Into Tech

Happy Feet scooped the Oscar for best animated movie which probably explains why we’re going to see a lot of silly, penguin-related gadgets. Which brings me to I-Cy, this odd little Penguin speaker, designed to be hooked up to your MP3 player.

Those LEDs on the face make is look a bit freaky but with the lights out, I-Cy throws a snappy little lightshow to the tunes, dancing, tilting his head and flapping those useless little wings. Mysteriously, the promo material says:

“Play tunes to keep his spirits high; but tweak his tail and watch out!”

Now I’m intrigued. What happens when you tweak his tail? Does he crack one off, flip you the bird? I gotta know. Yours for around £17, not including postage from US. –Martin Lynch

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iPod might rule but Sony is happy to play the role of troublesome, upstart pretender to the throne with the launch of its own Video Walkman. The NW-A800 Network Walkman series comes in three flavours, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB, and sports a 2in Q-VGA display with 320×240 pixel resolution.

It can playback videos encoded in AVC (H.264/AVC) baseline profile and MPEG-4, at up to 30 frames per second (fps). It’s reasonably thin too at 8.3mm and weighs in at 53g. Still, that’s thicker and heavier than the nano, but nano doesn’t do video.

Sony’s been doing a lot of good things on the battery front over the last year and this is no exception, with a claimed 30 hours playback for music and 8 hours for video. The prices for the 2GB NW-A805, 4GB NW-A806 and 8GB NW-A808 are £119, £149 and £199. Hardly a bargain.-Martin Lynch

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The $1.52 billion in damages Microsoft was ordered to pay by a federal jury for infringing on Alcatel-Lucent’s audio patents dealing with MP3 standards may in fact be a smaller note in the story. And not just because that’s only about six weeks of cash flow.

One of the analysts said that the ruling could spur Alcatel-Lucent to go after money from other “providers of software and hardware that support MP3 files” such as “Apple Inc.’s iPod and iTunes” as well as Sony, Creative, and Napster (?). While I would peg an ensuing wave of lawsuits as unlikely, such a move could have interesting effects on the industry at a time when standards are essentially the talk of the town.

Bonus awesomeness: The caption for the Reuters photo reveals that the creepy silhouette is in fact Bill Gates. Spooky. – Matt Buchanan

Microsoft hit with $1.52 billion damages [Reuters/Yahoo!]

A US court rules Microsoft must pay phone equipment firm Alcatel-Lucent $1.52bn (£777m) for infringing patents.

Yes, I too spoke into a plastic watch strapped to my wrist, pretending to be Action Man and James Bond, thwarting the evil world domination plans of my six-year old brother. I was a kid of course, but there is something inherently spy-like and cool about being able to communicate via your wrist. Stick that in your iPhone.

We have covered the M300 Watch Phone in the past but the fantasy is set to be come a reality next month. Australian makers, SMS Technology, showed it off at the 3GSM show this week and announced that first shipments will start in March to South Africa. It added:

“We are currently finalizing agreements in Australia, UK, Denmark, Russia, Canada, Spain, Italy, USA and South America and will announce the release dates in due course over the coming week.”

It will come over 80 hours standby time, full SMS functionality, Bluetooth, dial-up networking, games, MP3 player, 64 MB of internal memory, USB connectivity, 99-number memory storage and 40 embedded real tones. It will cost around [currency conversion warning!] £300.

Full specs and another pic after the jump.-Martin Lynch

The M300 Watch Phone

Main chipset: MTK
Memory: 64MB
Features:
Voice Bluetooth
MP3 Player
Internal antenna
USB Port for connection to Personal computer
40 embedded true tones
Emergency Call Button
Fully Functional 99 number memory Phonebook
GSM SIM Card
External Speaker Phone
Fully Functional SMS capabilities
Wireless Bluetooth Data Transfer
Bluetooth Dial Up Networking (DUN)
Talktime: 200 min
Standby: 80 Hours
Mode: GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz Tri mode (HW)
GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz Tri mode (SW)
Dimensions: 43 x 56 x 14.8 mm (with 500mA Battery)
Weight: 45g
Phone Color: Pastel Blue & Pink, Baby Blue & Pink, Navy Blue,
Electric Blue, Red, Yellow, Black and Grey
Display: Color OLED Screen 1.01 inches
Travel Adaptor (USB Internal charging type) Wireless USB Charger

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I like things that make my life easier, as opposed to just gadgets/tech for the sake of gadgets/tech. Although, I’ve been known to buy useless rubbish too.

This is Kingston’s microSD Dual Adapter Pack and you are going to see a lot of these arrive this week, especially with the 3GSM show on. Sandisk announced one yesterday too.

If you have a newer, style-phone with a microSD card slot you will probably find this useful for swapping material from the phone to MP3 players, cameras, PCs etc.

The pack consists of a 1GB microSD card, a microSD to miniSD card adapter and a microSD to full size SD card adapter. And the best bit? It costs around £13. Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets phone storage mobile

I like things that make my life easier, as opposed to just gadgets/tech for the sake of gadgets/tech. Although, I’ve been known to buy useless rubbish too.

This is Kingston’s microSD Dual Adapter Pack and you are going to see a lot of these arrive this week, especially with the 3GSM show on. Sandisk announced one yesterday too.

If you have a newer, style-phone with a microSD card slot you will probably find this useful for swapping material from the phone to MP3 players, cameras, PCs etc.

The pack consists of a 1GB microSD card, a microSD to miniSD card adapter and a microSD to full size SD card adapter. And the best bit? It costs around £13. Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets phone storage mobile

I like things that make my life easier, as opposed to just gadgets/tech for the sake of gadgets/tech. Although, I’ve been known to buy useless rubbish too.

This is Kingston’s microSD Dual Adapter Pack and you are going to see a lot of these arrive this week, especially with the 3GSM show on. Sandisk announced one yesterday too.

If you have a newer, style-phone with a microSD card slot you will probably find this useful for swapping material from the phone to MP3 players, cameras, PCs etc.

The pack consists of a 1GB microSD card, a microSD to miniSD card adapter and a microSD to full size SD card adapter. And the best bit? It costs around £13. Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets phone storage mobile

I like things that make my life easier, as opposed to just gadgets/tech for the sake of gadgets/tech. Although, I’ve been known to buy useless rubbish too.

This is Kingston’s microSD Dual Adapter Pack and you are going to see a lot of these arrive this week, especially with the 3GSM show on. Sandisk announced one yesterday too.

If you have a newer, style-phone with a microSD card slot you will probably find this useful for swapping material from the phone to MP3 players, cameras, PCs etc.

The pack consists of a 1GB microSD card, a microSD to miniSD card adapter and a microSD to full size SD card adapter. And the best bit? It costs around £13. Martin Lynch

news technology gadgets phone storage mobile

All hail the Scouts! It’s not all about rubbing sticks you know and earning merit badges for helping old ladies pack their shopping. That said, this one certainly deserves the MP3 Merit Badge.

How many hours in your life have you wasted untangling your earphones cord? Well, no more. Watch this video and discover a simple way for wrapping and storing those earphones.

I just ran to the car in the pissing rain to get my £20 Nackwackanichimichii player to test this out – I am that geeky. It works. Am I happy? Hell yeah!-Martin Lynch

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