In times of plenty, manufacturers always have news. When launches are a little thinner on the ground, concepts make the perfect exhibition fodder.

Such was the case with the Home of the Future at this year's Grand Designs Live exhibition, where Samsung and Electrolux took the opportunity to introduce some of the exciting, as well as downright bizarre, products they've currently got people working on.

The first is the frighteningly Nanny-like toilet. It uses the water you use to wash your hands as the water to flush the toilet, the theory behind it being that you'll have to wash your hands if you want to activate the flush. No word on the fact that you might want to wash your hands after you flush the toilet, rather than before...

Next up the Electronic Tongue. Dropping a few morsels of food or liquid on the panel activates the analysis, which then displays the constituents parts and ingredients of the meal. Although useful for those shop-bought meals with dubious ingredients lists, it's acknowledged that this kind of technology is a fair way in the future yet.

The iBasket looks like a translucent washing basket, and indeed it is. Yet as a concept, it can claim to be so much more! This product, developed by Electrolux, will monitor the level of dirty laundry within it, and once full, will wash the lot, using no water at all.

Finally the Steam Cocoon brings concepts slightly closer to reality. Step into this cocoon and you'll not only be treated to a steam treatment, but it will ply you with aromatherapy, as well as a soothing light display.

Are these destined for your house in the next 18 months? Probably not. But it's always fun to get a glimpse into that Jetsonesque future.

Tags: Home And Kitchen Samsung Electrolux Concepts Bathroom gadgets Kitchen gadgets

Grand Designs Live demos Home of the Future originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:11:44 +0100

Whilst RIM's BlackBerry Pearl handset brought push email to a market away from merely corporate business users, T-Mobile are hoping their latest package will remove the pricing barriers which have previously made some people think twice before committing.

"Pay Once" offers users a BlackBerry Pearl 8110 and a year's access to email and the Internet from the phone. To make phone calls and texts, the owner needs to buy credit in the traditional pay-as-you-go manner. Available from T-Mobile stores from 1 May, it will cost £179.

The hope is that this will attract a younger market, who want access to email and their social networks without paying a monthly fee for the privilege, as well as allowing people to buy the phone as a gift.

The phone itself is currently only available in silver, and features a 2-megapixel camera, built-in GPS and quick links to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.

Related links:

• Link - T-Mobile

Tags: Phones T-Mobile BlackBerry RIM PAYG Tariffs Email

T-Mobile intros one-off payment for BlackBerry email originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:30:21 +0100

Having announced the DV2 at CES this year, fans of high definition and lightweight laptops will be pleased to hear it’s hitting the shelves in the UK this week, priced from £499.

It sits between HP’s notebook offering, and the more heavy hitting HDX range. The 12.1-inch DV2 weighs in at 4 pounds and is just one-inch thick, and is designed to offer both the portability and performance for a mid-range price point.

The processor is the AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 (1.6GHz), which will be exclusive to HP for the next 6 months. This has been specifically developed with this product in mind, integrating a "power saving yet powerful" processor and ATI’s Radeon graphics technology. The graphic element supports the high definition focus, which comes in the form of Blu-ray, via the external drive, and the HDMI output.

Whilst there's no internal drive, other connectivity comes via three USB ports and a 5-in-1 card reader. There will be a number of possible configurations - the initial product will come with a fairly paltry 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, with Vista Home Basic.

Battery life has been quoted at 4.5 hours. Further models will feature a more workable 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive or 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Both of these will come with Vista Home Premium, and arrive in the 3rd week of April. Pricing for these is yet to be announced, although expect to pay a premium for the 500GB version.

Related links:

• Link - HP

Tags: Hardware HP Laptops Blu-ray

HP launches DV2 notebook in the UK originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:46:43 +0100

O2 offers Litmus and Vodafone has its Widget Manager, now Orange has launched an application store, although quel surprise, only in France.

They’re launching applications for Symbian, Java and Windows Mobile towards the end of the year. In particular, Orange is interested in the Java-based phones, as they make up a market ill-catered too currently, in terms of apps.

Each phone will only display applications for download that are compatible with the model in question, and Orange aims to simplify with process by dropping each download into a "My Application" folder.

According to a spokesperson, Orange is currently “in discussion” to work out how their store would appear on a handset with its own application store, such as Nokia’s app store or the Android Marketplace.

It’s difficult to see how a phone could support two application stores, both practically and monetary speaking, but time will tell.

Tags: Phones Apps Orange

Orange launches app store originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:42:51 +0100

Non-iPhone users have long been envious of Apple’s Visual Voicemail, but it seems that might come to an end, at least in France.

Orange is launching their own visual voicemail solution, unimaginatively titled "Visual Voicemail".

For smartphone users, this will enable them to browse and listen to their messages in a non-chronological order, as the messages will appear as text in their inbox detailing the sender, length and time of message. As with the iPhone, it will be possible to skip ahead through the actual listening of messages, as well as rewind and pause them.

Non-smartphone users haven’t been forgotten. Orange customers will receive text messages with the sender, duration and date of the voicemail, as well as one click access to the voicemail from the text message.

According to a spokesperson, Orange’s Visual Voicemail is “on the roadmap” for the UK, although as it’s only being released in France towards the end of this year, it will be a while 'til it makes an appearance.

Tags: Phones Orange Voicemail Apps

Orange to offer visual voicemail originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:33:02 +0100

Orange has done it again, introducing great mobile solutions but restricting them to France.

Over the Channel, Orange iPhone users will have access to 60 TV channels, live, in high definition quality, over the 3G network.

The application itself will be free from Apple’s store, whilst several of Orange’s tariffs will incorporate unrestricted access to the service itself. For those without the relevant tariff, an add-on can be purchased for 9 euros per month.

Navigating the channels takes full advantage of the iPhone’s interface. They can be browsed in a Coverflow fashion, and double tapping the screen will bring you out of the full screen view to access details of the programme, or alternative options.

Since Orange don’t have the iPhone contract in the UK it’s unlikely that this service will appear on our shores any time soon, making this, and the strength of the euro, two of the strongest reasons to decamp la Francais.

Tags: Phones Orange iPhone Mobile phone TV Home Cinema

Orange France offers 3G iPhone TV originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:22:41 +0100

Orange has announced the Tabby, a touchscreen tablet PC, designed to offer the family access to the Internet and media via a variety of widgets and web browsing options.

Although produced by Orange, it works via Wi-Fi and will therefore be compatible regardless of the ISP. It will also connect to the home network via DLNA and Wi-Fi, so photos, music and movies can also be viewed from the home PC.

The hardware itself is produced by Sagem, whilst Orange currently make up the widgets that sit on the homescreen, including those for weather, stocks, travel and horoscopes.

Alternatively, access to the web is available through the supplied Opera browser, and additional applications are available to be downloaded through Opera. A pop-up touchscreen keyboard is available for entering web addresses and the like.

Battery life away from the dock is 3 hours of "intense use", and interestingly, an Orange spokesperson has said that the tablet has the ability to access the Internet via 3G, although this isn’t an avenue they’re pursuing at the current time.

Sadly, if this sounds like the perfect non-PC internet access device for you, it is currently only being trialled in France from May for 299 euros. However, a successful product there might well see it being brought to the UK in the future.

Related links:

• News - O2 Joggler promises to make family life easier

Tags: Hardware Orange Tablet PCs Laptops Phones

Orange announces Tabby originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:15:57 +0100

Seagate has announced the availability of their Theatre HD with more of a whimper than a bang. Already launched in Europe, the product is designed to make it easy to access media through a television.

Seagate has not gone in for streaming media from your PC via Wi-Fi, as strong players in the data storage field, the Theatre HD instead uses the 2.5-inch FreeAgent Go hard drive and a dock, which is connected to the television.

The dock also features a USB port so you can use other hard drive devices, and ships with a remote so you can control it from afar. Once you've docked the drive, you can then access your pictures, music or videos on your television through an interface that mimics the folder set-up on the computer.

Whilst this might initially seem sensible, it quickly becomes apparent that Seagate has missed a trick by not allowing you to browse music by artist, playlist or genre, unless you've already categorised your music into those folders.

As far as movies are concerned, the dock will play them at a maximum resolution of 1080i, since there's no HDMI connectivity for 1080p. There is, however, DivX support, as well as MPEG-1,2 and 4 for videos and MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG for audio files.

Whilst Europe gets the dock for 99 euros, the pound takes another hit with the announcement that in the UK, the dock will cost approximately £89, without the hard drive. A spokesperson said it was likely that a bundle of both the dock and the hard drive would become available at some point soon.

Tags: Home Cinema Seagate Hardware PVRs Storage

Seagate Theatre HD launches in UK originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:28:01 +0100

Sony has revealed more details of the eco-friendly WE5 television, which is being touted as the ultimate rainforest-friendly set that doesn't compromise on picture quality.

Sadly, those looking to reduce their carbon emissions are going to have to compromise on another factor. Namely, form - it's a 40-or 46-inch gloss white set, or nothing.

Image quality comes courtesy of the Bravia Engine 3, which cleans and filters image data to reduce picture noise. The "Motionflow" 100Hz with "Image Blur Reduction" doubles the frame rate, for smoother images.

The television itself features a number of environmental tweaks to lower energy consumption, and Sony estimates that the average user will save £35 a year. That’s based on 4 hours use a day, with the remaining 20 hours being on standby.

At £1350, the set is about £150 more than an equivalent less-eco Bravia, which means it will take over 4 years to recoup the initial expense, something that Sony believe their target market is happy to do.

The savings come from a variety of places. There's the Sony-developed "Hot Cathode Fluorescent Lamps", which use about 50% less power to light the screen than traditional bulbs.

There's also the "Presence Sensor". Whilst other TVs in Sony's eco range will switch off if there's no detected activity from the remote after a user-set period of time, this TV will guess whether you’re there to watch it.

It sweeps the room for motion at intervals, and when it detects a protracted period of stillness, it switches the picture off, leaving the sound on. After a further period (5, 15 or 30 minutes) it switches off completely.

It'll take a proper review to work out just how sensitive this presence sensor is, but Sony assure us that it's primed to work with humans rather than pets, so you won't be left with your cat hiking up your energy bills.

There's also a switch on the side, which will turn the TV off completely, as if it's been turned off at the wall socket. This is something various other manufacturers have incorporated before, although it's unclear whether those previous models actually reduced the set to absolute zero energy consumption.

Not content with its own maths, Sony are teaming up with a mysterious independent body to measure and quantify its eco-credentials. It's not a charity, it's not the Energy Saving Trust, but we can expect more on that next week.

As far as the gloss white is concerned, a Sony spokesperson was quick to assure that the type of people to spend more on an environmentally friendly television are also the type to embrace a non-traditional hue. It is, apparently, "a lifestyle decision".

It has proved popular with Sony's Picture Frame range, but should it not take off for the WE5, there's a good chance the features will be rolled out to additional models in the future.

Related links:

• News - Sony announces new Bravia LCD TV line-up

Tags: Home Cinema Sony Televisions LCD televisions Eco

Sony provides more info on WE5 television originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:33:22 +0000

James Blunt is so 2005, Alan Titchmarsh is having a quiet period and I can't bring myself to buy a Maeve Binchy "novel". No, not even online. So with Mother's Day quickly approaching, I'm under pressure to come up with a present that satisfies both my mother and, more importantly, me as the present-giver (missing the point, moi?).

I've heard of mothers that communicate through their Blackberry, and I have friends that stay in contact with their family purely through text message, but in our family, we're still working through the "mobile phones are designed to receive calls as well as make calls" issue. I did get a text message from my mum once, but decoding “wgat dn wmt want dmp agpgptmap” proved too much for me, and I resorted to a phone call. For those that won't rest until they've cracked the code I'll short cut the process. I was apparently being asked what I wanted for Christmas. I can only assume that someone had only given a very basic explanation of predictive text. Big mistake.

What I need is the "Robbie Williams - Swing When You're Winning" of the gadget world. A modern take on an old classic, which is probably the nicest review of that album that Mr Williams has ever received.

There are such products out there. Photo printers are perfect gift material (as long as you've managed to migrate said gift receiver from 30mm film cameras). Epson, HP, Kodak - everyone seems to now make a photo printer where you just insert your memory card and press go. If it encourages people to get their photos off their digital cameras I'm all for it. I'm fed up with viewing people's holiday snaps on a screen the size of a compact mirror.

Digital radios are also a winner. It's like a normal radio, only easier. The Pure Tempus-1 seems to do all that my mother will ever need. It displays all the stations and she just has to pick one. No more pesky tuning in. The fact that once tuned in to Radio 2 the tuning facility will never be needed again is a fact I'll try to ignore.

And one particularly suited to my mother is Vodafone's Simply phone. It makes phone calls and sends texts. That's it. Whilst the thought of that personally horrifies me, I can see the advantage for those that are happy with a camera to take pictures, a TV to watch Gardener's World on and a radio to listen to music on. Alternatively, eBay a phone from 1997. I'm sure it will be essentially the same.

Ironically, I'm safe from the wrath of my own mother when she finds I've painted her as Luddite of all Luddites, as this article will forever reside on the Internet (which she has yet to come across). She'll never know the thought that went into getting her … oh ok, I bought the Maeve Binchy novel.

Related links:

• Pocket-lint.co.uk - Official website of Pocket-lint.co.uk

Tags: Gadgets Pocket-lint Site news Nintendo Wii iPod Car And GPS

BIRDS EYE VIEW: Gadgets for your Mum originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:27 +0000

Love doesn't come in a ring box, and it certainly can't be found in a box of Milk Tray, unless you're going through an 80s advert renaissance period. Love has about 20GB of memory, a colour screen, and if it's true love, it will play videos.

Like it or not (I don't) Valentines Day is once again looming and as I consider what I would like to receive from that man I exchange smouldering looks with every morning at the bus stop, it strikes me that it's all getting a bit complicated for the unsuspecting male.

Roses are passé, underwear is inevitably ill-fitting, and rings, well, they are only ever good if you have both reached "that place". I don't think bus stop man and I are quite there yet. Simply put, if you want to say I love you, say it with technology. If you need convincing, consider the fact that statistics from a few years ago showed that six times more valentines text messages were sent than traditional cards.

In gift terms, mp3 players say exactly the right thing. Literally, if you download your very own love sonnet in advance. It's the 21 century equivalent of the compilation tape, and whose heart has not been melted by a collection of the songs from the night you first met/the first holiday you shared/the first time he made you spaghetti bolognese (the original, and still the best, Man Recipe)?

True, it's a more expensive love token, but we're worth it. And done right, it will secure the gift giver brownie points for right up until Christmas. Men - take note. It's a sliding scale, and it goes like this. For ten points, buy the player. For 20, research your loves needs in their mp3 player, and buy accordingly. For 30, charge it so it's ready for action when unwrapped.

For the ultimate in point scoring, playlists are the way forward. Nothing expresses true love more than a pre-loaded playlist. It means someone has taken the time to think about what music you love, and gone as far as loading them on. And lets face it, no matter what the manufacturers say, that bit is a complete pain in the arse that we'd all avoid given the choice.

What kind of playlist you load depends on your relationship. For the couples that do the weekly shop together, holding hands, there is the obvious "First meeting/kiss/fight" collection of songs, as previously mentioned. For the couple that go the gym together, an upbeat soundtrack for running will illustrate a profound understanding of your lovers psyche. Couples that browse Dixons and DABS together will need all the latest podcasts loaded.

Don't get me wrong. Valentines Day isn't just about gifts. Commercialism of such a beautiful sentiment is wrong, obviously. But if the man from the bus stop is reading this, I'd like a Creative Zen Vision:M, with a playlist suitable for shoe shopping.

Related links:

• Pocket-lint.co.uk - Official website of Pocket-lint.co.uk

Tags: Audio MP3 players Pocket-lint

BIRDS EYE VIEW: The shape of true love… originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 25 Jan 2006 00:00:16 +0000

We're catching up with the boys. We've seen the light and we're ready to embrace the future. No, we're not on a one-woman mission to build a wall of empty beer cans, or even to collect the entire The Simpsons back catalogue. We're catching up in the digital music stakes.

For a long time, men have led the way in this field. In fact, in May of this year a survey said that it was only 4% of the total downloading population that were female. However, a recent survey by Music Choice says that women now make up 34% of this population. It is easy to see that it won't take very long before we're even. The real glass ceiling will have been broken … well kind of.

Whether selling to men or women, digital music companies are having to battle with the cult of the album. Whether it's the album art, the lyrics that make it possible to pretend that yes, you are Gwen Stefani, or just the ability to use CDs as coasters, there is undoubtedly something to be said for owning the CD itself. Like it or not, collections are cool. (Unless it's stamps, or science fiction films, or the skulls of animals. Actually, I've changed my mind. CD collections are cool. There aren't many other collections that are cool.)

Anyway, it's difficult to impress people with the size of your hard drive. Not impossible, but difficult. So digital music companies have had to come up with a compelling reason to convert.

When it began, sites such as Kazaa had it sorted. The music was free. That was a pretty damn compelling reason to try it (not that I ever did, obviously, it being illegal and everything). iTunes heralded legal and easy to use music downloading and brought it to a whole new group of people. iTunes is also an interesting site to browse. The ability to quickly discover new artists connected to your favourite band (Girls Aloud in my case) and to explore new content such as talking books and podcasts, make it an easy way to waste half an hour. Or to broaden your musical knowledge, depending on whether or not you're trying to justify it as a good reason to not go to the gym. Again.

Now we've got the next big thing. This is, I should point out, concluded from conducting a poll of six of my closest friends - we're not strictly speaking official trend predictors. Anyway, sites such as Virgin Digital and Napster allow you to subscribe on a monthly basis which gives you access to their entire music collection for as long as you maintain your subscription. This is amazing. For the cost of one CD, you can download any number of songs from a catalogue of over 1.5 million, and listen to it as many times as you want. You can even transfer it to an mp3 player and take it on the bus with you.

A large CD collection is cool. But being able to play practically any song anyone names is better. Forget burping the alphabet. This is the party trick of the 21st century.

Women were always going to be a tough nut to crack. Expert shoppers, we're perfectly at home in a shopping centre the size of Birmingham, and wandering around looking at labels, pulling at seams and generally browsing isn't an experience we're keen to forego. However, as a result of this training, we've also got an eye for a bargain. And if the offering is good enough, I reckon we could surpass men in the downloading stakes. After all, who wouldn't want to own the entire Take That back catalogue for the price of one CD?

Related links:

• Pocket-lint.co.uk - Official website of Pocket-lint.co.uk

Tags: Audio MP3 players Pocket-lint

BIRDS EYE VIEW: The re-education of Rita originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 28 Dec 2005 00:15:01 +0000

I like pink. I have pink shoes, pink nail varnish, and even spent a certain, ill-advised, period of time with pink hair. However, I do not require everything I own to be pink, or even a pastel shade of some other colour.

Nor do I require everything I own to make use of diamante, have an inbuilt mirror, or come in a ‘Hello Kitty' variety. In short, I have come to terms with the fact that I am not Paris Hilton, and never will be.

The gadgets I covet look good, and (I imagine to the horror of gadget marketing bods the world over) I'm pretty sure this isn't gender-specific. Take the RAZR. I loved it in silver. I really loved in black. I saw it in pink, and I almost bought it for my 14-year-old sister.

And the world of marketing gadgets to women has just got a whole lot stranger. A mobile phone that squirts perfume when it rings, anyone? I've got a million questions for the man in the Far East that came up with this one. The first one is, inevitably, why?

It's easy to get sucked into the dark side. In fact, I spent a short amount of time considering getting a mobile phone covered in flowers, and then the sales assistant mentioned it came with its very own bio-rhythm calculator. There are certain things I don't want my friendly neighbourhood mugger to know about me when he relieves me of my phone. My ‘bio-rhythm' is one of them.

Come January, I will become a permanent resident of eBay, waiting to snap up those unwanted Christmas presents at ludicrously cheap prices (yes, I'm the one bidding at 4 am). So what am I looking for? A digital radio that has an auxiliary input so that I can plug in my mp3 player. Some headphones that cut out the noise of other commuters updating their mates on their journey progress. A mobile phone with a decent camera, so I can ditch my digital camera from my handbag (leaving room for such essentials as lip gloss and packets of tissues).

The point is, I want my gadgets to make my life better. I know how to research different products. Google is my friend. I can even go into a Dixons on my own.

Say it with me - I am a girl. I like gadgets. I am no longer seduced by style, when the substance is missing.

After a few mistakes, I have learnt that a one night stand is no replacement for a long-term relationship.

Related links:

• Pocket-lint.co.uk - Official website of Pocket-lint.co.uk

Tags: Gadgets Pocket-lint Site news Nintendo Wii iPod Car And GPS

BIRDS EYE VIEW: It’s not pink, but I like it… originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000