Posts filed under Entertainment

Those of you longing for a better mobile gaming experience will be pleased to know that Nokia have now made the new N-Gage gaming service live on their web site. Currently only of any use for owners of Nokia N81, N82, and N95 phones, the N-Gage service will be rolled out to N73 and N93 owners in the coming months.

N-Gage, of course, used to be a phone in its own right, but after performing dismally, it was pulled by Nokia. The new N-Gage platform seeks to resurrect the concept of mobile gaming, but on existing phones, rather than on a dedicated gaming phone.

More details of the new N-Gage platform after the jump.

Everyone and his dog seems to be showing off GPS phones at CES this year. Now iRiver has jumped on the bandwagon by showing off a prototype of a new iRiver GPS phone that they expect to release by the end of 2008.

This will be the first mobile phone that iRiver have released, and they’re an unexpected entrant in what must be the most competitive of all hi-tech markets. However, having had great success in the MP3 and Personal Media Player markets, they clearly know what they’re doing, both from a technological perspective, and, just as importantly, a design and marketing perspective.

They’ve got a tough fight on their hands, but they should be able to build a niche for themselves.

More details of the iRiver GPS phone after the jump.

Conspicuous by the lack of any substantial new coming from this year’s CES were the two South Korean behemoths LG and Samsung. Actually, that’s not quite true: both of these electronics giants were busy showing off hundreds of hi-tech products, with HDTVs in particular occupying pride of place in the line-ups.

As far as mobile phones were concerned, though, CES 2008 was a decidedly low-key affair, with LG in particular showing off a range of phones that were decidedly underwhelming.

More details after the jump.

It wasn’t just the big 5 mobile phone makers who were showing off their wares at CES this year. Completely unheard of Much smaller companies were also showing off their technology. Companies such as dMedia, or as they’re better known: “who?!”

OK, so you may not have heard of them, but what they had to show was pretty nifty: not just the world’s fastest GPS phone, but the world’s fastest GPS phone with dual screens!

Back in May 2007, Motorola announced that it was teaming up with Kodak to develop a 5 megapixel camera phone. Since then, every other mobile phone manufacturer has released their own 5 megapixel camera, each of which produces excellent results that are on a par with low-end digital cameras from a few years ago.

Every manufacturer, that is, except Motorola, who, despite their announcement over 7 months ago, still haven’t produced an equivalent phone.

Now, though, a new leaked photo has emerged that shows what could be an actual Motorola-Kodak 5 megapixel camera phone – exactly what Motorola promised all those months ago.

Nokia will be releasing new N-Gage phones early in 2007. The news leaked out from CTIA Wireless 2006 in Los Angeles, courtesy of CrunchGear.

Nokia announced they were going to integrate their N-Gage mobile gaming technology into future mobile phones back in February. True to their word, the new technology is taking shape, as the video (below) shows. The new N-Gage technology will obviously feature advanced 3D graphics, as well as online gaming, public chat, and the ability to download new games through an online marketplace.

More details and the video of Nokia’s new N-Gage gaming technology after the jump.

Mobile phone theft is a big problem these days, but Orange think they have the problem licked with an innovative solution – a mobile phone that screams when stolen. If your phone is stolen, you call orange’s new Synchronica Mobile Manager service (sold for an extra £10 per month), which then wipes all the data on the stolen mobile, and causes the mobile to emit a ringtone which apparently sounds just like a human screaming. At last, a real use for ringtones!

[Source: The Inquirer]

Samsung have announced the new Samsung SCH-B450 ‘free-folder’ phone. The SCH-B450 is another of Samsung’s high-end technological marvels that certainly has the wow factor. The first thing that grabs your eye is the form factor of the phone. The term ‘free folder’ coomes from the 180 degree swivelling design, which lets you use the phone in clamshell form, or swivel it round to play games. But it’s not just the form factor that’s impressive – in typical Samsung form, the SCH-B450 is packed to the gills with features.

More details and pictures of the Samsung SCH-B450 after the jump.

Apple have missed the boat in releasing the much-hyped Apple iPhone. They’ve been beaten to the market by AppleIIGo, which turns any mobile phone supporting Java’s MIDP 2.0 into an Apple iPhone. Well, an old 1977 Apple II anyway, as the AppleIIGo is an Apple II emulator for mobile phones. But still, if you want to claim bragging rights over all the Apple fan boys, download the AppleIIGo now and show off your very own (and very old) Apple iPhone.

Download AppleIIGo, the Apple II emulator here.

After the latest Apple iPhone hype, Apple seems to have thrown everyone off guard with a new patent that focuses on a wireless iPod that could take on the carriers in the music download market. The patent discusses a “portable wireless device”, which would be used “…to identify a digital media item on an online media store and mark it for download. The digital media item may then be downloaded at a later time when the user is able to connect to the online media store with a transfer device, typically a personal computer.”