Monday, April 28, 2008

Tessera's OptiML Zoom gets cameraphones 3x closer without moving parts

Oh sure, those with no shame whatsoever can snag a totally sketchy LV 2008 with an attachable zoom lens, but those of us with a shred of dignity are waiting on something better. Enter Tessera Technologies, which is today announcing that its OptiML Zoom solution is available for licensing. Said innovation brings a unique lens design and specialized algorithms to replace "traditional mechanical zoom capabilities," giving equipped cameraphones 3x optical zoom capabilities in a "compact camera module without moving parts." Hailed as the industry's first non-mechanical optical zoom solution, it promises to not degrade images the way digital zoom does, and while it's eager to see handset OEMs pick up the tech and integrate it into forthcoming mobiles, we've yet to hear of any big players jumping on board.


[Via: PhoneScoop ]
[Tag: camera, cameraphone, cellphone camera, CellphoneCamera, optical zoom, OpticalZoom, OtiML, Tessera, zoom ]

PDAmill is giving away all of its PalmOS games for free

ArvaleOver the last few years we've seen the Palm OS platform stagnate while Microsoft, Apple, and Symbian continue to develop their mobile operating systems. Oh sure, there will be a new version of the Palm operating system at some point, but at this point we're not sure there will be any manufacturers willing to run Palm software on their devices.

But here's one good reason to pull your old Palm PDA out of the junk drawer, or even pick up a used one on eBay: Game-maker PDAmill is offering its Palm OS games for free. All of them.

The game developer recently announced that they would stop developing for Palm. And while the company could have continued charging a small fee for some of its excellent video games, they instead decided to give them away.

The games included Arvale, an RPG, several games in the GameBox series which include classics like Solitaire, Mahjohng, Snakes, Blocks, and Cannons, and Snails, which is a turn-based action game similar to Worms.


[Via: Palm InfoCenter ]
[Tag: ]

Newman attempts to revolutionize DAP controls on MOMO-X2


For Newman, it wasn't enough to knock off an iPod nano from years past. Oh no, it had to replace Apple's iconic click-wheel with a prominent "N" on its MOMO-X2, just so it's absolutely clear what PMP is being aped. In all seriousness, we reckon that letter has more to do with the company's name than anything else, but it's fun to pretend every now and then. On to specs, you'll find a 1.5-inch display (176 x 132 resolution), a still-very-familiar opaque white / chrome motif, support for MP3 / WMA files, Microsoft's PlayFX capabilities, a FM tuner, text / photo viewer, USB 2.0 connectivity and 2GB of internal storage space. On paper, we'd say that's not too shabby for 399CNY ($57), but the street cred you'd lose from toting this around would be far, far more costly.


[Via: PMPToday ]
[Tag: china, chinese, dap, knockoff, mono-x2, Newman, playfx, ripoff ]