Otaku Gadgets

With this week gone completely haywire, here’s the weekly update about phones. The Apple update is on track and will be up in time. After a few consecutive big releases, the phone market is in for a little breather before the drama begins again.

But the tensions are already building as newly released phones go on sale and review and future phones start getting leaked. Jump over to the other side and get updated.

Nokia E72 Arrives In The US

Nokia may be the world’s largest mobile handset maker but they have had no luck in the US market so far. But hopefully that will change soon. After releasing the highly anticipated N900 in the US, they have now released their latest Symbian S60 (3.2) smartphone the E72.

This is the upgraded version of the critically acclaimed E71 smartphone that is loved and used the world over. The E72 has so far received great reviews and it is anticipated to be another great Symbian smartphone. Nokia USA is selling directly without contract and the price is $469+ tax. Quality is expensive. [read]

Motorola Mystery (Android) Phone [?]

It looks like Motorola has another mysterious phone in its roster. This one looks fairly like the Droid, except for the fact it probably has a smaller screen and lacks a physical keypard. The rumor says that it is a 3.8 inch Android phone from Motorola with a 800MHz processor powering the way.

There is also a 5MP camera with LED flash, which visible in the images. But the camera is not all that important right now. We more interested in knowing what this phone is called and what it will actually be running. [read]

Motorola Invests In Alternative Touch Tech

Makers of the MOTO phones have invested in a French company that is developing an alternative touchscreen technology. The company is called Sensitive Object and it is developing a technology that will use acoustic feedback in order to implement a touchscreen that supports multitouch and behaves the same way as current capacitive touchscreens.

The advantage of this technology is that it does not require expensive materials and can actually work throughout a phones body. So if it succeeds, get ready to see cheaper touchscreen phones with wacky designs and UIs. At least I hope that is what will happen. [read]

Nokia N87 Arriving Soon [?]

Looks like we have another leak that deals with the Nokia N87. Tipped to be a 12MP cameraphone, this leak originally appeared as a spy video shot. But the video has been removed since then and hence I am not embedding it here. Popular opinion is that the phone will be announced during the World Mobile Congress that is scheduled for February next year. [read]

App Records Noisy Sleepers

Please insert a there’s an app for that joke here. If you tend to talk in your sleep, don’t worry. You are amongst an actual group of people who experience this. But if you are not sure whether your talk in your sleep or not, you need someone to record you. Also, if you want to know what you have been talking about, recording is the only way. But recording a entire night is impractical. So now you have an iPhone app that monitors the ambient sound level to determine sonic activity. Once it thinks that then environment is alive with conversation, it starts recording. When you fall silent, it stops recording. [read]

Nokia N900 Supports WebGL

Nokia’s latest offering – the N900 has been demoed as rendering some pretty impressive 3D models using WebGl. WebGL is the online, browser-based counter part of OpenGL. This is more impressive a feat because the WebGL standard is still being built and only FireFox nighly builds support it at the moment. [read]

Squaring Out Mobile Payment

Twitter creator Jack Dorsey has been working on a new project for quite some time now. He is building a system that makes mobile payments much easier. The project is to essentially build a small device that can plug into a 3.5mm headphone jack and read cards. This will enable you to accept payment almost anywhere in the world. The headphone jack was chosen because it is universal and present on all the high-end phones that are coming out.

The project is still at the prototype stage but there already are multiple actual devices that are being sent to test-partners by Dorsey and his team. Mashable has gone ahead and procured a video demo from. [read]

ViewSonic VCP08 In the Flesh… err, Plastic

The Windows XP running phone (yes, another one) from ViewSonic has been sighted for real in all its glory. Previously we only had CGI to look at but this is the actual phone itself. The phone seems to be pretty large and it will definitely be bordering the small tablet territory like the N900.

All these Windows XP phones do prove one thing though – Windows XP was getting really old. [read]

HTC’s Touch.B Seems Uninspired

HTC’s Touch.B, erstwhile known as Rome, has surfaced again. This time the leaks are bringing some disturbing news about phone having the little-used BrewMP mobile OS made by Qualcomm. Another problematic part is the claim that it has a 2MP camera (what?!), 3G, Bluetooth but no WiFi. Well, I sure hope HTC knows what it is doing. But since this sounds very much like an entry-level phone, expecting all the usual bells and whistles will be a mistake.

Another iPhone Physical Keyboard Idea

Folks, let it go already. The iPhone’s touchscreen is pretty good. They started the whole craze and there is no reason to want a physical keyboard with it. Still, people insist on making physical keypads for it. So here we have another attempt.

This time it is a stick on layer that has little conductive nubs that sit on top of the onscreen keys. So you have one sticker for portrait mode and one for landscape. Downside? How long do you think the stickers are going to hold? You will have to remove them when you are not typing and stick them back on. After say about 10 times, they are a gonner. They are called 4iThumbs and they will cost you$15 for portrait and $17 for landscape or $20 for both.

My suggestion? Save your money and enjoy some nice Starbucks. [read]