Gillian Shaw
Sun

 Asimov’s Law, Alice Wang

This is the best thing that could happen to our weight since the last herbal cleanse. Created by Alice Wang, the designer whose products – like the cell phone that pretends to receive text messages to make it look like you’re popular, or the fast-typing keyboard that will save your klutzy typing from the ridicule of your cubicle colleagues – are aimed at showing up human behaviours, taboos and trends. Asimov’s Law is named for Isaac Asimov’s first law: “A robot may not harm a human being.” This is a range of scales that can make you feel good about your weight – something that the regular version doesn’t always do. White Lies lets you lie to yourself – the further back you stand on the scales, the lighter you become. Half-truth passes your weight news to your partner, which may or may not put a strain on your relationship depending on how that’s played out. And Open-secrets sends a text message to the cell phone of your choosing every time you weigh yourself. www.alice-wang.com

2 HL-2170W wireless laser printer, Brother, $180

Wireless and Ethernet networking come at an affordable price for home and SOHO use in Brother International Corp.’s new line of monochrome laser printers. Delivering at a speed up to 23 pages per minute, it has an enclosed lower paper tray to hold up to 250 sheets of paper and a manual slot for feeding through envelopes and letterhead. It has 32 megabytes of memory, 802.11b/g wireless and Ethernet and high-yield cartridges are available to cut printing costs.

3 PIXMA MX7600 All-in-One, Canon, $450

Another printing possibility for small business, the latest entrant in Canon’s PIXMA lineup is an All-in-One machine that incorporates new Pigment Reaction (PgR) technology that allows for the printing of quality colour documents on plain paper. Dealing with the problems of ink bleeding and printing through the paper that can happen with colour inkjet printing, this will deliver professional looking documents and as an All-in-One also handles other jobs around the office like copying, scanning and faxing.

4 Nova P22, ASUS desktop PC, $900

So you want the digital home but not the clunky big hardware that comes with it. The folks at ASUS share your concern and have delivered what is being billed as the smallest Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processor. Sucking up a mere 122 cubic inches of space from your kitchen or living room, the Nova P22 is one-twelfth the size and a fifth the weight of a conventional tower model computer. Powerful, quiet and with built in speakers and support for home theatre configurations, it comes in glossy pearl white or black. Smaller than most laptops it can move from room to room, adapting to various needs via a docking station port.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Transcribed messages can show up on your phone or in e-mail

Gillian Shaw
Sun

It’s going to get harder to pretend you didn’t hear your boss’s voice mail with a new service announced Thursday by Telus that will transcribe voice messages into text that can show up on your phone or in your e-mail.

Telus has partnered with SpinVox, a company that already provides voice mail transcription into text messages for Rogers wireless customers. It has taken the service a step further, making the message accessible on a computer, personal digital assistant or wherever a customer checks e-mail.

“It takes your voice mail and it converts it, in our case, not just to text messaging but it also integrates with your e-mail — on your desktop or your Blackberry,” said Jim Senko, vice-president, Telus business solutions. “We think that takes a great service and make it even better.

“It has great utility.”

The value-added service is $15 a month for unlimited voice mail- to-text service or, on a per-use basis, it’s 50 cents a message.

“Our approach is to keep doing more with those devices,” said Senko. “E-mail and calendars are high-value and now you can archive and manage your voice mail.

“It is a very practical addition.”

The service makes it possible for users to sort through their voice mail quickly, filing or dealing without having to listen through the entire list of messages that has been recorded. It’s available in French and English.

Called visual voice mail, the service is expected to appeal to business people who will be able to check voice mail messages while they are in meetings or otherwise unable to listen to messages. But Senko said with the increase in technology being used both at home and at work, he expects it’s a service that will appeal to the consumer market as well.

“What’s happening is you are seeing a crossover between your consumer life and your business life,” he said.

“Business might be an early adopter of these types of services.

“But for example, many consumers are now buying PDAs so they can integrate with their personal e-mail — their Yahoo and their Hotmail. It’s a way for coordinating with the kids.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

David George-Cosh
Sun

TORONTO – On the day that Research In Motion Ltd.’s and Apple Inc.’s smartphone devices pushed into each other’s territories, Jim Balsillie, RIM co-chief executive, was extolling the benefits of a well-balanced diet to a Toronto audience.

“There’s no question … Blackberries have a lot of antioxidants (and) apples have a lot of fibre, too,” Balsillie told conference-goers at a downtown hotel Thursday when asked about his chief rival’s multimedia offerings.

All kidding aside, Balsillie may have been on to something. Forging a balance between the enterprise and consumer markets is the strategic lynchpin both are looking for as the two companies try to persuade customers that their smartphone is the all-in-one mobile device they’ve been looking for.

The stakes may have gotten a little higher. Apple officially announced it had partnered with Microsoft Corp. to support enterprise e-mail messaging for businesses, along with tools for developers to create a whole slew of new applications. Balsillie announced during a keynote speech at the Canadian Music Week conference that RIM will provide support for Dipdive, a social-networking website and online music store founded by artist and producer will.i.am.

“The communications platform for social networking and multimedia content are architecturally going to come together and . . . will create a very real and marketable community [for artists] if implemented well,” Balsillie said in an interview.

The website is a clear indication RIM wants a piece of the online music business, a market Apple pioneered with its iTunes Music Store and which has made it the second largest music retailer in the world. The service is said to start in a few months.

“Apple’s announcement was revolutionary, while RIM’s announcement was evolutionary,” said Carmi Levy, senior vice-president of strategic consulting for AR Communications Inc.

“The more consumer friendly (RIM) can make the BlackBerry, the better it is for its long-term growth. It’s another piece of what is turning into a very large and complex puzzle for them.”

Investors took a bearish stance toward both Apple and RIM following the announcements. Apple’s stock sank soon as Steve Jobs, chief executive, took the stage at company headquarters, down $3.56 US, to close at $120.93 US on the Nasdaq index.

RIM didn’t fare any better, falling more than four per cent for the second consecutive day to close at $97.92 US.

Although analysts agree that Apple’s support for e-mail won’t be enough to push RIM off its pedestal as the number one smartphone on the market, it is an important feature it hopes will sway customers from the BlackBerry to the iPhone.

The device is already in second place in the U.S. smartphone market, with 28 per cent share, while RIM remains on top with a 41 per cent share, according to estimates by British research firm Canalys.

“The smartphone market is not really owned by anybody. RIM doesn’t have enough of the share to hold anybody out,” said Rob Enderle, president of market research firm Enderle Group.

“This is going to be an interesting fight between both players but I’m going to give Apple the early nod [today].”

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Sun

Harmony One, Logitech, $280

The $10 remote control just doesn’t cut it anymore. Now that you’ve got your new high def television and the format war is over with Sony’s Blu-ray coming out the winner, isn’t it time you splurged for a similarly high-tech handheld controller? With a full-colour touch screen and user-friendly design, Logitech’s Harmony One scored a Consumer Electronic Show award this year for design and engineering in home-entertainment accessories. It also eliminates the need to have a collection of remotes — those things that get lost regularly under the couch — to run everything from video games to music, to TV and movies. And to make sure it doesn’t get lost, this rechargeable remote comes with a recharging station with an adjustable light so you can find it in the dark.

Radius Pro carrying cases for Apple laptops, Targus, from $50

Treat your MacBook or MacBook Pro to a new slip case or backpack from Targus. Starting with the top loading slip cases that hold laptops with screens up to 17 inches, plus a pocket for a mouse or an MP3 player. Making it easier to carry is the backpack version. It fits up to 15-inch screens and includes a protective inner compartment, labelled pockets for accessories for those who take organization seriously, plus a side water bottle pocket, and internal file folder section — at $90.

Ubuntu 7.10 on Dell XPS M1330n, Inspiron 1420n, Inspiron 1525n and Inspiron 530n desktop, from $580

For fans of open source software, Dell has launched four consumer computers with Ubuntu 7.10 installed. The computers — desktop and notebook versions — also come with Corel’s LinDVD software which lets computer users play copy-protected DVD movies. Dell has made the move in response to demand from Linux enthusiasts. Without the software licensing costs of their Windows-based counterparts, the computers have pretty competitive pricing. The computer maker has a Dell Linux Forum at www.dellcommunity.com and the customizable computers can be found online at www.dell.ca/open

SightMate LV920, $3,500

A little pricier than you might expect for a pair of glasses, these are techno-devices made for people suffering age related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. The SightMate combines a viewing screen with a digital camera, taking live video feeds and displaying a magnified version with stepped up colour and contrast for people with AMD or other eye diseases. According to the maker, the enhanced imaging gives a view of the environment around them to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to see.

Worn like glasses and able to magnify objects up to 12 times, they are billed as being able to help approximately 40 to 60 per cent of patients improve visual acuity. Check them out at www.eyetonomy.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Jefferson Graham
USA Today

Veoh aims to be one-stop shop for Net TV viewers

 LOS ANGELES – Dmitry Shapiro wanted to start a website that promised to be the CBS, NBC and ABC of the Internet, a one-stop shop for TV programming on the Web.

 

Shapiro wasn’t the first to come up with such a lofty concept. At the time of his brainstorm, 2005, many others had similar notions. Shapiro’s Veoh competes with YouTube, (GOOG) Fancast, (CMCSA) Joost, Blip.TV and at least 250 other video websites, according to researcher the Yankee Group.

 

But former Disney (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner thought Shapiro was onto something. So did two former top Viacom (VIAB) executives, Jonathan Dolgen and Tom Freston. They’ve all invested in Veoh, which has quietly become the top independent U.S. video site on the Internet, attracting 2.1 million visitors a month, according to Nielsen Online.

 

“Companies like AOL, (TWX) Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) have all defined a space,” says Eisner, who now runs the Tornante investment firm. Google-owned YouTube aside, he says, “I think Veoh has the potential to define the space. They want to marry the Internet to the TV set, and that’s the real deal.”

While YouTube specializes mostly in amateur video clips, Veoh showcases both homemade clips and full-length TV shows. CBS (CBS) has many of its prime-time shows on Veoh, as do NBC (GE) and Fox, (NWS) via their Hulu joint venture. There’s also programming from PBS. Next month, Viacom’s cable networks, which include MTV and Comedy Central, will join the stable.

“Our goal is to give consumers the broadest collection of video available anywhere,” Shapiro says.

A key selling point for Veoh, Yankee Group analyst Anton Denissov says, is a download feature that lets you save shows to watch later. The Veoh TV application aggregates full-length shows from all over the Web and lets you save them if downloading is an option.

Shapiro says that once you connect your computer to a television, Veoh TV can act as a TiVo-like guide. For now, download availability tends mostly to be made-for-the-Web productions such as Goodnight Burbank and Prom Queen. So far, CBS, Viacom, NBC and Fox aren’t offering downloads of their TV shows, but PBS and the Time Warner-owned Cartoon Network are.

Yankee says the average consumer watches about five minutes of Internet video a day. That’s projected to jump to 45 minutes a day by 2011.

Dolgen, a former top executive at the 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Columbia (SNE) movie studios, says what attracted him to Veoh was the “one-stop shop” concept. “Back in the old days, you had to turn on three TV sets to see everything from CBS, ABC and NBC,” he says.

Quincy Smith, who runs CBS’ new media division, says the size of the audiences on Veoh are getting close to what some shows are receiving on broadcast television. While he declined to cite specifics, he said the post-apocalyptic drama Jericho has a bigger online audience than it does on traditional TV.

Veoh says its most-viewed TV show is Fox’s Family Guy, which attracted 200,000 viewers, but that pales next to Prom Queen, a made-for-the-Internet production from Eisner’s Vuguru production company. The debut last summer attracted 1.2 million viewers, Veoh says.

Family Guy isn’t even hosted on Veoh. The website picks it up from Hulu, the NBC/Fox joint venture that puts their shows on many websites. Much of the content on Veoh is found elsewhere on the Web, but viewable on Veoh TV.

Veoh showcases videos in higher resolution than competing sites such as YouTube. The service uses peer-to-peer technology, the same concept that put the original Napster (NAPS) on the map – tapping into its users’ computers to broadcast higher-quality video. Still, it’s far from high-definition. Ads surround most shows.

Pitching Eisner

Shapiro, a Russian immigrant who moved to Atlanta at age 10 and worked in the cellular industry after graduating from Georgia Tech, got the idea for Veoh while on his honeymoon. At the time, he was running a software security company he’d founded in San Diego. His first successful sales call for Veoh was with Art Bilger, who runs Los Angeles-based Shelter Capital. He agreed to invest $2.25 million and helped open the door to other investors. All told, some $40 million was raised, and Bilger owns 25% of the company.

“Dmitry had a good vision, and a great ability to actually explain it to people with far less sophistication,” Bilger says. “To be able to communicate was very important.”

Shapiro’s title is chief innovation officer, while the CEO mantle has been handed to an experienced manager, Steve Mitgang, a former Yahoo senior vice president.

Since joining in July 2007, “We’ve gone from having no monetization to having dozens of really happy advertisers,” Mitgang says.

Veoh is currently unprofitable, but the big backers involved expect that to change in the near future.

Eisner is one of the biggest names in Hollywood. How did a guy from Russia with a penchant for loud T-shirts and jeans with odd pockets end up getting in the door to see him?

“He called me,” Shapiro says. “It was the most amazing thing. He saw the site and liked it.”

Eisner invited him to visit at his Bel Air mansion, where Shapiro made his pitch. Eisner was impressed. “They were taking this technology created for illegal uses of expanding copyright, and turned into a legal business, which I thought was brilliant,” Eisner says. “I figured they’re either going all the way, or will be over in 10 minutes. And ‘all the way’ seems to be where they’re headed.”

 

Sun

MINIPOD, SCANDYNA: $849/PAIR

Sharpen up your sound and your decor with these iPod speakers from Scandyna that look like so many colourful robots lined up ready to blast out your favourite tunes. According to the maker Scandyna, every aspect of the design has a precise acoustical justification so there’s more to this look than pure whimsy. The Minipod has three spheres and comes in a rainbow of colours from the standard, black, white and silver to midnight blue, racing green, yellow and others. Look for them at www.podspeakers.com.

ELONEX ONE LAPTOP: £99 (ABOUT $200 CDN)

Billed as the sub-£100 laptop, this stripped down but functional laptop is slated to launch at the Education Show in Birmingham, England at the end of this month. Elonex’s ONE is geared to school kids and runs on the Linux operating system with software giving students access to word processing, spreadsheet software, e-mail, a scientific calculator, an imaging and graphics package and Internet browsing. It has Wi-Fi built in, and the company is offering ONEunion, an online site allowing users to download content, music and artwork and personalize their ONE. Weighing in at less than one kilogram, it has a full QWERTY keyboard, a seven-inch (17.9 cm) screen, a flash-based hard drive and a battery that runs for three hours. Elonex plans to donate to underprivileged children one out of every 100 of these laptops that are sold. No word on availability in North America, but in announcing the new laptop, Elonex’s marketing manager Sam Goult said the company expects to bring low-cost computing to Europe and beyond.

BLACKBERRY PEARL 8130 SMARTPHONE IN PINK, $100 WITH A THREE-YEAR CONTRACT FROM TELUS, $500 WITH NO CONTRACT

Pick the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 in pink and Telus will donate $25 from the sale to Rethink Breast Cancer, a charity focusing on young people who are affected by and concerned about breast cancer. This version includes pink chameleon wallpaper, a two megapixel camera with flash and video and the regular phone, e-mail, web browsing, text messaging and other social and business functions of the BlackBerry.

ENELOOP AIR FRESHENER, SANYO

If you’ve ever shared a car with a dog who has taken a dip in the ocean, you’ll appreciate this compact air freshener from Sanyo that uses the company’s electrolyzed water technology to clean the air with a “virus washer” function. It has a rechargeable battery and also can be plugged into a cigarette lighter or a regular outlet to rid the air around you of pesky odours from your pet or a smelly smoker, viruses, airborne bacteria or allergens such as pollens. It’s launching in Japan.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Zune still lags far behind in U.S. sales, but offers plenty of features for users

Marke Andrews
Sun

In its battle with Apple for the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers, Microsoft will soon establish a beachhead in Canada for Zune, Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s incredibly popular iPod.

No date has been announced, but Craig Tullett, group manager for Zune Canada, who was in Vancouver Thursday to demonstrate the device, said it will be some time this spring. Prices also remain a secret, though given the exchange rate, they should be close to those in the United States. In the U.S., the 4 GB unit sells for $149 US, the 8 GB for $179 and the 80 GB for $249.

This is close to iPod prices. Thursday’s prices at Future Shop were $149 for the 4 GB iPod, $192 for the 8 GB and $259 for the 80 GB.

Zune debuted in the U.S. in November, 2006, and so far has only been available for sale in that country. Within weeks of its release, it outsold other MP3 players to sit number two behind iPod, which leads the pack the way Secretariat led horse races — by a long shot. Zune has five per cent of the overall MP3 market, which gives you an idea how far it needs to go to seriously threaten the iPod.

A test drive of the Zune shows it has a lot to offer. The new Zune, which Microsoft refers to as version two, has added flash memory for showing videos. Touch control with the directional pad lets you sail easily through all its functions, and the full colour screen has decent clarity. You can use it to store music, video, photos and podcasts. Zune also has an FM radio function.

Given the popularity of social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, the Zune has a function titled Social, where users can build a profile, post their favourite songs and videos from their playlist, send them to other Zune users (for a maximum of three plays) and see what others with similar interests are listening to. It takes 10 to 12 seconds to send a song. You can sample songs from someone else’s list for 30 seconds.

Software for the MP3 runs on Windows XP, Vista and the Xbox 360. Users can rip CDs and buy songs from online stores. Microsoft does have its own online store, Marketplace, which currently contains three million tracks, but that will not be available until later in 2008. New Zune users will be able to transfer all their MP3, AAC and WMA audio files to the player with the exception of songs purchased from iTunes.

The machine is meant to connect wirelessly to the home computer, the Xbox 360 and other Zunes.

By the time Zune debuts in Canada, it will have been in the U.S. market for 18 months. Expanding to Canada, which may be the first of many countries that will be able to Zune in, has taken some time.

“The goal was to get it right in the U.S. first,” says Tullett. “We haven’t announced any plans for other countries. But with Microsoft’s infrastructure around the world, it’s easy to imagine how we could expand.

“We want to make sure when we enter new markets we’re doing it in a tailored and proper way. We’re taking on a very established competitor in Apple, and we want to put our best foot forward.”

Tullett says Microsoft is looking toward the sale of television content in its Marketplace some time in the future.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Toshiba to concede defeat in DVD-format wars

Province

TOKYO — An impending end to a format war over next-generation DVDs boosted shares in both victorious Sony, in the Blu-ray corner, and Toshiba, in the losing HD-DVD camp, yesterday as consumers cheered an end to confusion over which discs will carry high-definition movies.

Shares in Toshiba Corp., reported to be axing its HD DVD format, jumped nearly six per cent as analysts praised a move to cut its losses. Sony Corp. shares rose one per cent.

The Blu-ray win means consumers seeking sharper movies on high-definition DVDs no longer have to choose between rival incompatible formats and run the risk of being stuck with a 21st-century equivalent of Betamax — Sony’s videotape technology that lost out to VHS in the 1980s. Having one format should help accelerate the shift to the new technology in the $24-billion-US home DVD market.

Toshiba to continue putting effort into this,” said Koichi Ogawa, a chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments. “It needs to cut its losses and focus its resources on promising businesses.”

Both DVDs can carry high-definition movies, but growing support from Hollywood and big U.S. retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores has given Blu-ray a crushing lead in the war. Overall sales have so far been small as shoppers, faced with rival machines that played only one type of disc or the other, have held back.

The defection from HD DVD in January of Warner Brothers and its huge film library brought the tally of Hollywood movies in the Blu-ray camp to a commanding 70 per cent.

Recent sales figures show many consumers had already written off HD DVD, which was also backed by Microsoft Corp.

Blu-ray accounted for 93 per cent of next-generation DVD hardware sales in North America in the week after Warner’s announcement in January, data from the NPD Group showed.

Blu-ray recorders from Sony, Matsushita and Sharp made up about 96 per cent of the Japanese market in the last quarter of last year, said BCN, another research house.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Format war was confusing; vendors can now focus on Blu-ray

Jennifer Tan
Sun

SINGAPORE — Consumers will be the winners, through better quality home movies and lower prices, when Toshiba Corp., finally calls time on its DVD technology, ending a long-running battle to set the format for next-generation discs.

Viewers seeking sharper movies on high-definition DVDs will no longer have to choose between rival incompatible formats. A single format should help accelerate the shift to the new technology in the $24 billion home DVD market.

But, while they will get better audio quality and higher resolution pictures — and they will likely wait for DVD player prices to halve — consumers will probably have to upgrade their television sets to make the most of them.

Sony Corp’s Blu-ray technology is close to winning the format war for home movie DVDs after a source at Toshiba said it was planning to exit its HD DVD business after Hollywood studios and big retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores backed Blu-ray.

“This has been a long overdue end to the format war that has frustrated and confused consumers, and will allow vendors to focus resources on the Blu-ray technology,” said Claudio Checchia, an analyst with research firm IDC.

“I would expect a more aggressive push towards Blu-ray in the second half, resulting in more movie content, more stand-alone DVD players, and prices for these players falling to attractive levels by Christmas.”

Checchia said the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market was Sony’s PlayStation 3 video game console, costing about $400.

“Prices for players need to fall to $200 and below before they get consideration from the mass market, and I would expect companies would push prices down aggressively now that the uncertainty over the format war is over.”

Apart from a mushrooming of stand-alone DVD players, analysts expect more Blu-ray players to be embedded in laptop and desktop personal computers from next year.

Companies in the Blu-ray camp, which include Apple Inc., Dell Inc., Philips and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., could start investing more aggressively in the technology and get a head-start in terms of launching products, analysts said.

Because of Blu-ray’s more advanced technology versus HD DVDs, companies needed to invest in new manufacturing technologies to produce the Blu-ray discs, but many held back as the outcome of the DVD format battle was uncertain.

Investors in companies involved in the Blu-ray format also welcomed the likely end of the format war.

Shares in Sony rose rose on Monday, while Taiwan disc makers climbed on relief the industry can finally start producing in earnest.

“Everyone had been waiting to see who will win, so if Toshiba exits, then it could really take off for Sony,” said Sammy Lo, spokeswoman for CMC Magnetics, which supplies one third of the world’s DVD discs and counts Sony as a major client.

Apart from being a sweet victory for Sony, which lost the 1980s Betamax-VHS format battle for video cassette technology to Matsushita, Blu-ray’s win could boost PlayStation 3 sales.

“The PS3 is also a Blu-ray player, priced very affordably, and many early adopters of Blu-ray are using the PS3 precisely for this purpose,” said Serene Fong, analyst with ABI Research.

“Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which uses the HD DVD format, will see a very negative impact in terms of console sales.”

Companies in the HD DVD camp — Toshiba, NEC Electronics and Sanyo Electric — will also have to write-off their investments and start from scratch, Fong added.

“Blu-ray is totally different — there will likely be some impact on these companies’ bottom lines as the initial cost of investing in this technology would be very high.”

Companies that hedged their bets by launching players that could take both formats, such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, could lose out.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Sun

XPERIA X1, SONY ERICSSON

If you’re still waiting for that elusive day when Apple decides to make its iPhones available in Canada, forget that and check out Sony Ericsson’s latest entrant in the field. A Windows Mobile device that offers iPhone-like features such as the touch-screen and comes with a full QWERTY keyboard, the Xperia X1 was announced by Sony Ericsson at the Mobile World Congress in Spain with availability in selected markets expected in the second half of this year. An arc slider phone, the Xperia X1 has a 3.7 centimetre (three-inch) VGA display that gives the user the Internet, multimedia and other mobile applications from its desktop. The screen slides up to unveil the keyboard. The new device supports the HSDPA/HSUPA and Wi-Fi standards as well as GSM and EDGE networks. No price announced yet.

LG-KF510

While still cruising the Mobile World Congress for the latest in phones that may eventually find their way to Canada — roughly the last place on earth to get any of the really interesting new offerings — there is the skinny minnie LG-KF510, a slider phone all gussied up in colours from stardust dark grey to sunset red. Giving a serious run for the money to others in this category, the new 10.9 millimetre thick phone in a metal frame with a tempered glass display uses LG’s touch technology and includes a 3.0 megapixel camera with image stabilization and a MP3 player.

NOKIA N96

Another one to add to your gadget-envy list is Nokia’s N96, billed as a “multimedia computer truly optimized for video and TV.” The dual-slide device has a screen just over seven centimetres; 16 gigabytes of internal memory plus a microSD slot to boost memory and it supports the common video formats. It comes with a kick-stand so you can prop it up to watch, great for showing off at Starbucks. A five-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, flash and video light round this out with integrated A-GPS to enable geotagging of photos.

DURABLE EXPLORER 370, PLANTRONICS, $80

Sounds like something Dora the Explorer would sport. Just what you need with your new phone — a headset that meets military grade specifications with its water, dust and shock resistance. Drop it, wear it in rainy Vancouver, take it to the job site, or give it to a teen, this Bluetooth device promises to stand up to the roughest treatment. Once charged it has seven hours of talk time and eight days of standby time. Comes with a lanyard so if you’re out and about working or playing, you won’t lose it. Due out in March. Check it out at www.plantronics.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008