Speak2 Offers A Unique Way To Reduce Call Costs

Speak2 is an innovative telephone company that not only offers reduced rates against typical landline and cable calls, but also includes a system that determines the cheapest way to make a call. Users pay a one time installation fee (currently £59.95 or £99.95 depending on the package) and then enter details of their landline, sky, and mobile call packages. The software then selects the best available option whenever a call is made.

You only need leave your computer and broadband connection running and you can take advantage of this system wherever you are when you make a call. This greatly reduces mobile call costs and enables you to truly take advantage of your free calls without having to wait until 2 o’clock in the morning to get off-peak rates.

For heavy callers and for those that regularly use their mobile phones, it could save a fortune. A number of call packages can also be added, starting from £5 per month, as well as some useful add-ons.

While businesses have benefited from cheap call routers for some time now, Speak2 brings a similar system to home users – it will prove especially beneficial for those that make regular overseas calls too. Whether it will change the way we make calls remains to be seen but it could save you a few quid every month.

The 3D GPS - HP IPaq 314

It may just be me, but GPS isn’t something I can really get excited about. If it works well then you don’t get unnecessarily irritated by the incessant and patronising instructional voice. You also manage to find your way to your chosen destination without panicked instructions informing you to get back on the road (the M6 toll road is one such example – my GPS couldn’t cope with it adequately for some time and seemed genuinely irked that I was driving through farmland!).

HP have gone some way to remedy this lack of excitement by providing a dedicated 3D GPS display. The 4.3” monitor on the HP iPaq 314 displays your location and surroundings in full technicolour 3D glory. So now, instead of driving down a red line you could be driving down a graphical representation of a main road, accurately depicted as a Sim City type landscape.

I’m still struggling to get hugely excited – although the specs do peak my interest a little more. A 600MHz processor is hugely impressive for what is essentially a computerised A to Z; as is the 128MB RAM that is also included.

If you regularly travel on work, you just don’t like getting lost, or you’ve plain run out of gadgets to spend your money on then the HP iPaq 314 is about as impressive as a GPS can actually get. That is, until they develop one that can play eye spy.

Apple Announces iMac Upgrades

Everything is looking pretty rosy for Apple at the moment. The iPod is probably still one of the biggest gadget crazes to have hit the world since the Sony Walkman was first introduced. The iPhone has been one of the most sought after mobile phones ever and the iMac is growing in popularity at an alarmingly impressive rate.

Clearly, Apple is not going to rest on its laurels either. The iPhone is rumoured to have an upgrade in the pipeline already, and today sees the release of details regarding the upgraded iMac. And, I have to say, it looks very nice indeed. Not only does it look impressive, but the spec is jaw droppingly good too.

20” and 24” monitors offer incredible resolution and crystal clear images, while Intel Core 2 Duo processors offer an excellent 3.06GHz with all the trimmings. ATI Radeon graphics are standard but consumers also have the option to upgrade to Nvidia Geforce 8800GS graphics with a whopping 512MB of video memory.

The upgrades don’t stop there, either, with more memory being included as standard. Standard memory will range from 1GB to 2GB with the option to double up and get twice as much storage for your money. All in all, it looks like this upgrade news will help Apple continue with their impressive rate of growth.

A Wireless Router Without A Single Green LED - Belkin N1 Vision

OK, first things first – I’m a complete nerd and an unashamed geek when it comes to home networking. It’s truly one of my big loves in life, although such is the way with home networking equipment that it can also pretty quickly become on of my biggest waking nightmares.

The fact is that you can pay a fortune for pretty much any gadget and then struggle endlessly to actually understand just what it’s supposed to do.

Then, at the other end of the spectrum, are the absolutely essential items that make your home network tick but are far less glamorous. Typically, this lack of glamour means we pay much less heed to their features and trimmings.

The wireless router is one such glaring example. A bad one will limit your download speed and make connecting any device more than 3 feet away a near impossibility.

And, as for the blinking lights, just what are they trying to communicate to us? They serve, in most cases, to do little more than cast an eerie glow around the back of the television.

The Belkin N1 Wireless Router is different. In fact, it’s almost worth getting excited about because it does a damn good job at letting you wirelessly hook up your 802.11n home network. It also does away with the front room illuminations, and replaces them with a genuinely useful display.

The display shows you your current broadband speed (please don’t start me on how irritated I get over advertised and actual broadband speeds), your bandwidth usage, and the status of any and all connected devices. What’s more, it does it without the inclusion of a single green LED.

Sing And The World Will Sing With You

At least, your mobile phone might join in. It will if it’s a Nokia 5320 XpressMusic. One of the latest Nokia handsets, this includes the Nokia Say and Play software. The rather intuitively titled program enables you to pick a song just by speaking the title. It could make for some fairly embarassing situations involving bad music tastes – although it may not, of course.

All in all it’s a pretty nifty piece of kit for music lovers on the go. Quick downloading of tunes is enabled through HSDPA and USB 2.0. Up to 8GB external memory is offered through the microSD card slot.

Nokia has also announced that its “Comes with Music” phones will include 12 months access to their as yet undefined music download service. Its perhaps a little odd that the 5320, and similar 5220, don’t include access to this service but perhaps something bigger and better is planned to coincide with that announcement.

For those who don’t know – the Comes with Music product was announced in December last year. At the time of the press release, the service was being billed for a mid 2008 release and would include millions of tracks. Consumers could download an unlimited number of songs that they would be able to keep even once their subscription came to an end. Could be promising, and we will try to dig up a little more dirt on the service and its expected release details but we can tell you that Universal Music Group International and Sony BMG are already lined up for the release of the service.

Competition for iTunes?

GTA IV (Sold Out Long Ago) Released 29th April

It would be remiss to approach the 29^th April without making any comment on the impending release of what must surely be the year’s most highly anticipated video game – Grand Theft Auto IV. This latest instalment joins an elite list of games that will already be classed as sold out when it hits the shelves.

Pre-orders for GTA IV have hit an unprecedented high, with major retailers like Play.com, HMV, and Game all claiming that they have already sold out. Obviously, hyper inflated versions will be available on Ebay (as ever) for those unable to wait until the next batch is released.

Many retailers stopped guaranteeing the delivery of pre-orders on the day of release several weeks ago. Some shops have even stated that customers that have already placed an order may not receive the game until a few days after release.

The GTA series has long been a hit since its PlayStation only days, and if you’re an avid gamer then you’ll no doubt be waiting anxiously for its release. If you’re not a gamer then expect unusually busy 24 hour supermarkets at one minute past midnight. This is often seen as the easiest way to get hold of a copy without paying the ridiculous prices otherwise demanded.

Iphone Missing – Presumed Sold Out Ready For 3G Version

The Apple iPhone has been something of a phenomenon since its release. There’s no doubting its incredible looks and the existence of a touch screen that actually works as intended had many a technophile salivating at the very prospect of ownership.

However, the £269 price tag was far from accessible for the majority. Partially in light of this, prices were reduced by £100 to a much more attractive £169. The end result is that both the providers Carphone Warehouse and the network O2 have indicated that they only have very limited supplies of the iPhone left in stock.

A more cynical, although potentially more accurate, view is that the price drop was offered in order to clear stocks in time for the release of the 3G iPhone in early June. Citi Analysts have taken the price drop, along with other factors, as a clear indication that Steve Jobs will announce the next generation of 3G iPhone (as well as a new iPod) during his keynote speech. The speech will take place during the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 9^th.

The Developer’s Conference has been something of a hot bed for new releases in recent years and if a 3G version of the iPhone is imminent then Steve Job’s keynote speech is the most likely time to make an announcement.

Annoy The Hell Out Of Co-Workers And Brighten Your Working Day

Let’s face it, you could have the coolest job in the world, but when work beckons and deadlines loom, mundane objects suddenly display new heights of appeal. When a project needs working on, paper clips become the latest sculptural material. But why selfishly limit your procrastination to your own work?

The Electronic Rhythm Drum Pens offer a sure fire way to make you one of the most despised and irritating workers in your office. Next time your team is working on a million pound deal and you’ve only got hours to finish, crack out a pair of these pens and get beating.

When you beat the pen on the desk, a synthesized drum sound is played through the miniature speaker mounted on the top. Two switches enable you to alternate between tom-tom, snare, and cymbals. Unfortunately, there’s also an on-off switch to avoid potentially disasterous drum solos in the middle of taking meeting notes.

What’s more, these drum pens are so innovative that you can even write with them. At less than a fiver each, there can be no better way to whittle away ten minutes than attempting to recreate your very own Phil Collins drum solo.

Go on, get creative.

500,000 GB MP3 Player On The Horizon

Room for one more track? According to researchers from Glasgow University, you’ll have plenty of room soon. Professor Lee Cronin and Dr Malcolm Kadodwala have completed research that means a single square inch of memory could contain as much as 500,000 GB, instead of the current limit of approximately 3.3GB.

That should have ISPs in a bit of a panick, following news that they want the BBC to pay more because of the popularity of the BBC iPlayer. Imagine the number of downloads that you would need to manage in order to fill an iPod Nano that can hold over 100,000 times more songs.

The change in technology could mean even smaller MP3 players and other portable devices although it may not be worth getting your hopes up just yet. While the technology has been proven, Professor Lee Cronin admits that they have “yet to solve the fabrication and addressing problems.”

If a 5GB MP3 player holds around 2,500 songs, this could mean the advance of an MP3 player that would house an astonishing 250 million tracks. That’s an awful lot of Cliff Richard in anyone’s book.

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James Murdoch attacks BBC iPlayer service

A new service delivering television over the internet has become fodder in a new war between auntie beeb and satellite broadcaster BSkyB who are also in a brawl with virgin media over providing Sky one amongst other services on the virgin media network.

So lets just put this into context, the BBC iPlayer service Last month iPlayer handled 17.5m requests for downloads. So for arguments sake lets assume each download request is 600mb, (just averages) then this month alone they have transfered 10,500,000,000 megabytes or just over 10,013 terabytes.

The telegraph is reporting James Murdoch, BSkyB chairman, has accused the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, of an “abrogation of responsibility” in backing the launch of a service now making inroads into pay TV.

He claimed the BBC was using its market power to squeeze competition in the broadband TV market with its iPlayer service. He described the service as a big step and “pre-emptive intervention” that was “squashing a lot of competitors.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad product but I am saying it does crowd out competition and innovation.”

Theres no denying the BBC iplayer service have been an internet phenomon, within just a few short months. In retrospect it took Youtube over 12 month to get meaty share of the video market.

The beeb paid £120 million / $240 million in the last 5 years researching and development the technology.

- G&G

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