Refreshed GPS-Centric HTC Touch Cruise Tracks Your Every Move

HTC is updating the nav-focused Touch Cruise, which now features a new active-geotagging app called Footprints, which can easily stamp your location on notes, audio clips and photos.

Aside from footprints, also new over the original cruise is a redesigned case, Touch Flo, and forthcoming U.S. 3G on AT&T's 850/1900 MHz bands (that version will sell in the spring, unlocked, for $500-$600). Full specs and release follow below, and a full hands-on over at Mobile Review can be had as well. [via Phone Scoop]

ALL NEW HTC TOUCH CRUISE WITH HTC FOOTPRINTS™ HELPS CAPTURE AND RELIVE LIFE’S JOURNEYS

Compact and Sophisticated Design Delivers an Advanced Location-Based Experience That Changes How People View Their Locations and Memories

tcpTaipei, Taiwan – January 22, 2009 – HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, today announced its latest personal navigation handset with inbuilt GPS. The new HTC Touch Cruise™, an update to 2008’s popular HTC GPS device of the same name, boasts a new, more compact design and a host of new capabilities to offer a richer and more intuitive experience in one powerful package.

Introducing HTC Footprints

The new HTC Touch Cruise is the first mobile phone to offer HTC Footprints, an application experience that enables people to permanently chronicle their special moments by capturing a digital postcard on their phone. Once captured, Footprints provides the ability to take notes and an audio clip of that favourite restaurant or special place while identifying its specific geographical location. In addition to identifying each postcard with its specific GPS co-ordinates, Footprints also auto-names each postcard with its general location or area.

Flipping back through their photos, HTC Touch Cruise users will be able to retrace their steps to that exact location in just a few touches. Unlike other devices with geo-tagging functionality, HTC Footprints works effectively outdoors and indoors, offering a more accurate record of location for future reference and navigation.

“Just as we have seen GPS technology transform how people navigate to new places, we are now seeing location-based applications like HTC Footprints changing how we interact and carry our memories,” said Peter Chou, President and CEO, HTC Corporation.

HTC Touch Cruise Car Cradle

The HTC Touch Cruise is also an advanced in-car navigation system. When placed into its accompanying car cradle, the HTC Touch Cruise automatically transforms its user interface into an easy-to-use, one-touch interface that provides seamless turn-by-turn directions.

Boasting a compact and sleek design with a 2.8 inch QVGA display, the HTC Touch Cruise is a further demonstration of HTC’s continued commitment to innovation, providing consumers with a variety of devices designed to meet their individual needs. Using HTC’s TouchFLO technology, the HTC Touch Cruise provides fingertip access to phone, contacts, email, messaging, calendar and GPS applications, making it a strong all-around device.

The new HTC Touch Cruise will be available to customers across all major global markets in spring 2009.

Notes to editors

Key HTC Touch Cruise Specifications

* Size: 102 x 53.5 x 14.5mm
* Weight: 103 grams
* Connectivity: WCDMA/HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
* Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
* Display: 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with QVGA resolution
* Control panel: HTC TouchFLO™, 4-Way navigation wheel with Enter and HTC Footprints™ buttons
* Camera: 3.2 MP, with fixed focus
* Internal memory: 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
* Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
* Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
* Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
* GPS: GPS/A-GPS
* Interface: HTC ExtUSB (mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
* Battery: 1100 mAh
* Talk time: GSM: up to 400 minutes
* Standby time: GSM: up to two weeks
* Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM7225™, 528 MHz

There's also hope and change in the land of the brick: Behold the Presidential inauguration of Barack Obama in Lego bricks, complete with every single character that will be at the Capitol, including Lego Oprah.

They have every single character there, from his wife Michelle and his daughters Malia Ann and Sasha—the youngest resident of the White House since JFK Jr—to Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill, President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, VP Dick Cheney and wife Lynn, George Bush Sr. and Barbara Bush. as well as Dr. Rick Warren.

The fun thing is that every single one of them can actually be recognized (specially Barbara Bush, that's genius), according to Lego designers who did the brick caricatures of the main characters as well as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Aretha Franklin, John Williams and performers Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo-Ma, Gabriela Montero, Anthony McGill, the Unites States Marine Band, the San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Even Oprah Winfrey is in the crowd.

You can see the Lego Presidential inauguration at Legoland California until Memorial Day.

Love Potion Under Development: Like Roofies, But Friendlier

A neuroscientist at Emory University discovered the chemical he believes is responsible for the abnormal (for mammals) inclination humans have toward monogamy. He reasons that a true love potion might not be far off.

Though his research is geared to help the social skills of autistic and schizophrenic patients, the isolated chemicals have the same effect on all humans. He believes oxytocin, a chemical in the same family as cocaine and nicotine, to be the root of the biochemical reaction that compels humans to be monogamous, unlike 95% of all mammals. Even in this early stage, oxytocin enhances feelings of trust and empathy in test subjects, and an oxytocin blocker injected into the normally monogamous prairie vole causes the little buggers to have wild, uncommitted rodent sex.

Dr. Larry Young guesses that love potions could be developed from these advances fairly easily. Until then, I guess I'll just have to keep doing it the old-fashioned way: sending dirty limericks to Scarlett Johansson under assumed names.

U-Fizz Can Make Any Drink Carbonated, But That Doesn't Mean It Should

The Week in iPhone Apps: And We Have Reached A New Low

See if you can guess which icon represents said "new low." Have a guess? I bet you do. But thankfully, there were some legit cool apps this week too.

Zit Picker: The aforementioned low. I write about it only to warn fellow Gizmodo fans, with hopes of condemning this app to the graveyard. You pick zits with multitouch here. It's vile, and I wish nothing but failure for this app. Any press is good press you say? Take a stand. No more ridiculous bodily function apps in the store. Join me in the movement! $1

And now, the good stuff:

Quad Camera: The Japanese love their toy cameras, and they're also proving quite skilled at making creative camera apps for the iPhone. Quad camera mimics certain Lomo-cams that expose multiple shots on one frame by taking 4-8 sequential shots at a single click of the button, accompanied by a satisfying vintage shutter click sound. Cool stuff. $2

Fast Tap Camera: And the second cool-looking camera app is one that adds a functionality I've been looking for: expanding the camera's tiny shutter button to the whole screen. I've dropped my phone countless times trying to awkwardly hit the shutter button in a non-conventional shooting angle, and this solves that problem. Let the self portraits and hail mary shots flow. $1

Big StopWatch: Yeah, your iPhone already has a capable stop watch. But does it look as beautiful as this? I probably wouldn't pay for ornamentation alone, but this retro analog stop watch is a great piece of design work, and it's free, so why not?

IMPORT BIKE OF THE YEAR - YAMAHA YZF-R1
Yamaha ARE back with a vengeance. Their game plan for 2008 seems very solid and to kick off what they have in store for us, the company officially launched two machines from their international range, the YZF-R1 and the MT-01 in 2007. Of the two, no doubt it’s the racy R1 that is probably every Indian biker’s current dream bike. Yamaha is definitely out to redefine the rules of the game all over again and keeping in line with their exhaustive plans for India is the YZF-R1. The litre-class super sport bike is globally acclaimed for its performance and handling, aptly been given the name ‘The One.’ Yamaha has been making the R1 better each year and what we get in India is the latest 2008 model.

The 998cc engine dishes out nothing less than 180 bhp and with a 0-100 km/h timing of less than 4 seconds, the R1 is one hell of a machine. The very sound of the bike’s exhaust can set your pulse racing.

The twin under-seat exhaust pipes emanate divine music once the engine gets past the 6-7000rpm mark. Even when stationary, the sharp styling of the bike exudes speed. Being imported as a CBU from Australia, the price of the R1 is quite high. It’s still worth every penny spent considering what you get is an official superbike with company backed warranty and service. Yamaha have been the first to get big bikes here and their choice of model couldn’t have been better as the bike has a huge global following. Exactly why the R1 is the NDTV Profit – Bike India ‘Import Bike of the Year.’

Bajaj to concentrate on KTM bikes

The Pune based two-wheeler manufacturer, Bajaj Auto was in the news in the past for its plans to bring in the European motorcycle brand, Triumph to India. The Indian company was said to be forming an alliance/acquisition with the European manufacturer , but has now decided to put those plans to rest. Instead, Bajaj will now focus its attention on KTM and will be bringing in the 690 Duke shortly. Bajaj will also hike its stake in KTM from the present 25% to 30%.

It is also known that since last year a lot of the product development and R&D work for KTM has shifted to India. The first bike to hit the Probiking showrooms will be the baby Duke. The 690cc bike is expected to cost around Rs 5-6 lakh.

Hava's Sociable TV Shares Live TV With Everybody

Hava, the lesser-known video streaming system, is going to be doing some crazy social TV sharing called Sociable TV.

Zatz Not Funny says that their upcoming service will be able to share live or DVR content with either a group of people or the entire world, just via their web portal. This brings us one step closer to my dream of being able to watch East Coast TV at the same time as my friends on the East Coast, with me on the West Coast.

Sociable TV is supposed to hit mid-year, and they've got an iPhone client in the works as well.

Viliv S7 Takes On the Sony Vaio P With a Tablet Twist

Specs for Viliv's S7 UMPC/netbook/tablet/whatever have popped up, and while the gadget's guts are similar to other netbooks, the physical design— including a jumbo keyboard and battery and a swiveling touchscreen— sets it apart.

We already knew about the S7, but when it was announced this summer, no specs or hands-on time were released with it, so it's nice to get some solid data on the little guy. The S7's 1024x600 screen is only 7 inches, but the sides are stretched out to a nearly Sony Vaio P-esque length:width ratio to make room for a usable keyboard and a very substantial battery. The screen itself is a swiveling touchscreen, like a traditional tablet, and Viliv brags that the battery can last a whopping 7 hours of video playback.

Besides that, it's got the standard netbook guts: Atom proc up to 1.86 GHz, 1 GB of memory, 60 GB HDD/16 GB SSD, and Windows XP. Price and release date are still unknown, but it'll probably hit Korea before making its way west. UMPC Portal got a hands-on, embedded below.

FyreTV, the Best Streaming TV Porn Box, Goes Wireless (NSFW)

The FyreTV system, which just went out of beta this past month, has a Wi-Fi version of their set-top-box with the same DVD-quality porn streaming for the same $9.95 monthly subscription. Here's their thought process. Lots of people like watching porn in the bedroom; their previous FyreTV box is only Ethernet-enabled, with no dongle option; not a lot of people have Ethernet wiring in the bedroom. Thus, the wireless FyreTV is born.

We've tested the original FyreTV box for a while now, and it's definitely worth the subscription price in both usability and convenience. The wireless box is still fairly inconspicuous, with a black finish and no "THIS IS MY PORN BOX" label, as you can see in the photo above (left) with lovely model Ashlynn Brooke.

FyreTV guys also told us that they're going to be enabling HD wireless streaming in about two months, meaning the same box you buy now will be able to stream HD content wirelessly to your bedroom—assuming your bedroom has the required high def equipment.

World's First 1 TB 2.5" SSD from PureSilicon Is the Dream Drive

pureSilicon has created what seems to be the first 1 TB, 2.5" SSD. One terabyte, dudes. 2 and a half inches. Wrap your brain around that. The drive, named the Nitro (because it's as fast as nitrogen? Is nitrogen fast?), is the first to hit the impressive barrier of this size and capacity, achieved through an ultra-thin enclosure and some innovative data storage architecture. Four of these drives can fit in the same space as one 3.5" drive, and pureSilicon claims its speed "approaches" the SATA II max of 300 MB/s. Unfortunately, it's targeted at servers and other large dull users like the military, rather than a sweet new consumer laptop. But now that the bar is lifted yet again, we're that much further along our quest for the One True Drive. The Nitro should be released sometime this year for an undisclosed price

Palm Pre vs. iPhone vs. G1

ES 2009 brought us a new player in the smartphone upper-echelon. Let's drill down and see how the Palm Pre compares with the iPhone and Android's G1.

1. Multitouch touchscreen/gesture control: All three are capacitive, only the Pre and iPhone have multitouch. The Pre's glowy little "gesture area" has dropped the touchable real estate all the way down tto the bottom of the phone, which is great for being able to navigate with one hand and not interfere with the screen at all. The wavey dock you bring up from the bottom looks awesome, but can you use it out of the box without a second thought or page through the manual? That's my question. Advantage: iPhone/Pre tossup.

2. Multitasking: One of the beefiest of our beefs with the iPhone SDK is its insistence on Apps running one at a time. The G1's notifications drawer was definitely a step in the right direction, but the Pre's interface is the first smartphone OS that was built with multitasking as a core design element. Resembling the Xbox's old Blades, or a less-jarring OS X Expose even, the Pre's "Cards" interface always places you in the context of every app running for fast switching, and notifications from other apps don't pull you away completely from the task at hand. Multitasking is hugely important on a phone, and it's a good sign that Palm recognizes. Advantage: Pre

3. Hardware: Adrian says:

While the hardware is definitely high quality, I'm not entirely blown away by the design. It looks really nice, and original, but it's a little too cutesy in shape and kind of reminds me of an oversized pebble. A slightly larger screen could have definitely been put to good use, and I really don't like the black space on the sides of the screen.

A phone with a built-in QWERTY still hasn't touched the iPhone in terms of sleekness and pure sex. And it might still be a while. Advantage: iPhone

4. Development platform: The Pre's "Web OS" sure sounds nice—all developers need to know is JavaScript, HTML and CSS? Sounds good in theory, but building a mobile app will never be as easy as cranking out a new theme for your Tumblr. Palm's stressing ease of development, though, so it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against Apple's solid, familiar-to-devs OS X-based SDK and Android's fully open source approach. Advantage: Pre? If it's straight-up JavaScript, that's a lot of programmers ready to go. Note: we had iPhone here before, but we've switched with a qualification. Developer community still goes to iPhone for volume.

5. Web Integration: The Pre subtly integrates the internet into the phone at every opportunity, and it's awesome. Contacts get pulled in from Facebook, Gmail, IM and and scanned for dupes; the messaging app shows your last several emails, IMs and SMS with that contact in a single window. Really, really smart stuff. Advantage: Pre

11. Battery: Apple's still an outlier with their non-removable battery; like the G1's, the Pre's comes out for a spare swap too. We've heard Apple's reasons for this a million times, we know the drill, but removable batteries will never stop being handy. Advantage: Pre

12. Copy & Paste: Yep, Pre's got it. iPhone still doesn't. Advantage: Pre/G1

13. Browser: All three use a browser based on WebKit, which has become the standard for the mobile web. We couldn't put it through our Mobile Browser Battlemodo ringer obviously, but what we saw looked great, and it's the only other mobile browser besides the iPhone that supports multitouch zooming. Advantage: iPhone/Pre

So there you have it. We're excited. Are you?

Viliv S7 Takes On the Sony Vaio P With a Tablet Twist

Specs for Viliv's S7 UMPC/netbook/tablet/whatever have popped up, and while the gadget's guts are similar to other netbooks, the physical design— including a jumbo keyboard and battery and a swiveling touchscreen— sets it apart.

We already knew about the S7, but when it was announced this summer, no specs or hands-on time were released with it, so it's nice to get some solid data on the little guy. The S7's 1024x600 screen is only 7 inches, but the sides are stretched out to a nearly Sony Vaio P-esque length:width ratio to make room for a usable keyboard and a very substantial battery. The screen itself is a swiveling touchscreen, like a traditional tablet, and Viliv brags that the battery can last a whopping 7 hours of video playback.

Besides that, it's got the standard netbook guts: Atom proc up to 1.86 GHz, 1 GB of memory, 60 GB HDD/16 GB SSD, and Windows XP. Price and release date are still unknown, but it'll probably hit Korea before making its way west. UMPC Portal got a hands-on, embedded below.

ASUS D200 Is a Media Server, Touchscreen Nettop, Router, Box

Somewhere between the first EeePC and their awesome media-center-in-a-keyboard, ASUS became the Chuck Bukowksi of the gadget world: Drunk, unpredictable, prolific and occasionally brilliant. Then what of the Eee PC D200 touchscreen NAS-cum-router?

I'd say it falls under the drunk/brilliant category. According to Einfach Eee website (Varning! German!) the box will include an Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1-4TB HDD, and 802.11n MIMO, and slot-loading DVD burner, a router and a touchscreen.

The intent of including the touchscreen is simple: it negates the need to either pipe into the NAS over the network or connection an external display, mouse and keyboard. Simple tasks, such as configuring the access point, moving files, setting permissions and burning DVDs (and hopefully direct media playback and torrent controls—with its DVI port, this could make a pretty amazing media PC) should all be manageable through the touchscreen.

Cell Mate Hands Free Cellphone Holder

Yes this is an actual product being shown at CES this year. It’s the Cell Mate hands free cell phone holder. It’s basically just a giant headband clip that attaches to your phone and goes over your head. The advantage is that you don’t have to synch up or charge up a bluetooth earpiece. The disadvantage is that it’s totally ridiculous looking and it doesn’t look very comfortable. Even the name is bad- “cell-mate”… I’ve watched too many prison movies to get a good feeling about that one.

Microsoft MOBILE Fewer Phones Will Have WinMo in the Future

With increasing competition—most recently from Android and Palm's promising new WebOS, how is Microsoft planning on helping WinMo survive in the mobile operating system world? By putting it on less devices, naturally.

Todd Peters, VP of marketing for the Windows Mobile Division said that while Microsoft was looking into beefing up WinMo's features, its strategy for the new year was to limit the number of devces using the OS.

Right now about 140 cellphones use WinMo. Peters said Microsoft is hoping to shrink that number in order to not "have its efforts diluted over too many devices."

Peters wasn't clear about the criteria Microsoft was going to use to limit Windows Mobile roll-outs. Will they restrict it to more powerful phones that are capable of running WinMo without the lag (kind of like that Vista ready label, only... actually ready) or is it Microsoft making more of an effort to actually design the OS to every specific phone its licensed on? [New York Times]

Palm Pre Preview: Simply Amazing

Hey, I just had some time to play with the Palm Pre, maybe the most important handset to be announced in two years, and here's what it was like to use it. Updates coming.

The Palm Pre is a lot smaller than I initially thought it would be. A good size comparison would be an iPod classic with a big hard drive. In terms of thickness, it's definitely not as thin as the iPhone, or even the bold, but it's an acceptable size considering it's a slider.

The Pre's Web OS UI and and UX really looks great. After watching (and using) for 20 minutes, It rarely looked (or felt) unresponsive, choppy, or laggy and it's clear a lot of thought was put into the design, especially with regard to how the phone would be used with fingers, as opposed to a stylus or d-pad

The Card system is really a great way to keep your information in front of you and know what you're working on. When you launch an app, you can drag it onto your phone desktop to create a new card, then when you're finished with a card for a specific app, closing it is as simple as flicking the card upwards.

The input technology that doesn't involve the screen is also top notch. Palm created the gesture bar, which is the black surface under the screen, because they found it was too hard to control a touchscreen phone with one hand, especially when trying to reach the upper part of the screen. The Gesture Bar streamlines some of the navigaThe Apps and SDK for Web OS i think will be promising. Palm will make the SDK available to anyone to use, but there will be an App Store which will be accessible on the phone only and an approval process for apps. Palm says there are always exceptions, but they will not play the role of Big Brother so much when it comes to apps. What they are mostly concerned with are the security and stability of the apps. Making sure there aren't apps that crash or provide holes for their phones to be hacked. They also say they will work close with select partners on app and give them access to deeper areas of the OS that are not available in the SDK.tion so you can use the phone on the go.

Hands-on With Fulton Innovation's eCoupled System: Charges Gadgets with No Wires Necessary:

Fulton Innovations showed off their eCoupled induction charger with an iPhone that was able to recharge by simply placing it on a surface, no adapters necessary. It was a modded iPhone, sure, but cool nonetheless. They also talked about batteries that they would soon be offering for phones that, you know, actually let you swap the battery out. This would allow you to buy a new battery for your phone and never plug it in again. It sends a good amount of power through that little amount of air, too, as they had a 2kW blender running with no cords attached. Eventually, phone companies will get on board with this technology, which uses internal coils to pick up the charge, and we won't have to go aftermarket to ditch the wires, but until then it's pretty cool to see this tech in action.

Sony Cybershot G3: World's First Camera You Can Surf the Web On

The Cybershot G3 is a camera so special Sony Sir Howard Stringer himself did the honors: It's the world's first Wi-Fi camera with a built-in browser.END Besides stealing your neighbor's Wi-Fi, it has free access to any AT&T hotspot until 2012, but then it won't matter since we're all going to die then anyway when the world ends. It's worded so it might mean you can only use AT&T spots for free to hit Sony's Easy Upload Home Page (which provides quick access to sites like Shutterfly, Picasa and YouTube), not furries.meetup.com. But we'll find out. Oddly unmentioned in the list of supported services is Flickr.

Still, it doesn't really matter if it has a web browser, if the browser can't render itself out of ASCII paper bag—we're hoping it's a WebKit dealio 'cause that would make it a quick call from the sidelines. But we're not holding our breath on that (we are talking Sony, after all), so we'll have to grab some hands on time to see how well it handles the real internet. Sony's seeing this more as a flexible, fast way to dump and check your photos and videos online, direct from your camera, not so much as a way to compulsively watch YouTube videos or read Gizmodo, even though that's exactly what we want, and will try to do, practicalities aside.

Oh hey! I think there's a camera somewhere in there too. 10 megapixel sensor with 4x optical zoom, but it's got 4GB of storage built-in (optional expansion is Memory Stick only, grrr), with a 921,600-dot, 3.5-inch touchscreen and photo browsing software integrated. Otherwise, it's got typical Sony features like Intelligent Scene Recognition (automatically picks the best automatic scene setting, automatically), Face Detection, Smile Shutter (it snaps when people smile) and Dynamic Range Optimizer, which automagically balances contrast and detail.

It's available rightnowomg for $500.

Cost: US- $129.99; Europe- €129.99
Available: Razerzone.com Feb, 2009, Worldwide Q1 2009

Razer Mamba Gaming Mouse Is Lag Free, Can Kill You With a Single Bite:

The Razer Mamba looks like a winner for gamers or anyone looking for a high-performance mouse: Lag free, 2.4GHz wireless or wired, with teflon base, and 1ms polling rate, rather than the usual 8ms.

Razer has unleashed the full potential of gaming mice by designing an ergonomic, lag free gaming mouse with 2.4GHz gaming grade wireless technology, making it the fastest mouse both on and off the cord. With dual mode wired/wireless functionality, the Razer Mamba lets users immediately and seamlessly switch from wired to wireless play. With first in class polling rates at 1ms as compared to traditional wireless mice that poll at 8ms, players will have virtually lag free game play.

The Razer Mamba also includes a host of features like Razer Synapse™ on-board memory that lets gamers store and bring their mouse settings wherever they go. And the world’s fastest 5600DPI Razer Precision™ 3.5G Laser sensor, the Razer Mamba wireless gaming mouse lets gamers move with lightning speed and precision to easily escape from becoming prey.

Features:
• Detachable seven-foot, lightweight, braided cord • Razer Synapse™ On-board Memory
• 5600DPI Razer Precision™ 3.5G Laser sensor
• 1000Hz Ultrapolling™ / 1ms response rate
• Up to 200 inches per second*/ 50g acceleration
• Approximate size: 128mm x 70mm x 42.5mm
• Battery Life: 14hrs (continuous gaming); 72hrs (normal gaming usage)
*Depends on surface used
• Battery life & DPI stage indicator
• Ultra-large non-slip Hyperesponse™ buttons
• Ergonomic design
• Zero-acoustic Ultraslick™ Teflon feet
Specifications:
• Gaming Grade Wireless Technology
• Dual Mode Wired/Wireless Functionality

iPhoto '09 Video Tour

Here are a few best features of iPhoto '09, including Faces and Places, which recognizes people in your albums and the locations you took those photos in.

Cool stuff: separating your photos by people, which you can then scrub (move your mouse) over and see all the images of them you have. iPhoto is smart enough to try and recognize which people are which with semi-decent accuracy, and you'll have to confirm each one as you go. Once you're done, you have a corkboard full of Polaroids of the people you know.

Geolocation is great for travelers, and if you go to a lot of different countries, your "Places" section will have a rich map made up of all the pins you've been to. You can fill in location data yourself, or if you have an iPhone or other GPS-enabled camera, it's automatically filled in for you.

Other cool stuff is Facebook and Flickr integration (includes tagging as well), plus themed slideshows.

Asus T91: Your 1-inch Thick Convertible Eee PC

The Asus T91 is an intriguing netbook from Asus. Just 2lbs in weight, it features an 8.9" convertible touchscreen display and Atom processor. Pricing/availability are yet unannounced.

Eee Keyboard: An Entire Touchscreen Home Theater PC

official Eee Keyboard Featuring wireless HDMI, it's a "fully functional PC" with full QWERTY and a mini secondary touchscreen.
Asus was vague as to if/when we'll actually see the Eee Keyboard come to market (though we're pretty sure it's a semi-real product), but it's a fantastic concept for a home theater PC if we've ever seen one. Through wireless HDMI you could potentially make any television into your monitor (complete with audio playback) without having some huge PC taking up space.

Asus Considering Android-Based Eee PC

We knew Asus is looking into an Android-based cellphone but now CEO Johnny Shih has said at CES that they are thinking about doing an Android-based Eee PC, all while praising Apple for the iPhone.

Maybe Asus was inspired by this hack, but the idea of a simplified, cell-enabled netbook computer—tablet please—is very appealing. Something like the iPhone, but with a larger screen. I would like to have one for sure.

Shih also says he likes the iPhone and the job Apple is doing, and he is looking for Asus to create a simple device that can be "put in the pocket, play MP3s, offer GPS services, works like a PDA and offers Mobile TV altogether".

Suzuki GS150R first look :::
The Japanese marque launches it’s 150cc bike, the GS150R, in India
After a relatively slow start in the Indian two-wheeler industry, Suzuki seem to be getting back on the right track. The company’s presence in the country was limited to the 125cc twins, the Heat and the Zeus which frankly got a lukewarm response from the Indian customers. But their new offering christened the GS150R (Suzuki has carried over the GS monicker from its international range of bikes) looks quite pleasing in the pictures.


At first glance, the 150cc motorcycle may not be an eye magnet but its looks start growing on you. There are hints of Suzuki designers taking cues from the Bajaj Pulsar and the Honda Unicorn, however, the overall design of the bike does stand out especially in the orange colour offering. The GS150R has been competitively priced at Rs 59,000 (ex-showroom) which puts it bang in the range of the Pulsar and the Unicorn. With a fresh design and plenty of goodies, this Suzuki appears to be a great contender. Nonetheless, we shall reserve our judgment till we get to test the bike exclusively in the next issue.

'New' CBZ X-Treme:::

Hero Honda's re-launched CBZ X-treme with the new body graphics.

Here's a follow-up on our previous report on the four new variants launched by Hero Honda. This is the new CBZ X-treme sporting new body graphics, the distinct 'X' on the tail and matt silver handle bars.

Ephone - yet another iPhone clone::

The iPhone clones are getting better and better, this one that resembles the original quite a lot when considering its looks, but not when it comes to features. The EPHONE ilooks practically identical to Apple’s handset and it’s available for $160 with a feature list that makes it a mid-end device at most
EPHONE works on GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz networks and features a 3.2 inch display with a 240 x 320 pixels resolution, supports full screen playback of 3GP and MP4 video content and uses a 1.3 megapixel camera that records video with sound. There’s also TV support and FM radio on the handset and a memory card slot, plus Bluetooth, USB, GPRS and WAP. Similar to all clones, the 3G capabilities are missing, all these Chinese clones don’t seem to have cracked the SIM arrangement for UMTS yet.