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Absolute Gadget: It would seem that just about everyone who’s anyone is lining up to kick the iPhone. A new report from a Chicago-based usability consultancy reckons that texters have a hard time using the phone’s new touch screen. According to researchers at User Centric, their study found that while overall design and usability of the iPhone was good, the iPhone’s touch keyboard was a weak point for many users.

Around 60 users were asked to enter specific text messages and complete several mobile device tasks. Twenty of these participants were iPhone owners who owned their phones for at least one month. Twenty more participants were owners of traditional hard-key QWERTY phones and another twenty were owners of numeric phones who used the “multi-tap” method of text entry.

The results found that when compared to hard-key QWERTY phone owners using their personal phones, iPhone owners’ rate of text entry on the iPhone was equally rapid. However, iPhone owners made more errors during text entry and also left significantly more errors in the completed messages.

While iPhone owners made an average of 5.6 errors/message on their own phone, hard-key QWERTY owners made an average of 2.1 errors/message on their own phone. iPhone owners also left an average of 2.6 errors/completed message created on the iPhone compared to an average of 0.8 errors/completed message left by hard-key QWERTY phone owners on their own phone.

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Tech-On: Canon has decided to acquire Tokki Corp, a manufacturer of OLED display manufacturing equipment, as its subsidiary. Through the alliance with Tokki, Canon looks to greatly accelerate OLED display development.

The company is also holding high hopes for synergy Tokki could bring to Canon Anelva, its subsidiary manufacturing vacuum film forming equipment for semiconductors and flat panel displays.

Tokki has been primarily engaged in the development, manufacturing and sale of OLED display manufacturing equipment and thin-film solar cell manufacturing equipment.

OLED displays use organic, or carbon-containing, compounds that emit light when electricity is applied. Unlike liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, they do not need backlighting, making OLED panels slimmer and more energy-efficient.

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All About Symbian: The latest Nseries, the Nokia N82, has been formally announced. The N82 features a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a Xenon flash, and assisted-GPS. The N82 boasts and impressive ray of connectivity options: quad-band GSM, WCDMA with HSDPA at 2100 MHz, WiFi and Bluetooth. The N82 is available immediately in key markets and sells for an approximate, pre-tax, unsubsidised price of 450 Euros.

The N82 features a 5 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. This is the same camera module as that found in the N95. Instead of an LED based flash the N82 has a Xenon based flash. This is more powerful and should give better picture in low light situations. The camera is also reportedly much faster to start and to capture pictures.

Nokia describes it as the ‘best cameraphone on the market’ and a ‘creditable alternative to stand alone cameras’. The camera also supports shooting video (at VGA resolution at up to 30 fps). There is an on device editor for both still images and video (video editing more basic than N95).

The N82 will ship with Share Online pre-installed. This allows for one click upload to Flickr and other web services. There’s also the usual XpressPrint support which allows you to print photos via Bluetooth (to supported printers) or via USB (PictBridge compatible printers). You can also order prints online directly from your phone.

There’s an on board accelerometer to enable automatic rotation of the user interface. When you turn the phone from portrait to landscape orientation the UI will automatically change (user configurable). This is also used to automatically rotate photos to the correct orientation when you capture them.

The screen is a 2.4 inch QVGA screen with support for 16 million colours.

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TGDaily: Sony will be the first to release a Blu-ray Disc movie title using new technical specifications, including a feature that memorizes all the content that has already been accessed on the disc.

Resident Evil: Extinction on Blu-ray will hit store shelves on January 2, 2008 in the US, bringing with it a handful of brand new special features. Among those are a picture-in-picture video commentary and “Blu-Wizard 2.0″. The latter feature is an updated version of the menu organization and layout, which has been underwhelming up to this point.

The new feature also will allow the player to remember every scene and every special feature that has been watched, even after the disc is ejected. The new technology is based on Profile 1.1.

BD Profile 1.1 is a new standard that all Blu-ray player manufacturers will soon have to accommodate. Unfortunately, some existing players will not be able to access the new special features, including the Playstation 3. However, Sony has previously said that it will release a firmware update to fix that problem.

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VNUNet.com: Orange has unveiled what it claims is the world’s first solar-powered Bluetooth headset.

The Iqua BHS-603 Sun Bluetooth headset draws its power directly from the Sun, and offers ecologically friendly use free from any charging devices.

The 14g device fits directly into the ear and offers 200 hours of standby time and nine hours talk time in complete darkness, according to the company.

Orange said that the headset is compatible with a range of PDAs, Bluetooth-enabled PCs and mobile phones, including Apple’s iPhone.

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Digital Home: A recent Motorola survey has found that more people would rather watch college or professional football game on a high-definition television than in person.

The survey, conducted among more than 1,000 adults in the U.S., found that 45% would rather watch the game in HD versus than watch the game in person.

Only one in three respondents (or 32%) indicated they would rather watch a college or professional football game in person. Just under one in four (23%) had no preference.

“The survey results really speak to the popularity of high-definition programming,” said Doug Means, Motorola corporate vice president and general manager, Home and Networks Mobility.

The survey also found that more men than women would rather watch football on a high definition TV than in person (51% of men vs. 41% of women).

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VNUNet: HTC has unveiled the Touch Cruise phone, the third in the firm’s portfolio to feature built-in GPS and TomTom mapping in a 3G-HSDPA handset.

The HTC Touch Cruise features touch-sensitive TouchFLO assisted fingertip navigation, which allows users to browse web pages, documents, messages and contact lists, as well as GPS for personal navigation.

The smartphone builds on the HTC Touch and Touch Dual models and comes with a 2.8in screen and runs Windows Mobile 6.

The handset also features HSDPA 3.5G connectivity in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, plus a 3-megapixel auto-focus camera, FM radio and Micro SD memory card slot for adding to the 128MB Ram.

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Korea Times: Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest liquid crystal display (LCD) television maker by sales, has revised upward its sales target of LCD TVs by 60 percent to 20 million units in 2008.

Experts say that the global LCD TV market will continue its current bullish move next year, spurred by a demand and supply imbalance.

Samsung is expected to sell 13 million LCD TVs by the end of the year, up 6.2 million units from the previous year, according to the company.

“We are close to changing our sales target for next year but this forecast is persuasive as Samsung has been expanding its presence in Europe, North America and Asian emerging markets, including China and India,” a Samsung spokesperson said Tuesday.

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NaviGadget: TomTom just announced a new traffic service called TomTom High Definition Traffic – only avaiable in the Netherlands so far. The service is a collaboration between TomTom and Vodafone, where anonymous GSM signals is merged with existing traffic sources to deliver traffic data that covers 10x the roads, 5x more updates then regular traffic services.The first device to offer the high def traffic service will be TomTom ONE XL HD and it will be available in the Netherlands middle of this month. It’ll come with 12 months of High Definition Traffic subscription and will cost 400 €.

Here are the features of the device:

• Highly sensitive GPS receiver
• 4.3 inch full TFT colour LCD touch screen (480 x 272 pixels, 64.000 colours)
• Internal memory 1 GB
• GPRS Modem with built-in SIM card for live data connection
• SD slot (only for additional maps, SD not included)
• Internal Lithium-Ion battery (2 hours operation)
• 119 x 86 x 27 mm
• 230 grams
• Map Coverage: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, San Marino, Spain (+ Canary Islands), Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City

Here is how HD Traffic collects data:

• Traffic data generated by the movement patterns of mobile phones in cars, via Vodafone’s Dutch GSM network
• Third party information provided by traffic authorities and road operators

Vodafone’s network delivers traffic data to the TomTom XL HD Traffic every three minutes, twenty times an hour which is compared to RDS-TMC traffic info is five times more often.

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Rapid TV News: Satellite operator Hispasat is working on a project that it hopes will enable the company to lead the high-definition TV sector in Spain.

The project is aimed at integrating all of the technologies applied to HDTV.

At the moment the Spanish satellite operator only distributes the signal of nationally-produced HD channel Canal AD. This channel transmits in the clear and is produced by Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales-TSA, Telefónica’s division for the production, editing and distribution of television content.

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Mobile Magazine: While there have been numerous upgrades in the world of camera phones, they’re still not up to snuff with their standalone counterparts. There are tips, tricks, and hints that will help improve the quality of your camera phone-fueled snapshots however. A recent guide was released that outlines a few of these pointers, and while some of them sound pretty obvious, you’d be surprised how many people don’t pay attention to these factors.

The guide describes eight tips in all.

1. Hold it steady: The lens on a camera phone is small, so it’s very prone to camera shake. When you press the shutter button, you inevitably move the phone just a bit, resulting in blurry shots. Try to stay as steady as possible.
2. Watch the light: This refers not only to the quantity of light (dimly lit shots typically suck), but also how the light is arranged. Be aware of the primary light source.
3. Get close: Get as close as possible to your subject, because the resolution just isn’t there to handle faraway objects. This also minimizes the effects of camera shake.
4. Pose people: Less movement results in clearer shots.
5. Edit later: The built-in image editing software in camera phones is “rudimentary at best.” Use PhotoShop on your computer instead.
6. Keep your lens clean: Pretty self-explanatory.
7. Use the highest resolution: We all know that you can’t go wrong with more megapixels.
8. Take lots of pictures: When it doubt, give yourself as many options as possible.

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PMP Today: Since we’ve established that Zune 2 is a worthy iPod rival, it is now time to search the globe for a Zune 2 rival.

The new Artamys R-RM 850 PMP uses an LG-like touch-sensitive buttons. It boasts a 2.8-inch 320 x 240-pixel TFT screen and plays AVI, XVID, WMV, RM, RMVB, DAT, FLV, MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC, APE, JPG, BMP, GIF, TXT. It’s also equipped with an FM radio and USB 2.0.

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