Devices Gadgets

We aren’t quite to the point of ordering around robots to clean up our dirty laundry, or get one to cook a decent meal for us.  However, at least you can have cute little lamps in the shape of a robot.  You can even bark out the order to brighten the room up a bit and pretend it wasn’t you that flipped the switch.  It would make a great lamp for any adult that loves quirky lighting and would make an even cooler lamp for a child’s room.  The robot even has a cute little heart that is visible once it is switched on.

The lamp is said to put off an amber glow, which would make for some nice warm lighting when you feel like relaxing with a good book.  Yes, people do still read words printed on an actual page on occasion.  The robot stands 50cm, which is about 20in tall.  You can pick him up on LazyBone for £49.99 or approximately $74.  Which is a little pricey, but it’s still a cute lamp if you can manage the price tag.

Source: Geeky-gadgets

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Yesterday, we learned that T-Mobile Germany customers would soon be getting the blackberry Curve 8900 for that nice low price of just 4.95 euros.  Now in some good news for those based here in the US, that same Curve 8900 has just made its FCC appearance.  While I would not expect such low pricing here, we can still hold out some hope.

As of now, this is nothing more than an FCC listing, which means RIM is simply playing the approval game.  We are still awaiting information regarding a release date as well as carrier information.  Although it is not expected to make a debut until sometime in Q1 of 2009, we have heard a rumor that it could be available with T-Mobile as early as Black Friday.  Of course, that is not to leave those with AT&T handing, because it is expected to be available there as well.  The Blackberry 8900 Curve will feature quad-band GSM/EDGE, a 3.2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g , Bluetooth and GPS.

While initially I am a little disappointed by the lack of 3G support, perhaps it is important to point out that 3G may not be as necessary for everyone.  I have plenty of friends that are using a non-3G BlackBerry and are very happy with the speed, mainly because they use it for calendar and email and rarely go online.  Of course, I suppose if you are looking for that extra surfing speed, then the Bold would be the way to go, either way it looks like the Curve 8900 is going to make a welcomed addition.

Read [FCC] Via [cellphonesignal]

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Microsoft just announced that they are giving Windows Live a major face lift.  They plan to debut a whole bunch of new beta Windows Live features to help users combine all parts of their online life.  These features are not going to just be Microsoft services either.  But they will all be under the Windows Live umbrella page.

Even though they already hold the title of the most used messenger program; they obviously want to reach even farther into the online cookie jar.  Microsoft wants to offer competition with the popular social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.  Whether or not they can actually provide any kind of competition coming into the game this much later remains to be seen.

Besides their Hotmail and SkyDrive (which upped the free storage to 25GB from the initial 5GB), Microsoft is teaming with over 50 third-party services for their new pages.  Flickr, Twitter, Photobucket, Digg, Wordpress, Pandora—these are just a few of the “big names” joining the dance.  With these third-party site partnerships, Microsoft’s “What’s New” feed is enabled. 

This feed is shared with other Live friends through your Windows Live homepage, your Messenger account, and other WL services.  You can personalize the What’s New feed to show updates you either make or receive.  So, for example, when you update your Photobucket account with a couple of new pictures, your friends know about it.  Or you can customize it to show tweets from the folks on your Twitter list.

The beta services won’t all be available immediately according to Microsoft, but will gradually be introduced to WL users beginning in December.

Obviously, the whole goal is to get more people to be spending their time at Live.com.  But will trying to recreate the wheel really help them hit that goal?  Several comments I’ve been reading about the service have people saying things like they really don’t want or need yet another social networking site.  Gebedia Smith says “no more social sites… please go away… MS you can’t be everything to everybody. Try to focus on testing windows 7, something you forgot to do on Vista.”

However, Brian Hall from Microsoft Live rebuts these kind of thoughts by commenting “I run the Windows Live business at MS - and I’m happy to tell you that we’re not creating ‘yet another social network.’ we’re building more ways to keep in touch w/ the people you already have if you’re a Windows Live Messenger or Windows live Hotmail customer. this is a big group of people with a big network of people that use these services because they’re trying to keep in touch with others (using email and IM, but those are just means not ends). we’re providing more ways for them to keep in touch with the people they want, and now also letting people link their other activities across the web so that they don’t need to just use our services. if you’re a happy facebook user - great, keep using facebook. ditto myspace, bebo, skyrock, daum, QQ, linkedin, … there are lots of social networks out there doing a very good job.” Yet, noticeably missing from the 50 partner sites are Facebook and MySpace.  Guess Live doesn’t want to share the ball in the playground all that much. 

What do you think?  Is it enough to make you want to join their club?  Or do you not feel the need to go Live?

via [techcrunch]

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PhoneFusion announced yesterday that their Fusion Voicemail + is coming to the Android platform that will allow users to view their voicemails and listen to them in any order they choose.  This was a big selling point of the original iPhone and now it is coming to the Android platform.

Currently, PhoneFusion offers this software for free to Windows Mobile, blackberry, Linux, Palm and Symbian phones via their downloaded application.  PhoneFusion announced the addition of the Android to their compatible platforms at the Under the Radar: Mobility event.  The company says the application will be available before the end of this year.

Fused voicemails?

PhoneFusion redirects your voicemail calls to its hosted service and alerts your phone.  The service does not limit users to just cell phone voicemail, it allows home, office, VOIP and any other voicemail to be redirected to the service.  This means no matter where you are, your voicemails can find you.

Just like the iPhone, you just tap the voicemail you want to hear and it plays.  While not as integrated as the iphone system, PhoneFusion looks nice and should be a help to users who seek this feature.

Not for me?

Personally, I find PhoneTag (formerly SimulScribe) much more usable as the voicemail is transcribed and emailed or SMS’ed to me.  I can read much faster than the caller can talk, so I save time and don’t have to listen to pregnant pauses and “um’s” and, you get the idea.  However, that is a paid service and the PhoneFusion is not.

Company site: [PhoneFusion] Source: [newsblaze]

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