Due later this year, Motorola wants everyone to have a party in their palm (no sniggering at the back, please). When a call comes through, multicoloured disco lights on the front and sides flash in time with your ringtone, as does the synchronised vibration technology, which adds an extra kick to those drums on your polyphonic ringtones. You can download your 'tones if you want to be predictable, or you can get creative and sample your own with Motorola's Motomixer mixing desk - combine any number of preset rhythm and melody elements to create your own unique sound. With all this going on, it's easy to forget that the e390 is a tri-band phone with a built-in camera, Bluetooth wireless technology and Java, and what's more, you can plug it into Motorola's FM radio and MP3 player attachments to keep the party jumpin'. MoreThe code name for Texas Instruments' new PDA concept stands for Wireless Any Network Digital Assistant and they've certainly gone out of their way to cover as many wireless bases as possible. Not only is it a GSM phone with GPRS high-speed net access, it also features Bluetooth for linking to headsets and printers, and integrated Wi-Fi capability so you can access Wi-Fi hot spots or connect to an office-based wireless LAN network. It will be the first device to feature all these connection facilities as standard (others, such as the latest iPAQs, can do it, but you need additional plug-ins), though as yet TI hasn't found any network to take it. Looking similar to O2's xda with its stubby aerial, it also boasts a full colour screen and will run on the Pocket PC Phone Edition - like Pocket PC, but with a phone, y'see? MoreNever one to hold back when it comes to integrating gizmos into phones, Samsung has revived its PDA programme and plugged it full of possibilities. No sooner has it announced a new Pocket PC PDA featuring full colour touch screen and built-in camera for CDMA networks, than it announces a newer version which also has a GSM phone and GPRS high-speed internet connection.
It's already claimed to be the first Pocket PC device with an integrated rotating digicam, but it's no slouch in other departments either, with its 300MHz XScale processor, 64Mb of RAM memory and its SD card slot which allows you to add additional functions such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. MoreFollowing hot on the heels of their debut UK devices for 3, complete with market-leading 3G bells and whistles, NEC aims to make a splash in the standard GSM market. The e525 (no, we don't know what logic their numbers follow either) is a slick, silver-coloured clamshell with colour screens inside and out, as well as a camera for photo messaging, 40-note polyphonic ringtones and a raft of PIM (personal information management) functions. The 65,000-colour internal screen is beautiful, if hardly unique these days, but it's the extremely flash screen on the outside that grabs the attention - it's fully customisable, and can show date, time or caller details in glorious Technicolour (well, 4,096 colours, anyway). You can also choose your own wallpaper to show the world, whether it's a download via GPRS or a photograph you've taken yourself. MoreLook out, the carebots are coming! Matsushita's nursing home in Japan is staffed by robot teddy bears (not exclusively of course, there's the occasional nurse and doctor as well) which are designed to interact with the home's elderly residents. The furry friends are capable of monitoring the residents' condition and reminding them when to take their medication - by talking and waving their arms - they can also relate news bulletins and messages. They are programmed with voice recognition software so they can answer residents' questions and they have pressure sensors to allow them to move when touched. Future developments for the furbots at the experimental Sincere Kourien home near Osaka are planned to include wireless links to doctors and care workers to alert them if a resident falls and to carry out remote analysis. MoreVodafone Live! Is about to add two new handsets to its portfolio. One is Nokia's 3650 video phone, the other is Sharp's GX10i, due to hit these shores soon. It looks similar to its older cousin, the GX10, except that it's a sober looking gun-metal grey rather than brushed aluminium, and it now how has tri-band capability, so you can use it almost anywhere in the world, including the US.
There's also an improvement to the screen. It's still 65,000 colours but those clever people at Sharp have tweaked the TFT resolution so it appears sharper (so to speak) and will render better in sunlight - just in time for those essential summer lunchtime calls to tell the office you'll be back late from the park. While camcorder phones are just about to become available here (see this month's Insider), in Korea, they're already well established. So it's no surprise that Samsung has announced the first ever TV phone. Yet another small silver clamshell, the SCH-M220 can view streaming TV broadcasts from Korean internet provider Telecom Freetel.
It's made possible by data transmission rates of up to 2.4Mbps, which should be enough to provide real-time broadcasts over GPRS. The high definition TFT screen has no less than 262,000 (count 'em!) colours and it also has an integrated video camera in the hinge which will record up to half an hour of video footage. MoreHe won't fall foul of the Dangerous Dogs Act, but he's a lean, mean, video-capturin' machine.
Robocop is here, and he's a dog. Sanyo's T7S isn't just a concept design - it's in production and is expected to be patrolling office blocks around Tokyo later this year. It contains motion sensors and will set off an alarm and start recording video if it detects anything unusual, which it can beam straight to your 3G phone. You can also use your phone to guide it around your property if you want it to deviate from its set path.
At a price of around £600 it may be cheaper than a camera surveillance system, but until it can do the whole 'you have 30 seconds to comply' bit backed up with laser cannon, it's not likely to frighten off too many cat burglars. MoreNot necessarily the safest thing to do, but then if you're a road warrior, you probably couldn't give a stuff about taking a call on your moby. But whether you're a Hell's Angel or an office no-mark, should you feel the need to take a call while on the road, Motorola's Bluetooth helmet is probably the best way to do it.
Designed in conjunction with helmet maker Momo, the Moto'cycle (geddit?) is basically a standard helmet with a Bluetooth chip
***BELOW IS A PIC OF THE HELMET FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT>>
WHATS NEXT????????
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