Boys and their Toys

The new Blackberry Curve has been announced to come out on the 7th August 2009.

I used to have the old one to this phone and I thought it was superb. I really like it and I thought it was a brilliant phone. The only reason I got ride of it was that i could justify spending the amount I did on the contract so I cancelled at the end of term.

the new version though seems to be much the same as the last. It runs well with all the features you need for a successful business. I say this because anyone who is anyone will say that their Blackberry is their third arm in the business world.

So I think that this again will be a superb contender for a business phone. Even though I really like the Blackberry I think that the HTC Magic is still the phone for me. I think it just runs much better.

I have decided that HTC Magic is for me and that is the phone I am going to take home.

What is even better is that I have found the phone dirt cheap so that I decided to just buy the phone out right and keep the same contract that I am on now.

Why did I decide on the HTC Magic over the Iphone, well the main reason is that the google factor kicked in for me. I wanted a phone that was aimed at the google market rather than apple.

Thus for this reason I have got the htc magic and do I like it…..Yes I do.

It is a superb little competitor for the iphone and I think that in years to come it could be much better than the iphone.

Dont get me wrong in I will definitely get the iphone but not yet. I want to see which way they take the iphone before I buy it.

In my last post I went on about the old IPhone which I was looking at buying. I went on about the fact that it was a toss up between the iphone and the HTC magic.

Well this post will be about the HTC Magic. The reason I am thinking about the HTC Magic as a comparison to the iphone is that the phone is a google phone so it comes with so many brilliant apps like the iphone. I have a ipod touch and any features that are on that are on the iphone. I have found that any features I want on the iphone i can get on the HTC Magic.

I think that I am probably going to look at getting the HTC Magic as I think that it is a superb phone. I have a friend who has the phone and I have played with it quite a bit and I am starting to love the phone more and more.

I will come back to yous when I have got the phone.

I am at present looking  into buying either a iphone or a HTC Magic (google phone).

I have at present got a Nokia 5800. I ask myself why i got this stupid phone every single day. It is quite possibly the worst phone I have ever used. I would be the happiest man in the world if I could change my contract and get either a i phone or the HTC Magic.

I would prefer the iphone, and I have seen a couple of old iphones that I quite fancy. The ones that I have seen is one of the old 2g iphones and they are on sale for about £200.

I have been keeping an eye on ebay for the last couple of weeks and there are some cracking deals for Iphones online. I think that you could probably pick a 3g one up for about £250 if you are lucky.

A joint venture by both researchers at the University of Sheffield and the Bristol Robotics Labs are developing a SCRATCHbot. This robot is basically a robotic rat with whiskers.

Yes my first question why on earth are they trying to build a rat. Well it is being built to help in the development of artifical intelligence. Proff Tony Prescott is developing this rat in a aim to innovate artifical touch technologies.

This will when fully working ‘kill two bird with one stone’.

1. Artifical Intelligence is coming along but still needs improving drastically if robots are to take over the world.

2.This technology will give a good indication to the scientists how the human brain works when limbs touch different items.

I know that this is very serious business as I know someone who had a stroke if they touched something with there left hand they had the sensation was recieved on the right hand.

Normally the random letters, advertisements and directmail you get through the post amounts to nothing more than people wanting you to give money to charity, or relates to a forthcoming event. Mostly we don’t even look at the contents of this mail and simply put it all in the paper recycling bin. However looking through some of this mail has revealed a fantastic gadget that can be used in any office environment.

The USB cup warmer and 4 port hub is a great addition to any office desk. Reaching under your desk to plug in one of your gadgets is a thing of the past; this gadget comes with 4 USB 2.0 Ports meaning you can transfer your data at a rate of 480Mbps/sec. It has individual port over current protection and can be linked to other hubs if necessary if you need more than the 4 ports provided.

The best bit about this gadget though is the cup warmer. In essence the gadget looks like a small hotplate so you can put your cup onto it and keep your coffee warm. The hotplate is switchable and can keep the temperature of your drink at around 50 degrees centigrade.

This is a great addition to anyone’s desk and is one of those novelty presents you really will use, so check your direct mail, you don’t know what you might find.

When all other phone manufacturers were bothered about who had the best camera or largest touchscreen display, RIM were quietly infiltrating the business market with their BlackBerry models.

The latest BlackBerry – the Curve 8300 SmartPhone, stays with the same winning format of a full QWERTY keypad with the inclusion of a trackball system for navigation instead of the side mounted scroll wheel that featured in the earlier devices. The phone is stylish in design and features a 2.0 megapixel camera and micro SD slot so you can add to the 64 Mbytes of internal flash memory.

As you might expect from a phone of this nature, it is aimed directly at the corporate market and copes with business email superbly. The keypad has enough room to accommodate any size of finger and with access to POP3 emails sent directly to the phone using the BlackBerry internet service you don’t have to rely on your company to access your business email lists directly using their provider.

Additional features include Bluetooth, EDGE compatibility, MP3 and polyphonic ringtones, light sensitive high resolution screen, multimedia player and of course mobile internet connectivity.

The phone is primarily a business tool, but with many brilliant top of the range functions and a beautiful design it will appeal to the mass market.

Going to the gym for a workout can be invigorating but also a hassle, especially if you have had a hard day at work. Home gyms have been around for a while and with technological advancements they have progressed from plastic dumbbells filled with water to amazing multi-gyms with built in heart rate monitors. Working out at home has never been easier.

Boxing is an excellent way to get fit and a workout can exercise most muscle groups. An amazing piece of new boxing equipment that was released recently comes in the form of an electronic sparring partner. Slam Man stands 6 feet tall and when filled with sand will withstand the strongest punches. It has three training levels and is fitted with adjustable sensors to determine how hard the punches hit the targets. There are 8 illuminated large targets that flash in random patterns to help hand-eye coordination and can be adjusted in height to vary your workout.

This is a great toy to have in the corner of your room so you can workout whenever you want and with a pair of boxing gloves included and a DVD showing you how to get the most out of Slam Man it will make a great addition to your workout equipment.

When going on holiday to remote locations it is always a quandary as to what gadgets to take with you. Will you be able to keep them charged? Will they get damaged due to extreme weather conditions? Can you get adaptors for the country you are travelling to? These are all valid questions and sometimes it might not be possible to find the answers.

A good rule is to take the items you can not live without, your iPod? Mobile Phone? There are many websites where you can check what voltage the country runs on and their phone system coverage (contacting your service provider can usually be of great help).

However if your trip is really off the beaten track, say for example in Peru, your holiday may not go as planned if your gadget does not work. Many hours spent walking without the use of a music playing device or more importantly if your GPS location device does not work can mean you end up frustrated or worse still lost.

Peru holidays are a great way to see some of the most remote wilderness locations in South West America so to have the best time whilst away you need to make sure your gadgets are well protected.

Have you watched films in the past where the plot involves interrogation and one of the characters is put on a lie detecting machine. You watch the needle on the machine flicker up and down on the paper and watch it move wildly when a lie is being told. Does that really work? Can a machine really detect if someone is lying? Have you ever wondered how accurate it was? Maybe test to see if your partner really did only buy a couple of tops last weekend or test to see how truthful a salesman is when they try to sell you something. A company called Spion have made your dream come true with the portable lie detector.

Now you can have fun with this little gadget without having to wire someone up. It works by detecting the vibrations in the voice. It will record the change from a calm voice when the truth is being told to a nervous voice when the person is lying.

Before using it on someone you will need to set it up. To do this you need to ask the person 3 yes or no questions to get a baseline. From then on a display on the device shows a funny devil face where the nose and horns grow when a lie is detected. You can even connect it to a mobile phone and test the person on the phone.

I think this could be a great party gadget.