WHAT’S NEW
Virgin hopes to ship the first cellphone with a built-in stereo MP3 music player this summer. As usual, users will download MP3 music files to their phone via a PC.
Richard Branson says: “Why carry a player and a separate mobile when you can have both in one small digital device?”
Answers include: because two devices may be less expensive and more convenient than one, and you don’t lose your MP3 player when your phone becomes obsolete.
A New Zealand company, PulseData International, has developed a 1kg electronic organiser for blind users. The BrailleNote, designed by Dr Russell Smith, runs Windows CE and provides word processing, personal information management programs and other features. It offers an 18- or 32-cell refreshable Braille display, and can synchronise and exchange files with a desktop PC running Microsoft Office.
The BrailleNote’s interface has been designed so that blind users can work through options in a linear fashion rather than navigating with a stylus and pull-down menus.
In the United States, Toshiba has announced its first ultraportable with a 500MHz Intel Pentium III processor. Usually these generate too much heat for small notebook PCs, but Toshiba is using a “super cooling” system to distribute heat through the machine. The Portege 3440CT also includes 64 megabytes of memory and a six-gigabyte hard drive