“Creative officially announced its new MP3-player ZEN Neeon 2. This is a flash player capacious of 1, 2 or 4 GB. Unlike its predecessor ZEN Neeon, the new player is equipped with a color LCD, which can display video and digital photos. It is slimmer and narrower – 81x42x12.5 mm instead of 79.9×46.9×15.9 mm, it weighs 50 g.The specs of ZEN Neeon 2:
1.5” CSTN LCD, 128×128 pixels
FM-radio and microphone
Supported formats – MP3, WMA, WAV, JPEG and AVI
Line-in
USB 2.0 interface
Li-Pol battery (up to 20 hours of music playback and 8 hours of video
Dimensions – 81x42x12.5 mm
Weight – 50 g
The player has a black shell with metallic back panels (5 colors). The company also released stickers displaying music genres. ZEN Neeon 2 will be available in August with 1 and 2 GB, the 4GB version will come out later. The recommended price makes up $199, $269 and $309 respectively.” via mobile-review.com
“Rumor: Images of what appear to be a new Palm OS Treo model have been posted on a Chinese PDA message board. This Treo could likely be the long rumored 4th new model due this year code-named Lowridder or Nitro. Previously leaked documents from Cingular point out this is a GSM smartphone that could be released in October. The images come from a post on the 
As you can guess the Z620 is 11.8 mm thick. It is designed for 3G networks. The clamshell is packed in magnesium body. The device is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera, a 2.3” QVGA (240×320 pixel) LCD, 138 MB of internal memory and an expansion slot for microSD cards.In addition it supports video telephony. 
The Ultra Edition 13.5 slider goes under the slogan “Joy, Top of the class”. It is also designed for 3G networks and supports video telephony. It features a 3-megapixel camera with video capture opportunity, 150 MB of internal memory and an expansion slot for microSD cards. It is 13.5 mm thick. 
“TOKYO and MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, August 4, 2006–Toshiba Corporation (Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan) and SanDisk Corporation (Milpitas, CA, USA) today announced that, further to definitive agreements that the companies entered into in July 2006, construction has started of Fab 4, a 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fab, in Yokkaichi, in Mie Prefecture, Japan.
The NAND flash memory market is growing fast, on healthy growth in a wide range of digital electronic applications, including MP3 music players, mobile phones and several kinds of memory cards. Toshiba and SanDisk started operation of a state-of-the-art 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fab, Fab 3, in summer 2005, at Yokkaichi Operations, and have boosted the facility’s capacity to meet market demand. Today’s start of construction reflects the need for a new facility, in parallel with expansion of Fab 3, in order to meet anticipated demand for NAND flash memory products in 2008 and beyond. Read the full press release 
Source: IDC Worldwide Handheld QView, August 3, 2006 Notes: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors. Handheld devices are pocket-sized, either pen or keypad-centric, and are capable of synchronizing with desktop or laptop computers. Handheld devices are designed to access and manage data including office documents, multimedia, and games. Handheld devices do not include telephony but may include wireless capabilities that enable Internet access and text communication. These devices feature evolved operating systems or applications environments such as the Palm OS, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Linux, or other proprietary platforms with the ability to download, run applications, and store user data beyond their required PIM capabilities. IDC’s Worldwide Handheld QView provides device vendors, software developers, service providers, and component suppliers with timely and accurate information on the worldwide handheld market. The program provides quarterly measurements of worldwide unit shipments and vendor market shares. For more information about IDC’s Worldwide Handheld QView program, please contact Jonathan Guloyan at 508-935-4296 or 
“Drowned power button is located on top side, as well as two leds. On the left we can see miniSD slot, soft reset button, headset jack. Unfortunately, only original headset will fit, this means that you will not be able to use your favorite headphones in this one. The headphones that are in the package are very quite, you cannot hear anything while you’re in a subway even if volume is set to maximum. Sound quality is below average. I should also say that headphones act as external antenna for radio and television, but we shall speak more about that in corresponding chapter. miniSD and headset connectors are locked by not very good covers (cork prevents you from connecting headset nicely within first attempt).” Read this nice review 
“Sony Ericsson has launched a Mobile Cinema operation in France for the release of the new multimedia smart phone, the M600i. To watch Final Fantasy VII Advent Children in its whole length and in DVD-like quality on a mobile: this is what Sony Ericsson offers in exclusivity to anyone buying their new phone. A 512MB micro memory stick, containing the full-length movie in 256MB will be presented in an exclusive offer to each buyer of the new Sony Ericsson M600i.Thanks to Mobiclip, the optimized video codec patented by the French company Actimagine; in one click, pictures come to life as if you were at the movies. The animation film Final Fantasy VII is played on Sony Ericsson’s M600i, in DVD-like quality, full screen, at 30 frames per second, while limiting power consumption. You just need to insert the memory card into the phone, click on the icon on the screen, and the film starts.”We want to make Mobiclip the reference for mobile cinema in terms of video technology, while offering a unique experience to the consumer: quality of content, quality of picture, ease of use, and a lot less power consumption”, reminds Andre Pagnac, Chief Executive Officer of Actimagine. “Our collaboration with Sony Ericsson offers to everyone the opportunity to live the unique experience of Mobile Cinema on the new M600i.”Besides a unique design, with an extra large touch panel screen, push e-mail functions, a multi functional AZERTY keyboard and an Opera 8.0 navigator, the Sony Ericsson M600i offers the state-of-the-art in terms of sound and picture.” 
“The big thing to note is that the Symbian version of Flash cannot play or understand everything that you could write. That’s why it is called Flash Lite – it is a mobile optimised subset of the Flash and as such it understands many, but not all, the commands a typical Flash author could use. You will need to look specifically for Flash Lite content to get files that will work on your device. The Flash Lite player is a commercial product from Macromedia, and initially the player was only available if you purchased it. For S60 2nd Edition, UIQ 2.1 and earlier phones you can purchase the player seperately directly from Adobe for $8. However Mobizines bundles the Flash Lite player with their free download of Mobizone so it is possible to obtain the Flash Player for free. S60 3rd Edition devices (N71, N73, N80, E60, E61, E70, N91, N92, N93, 3250, 5500) ship with a Flash Player application (Flash Lite 1.1; the next revision of S60, S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 will use Flash Lite 2.0) included out of the box. It’s very important to note is that there are two versions of Flash Lite available – 1.1 and 2.0. Backwards compatibility allows the 2.0 player to open and run older .swf files, but 1.1 cannot run a 2.0 file, so it’s worth double checking any application is compatible with your installed Flash player.” Find out more at 
“HTC may not be particularly well known in North America, but they’re the company behind a lot of Windows Mobile-powered smartphones on the market, including a good number of self-branded handsets from Cingular and T-Mobile. Now the Taiwan-based handset maker has its eyes set on challenging the BlackBerry devices and Moto Q’s of the world with the all-new HTC Excalibur. It is said that this smartphone has been in the works for quite some time now, but it is only recently that pictures have started popping up on the internet. Specs are a little slim at this point, but as you can tell from the pic, it comes with a full QWERTY keyboard and naturally runs on WinMo5. Word is that it does quad-band GSM and Wi-Fi as well.What will really set the Excalibur apart from the competition, though, is its unique touch-sensitive “jog strip” that replaces the ubiquitous jog wheel we find on the device offered by Research in Motion. You can see this clever strip just to the right of the vibrant better-than-QVGA display.”