Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

iPhone gets VoIP and chat options thanks to Fring

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/270940711/

Sure, the iPhone is cool looking, works out a lot, and is really good at math... but it can't do VoIP, can it? Well, yes it can -- and you can, thanks to a company called Fring and a piece of ingenious software (for jailbreakers only). Using the native app, it's now possible to place and receive calls via your WiFi connection, thus making AT&T CEOs cry like little babies. Besides doing Skype and the like, the app also lets you connect for chats via MSN Messenger, ICQ, GTalk, SIP, Twitter, AIM, and Yahoo!, which should make this an attractive package even if you don't want to harness the raw power of IP telephony. You can get the application for free by loading up Installer with the company's repo. Check the video after the break to see the magic happen.

[Via Zatz Not Funny!]

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Quad-band watch phone rolls on Windows CE 5.0

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271029858/

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables

Ready for some honesty? We can think of a good handful of timepieces that we'd buy before we dropped $629.95 on this catastrophe, but for folks with pants too slim and hands too full to carry around a separate cellphone, we suppose it's a so-so alternative. The EGP-WP98 claims to be the first quad-band GSM watch phone to come with Windows CE 5.0 installed, and while it's supposed to tout a SIM card slot, water-resistance, a 266MHz CPU and a 1.45-inch display with handwriting recognition (for real?), that little line informing us that specifications are "subject to change without notice" makes us a touch leery. Nevertheless, you can also expect (though you may not get) a 1.3-megapixel camera, WiFi, a T-Flash expansion slot, multimedia player and built-in Bluetooth. According to one particular e-tailer, it'll be ready to ship on April 25th -- whether or not anyone's fat-fingered enough to push an order through, however, remains to be seen.

[Via UnwiredView]

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First Starbucks switching over to AT&T WiFi

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271058811/

Filed under: Wireless

Starbucks said it would transition to AT&T-provided WiFi sometime this spring, and it looks like T-Mobile's getting the boot right on schedule. The first Starbucks to switch over is just 4.2 miles away from AT&T corporate headquarters in San Antonio, at 5321 South Broadway Road, and the rest of the country should come on market-by-market. Anyone else seen any activity? T-Mobile customers still getting access, as promised? Let us know in comments!

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24.4 megapixel Nikon D3X DSLR in the works?

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271122690/

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Some entirely too ingenious hackers have found a reference to the rumored D3X deep within the bowels of Nikon's D3 firmware. The reference includes a list of resolutions available to the upcoming shooter, and it's apparently set to max out at a potentially Higgs Boson-inducing 24.4 megapixels. Word has it that this sensor is likely a variant of the megapixel monster behind Sony's upcoming A900, but since this is all being extrapolated from a few numbers hidden in some firmware, we're going to try not to get too ahead of ourselves at this point.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Sony's 3.5- and 11-inch OLEDs are just 0.008- and 0.012-inches thin

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/271348979/

Filed under: Displays

Damn, sexy huh? That's Sony's 0.2-mm (0.0079-inch) thin OLED display. Granted, this 3.5-inch prototype is only capable of 320 x 220 pixels, just shy of a cellphone standard QVGA resolution. However, that panel's fracking impressive when compared to those relatively chubby 0.67-mm (and that's a world's slimmest), 320 x 240 pixel LCDs capable of just 2.2-inches of display. And just look at those blacks -- you can barely see the bezel.

Update: Oh my... we just noticed that Sony's also showing off an 0.3-mm thin, 11-inch OLED with 960 x 540 pixel resolution. That's 10x slimmer than Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV. See it pictured after the break.

Continue reading Sony's 3.5- and 11-inch OLEDs are just 0.008- and 0.012-inches thin

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