Random Accesses

One of the coolest gadgets at CES 2009 is coming to London next week. LG’s watch phone looks like something straight out of James Bond or Dick Tracey. With a touch screen and video call capabilities this little accessory is a must have for any super spy, gum shoe, or tech enthusiast. It’s available exclusively at the Orange store at the Bond Street Station in Central London on a first come first serve basis August 27th. With a price tag of just a bazillion £500, I wonder how many Brits will jump on the chance to be the first to own the coolest phone in history.

Each of these watches is a hand-made 3G+ work of art. Looking at the video, I am floored by what the little device can do. It can tell time, make calls, send texts, make video calls, or play music. All at qualities equal to or exceeding competitive phones on the market. The main interface is a 1.43 inch (diagonal) touchscreen with voice activation and text to speech capabilities. There’s a camera, but it faces directly up for video conferencing, so it’s unclear if it could be used easily for other functions. Besides web browsing though, the watch phone seems to have it all.

Source: http://singularityhub.com/2009/08/21/uk-gets-awesome-lg-watch-phone/

The screens on many mobile phones can leave a user feeling distinctly vision impaired, especially if her attention is divided between tapping virtual buttons and walking or driving. Fortunately, engineers at Google are experimenting with interfaces for Android-powered mobile phones that require no visual attention at all. At Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference held in San Francisco last week, T.V. Raman, a research scientist at Google, demonstrated an adaptive, circular interface for phones that provides audio and tactile feedback.

"We are building a user interface that goes over and beyond the screen," says Raman. Often, eyes-free interfaces are employed for blind users, but Raman, who himself is blind, assures that these interfaces have much broader implications. "This is not just about the blind user," he says. "This is about how to use these devices if you're not in a position to look at the machine."

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22731/

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. recently unveiled its new, innovative solar powered full-touch screen phone, the "Blue Earth." The Blue Earth phone is also part of "The Blue Earth Dream: Eco-living with SAMSUNG mobile," an environmental initiative by the company to reduce its CO2 emissions, eliminate its use of hazardous substances and encourage cell phone recycling.

Symbolizing a flat, shiny pebble, Blue Earth can charge with the solar panel located on the back of the phone, generating enough power to complete a call.
The phone is made from a recycled plastic prodct called PCM, which is made from water bottles. The packaging for Blue Earth is designed to be small and light, is made from recycled paper and comes with a 5-star energy efficient charger that uses standby power lower than 0.03W. The phone and charger are also free from harmful substances such as brominated flame retardants, beryllium and phthalates.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/environment/090221-solar-cell-phone.html

LG Electronics recently announced that it has independently developed the first handset (user equipment) modem chip based on 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE)technology standards. The modem chip can theoretically support wireless download speeds of 100Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of 50Mbps. This represents a significant step toward creating a market-ready 4G phone.

The Modem Chip is the most crucial component required to create a viable 4G handset with LTE technology, the leading candidate to become the fourth generation mobile phone technology standard.

Source: http://www.lge.com/about/press_release/detail/21031_1.jhtml

The Apple iPhone's sexy touchscreen with its multi-touch commands has been a huge hit with the public, but such screens can only get so small before clunky fingers get in the way. So Microsoft is extending the concept of the touchscreen beyond the edges of the phone itself.

The company's researchers have developed a system called SideSight, which allows you to control a phone placed on a table by wiggling your fingers in the space around it. The technology was unveiled last week at the User Interface in Software and Technology symposium in Monterey, California.

Alex Butler of the Sensors and Devices Group at Microsoft Research Cambridge in the UK lined the long sides of a phone with infrared sensors that can pick up the movement of fingers up to 10 centimetres away.

"The big advantage of our prototype is the finger does not block any of the screen space," says Butler.

Source: http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn15044-virtual-touchpad-lets-you-scroll-in-thin-air-.html