Sony 3D TVs Coming Soon…Ish

Sony is taking the 3D fight to Panasonic having announced that they too are working on a glasses free 3D TV. 3D TV take up has been unexpectedly massive with more and more people wanting to enjoy their favourite Sky shows and movies but in order to do so users must don a pair of special 3D viewing glasses. While they are certainly better looking than their 1980s counterparts and reasonably comfortable, they can still get a little annoying after a couple of hours sat in front of the TV screen.

Nintendo has announced that they will be launching a glasses free 3D handheld gaming device which offers the technology to users without having to wear any additional fashion accessories. Panasonic have also said that they aim to improve on the existing glass-free 3D technology but have yet to pencil in a date for putting the TVs on sale.

Sony have also said that there will be some major obstacles and hurdles to overcome before the technology goes mainstream. Currently, there are 3D displays available that do not require glasses but they are restricted in their use. This restriction stems mostly from the fact that viewers must be stood in a very specific spot in order for the 3D images to emerge. The image quality is also a lot lower than with the glasses version of the tech but, presumably, that’s why companies like Panasonic and Sony have said they’re working on improving it.

Sony already has a reasonable catalogue of 3D products including 3D blu ray players and 3D flast screen TVs and they were showing these off in Japan when they discussed the possibility of glasses free technology being released. They expressed their intention in being the market leader for 3D so expect a lot more in the coming months and years.

Do you own a 3D TV and glasses?

Can you wear them without menace for a full 2 hour sitting?

Personalised postcards to make your friends jealous

We’ve all been there. Rummaging a through a stack of cheap, tacky postcards with images of the Eiffel Tower / paella / Tower Bridge etc. Quite often the problem with these generic postcards is that the image is far removed from what you are actually doing. Not any more, jetsetters. A new, personalised postcard service has been launched by our internet neighbours at eCards.co.uk.

Now you can send pictures which genuinely reflect the fun / adventure /debauchery which you are having as you cut a swath through foreign lands.  How does it work? Let me tell you.

You download the application free from the site to your phone (iPhones and Android devices are supported) and add snaps to your holiday library. It then costs 99p to post your card second class and a reasonable £1.49 to send it by first class or to anyone anywhere in the whole wide world outside the UK. You make the payment by Paypal and bish, bash, bosh the thing is sent before your next sopa de chivo arrives and you aren’t even left with a sticky, gummy sensation on your tongue.

The system has been tested by 18,000 users and is up and running for everyone now.

Holidaymakers and fancy cameras don’t mix

An interesting survey around British holidaymakers gadget use tells us that 44% of British holidaymakers have missed great photo opportunities because they didn’t know how to operate their fancy camera. Another nice stat reveals that a clumsy 22% have either lost or broken their gadgets while on holiday.

More light heartedly (at least for those of you who like to laugh at other people’s physical defects) is that flabby snaps taken on foreign beaches have encouraged 58% of people that it was time to go on a diet. Meanwhile, the sight of a Mediterranean sun shining off a balding napper has perturbed around a quarter of men, who thought that their locks were still long and golden. Don’t stand up yet, stats fans, there is more. Over 40% of Brits have been left red faced and quite possibly flabbergasted by embarrassing holiday snaps which have turned up on photo sharing sites.

Those stats are courtesy of our friends at reevoo.com. Meanwhile, in a survey carried out in my living room just now, 0% of gadget reviewers have admitted to taking bizzare, artistic photos of their feet while on holiday and 100% owned up to burying their mate’s phone in the sand one time in Mallorca, but it was a rubbish phone so that was ok.

What do all these statisics and lies tell us;

1) Work out how to use your camera before you stumble across Antonio Banderas in a Marbella fish and chip shop.

2) Buy a simple camera for taking on holiday. You’ll be drunk when you take most of the photos and then you´ll end up bashing it off an ice cream stall anyway.

3) Buy a mirror and work out if you need a diet / wig before splashing out on trunks and snorkelling equipment

4) Never go on holiday with a gadget reviewer.

YouTube improve mobile site

Everyone’s favourite video site, YouTube, has improved its mobile site.

This basically means that it is now easier for iPhone users to find the video they want and then, once they find it, get a higher quality presentation. The number of YouTube videos viewed on mobile devices has increased to a staggering 100 million videos daily.

There is also talk of the YouTube internet site being reorganised again, to make searching for videos easier and more intuitive.

Prince slams internet, technology and a few other things

If you see a diminutive guy dressed in purple, walking down the street and chatting on his iPhone, then I can confirm that is not who you think it is. Equally, the small chap sitting next to you in the internet café and laughing at our recent laptop reviews may very well be demented but he is not the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as squiggle.

You see, 80s pop sensation Prince has had a pop at the internet, computers and gadgets in a recent interview. The singer, who is no stranger to legal brushes with internet music companies, is not going to sell his new album online and will instead release it with newspapers in different countries this coming week.

UK fans of the Luddite musician will find 20Ten attached to the Daily Mirror.

We have sent the singer an email for his comments but do not expect a speedy reply.

IPhone 4 at centre of court joust

An American court is going to be the scene of the first ever legal battle held over the allegedly poor quality of the iPhone’s reception. A group claim has been brought against Apple and AT&T by several users who are not at all pleased at the quality of calls which the iPhone 4 has offered them.

A Maryland court room will be the setting for a rivetting legal battle, where a number of users will claim that the companies are guilty of negligence,  fraud and deceptive trading practices.

At the heart of the matter are the problems encountered by users who have found that covering the three black lines while holding the iPhone 4 causes a serious drop in call quality and reception. Buying a cover for the phone avoids the problems although I prefer the Apple CEO’s advice to “just avoid holding it that way”.

We will keep you updated on this interesting legal action as it unfolds.

The Pointless But Fairly Cool Internet Fridge

Virtually everything is Internet enabled today, even the ultimate fridge for the ultimate tech home. It’s simply not possible to find any item in the home (apart from maybe the toilet roll holder or the tap (see next post)) that is probably less likely to offer some of the very latest gadgets and tech but that’s a major part of the appeal of the Internet fridge – you don’t actually NEED to be able to look at the weather or listen to the news headlines from your fridge but by God you’ll love telling everybody how you can.

A built in 56k modem, a TV tuner and 15 inch LCD monitor on the door, FM radio, and even a digital camera are all packed into this titanium styled fridge. It even has a built in mp3 player so while you sleep you can download music and while you make breakfast you can listen to your downloaded tacks and really enjoy the benefit of an Internet connected fridge (we know you could use your mp3 or your PC or your PMP but why bother when you can use the fridge?)

OK, so we don’t really see the use of this particularly but then maybe we’re just not fridge people, or indeed kitchen people for that matter. The price tag of considerably more than £1,000 means that it’s unlikely we’ll be buying it simply for bragging rights any time soon and most of the functions can be done better, cleaner, smoother, quicker, and more portably from other devices that the vast majority of us own anyway.

Dells new Desktops bring a ray of sunshine to the office

Dell have taken the initiative to bring some much needed excitement to the desktop, at last a PC manufacturer has decided to make the ugly looking lumps that generally hide under a desk just a little bit more attractive. The new Dell Inspiron 545 and 546 mini towers, and the 545 slim tower desktops provide a splash of much needed colour to an otherwise dull and unattractive piece of computer equipment. Coming in a range of delightfully garish colours such as Formula Red, true Blue, Plum Purple and Flamingo Pink this revolutionary PC colour palette is bound to brighten up any home office.

Of course for a PC user the colour could be regarded as a rather insignificant issue it is after all what the desktop is packing which is the more important factor, and in this case it is up to 8GB of RAM. Dell are providing the new Inspirons with the usual adaptable ‘custom made’ service so the end user can decide which processor they would prefer. Dell have given various options AMD Sempron, Phenom X4, Athaslon X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Intel Celeron options and a choice of graphics cards.

Dell are not usually known for releasing style statements but more recently have been seriously addressing the aesthetics of their computer hardware. Dell are no doubt hoping that the new and improved funky desktops will be as successful for them as their Inspiron laptops which also come in a range of vibrant colours.

Hitachi DZ-BD10H Records Direct To Blu Ray Disc Or Hard Drive

Despite winning the war of the next generation DVD format, Blu Ray technology has really only limped into existence and if it wasn’t for the PS3 and, more recently, laptops and desktops including the ability to play (and very occasionally record) in the blu ray format it would barely have even registered as being a new technology. Things are finally starting to progress though with a number of new players either just having been released or, at the very least, bing released soon.

Hitachi has also announced the DZ BD10H Blu Ray camcorder that can record in full HD and directly to a choice of blu ray disc, SDHC card, or its 30GB hard drive. However, if you’re really looking to record extensive footage in the full 1920 x 1080 HD format then you may be a little disappointed because the hard drive will only handle about 4 hours of this at the best framerates (you can double that time by reducing the framerate).

The DZ BD10H is actually the updated replacement model for the DZ-BD9H and is substantially smaller than its predecessor, but this is the main reason behind the dip in hard drive size from 60GB to 30GB.

Because of the numerous recording options, though, you can transfer the footage on your hard drive directly to SDHC card or to a recordable blu ray disc. It’s certainly a step in the right direction for the Blu Ray format.

The Panasonic G450 Mobile Broadband Modem

USB modems and mobile broadband is coming on in leaps and bounds in a very short space of time. Prices are already set respectably and by going on contract with any of the major providers you can bag yourself a free modem. If you want something completely different to the free dongles, then you might want to consider the Toshiba G450.

It’s actually a bit of a bizarre hybrid between crap mobile phone and good USB modem mixed with a seriously unusual design. The three round sections you can see are the screen and two halves of the numerical keypad. None of them are particularly user friendly as mobile phone accessories – the screen, while being OLED, is tiny and offers little more than the most basic information. Anything but standard phone keypads simply don’t work because we are creatures of habit after all.

The G450 modem includes WellPhone software that is actually pretty good, even if it isn’t the most attractive offering. Software tools that are installed as part of the software include contact and communication management functions, and this is where the combination of modem and mobile works well – in fact, it’s safe to assume that this is why the mobile phone side of things was stapled on in the first place.

As well as being able to browse emails and contacts, you can also send, receive, read, and store your SMS messages. The software works in much the same way as an email client and makes things a lot easier (although much less portable) than a normal mobile phone.

The Panasonic G450 can also be used as a mediocre MP3 player or as a standard USB flash drive depending on your preferences at the time.

If you go into this expecting the G450 to be a mobile phone you’ll be disappointed, because it is, when all’s said and done, a mobile broadband modem with mobile phone functionality built it. If you look at it like that then it’s a nice piece of kit that offers something very different to the usual fare.

<