Disney Mobile plans to launch a line of diamond encrusted cellphones. Disney's diamond mobile phone DM005SH will contain a 8-megapixel camera and a 3.4-inch screen. The body of the mobile phone contains 22 pieces of diamonds of different sizes, some of which are arranged to represent the Disney logo. The phone will be available in three colors: red, dark blue and white. The phones
navigation keys consist of three radio buttons shaped as Mickey Mouse's head. Pricing information and a release date for the blingy Disney phones have not been announced.
Apple has decided to stop selling protective screens for its iPods, iPhones and other products at apple.com and in its retail stores. iLounge reports that the ban will "impact all forms of screen film, including completely clear film, anti-glare film, and mirrored film, regardless of whether the purpose of the film is protective, decorative, or both." The ban also includes cases containing screens.
Apple has not explained why it has decided to stop carrying screens.
HTC Corporation announced today that it disagrees with the patent lawsuit Apple recently filed against it. HTC also released the above image of a T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition by HTC. HTC says this was the first 3.5-inch color touch screen smartphone in the United States in 2002.
"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible," said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation. "From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone. In 1999 we started designing the XDA(i) and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition(ii), our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then."
Amazon.com has announced Kindle for Mac, a free Mac version of its Kindle software that lets Kindle users read Kindle books on their Mac computers. Kindle books can now be read on the Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC and Mac. Amazon.com also said in its press release that readers will also be able to soon read Kindle books on Apple's upcoming iPad. Amazon.com must be expecting Apple to allow a Kindle for iPad app.
Here are some of the features of Kindle for Mac:
Purchase, download, and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon's servers for free
Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
Read books in full color including children's books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks
Bang & Olufsen have announced the launch of its slimmest flat screen TV, the BeoVision 10. The BeoVision 10's design is a black glass square framed by a polished aluminium frame. On the back, a concealed wall bracket lets you swing out the screen at an angle up to 45 degrees. Bang & Olufsen says its BeoVision 10 has great quality sound despite the slim design. The flat screen tv has a two-way stereo loudspeaker system with a center bass, located below the screen covered by a fabric front. The BeoVision 10 offers a digital surround sound module as standard. The connection panel allows you to add up to five extra speakers for a full surround sound setup.
BeoVision 10 will be available in all North American showroom locations by summer 2010. The front grill cover will be available in black, white, silver, dark grey, blue, and orange. MSRP for the television screen starts at $6248.
Wiredreports that 100 drivers in Austin, Texas woke up to find their cars either disabled or honking out of control. The vehicles had been disabled by a former Texas Auto Center employee who had been laid off. The former employee got revenge by using the dealership's remote immobilization system to disable cars the dealership had sold.
The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven't been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car's ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle.
The drivers who had their cars disabled must have been very annoyed. The incident reveals a problematic side to this type of technology.
The Wall Street Journalreports that hundreds of thousands of Apple iPads have already been sold through pre-orders on Apple.com. The WSJ says able is still trying to cut content deals ahead of the iPads launch date of April 3rd. Apple is putting tv show content ahead of all other types of content.
Since the iPad became available for pre-order last Friday, Apple has sold hundreds of thousands of the device, say people familiar with the matter. One of these people said Apple could sell more iPads in its first three months than it sold iPhones in the three months after the smart phone's debut.
Yet the company is still negotiating with media companies for a price cut on TV shows that people can download onto the device, said people familiar with the matter. Apple also hoped to work closely with newspaper, magazines and textbook publishers on new ways to digitally present print content on the iPad, but has for now put the effort on backburner in favor of focusing on other content, said one of those people.
Apple may have met some initial reluctance from publishers if it was unable to secure much in the way of newspaper and book content prior to the launch date. It is also possible Apple did not give publishers enough time to develop content specifically for the iPad.
There is a new virus is stealing passwords from Facebook users. McAfee says the virus arrives in an email that tricks people into clicking on an attachment by telling them their Facebook passwords have been changed. The attachment downloads malware onto the person's computer. McAfee has an image of what the email looks like here.
Reuters reports that the Facebook.com site is a big target for spammers and fraudsters because it has so many users.
Dave Marcus, McAfee's director of malware research and communications, said that he expects the hackers will succeed in infecting millions of computers.
"With Facebook as your lure, you potentially have 400 million people that can click on the attachment. If you get 10 percent success, that's 40 million," he said.
Facebook.com's traffic recently topped Google.com's according to Hitwise.
Blockbuster warned investors in its latest 10-k filing that it might file for bankruptcy. That the once king of home movie rentals may need to file for bankruptcy in the future is not a big suprise. The company is under pressure from both postal mail rental services, like Netflix, and a rapidly growing number of on-demand services. Blockbuster has been planning store closings but this may not be enough to keep the retailer out of bankruptcy. The Huffington Post says Blockbuster has already closed 1,300 stores and warned in its filing that there is "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue.
"The increasingly competitive industry conditions under which we operate has negatively impacted our results of operations and cash flows and may continue to in the future. These factors raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern," Blockbuster said in a regulatory filing late Tuesday.
The rental giant also warned its strategies may fail and it may have to file bankruptcy.
"It is possible that a successful and efficient implementation of an exchange or any of the other strategies we are pursuing will require us to make a pre-packaged, pre-arranged or other type of filing for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code."
Blockbuster has been rapidly deploying rental kiosks but with on-demand services growing so quickly the rental kiosks may not be enough to keep the firm out of bankruptcy.
CNN/Money reports that data from Hitwise indicates that Facebook.com received more web traffic than Google.com for the week ending March 13th. Facebook received 7.07% of U.S. Web traffic for the week, while Google received 7.03%.
"It shows content sharing has become a huge driving force online," said Matt Tatham, director of media relations at Hitwise. "People want information from friends they trust, versus the the anonymity of a search engine."
The comparison was only for the Facebook.com and Google.com domain. Google still easily beats Facebook if you include its other properties such as Gmail and YouTube.
Mobile phone chargers left plugged into a wall waste a small amount of electricity. This use of electricity is referred to as standby power or vampire power. AT&T is coming out with a new charger in May called the AT&T Zero Charger. AT&T says its new charger does not waste power when left plugged in, and improves charging efficiency when powering a device. The device will be sold at AT&T stores nationwide in May for $29.99. The charger will be sold in packaging with 100% recycled paper.
The charger should work with most AT&T phones. The Christian Science Monitorsays it should work with the iPhone and Google Nexus One.
Gizmodo reports that Volt-Star is launching a competing product in April called the Zero Waste Eco Charger.
A study by Chetan Sharma Consulting, commissioned by the GetJar app store, projects that the global mobile apps economy is set to be worth $17.5 billion by 2012. Mobile app downloads are expected to increase from over 7 billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012. The study also found that in 2008 there were just four apps stores and today there are 38. The number of app stores is expected to further increase in 2010.
The study also found that the price of mobile applications can vary from $0.99 to $999. The average selling price in 2009 was approximately $1.90. The study predicts the average price of an app will decrease by 29% over the next three years.
BehindTheBuy.com's senior editor David Gregg highlights some of the new products from the 2010 International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. Some of the new products include the T-Fal's Actifry, which fries food using less oil. Sumo Furniture Cubes are collapsible storage cubes. Hoover has a new vaccuum out called the Hoover FloorMate Hard Floor Cleaner, which vacuums, washes and dries hard floors. There is also a new ice cream maker from Hamilton Beach. Take a look:
CBS News also has an article about the new products here.
ViewSonic Corp has announced the launch of new netbooks and a desktop PC that it previewed at CES 2010. ViewSonic is launching two netbooks called VNB132 and VNB141 ViewBooks.
The ViewSonic 14" VNB141 ViewBook offers an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB of RAM and 250GB hard drive, two USB ports, integrated 802.11b/g/n wireless connectivity, VGA and HDMI outputs. The VNB141 also includes a 1.3MB built-in webcam, long-lasting 6 cell battery and integrated DVD RW Super Multi Drive. The VNB141 retails for $829.
The ViewSonic 13.3" VNB132 ViewBook includes a ULV SU2300 Intel Celeron processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 320GB hard drive and 2GB internal memory. The notebook also features integrated 802.11b/g/n wireless, three USB ports, a 7-in-1 card reader, VGA and HDMI outputs, an integrated 1.3MB webcam and a 4 cell battery. The VNB132 retails for $649.
ViewSonic is also launching the ViewSonic VPC190 All-in-On. The 19" (18.5" viewable) PC features the Intel Atom D510 1.6Hz processor, Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and 2GB of internal memory. The VPC190 contains an 1366x768 screen, built-in 1.3MB webcam and 2x3-watt speakers. Other features include integrated 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11b/g wireless, six USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader and built-in DVD RW Super Multi drive. The ViewSonic VPC190 All-in-One PC is currently available for an MSRP of $629.
Here is a video about ViewSonic's new all-in-one PC. Take a look:
Spring Design has launched its Alex eReader. The Alex offers Internet browsing, touchscreen virtual keyboard, Wifi connectivity, and the ability to read ebooks in EPUB, PDF, HTML and TXT formats. Alex also connects to Google's bookstore and other bookstores that support Adobe DRM. Alex features a 6" EPD (Electronic Paper Display) screen and a full color 3.5" Android based touchscreen LCD. The device is being sold online at springdesign.com for $399.
The Alex eReader includes a linking feature called Spring Design LinkNotes. Authors can insert hyperlinks in their books that show up on the EPD reading screen indicating that there is web-based content available. Users can click on hyperlinks in eBooks, corporate documents, or periodicals that lead to relevant web-based information or to multimedia content stored on the Alex eReader.
Apple has decided to stop selling protective screens for its iPods, iPhones and other products at apple.com and in its retail stores. iLounge 
The Wall Street Journal 
There is a new virus is stealing passwords from Facebook users. McAfee says the virus arrives in an email that tricks people into clicking on an attachment by telling them their Facebook passwords have been changed. The attachment downloads malware onto the person's computer. McAfee has an image of what the email looks like 
Blockbuster warned investors in its 
