New Tech Update

Hong Kong’s MTR to get WiFi

Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is to hop on the high-speed wireless bandwagon. Its now set to offer WiFi in both in the trains and in train stations. Apparently, the trains will be outfitted with receivers to pull down 3.5G signals from transmitters in the tunnels, which then gets turned around into plain old WiFi for the passengers on board.

Expected cost: USD2.50 (HK$20) a day for unlimited use.

Source: Butterboom

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Palm launching Foleo very soon?

If this device is something new to you, here is a short info about the Palm Foleo.

It is a smartphone companion that will help you to access much of the same information as on your smart phone(sync mails, pictures, etc.) but with a larger screen (10.x inch, 1024×600 px resolution) and a full QWERTY keyboard. In short an external display and a keyboard for your smartphone.

Hope we could see the Foleo launch on August 22nd. And on the pricing stuffs, Palm has announced the device will cost $499 in a special introductory offer after a mail-in-rebate of $100. But big box retailers such as Best Buy could come up with an instant rebate. Try your luck.

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Second generation iPhone?

Rumors running in Taiwan about the second generation iPhone. Yes its silly but thats the way it was an year before Apple announced the iPhone. The report claims that the new iPhone from Apple will begin shipping in September with prices ranging from US$249-299. JP Morgan has also contributed to the speculation, issuing a report earlier this month discussing the possibility of a low-end Nano version of the iPhone shortly.However, a different team within JP Morgan thinks that its unusual and highly risky idea for Apple.

But i believe that Apple will show more interest in launching a 3G version of iPhone and launching the product in Europe and Asia before launching a Nano version.

Source: DigiTimes

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Google cookies to expire after two years

The lifetime of Google’s cookies has been significantly reduced from 31 years to 2 years due to feedback from users and privacy advocates. So, sometime “in the coming months,” Google’s cookies will automatically expire after two years of no use, meaning that any users that come to Google once, use the search, and never return will only have their search preferences stored on their computers for the next two years.

But why was it 31 years? My question goes towards both the extremes, why should it expire at all? and why not after one year? (this is not the low extreme any way). However Google believes there’s no point in keeping the cookie information for more than 31 years.

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Alarming Finger Ring

This ring vibrates finger to wake you up. (And your partner aswell). Meng Fendi’s “Ring” sports an alarm clock dock with two times and a pair of wearable hoops, which enables you to wake up at a different time than your third-shift-workin’ SO. Moreover, the elastic vibrating rings are donned at night, and simply provide a constant buzz to get your attention rather than wrecking your rest with a piercing array of beeps.

View more pics here.

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Super 3G testing begins in Japan

Japanese were already playing multimedia games when consumers in U.S. were only trying their first SMS messages. 3G speeds also arrived in Japan first. NTT DoCoMo has always been ahead when it comes to the introduction of new mobile technologies. It is doing it again with the test of experimental Super 3G system that could support up to 300 Mbps data download speeds. Super 3G system is a highly advanced version HSDPA and HSUPA technologies, featuring low-latency data transmission and improved spectrum efficiency.To achieve data transmission speeds of up to 300 Mbps Super 3G uses up to four Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antennas for both the base station (transmission side) and mobile station (receiving side).

During the experiment NTT DoCoMo will test the functionality of the Super 3G system for various voice, image, games, video and other applications for which Super 3G will be used in the future.

NTT DoCoMo expects to complete the development of the technology by 2009.

Take a look at the experiment system design here. (PDF)

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Mitsubishi’s Wakamaru - Robo Receptionist

Wakamaru the domestic robot from Mitshubishi Heavy Inustries(Japan) is now available for hiring. The robot is yellow, 100 cm tall, and weights 30 kilograms. It has two arms and its flat, circular base has a diameter of 45 cm. The first hundred went on sale in September, 2005, for USD $14,000.

Wakamaru runs a Linux operating system on multiple microprocessors. It can connect to the Internet, and has limited speech (in both male and female voices) and speech recognition abilities. Functions include reminding the user to take medicine on time, and calling for help if it suspects something is wrong.

Now these robots are being hired out in Japan as receptionists for $1000 a day or $25,000 a year. It turns out these goofy-looking yellow droids are pretty good at the job, recognizing faces and even chatting it up with the customers, using their 10,000-word vocabulary to amaze and entertain, and possibly annoy.

Is it the beginning of the end for humanity?

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