Day: August 1, 2006

“Archos is a big player in the portable media player market, and they just keep releasing new units on the market that may not get you drooling, but they certainly make you want one. The company’s latest offering is the Archos 404, sporting a design that isn’t terribly foreign and a spec sheet to match.The 3.5-inch LCD display isn’t exactly huge, but I’d say it’s adequate for most of your on-the-go video watching needs. Other key features include a 30GB hard drive, built-in speaker (presumably in addition to a headphone jack), and a voice recorder. In addition to a wide range of media formats — MP3, WMA, WAV, JPEG, BMP, PNG, MPEG4 ASP (Level 5), XviD, DivX 4, DivX 5, and WMV9 — the Archos 404 also lets you tackle those PDF files you have kicking around as well. Battery life is reported at 15 hours of audio, or 4 hours of video. No pricing or availability information is available at this time, though Archos does mention that they plan on adding a DVR station, line-in recorder, USB host module, and camera to the optional accessories list.” via mobilemag.com

“E-TEN Information Systems has introduced an update of its GPS-communicator E-TEN G500, which was released this spring. The new version is called E-TEN G500+. It has twice as much flash Rom onboard – 256 MB instead of 128 MB (RAM size remained the same – 64 MB), FM-radio with RDS and Direct Push technology.I’d remind you main specs. The G500 was positioned as the first PDA-enabled phone with TMC (Traffic Message Channel0 function to get regular reports on road traffic condition, traffic jams and road works. The communicator is powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC running on Samsung S3C2440 400 MHz processor.It is designed for quad-band GSM networks and supports GPRS. Its LCD features a 2.8” diagonal, QVGA (240×320 pixel) resolution, 65K colors. There is an integrated 1.3-megapixel camera, an expansion slot for miniSD cards and Bluetooth 2.0. The G500+ measures 119x62x23 mm and weighs 191 g.” More here: via mobile-review.com

“MILPITAS, CA, JULY 31, 2006 – SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today introduced a 2-gigabyte (GB) microSD card – the largest capacity of the world’s smallest removable flash memory card – to meet demand for a new generation of MP3 music phones, including the forthcoming Verizon Wireless Chocolate by LG mobile phone. Using the SanDisk microSD card, the Verizon Wireless phone can store up to 1,000 digital songs downloaded from the company’s V CAST music service. The card, which is sold with an adapter that enables it to fit into a standard-size SD slot of other devices, will debut in the U.S. exclusively at 1,900 Verizon Wireless stores for the next 60 days. Internationally, it will be sold by a variety of mobile retailers.”Read more at photosnews.com

“As with just about any news coming out of Apple (or Microsoft) these days, you should take this report with a little grain of salt (with a dash of excitement to taste). It seems that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer has gone on the record to at least indicate that the company is working on an iPhone-like device; he suggested that “Apple is definitely working [on a] portable music player with communication capabilities.”Of course, this could just mean that the next-gen iPod could pack in some WiFi capabilities a la the Microsoft Zune or MusicGremlin MP3 player. However, if all the stars are aligned and what we think is true actually is, then we could very well have an iPhone on the way.Oppenheimer does, after all, go on to say that “we do not think that the [cell] phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change.” Of course, he doesn’t go much further than that, saying that although “we are very excited about what we have in the product pipeline… I cannot comment on that.” ” via mobilemag.com

“Palm today announced the election of Bill Coleman, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Cassatt, Corp., to its board of directors. Coleman also was a co-founder and first chief executive officer of BEA Systems, Inc., a world-leading infrastructure-software company. Prior to BEA, Coleman held various management positions at Sun Microsystems, Inc., including vice president and general manager of Sun Professional Services; vice president of system software, overseeing the Sun operating system, Solaris; and co-founder of the Sun Federal Division. He is a member of the board of directors of Symantec Corp. and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and a member of the Trilateral Commission, a group formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, European Union countries, the United States and Canada to foster closer cooperation among core democratic industrialized areas of the world. He also is president of the Coleman Colorado Foundation, which supports the University of Colorado Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the U.S. Air Force Academy and master’s degrees in computer science and computer engineering from Stanford University. “Bill is an experienced technology entrepreneur, CEO, and director,” said Eric Benhamou, chairman of the board of Palm. “He has been associated with many successful growth companies throughout his career. He has also earned a deserved reputation as a generous philanthropist. The Palm board is fortunate to be able to benefit from his wisdom and counsel.” ” via palminfocenter.com