New Gadgets

When it comes to fashionable gadgets Apple has largely been at the helm of the pack but that is quickly changing. Now that consumers care more about what their devices look like (in some cases, more than how they actually function) that ever before, manufacturers are taking note and producing truly beautiful hardware.

Samsung, for one, has been known to take some design cues from Apple (as made evident by the string of legal issues between the two) and add in their own flair for some great looking products. Their recent tablet offerings, for example, including the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus are arguably some of the best looking Android powered tablets on the market – and it seems that they are only going ot get better.

The reason I say this is because pictures have just hit the web that show both the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 in white, as shown above. According to our sources these photographs came from Vietnam where quite a bit of high profile leaks have come from in the past. Unfortunately we have virtually no information in regards to what markets these devices are set for nor do we know when we’ll find out more. Lucky for you, we’re on the case and will report back with any future findings.

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Retina-X Studios just announced the availability of PhoneSheriff for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows smartphones. This parental control service for mobile phones allows parents to monitor, filter, and restrict their children’s smartphone activities. The parent sets the software to record and block activities associated with specific numbers and it can also track locations via GPS.

PhoneSheriff is a stealth application which allows parents to see everything their kids do while on the phone, like every text message sent or received, every call dialed or received and all videos and pictures captured by the phone. Yikes! Then, parents can check the kids actions by logging onto the hidden interface on the phone itself, or in order to be extra sneaky, they can log into a secure Web panel from any Web browser to view the recorded logs and stored GPS locations. Boy I’m glad my parents didn’t have this stuff when I was a kid!

This new program can also block phone numbers from contacting your kid via SMS or phone calls. In addition, applications and websites can be filtered or restricted. Parents can also set a time schedule to allow or disallow use of the phone at certain times. Score one, for total parental control.

PhoneSheriff also allows parents to send secret SMS commands to the monitored phone. This allows parents to track where their child is at any time using the Instant GPS Locate command. This feature also works as an anti-theft element, as parents can locate and monitor the phone even when the SIM card has been changed. Wow… I’m all for keeping track of kids, but isn’t this almost too much of a parental advantage? Not that I wouldn’t use it, I’m just saying if my folks had this, I’d still be grounded.

A one-year subscription to the PhoneSheriff costs $49.97 and works with Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian OS smartphones.

The Pentel Airpen Mini which was released back in 2009 has now been updated to support Android devices and a few month back the note taking application Evernote.

The Pental Airpen allows you to record anything you write on any paper and then transfer that to your computer or tablet. Its compatible with Windows 2000 SP4, XP, Vista 32 and 64Bit, Android and only on OS X V10.5 and has a built in 2MB storage which is capable or storing up to 100 A5 pages.

Back in December 2010Pental release a an Evernote-coloured limited edition Airpen Mini, to mark the start of its compatibility with the note taking application Evernote.

The long-awaited HTC Desire Z is now available on Vodafone. It can be had for free from £35 per month.

The HTC Desire Z is that rarest of things – a top quality Android phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard. For those of you who just can’t get to grips with touch-screen keypads, it deserves to feature very highly on your wish list.

The device sports a well-balanced 800MHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera and a sharp 3.7-inch screen. It runs on version 2.2 (Froyo) of the Android OS.

Head on over to Vodafone and you’ll have a choice of contracts to choose from, starting from £25 per month (with a £199 charge up front) for 24 months.

If you do happen to secure an HTC Desire Z this festive period, keep in mind that there are plenty of accessories to kit it out with on the market.

You should read – HTC Desire Z review

HTC released the new Desire HD smartphone available via Vodafone only $69 with 24-month contract rates.

HTC Desire HD running Android 2.2 OS Froyo, powered by Snapdragon processor 1GHz, enhance HTC Sense user interface, 1.5GB internal memory, microSD card slot up to 32GB, and 4.3-inch LCD touchscreen (480×800 pixel resolution).

Another features of HTC Desire HD include HSPA, GPS, Dolby Mobile sound, 8M pixel autofocus camera with HD video recording and LED flash, weight 116-grams, and 123 x 68 x 11.8mm. To learn more visit our HTC Desire HD review.

Mention Android and most of you would be thinking about mobile devices. Well, here’s news for you – Binatone’s Android-based iDECT iHome Phone is meant for landlines, although it will come with features that are normally associated with Android-powered handsets. Apart from running a stock version of Android, the device will also sport Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) connectivity, a 2.8-inch 320 x 240 resolution color touchscreen display and a microSD memory card slot.

Other applications thrown into the mix Apps include an email client, internet radio, browser, YouTube video player and MP3 player. So where does the home phone bit come in? Well, how about a Contacts Manager to modernize things, alongside a 14 minute digital answering machine? You will also get typical functions such as call waiting caller ID, alarm, clock and calendar. It boasts a battery life which can hit 80 hours for stand-by time or up to 8 hours of talk time per charge. Out in Europe for $142 after conversion, we don’t think this is going to make a splash in more technologically advanced countries as the adoption of landlines have been declining slowly but surely worldwide.

For developers, being able to make a bit of cash from your app after the user has downloaded it is wondrous — especially if the initial app download was free. Nothing like being able to, you know, pay rent, or eat.

While the iPhone has supported the idea of In-App purchase for a bit over a year now, Android has yet to adopt it.

A few third-parties have manually integrated their own payment system into their apps — but everyone reinventing the wheel for their own use is a bad idea. Not only is it a ton of leg work, but it puts the responsibility of handling the customer’s sensitive financial data in the laps of developers.

Enter Paypal.

Today, Paypal is announcing Mobile Payments Library for Android — which is exactly what it sounds like: a library for Android developers to use to integrate Paypal payments into their app. Customers get to make transactions without ever leaving the app, while developers get to accept payments without having to handle credit card info. And of course, Paypal gets their customary cut. Everyone wins.

Is it the best possible solution? Not really; it’s another third-party brought into the mix, requiring customers to have yet another account. With that said, it’s about as good as it gets until Google gets around to bringing proper In-App purchase support to the platform

You can find more information about the new library at Paypal’s freakishly-short-URL’d X.com

Great news for fans of Android: soon, in the market, there will appear two more Android devices with QWERTY keyboards and touch screen – HTC Lancaster and Motorola Heron.

HTC Lancaster is the successor of HTC Dream, looks more impressive than the previous one.

In the list of characteristics can be found all that we can expect from a smart phone: Qualcomm MSM7225 processor with a clock speed of 528 MHz, 2.8-inch QVGA touch display, 3-megapixel camera, physical QWERTY keyboard and a full set of communication – HSDPA, Wi – Fi, GPS with support for A-GPS, Bluetooth, microUSB, and memory expanding slot microSD.

It is not yet known what version of Android is set to a novelty, but on Aug. 3, after its release on the market, we will know all the information.

As for Motorola Heron, its ability is the same as that of HTC Lancaster.

Motorola Heron has the same processor and screen, QWERTY keyboard, 3 megapixel camera with LED flash and the possibility of recording QVGA video at a frequency of 24 frames per second. All possible networks are also present: HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS with support for A-GPS, Bluetooth, microUSB, and memory expanding slot microSD.

Interesting point: Motorola Heron was originally designed as a Windows Mobile device, so it is very strange that it is Android.
Motorola Heron will appear on the shelves on the 2^nd of November this year.

A lot of interesting news is expected in the next two days. E3 conference dedicated to the computer and video games and everything concerned with it has opened. Particularly, there will be officially presented a new version of the portable game consoles PSP Go. Tomorrow starts the same exhibition Computex, dedicated to electronics and IT. And we already have the first news from there.

During the exhibition was noticed  a smartbook ASUS Eee PC prototype, running on Snapdragon-based chipsets with a frequency of 1 GHz and managed by OS Android. But what is most interesting – the system works without a cooler.

Low power, secured by a new chipset Snapdragon, not only helps to extend the work of the gadget, but to abandon the active cooling. This smartbook is able to not only to provide easy surfing on the network, but also play HD video with a resolution of 720p.

Also soon will be released a model with better graphics and chipsets Snapdragon on 1.3 GHz and 1.5 GHz with dual processors. Let’s hope that in the coming days we’ll have more details describing the smartbook.