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Many have argued that Sony’s upcoming PSP Go is more a shameless marketing and cash-grabbing exercise, lacking the segment-shift that a truly innovative device might deliver. We’re holding off from judging until the review units come in, but hearing the latest feedback from pre-launch prototype models isn’t exactly putting us in the most positive frame of mind. Eurogamer got their hands on the early PSP Go, and found that not only does the new handheld require all new video cables but little things like the AV port have changed, too.
Where the full-sized PSP has a headset port that accommodates a microphone headset, the PSP Go apparently has just a 3.5mm headphones jack. That means no microphone and no useful in-line controls for media playback. It’s also worth remembering that the PSP Go uses newer M2 Memory Sticks rather than the older format of the existing PSP, so they won’t be transferable either.

As for the latest firmware, version 5.70, that has added more comprehensive Bluetooth controls, but strangely done away with the auto-adjusting backlight control under power management. Eurogamer also found that the handheld’s 14.74GB of user-accessible storage is formated in FAT32, meaning there’ll be a 4GB file size limit. It’s unclear if this is the version that will ship on the PSP Go when it launches in the US and Europe on October 1st.

While endearingly janky devices like the Nokla E97 aren’t usually to be found on Western shelves, that could change thanks to a key High Court ruling in the UK. The case had been brought by Nokia, who alleged that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in the UK had acted unfairly when allowing a shipment of counterfeit goods bearing Nokia’s trademarks free passage through the country after discovering they were not intended for sale there.

In fact, HMRC decided that, since a UK trademark would require an intention of trading, items not headed for UK shelves could not be seized. The shipment was allowed to continue on its way to Columbia, and Nokia brought the case before the High Court arguing that HMRC had interpreted the Counterfeit Goods Regulations in an “unduly restrictive” manner.

The courts decision in favor of HMRC was tempered by the judge’s admission that the situation took advantage of a legal loophole, and that he hoped it would be closed as soon as possible.

Nokia have announced that their N97 flagship smartphone will go on sale worldwide this month. No word on pricing for any of the 75 countries that will soon be getting the 3.5-inch touchscreen handset, nor specific availability dates, but the UK will apparently get it on unlocked and SIM-free from Nokia themselves as of June 19th.

SIM-free, the N97 is priced at around £500; that will be followed by a June 26th launch on the various carriers in the UK, with no word on pricing but a clear possibility of picking up the N97 free with a sufficiently expensive tariff. The N97 is already available to preorder in the US, priced at around $455 after discounts.

Your money gets you a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, S60 5th Edition OS, WiFi, GPS, HSPA and of course that 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen. However we’re also wary of the potentially low-powered CPU Nokia have fitted the N97 with; we’ll have to wait for the final model to see if that undermines the smartphone.

E Ink, the e-paper specialists behind the displays used in Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader, Sony’s Reader, the keyboard of the Samsung Alias 2 cellphone and various other devices, has been acquired by Prime View International (PVI). The deal, which valued E Ink at $215m, sees the e-paper IP and technology specialists now combined with the manufacturers of the panels themselves.

The combined company will continue to supply electrophoretic display technology, which accounts for more than 90-percent of e-paper displays; E Ink is the primary supplier of such technology. Meanwhile, PVI expects to release touchscreens and flexible e-paper, the latter said to reach the market later this year.

PVI has already acquired Philips Electronics’ e-paper business, back in 2005, and last year bought a controlling stake in the company responsible for producing the transistor backplanes used in e-paper technology. Presuming no regulatory or shareholder complications, the E Ink deal will be finalized at some point in Q4 2009.

That would be a distinct contrast to Amazon’s system, which is tailored to provide content to the company’s own Kindle ebook reader and Kindle applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. “Eventually, we hope to extend this functionality to retailers who embed Google Previews on their website” the search giant continued.

Google already operates an ebook service for out-of-copyright titles, and recently signed an agreement to provide them to users of Sony’s ebook Reader. The Google Book Search Project offers its titles for free, however.

When iPhone 3.0 is released it looks like TV shows, movies and music videos will be available for purchase and viewing directly on the new device. Three mobile ads from Apple were found in the latest version of TwitterFon that linked to "iTunes Movie Rentals," "iTunes Movies" and "iTunes TV."

When touched, the ads led to a video area in Apple's mobile store that was under construction. Screenshots of the portal show various genres and featured items, however video content is not yet available.

The screenshots were verified by a further discovery of direct links to the iTunes video store-in-progress that worked in iPhone OS 2.2 and 3.0 beta, but were later made inactive by Apple.

iPhone 3.0 will feature the 802.11N Broadcom BCM4329 Wi-Fi chip, making possible wireless downloads of up to four times the speed of 802.11G. To save bandwidth for carriers, it's likely that Apple will restrict video downloading to iPhones that are connected via Wi-FI.

The devices already features iTunes for music purchases and the AppStore for software downloads. Apple currently allows free video podcast downloads to the iPhone and iPod Touch when connected via Wi-Fi.

Expanding the video options available for purchase will increase profit for Apple as they deliver even more content to mobile devices.

Samsung bullishness on AMOLED display technology is no surprise. Now they’re showing a 6.5-inch AMOLED prototype that will find its way into almost every sort of gadget in the near future. Samsung’s Mobile Display division showed this at the SID 2009 expo and is touted to be the most flexible OLED panel till now. The panel’s curvature radius is around five times more and has a 1,000 times faster response time than conventional flexible LCDs.

Asus has announced a motherboard specifically designed for Home Theater Personal Computers (HTPCs). The M4A78-HTPC mobos are based on AMD 780G chipset and allows full HD playback at an affordable price. The motherboard is Phenom II compatible, supports RAM up to 16GB, integrates HDMI/DVI support, CrossFireX and Asus’ Absolute Pitch Hi-Fi and DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC tech for crisp audio quality.

The two variants - one with remote control will sell for Rs. 7,100 while the RC less version will go for Rs. 6,300. The prices are excluding taxes.

NEC Japan unveiled the ultra-light VersaPro UltraLite VS netbook. Its slimmest part is just 15.8mm thick while it weighs 725 grams, making it the world’s lightest mini-notebook. The specifications include a 10.6-inch screen with 1280×768 resolution, Atom Z540 (1.86GHz) processor, 1GB RAM, 64GB SSD, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, memory card reader, 4+ hours battery life and Windows Vista OS.

The VersaPro UltraLite VS is available for 99,750 Yen ($1034) till July 27 after which the price will be jacked to 105,000 Yen ($1088).

As expected, Nokia has gone by its word and launched the Ovi Store. Though it’s accessible only from countries like Australia, Ireland and Singapore, more countries are expected to join the list soon. Nokia also confirmed about moving the Ovi Store to ‘production servers’ which means a global access will be possible by the end of this week.

After being available in the other market for quite some time, Nokia has announced to sell the 6208 Classic in the Indian region. 6208 Classic is Nokia’s first touchscreen attempt on Series 40 platform and features a 3.2MP sensor with dual LED flash, 2.4-inch QVGA touchscreen display, handwriting recognition, music player, FM Radio and microSD card slot expandable up to 8GB.

The phone is priced at Rs. 13,259 which makes me think why would one go for this one when they can get a better phone in the form of LG Cookie or Samsung Star?

Underpowered, cramped keyboard, not-so multimedia friendly tags bestowed on netbooks will be a thing of the past. Lenovo has announced its first 12-inch IdeaPad netbook, S12 that also happens to be the first netbook based on Nvidia’s ION platform. For the uninitiated, the ION platform is cooked up together with Intel’s Atom processor and Nvidia’s 9400M GPU.

The 12-incher promises to give a full 1080p playback, full sized keyboard, WXGA LED backlit screen, 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB RAM, up to 320GB HDD, LAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3 USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard slot, card reader, VGA or HDMI out (depending on model) and optional 6-cell battery.

Lenovo will start selling in US from next month with the price starting from $449.

PS: Laptop-Mag have published their hands-on but the unit was sans ION, powered by a Via Nano processor.

We take Sony’s portable noise cancellation solution for a spin to see if it’s worth Rs. 4,500. Does it fulfill the promise? Well, read on.

MDR-NC7 comes in a small package that includes headphones, one carry pouch and a dual pin adaptor for in-flight use.

Sony products are known for its aesthetics and NC7 is no surprise. The headphones look stylish with its white hue and silver accents on the side of the earpads. The NC7 is adjustable to suit everyone’s ears and folds down completely to be carried easily. The earpads consists of sponge that is covered with leather-like material to give it a classy look.

Making the NC7 work is a no-brainer. Just plug the pin into a 3.5mm slot supporting player and you could delve into uninterrupted music instantly. The noise cancelling feature actually works two ways – passively and actively. The passive noise cancelling is done with the help of the thick layer of sponge covering your ears while the active part kicks by activating the noise cancelling feature with a switch located on the side. However, this feature requires a single AAA battery to work.

We tested the noise cancelling feature by commuting in the ever crowded Mumbai local-train and even though it did not fully block the outside noise as promised, it effectively cut the noise by half. There is also an obvious difference when the noise cancellation is turned on. Apart from blocking noise, the music quality is also enhanced. It sounds better and is easy to pick up low notes, which with a regular set of earphones might be impossible.

However, despite the fact that it fared well in other departments, it lacked something which many users look out for – the bass thumping effect. The bass is not totally absent but we can say it has a minimal effect. Another thing is that it cannot be used for prolonged sessions. Not that its not ergonomic but the leather-like material is the culprit. Continuous use tends to make the ears sweaty.

Overall, MDR-NC7 performed decently for an entry level headphone but the price is the dampener here. Maybe lowering it to around Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 3,000 could give users more bang for their buck.

KDDI au has unwrapped its new offerings that will amaze the Japanese citizens this summer. There are some interesting phones out of the eight models announced.

First is Hitachi’s Mobile Hi-Vision CAM Wooo, capable of recording videos at 720p, 30fps and comes with an HDMI-out to view the HD recorded video on an HDTV.

Toshiba’s Biblio is touted as an e-book reader. It features an EZ Book service, a 3.5-inch screen, 7GB user storage, QWERTY keyboard and Wi-Fi.

Sharp will be selling its SH002 Solar Phone. The phone is waterproof and claims to give a minute worth of talk time or about 2 hours of standby on a 10 minutes recharge.

There’s also Casio’s rugged G’z One CA002, Sharp’s waterproof Sportio water beat and another waterproof from Toshiba, T002.

All the phones will launch consecutively after May 29.

Samsung and CPSC have initiated a recall of the a110 and a120 Jitterbug phones. The reason for the recall is that the phones are equipped with BB14 software and cannot connect to emergency 911 services when it’s in a no-service area. The recall affects Jitterbug phones sold from March 2008 through May 2009 and are eligible for a free software upgrade.

LG will be wooing Korean businessmen with its new KU4000. The 3G phone will come to KTF and brings in various features like 60 types of LED illumination, Mobile Planner, documents viewer and accelerometer for various games like fishing, darts and baseball.

Specifications:

- WCDMA HSDPA 7.2 support
- Size and Weight: 105.9×51.5×15.3mm / 111g (Battery included)
- Internal Display: 2.8-inch WQVGA (240×400 pixels)
- External Display: 5×23 LED Matrix (Red)
- Memory: microSD slot (up to 8GB supported)
- T-DMB
- 2MP camera + video camera
- More than 160 countries with global roaming
- File Viewer (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, pdf, text) / Outlook Sync Support
- MP3 capability, motion sensor (photo switch, games, etc.), a removable disk, noise removal
- Battery: 800mAh
- Continuous currency: about 140 minutes or more / video calls over 80 minutes
- Continuous Standby: 160 hours
- Color: Black, Wine Red, White (additional colors planned)

Airtel launched Net PC today claiming to be “a next-generation computer that never goes obsolete and never crashes”. Really? To straighten the marketing lingo, it’s basically a PC in the clouds (on the server) and for Rs. 7,999 Airtel gives the user a 15-inch LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. A user also gets a 10GB storage and Companion, a small router-like device from Nivio, responsible for storing all the user data on the cloud.

The idea is attractive but there are many reasons why this initiative can turn into failure.

- Net PC requires Airtel broadband. This requirement cripples the potential user base. Imagine a user wanting a Net PC but cannot do so because Airtel does not provide broadband service in his area.
- Add to it, crappy broadband plans. Airtel is offering monthly plans – Rs. 699 (256Kbps conn, 3GB bandwidth, MS Office Standard), Rs. 899 (256Kbps conn, 3GB bandwidth, MS Office Standard with Admin rights) and Rs. 1,199 (256Kbps conn, 3GB bandwidth, MS Office Premium with Admin rights). These are recurring expenses since the plans are on monthly basis and did I say they are unattractive?
- If broadband plan prices are not a deterrent, the bandwidth is. Who in the world can be satisfied with 3GB/month bandwidth when he has to edit his office docs, download content on his 10GB space and then re-download on the USB drive, surf the internet, all from the same account.
- A user cannot use it like a normal PC. What happens if the Airtel connection is down?

Despite all the aforementioned reasons if you’re still intrigued by the idea of a “crashless” PC, you can head over here to register yourself one.

The D-Day is not very far but new iPhone claims are coming thick and fast these days. John Gruber, recognized for nailing Apple rumors in the past has come out to confirm a few things. According to him, the next iPhone will get a 600MHz processor, 32GB storage (which was also confirmed by T-Mobile Austria), compass and a camera capable of shooting videos. Couple of things he wasn’t sure but said can happen is the RAM upgrade as well as improved battery life despite of new features in the iPhone.

Other Apple related tidbits from him: No tablet PC will be shown at WWDC, a branding modification for Macbook Pros and Macbook and an iPhone Mini is under construction but won’t be released in July.

Asus’ yet another Eee PC have surfaced online which can be preordered from online retailers. Dubbed as Eee PC 1000HV, the netbook is similar in specs and looks to 1000HE but the major advantage 1000HV gets from the inclusion of 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 GPU. Apart from this, everything seems to be normal – 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 802.11b/g/n, card reader, Bluetooth 2.0, USB/VGA ports, Ethernet, 1.3MP webcam and 6-cell battery giving 5 hours of runtime. The reduced battery life as compared to 1000HE (Our review) is understandable since this one houses a discrete graphics card.

There’s no official price yet but retailers are demanding 449 Euros ($627).

Sharp released DX Series of LCD TVs in Japan that boast to be the world’s first TV with integrated Blu-ray players. This means a user can insert a BD disc into the TV and enjoy the movie right away without the need to own an additional Blu-ray player for it. It sure is nifty but one thing that can damp your expectations is that this one’s HD ready, capable of playing at 1366×768 resolution. But if that’s not your concern, the TV could be a good buy when it comes out on June 20 in Black or White for 150,000 Yen (almost $1600).