New Sony Clies Sport Built-In Cameras; One Has Wi-Fi
Brighthand is reporting that the FCC has given Sony authorization for two new Clie handhelds, both of which have built-in cameras and run the PalmOS version 5.2. The Clie TJ27 will not have built-in Wi-Fi, but the Clie TJ37 will.
The USA and the European Commission are working on an agreement to "establish a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship between the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and Europe's planned Galileo satellite navigation system," according to a January 8 State Department memo. The American GPS system, designed for war but used by millions around the world for recreation and personal navigation has been viewed as a valuable military asset in part because it can be turned off or manipulated to foil use by enemies. The coming agreement will probably arrange a mutual pact for access and control.
Almost Half of Kazaa .EXEs Contain Viruses, Trojans -- Study
Out of 4,778 files downloaded in one month, Bruce Hughes, director of malicious code research at security firm TruSecure, found that nearly half of them contained "nefarious code," according to a story posted on WIRED News.
Space Fans Hammer NASA Servers In Search of Mars Pix
Visitors in search of digital photographs of Mars taken by NASA's Spirit rover have downloaded 34.6 terabytes of images, video and other data -- yes, that's terabytes with a "t". NASA says they've posted for public downloading from this web page every picture taken by the rover.
Unless you've been away from the planet, you know that Hewlett-Packard and its key competitors have been loudly banging the "consolidation" drum. So while everyone is talking about storage and server consolidation, we must address the elephant in the living room: all those far-flung and conspicuously unconsolidated personal computers. The good news for HP is that the company offers the best solution to the enormous problem of unconsolidated PCs. Called the Consolidated Client Infrastructure (CCI), the new offering is probably the most groundbreaking product to come out of HP in the past year. The potentially bad news is that it's not clear that HP understands what a strategically valuable concept CCI is.
New software called "No Boundaries Or Rules," or NBOR, is like "a pot of goo, and you simply have to say 'Poof' and whatever you want comes out of it," according to the software's creator. It's a PC user interface without menus, icons or other standard Windows elements. the software will be announced January 15, and ship on February 16, according to reports. A limited free version will be downloadable and the full version will cost $299.
Castro Further Tightens Already Limited Net Access in Cuba
Cuba has formally banned Internet access over the regular Cuban telephone network, instead allowing only limited access via a special phone network reserved for elites and foreigners, which is paid for only in U.S. dollars and heavily monitored by the government. Boy, those two-bit communist dictators sure do hate the Internet.
The old are-they-or-aren't-they argument about the safety of cell phone use is back, this time with serious concern about the effects of cell phone radiation on brains. Neurosurgeon Leif Salford and other eggheads at Lund University in Sweden have apparently shown an "unambiguous link between microwave radiation emitted by GSM mobile phones and brain damage in rats."
"Phishing" attacks, which are spam that spoof the e-mail addresses of real businesses in order to steal passwords, etc., rose to some 60 million attacks over the holidays, according to a study.
Samsung SDI reportedly plans to introduce the world's largest plasma monitor -- an 80-inch PDP "in the second half" of 2004. The 1,920 x 1,080-pixel screen will be HDTV-compatible. The current record holder is LG Electronics, which offers a 76-inch screen.
Troy, Michigan, Police believe "hackers" are responsible for insulting customers at a local Burger King restaurant. "You don't need a couple of Whoppers. You are too fat. Pull ahead," is what one customer was told, according to police.
The Associated Press is reporting that President Bush will announce next week plans to send Americans to Mars (no, not all of them) and establish a permanent human presence on the moon.
San Francisco, California-based OQO today announced its ultra personal computer (uPC), which is a 14-ounce PDA that runs Windows XP. The tiny PC's dimensions are 4.9 inches x 3.4 inches x 0.9 inches. The uPC runs on a 1GHz Transmeta Crusoe chip and sports a 20-gigabyte hard drive, 256 megabytes of RAM, an 800x480 5-inch transflective screen, Thumbwheel -- and built-in 802.11b, Bluetooth and FireWire support.
Epson has announced a TV that both displays and prints color photos. The new TV, called the Epson Livingstation, also supports HDTV. It has an external CD-R/RW drive that connects via a USB port, so you can view, burn and print photos using your TV's remote control.
The company has re-released its groundbreaking 1984 Apple commercial, which ran only once during the Superbowl but made advertising history. But this time, their sledgehammer-weilding heroine has an iPod cliped to her 80's era running shorts.
Philips Creates Thin Electronic Paper 'Fast Enough for Video'
Royal Philips Electronics has developed a thin electronic-paper display using a process called "electrowetting" that is fast enough to enable video-speed electronic paper.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced today at Macworld the $249 iPod Mini, which features four gigabytes of storage in gadget about the size of a business card and just half an inch thick. The iPod Mini will come in five colors, support both Windows and Mac, and connect using Firewire and USB 2.0, according to Jobs. It should ship in February. Here's the release.
Kaleidescape plans to roll out today the world's first-ever DVD server -- a massive DVD player that can rip and store up to 440 movies on "disk cartridges."
Sharp launched its $200 V601SH handset in Tokyo last month. The phone features a 2-megapixel CCD camera and other goodies (including full Bow-Lingual support, so you can use it to talk to your dog). Read all about it.
Cornice introduced today a higher-capacity version of its tiny Cornice Storage Element hard drive -- a whopping 2 gigabytes. The best part is that it costs only $70 per unit (if manufacturers buy over 100,000 at a time). That's cheap enough for your handheld or cell phone.
NEC has allowed reporters from Nikkei's Beijing Bureau to photograph and fondle its credit card-sized mobile phone, called the N900, now under development. The "N900" will measure 85mm in width, 54mm in depth, 8.6mm in thickness and weigh 70g. The phone sports a 1.8-inch color TFT-LCD (128 x 160 dots). It also features a 300,000-pixel digital camera.
Decline and Fall of the Sony Empire: Company's R&D Falls to 4th Place
A Nikkei Electronics survey placed Canon, Sharp and Matsushita ahead of the once mighty Sony corporation for which company has the fastest-growing research and development organization. A previous survey conducted a year ago placed Sony on top.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that Yahoo plans to drop Google as its primary search technology within a few months -- just in time for Google's expected multi-billion dollar IPO.
Ziff Davis Media plans to launch a gadget magazine called Sync with a June-July 2004 issue. The print pub will cover camera phones, high-definition TVs, MP3 players and other geek toys and serve as the companion publication for its new Digital Life CES-Lite event.
What's Driving Google Searches? Rumors and Celebrity Gossip
Silicon Valley-based Google is the most popular search engine, by far. But what's driving all those searches? According to an article on the BBC web site, the answer is rumors and celebrity gossip.
New Sony Clies Sport Built-In Cameras; One Has Wi-Fi
Why Rats Shouldn't Use Cell Phones
Samsung to Sell 80-Inch Plasma Monitor
New PDA Runs Windows XP
Epson has announced a TV that both 
The company has re-released its groundbreaking 1984 Apple commercial, which ran only once during the Superbowl but made advertising history. But this time, their sledgehammer-weilding heroine has an 
Wherify to Unveil World's Smallest GPS Phone
Sharp Launches 2 Megapixel Mobile Phone
NEC has allowed reporters from Nikkei's Beijing Bureau to 
Ziff Davis Media 
Martial arts enthusiasts will get a kick out of this one. Tae Kwon Do studios in Korea are using a remote controlled 
