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Samsung CL80: Super-social Wi-Fi camera gets the most from your memories

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:27:53 +0000

Samsung have been showing off the Samsung CL80 camera at CES 2010, a camera so rich with features it makes mobile phones look barren!

Samsung have managed to endow (for that really is the right word!) the CL80 not just with cracking camera optics and all sorts of image improvement trickery, but also a plethora of connectivity options including WiFi, Bluetooth and DLNA. And HDMI. And then they threw in email as well. Oh and auto-uploads to a range of Web apps!

Seriously, the list goes on and on. So I suppose I’d better start then (deep breath!)

Samsung CL80 camera specs

First, the camera. The CL80 offers the following:

14 megapixels
SchneiderKREUZNACH lens
720p video recording
7x optical zoom
Digital image stabilization
Smart face recognition with up to 20 faces
Smile shot, blink detection, red-eye fix
Panorama shot
Object tracking auto focus
Smart filter

Nothing too amazing there – indeed, it’s not that different from the latest top end camera phones! However, it’s the other features that Samsung have added that make the CL80 a revolutionary camera.

Connectivity

The CL80 is all about connectivity. To that end, Samsung have given it the following features:

WiFi
Bluetooth
DLNA
HDMI

This means you can view your shots in loads of different ways:

Connect the CL80 to your HDTV via the HDMI connection and a cable
Upload the pics to your PC via WiFi and view them there
If your HDTV supports DLNA and WiFi, you can view the pics on your telly without the need for wires
Same goes for a DLNA-equipped PC
Transfer your pics to your digitial photo fram wirelessly (if your photo frame supports WiFi and DLNA)
Share your photos with your own or your friends’ mobile phones via Bluetooth

One touch uploading to the Web

What if you want to upload your pics to the Web? Nom problem – if you’re in range of a WiFi connection, you can automatically upload them to the following:

Facebook
Picasa
YouTube

Email sharing

Photo sharing Web sites not your thing? Fine, simply email your pictures instead. Yep, not only has the CL80 got an email client built-in, it’s also got a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard, so you can write an email, attach the pic, and send it to whoever you want!

Somebody from Samsung’s mobile phone division obviously walked into the wrong room one day and started working on the CL80 thinking it was Samsung’s latest wonder phone!

Other Features

I’ve still not finished, though. Aside form all the connectivity and super-sociable gadgets, the CL80 also features a tonne fo super-cool tech, including:

3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen
720p HD video recording
SmartGesture touchscreen interface, which lets you access the phone’s various menus using swiping and gestures (told you someone from their phone division got lost!)
Accelerometer – scroll through your pics by tilting the camera left or right

The Samsung CL80 – superb!

The Samsung CL80 is a fantastic new camera, and probably the most sociable camera around. With its huge range of connectivity options and super-easy uploading to loads of different Web sites, the CL80 makes it absurdly simple to share your photos with anyone or any device.

And surely that’s the point of photos – to share? I don’t want to go all wishy washy on you, but how many photos have you got trapped on your hard drive, or in your mobile phoe or camera?

At last, camera manufacturers are making a real effort to help not just take great photos, but to let others see them as well.

Samsung should be congratulated on make a cracking camera with the CL80 that really helps the user get the most out of their memories.

[Source: Gizmodo]

Want a Bluetooth MP3 player? Here are dozens…

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:28:06 +0000

A Bluetooth MP3 player transforms the way you listen to your tunes, but finding a good one from the thousands of ordinary MP3 players on the market can take days of tedious research.

So we’ve done the hard work for you and compiled a list of the top Bluetooth MP3 players on the market today, together with links to the all the Bluetooth MP3 players from the major online stores.

Yes, we’re very very good to you people!

Why buy a Bluetooth MP3 player?

A Bluetooth MP3 player is a must-have couch potato gadget who prefers listening to their tunes without moving, rather than having to fiddle about with wires to hear their tunes. A Bluetooth MP3 player will let you do some or more of the following:

listen to your tunes wirelessly, either through a Bluetooth headset or an external Bluetooth speaker. No wires, no fuss, just stream your music from the MP3 player to the speaker, no matter where it is in your lounge.
stream your tunes to your car stereo wirelessly – a number of car radios now also come with Bluetooth, meaning you can listen to your tunes from your MP3 player in your car without having to use headphones (dangerous and, er, illegal!) or one of those annoying FM transmitters.
take calls from your mobile phone via your MP3 player – never get up to answer the phone again!
wirelessly copy your tunes to and from your PC – no more fiddling about with USB cables.

Wired MP3 players are so lost year, while Wi-Fi ones are still a bit pricey. If it’s a decent MP3 player you’re after, you might as well throw Bluetooth into the mix as well – you won’t regret it.

We’ve come up with the following list showing five of the best Bluetooth MP3 players on the market today. If these don’t tempt you, check out our links to the Bluetooth MP3 players from the major online stores.

1). The Samsung YP-T10 Bluetooth MP3 player

Looking not unlike a mobile phone, the Samsung YP-T10 lets you stream your music from the device to a Bluetooth earpiece or a Bluetooth wireless speaker using Bluetooth A2DP technology.

Nothing flash or fancy, the Samsung simply lets you play MP3 tunes with or without wires. It comes in several variants, from 2GB up to 16GB, and also features an intriguing “character animation” user interface, to stop you getting bored from looking at a dull list of tunes! Good value too, with prices starting from just

Brando has their sites set small… but does size matter?

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:15:54 +0000

The world is in two minds at the moment they want their devices smaller but the screens bigger. As you have probable spotted there is a slight problem, the device needs to be at least as large as the screen. That is unless you have a device with a rollable screen. So that’s the problem with devices which need screens but what about those without screens? How small can they get? Brando seems on a mission to find out. Read on to get more information.

Brando has recently been releasing small device after small device and each time claiming they are the smallest in the world. Here is an overview of some of their devices.

World’s smallest microSD reader

The first offering for the smallest in the world is the T-Flash USB Micro Drive Reader that can read and write MicroSD/T-Flash memory cards. Stick a card into this thing and hey presto you now have a mini pen drive. You can put your favourite movie on a MicroSD card and have it with you where ever you go. This little treasure retails for just $14.

Smallest flash drive

This supper thin flash drive which measures a mere 3.5 inches long has a quite remarkable capacity of 4 GB. If you don’t need 4GB you could always get a smaller version which is only 512 MB and would only set you back $19 where as the 4GB will cost you $55. With a USB 2.0 flash drive this small I would be afraid of losing it, shame it can’t be attached to my keys.

Tiny USB Bluetooth adapter

At just 14 x 19 x 6mm and only weighing 2 grams this has got to be the smallest way to get you computer Bluetooth compliant! I really can’t see how you can make it any smaller without making it impossible to use. To get one of these it will only set you back $24. Down side is this only compatible with Bluetooth 1.1 but it does have a range of about 10 meters.

World’s smallest wireless mouse

This petite mouse is the smallest in the world “probably”, yes that is right they claim it is the smallest but they don’t really know. That aside, this has switchable resolutions and promises 70 hours of continuous use with a range of about 23 feet. That’s all very nice but how usable is it? It looks like it will be quite uncomfortable to use and will just be good for giving you RSI. If you are interested in this mouse it will set you back around $29.

World

World's smallest iPod transmitter launched

admin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:59:10 +0000

Brando latest offering for the smallest in the world is a Bluetooth A2DP transmitter which is compatible with the iPhone and all dockable iPods. So it supports: iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch, iPod nano(1st, 2nd, 3rd gen), iPod Classic, iPod Video, iPod (Color) and iPod Mini.

This little gizmo removes the need for wires to trail from your headphones into you iPod or iPhone and so you can be free to strut your way down the high street without the worry of becoming tangled.

The INFINXX AP23 doesn’t need additional power or batteries, it receives all its power from the player without, according to Brando, affecting the battery life of your iPod. Brando’s unit is able to connect to all Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP headphones and speakers and supports AVRCP functions which enable you to remotely control your iPod or iPhone. You will have remote control of play, stop, volume, forward, back and you can wirelessly receive calls.

The INFINXX AP23 Bluetooth unit is available for

Nextar's speakers float above the rest

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:09:39 +0000

Nextar’s Bluetooth floating speakers will play continuously for 4 hours and are ideal for using in your pool, but I am sure there are many more people without pools than there are with (me included), so what use is this gadget to us, we may as well just buy the sentry water proof speakers? Well the Nextar’s speakers aren’t limited to just pools, for example you could stick them in the pond with your gold fish, or (and this is what I want to try) have the speaker floating around in the bubbles in your bath.

The dock is equipped with Bluetooth so you can connect most modern MP3 players, you could even hook up your mobile phone to it.

Floating, waterproof speakers are a good idea but I don’t like the design of these speakers (they remind me of a floating robot head) and at $119 they are not cheap, so I agree with Slash Gear and would go with this cheaper alternative instead.

[Source: Tech Digest, Slash Gear]

Philips to launch its new player 'GoGear'

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:19:37 +0000

Philips has launched its digital audio & video player ‘GoGear (model:SA5245)’. Apart from looking very nice, its most noticeable feature is FullSound, a digital audio algorithm patented by Philips that refines audio output. FullSound apparently brings out the best of their audio system and delivers more life to the music by performing millions of operations before the sound hits your ears. It would seem that as hardware becomes faster companies are using it to full advatage to manipulate the sound into ritcher tones or make the sound appear to come from different directions as with Creative’s ZEN X-Fi.

If like me you have too many wires in your life and you are looking to reducing them before you have a nasty accident you could splash out on the Bluetooth-enabled model (SA5245BT). Both the GoGear models have a 2.8inch QVGA LCD screen and up to five hours video playtime.

All in all a very nice number and not a bad price either. You can find one of these at Amazon for $122.39 or

Reshape your pits to squeeze 42GB on a DVD

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:21:21 +0000

Japanese researchers have been hard at work fiddling with discs and they have come up with a way to multiply the capacity of a CD or DVD by 9 fold. The researchers have managed this magnificent feat by reshaping the pits on the media surface, which are normally flat, into ‘v’ shapes.

Unfortunately you won’t be using discs based on this method any time soon as it renders them incompatible with current players, and worse still, the process cannot be applied to Blu-ray discs. This particular piece of research is unlikely to amount to much, at least for consumers.

[Source: Engadget]

The Mad Sony Rolly – an MP3 player in an egg

Mike Evans — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:12:01 +0000

Sony have announced what could be the world’s most bonkers MP3 player. The Sony Rolly (or the SEP-10BT to give its less-inspired formal name) is shaped like an egg, and you control its functions by either twisting it or rolling it.

Even more impressively, the Rolly can actually dance in time to the music, spinning and opening the flaps on its side to the beat.

More details and pictures of the Sony Rolly after the jump (puppy not included – sorry!).

Sony Rolly

Although clearly being marketed as part MP3 player part toy, the Rolly is actually quite well featured, offering 1GB of flash memory, USB, Bluetooth, and support for ATRAC and MP3 music formats.

Better still, users can download both music and packages of dance moves for the weird egg-like device, so you never get bored with the same motion. Users can also create their own dance moves on a PC and send them to the Rolly via Bluetooth.

Currently, the Rolly is only set for Japan, but Sony are considering selling it in other markets. Personally, I think they should – in fact, I think it’s a no-brainer, as this is by far the most innovative that’s happened in the MP3 market for a long time, and it’s great to see Sony finally hitting back with some genuinely innovative gadgets. It even makes the iPod Touch look out-dated!

The Sony Rolly will go on sale in Japan on September 29th, priced $354.

[Source: Examiner, Official Sony Rolly site]

Silent discos with Samsung YP-P2 and T10 media players

Mike Evans — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:18:34 +0000

Samsung have announced the Samsung YP-P2 and YP-T10 MP3 players. Well, I say MP3 players – they both play video as well, making them more PMPs than MP3 players. Whatever, both gadgets look pretty nifty, coming as they do with support for Bluetooth 2.0, and the badass P2 looks like it’s quite capable of taking on the Apple iPod Touch.

More details of the Samsung P2 and T10 after the jump.

The use of Bluetooth on both players lets you listen to your music wirelessly, which I must admit would be great in the gym, where I’m forever being strangled by the annoying wires of MP3 player. Should also mean an end to seriously twisted headphone cables that are a nightmare to untangle (or is this just me?!)

Better still, up to three people can listen to music from one player via their own Bluetooth headset, enabling you to perform what to other people must seem like a bizarre silent disco!

As far as video is concerned, the P2 offers a glorious 3″ screen and can display video at 16:9 widescreen at a full 30 frames per second. And just to show can stand up to the iPod touch, it too offers a touchscreen interface that responds to user’s gestures, iPhone-like.

The T10, meanwhile, only offers a 2″ QVGA screen, but it too can playback video as well as music, with players using Samsung’s Digital Natural Sound engine (DNSe) technology to enhance the sound.

The players give 35 hours of music play and 5 hours of video playback, and come in 4GB versions and an 8GB version (P2 only).

Samsung YA-BS300 Bluetooth Speaker

Mike Evans — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:01:22 +0000

Samsung have been showing off the niftily-titled Samsung YA-BS300 Bluetooth speaker. As you can see from the pics, the YA-BS300 is not the biggest speaker in the world, but then it’s not meant to be. It’s designed to be carried around with you, so you can hook it up wirelessly to your Bluetooth-supporting MP3 player (such as the Samsung YP-P2) or mobile phone and play tunes through it.

Helpfully, it even comes with fast forward and rewind buttons, letting you shuttle back and forth between tracks without touching the MP3 player.

[Source: Aving.net]