’s paws. To answer or end a call you simply squeeze the bear’s tail. The Kuma Phone is said to be priced at US$500. I don’t know about you, but for US$500 I would expect a little more out of a phone besides it simply being cute. (Read the full post about ‘Why is that teddy bear ringing?’…)

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Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England has released a new piece of software that allows you to easily create collages of your images. The application carries the name AutoCollage 2008 and can be downloaded as a 30-day trial copy from the Microsoft Research website. Basically what it allows you to do is take a large collection of images and form them into a single image melded together. AutoCollage looks at each picture and identifies the most important aspects using facial recognition and object recognition. It can then combine the images in the best way to highlight the most important elements of each. On top of that it is also capable of recognizing duplicates e.g. (Read the full post about ‘Microsoft Research releases AutoCollage 2008′…)

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Samsung is already the world’s largest consumer electronics company, with billions of dollars in revenue every year. Not only do they produce televisions, cameras, and other gadgets; but they are also responsible for the manufacture of some other companies’ products as well. They’re a multi-billion dollar a year firm, and they’re looking to get a little bit bigger. Why does a company this large even need to buy up the competition? Simply to avoid paying royalties.

It looks like the tech giant has been secretly courting Sandisk, an American company responsible for the production of virtually every form of memory card or flash drive imaginable.

(Read the full post about ‘Samsung to purchase Sandisk?’…)

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Evidence of Xbox 360 price cuts in the form of catalog and point of sale inventory screenshots from various retail outlets have been circulating the Internet for weeks now. What the Internet brain trust has long known has now become official, with Xbox 360 prices across all models officially dropping on September 5th. The Arcade edition of the 360 drops to a US$199 price point, with the Pro dropping to US$299 and the Elite dropping to US$399. This is an extremely aggressive and savvy move by Microsoft both in putting the Arcade price point US$50 cheaper than the Wii and all systems significantly less expensive than the PS3. (Read the full post about ‘Xbox 360 price cuts become official’…)

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If you’re a fan of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, it makes perfect sense to get a cross-compatible peripheral that is the ezJam Combo Guitar - after all, you certainly can’t be playing both games simultaneously, and it makes much more sense to have just one device that can work with both games instead of splurging more money on two individual gaming guitars. The ezJam Combo Guitar comes with a port that plugs into the Wiimote whenever you’re rocking with Guitar Hero III on your Wii, while you get a built-in wireless transmitter that works just great with Rock Band. It will retail for $70 a pop, making it slightly more expensive compared to other third party solutions, but at least it works with two different yet similar games. (Read the full post about ‘ezJam Combo Guitar’…)

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Ron Arad has thought up of a truly unique design that will help save space for folks living in cramped spaces, as the Rotator bathtub can be turned into a shower at your whim and fancy, simply by rotating along the wall in one swift motion. The fatter end of the Rotator at the bottom is when it is a tub, while turning it upside down will make it a shower - just make sure you’ve cleared up all the hair at the drainage hole before doing that lest your head gets clogged with more than just hair from your head. (Read the full post about ‘Rotator Doubles Up As Shower And Bathtub’…)

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After hearing about Nokia’s E71 smartphone and then reading our review, I was very much impressed with its feature set. Being the current owner of their flagship phone, the E90 Communicator, I saw many features in the E71 that were quite worthy of noting. The one I will attempt to cover and document here is the ability to use the E71 as a SIP VOIP client on my Asterisk PBX at home for the best in unified communications. Unified communications you might ask? Put simply, unified communications is the concept that one communications device is capable of meeting all and any possible personal communications needs. The E71 certainly does it; email, web, voice, IM, txt, MMS, and now VOIP. (Read the full post about ‘Feature: VOIP with Nokia E71 How-To’…)

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The French web site of Canon has already lifted its skirt to tease the masses who are clamoring for a brand new EOS digital camera. Which model do you think this is? The EOS 7D? Do you prefer companies to release teasers such as these before a full product announcement, or do you like it straight and hard without beating around the bush a week before? (Read the full post about ‘Canon EOS Teaser’…)

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Cast your mind back to the number of notebook batteries recalled last year due to the risk of them exploding and taking out delicate bits of anatomy on the way. One seriously affected company was Sony, and it seems the company’s woes aren’t over yet. It’s just recalled 73,000 Vaio TZ-Series laptops sold in the US because of the potential risk of a short-circuit of wires near the hinge that could lead to users being burnt. The telltale sign of a problem is if there’s a loose screw in the hinge. Loose, possibly, because it’s been touching up electric cables. (Read the full post about ‘The latest burning tech: Sony recalls dodgy Vaio laptops’…)

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UK operator 3 will be celebrating its first year of mobile broadband by offering a new data rate of just £2.50 for folks who are interested in unlimited email use, but this price doubles when you are jumping at Exchange or Notes access instead. Regardless, both tariffs will come with :- A data bundle (10MB and 1GB respectively) Unlimited email including attachments Unlimited POP3 and IMAP Uncapped access to Exchange/Notes servers If you’re a 3 subscriber, what do you think of this business model? Will it cause you to jump at the offer? (Read the full post about ‘3 Offers Unlimited Email For £2.50′…)

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