Pretec, a leading Flash memory company, has now released i-Disk Micro Reader, the smallest USB Micro SD card reader in the world. The i-Disk Micro Reader is capable of reading Micro SD capcities from 32MB to 2GB and is fully compliant with USB 2.0. Using the device, users can easily share, copy, or synchronize their favorite mp3's and other date. You can even manage your ringtones on a PC or notebook with any standard USB port.

The i-Disk Micro Reader was designed with rounded corners and edges to prevent scratches when carried around with a mobile phone or PDA. The clear see through window allows the user to easily identify the capacity of the Micro SD. Pretec i-Disk Micro Reader is an ideal companion for today's mobile devices, which are increasingly available with Micro SD memory card storage.

imagine LAN, Inc launched a new software, the UltraSync Portable which helps in meeting the sync needs of USB Flash drivers. One can easily sync portable devices like USB Flash drive, , iPod®, MP3 player etc with a Windows XP or Vista PC.

The applications runs from a USB flash drive and is also capable of bi-directional sync partnerships (including deletion sync) with numerous PCs. One also comes across a direction migration feature which sets up digital content on a new desktop, notebook, tablet, or UMPC. Both OEM and retail versions of UltraSync Portable will be available in Q1 2007 and you can also check it out at CES.

"Since the introduction of UltraSync for UMPCs last August, we have had many requests from our customers to create a similar solution for USB flash drives," states DP Tsay, president of imagine LAN, "imagine LAN is widely known for its leadership in the development of portable applications and we are pleased to offer UltraSync Portable as a solution for simplifying the digital content synchronization process for flash drive users."

If you suffer from unhealthy bouts of paranoia and believe that the whole world is after your precious cell phone, perk up! Oki Japan announced that it has been successful in developing Iris Recognition Technology for Mobile Terminals. This in the Queen's language means that your gadgets only work if they technology recognizes your iris! Cool and straight out of Mission Impossible Series!

However this one is not only for cell phone nuts and is targeted at government agencies, financial institutions and other enterprises in Japan and overseas. The Iris Recognition Technology for Mobile Terminals can also be used with standard cameras and will be exhibited at the ITU Telecom World 2006 in Hong Kong from December 4th to 8th.

If you’re like me, you keep seeing these Internet ads for the Slingbox everywhere. I actually found out what it was the other day. The SlingPlayer allows you to view a complete home TV experience from popular handsets using standard network connections, which include 3G and WiFi. Sling Media has announced a partnership with Symbian Limited, a leader in open operating systems for smartphones, to bring the SlingPlayer to Symbian systems S60 and UIQ.

Not only will anyone with these smartphone operating systems be able to watch television, they will be able to have access to a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). This means users will be able to watch recorded shows, pause, and rewind live TV, even queue new recordings while away from home. So, if you have this operating system, you can catch your latest episode of your favorite TV show while on your way to work.

Will this change TV watching as we know it? Personally, I think it’s already changed enough in the last few years with TiVo and all. Something tells me that watching TV in the living room will soon be a completely planned experience, the exception and not the rule.

Apple Video Users perk up as BroadClip has launched a new application, the “MediaCatcher" which lets one select and capture unlimited video from their cable TV service. Thus one can later view this recordeD footage numerous times on their portable video players like the Apple® Video iPod.

The whole set-up is legal and the shows can be captured, reformatted, tagged, and loaded by a few simple clicks. There are no monthly charges and via the web based architecture one can interact with other users too. MediaCatcher is available now for $79 and with video tuner card for $139 (PCI) and $199 (USB). As of now it only supports Windows. Bummer! BroadClip

Sam Abadir, BroadClip’s CEO, said, “We are pleased to unveil this technology to the many millions of iPod owners who are hungry for video to watch, but don’t want to pay twice for the same content they already own. MediaCatcher lets anyone with a cable TV subscription fill their player with all the shows they love, without worrying about the cost or the hassles of downloading. Unlike the many ‘scam’ sites selling pirated downloads of TV shows, MediaCatcher is perfectly legal, and it falls squarely under the US Supreme Court mandated ‘Fair Use’ of cable TV content.“

Cerience released a new version of its popular document viewing solution, the RepliGo Professional 2.0 for BlackBerry. With features like faxing, printing and document management capabilities, the new release packs a punch with its host of features.

Capable of viewing PDF documents, photos and faxes, it supports the usual lot - Microsoft Office, OpenOffice and Corel WordPerfect. Apart from the viewer, users also have a choice to upload documents from their BlackBerry onto their online account from where they can be sent via email or fax.

You can even print the documents on Bluetooth-enabled printers from HP. Thanks to the new navigation features, you can access the BlackBerry browser, email and phone applications when viewing documents.

Priced at US $24.95 (quarterly subscription) or $79.95 (annual), upgrades are free to existing RepliGo Professional customers.

scanR, Inc have made the cellphone and the digital camera more functional! Via their new service scanR Business Card one can via their camera phones and digital cameras scan business cards and automatically send the results to popular applications like Microsoft Outlook and synchronies them with Salesforce, Plaxo and Jigsaw. One just needs to take the photo of the business card and send them to a designated email address and then the service will do the rest.

This service is quite nifty for the professional on the go as it eliminates the need to lug around business cards and other accessories. It claims to be the most accurate service in the world and it needs no new hardware or software. However the camera on the mobile device should at least be 2 Megapixel and right now the service is available for a free trial. For more info visit the homepage

London company B1TE Entertainment has launched a free Java mobile application, aiming to offer users rich Digg browsing functionality on their mobile devices. The service is available at http://www.b1te.com/mobile_digg.html from today.
Digg Java Mobile allows quick access to popular and upcoming stories, filtered by most popular, topic or subtopic. Individual stories can then be viewed using Google Mobile Web, or bookmarked and sent as a link to the users email address for desktop browsing.

It also aims to reduce data bills for users by compressing Digg story feeds by a ratio of about 5-1.

”Digg Java Mobile allows Diggaholics to keep up with the huge turnover of Digg stories when away from their home computers”, said Matt Brooke-Smith, founder and CEO of B1TE Entertainment.

When it comes to Pocket PC’s all of us seem to suffer form the Butter Fingers Syndrome. However the new Phraze-It on-screen finger-typing keyboard for the Pocket PC Phone promises to cure us off this affliction as the application displays a full size keyboard which can be accessed via a touch screen phone.

Thus thanks to Phraze-It on-screen finger-typing keyboard (whew!) one will no longer require to use a stylus and can enter text quickly and correctly. The Phraze-It® keyboard is so easy that one can also indulge in one hand typing and do tasks like reviewing, correcting and editing text, provides capitalization, numbers, punctuation and symbols with complete ease. Thus the application is ideal for creating longer documents, emails, notes, contact lists etc. as well as for mobile messaging, browsing etc.

Prevalent Devices LLC is the brains behind this application which also comes with keystroke reduction choices, portrait or landscape modes and multilingual support in English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew (with 3rd party software), Spanish and Swedish. The application is compatible with Pocket PC 2003, Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition, Pocket PC 2003 SE, Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition, Windows Mobile® Pocket PC 2005 and Windows Mobile® Pocket PC 2005 Phone Edition and you can order it online for 22$ from here.

Playing videos on portable devices such as an iPod or Sony PSP can be difficult due to the format required for playback. InterVideo has now solved a problem with iVideoToGo Platinum, a software package that uses a simple three-step process to convert DVDs into videos for iPods and Sony PSP. Not only does it convert DVDs, but it also supports AVI, MPEG, MP4, DVR-MS and other formats.

iVideoToGo Platinum’s CopyLater technology allows batch conversion of videos while the computer is idle. Users can even set up a program conversion schedule so their TV shows and other video files can be done while they are away from their computer. The Video trimming function allows users to split their converted videos into several chapters, with the option of cutting opening and closing credits entirely.

The software runs at about 29.95. It can pack 85 hours into a 30GB iPod, and 2.5 hours in a 1GB PSP memory stick.

Downloading ringtones and wallpapers are so passé! The Sonic ToneMaker DJ and Wallpaper Maker application let’s one create their own images and ringtones and is now available exclusively to all Verizon users. For those who crave to be different and do not want run of the mill stuff on the handsets can create only one of its kind sounds and images on their cell phones. Thus taking customization to the next level.

However only those Verizon subscribers can access these two applications that have the Get It Now-enabled phones. The ToneMaker DJ won’t make you a mini Beethoven but via the four-track interface one can download and mix thousands of songs from the database. The Wallpaper Maker also works in the same fashion and lets you choose and mix and max from pre-made wallpapers. Both the applications are available for download for $4.49 monthly access. For more info visit Verizon

Now days even our mobile phones are not safe from vicious attacks and thus keeping in mind the sudden increase in demand of Smartphones, McAfee has released the McAfee(R) VirusScan(R) Mobile and McAfee VirusScan Mobile Enterprise Edition for the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform. These new applications will protect our handsets from malware, unauthorized attacks and even SMiShing attacks (phishing scams via SMS).

With smartphones getting smarter and hackers getting more creative, a mobile anti-virus application is a must, especially for those who connect to the internet via their handsets and receive multimedia messages.Via the McAfee VirusScan Mobile one is also prevented from sending infected messages to ones various contacts. Both the anti-virus applications also offer protection from attacks via SMS, MMS, Bluetooth and other entry points, e-mail, instant messaging, internet downloads and Web surfing. On identifying threats the applications automatically start the cleaning process and also by scanning all file system access. You can download the 30 day free trail version from Here

"The need for mobile virus protection has never been greater," said Victor Kouznetsov, senior vice president of mobile technology at McAfee, Inc. "As organizations extend their mobile workforces, the need to protect a broader range of platforms becomes more critical. Now, users of Windows Mobile 5.0 can have the same worry-free experience as other mobile device users."

Tom Tom, a leading provider of personal navigation products and services, has recently announced the new NAVIGATOR 6. The NAVIGATOR 6 is the result of a successful merge of the TomTom NAVIGATOR 5 and MOBILE 5. This software package allows customers to integrate navigation systems into a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or cell phone.

The software is simple to install with an easy-to-use menu. TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 package begins with the desktop software for a home PC, MAC, or laptop. With TomTom HOME, you can download, manage, store, and transfer files into your portable device and let the adventure begin.

With Mother Nature becoming unpredictable day by day, Digital Cyclone Inc has gone ahead and made the My-Cast(R) version 5.0 mobile weather service more functional by adding the ability to track tropical storms and hurricanes. This move makes sense as the US in recent times has been devastated by hurricanes and according to one study, the next 20 years will see more threats. Via the new Hurricane Tracker one will be able to access the projected path of a hurricane in real-time with satellite and will be alerted for storms, lightening etc by the National Weather Service.

The My-Cast service has been around for a while now and includes nifty features like NEXRAD(R) radar loops for weather, infrared satellite imagery, hourly and extended forecasts for up to 7 days, ability to customize certain features, access to info like temperature, precipitation, cloud cover and more. The service is available on almost all major US Carriers and for more info head over to http://www.my-cast.com/

"There's no doubt that America's weather is becoming increasingly severe and potentially deadlier than ever," said Paul Douglas, Chairman of Digital Cyclone. "With the new Hurricane Tracker feature, My-Cast users get that extra margin of safety, the critical hurricane information they need delivered directly to their mobile phone, to get a head-start and take appropriate action."

According to Rich Rudow, managing director of Trimble Outdoors, “consumers seek mobile technology that streamlines the demands of their active lifestyles.” Trimble, a leading innovator of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, has responded to the needs of the consumer by offering them a chance to manage personal navigation and fitness through their cell phones.

After all, this is the age of extreme sports, and more and more people are biking, cycling, and hiking out into the great unknown. The AllSport GPS will insure that they will not get lost, and can track their exercise along the way. The service is available through subscription through Sprint and Nextel phones, but it is planned to expand to more mobile phone services.

The latest version of the AllSport GPS allows you, the customer, several features. Not only can it measure distance, time, speed, but the calories burned on an outdoor activity. You can then set it up for workouts on GoggleEarth with 3-D displays in order to “beat that workout”. So if the AllSport GPS says that you biked 5 miles in 25 minutes, you can set the next goal of 20 minutes.

The AllSport GPS can also pinpoint your current position on a street map, topographical map, or aerial photo. Not only can you track your location, but you will also have the option of downloading that information to friends and family. Hopefully, the writers of The Amazing Race are ordering these now.

Trimble plans to use technology gain from Intransix, a company that they purchased this year. This platinum version of the AllSport GPS is currently available for 6.99 per month on 17 Nextel phones and 10 Sprint phones.

Via Trimble

Double the capability of its 700w Treo Verizon twin, the 700wx, specially made for Sprint, comes armed with a reported 64 mb of RAM amidst other yet unnamed tweaks- sure to make Verizon users cringe at their commitment to contract.

Rumors of device first appeared on message boards with screenshots of a Sprint PCS connection manager listing a 700wx driver install as an option.

With new information about release date and photos of containing device box; were as sure as to call this confirmation.

Reuters posts that Palm plans an official press release for at least one of its newer Treo offspring, on September 12th, but with approximate 700wx release dates being suggested as August 27th for business consumers,and September 3rd for general retail-
we can't wait for formalities.

Via EngadgetMobile

Have you ever heard the story about the stolen Sidekick? Now you won't need to be worried with the help of this ultimate Theft Alert v2.1 which is a software that will send the thief's contact number to a pre-defined phone number when your device is stolen. The software supports multiple SIMs and it is compatible on all Pocket PC devices running on Windows Mobile 5.0. How does it actually work? Whenever your device is cold-booted, soft-reset or maybe change of SIM card the software will quietly check the subscriber identity module. If the unmatched SIM is detected, it will send a hidden message using the thief's SIM card to a multiple pre-defined number. The software can also perform a hard-reset after reorganization of SIM change, so I guess you won't need to be worried about your contacts or message being read by the thiefs. Theft Alert v2.1 software is currently available at Handango and Pocket Gear with the price of USD14.99.

[Carta Studios via pocketpcthoughts]

ATEKsoft has released a new version of CoolCamera software for Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone devices. CoolCamera is packed with bunch of new features such as high frame rate up to 25fps, efficient encoding algorithm, all camera actions can be performed using hardware buttons, camera adjustment without leaving view-finder mode, interval picture capturing, high resolution video in motion JPEG AVI format, and it also provides a capability of pause/resume video recording process. It has a special feature where you will be able to use your Windows Mobile device as a webcam for your messenger applications (Skype, VirtualDub, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Webcam XP, VLC Media Player and Windows Media Encoder). Maybe you would like to try out the trial version before spending USD14.90 to get the full version of ATEKsoft CoolCamera. Download Trial Version Here

[via theunwired]

Palm and Treo users will surely dig the new SplashTravel software which makes your smartphone an one stop solution to all your travel needs. This handy little application lets one organize packing lists, calculates various time zones, track’s expenses, convert‘s currencies among other functions. The new SplashTravel application gives one more reason for not to lug around one’s notebook as their smartphone pretty much does everything. One can also access, country codes, alarms, how a check should be split and other vital info. It is available for download at the SplashData Web site for $19.95. Fore more info visit Product Page

"SplashTravel truly meets the demands of today's busy traveler. Whether you are on a business trip or vacation, you now have a way to stay organized and informed while on the go," said Morgan Slain, CEO, SplashData. "No matter where you happen to be, you can relax because the information you need is easily accessible."

PhatWare Corporation has just launched the new CalliGrapher 8.3 exclusively for Windows Mobile devices which features new PenCommands and is also able to hide the Write Pad toolbar. These new PenCommands lets one dial phone numbers, send SMS messages and e-mail, and capture video or still images. By hiding the Write Pad by 25 percent, users get ample careen space and don’t need to squint especially when writing in landscape mode or in devices with small screens.

The CalliGrapher since its inception received a lot of accolades as it analyzes pen strokes written in any application window and transforms then into text via the advanced fuzzy logic and neural net technology. The new software is compatible with devices running on Windows Mobile 2003 based Pocket PC or later. But some features only work with the phone-enabled Pocket PC. The CalliGrapher 8.3 can be purchased from the PhatWare website for $39.95.

For more info head over to the official website:http://www.phatware.com/

ZuCasts not only sounds funky but also promise to change the way we download mobile content. A brain child of the company ShoZU this next generation service delivers a whole gamut of multimedia content directly to the mobile phone. For the first time, photos, video clips and a variety of other professional and user-generated content can be delivered directly to the cellphone on a regular basis without any manual intervention or download downtime. The best part being that you don’t have to manually download the content or wait for the browser to load and there no need to miss calls too. Just click on the ShoZU icon on the menu and voila your content is sitting there waiting to be accessed.

Thanks to ShoZU’s proprietary data replication technology files are downloaded invisibly in the background without affecting your mobile phone capabilities. It also offers camera phone images to be shared and one can send images and comments to a number of imaging sites, social networking, blogs and citizen-contributed photojournalism sites. The service will be available very soon and users can choose from three options:

Multiple ZuCasts from the 2006 Vans Warped Tour, consisting of photo and videoblogs created by Warner Bros.

Assorted ZuCasts from the Buzznet photo/video web community, like user-submitted snapshots and video clips
Photo ZuCasts from the Webshots photo sharing site, including photo of the day, member of the day, best professional photos of the day etc.

The daily episode of Rocketboom, a humorous three-minute videoblog with host Amanda Congdon.
For more info visit: http://preview.shozu.com/

Apple announced the availability of Final Cut Express HD 3.5, everyone's favorite movie making package, now compatible with both Intel and PowerPC based Macs. One of the latest features to come out of this significant upgrade is Dynamic RT for real-time playback of multi-stream effects, a complete suite of pro-level audio production tools called SoundTrack 1.5 and of course, LiveType 2.1 with additional animated text and titles.

With advanced editing tools for DV and HDV video formats, support for multiple video layers and color correction, you get a lot of power in your hands to play with videos. Dynamic RT gives you the ability to view multi-layered HDV video in real-time, thereby eliminating the need to render and re-render clips, cutting down on editing time.

Soundtrack includes over 4,000 royalty-free instrument loops and sound effects to create a custom score for your movies. New features include recording tools with tracks, busses, outputs and others - its like having a professional studio right at home.

Available now from Apple, Final Cut Express HD 3.5 is priced at US $299. An upgrade version costs US $99.

Laridian, Inc a company which exclusively deals with Bible related books has just announced the Pocket Bible® 3 and upgrade to the popular Bible study application for Windows Mobile™-based Pocket PCs. This new version includes additional features which makes it simpler and easy to study the Bible including the ability of highlighting scriptural and other text in 16 different colors and the ability to store notes, bookmarks and highlights

The PocketBible 3 features an intuitive “tap-and-hold” menu for easy access to tasks like changing books, searching, looking up definitions, copying or highlighting Bible text etc and thanks to the continuous synchronization the books of verses stays synchronized. By using the Continuous text feature, one can skip page and chapter breaks in the middle of chapters or books and can divide books into sections like Bibles, commentaries, dictionaries, etc. The new version includes Windows Mobile 5 soft-key support and is priced at $10.

http://www.laridian.com.