OpenMoko has finally made its Neo FreeRunner available to end-users after being in development for quite sometimes. The handset can be purchase for $399 from OpenMoko?s website or via distributor in EU, India, and North America.

The Openmoko Neo FreeRunner utilizes  GNU/Linux and comes with core software for dialing, SMS and recording contacts.  Openmoko will supplement these features with periodic downloads beginning with a software suite that takes full advantage of the phone’s hardware platform. The new software, debuting at Linux world in August, will provide exciting new location based applications.

To accommodate frequencies in different countries, the handset will be available in two models, 850MHz model and 900Mhz Tri-band GSM model. Both phone features 2.8? VGA touchscreen, WiFi (802.11b/g) AGPS, GPRS, Bluetooth, two 3-axis motion sensors and storage of 128MB WSDRAM/256MB NAND Flash.

[via slashgear]

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government declared a state of emergency at the Pompeii archaeological site on Friday to try to rescue one of the world's most important cultural treasures from decades of neglect.

Have you heard of Project Abraham? Us neither. It wasn't until NeoGaf did some sleuthing of their own that they "discovered" it to be a site which supposedly relates to Insomniac Games' Resistance 2.

Arriving on the site, which we have linked below, a video plays showing a woman standing over a man being wheeled through a hospital. So she's worried about the patient, and then the screen blacks out. In its wake, a flat-lining sound is all that can be heard. Then, a Morse code appears at the end, spelling out "Blackout" (if you'd be patient enough to decode it yourself, that is).

The morse codes play a very interesting role in this whole bit, because it was through a Morse code as well that the NeoGaf detectives found out about this site. And the Morse code spelling "Blackout" then will lead you to yet another website. Anyway, the way this marketing is being played out is enough to get us all jittery with excitement.

We won't be keeping you in suspense any longer, so do feel free to check out this Project Abraham site by clicking on source link below. Off to your own sleuthing, then!

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Related Articles:

• Resistance 2 video: Insomniac unveils new gameplay footage and details
• More Screenshots, info on Resistance 2 from E3 Judge's Day
• James Stevenson on Resistance 2: multiplayer madness and more

This summer, a new generation of pocket-size gadgets offer anyone willing to spend $129.99 or more a way to use the Global Positioning System to track the people, pets and possessions they love.

A document in the settled Facebook ConnectU litigation reveals that Facebook?s common shares are worth a quarter of the value of the stock Microsoft purchased when it invested in the social network.

My wife, Lorna Harris, has been busy the past few months with a project she launched in beta last week: Boudica.com, a social news site for women.

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The Sony Ericsson W580i WalkmanImage © Sony EricssonWith so much cutthroat competition in the world of cell phones, standing out in the sea of so many requires something novel. Oftentimes the...

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A lot of people might think Safari on the iPhone is the best mobile browser in the world. Opera though will not take that lying down. The latest version the mobile version of the opera browser will be available to Windows Mobile phones, like the Samsung Omnia, on July 15. Opera 95 is like having your PC Opera browser in your hand and navigated by your finger tips.

For those interested in the HTC Touch Diamond, Opera is preloading 9.5 in the phone. There are more to say about Opera Mobile 9.5 but much are still under wraps.

Via

This is a post from Cell Phones Etc. entitled:
Opera Mobile 9.5 for July 15 | Add your Comments

Drones use AI, not GPS, to frag you
Seed bombs: Make the world greener while forcing your philosophy on others
Incredibly tiny RC helicopter: prototype for Dune Hunter-Killer?
Tokyoflash SPACE WATCH!
Play your Nintendo DS like a Jedi with a Lightsaber Stylus

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday.

The family tree of video game consoles have branched in and branched out over seven generations, and this current generation comprised of the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, and the Wii, is arguably the most heated arena of video game competition yet.

Currently, we're only a brief period into the life cycles of this gen. Both the Wii and the PS3 haven't even reached their second year out. We've seen some great games released for all three, Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360, PS3) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, to name some prime examples. Given that, is it already time to look for a new console in the market?

I don't think so, but then I'm not an analyst. John Stevenson, analyst for Shore Capital, believes that the video game market - in the UK, at least - will reach its zenith this year, and that if we don't see a new console arrive, the market can only decrease in the years to come:

Unless we see new hardware launches into the UK market over the next 2 years, which appears unlikely at present, then we believe profits will peak this year and fall consistently over the following three years.

UK games retailer Game, on the other hand, believes otherwise. According to its chief executive, Lisa Morgan, the market is "absolutely not" at its peak. She remarks that the market is driven by an already diverse set of consoles. Another analyst, Nick Bubb of Pali International, echoes these sentiments: "Given the much broader and deeper range of formats and consumers involved...the games market boom is likely to continue."

Although I disagree with Stevenson's remark, he does pose a chicken-and-egg question worth contemplating on: does hardware sell software, or does software sell hardware? That question may be hard to answer, given the current set of consoles in this generation. What do you guys think?

Buy: [Super Smash Bros. Brawl]
Buy: [Grand Theft Auto 4 (PS3)]
Buy: [Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360)]

There's apparently a new touchscreen handset from LG on the way, and early word is that it's slated to be the Korean phone maker's new flagship phone. So far known as the KC910, it appears to be more camera than phone, shooting at 8-megapixels with a real Xenon flash, face detection, image stabilization and a 480p camcorder function, which is worth noting. It also supposedly has an 800x480 resolution screen, which means it can show 16:9 movies with no cropping, all in a form factor a little over half an inch thick. If they can throw in a few other high-end features like Wi-Fi and a good browser then this handset could out-media the iPhone and be a real challenger, but we're holding our judgment till we've seen it in action. [Electronista, via DC Sources, via Ubergizmo]

The Vodafone Group said it had agreed to acquire a 70 percent stake in Ghana Telecom, the African country?s third-largest mobile phone operator, for $900 million.

Instead of going head-to-head against the world's leading digital music distributor, RealNetworks' Rhapsody has taken the more subtle approach in competing against Apple's iTunes - by embracing the iPod's MP3 format.

Rhapsody advertises itself under the slogan "Music Without Limits". This current strategy ties in with its different partners - iLike, Yahoo!, MTV Networks, and Verizon Wireless - to help connect consumers with digital music wherever they are and however they want it.

Boasting a selection of over 5 million songs from major music labels, such as Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI, the Rhapsody MP3 Store offers tracks for US 0.99 a pop and most albums for US 9.99. Since music purchased off the MP3 store is unshackled by any Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, any tracks and albums bought from it can be seamlessly downloaded into Rhapsody, RealPlayer or iTunes.

It has yet to be seen whether this strategy will indeed reflect a pointed growth for the company. Analyst David Card of Jupiter Research described Rhapsody's new tact into the digital music distribution business quite appropriately by saying: "I think we'll see retailers begin to compete the way they usually compete with pricing, merchandising and promotions, rather than due to some arbitrary technology".

Remember last year's big news about Activision and Vivendi forming a merger? While the proposal sounds a financially enticing at US 27.50 per share offer, there are some shareholders who certainly aren't buying into the whole deal and even filed an injunction request in an attempt to halt the merger.

The injunction suit was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery last February by the Wayne County Employee's Retirement System. For those who aren't too familiar with law parlance (we don't blame you), an injunction is a court order that...yes, blocks a party from doing certain acts. In this case, from Activision merging with Vivendi.

However, Activision has recently issued a statement that the Delaware Court junked the request to stop the merger with Vivendi from happening, and has scheduled a stockholders meeting on July 8, where they will "consider and vote on proposals to approve the transaction." If everything goes as planned in the meeting, Activision and Vivendi will be known collectively as Activision Blizzard effective July 9.

So will we see any game tie-ins between Activision and Blizzard any time soon? How about making the World of Warcraft's Bard class come true?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

It looks like Motorola and Verizon are getting ready to take a third crack at the Q9 form factor, following up the Q9m and Q9c -- and this time around, there's a little something extra in store. On top of the EV-DO Rev. A radio, the so-called "Napoleon" (codename, of course) features GSM, because -- surprise, surprise -- businesspeople who use Windows Mobile devices tend to do just a bit of traveling. It looks like Moto has taken this opportunity to give the Q9 meme a little nip-tuck job, too, with a rounded body and a tastefully-applied ring of chrome around the top edge. They've even tossed in a fingerprint scanner for good measure, a tip o' the hat to the suits who'll undoubtedly populate the upper 90 percent of this sucker's client base. No word on a release date or price, but can we cautiously submit a thumbs-up for the design direction here?

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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile

Some more information has been leaking about in regards to the upcoming BlackBerry Kickstart and thankfully this time it was not another set of blurry images. Instead its some speculation based on just how much RIM is planning to charge for this little clamshell BlackBerry.

We have already heard that it was headed to T-Mobile and it looks like it will land there in September, but the latest information is calling for this to be a very affordable handset. Coming in at just $49.99 with a two-year agreement. Which assuming this is accurate would have it even less expensive than the popular and low-cost Palm Centro. At that price I think that RIM could have a winner on their hands.

Via [CrackBerry] Image [http://blog.berryshack.com/blog/content/new-leaked-blackberry-kickstart-pictures]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Former Intel Chairman Andy Grove has a knack for sensing when circumstances should force changes at a company or an industry -- and how to respond. He even has coined a term for it: the "strategic inflection point." Now the retired chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker thinks the term applies to energy and transportation, where record-high gasoline and oil prices have spurred interest in alternative energy sources and next-generation vehicles. During the past year and a half, Grove has created his own crash course in electric power and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The Moto ROKR E8 will land in Canada soon with Rogers. It’s a quadband phone with a unique FastScroll navigation and Haptics. For a complete description, visit our Rokr E8 page.

The Rokr E8 was announced a while back for July and it’s coming on schedule. It’s priced $149.99 at Bestbuy with a three year contract and $334.99 without.

Thanks Matthew!

This is a post from Cell Phones Etc. entitled:
Rogers ROKR E8 on Bestbuy | Add your Comments

Buy a new printer, and watch its fancy new software befuddle your desktop. Switch to Vista, and - wham-o! - your iPod and PDA drivers go on strike. And God help you if you decide to encrypt your Wi-Fi signals.

Gentlemen, this is for you: Google Maps has unveiled their latest project, voice search for US versions of the Blackberry Pearl 8110, 8120, and 8130. In this newest help to those lost in the urban jungle you will be able to speak the name of the business you are searching for without having to admit to your lady that not only are you lost, but you don’t know how to spell, either.

The feature is still in its experimental stage, but is available at: http://www.google.com/gmm

Three short steps let you test the voice recognition to your heart’s content and the boys at the official Google Mobile Blog are welcoming your feedback. Of course, if you’re so talented that you’ve thought about going pro on the texting circuit, fear not. The typing feature is still available.

[via googlemobile]

Download iPhone 3GP Video Converters for your PC. Includes free software and shareware.

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The authors describe a data exploration system that visualizes time-varying, multivariate, point-based data from gyrokinetic particle simulations. By using two interaction modes, their system lets researchers explore collections of densely packed particles and discover interesting aspects, such as the location and motion of particles trapped in turbulent plasma flow.

There's a neat little rule in press coverage: three stories makes a "trend" even if there's not much more to it. This works particularly well on stories where you're trying to scare people into worrying about something "bad" happening out there. Of course, rather than explore how widespread the problem is, the report usually just quotes a few biased individuals and spreads the message of "fear, fear, fear!" Witness this story in USA Today claiming that sexual predators are using gaming consoles to target kids. It hits all the points: scary situation, lists out three cases, quotes a few police officers claiming it's a big deal -- but doesn't provide any evidence or stats on how widespread this really is.

You would think that the press would have learned to be careful about this, given that a whole bunch of studies came out in the last year showing that the press greatly exaggerated the "threat" of predators on social networks, as they're really not that widespread and the actual threat is minimal. But I guess reality and facts don't sell as many newspapers as blind fear mongering. So, while I'm sure that this is happening in a few isolated cases, it's hard to believe that this is particularly widespread. If it's not really happening much on social networks (where this sort of "grooming" would be easier), it seems unlikely that it's widespread on gaming consoles. And, of course, most kids know better than to engage with such strangers online, anyway.

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At Germany?s new grocery story of the future (already in use by residents of the present) shoppers can use mobile phones to check out while they shop. The store has created free software for your phone that allows you to use your camera to capture barcodes as you shop. Once finished, just press a button and all your purchases come up as a single bar code. Slide your phone under the barcode reader at an automated pay station, and your final amount comes up. Shoppers can then pay using cash, credit or debit cards, or with the touch of a finger, (once you register for fingerprint shopping). The store also features Roger the helpful German shop robot, an automated wine tasting bar and micro chipped meat. Take a tour with the BBC.

Electronic Arts, together with internal studio EA Maxis, have announced the system requirements to run Spore, though we haven't found any indication of what the bare minimums would translate to in gameplay.

The evolution, strategy simulator has been designed to execute on specific system specifications depending on the choice of your operating system and graphics system implementation. The requirements for Windows XP are as follows:

• 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor or AMD equivalent
• 512 MB RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• ATI Radeon:
• 9500, 9600, 9800 and variants
• X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
• X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950 and discrete variants
• 2400, 2600, 2900 and variants
• 3650, 3850 and variants
• NVIDIA GeForce:
• FX 5900, FX 5950 (FX supported only in Windows XP)
• 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800 and variants
• 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950 and variants
• 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800 and variants
• Intel Extreme Graphics
• GMA 950, GMA X3000, GMA X3100
• At least 6 GB of hard drive space

For Windows Vista, players will have to beef up their computer's memory banks to 768 MB of RAM, with all other specifications consistent to those required for running in Windows XP. Gamers on the Mac will have to make sure that their system's algorithm crunching muscle must be on par with the following:

• Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
• Intel Core Duo Processor (unknown speed rating, possibly 1.8 GHz per core)
• 1024 MB RAM
• ATI X1600 (X1900, HD 2400, HD 2600 supported) or NVidia 7300 GT (7600, 8600, 8800 and variants supported) with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
• At least 4.7GB of hard drive space for installation, plus additional space for custom content (storage space requirement subject to change)

Laptop users and gamers planning on running Spore on ITX machines (those with integrated graphics chipsets) may attempt designing creatures while in transit when installed on a mobile, lightweight rig with these specifications:

Windows portion:

• Intel Pentium D 2.6 GHz per core, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz per core, or AMD equivalent
• Intel integrated graphics chipset 945GM and above (965 )
• 768 MB RAM

Mac portion:

• Dual 2.0 GHz CPUs or Intel Core 2 Duo 1.7 GHz per core minimum (may not run if below these specs)
• Integrated Intel GMA X3100 minimum (any lower will present very poor performance)

The hard drive storage space requirements on Apple's side is subject to certain changes, so we'll be updating you sometime soon. Until then, it's time to prep our machines for  Will Wright's major, 10-year spanning global gaming phenomenon which launches on September 7.