From the ‘really really cute’ category to the ’sexy sexy’ category, you are sure to find something you like. The pictures are sent directly to your phone. The sad part: you’ll need a data plan to receive the pictures, and you also need a compatible handset.
Sorry Canadian folks, the service is only offered on AT&T, Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile at the moment.
Via: ChipChick
Nokia’s Canadian website has been hacked for no apparent reasons. While the news itself not worth a lot of attention, the story’s already been Dugg.
The website first appears to have been hacked by some kid who left the following message: “Dr.Jr7 HEre,Get More Secure Next Time”. Using SQL injection, many people followed the original hacker’s lead and left various messages and disgusting pictures on the company’s website.
For the curious, here’s what the original hacked page looked like:
These hack attempts are usually very easy to trace, especially for a big corporation such as Nokia. A quick glance at the logs will reveal the hackers to the administrators.
The digital camera has built-in HSDPA support, meaning you can upload pictures to your computer from any locations and send text messages the same way you would with a cell phone. The Samsung VLUU i70 will also allow you to listen to digital music directly from the memory card.
As a digital camera, the Samsung VLUU i70 features a 7.2mp sensor supporting up to ISO 1600, a 3x digital zoom and built-in image stabilization. There is no word on pricing and availability outside Korea yet, but you can expect the 3G enabled camera to be a big hit.
Source: Electronista
This cellular phone is just that: a phone. No high tech gadget or other features you don’t want to pay for. The Samsung SGH-C140 is pretty cheap: about $57. Some of its features include a 128×128 color display, 3 hours of talk time and JAVA support. Sadly, it’s not yet available in North America.
I can see a lot of people who have basic needs for a cell phone buying this one. The Samsung SGH-C140 looks like a great entry-level phone, it is cheap and it fulfills all our basic cellular communication needs: SMS, EMS, MMS and… touch tone.
Source: Unwired View, via: Gizmodo
With the announcement of the touch-screen iPhone, it looks like every cell phone makers out there are announcing their very own touch-screen cell phone. Are keypads really a thing of the past? I, for one, dislike touch-screens for the following reasons:
We get beautiful widescreen displays onto which we can watch full length movies, but a touch-screen is always dirty with fingerprints. Even if we use a stylus, eventually we’ll get lazy and press a few buttons with our fingers, especially if it’s to make a phone call.
Fingers are much less precise on a screen than on a keypad. With a keypad, we can actually feel the keys making their ‘click’ when we press them, and even with large fingers it’s usually easy to apply pressure on the right keys. On a touch-screen however, we have no tangible reference when pressing the keys. While the iPhone is supposed to come with a software to help correct typos, it will have to work like magic if we’re to type on an on-screen keyboard with our big fingers.
On my touch-screen PDA, the on-screen keyboard takes about one third of the display. The keys are so small I can’t even dream of typing on the keyboard with my fingers. On touch-screen cell phones, the keyboard will probably take much more of the available display to make it easier to press the buttons, thus leaving us with only a small viewable area while using the keyboard.
I carry my cell phone in my pockets a lot. Imagine if it were an iPhone? Without any kind of protection, the screen would get scratched by my spare change and keys a lot. Furthermore, unless they find a way to make the screen very robust, they’re going to get scratched by fingernails.
Alright, the new touch-screen cell phones probably won’t require a stylus. Styluses are far more precise than fingers on a touch-screen though, but they are a hassle to carry - we always end up losing them. Steve Jobs was right in his keynote when he said styluses are a pain to carry around and to take out every time we want to dial a number. He’s doing the right thing making the iPhone operable without a stylus.
Real keypads make it easy to dial without looking. With an on-screen keypad, we’ll have to keep both eyes on the screen while dialing.
A cell phone is a device I want to carry in my pockets, leave under a pile of junk and lose somewhere in my car. The touch-screen looks like it would make the phone much less robust, and without a screen protector I would probably break it under a few months. The screen protector is also needed to help prevent scratches.
I don’t think touch-screens will ever replace the need for a good keypad. Apple’s new patented touch-screen technology called ‘multi-touch’ might be worth trying, but so far my experience with touch-screens has been average. I even bought a thumb-keyboard extension for my PDA because the on-screen keyboard and text recognition software were troublesome to use.
Jim Mendenhall of Starry Hope lists 10 reasons why he would pick a Nokia N800 instead of an Apple iPhone. It looks like he’s not believing the hype at all: the extra cost and lack of freedom of the iPhone is just not worth the small advantages it has over the N800.
From my point of view, his two most important points are:
The price: The Nokia N800 retails for $399 and it is currently available. The iPhone will be $599 with a 2-year contract from Cingular.
Software: The iPhone will most likely not be allowed to run third party applications. The N800 however is open source and Nokia encourages developers to write software for it.
On the negative side though, the N800 internet tablet requires a bluetooth connection to an actual cell phone with a data transfer plan if you want to browse the net away from a Wifi spot. It looks like a very affordable, full-featured internet tablet though.
Via: Darla Mack
So, you’re looking forward to the new iPhone but you don’t want to let your old cell phone rot on a shelf? Did you know you could donate old cell phones? They’ll be refurbished, you’ll contribute to saving the environment and maybe make someone who’s looking to buy a used cell phone happy.
The battery in your cellular phone contains many toxic agents that are very harmful to the environment. By recycling your old cell phone, you are preventing these agents from contaminating the soil.
If you want to donate old cell phones, the following organizations are dedicated to refurbishing them. They make a donation to charities for every cell phone you send them.
Also, many cell phone carriers will actually give you a rebate for returning your old cell phone. Get in touch with them, you might be surprised.
Using a sugar cube, Instructables shows us how to remove unwanted logos from a cell phone. 
The idea behind it is to use a sugar cube to scratch off the stickers on the cell phone. The sugar should not leave a mark on plastic or metal. Process with the following steps at your own risk - in the worst case, you could damage or leave a scratch on your phone.
If all went well, you will have a clean unbranded cell phone, with those pesky stickers from your carrier gone forever. Apparently, this trick will not work on some cell phone covers though - the sugar cube will leave a mark.
Antony Pranata offers a very nice tip on Exif data on his blog which might be good for camera phone and digital camera users alike.
Exif data is metadata stored in JPEG and TIFF image files by digital cameras. It allows you to view the settings used for taking the picture, including the camera model, aperture, focal length, exposure, flash used and a lot more.
A subset of Exif data is readable by the Windows XP operating system. Simply right-click on the file, go to Properties and then in the Summary tab, pick Advanced. As you can see from the picture, some information is missing, such as the flash used.
Under Mac OS X, you can view Exif data with the Finder. Simply do a Get Info on a file and expand the More Info section.
Alternatively, you can use a free program such as Exif Reader (WinXP only) for retrieving Exif information from a file to obtain information not displayed in the file properties of your operating system.
The blogosphere is currently exploding with opinions on Apple’s latest gadget: the iPhone. Before reading what other bloggers think of the iPhone, I want to produce my very own unbiased opinion first. Here’s my take on the iPhone:
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Web tablet. I was surprised to hear the iPhone would also serve as a web tablet with Wifi connectivity. This is great news for people not wanting to carry their laptop computer around when they travel or for the casual geek who needs his daily fix of slashdot at the cafe. |
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iPod functionalities. The iPhone being backed up by the iPod brand will be a sure success. The iPod has already proven its point in the music industry and it is currently the most famous music player around. Adding all of the iPod functionalities in the iPhone will surely boost its sales. |
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OS X. While I personally dislike the OS X operating system for its over-user-friendliness, I think it makes a great operating system for a casual user. The integrated web browsing capabilities of the iPhone will be very well-supported by OS X, and the operating system leaves to door open for all kind of marvelous software. |
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Closed to independent developers. Apparently, the iPhone will be closed to independent software developer. That means one thing: less software available. If this is true, we’ll see how fast Apple and licensed developers can release new applications for the iPhone. |
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Greasy touch screen. I dislike touch screens. They get all dirty with finger grease. The only touch screens I find acceptable are those that use a stylus like on a Palm or on a Nintendo DS, but they are annoying to carry and I don’t see myself dialing a phone number with a stylus. I will miss the keypad on the iPhone. |
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Cingular only (initial launch). I was hoping the iPhone would launch as an unlocked phone, bringing the cellular phone market into a new era. Apple had the power to do it. Locked cell phones are only beneficial to carriers and are currently a real pain for users. |
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No 3G? From what I’ve seen of the iPhone, it will only support EDGE, a relatively slow data transmission technology. Whether EDGE is considered 2G or 3G depends on the carrier and is up for another debate. A phone of this caliber should at least offer the latest data transfer technology available for downloading music over cellular networks, such as W-CDMA. I hope they manage to slip the feature in before the phone launches next June. |
Despite the fact that the iPhone is not the revolution I was hoping for, and despite all its drawbacks, I still want one. It looks slick, it offers a lot of functionalities and it combines three things I like: the internet, music and communications. However, I will not spend $599 on a device I can only use with one carrier. I’ll wait until an unlocked version is available.
