Author: Duncan Geere
Kodak introduces the Easyshare Z915
Kodak's new Easyshare Z915 is defiantly average in every area but one – its zoom. Zoom is often overlooked in favour of megapixels when it comes to cameras, but Kodak has managed to cram in a 10X image stabilised optical zoom into this model.
Aside from the zoom, there's a 10-megapixel sensor, a 2.5" LCD, and an SD card slot. It takes AA batteries, strangely, unlike the onboard rechargable which is more standard these days. There's also some sort of light analysis system that'll auto-adjust camera settings to deliver the best picture.
It's available in red, blue, black and grey, costs £180, and will be available in May.
Is Gillette really marketing a gamer's razor?
If you spend your spare time perusing Gillette’s website, as I’m sure you do, you might notice that the company seems to be marketing a new razor specifically for gamers. The whole idea confuses me greatly.
Firstly, are they trying to say that gamers don’t shave much? If so, they’re not going to have much need of a razor. If that’s not the case, then I can only assume it’s all some massive misguided marketing idea. Let’s hope it’s not.
If you’re a gamer, would you buy a “Gamer’s razor”? Personally, I’ve always been more of an electric shaver kind of guy. Let us know your shaving preferences in the comments.
Gillette Fusion Gamer (via @the_b)
LG launches portable, but not pico, projector
LG’s got rather a range of projectors, and the LG HS102 is the newest addition to that range. Rather than the business end of things, the HS102 covers the portable side of the spectrum.
It measures 154mm x 117mm x 50mm, and weighs less than a kilogram (780g), so it’s pretty dinky. It can throw a screen size of 500″, though, which is rather more on the impressive side.
Best of all, there’s no costly bulb replacements involved. The traditional projector bulb has been replaced by an LED variant which uses less power and should last for the entire lifetime of the projector. There’s built-in speakers too, as well as a remote control.
STATTACK:
- DFC: 2000:1
- Brightness 160 (lumens, I presume, though that’s not specified)
- Native res: 800 x 600 (not great, but it is a portable model)
- Lens: Manual focus, fixed zoom
- Aspect ratio: 4:3 (no widescreen action here)
Not sure how much it costs yet, but I’ve got an email in to LG asking nicely. When they reply I’ll update this post. Meanwhile, ProjectorPlanet seems to be selling it for £500. It’s available now.
Mystery mobile phone found in bag of crisps
Last week we had “phone found in fish” and this week it’s “phone found in chips”, if you’ll excuse the slight Americanization. A lady in Wisconsin, one Emma Schweiger, found a Nokia 6810 in her bag of Clancy’s Ripple Potato Chips.
The phone wouldn’t turn on (probably out of battery) but it had a T-Mobile SIM card inside. There was also a “discoloured circle” of some sort on the back. Yuck. She didn’t finish the packet of crisps, but did get a free packet in replacement. She politely declined.
No word if the handset’s owner has been traced yet. I imagine they might be quite happy to see it again, but not as happy as the owner of the codded mobile.
Have you ever found a mobile phone in an odd place? No, not that place. Leave us a comment below, and we’ll see if we can turn two news stories into a TECH TREND.
Janesville Gazette (via CrunchGear)
Nokia wants to ditch DRM from Comes With Music
Nokia’s “Comes With Music” service, which offers unlimited music for a small amount bundled into the price of the of your phone, is unfortunately hobbled with DRM.
The ways things are set up means that any tracks you download are locked to one handset and one PC and if you want to do anything else, then…. well, you can’t do anything else.
However, Nokia doesn’t want it that way. Nokia understands that music should, in its very nature, be sharable with people you love. That’s why it wants to get rid of the DRM. Nokia’s director of global digital music retail, Adam Mirabella says:
“We have dialogues going with all of our partners and Digital Rights Management-free is also on the roadmap for the future integration of Comes With Music.”
Don’t hold your breath – I doubt we’ll see this for at least a year – but it’d certainly be nice, and would certainly make me retract most of my criticism of the service.
(via Music Ally)
Bebo and Slicethepie announce partnership
Second-tier social network Bebo and innovative fan-funding mechanic Slicethepie have got together to offer an attractive proposition for both Bebo users and bands using the Slicethepie service.
Slicethepie works by crowd-sourcing the A&R process, something that I strongly advocated in my series of posts on innovating digital music. People can invest in bands, and once a band has enough to make an album, any investors get a share of the revenues from selling that album, as well as a credit .
The partnership means that Bebo users will be able to review and rate content on the service, and will be paid a small fee for doing so. Bands that get financed via the Bebo showcase will gain a promotional package that Bebo claims is worth £50k, that’ll include an album launch party, promotion on the Bebo homepage, and exposure to major label A&Rs.
The first “Scout Room” on Bebo will go live this month, so if you’re in a band, it’s definitely worth a look. Just make sure you’ve got a strong presence on Bebo too. What does Bebo get out of it? More bands on a service that’s struggling to compete with Myspace, let alone Facebook’s dominance of the sector.
Eee Box gets an upgrade, and HDMI-out
The humble Eee Box B202, which we liked last year, has been granted an upgrade by the technology gods. It’s now the Eee Box 206, and comes with an HDMI-out slot, meaning that you can plug this baby into your TV and watch high-definition content. It even comes with a remote control.
Specs-wise, it’s got an Atom processor, 160GB of hard disc space, 1GB of RAM and Wi-Fi. It comes with Windows XP, but I’d advise replacing that with Linux or Windows 7 swiftly. Don’t replace it with Vista though, whatever you do. For that, Asus is asking £309, which isn’t too bad for an HD-capable machine.
What do you reckon? Would you recommend this for a parent considering plugging a PC into their TV? Or something else? Share in the comments.
(via Tech Radar)
Skittles changes homepage to Twitter search for "Skittles"
Skittles, the little fruity sweets, have done a bit of a makeover on the Skittles.com homepage. The page now shows the real-time results for a Twitter search for “Skittles”, with a floating box to tell you a little more about the page.
There are several aspects to this that are interesting. It’s another massive step towards mainstream for Twitter (I bet Skittles is hoping that the service doesn’t go down). It’s also a massive step towards “the conversation” for Mars, which is a company that’s been plagued with criticism in the past, though admittedly not as much as rival Nestlé.
In fact, although there’s not been much stirring on the PETA message boards at the time of writing, it’s surely only a matter of time before the people behind sites like MarsCandyKills.com start flooding the service with highly-negative Tweets.
Some call this the campaign backfiring. I don’t think so. I think that it shows bravery, and a belief that the general public doesn’t really care. Personally, I think far more positively about the company that it’s happy to publicise its criticism, and I’ll be disappointed if they cave.
Skittles.com (via @robbrown)
O2 and Orange refuse to stock Nokia N97
A row has erupted between Nokia and network operators Orange and O2 over Nokia’s plans to pre-load the Skype VoIP service onto the N97.
The N97, Nokia’s flagship touchscreen phone due in June, is eagerly anticipated around here, but networks fear that including Skype on the device could cause them to lose voice revenue, with customers opting for cheap unlimited data plans over plenty of free voice minutes.
It’s prompted “high-level discussions” between the companies, which is code for “someone up top is very angry”. O2’s official comment says “We are currently working with Nokia to understand their Skype service and the business model around it.”
It’s interesting that the major operators have such a problem with the service, especially given the runaway success that Three has seen with its Skypephone and followup Skypephone S2, and the awards that the Facebook-and-Skype-integrated INQ has recieved. I’m sure Three will happily take O2 and Orange’s customers for the N97.
(via Pocket Gamer and Mobile Today)
Spotify signs up a quarter of a million UK users, and 800,000 a million users worldwide
Ad-supported streaming music service Spotify has managed to recruit a quarter of a million UK users to its excellent music service. It’s a nice milestone for the service which is the most exciting thing I’ve seen in digital music for a long time.
But Spotify isn’t resting on its laurels. On its official blog, the company is inviting users to hassle their favourite bands and labels to join the service. They recommend hunting down a band’s label, cross-referencing it with their uber-list of labels they have deals with, and if it doesn’t match, then asking them to email [email protected].
What are you missing that you want to hear on the service? Go hunt them down, and then tell us in the comments below.
(via NMA)
