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Electricpig: Photo frames were the boom product of last year. The latest picture frames from Kodak are actually multimedia playback devices with speakers for playing MP3s, high-def screens and a new touch sensitive border a little like the iPod touch.

The M820 and M1020 offer 8-inch and 10-inch screens with HD resolution and memory card slots for loading and storing JPEGS just like a normal photo viewer. But they also have speakers for audio playback and a Quick Touch Border that allows you to zip through files by swiping your finger along it.

It looks pretty swish in white, but you can choose from Cranberry Red and silver as well, or buy one of Kodak’s fancy Digital Frame Faceplates to clip on the front. The picture frame genre is evolving…

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PS³: A new survey conducted by Experian has revealed that PS3 owners are the oldest of this generation.

The highest level of appeal for Sony’s console fell among the 44 year-olds and above.

Comparatively, the Xbox 360 was most popular among 35-44 year-olds and the Wii between 18-24 year-olds, although it was noted that the appeal lessened significantly as the age ranges increased.

The study also found that PS3 and Xbox 360 owners were more likely to read video game magazines.

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Crave: If you ever dreamed as a kid (or as an adult) of owning a car like KITT of Knight Rider fame, you’re dream is about to come true … sort of.

Unless you’re rolling in money, you can’t have the actual Trans Am or David Hasselhoff, but you can have the next big thing. Word on the street is Mio Technology is prepping to release a Knight Rider-themed portable navigation system that uses the actual voice of William Daniels (the actor who provided the voice of KITT) to present you with audible directions.

KITT’s soothing voice will also greet you with various phrases like “Hello Michael, where would you like to go today?” and the device features LED “scanner” lights.

The Mio Knight Rider GPS is expected to ship in a few months.

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TMCNet: A new study conducted by ABI Research has revealed that after wireless phones, wireless Internet and wireless home networks, wireless high-definition TV is going to be the hot product. However, the wireless high-definition TV market is still in its infant stage, as less than 100,000 devices are expected to ship this year. The report expects that by the year 2012, a milestone of one million wireless HDTV installations worldwide will be achieved.

The report says that at the moment, a “battle of technologies” is being fought among three technology systems, which are 5 GHz, 60 GHz, and ultra wideband (UWB).

Steve Wilson, principal analyst for ABI, said that 5 GHz technology is better understood and more proven, but achieving the required data rates requires new approaches and more complex solutions. Wilson noted that UWB technology has bandwidth advantages at in-room distances but drops rapidly at greater ranges, whereas 60 GHz allows high data rates, but so far only one company is even close to a viable solution.

Wireless HDTV sets will be simple to be installed, and more flexible to be relocated. That’s why, the initial sweet spot in the market will be where wired installation would be difficult or complicated, according to Wilson. Wireless HDTV will have both commercial and domestic applications, such as a digital signage, and a wall-mounting flat-screen HDTV.

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PC Magazine: The Lplayer from Iriver will seem familiar to some people. At first glance, it looks like a smaller iriver Clix. The two players use the same D*click technology—the company’s term for its innovative, practically button-free design.

You navigate the good-looking interface by pressing down on the sides and corners of the tiny player’s screen. The Lplayer comes in 4GB and 8GB capacities—with lower price tags than both the iPod nano and the Clix. One thing missing from the Lplayer is the Clix’s excellent support for Rhapsody, but for the price, the player offers solid file support wrapped in a good-looking package.

The 2.36-by-1.69-by-0.51-inch (HWD), 1.45-ounce Lplayer is truly diminutive. The nano is thinner, but the two devices’ screens are identical in size and resolution (2 inches, 320 by 240 pixels), and both are easily pocketable. If you want a small device for occasional on-the-go video watching, it’ll do just fine. The only trick is figuring out how to hold the Lplayer so you don’t block the screen, which occupies almost the entire front surface. Also, using the lock switch on the rear panel is essential, so that you don’t accidentally click the screen and pause or fast-forward, for example. The player’s only true buttons, for volume and power, reside on the side panel. There’s a mic for voice recording, a lanyard hole, and a mini USB port for syncing with your PC’s music and video library.

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New York Times: A new report from DisplaySearch, a consumer electronics research firm, warns the industry that if it wants to keep improving HDTV sales, it will need to quickly install some features that are now extra-cost add-ons available only in high-end models.

Built-in Internet access, 1080p resolution, PVR capabilities and upgraded HDMI connection standards need to become standard fare by next year, the director of research at DisplaySearch, Calvin Hsieh, said. “Our research shows that the growth of the market will peak between 2009 and 2011. Thereafter, growth will be limited without the development of new, enhanced features for TVs,” he said.

Fewer than half the digital TVs sold in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East with screen sizes larger than 40 inches have 1080p resolution (Japan has the highest penetration, at 90 percent). And while Internet access is beginning to show up in sets from Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony, among others, once network connections are integrated right into a chip instead of requiring an ungainly add-on box, we’re likely to see more applications that take advantage of the connectivity, Mr. Hsieh said.

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Techradar.com: Delta Airlines is testing a new system allowing customers to check in up to 24 hours in advance via a mobile browser service.

Once the passenger has visited mobile.delta.com, an electronic pass will be downloaded to the phone with an electronic bar code, which can be scanned through the boarding process.

Handheld scanners will be used to verify the bar codes, and will help significantly speed up the check in and boarding times at the airport.

Techradar spoke to British Airways, which confirmed it is also interested in using similar technology.

“The potential for being able to use mobile phones to check in and as a boarding pass is just one of many potential avenues we are investigating,” said a spokesperson for the airline.

“It is very early days regards these investigations and should the potential be of interest we would look to run small scale preliminary trials towards the end of this year”

However, BA did go on to say details of any such trial have not been finalised and will only go ahead should the preliminary investigations prove worthy.

The option could especially attract the business segment of the market, which is exceedingly looking for ways to save time.

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Wired: Sound quality is to a certain extent a subjective matter. One listener’s awesome, thundering bass is another listener’s muddy, low-end nightmare. CNET lab guy Eric Franklin put a number of portable music players through a battery of audio tests using an Audio Precision ATS-2 Audio Analyzer to determine which players sound best, based on frequency response deviation, total harmonic distortion and noise (THD+N), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), maximum power output, and crosstalk.

I’m not surprised that the Creative Zen came out on top, “with a frequency response deviation average under 1.47 dB, a -82.2 dB THD+N average, and a -83.6 dB SNR average.”

Out of all the companies that make MP3 players, Creative is the only one to have been focusing primarily on turning numbers into sound since the early days of the personal computer, with its Soundblaster line of sound cards. The latest version of the Zen is the first flash-based MP3 player to be available in a 32GB version, giving audiophiles another reason to get excited about it.

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Crave: Sharp’s LC-37B20E, landed on our doorstep this morning and we have to say, we’re impressed.

In the past, Sharp TVs could charitably be described as a little on the dull side. The company has made a concerted effort to jazz up its stylings though, and the B20 brings a delightfully slim bezel to proceedings. While it isn’t the smallest we’ve seen, it’s certainly pulchritudinous.

The B20 is no slouch technically either: you get a 1080p panel, three HDMI sockets, component, VGA and a pair of Scarts at the back. We’re thrilled to see Sharp has finally given up on the old shared VGA/component system it used to use, and now has separate sockets for both. You also get optical digital out to connect the TV to a surround-sound system.

Sharp claims a panel life of 60,000 hours and quotes the TV’s contrast ratio at just 1,200:1, which we assume is the native panel number, rather than the ridiculous overblown figures other manufactures seem to pluck out of the air.

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Electronista: Over one million units of Samsung’s Soul designer phone have sold since it went on sale a month ago, the company says. Although limited to just Europe for its initial launch, the device has been one of the most popular phones in recent weeks and has sold better in this early stage than the iPhone managed in the first quarter of the year, when Apple sold 1.7 million units in three months.

The UK alone was responsible for more than a quarter of the Soul’s sales for the month, according to the Korean company, with about 280,000 phones trading hands. Germany also had a disproportionately large number of sales at 150,000.

Despite its origins, the Soul has yet to be launched in Korea and is just now coming to KTF and SK Telecom in the country. China, Russia, and several smaller southeast Asian countries will also have access to the device.

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PC Advisor: UK mobile operators have revealed they are ‘unlikely’ to start charging users to receive calls.

The response came following comments made by European commissioner Viviane Reding suggesting that operators should decide whether a US-style system, in which mobile phone users are charged for calls they receive, should be implemented in Britain.

Vodafone told ZDNet.co.uk: “The likelihood of any new radical pricing is pretty slim”.

Orange and T-Mobile agreed with Vodafone, both stating they had no plans to charge customers for incoming calls while O2 said “any move to such a system [receiving party pays, or RRP] would need to take place across the EU at once, in order not to distort the market”.

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ITProPortal: Samsung is all set to dazzle the cell phone market with its Instinct Touchscreen phone that comes with a surprisingly affordable price tag.

Sprint, a leading US mobile service provider, is making a big marketing push with Instinct and has priced it at $129  to compete head on with iPhone.

Instinct features EV-DO Rev, a speed network for quick Internet Access, a two megapixel camera with an inbuilt camcorder, Bluetooth, 2GB microSD card with expandable memory and many other features.

In addition to this the device can connect to IMAP and POP3 email accounts, surf net, play games and text.

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