Isaiah's Tech

According to DigiTimes, Samsung "plans to launch more than 10 touch-enables handsets in the Taiwan market in the second half of 2009." This is to try to beat out their rival, LG. Although Samsung is first in the global market - shipping 6.1 million touch-enabled handsets in the first quarter of this year - LG has 17% of the touchscreen market in Taiwan, while Samsung only has 12%. Some handsets that will be launched in the second half of this year are the Samsung S8000 Jet, Beat DJ M7600, Omnia II I8000, Galaxy I7500, and the S5600 Blade.

[DigiTimes]

Remember the Samsung M7600? The phone I dubbed the DJ / rapper phone in earlier February? Well, it is now available overseas on O2 UK for anywhere between £0.00 and £146.80 ($233 USD) depending on what contract you choose. To recap some of its specs it has: a 2.6-inch AMOLED display, a DJ scratching app, a 3.2MP camera, and has Bang & Olufsen audio. It's definitely a must buy for the music geeks out there.

[Engadget]

Since I'm fairly new to this technology and blogging world I've actually never heard of this Bang & Olufsen company before (until the Samsung M7600 came out). Anyways, looks like they're trying to make a move in the TV industry with their BeoVision 8. The 40-inch LCD HDTV has a fair 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, "500 nits of brightness", 3,000:1 contrast ratio, 6ms response time, a digital TV tuner, and they even included their nifty audio into their also nifty internal speakers. There is no word on the price, but the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) is said to be "attractive" whatever that means. More details on the price when it's released.

[Engadget]

The Kindle 2 was officially announced by Amazon today. The rumoured pricing and availability was correct. It will be released on February 24 for $359 USD. "The new model has a much more iPod-like aesthetic with an aluminum back, rounded curves and a much thinner design." Along with the new looks, the Kindle 2 has a 20% faster e-paper screen, 25% longer battery life and 2GB of storage. "It also has a new text-to-speech feature that reads books aloud through built-in stereo speakers." You will still be able to read your newspaper on this device for $6 USD - $15 USD a month and you can get blogs pre-formatted for your Kindle 2 for 99 cents each. Maybe my librarian will be able to purchase one this time around. People are also saying that the Kindle 3 should be an iPhone app. I don't this would be a good idea because not everyone wants an iPhone. Restricting the Kindle 3 to just iPhone users would be dumb. Kindle fans would also complain about how small the screen is.

Look at that sexy Blackberry 9300 Gemini. Barack Obama would sure love to get his hands on that. The Gemini looks like it will be one sexy Blackberry. Ever since the Bold came out, it has had the rights to that title. Anyways, this Blackberry will have a bigger screen, beefier processor, "a slightly more 'rounded' keyboard, and most importantly, quadband EDGE plus triband HSDPA." There is no word on the availability of this gem[ini], but i don't think that it will be available in the first half of this year.

If you use your laptop for dual-monitor purposes, this could be for you. These Lapfit monitors from Samsung will be beneficial to you. If you use your laptop as your primary monitor and a traditional LCD monitor for your secondary monitor, you may get frustrated, since your monitors don't line up exactly the way you want them too. You can use these Lapfit monitors to line up those dual-monitors together. These displays will sit at the same height as your laptop's display. The Lapfit monitors will come in 19 and 22 inch variations and will have a 10-30 degree tilt, a 1,360 x 768 resolution, 4ms response time and a 20,000:1 "dynamic contrast."

Samsung looks like it's a hungry contender for that top spot on the mobile list. Nokia has to watch out for Samsung this year because they've been stirring up all of the news lately. It looks like Samsung will start off by improving the TouchWiz UI to make it more "finger-friendly." This new TouchWiz UI was located on the S8300 slider, which i will talk much more about later. They will probably show the TouchWiz's latest version at MWC.

The M7600 and the i8910 will be what i talk about next. The DJ / rapper phone will come with Bang & Olufsen audio, which i know nothing about. Along with a microSD card slot, it will also include a: "2.8 inch AMOLED touchscreen, 3 megapixel snapper with LED flash, HSDPA, GPS capabilities as well as DivX support." Up next is the Acme i8910, also from Samsung. This will run on S60 5th Edition and will have 780p HD video recording. It has an 8MP camera (with only a disappointing LED flash), "GPS, Wi-Fi and DivX support." It also has an HDMI port somewhere. Look for them both at MWC.

I've saved you the best phone for last. Samsung's 'flagship' phone. Behold the Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH. Besides being uber for having caps in its name, the S8300 has features that will disappoint only a few. The S8300 has a 2.8-inch OLED touchscreen, 80MB of storage with a 2GB card supplied (expandable to 16GB, thanks to microSD), an 8MP camera with dual LED flash (I was looking forward to xenon), GPS, Bluetooth, the latest TouchWiz UI and an accelerometer. There is no claims of this phone having Wi-Fi on GSM Arena, but it must have it somewhere. Oh man. Wait for the big news about this at MWC and then i'll have a real story for you. This phone may be competing with the N97, but i still think it would lose.

Kindle 2 Officially Announced (and picture): http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/02/09/amazon.kindle.2/
Blackberry 9300 Gemini (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/09/rumored-blackberry-9300-gemini-appears-bold-gulps/
Samsung Lapfit Monitors (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/09/samsung-introduces-lapfit-monitors-in-a-fit-of-insanity/
Samsung TouchWiz UI (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/09/samsungs-touchwiz-ui-getting-a-mwc-makeover/
Samsung M7600 and i8910 (and picture): http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_m7600_appears_i8910_conifrms_hd_video-news-781.php
Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH (and picture): http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_s8300_ultratouch-review-314.php

These are only United States statistics. After passing Myspace in December 2008, Facebook is now an estimated 20% larger than Myspace. Facebook now earns 10 million more visitors a month than Myspace does. Another notable is Twitter, which is the thin green line at the bottom of the graph. You can only see it when you enlarge the graph. They're growth is expanding and it should hit the 10 million mark soon. The chances of it catching up to Facebook anytime soon (or ever) is unlikely.

You can now attach files or pictures to your Google Calendar events. This includes files from Google Documents and pictures from Picasa. The next subject that should be brought up is Google Eye-Tracking. Somehow Google's team is able to tell exactly where you are looking at on your monitor screen. Is that scary or what? All of this news about Google lately is really starting to scare me. First Google Health, now Google Eye-Tracking. I still love Google, but this is kind of weird. This information could be useful in a way, by detecting what people read and how they read it, stuff like that. Let's move along.

A couple of photos have leaked of a Samsung M7600. It has a design very similar to the Helio Ocean and will, reportedly, have a DJ scratching app. Yes, a DJ scratching app. It has a 3MP camera and a 2.8 inch AMOLED touchscreen. I'll dub it the DJ / rapper phone. Original, am i right?

Just hours after my post about the Kindle 2, the price and availability were leaked to the web. These aren't from the Amazon camp, so there is a possibility that this may not be true. Anyways, the Kindle 2 has a 'rumoured' price of $359 USD and will be available on February 24. The Kindle 2 looks much thinner and sleeker than the first Kindle.

Facebook 20% Bigger Than Myspace (and chart): http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/facebook-myspace-twitter-traffic/
Attaching Files to Google Calendar: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/attach-files-to-google-calendar-events.html
Google Eye-Tracking: http://www.pcworld.com/article/159117/google_eye_tracking.html?tk=rss_news
Samsung M7600 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/leaked-samsung-m7600-phone-sports-bang-and-olufsen-sound-helio-lo/
Kindle 2 Information (and picture): http://i.gizmodo.com/5148568/kindle-2-official-images-and-price-leak-359-on-february-24