Android-powered Kyocera Milano to be available from Sprint on September 9 for $49.99

Kyocera is planning on releasing a new device to join the Echo in Sprint’s smartphone lineup. The Kyocera Milano, however, unlike the Echo, will forego the unique form factor for a more generic look and feel. The Kyocera Milano will be a midrange Android-powered offering, that will have its price as one of its main features.

Alongside that, though, will also be a side-sliding full physical QWERTY keyboard. So the Milano is clearly aimed at the texting-addicted youngsters, perhaps even to those older who like to shoot an email off their phone now and again.

But other than that, it’s a no frills phone really. Nothing high-end or bragworthy about it, so the early adopter crowd will surely steer clear of it. The Milano will have an 800 MHz processor, a 3-inch touchscreen, a 3.2-megapixel camera, 512 MB of ROM, 512 MB of RAM, microSD card support (with a 2 GB unit included in the sales package), stereo Bluetooth, 3G (no 4G WiMax here), and a 1340 mAh battery. The Kyocera Milano runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

According to the leaked flyer you can see above, the Kyocera Milano will become available at Sprint on September 9 for $49.99 (after a $50 mail-in rebate) with a new two-year contract. So it’s anything but expensive.

Skype From Your Home Phone

Skype has finally built a standalone analog telephony adapter (ATA) (via their FREETALK brand) that you can hook up with your home phone line. Called the FREETALK Connect•Me Home Phone Adapter it is a PC-less standalone Skype device. It's a relatively small device that can be plugged directly into a wall outlet. It's sort of an oversized AC adapter with connectors on the bottom, as seen here:


In the picture above you can see the two-prong electric plug and then a white phone wire (to landline), black phone wire (to phone), and a blue network wire. I'm not sure I like the idea of this device requiring that I hang it against the wall in one of my wall electric outlets. It would have to use the bottom of a two outlet configuration due to the size of this and the wires coming out. I know in my house there are various AC adapters, surge protectors, etc. using up the wall outlets. I suppose you could connect this to the end of a surge protector, but that too is a prime spot and might look ugly/messy with 3 wires coming out of it.



I suppose in theory if you wanted to go 100% Skype you could skip the landline connection and connect the phone port directly up to your home wiring - after disconnecting your traditional phone line of course - you don't want voltage coming from the CO frying your brand new Skype ATA.

I'm not sure the REN (ringer equivalence number) on the FREETALK Connect•Me. I've written about this before, but I'll mention again that most telcos provide enough current to ring five telephones, also known as the standard 5 REN, however VoIP analog telephony adaptors (ATAs) often limit it to just 3 REN. If you connect more than 3 phone devices your phones ringing will be very weak or it won't ring at all. Interestingly, Skype's FAQ says, "A landline is not required to use the home phone adapter for Skype. However Skype should not be considered as a replacement landline service." Doesn't spark confidence, does it? Could be 911-related along with the inherent liabilities. Hence the disclaimer here.

Of course, Skype isn't the first or only one to offer a standalone Skype device that also works with your existing home phone line. There is the Philips VoIP841 or even the ActionTec Internet Phone Wizard which I reviewed in 2005, six years ahead of this product.

Specs:

• Dimensions:
  • Measurements: 95 (height) x 62 (width) x 32 (depth) mm.
  • Weight: 100 gram.
• Connectivity:
  • 1 FXO.
  • 1 FXS.
  • 1 x LAN (DHCP).
• Codecs:
  • G.722.
  • G.729.
  • Skype NWC.

Sony Begins Bid for Tablet Market

First tablet will be available next month, starting at $499.


Sony is launching its first two Android tablets, the first of which is now available for pre-sale and will be in stores beginning next month.

The debut Sony Tablet S starts at $499. With a unique tablet design, it features a 9.4-inch touchscreen display and weighs roughly 1.33 lbs.

Available later this year, the Sony Tablet P has two 5.5-inch displays with a folding design, and weighs just under one pound.

Among the entertainment features, Sony’s Tablets include Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited, as well as “PlayStation certified” gaming including Crash Bandicoot and Pinball Heroes.

According to ABI Research, worldwide annual media tablet shipments are expected reach more than 120 million units in 2015. The firm found that Android media tablets have collectively taken 20% market share away from the iPad in the last 12 months, though no single vendor using Android has been a significant challenge to the Apple technology.

Apple searching for another missing iPhone prototype left in SF bar

Apple is urgently working with police to recover another missing iPhone prototype, this time left in a bar in San Francisco's Mission District.

The new prototype went missing at the end of July, according to a report by CNET.

Apple's security team scrambled to find and recover the missing device to avoid a replay of the embarrassing incident that occured shortly before the launch of iPhone 4, when a similarly misplaced advanced prototype was found and ended up in the hands of Gizmodo, which paid the finders $5,000 and subsequently published photos of the device just prior to its official unveiling.

Two of the individuals allegedly involved with finding and fencing the stolen iPhone 4 prototype last year, Brian Hogan and Sage Wallower, have been charged with misappropriation of lost property and possession of stolen property, but the San Mateo County district attorney's office decided that arguing a case against Gizmodo would be too much work.

Searching for the missing iPhone 5

Apple tracked the location of the missing prototype from the Cava22 bar on 22nd Street in the Mission (pictured below) to a house in San Francisco's nearby Bernal Heights neighborhood. Company representatives contacted police asking for help in recovering the device, which Apple reportedly described as "priceless."

Police questioned a man in his early twenties at the location, and while admitting he had been at the bar said he did not have the prototype or know anything about it. He allowed police to search the house for the device, but nothing was found.

Apple's representatives reportedly offered the man a cash reward for its recovery with "no questions asked," but the man continued to report no knowledge of the device.

Apple never filed a police report detailing the loss (which would have made any reported details of the device public), and has apparently still not recovered the phone. The report noted that the prototype may have been sold on Craigslist for $200, but neither Apple nor Craigslist would comment on the matter.

HDTVs soon to cost less than an iPad

As big-screen high-definition television sets become more and more commonplace in homes across the country, the prices of these sets continues to drop to record lows. 

A recent report from Bloomberg suggests that during this quarter, the price of a standard 42-inch LCD HDTV will average $599 in the U.S. That's a 10 percent drop from this quarter of 2010. By the end of the year that average price is expected to drop to $578. 

In comparison, a 32-gigabyte, WiFi iPad currently sells for $599 and hasn't changed since the first iPad was released in January of 2010. 

Interestingly, all five of the largest TV manufacturers have not earned a profit from their TV businesses over the past year due primarily because of this steep decline in price.

Samsung offered the first 40" LCD TVs in 2002 for prices of roughly $8,000. Sharp's first LCD offerings (45") sold for $13,000.

Former Google China chief raises $180M for startup incubator

Kai-Fu Lee, the former head of Google China, has just finished a $180 million fund-raise for Innovation Works, a startup incubator for he founded two years ago.

Innovation Works is an accelerator for early-stage web and tech companies in China. The firm provides advisement, funding and support services to would-be entrepreneurs trying to get their own startups off the ground.

“Our unique ‘incubation-plus-investment’ model has not only produced a pipeline of high-quality projects but also enabled local early-stage startup teams to grow quickly with the help of our 360-degree mentoring services, in effect creating the entrepreneurial academy for Chinese startups,” said Lee in a release.

In mid-2009, Lee announced he was leaving Google after 4 years with the company. The brilliant computer scientist had been involved with Google.cn since its inception and had previously worked at Microsoft and Apple.

At the time Lee exited Google.cn, China’s struggles with the web were gaining prominence in Western media. The country’s censorship and surveillance program, called the Golden Shield Project drew the rancor of outsiders, while citizens did their best to circumvent censorship software and website bans.

Lee chose this tumultuous time to focus on one of China’s greatest strengths: its human capital. He soon announced he would be heading up Innovation Works, a new incubator just for Chinese startups.

Lee has a much deeper understanding of the Chinese entrepreneurial ecosystem than almost anyone else, and he knew the Western incubator model wouldn’t work in China for a number of reasons, which Lee highlighted in a 2009 interview with VentureBeat.

“Y Combinator would have a very hard time making it in China,” Lee said. “It would have a hard time finding the startups and qualified people to fund. It could interview hundreds and find only two.”

However, Innovation Works has seen definite success in its two years of operation. So far, the organization has incubated 34 companies. Nine of those companies have secured additional rounds of funding from third-party venture capital firms.

Investors in the Innovation Works fund run the gamut from multinational corporations to Silicon Valley elites. These entities include Sequoia Capital, Foxconn, SAP, Motorola, Silicon Valley Bank, Ron Conway and former executives from well-known web properties including Google, YouTube and Facebook.

The Innovation Works fund has been co-founded and co-managed by Innovation Works and investor WI Harper Group.

Stay tuned for an exclusive interview with Kai-Fu Lee on his experiences so far and how he sees entrepreneurship playing a role in the future of China’s Internet.

Keep Stuff Safe on Mac OS X

Whether you’re looking for a way of keeping things safe from potential intruders, family members or housemates, there are various ways that you can do this with your Mac, from installing third party software to making use of the native Mac OS X tools.

Better still, these tips can be used to protect your Mac from use by unauthorized users, and even those that have permission but might be planning on using your computer for some inappropriate moments of solitude.

There is a fine line between spying and controlling your computer, however, but this selection of clever tips and tricks should allow you to keep your Mac under control.

Firmware Password Utility

You don’t want to lock your computer down so tightly that no one else can use it, just like you don’t really want to spend too much time spying on other users (such as children if you’re using Parental Controls [LINK]), so you might like to know that there are plenty of ways to outsmart other users. One way is using the Apple Firmware Password Utility, a great way of preventing unauthorized users from bypassing parental controls. You could combine this with a new DNS fromwww.opendns.com, which can be used for filtering web content by replacing the DNS used by your ISP.

FileVault and Disk Encryption

Another way to keep a check on the data on your computer is to hide it from view. There are different ways of doing this but the best is with the FileVault, a native tool included in Mac OS X.

To set this up, go to System Preferences > Security > File Vault and click theTurn on FileVault option to activate password protected encryption of your Mac’s Home folder. Note that with FileVault activated you will be unable to recover individual files backed up in Time Machine.

For a less universal encryption option, meanwhile, you might instead opt to create a new encrypted disk image on your Mac, an external device or even a USB flash disk thanks to the Mac OS X Disk Utility, also available in System Preferences.

Keep Stuff Safe with Time Machine

Last of all, you might take advantage of the OS X Time Machine backup utility to keep your files and folders safe from unauthorized viewing. Time Machine can be configured via System Preferences > Time Machine. With this open, select the hard disk or network volume where you plan to backup to and use Options… to select the folders that don’t need backing up.

Using Time Machine allows you to restore a backup of any file or folder that has been accidentally deleted or damaged, simply by opening the folder where the file was once found and selecting Applications > Time Machine to wind the clock back. The resulting view will list all previous backups; when you find the file you want, click the Restore button to bring it back.

Sony's Reader Wi-Fi offers multi-touch display, is super light

Similar to what’s happening with tablets, it’s becoming increasingly hard to tell eReaders apart. Sony probably knows this better than most, considering that its own eReaders have fallen by the wayside as the Kindle and Nook have taken over. But can Sony turn the tide?

Enter the Sony Reader Wi-Fi. The latest Reader’s “enhanced” multi-touch display works with both finger and stylus input, the latter of which also allows users to both take notes and highlight text.

At 8.9mm thick and 168g in weight, the latest Reader is far lighter than the Nook, Kobo, and Kindle. That’s a big deal for a portable device — assuming, of course, that its build quality isn’t sacrificed.

With the latest update, the Sony Reader adds Wi-Fi, allowing users to buy books from Sony’s Reader Store or borrow them wirelessly from participating libraries in the U.S. and Canada.

Strangely, the device still offers a series of navigation buttons, few of which seem entirely necessary in light of the eReader’s touch screen. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Available in black, red, and white, the Sony Reader Wi-Fi will sell for $149 when it becomes available this October.