Smaller. Sleeker. Ceramic.

Sized at 39mm, the new Bell & Ross BR-S Ceramic Black Dial is a much more understated timepiece than its larger brothers (46mm) - some of which serve as a helicopter landing pad in a pinch.

That is, of course, appropriate for this more urbane Bell & Ross timepiece, covered in gorgeous black ceramic. My only qualm with the BR-S Ceramic is its quartz calibre ETA instead of a manual or automatic mechanical movement - somewhat of a departure for the venerable brand.

Editor’s Note: The Bell & Ross BR-S Ceramic is also available with a diamond encrusted bezel, but let me tell you now that I’ll never give one iota of respect to any man with diamonds on their timepiece (unless you have a stunning R&B album). Also, for those men looking for a “this lady is mine” timepiece, a white ceramic BR-S is also available.

Cost: $2,300

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The research has already been partially integrated into a product, that will be released by March 2010. This keyboard, the SideWinder X4, will be extremely nice for keyboard gamers (like myself) who suffers from the ghosting problem: when my keyboard loses track of key presses when I am already holding down another key. This new keyboard allows a gamer to press up to 26 keys at the same time!!

Among other research products, the team explored the possibility for a table top interface, such as Microsoft surface, to recognize everyday objects without the use of any electronics. The team applied optics to a simple empty vs half full glass detection problem, so a drinking glass can sense when a refill should be offered. The glass had to be modified in fabrication with a prism-like structure at the bottom of the glass to reflect light when it is not submerged with liquid. The surface table sends IR light directly up towards the prism and when the glass is almost empty, the IR light reflect back at a different angle than when the glass is full. Such a nice trick and it allows the table to function with passive objects containing no electronic components or moving parts!

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Until now, AT&T has been without a phone sporting Google’s Android Operating System. Android has finally joined their line-up, with the new Motorola Backflip being the first chosen to sport the OS in AT&T’s wide list of smartphone models.

The Backflip, which is slated for a March 7th release date, features Motorola’s Motoblur, which delivers contacts and social media and networking content directly to the homescreen. There is a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard (in a “reverse flip design” that leaves the keyboard exposed when closed), as well as a BACKTRACK™ navigation pad behind the screen.

Other notable features are a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, GPS navigation, 802.11 b/g WiFi connectivity, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, meaning no need for adapters for music listening. Motorola boasts a battery life of 13.5 days on standby and 6 hours talk time.

Rachel King at ZDNet says that the price for the phone will start at $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and will require a contract with a smartphone data plan. AT&T’s smartphone plans start at $30.00/month for unlimited data usage with no texting, and go up to $50.00 monthly for unlimited data and messaging.

Another good thing about Android? BeerCloud was available for the Android OS before it was available for the iPhone. Typing out your search for the nearest brewpub is so much easier on a QWERTY keyboard than the iPhone’s touch screen. Sounds like a win-win combination!

View the full list of specs for the Backflip on Motorola’s website.

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That doesn’t mean I don’t like this lineup. On the contrary, I love it and they have released a new album. TODAY! It’s entitled The Devil You Know and you can click on the album cover to purchase it at Amazon.

Up until recently I’ve been purchasing all of my music via iTunes but the biggest problem with that has been that 90% of the stuff I would buy from them is completely unusable for me on my Blackberry Storm. That has been changing recently since they are ditching DRM but in the meantime Amazon MP3 has been making quite a few improvements. One is that the Amazon MP3 downloader automatically adds my purchases to my iTunes playlists (or WMP if that’s your flavor of choice) AND it’s cheaper to shop at Amazon. For instance, The Devil You Know is 9.99 from iTunes but only 9.90 from Amazon. 9 cents may not seem like a lot of money but I can tell you as a small business manager that the way you make (and save) money is by watching the pennies you spend. Pretty soon it adds up and considering bewteen my wife and I we buy probably five albums a month that adds up over the course of the year.

So on to the album. I bought the single, Bible Black, a couple of weeks ago and it’s OK. Nothing great but it’s pretty rocking. I am about halfway through listening to the album and just finished syncing it to my Blackberry so I can go work in the yard. So far it’s somewhat reminiscent of Dehumanizer but maybe a little harder. Once I’ve listened to it a couple more times I’ll be able to post a full review here.

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Imagine an iPhone app built on the powerful idea of Societies — groups of people with similar real-world patterns, one in which people with shared passions can finally exchange their recommendations and experiences, knowing they’ll always be at their fingertips based on their location.

Well imagine no longer as Pelago has announced the launch of their latest incarnation iPhone application, Whrrl 3. With it, users can check in, share their experiences, and invite others to join in their societies.

What’s a society you ask? Well it’s any gathering of like-minded individuals. Some examples include Junk Food Fans, Jimmy Hendrix Devotees, Indie Music Aficionados, Night Owls and Pinball Wizards, to mention a few.

Not unlike popular social networks Facebook and Twitter, users will have total control over their privacy level, from completely private to public and of course the ability to share directly to Facebook or Twitter.

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Platform: PS3
Genre: Action/Adventure
US Release: October 23, 2007
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Alcohol Reference, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Language)
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Number of Players: 1
Trophy Support: No
Hard Drive Space Needed: At Least 512 MB

The Good

• The story is interesting. Ratchet, the last Lombax in the galaxy, must fight Tachyon whom is attempting to bring Ratchet to his demise. Fun characters all around in the story, with family friendly content and great voice acting.
• The graphical approach is great. Though the graphics may be cartoonish, they look spectacular. Smooth framerate, high resolution - Superb.
• Gameplay remains the same from previous Ratchet & Clank games, which is a good thing. Easy to learn, guns-a-blazing, chaotic gameplay. Very fun.
• Your arsenal is incredible. From the default Combustor blaster pistol and Ratchet’s trusty wrench, to the far-fetched Tornado Gun, and Groovitron (Makes enemies dance). The weapons are just plain fun.
• A good variety of different gameplay elements are included. You can control Clank in some parts, there are sky diving and hang gliding areas, as well as other vehicles and gizmos.

The Bad

• There is little to no replayability in the game. Sure there are skill points (Achievment-like system), and the unlocked difficulty mode, but that is not much to get you to play the game again.
• Multiplayer made appearances in previous Ratchet games, but for some reason this one doesn’t have this feature. It would have been nice for it to be included.
• For gamers looking for more of a challenge, this is quite an easy game. Once you get familiar with your weapons, beating it is a breeze.
• Tools of Destruction is also quite short. Maybe only a few days is all it takes to complete the game.

The Verdict - MUST OWN. I would highly recommend anyone with a PS3 to purchase this game. Despite it being short, this is a fantastic addition to any gamer’s collection.

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The Nokia 6650 is a rarity among U.S. phones, a carrier-supported phone running the Symbian S60 OS. You don’t have to know that Symbian is the world’s leading smartphone OS to benefit from all the potential locked away in this device, especially for business users who will find a range of e-mail and address book synchronization options with some simple digging. Unfortunately, most of the out-of-the-box apps are either dull, like the multimedia player, or buggy, like the GPS in AT&T Navigator, and the Symbian S60 interface design is convoluted and unfamiliar to American eyes. Still, great battery life and solid phone features make this a great choice for business users who want a capable, casual phone. Release: November 2008. Price: $70.

Pros: Thanks to Symbian S60 this phone has surprisingly developed business features. Love those color-changing LED backlights.

Cons: Symbian is not a great-looking or well-organized interface. Keys are kind of flat. Multimedia apps are kind of dull. GPS was buggy.

Design - Very good

Call us a sucker for shiny objects, but we actually liked the simple, understated design of Nokia’s 6650 fold. It’s a classic Nokia look, and we love the color-changing LED backlighting. It’s a gimmick we can get behind. Nokia offers a choice of colors, and you can change the keypad to match your mood. If only these settings weren’t buried under layers and layers of menus and settings screens. That’s the problem with the Nokia 6650 in a nutshell. It’s a sleek, modern exterior design with a clunky, aging interface.

The phone has Nokia’s classically sharp internal display, but the external screen is no slouch, either. Forget its postage stamp size; it can handle plenty of vivid color and looks great animated, as well. The external screen made for a nice viewfinder for the camera, as well, though we would have cut all that enhanced functionality short just before the touch-sensitive buttons. We like hardware keys, and the Nokia keys were unresponsive and a bit clunky to use.

We also had trouble with the volume rocker. It had a strange shape, not an intuitive see-saw. Also, it ran very close to the PTT button, so one wrong move and the phone was asking us to subscribe to AT&T’s push-to-talk service. This happened quite frequently. Just as frequently, we would miss the “down” action on the 4-way button at the center of the phone, causing us to activate AT&T Navigator, which gets its own dedicated key right below the 4-way. So, buttons placement is something of an issue on this phone. Otherwise, the phone puts all the important stuff where you need it, mostly behind tiny closed doors. The microUSB port (nice choice), the additional power port, the microSD card slot and the 2.5mm headphone jack were all hidden behind 3 little doors, though the phone still maintains a sleek and nearly seamless look.

Calling - Very good

Calls on the Nokia 6650 sounded very good in our tests. We even tried the phone barreling down the highway with our windows down, and callers had no trouble hearing us over the wind noise, though we couldn’t say the same on our end. Still, under even the worst conditions, the Nokia 6650 delivered a satisfying, clear sound. We had no trouble picking up full reception on this device, which uses AT&T’s 3G HSDPA network. For battery life, we taxed the phone heavily using GPS navigation, and it never died before our trip was over, even with the screen set to remain bright. Nokia estimates 4 hours of battery life, but we managed calls that came closer to 6 hours, so we think those official estimates are conservative.

We didn’t bother entering much contact information by hand, as Nokia has some nice software to take care of all this. The Nokia PC Suite software isn’t included in the box, but since this phone is, almost covertly, a Symbian S60 Series 3 device, there’s plenty of great software out there that doesn’t come in the box. We started with the PC Suite, which let us synchronize our Outlook contacts and calendar items to the phone.

Otherwise, the phone has an adequate speakerphone, though it was not quite loud enough for our taste. The phone uses speaker-independent voice commands software, but it was difficult to find, buried under a few menus and folders. We always like voice dialing to have its own button, or at least a quick, preset shortcut.

Messaging - Good

Depending on how you look at it, the Nokia 6650 is either a consumer-level simple messaging phone, or a full business smartphone. Out of the box, it comes with access to AT&T’s Xpress Mail client, which only has a basic list of e-mail presets. While trying to set up Gmail, we stumbled upon a separate e-mail client for POP3 and IMAP4 accounts, and we were able to tweak the settings to work with Gmail’s IMAP setup. So far so good. But then consider Nokia’s Mail for Exchange app, which works with any Symbian S60 phone. We were warned during installation that the AT&T version of the Nokia 6650 wasn’t supported, but it worked very well on this phone. Nokia’s MfE app let us check our corporate e-mail, and it also synchronized our corporate address book and calendar entries. For the price of this phone, it’s a remarkably smart device, and perhaps its being underestimated even by AT&T as a boon to casual business users.

Otherwise, the phone has good SMS and MMS messaging options, but nothing outstanding. Likewise the instant messaging client. The Nokia 6650 has IM for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, but if you want more you’ll have to find a third-party Symbian developer.

The keyboard on the Nokia 6650 wasn’t great, but it wasn’t too bad for simple T9 text input. The keys are glossy and flat, and we missed our choice plenty if we tried to type to quickly. Still, did we mention it lights up and changes colors? It’s pretty cool in person, especially typing in the dark.

Multimedia - Good

The Nokia 6650 has a fairly simple music playback app, but it gets the job done nicely. There are a few audio enhancement options, including an equalizer with a few presets, but without a 3.5mm headphone jack, these were harder to take seriously. The phone doesn’t have any real onboard memory, but can accept microSDHC cards up to 8GB, and the slot is at least external, with easy access. On the Windows side, we’d recommend the Nokia PC suite for music transfer. On the Mac side, we simply turned on the phone’s mass storage mode and copied MP3 files directly to the storage card. The library found them with no trouble, but our album artwork didn’t make the journey.

The external screen gets in on the act with music playback, and it actually does a fine job handling things. You can start the music player without opening the hood, and you can browse the music library or control playback, all with the three touch keys and the volume rocker. There’s even an EQ-like visualizer that dances on the crisp, small external screen while songs play.

Web browsing - Very good

Again, the Nokia 6650 surprises for such a small device, as the phone gets the full Nokia browser treatment. The Nokia S60 browser renders complicated pages cleanly. It isn’t the best on the market, but the browser does have a great mini map tool that makes scanning through long pages a breeze. The phone was also fairly speedy over AT&T’s 3G network. We think Wi-Fi would make this a real powerhouse device, and the phone certainly has the battery to support the extra radio, so we’re disappointed the Nokia 6650 didn’t come equipped.

GPS - Good

The Nokia 6650 uses AT&T’s Navigator app, which is essentially TeleNav’s turn-by-turn directions. The phone had some trouble with GPS. At least on our test unit, the phone would occasionally lose our signal at predictable moments, going through the Holland tunnel, for instance. The problem was that it would never find us again. A quick power-down restart of the phone always solved the problem quickly. Otherwise, AT&T Navigator worked well on the device. Maps loaded quickly over the 3G network, though the app leaves plenty to be desired in GPS response. Still, traffic re-routing is a nice feature, and helped us out during some of our more harried commutes.

Camera - Mediocre

The camera on the Nokia 6650 takes images that are noisy and completely unusable. Here, Nokia’s own crisp cell phone screen can reveal the defects in the images, and when you can see how bad a cameraphone picture is on the phone itself, you know there are serious problems. Noise was like a circus in low-light shots, and even in cloudy mid-day photos. The camera couldn’t capture a sharp image, and under the bright LED flash, images were only bled dry of their color and life.

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Moto Z9 is equipped with 3G connectivity, which means you will always be online. This phone also comes with the Opera Mini 8 browser, which is better than any other mobile browser out now.

For the media lovers, its new Video Share feature let you send stream videos to your friend’s mobile straight from your mobile. This phone comes with Windows Media Player 11, which ensures no trouble playing your audio or video files.

The Moto Z9 comes up with the latest award winning Crystal Talk Technology, which promises you will be heard in the noisiest place. This mobile also equipped with a 2MP camera with flash, an expandable memory option by microSD card, and Motorola Synergy OS.

Moto Z9 is available on the AT&T network for $249.99 with two years service agreement.

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Windows and Dell have joined (RED) to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. When you buy a Dell (PRODUCT) RED PC with Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED, Windows and Dell will jointly contribute $50 or $80, depending on the product, to The Global Fund. With Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED, these aren’t just the ultimate PCs, they’re a powerful way to improve lives
Click here to know more.

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Smaller. Sleeker. Ceramic.

Sized at 39mm, the new Bell & Ross BR-S Ceramic Black Dial is a much more understated timepiece than its larger brothers (46mm) - some of which serve as a helicopter landing pad in a pinch.

That is, of course, appropriate for this more urbane Bell & Ross timepiece, covered in gorgeous black ceramic. My only qualm with the BR-S Ceramic is its quartz calibre ETA instead of a manual or automatic mechanical movement - somewhat of a departure for the venerable brand.

Editor’s Note: The Bell & Ross BR-S Ceramic is also available with a diamond encrusted bezel, but let me tell you now that I’ll never give one iota of respect to any man with diamonds on their timepiece (unless you have a stunning R&B album). Also, for those men looking for a “this lady is mine” timepiece, a white ceramic BR-S is also available.

Cost: $2,300

Read more

The research has already been partially integrated into a product, that will be released by March 2010. This keyboard, the SideWinder X4, will be extremely nice for keyboard gamers (like myself) who suffers from the ghosting problem: when my keyboard loses track of key presses when I am already holding down another key. This new keyboard allows a gamer to press up to 26 keys at the same time!!

Among other research products, the team explored the possibility for a table top interface, such as Microsoft surface, to recognize everyday objects without the use of any electronics. The team applied optics to a simple empty vs half full glass detection problem, so a drinking glass can sense when a refill should be offered. The glass had to be modified in fabrication with a prism-like structure at the bottom of the glass to reflect light when it is not submerged with liquid. The surface table sends IR light directly up towards the prism and when the glass is almost empty, the IR light reflect back at a different angle than when the glass is full. Such a nice trick and it allows the table to function with passive objects containing no electronic components or moving parts!

Read more

With a lot of the consumer electronics industry clamoring to release 3D TVs, Vuzix is quietly bringing the same experience straight to your cornea.

We’ve seen Vuzix video eyewear for years now. At first, it seemed a little goofy. After all, slap on a pair and you look like you’re headed to a Laser Tag tournament. Style issues aside, the individual experience is pretty cool.

Now, to jump on the 3D buzz, the company just announced that they are selling 3D DVD titles. Each one is mastered for use with Vuzix’s Video Eyewear and is also compatible with 3D TV sets — which no one has yet. Another thing they have in common? They are all equally bad.

To start, the company will sell 14 movies. The best two we could find were The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D and Jaws 3D. Even Roy Scheider was smart enough to stay away from the latter. (Dennis Quaid, not so much.) We have to hope that the more recent at-home 3D content will come very soon. What about Coraline? Heck, we’d even take the Jonas Brothers over some of the titles on this list.

We haven’t had the pleasure of long-term exposure to Vuzix eyewear, so we’d have to wonder if it leaves viewers with the same headache and twitchy eye as the current 3D offerings out there. Vuzix says they use the latest side-by-side format, which is what you’ll see on upcoming 3D displays.

If you’re not ready to ditch your current HDTV (or just want to hoard the experience to yourself), Vuzix Video Eyewear can be had for as little as $249.

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That doesn’t mean I don’t like this lineup. On the contrary, I love it and they have released a new album. TODAY! It’s entitled The Devil You Know and you can click on the album cover to purchase it at Amazon.

Up until recently I’ve been purchasing all of my music via iTunes but the biggest problem with that has been that 90% of the stuff I would buy from them is completely unusable for me on my Blackberry Storm. That has been changing recently since they are ditching DRM but in the meantime Amazon MP3 has been making quite a few improvements. One is that the Amazon MP3 downloader automatically adds my purchases to my iTunes playlists (or WMP if that’s your flavor of choice) AND it’s cheaper to shop at Amazon. For instance, The Devil You Know is 9.99 from iTunes but only 9.90 from Amazon. 9 cents may not seem like a lot of money but I can tell you as a small business manager that the way you make (and save) money is by watching the pennies you spend. Pretty soon it adds up and considering bewteen my wife and I we buy probably five albums a month that adds up over the course of the year.

So on to the album. I bought the single, Bible Black, a couple of weeks ago and it’s OK. Nothing great but it’s pretty rocking. I am about halfway through listening to the album and just finished syncing it to my Blackberry so I can go work in the yard. So far it’s somewhat reminiscent of Dehumanizer but maybe a little harder. Once I’ve listened to it a couple more times I’ll be able to post a full review here.

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According to Quantcast perhaps Apple’s immensely popular iPhone OS isn’t immune to competition after all.

According to the results of a recent study, Quantcast revealed that iPhone OS, which yet boasts the largest share of mobile users accessing the web, is slowly losing market share to Google’s Android OS and RIM OS (which powers the popular Blackberry platform).

The data released also indicated that Apple’s iPhone OS share in the North American mobile web consumption market dropped by 3.2 percent to 63.7 percent for the month of February while the market share enjoyed by Google Android OS actually increased from 8.2 to 15.2 percent in during that same period.

RIM OS’s share, in the mean time, increased to 13.2 percent in the North American mobile web consumption market, a rise from roughly 9 percent.

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