Cool Devices - new screens

In this post I want to present two new pieces of hardware that will surely make a difference in the display market.

First of all there is the Sony Flexible Screen , check this article: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/24/sonys-worlds-first-16-7-million-color-flexible-oled/
The sony screen can actually display 16 million color in a flexible screen that is as thin as a normal sheet.

The second amazing display has been developed by Polymer Vision and is called "Readius". It is an e-book reader which means that it can display the content of electronic books (files stored on a digital media, e.g. hard-disk, USB stick, etc...). What is the big advantage of this one? Its screen can be folded! Yes, and it fits in your pocket (check Youtube for Readius e-book reader).
It has a memory of 8GB, but you can connect USB devices and it also has mobile broadband connection (e.g. HSDPA). There is no cost known at this moment but it could be interesting to follow this one.

The "Readius" device is not a first display to read electronic books, but it is the first one to fold and fit in the pocket. The original device I think it might be the Amazon's Kindle. Check it on Amazon, it costs about 360$ but it is extremelly popular, as they don't have any device on stock.

Cool Devices - 2008 overview

I will start a series of posts regarding new and cool devices that I discover.

Let's start with what exists, regarding smartphones. First, there is the cool and fun Nokia N95 that we already have at the institute. There are a lot of cool applications for this phone and many of them are actually amazing. Check this site: http://www.nokia.com/betalabs to see a lot of cool ideas.

One of the hot devices of the last year was clearly the Google G1, created by HTC, Google and T-Mobile. It has a lot of features, it is the first smartphone running the Android OS, has an electronic compass so you don't get lost in the woods :) Btw.. if you want one you don't need to sign a contract with T-Mobile, you can buy it unlocked !?! (yes, unlocked) from the android market website (google for Android Market and you'll find it).

The big hero of 2008 of course, the iPhone. Only one phone has been able to get almost 10 % of the phone market, it's unbelliveble. Lots of applications for it on the apple store. I am still a fan of Nokia even if the iPhone is really cool :)

Now my favourite... the Nokia N97 . You must check this phone out. It is really amazing. I don't know exactly if it features a GPU like the N95 but it has a huge touchscreen, a full qwerty keyboard that slides out under the phone, all the nice features of a cool smartphone (5MP camera Carl Zeiss optics, GPS, accelerometer, 32GB of memory - OMG -). This smartphone will be available in the mid 2009.

Some other cool devices that have appeared in 2008 are the Blackberry Bold (they say it has an unique touch-screen) and the Samsung INNOV8 which features an 8MP camera (huge!).

2009 New Year Resolution

So here we are in a new year. I am sure it will be another year full of surprises and I am sure it will be the same for many people as the economic crizis is shaking the world but let's wish everyone a happy new year.

Together with the new year I am currently working on a new article. I am not sure about the title but it sounds like this: "A user study on rich media mobile guide applications". At the institute I created two prototype mobile guide applications comparing them with google maps and nokia maps. Never heard of them? Go to http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/maps and http://www.google.com/gmm/ to see what they are about.

We'll try to participate with this article to the CORESA conference. Check the website: http://coresa2009.enseeiht.fr/