Mobile phones
Nokia sets standard in pictures
Billed as the smallest third generation megapixel phone, the Nokia 6630 was unveiled on Monday at the Nokia conference, held simultaneously in Helsinki and Singapore.
The stout, lightweight handset (127 grams) is set to compete with similar models from Sharp and Motorola. With an extravagant amount of features, Nokia bullishly believes it will be the handset that finally breaks 3G into the mass market.
The open-faced handset has a 1.23 megapixel camera, making it one of the most advanced picture phones released in Europe. It features a 6x digital zoom, manual exposure control and can take up to six pictures in three seconds, impressive by digital camera standards.
It can handle a range of email attachments via the Symbian smartphone operating system, and the internal memory plus a bundled MMC card gives users 74MB of free memory. It works across two 3G networks (W-CDMA and Edge) as well as 2G networks. Nokia expects the 6630 to sell for less than £330 without contract.
Open and shut case
Nokia has been criticised for its lack of clamshell handsets while rivals have prospered with a range of foldable phones. Aware of its decreasing market share, three of the five handsets Nokia announced this week at the conference - in front of more than 250 invited journalists - were foldable.
Top of the range is the multifaceted Nokia 6260 smartphone. Strictly speaking, it is not a clamshell, but belongs to a sub-category, the "swivel" handset pioneered by Samsung's "twist and flip" SGH-P400 earlier this year.
A tad cheaper is the tri-band 6170. Enhanced with a stainless steel finish and two decent colour screens (one inside and one out), the phone has a host of regular features plus a push-to-talk (PTT) capability. It should be in shops in time for Christmas for £165. Nokia also announced an "entry level" clamshell.
Incidentally, clamshells, often associated with South Korea and Japan, are going out of fashion in favour of the open-faced "candy bar" handsets so beloved of Nokia in the past. Our spies in Seoul say that clamshells are now passé: too difficult to open while driving, apparently.
Gadgets
Little extras
Among a raft of new peripherals, the Nokia wireless keyboard is, surprisingly, the company's first. It uses Bluetooth to connect to Nokia's Series 60 compatible phones, including the forthcoming 6630 and 6260 models announced this week, and features a full Qwerty keyboard plus function keys. Powered by two AAA batteries and with an operating time of 50 hours, it weighs just 190 grams. It also folds to half its full size. It is not cheap, though. The predicted price is £90 plus tax.
Back to the future
In the near future, says Nokia, we will carry and process an almost unimaginable amount of data. Making use of the terabytes of memory that will be available in everyday objects, blogging will be replaced by a "log book of my life" recording every word, every place you visit. Well, maybe.
Nokia offered the press a glimpse into its research labs in Helsinki earlier this week. The company said it was developing a range of devices that could offer phones capable of cinematic visuals with surround sound audio, so you could set up a private cinema theatre. It is also developing mobile projection displays, wearable displays, and systems where data would be attached to everyday objects (think of sophisticated barcodes). The company is also revealing its prototype "gesture input" technology. To dismiss your ringing phone with a swipe of the hand or exchange digital files across the room with a gesture could be just a few clicks down the timeline away.
And if you think all this will be too much to cope with, Nokia introduced the concept of "calm computing", which sounded more like a state of being than an application. The Finnish group said it is the type of thing where all of the above happens, but you just stop noticing it.
Extended life
A more prosaic glimpse into the future was a preview of fuel cell technology, the great hope of extending battery life. Nokia previewed its fuel cell clip-on headset. The Bluetooth headset offers 10 hours' talk time and up to two days' standby. The tiny device uses less fuel, specifically methanol, than a cigarette lighter. The headset creates an electrical charge by mixing oxygen and hydrogen. The device weights just 36g and is only slightly heavier than its conventional Bluetooth headset. One hundred of the devices are being piloted in Nokia House, near Helsinki, but don't expect to see them in shops until 2006.
Multimedia players
Small record
Gadget website BoysStuff has unveiled what it is billing as the smallest recordable multimedia player. The DM-Tech doesn't have a hard disk. Rather, images, video and audio are stored on 128MB of internal Flash memory. This can be upgraded by adding a Secure Digital card. BoysStuff claims users can record video directly from a VCR or DVD, convert it into MPeg4 on the player and then play it back on the 3.5in colour TFT LCD screen. It is priced at £289. www.boysstuff.co.uk
Phone music
Fire up the player
Orange has become the second network to deliver music downloads direct to a mobile phone. Unlike the O2 service, the Orange system doesn't require an additional music player; rather, users can download the Music Player software, andtracks, directly to their phone. The network also offers a service called Fireplayer, which enables customers to mix tracks on their mobile. The Music Player tracks cost £1.50 and the Fireplayer tracks £3.50. Only a few handsets are compatible - high-end Symbian and Microsoft-based smartphones. www.orange.co.uk
Mobile web
Surf the surf
Now you can surf the net while surfing the waves, thanks to Intel's wireless-enabled 9ft 4in longboard. The board, made by Gulfstream in North Devon, has a built-in (British) Rock T200 Tablet PC with an Intel Centrino chipset and a video camera that can record up to 64MB of video while the board is in use. Pro-surfer and "Intel ambassador" Duncan Scott will ride the board at this month's 2004 GoldCoast Oceanfest free sports and music festival that Intel is sponsoring. Scott and other surfers will be able to connect to the net via a Wi-Fi hotspot set up on the beach. The father of the internet, Vint Cerf, would surely approve. http://masl.to/?X1A321298
www.rockdirect.com
Stat of the week
Net firm comes top for trust
Consumers are still thought by some to lack trust in online shopping. But research by the Ponemon Institute and e-commerce industry body TRUSTe, suggests online auctions giant eBay is the most trusted brand when it comes to looking after customer information.
Most trusted companies
1. eBay
2. American Express
3. Procter & Gamble (all brands)
4. Amazon
5. Hewlett Packard
6. US Postal Service
7. IBM
8. Earthlink
9. Citibank
