Nokia Morph

The future of mobile phones is this: there won’t be phones as we know it. Looking at the “future” as suggested by Nokia, the concept of the Morph goes way beyond mobile phone technology. Essentially speaking, a “phone” by definition today implies more than just making calls - there is a camera function, MP3 playback and web surfing. Pretty much, by design - a computer.

The Morph is the closest thing to a portable environmental suit: more than calls, it becomes a repository for otherwise useless information like pollution levels, smell analyzers and other such things that require the use of nanotechnology. it can help us locate places and people, be worn as a fashion accessory, and be folded up into something more portable.

The funny thing is that when I re-read what I just wrote, I’m basically describing phones as they already exist today (save for the smell analyzers and pollution level thingees). Cliche as it may sound, the future is not too far away, really.

Nokia N96

Mere mortals will need to wait until the third quarter of the year -- if not longer, depend on their region and tolerance for some probable price gouging in the early going -- to get their hands on the mighty Nokia N96. On the other hand, Mobile-review apparently knows the right hands to shake and eyes to wink to get hold of a prototype unit extraordinarily early, and they're taking full advantage of the opportunity. A few hours of your time devoted to the novella of a review will net you a deep understanding and appreciation for the N96's strengths and follies, but in a nutshell, the site seems to come away with a pretty ambivalent opinion of a device that should be knocking everyone's socks off -- especially for a sticker price that'll hover in the $800 arena. Problems included a penchant for picking up dirt and fingerprints (the price you pay for a beautiful glossy face, we suppose), a cramped nav key layout with the tricky touch-sensitive Navi Wheel front and center, audio performance that wasn't bad but was expected to be far better in light of the dedicated DSP, and a "shovel"-like feel in the hand, a symptom of the phone's generous dimensions. Everyone owes the production version of the N96 a chance to show its true form when it's released later this year -- and hey, at least Nokia's got a checklist of things that need improvement in the prototype now -- so we're keeping our chins up that this'll still make the N95 8GB a proud daddy when it comes time to hand over the crown to the Nseries kingdom.

X4 9850 desktop CPU

Today's benchmark day for AMD's fastest desktop processor -- the Phenom X4 9850. Free of the nasty TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer) bug, the stage is now set for a head-to-head with Intel's best. While it's a significant step forward for AMD, the 9850 proc hardly compares with Intel's best quad-core desktop CPUs. Nevertheless, as PCPer says, "any enthusiast or gamer looking for a ~$240 processor is going to have a fantastic experience with the 9850." We're just happy to see AMD back on track and ready to compete. Now get to it AMD, faster clock speeds and 45-nm processes please? Intel needs someone banging at the door to keep Moore's Law from becoming Moore's Recommendation.

Nokia's Health guard

It is quite an understandable fact that there is an obvious necessity to help the elderly. Due to their age they often get things wrong, so it's almost impossible for them to do everything by themselves. Thus, all of us who do love them and want to keep them around for as long as possible try to use all the means in order to help them. With that in mind, the creators of the "Health Guard" concept for Nokia believe that the best way to keep them around is to track their every movement.

The new gadget designed by Marcela Kawka and Izabela Cichecka represents a two-piece monitoring station that controls (via RFID - Radio Frequency Identification - a technology that uses tiny computer chips to track items such as consumer commodities at distance) what the elderly consume: expired foods, medicine, possible allergens and nutritional information. In case some problems appear you can easily find out an exhaustive explanation for the reasons that caused them. Given concept attaches to any refrigerator and features a detachable RFID reader for trips to the local market, as well as a touch display base with easy to recognize universal icons.

As other features of the gadget are concerned a memo pad and voice recorder for leaving long messages should be mentioned. In addition to that this station has quite a high end design that would probably satisfy both young and old people.

Rogers slated to get Novatel X950D and MC950D data cards

Rogers seems set to sponge as much cake as they can out of your overtaxed mobile pockets with the announcement of two new HSPA data devices, the Novatel X950D and MC950D. We've seen the USB-friendly MC950D pop up before, but as a refresh: it rocks 7.2 Mbps triple-band HSPA, supports most popular OSes, quad-band GPRS / EDGE, and may well still be the world's smallest HSPA USB modem. The X950D, however, will be making its worldwide debut on the friendly Canadian provider's network, and we're sure a goodly pile of Canadians will be whooping it up at this news. Sporting triple-band HSPA, Mac and Windows-friendly, quad-band GPRS / EDGE, Novatel's newest express port product also features backwards compatibility with a handy PCMCIA adapter. Pricing on both is apparently the same: $49.99 on a three-year contract. Of course, with data rates what they are, that $50 is definitely gonna get you in a whole heap of trouble if you don't mind your bits.