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Oprah Calls Kindle Her "New Favorite Thing," Gives Everyone $50 Off

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 27th 2008 at 7:00AM



Been waiting patiently for the next-generation Kindle(s) to hit the market? Growing increasingly frustrated with the wait? Thanks to the Amazon e-reader becoming Oprah Winfrey's "new favorite, favorite thing in the world (can't you see the jubilation on her face?)," you might just have to finally pull the trigger on the existing iteration. As a special offer for 'Oprah Show' viewers (and by extension, everyone who reads this post), Amazon.com is now offering $50 off of the Kindle's $359 price tag by simply entering the code OPRAHWINFREY at checkout and envisioning Tom Cruise leaping on your computer desk. Better act fast, though -- the offer's only good through November 1st, and yes, that Tom Cruise bit is required.

[Thanks, Chad]

Mother's Day: Nintendo DS and Konami Let's Yoga

by Tobey Grumet Segal, posted May 9th 2008 at 10:25AM



If you thought handheld game consoles were just for kids, then you've got it all wrong. They were made for moms, too. The Nintendo DS is small, with a clamshell design and two LCD screens -- one of which is a touchscreen. With a built-in microphone and Wi-Fi, this little gadget is perfect entertainment for the mom who wants to be at least as cool as her teenage or twentysomething daughters. Add some groovy games -- like Konami's Let's Yoga! and Let's Pilates!, which provide simple instructions for exercises and positions -- and it becomes a portable workout center. Also perfect for her is the Crosswords DS game, which includes more than a thousand crossword puzzles, Wordsearch and Anagrams. The Nintendo DS goes for $130 and the games retail for $30.

Strange But True Cell Phone Stories

by Alon Avdi, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 12:08PMFeatured Story

In this day and age, owning a cell phone is about as special as using your tooth brush every night before bed. For some people, however, these gadget must-haves cause more trouble than they're worth. For others, they are literally a life-saver. Either way, they often make life just a bit more odd. To celebrate the weird world cell phones have created, we present to you Strange But True Cell Phone Stories.



The one with the guy who gets text messages from his late wife...

In Ghost, a 1990 romantic tearjerker, Patrick Swayze's character needed Oda Mae Brown to contact his beloved wife from beyond the grave. These days, it seems as though the deceased can stay in contact without a middleman. Well, sort of. Englander Frank Jones claims that his wife, Sadie, has been sending him text messages from the afterlife, leaving no return number behind. Turns out the family buried Sadie with her prized cell phone, and now Jones believes his wife's spirit has a hankering to reach out and touch someone. Here's hoping Oda Mae finds a new line of work...

Strange But True Cell Phone Stories

by Alon Avdi, posted Apr 21st 2008 at 6:43AM



The one with the $22,000 downloads of 'Friends' episodes....

Whoever said Friends don't cost a thing? A man from the United Kingdom received a bill for £11,000 (about $22,000) after his wife downloaded four episodes of the popular TV show from his cell phone. Apparently, she began downloading shortly before the man left for business in Germany, where roaming charges made the bill skyrocket as the downloads continued. The good news is that one of the episodes the couple downloaded was the one where – eh, never mind.

Nikki Sixx: A Motley Interview, Care of Switched

by Alon Avdi, posted Feb 1st 2008 at 12:17PM



Bassist and songwriter Nikki Sixx met fame in the 1980s as a member of the rock/heavy metal band Motley Crue. Sixx cemented a reputation as a hard-charging force on the music scene through his frequent drug binges and over-the-top theatrical performances on stage. In 2006, he joined the members of Motley Crue on a reunion tour, this time gratefully sober. Now the bassist in Sixx: A.M. and one-third of the creative force behind The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, Nikki found time to sat down to answer our Switched Questionnaire and tell us about the role of gadgets in his life, including the love/hate relationship he has with his iPhone...

What gadgets do you always bring with you to the set?
iPhone.

What cell phone do you have right now and what do you love/hate about it?
iPhone. I wish it had copy paste in the email apps.

Who's the last person you sent a text message to and what was it about?
My daughter -- telling me I'm weird

Where do you go pretty much every time you get online?
A good reason to go to Starbucks.

What annoys you most about your iPod, cell phone, or laptop (or any other gadget)?
I hate that I'm addicted to it, but it's hard to imagine life without it.

Name one thing you wish your iPod/cellphone/laptop could do that it doesn't do now?
Wish my iPhone had true video messaging -instead of voice mail it would face mail. Hello, Mr. Jobs?

What upcoming gadget can you not wait to get your hands on?
I can't wait to check into the iHotel. DJ told me it should be ready in 2011.

You're stranded on a desert island: What gadget do you bring?
Suntan oil and a blonde (or a brunette or both), unless the iGirl is ready.

What's the most-played song or artist on your iPod?
A.M. right now, but usually everything from metal to country.

Blackberry, Sidekick, or Treo?
None. Why bring old technology to the party? How many times have I said iPhone in this interview?

What's the longest time you've ever spent playing a video game in one sitting and what game was it?
Don't play video games. Just can't seem to get interested.

Do you use/have a Mac or PC? Why?
Mac. Is there any other kind?

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iPhone Popularity On the Wane?

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 25th 2008 at 6:03PM



Apple recently said that it has sold about 3.7 million units of the iPhone, but phone service giant (and iPhone carrier) AT&T claims it only has approximately 2 million iPhone service subscribers. CNET News.com reports that the "missing" 1.7 million units may be accounted in several ways: For one, about 400,000 units have been sold in Europe. Another 250,000 that were sold, but not activated, are thought to have been purchased by consumers wanting to hack and unlock the phone, an endeavor that became much harder with the release of Apple's 1.1.2 firmware. The rest are apparently in-store inventory, waiting to be bought up by customers.

It is possible that hesitant consumers are waiting for a lower-priced iPhone, or that the superstitious are reluctant about buying brand new products that may still have kinks for the next version to work out. Apple nevertheless projects 2008 sales to number about 10 million units. CNET News suggests that launches in Asia and other European countries, soon-to-be-released new applications, and the release of the iPhone software developer's kit (which will lead to all kinds of cool third-party programs for the device) might all back up Apple's claim.

Or maybe people are just sick of the iPhone. It stopped being a novelty as soon as the iPod Touch came out last Fall, which gave all those users who didn't want to switch carriers the benefits of the iPhone's big, responsive touchscreen and slim form factor.

Besides, aren't we all waiting for the hot, new high-speed 3G iPhone to come out some time this year? Let's hope it really happens.

From CNET News.com

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1.1 Billion Cell Phones Sold Worldwide In 2007, Says Study

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 25th 2008 at 2:16PM



A recent study concludes that about 1.1 billion cell phones were sold in 2007. Strategy Analytics, a market research firm, says that the number of units sold marks a ten percent increase from the previous year. It also forecasts a ten percent increase in cell phone purchases this year, with regions such as Africa and the Middle East picking up the slack for saturated Western markets.

Finland's Nokia took the top sales spot with a market share of about 39%, or 437 million units sold. The study also noted that Apple's iPhone took about a 0.6 percent market share, which translates to about 2.3 million phones sold. Those numbers are slightly disappointing, says Strategy Analytics, pointing to the reluctance of European consumers to pay for the relatively expensive iPhone with the same fervor as the frenzied American public did last summer. Interestingly, Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently offered a more flattering figure, saying that the number of iPhones sent out numbered closer to 4 million. Somehow, we just don't see the pricey iPhone being a smashing success in economically-troubled Africa this year...

From AFP Via Textually.org

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Police Can Search Through Cell Phone Contents

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 24th 2008 at 4:30PM



Unsettling Thought of the Day: The law allows police to search through cell phone contents of people who have been stopped for arrestable traffic offenses. Gizmodo reports that a recent academic article by South Texas Assistant Professor Adam Gershowitz explains that many traffic violations merit a search for contraband like drugs, and search parameters extend to hand-held devices. The law considers cell phones and iPods to be closed containers that police are permitted to "open," even if they contain your private text messages, photos, call history, browsing history and e-mails.

The thirty page article includes a 2007 case that went to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – the United States v. Finley – in which police arrested a man following a drug sales sting and looked through the cell phone that was on his person. They found text messages that appeared to be connected to drug dealing, evidence which was used to convict Finley. In the end, the appeals court supported the legality of the search.

Truth be told, this news gives us goosebumps. Not because we plan on going 90 mph in a school safety zone, but because the larger issue of privacy seems to be at stake. It would be easy just write this one off as a proof that The Man is indeed a Fascist out to take away all of our liberties, but we just think it's a case in which the law has to catch up with technology. The writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights could not have foreseen this kind of scenario, and it should be the responsibility of the US Congress to take up the issue as we become more and more enmeshed in a gray legal area that hasn't kept up with technological developments. Do you think police are justified in looking through your cell phone during a legal search?

From Gizmodo

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T-Mobile Debuts New Samsung SGH-t819 Cellular Phone

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 21st 2008 at 12:01AM



Today, the Tech Wizard of Oz lifted the curtain to unveil the new T-Mobile Samsung t819 cellular phone. Equipped with wireless, stereo Bluetooth technology, the t819 sings its own praises with features like a 1.3 megapixel camera with video capture capability, an MP3 player and a micro SD slot for a maximum of 2-gigabytes (GB) of removable memory.

A slider phone that weighs in just shy of 3.5 ounces, the latest T-Mobile device has numerous messaging options, including AOL, SMS, MMS, ICQ, Windows Live and Yahoo. Furthermore, it is compatible with T-Mobile Address Book and offers the T-Mobile myFaves calling plan.

The cellular phone's full moniker is the Samsung SGH-t819. It is available in a two-toned brown hue, with a frame that measures approximately 4"x 2" x .5", which makes it one of the smaller slider-phones out there. The phone should be available over the next few days and weeks at T-Mobile retail stores, as well as online at t-mobile.com. Check out the gallery below for images.

Gallery: The New T-Mobile Samsung SGH-t819



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Wireless Portable PlanOn Printer Holds Paper, Too

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 8th 2008 at 6:20PM



Yesterday, PlanOn, the company that brought you the DocuPen scanner writing utensil, released for retail a one-of-a-kind portable printer, called the PrintStik. The tiny, mobile device, oblong and light, is a Bluetooth-enabled development that allows users to print e-mails and images from a smart phone, laptop or PDA. The technology is particularly useful for those of you who get annoyed with wires running wild when you're on the go, or for the professional who hates having to suffer in line behind Larry the Molasses Executive at those business centers just to print out a couple of pages.

The PrintStik is a self-contained unit, meaning you don't have to lug the 20 sheets of paper that fit inside. It prints at a leisurely three pages per minute, with the only other drawback being that you are not going to get a sheet of paper that might have come out of the printer at home. Instead, you will get thin, ticker-type sheets set with ink that looks like it came out of a random cash register.

Obviously, this product is not meant to turn out the annual report while you're driving to work. Instead, it is best suited for printing out things like directions or an E-mail from your handheld device.

We know, we know -- where and when, right? Expect to pay $299 for the PrintStik when you visit planon.com.

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