Tech.Wapline

Picture-in-picture functionality on a phone is certainly not without precedent — on Korean handsets, anyway — but that doesn’t mean we have to understand it. Watching even a single show on screen the size of a thumb remains a tough sell in many parts of the world, let alone two shows side by side. Alas, this game plan must be working out alright for LG and Samsung since they keep pumping out handsets that rock the feature. Latest is the SCH-B710 from Samsung, a rather portly-looking pivot phone with a pair of DMB tuners and the aforementioned picture-in-picture functionality for individuals afflicted with particularly brutal forms of ADD. Thanks to Anycall branding, we know this one’ll stay well within Korean borders, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the form factor head elsewhere by a different model number.

 

Are you one of those Windows Mobile handset VoIP hackboys / hackgirls (wireless Skype, anyone)? How about that voice minute-less wireless VoIP on that Orange or Vodafone Nokia N95 handset? Wait, let’s go back a bit — right back to that Nokia S60 flagship handset in Europe. It appears that Vodafone and Orange in the UK have removed an important feature from carrier-branded N95s there. In what can be considered one extreme example of handset crippling, the two carriers have apparently stripped the N95 on store shelves of is VoIP capability in an attempt to preserve voice revenue. The solution — as always with GSM carriers — is to buy the more expensive, unlocked N95 and install your Symbian VoIP client of choice. Did we say we can’t stand carrier-branded madness like this?

OCZ may have recently laid claim to the title of some of the world’s fastest RAM, but Samsung seems to have found room to do a little boasting of its own, trotting out its first 4GB DDR2 DIMM based on WSP (or wafer-level-processed stacked package) technology. According to the company, that process not only makes the module smaller, but faster and more energy efficient as well. Not so clear, unfortunately, is what effect the seemingly cure-all technology will have on pricing or availability, with no word on either from Samsung as of yet.

[Via PCLaunches.com]

Looks like the first of LG’s phones with Google — not Google Phones — just peaked out from under the velvet cloth. Meet the LG-KS10, a WCDMA/HSDPA slider bringing a full-blown Symbian OS. We’re talking 2.4-inch LCD, 2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, and multimedia playback when this pup hits Italy in April and the rest of Europe and South East Asia before the year is up. Come to think of it, this is the same “Joy” S60 slider we saw back in October sporting a full xHTML browser and microSD expansion.

LG is prepped to do for live TV what the Rumble Pak did for game controllers. That’s right, LG is partnered with MBC (think NBC, with an “M”) to deliver what they’ve dubbed “3D broadcast technology” in S.Korea. No, we’re not talking about TV mapped along the ol’ X,Y, and Z axes. Instead, the duo is hawking two dimensions of image and a third D of haptic feedback. By using “control signaling technology,” broadcasters can rattle your phone just as the ball is buried in the net during the latest World Cup qualifier. They can even flash LEDs in sync with the ensuing melee of drunken fisticuffs. Best of all (we think this is good news), the technology is not limited to S.Korea this time; it’s patented in 20 countries and is “applicable to all mobile broadcast methods” including DMB (of course), MediaFlo, DVB-H, and presumably any annoyingly late-to-the-game version of mobile DTV the ATSC folks might spew forth.

[Via Telecoms Korea]