http://www.xibro.com Tech news and views Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:22:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en You may or may not be aware that BenQ Mobile (or BenQ Siemens as it was) went bankrupt at the end of last year.  BenQ had purchased the ailing Siemens group in 2005, but failed to turn the business around. Well administrators have failed to find a buyer and so the ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/27/benq-mobile-to-die-off/ The week following Vodafone's announcement regarding MySpace, O2 has unveiled its own offering - My BlueBook. Not the most creative of brands in my opinion, but I guess it's descriptive. The O2 service puts the emphasis on user generated content - photos, videos and profiles, all of which can be ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/19/o2-announces-social-networking-service/ Varioptic makes its lenses out of oil and water rather than normal methods. Sounds crazy? Well it's actually a far better way of producing lenses - it's more reliable, enables closer focus (5m or so) and it focuses more quickly than a standard lens. And it's expected ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/14/camera-phones-look-to-liquid-lenses/ Remember the Nokia 8110, you know, the one used in the Matrix? Well after a long absence of 'banana' phones, Motorola has unveiled the RIZR, a slightly odd looking handset that curves around your face. The RIZR will have 90mb of onboard memory with support for 4GB SD card, and ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/13/motorolas-face-fitting-slider/ Samsung has showcased a few new handsets at the 3GSM conference, with one claiming to be the "slimmest phone in the world". And here it is - the U100: Also launched were two skinny sliders, the U600: And U700: And finally, an iPhone lookalike, the symbian based F700: http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/13/samsung-goes-even-slimmer/ Related to the entry below about Nokia's vision for Mobile TV, a recent study of 22,000 European users (commissioned by Tellabs and conducted by M:Metrics) shows that more than half of consumers that have tried Mobile TV on the move decided it wasn't worth the effort. Some of the key stats: 45% ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/13/mobile-tv-too-much-effort/ Nokia have made their move into the Mobile TV market with the N77, aimed at "bringing Mobile TV to the mainstream". Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (OPK) claimed the N77 handset would "help take live TV out of the living room into your hand", and expects it to be available ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/13/nokias-punt-on-mobile-tv-more/ Vodafone has been spending hard for the last couple of weeks. In the internet world, it has signed deals with MySpace, eBay, YouTube and now Google Maps. You can be sure that little lot didn't come cheap. But the cost pales into comparison when looking at their latest purchase. ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/12/vodafone-goes-all-in/ At last the worst brand in technology is killed off, with the arrival of Virgin Media. In their own rights, NTL and Telewest weren't exactly exciting brands, be it in terms of their logo, advertising or customer perception. When they merged I cringed that they took the safe-but-dull ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/09/virgin-media-is-born-ntltelewest-dies/ LG expects its new Black Label phone, Shine, to do even better than the Chocolate, which is saying something considering its popularity. Sales so far in Korea are greater than for Chocolate over the same period. LG will be rolling out several "Black Label" phones over the year, including the ... http://www.xibro.com/2007/02/08/lg-hopes-to-outdo-chocolate/