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“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

MONTREAL, QC., July 27th, 2006 – Countless number of people out there are reading almost everything on their mobiles and it’s growing everyday.To help bloggers address this new opportunity, SRN has officially launched Hubdog Blogger Program: http://www.hubdog.com/affiliates Hubdog’s mobile publisher program allows affiliate bloggers to create mobile versions of their blogs that are perfectly fit to Windows Mobile devices. Plus the service is completely free and totally user friendly.See for yourself: http://www.hubdog.com/channel/2499/preview The program’s built-in marketing toolset allows partner bloggers to add their own personalized subscription button or “chicklet” to their blog’s sidebar. This allows Windows Mobile users to easily get an optimize version of their favorite blogs on their devices, a version that can be access either online (live mode) or offline (podcast mode).How it works ? Well, Hubdog simply connects to your blog RSS feed and displays your content in a mobile version perfectly fit to your Windows Mobile device.The software can also cache your blog to ensure your content is always available offline. Hubdog users can also email interesting blog posts from their devices to their friends and contacts, leveraging viral promotion of their favorite blogs.Bottom line, Hubdog improves and optimizes the experience of reading blogs on any Windows Mobile pocket pc device. Hubdog Blogger Program Benefits:- Optimize your blog for Windows Mobile pocket pcs devices.- Cost-free solution for addressing millions of mobile readers throughout the world.- Track your success: Get statistical usage data about readers subscribing to your channel.- 100% efficiency, since channels are subscribed by readers on an opt-in basis.- Access to an educated, influential readership with a high disposable income.- Leverage online content distribution and serve existing readers with an added value mobile delivery solution.- Attract new readers and build stronger relationships with existing readers.

“TMOBILE has posted the long awaited ROM (ver 2.26) for the MDA USA. It contains a Radio Fix addressing the searching, signal acquirring issue as well as A2DP. Remember, you need a Fully Charged MDA before you get started, and make sure your PC will not go into Hibernate during the install. Also, on a personal experience note, I had a 3-5 minute pause when I got to 85%. Just as I began to worry, it picked back up. You never want to disturb the process or disconnect the cable. Complete instructions are included in the ROM Upgrade.”Download: T-Mobile MDA Software Version (2.26.10.2)Date Updated: 07/28/06Size: 55 MBNotes: To find the Handheld Software version: 1. From the Today screen, press “Start”. 2. Select “Settings”. 3. Select the “System” tab. 4. Select the “Device Information” icon. 5. Check the ROM version. If your device software version is not 2.26.10.2, it is highly recommended that you download and install this software.” Check it here: via pocketpcthoughts.com

“The latest sweet chocolate from LG is in slider mode. The LG VX8500 is available from today… only for Verizon Wireless.Similar to other Chocolate phone, the LG VX8500 has the touch sensitive navigation controls that detect the heat in your fingertip. The chocolate camera phone has a A 1.3 megapixel camera, it is also a music phone which support MP3 and WMA music files formats. Quick access sensor buttons will allow you to activate the music player smoothly. Weighting at 100 grams, the LG VX8500 can connect wirelessly with other phones or gadgets via bluetooth connection. EV-DO connection will make sure you get high speed connection and enjoy the music streaming from Verizon Wireless. The phone has a microSD memory card slot for memory expansion. 128 MB internal memory is available by default where 64MB of it is reserved for music files.” More photos at slashphone.com

“To use the 3.2 megapixel camera, you must swivel the screen through a right angle, with this action starting the camera application. However in any other mode, ‘Camera’ uses the secondary (VGA/video calling) camera. It is a shame that you cannot switch back to the main camera, to take candid images and videos to your left hand side. One related annoyance is that when you rotate the screen back into clamshell mode, after using the camera, the application stays active but switches to the secondary camera, meaning that you’re taken from your peaceful photographic experience of your subject to seeing an image of your own face – which can come as a bit of a shock!The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course, especially with this review’s focus on the multimedia performance. Before going any further, let us state that there’s no way the N93 is good enough to displace a standalone digital camera of similar specification for even semi-professional use. The lens and CMOS array are just physically too small and the handling of extremes of light and dark just isn’t flexible enough. As with all other smartphone camera, in very bright light there will be washed out areas and in dim conditions (e.g. indoors) there will be lots of picture ‘noise’ and blur on any moving objects. Contrast this with a standalone camera, which will have a large enough lens and enough sensor intelligence to gather and cope with an awful lot more photons of light.” Read this great review here:

MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA and KFAR SABA, ISRAEL – July 30, 2006 SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) and msystems Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLSH) today entered into definitive agreements for SanDisk to acquire msystems in an all stock transaction. This combination joins together two flash memory pioneers with complementary products, customers and channels. Together the combined company will have the people, technology, manufacturing and IP to play a leading role in creating new markets and accelerating the penetration of flash memory into existing storage applications. Read more here: