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Engadget: The United Nations communications chief has boldly predicted that half of planet Earth’s population will be hooked on some sort of mobile phone before 2009 dawns.

Granted, the numbers he’s talking about do look strictly at subscriptions, so a small percentage will be skewed by those with multiple accounts (and thus, multiple numbers), but really, the forecast isn’t all that outlandish.

After all, we already hit 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions back in November of last year (and 4 billion lines overall). As predicted, it’s growth in developing regions such as Africa and the Middle East which will boost the overall figure the most.

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Telecompaper and IntoMobile: Mobile handsets and accessories provider LG Electronics and Prada have declared that the global sales of the Prada Phone (LG KE850 Prada) by LG have reached 1 million units.

This is in advance of the much-rumoured follow-up device, the LG Prada II, that might be launched for Christmas.

The Prada II will reportedly feature a 5 megapixel camera and 3G connectivity.

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Wired: Look what Griffin did! It’s another iPod dock, but this time it’s actually useful.

The Simplifi comes in at $70 (48 Euro), but for that you get to toss out your media card reader and your USB hub. There’s also an AC adapter for juice-sucking, bus-powered hard drives or to charge your iPod without the computer.

Our one complaint? That frickin’ blue LED on the front. Why? I really don’t need to bathe my bedroom in a cool blue flicker as I try to sleep.

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Shiny Shiny: Cheap and chic are the two words that describe Intempo’s 12W iPod/MP3 iDS-01 Unplugged speaker dock.

Nothing seems to have changed much from the original model apart from what the name implies – it’s now a wireless bit of tech.

Now you have the option to fill it with four AA batteries and get around 20 hours playback, or plug it into the mains when enjoying the sounds of your music indoors. It’s compatible with all iPod models, although bad news for Shuffle owners – it won’t charge your device.

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Electronista: Samsung on Friday stepped up its efforts to lead touchscreen phones with the launch of the AnyCall Haptic 2, the second generation of its device in one year to rely on its namesake vibration feedback technology to simulate physical button presses on its screen.

The quick follow-up to the March original is distinguished by its customization: users can personalize the vibrate mode and have access to more than three times the number of widgets on the home screen for quick access to weather and other info.

It also brings a much sharper five-megapixel camera with flash and image stabilization as well as built-in storage of either 4GB or 16GB depending on the model.

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T3: With built-in WiFi for streaming AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA and Flac files from a PC or Mac, and accessing hundreds of digital radio stations, the S-52 is more music hub than DAB radio.

And by displaying track titles on screen, it’s a better iPod dock than most.

Producing a warm, smooth sound, with bags of detail and good bass, performance doesn’t disappoint and fills a fairly large soundstage.

Unfortunately, with its hideous radiator grill front, you’re more likely to keep it hidden – it’s feels like Denon spent so much time cramming in features, they forgot to make it look remotely attractive.

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Crave: According to new numbers from Nielsen VideoScan, Blu-ray’s market share in the video disc market has slumped in the past week. While Nielsen releases its numbers on a week-by-week basis, and a one-week decline isn’t a huge deal, this could indicate a rough holiday season for Sony’s hi-def format.

If you’ve been keeping up with us, you already know that this comes as no surprise. Except for home theater enthusiasts, most buyers are fine with the video quality (and affordability) of DVD. Factor in the floundering economy, the high cost to adopt the technology, and the number of alternatives to view video content via rental models, video-on-demand, and the Internet, and the numbers make sense.

Nielsen VideoScan’s numbers show a drop to an 8 percent of the overall market–DVDs making up the other 92 percent of the market share.

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Electronista: Earlier this week, ViewSonic unveiled its latest LCD HDTV, the 22-inch N2201w.

The HDTV’s most notable feature is its built-in DVD player, with a side-loading slot.

ViewSonic is also touting the 1080i-capable HDTV as a three-in-one display, as it can connect with PCs to act as a monitor in addition to its TV and DVD functionality.

The 1680×1050 panel itself features a 5ms average response time and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio.

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Unwired View: You can now officially kiss commercial-driven mobile TV goodbye with the LG-HB620T mobile phone, the first in the world to offer DVB-T or Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial, the cost-free free cousin of Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H).

The LG-HB620T is set to be released first in Germany, and O2, T-Mobile, and Vodafone, will be among the first ones to get it. France, Greek, Czech and Austria are also possible targets for a consequent launch, where DVB-T is a commercialized service.

This handset, of course, is also more than just a ticket for free mobile TV. It’s also a high-speed mobile with HSDPA network support, and this is complemented full-blown Internet browsing on its 2-inch screen.

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Sony Insider: Sony Japan has taken the wrapper off a new set of headphones aimed somewhat at the consumer whom want something a little better than the usual budget offerings.

The MDR-XB700, MDR-XB500, and MDR-XB300 give the user a true sense of acoustic enclosure, and deliver powerful bass sound. The real selling point of these headphones is a new design that hopes to reduce ineffective sound passages, which allows sound to escape somewhat before it actually reaches your ear.

Sony has also introduced several vibration-proof characteristics to the drivers within the headphones to ensure optimal clarity in sound. While these won’t outperform an average set of Audio Technicas, most people will probably be stunned at the quality of these headphones.

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Register Hardware: A large HD telly is the norm these days, but Casio has created a tiny screen that, it claims, crams in the highest ever number of pixels per inch.

The 2in, 960 x 540 x RGD “quarter HD” LCD panel is capable of rendering 16.7m colours.

It uses a Casio-developed technology called amorphous silicon thin-film transistor (a-Si TFT) that squeezes 546 pixels into every inch of screen. Today’s LCDs have anywhere between 67 and 130 pixels per inch.

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CrunchGear: Sick of batteries and the burden that batteries carry? Here’s a hand-cranked MP3 player called the Eco Media Player Revolution.

It’s the successor to the original hand-cranked Eco Media Player.

This new one handles music and movie files in AAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, MP4, and WMV formats and features 4GB of storage.

There’s also an FM radio, photo album, ebook reader, and an expansion slot that’ll allow to add a 4GB SD card. One minute of winding will get you 45 minutes of MP3 playback and you can even recharge your mobile phone by plugging it into the player itself.

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