Cowon has confirmed that the launch of the iAudio 9 (portable audio player) for the American market is scheduled next week. Besides, the company has announced that it will be selling the iAudio E2, too.

The iAudio 9 is able to play several types of audio files like MP3, FLAC, Ogg, WAV, APE and WME; and also it is able to play two video formats: XviD and WMV. In addition, this device can output composite videos by using a cable, and it supports Flash Lite to execute games. The player also includes a built-in FM radio receiver, text reader, photo viewer and voice recorder. The battery offers up to  29 hours of continuous audio playback or up to 8 hours of video.

On the other hand, the iAudio E2 is an audio player with a size similar to the iPod Shuffle. It has  some features that allow users to choose between eight different audio enhancement profiles. Each profile has a built-in voice guide that is used to try different sound enhancement presets before deciding which is best for a particular situation.

The 8GB iAudio 9 will cost $129, while the 16 GB version will have a price of $169. As for the 4GB iAudio E2, the price will be $65.

Visit Cowon website - American version

Although an official announcement has not been made, apparently MSI will launch a new netbook with Windows 7 soon. At least, that can be deduced by visiting a product page on its website where the new item is labeled as “Wind12 U230″.

This ultrathin notebook comes with the new AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual-Core Processor at 1.6GHz, which is accompanied by an integrated graphics chipset (ATI’s Radeon HD 3200). Other features are similar to the ones found in the current Wind12 U210 notebook, including a
12.1-inch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768.

Also, it comes with 1GB of RAM that can be optionally  increased up to 4 GB, and hard drives ranging from 160GB to 320GB. The standard version features a 1.3-megapixel webcam, Gigabit Ethernet, and a Wi-Fi module. In addition, it has a HDMI port, VGA connector, and three USB ports.

Bluetooth connectivity is optional, as well as a 6-cell battery that is supposed to provide up to 4 hours of battery life.

Belkin International, Inc. offer us a product that is a good option to protect our gadgets from surge currents and, at the same time, allows us to save energy consumption when those gadgets are plugged in but we don’t need to turn them on.

The Belking Conserve is designed to protect our most valuable and expensive gadgets from accidents caused by unstable electrical peaks (transient overvoltages). This surge protector has eight electrical outlets, which are arranged in two groups. The first group has capacity for up to six devices that can be completely powered off. On the other hand, the second group has capacity for up two devices and is used to plug in things that require continuous power (in a waiting state) even if they are not being used; for example: a wireless router or a hard drive recorder (for TV) that needs to maintain the clock in working condition.

Another element that complements the Belkin Conserve is the Conserve Remote Switch. It has up to 60 ft range (approximately 20 mts) and can turn on and turn off the surge protector (but only  affecting the six outlets that can be completely powered off). It can be useful when, for example, you need to turn off the complete set of devices of your home theater system with only one switch.

Officially, the Belkin Conserve costs $49.99 and has lifetime warranty. Besides, it includes sliding safety covers, which are perfect for children protection. Also, there is a version that includes a timer.

To know more about this surge protector, please click here

Finally, Verizon announced the launch date and price of the BlackBerry Storm2 for the American market. And this happened only ten days after Vodafone officially announced it for the British market (available from today).

This way, Verizon customers will be able to buy the BlackBerry Storm2 starting from October 28 (in two days). On this same day, Verizon and Motorola will celebrate an event intended to introduce the new Motorola Droid: a super-thin phone that uses the Android operating system.

With an agreement comprising a two-year service contract, the BlackBerry Storm2 would cost 179.99 dollars.

The features of the BlackBerry Storm2 include:

* Blackberry operating system 5.0
* Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity
* 3.5mm headphone jack
* Built-in 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, image stabilizer, flash and video capabilities
* Global Positioning System (GPS)
* A microSDHC card is included
* 2GB onboard storage
* WiFi connectivity
* 3.25-inch touch-screen with resolution of 480 x 360 pixels
* Quad-band  EDGE/GPRS/GSM and UMTS / HSPA (2100 MHz) connectivity

With this new alternative in the mobile communication market, users have now a new option to fit their needs. Of course, next year, they will have more and more alternatives with better technological innovations. The mobile world is just emerging.

Sony Ericsson has unveiled two of its new products by showing a couple of videos. There, we can see two mobile phones that will be launched soon: Sony Ericsson Susan and Sunny Emerge, which apparently have a very attractive design, and besides that, both of them will feature a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash. Definitely, a remarkable feature.

Susan is a candybar phone and Sunny Emerge is a slide-out phone. Together, they have a hard mission by setting a new trend in the mobile market. However, at this time, an official launch date has not been revealed, but some sources suggest they might be launched before the end of this year. We’ll see.

At the moment, we don’t have more information about these new mobile devices but, of course, if Sony Ericsson announces more details, then we will make a new post about them. Anyway, they look very classy and stylish and the fact of having a  5-megapixel camera makes them very interesting.

Next, you can see the embedded videos and check out how these phones will look. So, apparently, the  Sony Ericsson Susan and Sunny Emerge will be two great choices for those who want to change their old phone (or buy their first mobile phone).

One of the biggest electronic companies in the world (Philips) has just officially announced an Android phone called “Philips V808″. This new gadget is mainly targeted to China market.

According to some reports, this phone would be marketed by the largest mobile network in a global context: China Mobile (of course, it is the largest mobile network in China, too).

The Philips V808 has a 3.2-inch touch-screen, widgets support, Global Positioning System (GPS), music and video player, slot to insert microSD memory cards with storage capacity of up to 8 GB, GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity, and a built-in 3.2-megapixel camera which is a good option to take quick and casual pictures that doesn’t require high resolution.

The phone has a very simple design but, however, it is very elegant and stylish.

At this time, there is no official word about the availability of this phone in the rest of the world, but it is possible that it could be marketed in other countries, too. Anyway, it seems this is one of the most important products that Philips will launch at the end of this year, although the exact release date has not been announced yet.

Samsung Electronics has introduced its first internal multi-format Blu-ray drive in the electronic market: SH-B083. This Blu-ray disc drive is compatible with high-capacity discs of up to 25GB if they are single-layer discs, or up to 50GB if they are double-layer discs. And, of course, the drive can be used with personal computers (PCs).

This drive reads BD-R and BD-ROM discs at up to 8x speeds. Besides, the CDs are read at up to 48x speeds and the DVDs at up to 16x. Also, the new SH-B083 multi-format drive features an average access speed of 350 ms. On the other hand, besides reading Blu-ray discs, it reads and writes CD and DVD.

The SH-B083 comes with two lenses for more stable reading and writing. This way, a lens is reserved to read BD discs, while the other one reads and writes CDs and DVDs. In addition, the Spherical Aberration Compensation Technology (SACT) improves the reading of those BD discs where the protective layer doesn’t have an uniform thickness.

Also, the precision step control technology (PSCT) allows users to enjoy a higher resolution in the optical pickup head unit (OPU), which is an absolutely necessary requirement due to the smaller track pitch of BD discs (when they are compared with CDs and DVDs).

Some months ago, the Motorola Sholes was announced. This smartphone is a very original mobile device that will be part of the best bets of the American company for the last months of the year.

Well, today we publish some of the features of this gadget, so you can decide, once and for all, to buy one (of course, provided it fits your needs).

Next, a good part of its technical specs:

* Built-in 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash
* 3.7-inch touch-screen with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels
* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR capability
* Wi-Fi capability
* 256MB RAM memory
* 512MB ROM memory
* It features EVDO Rev A and CDMA capabilities
* Slot to insert microSD/microSDHC memory cards
* Full slide-out QWERTY keyboard
* 3.5-mm headphones jack
* It has a MP3 music player
* It comes with a MPEG-4 video player
* It has the Android operating system
* It comes with several applications like alarm clock, calendar, calculator, World Clock and e-mail.
* 1400mah lithium ion battery

At the moment, we don’t know its price but, of course, Motorola will announce it soon. Some “predictors” are saying the price could be $199 but it is not official.

Are you tired of your short laptop battery life with only a few hours? Would you like the charge of your mobile phone to last a couple of months? Well, the answer to your “prayers” might be the nuclear batteries, which are been developed at the University of Missouri. They are designed especially for providing a lasting source of energy. And some people think these batteries could replace the current ones, including those used by the electrical cars. According to the creators, a nuclear battery has a very enormous capacity to generate electricity when compared to a regular one.

The batteries have always been the Achilles’ heel of the mobile devices. Usually, the designers of electronic devices for mass consumption (like laptops or media players) use small displays or screens that are not very bright in order to save the scarce energy resources that are provided from the regular batteries. But the new nuclear battery would bring a solution based on a liquid semiconductor (rather than a solid semiconductor) that will produce a much longer lifetime for the battery. The reason is the solid semiconductors are attacked constantly by some radioactive elements used by other types of batteries, while the liquid semiconductor is quite resistant  to these attacks. Although the term “nuclear” can be a little perturbing, the fact is that these batteries are not very different from those batteries used in, for example, medical pacemakers.

The new radioisotope battery has the size of a penny and provides much more power than the traditional ones because, according to the researches, its capacity is very superior. Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Missouri, said that the radioisotope battery “can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries”. That is to say, it provides no less than a million times more charge than any “normal” battery.

Kwon and his research team have spent enough time working to solve many problems that they have encountered when developing this type of battery. One important thing is the batteries need to be small and thin in order to be practical and useful; this way, they could be used to power watches and small electronic devices. As mentioned before, the prototype (which you can see in the picture below) has the size and thickness of a penny, but the researchers think they can achieve a thinner battery. In order to do this, Kwon has required the collaboration of another professor: J. David Robertson (chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research Reactor). Together, they hope to maximize the power of the nuclear batteries as well as reduce the size and test other materials to make additional improvements. Kwon thinks that the final battery, which would be used in commercial gadgets, could be thinner than a human hair. For the moment, the research team have required a provisional patent in order to protect the exclusive right to use this invention.

In the last months, we have seen that some companies have introduced their smartphones in order to compete in the mobile market, but most of those smartphones offer almost the same features with regard to hardware. Well, apparently, Toshiba is ready to make an innovative move in order to bring different and new features to the mobile industry.

With this said, the fact is that the company is introducing a series of prototypes in the Cutting-edge IT & Electronics Comprehensive Exhibition CEATEC that is taking place in Japan. In this exhibition, it is clear that Toshiba only has one thing on its mind: Power. And to demonstrate this, the company is using its new products K01, K02 and L01 as representative samples.

The first model (the K01) comes with a slider QWERTY keyboard, a 4.1-inch capacitive screen, a 1-GHz processor, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. It has a thickness of 0.60 inches and might be available for sale before the end of this year. As for the K02, it is a smartphone with a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen in a landscape clamshell design and, as a novelty, it also has a secondary LCD display; the K02 has a very similar design to the Nintendo-DS console, but with a more elegant style.

And, lastly but not least, the Toshiba L01 is a tablet-like device with a 7-inch display and a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. In addition, the  L01 also can work as a digital photo frame. This smartphone would be available for sale at the end of the current year. Most probably they will come with Windows Mobile 6.5, but it would not be strange if later they can run Windows 7 by doing an update.

Images by Akihabaranews