Gadgetell exclusive: last night I was contacted by a couple of developers, each shut out of the beta program. Both, I might add, have fantastic application ideas but Apple hadn’t even looked at thier app until yesterday. Or so it seemed. Both developers got notification they were accepted into the program. Word is a couple of weeks and wham, bam, boom - they are in the App Store. As I’ve said before, I found the launch of the App Store a little underwhelming but do believe it will snowball into some amazing Apps for us to enjoy. How about you, got an app you can’t live without now? I also got to thinking this morning, Apple just created a way for them to add productivity (Read the full post about ‘Apple lets flood gates open: more iPhone App developers accepted’…)
Don’t worry, this quest has a happy ending, with the new 3G iPhone not only in hand but activated. As anyone with an iPhone noticed, the Apple servers crashed from all the new customers trying to activate their new phones and leaving old iPhone users in limbo, frozen trying to download the 2.0 upgrade which adds great new features and services to older versions of the iphone (more on that later from Mia.) Add to that over 500 new apps and it’s like you’ve got a new phone. (Pictured below, the new tap-and-tilt game, Super Monkey Ball.) A tech fiend friend of mine, Kevin, in Manhattan Beach, CA. tell this story: I got to the AT&T store at 5:30, thinking I would be first in line. Boy was I wrong. (Read the full post about ‘iPhone 3G — more of the saga’…)
So the iPhone 3G has been making big news worldwide a good 24 hours ago, and one of the more interesting aspects would be the Apple App Store which enables users to purchase media or applications of their choice directly from the iPhone 3G. There are tons of applications and software available, and among them is Big Canvas PhotoShare.
Microsoft has decided to drop the price on the Xbox 360 console by $50. You can now pick up a console bundle at a Target store for $299.99.
• Bundle Includes HD A/V Cable
• Includes Headset, Ethernet Cable, Wireless Controller, Xbox 360 Console
• Features Xbox Live for the Ultimate Broadband Gaming Experience, High-Definition Multimedia Interface, Multimedia Capabilities, Rumble Feature for Realistic Gaming Experience, Wireless Gaming Capabilities, 20GB Hard Drive
• Also Functions as a DVD Player to Watch your Favorite Movies
Tags: hdtv, pvr, video games, mobiles
by Paul Miller, posted Jul 12th 2008 at 1:01PM Sony Style is running a rather large teaser on its main page, featuring a quite distinctive power button and the blurb “Performance / Style / Mobility. Redefined.” Hrm. We wonder what it could be?[Thanks, Mathias S.]Read PermalinkEmail this19 CommentsFiled under: LaptopsTags: gear, tests, laptops, hi fi (Read the full post about ‘Sony teaser points to laptop refresh on Monday’…)
by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jul 12th 2008 at 12:28PM Do you have $8000 to blow? Have you been dying to open a laser tattoo parlor? Well guess what? It’s your lucky day. The folks at Epilog would like you to meet the Zing, a $7,995 laser etcher / printer that can not only scar you for life, but can also leave a personalized stamp of your choosing on anything that you can fit into it. If you’ve seen engraved iPods, Zunes, or MacBooks, you get the idea of what this device can do. The Zing is made to tackle almost any material, be it wood, plastic, leather, glass, or various metals (of course), though we’re fairly certain the company doesn’t condone or recommend taking this baby to your precious, supple skin. (Read the full post about ‘Epilog Zing, your personal laser engraver’…)
There’s a new kid on the Webmail block - GMX.com. GMX Internet Services, Inc. claims to have over 10 million Internet mail accounts, and has attracted 100,000 users in the beta testing of their new webmail service. Built with a lot of AJAX features, the GMX interface resembles Outlook and Hotmail more than Gmail or even Yahoo Mail, and sports 5GB of storage. Here are my initial thoughts where I compare GMX mainly to Gmail as that’s my primary webmail client. GMX’s interface isn’t as responsive as Gmail, not that it’s slow, but being a technical user who sometimes can click and type faster than some slow computers can respond, that’s a negative. (Read the full post about ‘New free Webmail service - GMX.com’…)
Alcatel has just released a new mobile phone designed for first-time mobile phone users who still want “just” a phone and not a full computer like device in their pocket. We’re referring to the Alcatel OT-S520 which is a somewhat stylish, simple to use and no-fuss basic camera phone that boasts of a decent 1.8-inch 65K (128 x 160) display, a 0.3-megapixel VGA camera that doubles up as a webcam when the phone is connected to a PC and 2MB of internal memory. Other features of this dirt cheap dual-band mobile phone include MP3 ringtone support, 10 hours talk time, 400 hours standby time, pre-installed games, speaker phone and USB connectivity. (Read the full post about ‘Alcatel releases the basic $30 OT-S520 mobile phone’…)
We have recently seen the Creative ZEN X-Fi get announced, however that initial launch was just in Singapore, but it did not take long to begin showing up online for US sales as well. Buy.com has just listed the 8, 16 and 32GB models of the ZEN X-Fi and the pricing is similar to what we saw for the overseas market. The 8GB model is $149.99, the 16GB model is $199.99 and the larger 32GB model is $279.99. Although the 8GB model was originally announced for the Singapore market as to not include the same wireless capability as the larger models, it looks like all three will have Wi-Fi capability when it hits the US. (Read the full post about ‘Creative ZEN X-Fi PMP now available with Buy.com’…)
While the whole mobile phone industry is busy with the hype built up by the release of the iphone 3G, HP has quietly made available its new Windows Mobile smarthphone, the HP iPaQ 910. This smarthphone which has a striking resemblance to a Palm Treo is now available for $499.99 at HP’s website. Like we said before, the iPaQ 910 is loaded with high-end features including a 2.4-inch touchscreen display, full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA for connecting to the web at 7.2 Mbps, 3.0-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, built-in Google Maps and GPS, 128MB of RAM, and a 416 MHz Marvell PXA270 processor. (Read the full post about ‘HP quietly releases the Windows Mobile iPaQ 910′…)
