Tracks your dog via the web. Is your dog drooling on your pillow?

Did the dog do the "scoot" across your rug while you were away? Which one knocked over the garbage and ate the contents?

We wonder what the critters are doing while we we're away. Mostly out of envy for their comfortable lifestyle as we brave traffic and office politics.

So what are the dogs doing? With a new device called SNIF Tag, dog owners have an opportunity to learn more about their dog’s behavior in real-time and track it over a period of time. Also, be a part of an online dog community. Just put the collar on the dog and hook up the remote device to your modem.

SNIF was founded in 2005 by four MIT Media Lab graduates.

“SNIF Tag not only gives dog owners peace of mind, it also offers a non-threatening way to meet new friends and companions via their dogs’ encounters," says Noah Paessel, CEO and co-founder of SNIF Labs."

Find out how long the dog walker was with Fido and what the dog is doing at doggy day camp.

The SNIF Tag allows dog owners to do the following:• Monitor, review, compare and track activity levels.• Meet new people while dog is out and about through wireless technology built in the stylish tag which is collecting data of other dogs wearing SNIF Tags.AND Much More
The SNIF Tag Starter Kit costs $299.00 and includes one year’s PREMIUM subscription.
More details can be found at SNIF Tag

Here comes the Dell phone

Just as many analysts see a sharp contraction in smartphone sales, world number two PC maker Dell is cooking up a plan to enter the market, reports The Wall Street Journal.

A Dell phone could be released as soon as next month, running Windows Mobile or Google Android.

While most online pundits are questioning the wisdom of Michael Dell’s latest move, pointing to the immediate problems of the slump, NBR’s take is that the move makes good sense in the medium and long term.

The success of the iPhone and AppStore – and, to a lesser degree, the G1 and Google Android – have busted the mobile phone market wide open. The balance of power is shifting from telcos to phone makers, software writers and customers. And more and more people are spending less and less time connecting to the net via their PC, and more surfing or emailing via their smartphone.

Dell is already well-positioned in the fast-growing netbook market, where ultra-mobile, videocassette-sized laptops are shaping up as a major threat to both PC and smartphone (and which IDC has recently tracked as the fastest growing segment in a contracting New Zealand PC market).

With a Dell cellphone, it would be covering every base.

Smartphones good, PCs bad
While some have pointed to a very slow current quarter for net-capable cellphones, IDC sees a unstoppable macro trend in action. The market tracker says 157 million smartphones were sold during 2008 up 26.9% from 2007.

By 2012, IDC expects smartphone sales to hit 301 million.

In contrast, IDC is already recording a slight year-on-year decline in PC shipments, and Dell’s revenue and profit contracted during its last quarter.

Dell phone details
Getting down to specifics, the Journal says Dell has been trialling different phone designs for more than a year in a project driven by two employees poached from ailing Motorola. One design features an iPhone-style touchscreen, the other a slider keyboard. In terms of the OS, the company is said to have experimented with both Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Google’s open-source Android.

A spokesperson for Dell says the company has not committed to any smartphone release.

Internet TV's - high growth track

It seems that every few days new research comes out to suggest that online television is bringing to an end TV viewing as we know it, and the latest came last week from Solutions Research Group.

Among its findings: 50 percent of people now watch at least some TV online, more than double the figure from two years ago.

But what's getting a lot of press coverage is the consulting outfit's finding that online TV viewing is having a greater impact on traditional TV viewing than DVRs like TiVo.

It reports that 70 percent of adults 18-34 have watched TV on the internet, whether on a site like ABC.com or an illegal peer-to-peer site, as compared to only 36 percent who said they’ve watched programs recorded on DVRs. SRG conducted its survey online with 1,200 people 12 years or older.

“There are 71 million broadband households, but only 28 million DVR households,” says Kaan Yigit, study director at SRG.

“If we stop right there and project four or five years out, from an evolutionary standpoint, the online TV piece has a lot more potential impact than the DVR piece.”

But top media researchers are calling that simply hogwash.

“It’s a ridiculous, ridiculous finding that bears no resemblance to reality,” says Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst at Leichtman Research Group in Durham, N.H.

“It’s dead wrong. It’s doesn’t deserve the light of day, but it’s been getting a lot of attention.”

Leichtman disputes the data that conclusion was based on. He says his research findings are in line with Nielsen data that the average person spent 142 hours per month watching TV in third-quarter 2008 and that the average person spent six and a half hours watching programs recorded on a DVR, compared to only two and a half hours of TV online.

“And by the way, only a small percentage of online video is television [programming],” says Leichtman. He estimates that nearly half the viewing is of viewer-created videos on sites like YouTube. “You have to put this in perspective.”

SRG says its research isn’t incorrect but simply a different way of measuring the DVR’s impact on TV viewing than Nielsen’s measure.

Yigit notes that Nielsen measures the amount of time people spend watching TV and using DVRs while SRG measures the number of people with access to DVRs and the internet.

“The key finding is that the notion we had for a while, concerning TV viewing, is that the one key time-shifting device is the DVR, somewhere around 25 percent of homes have one,” says Yigit. “But the implication is that 75 percent of households don’t have one.”

SRG also found in its research that 48 percent of respondents to its survey say they find the internet more entertaining than TV, up from 37 percent two years ago.

Moreover, 69 percent of respondents said they expect that every TV show will soon be available online.

“For the younger generation, in particular, we’re finding that the broadband platform is being used more and more as the primary vehicle for television,” says Yigit.

Apple's Next iPhone - Highend Gaming

The next upgrade to Apple's iPhone will have a strong focus on gaming, analysts and developers agree.

That's because the gaming market is an increasingly juicy segment of the mobile multimedia space — and it's one that Apple's phenomenally successful iPhone is well-positioned to dominate.

"The iPhone and iPod Touch are becoming a major new handheld gaming platform, and if you look at the App Store and look at what's doing well, that's reflecting," said Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, developer of the popular Tap Tap Revenge iPhone game. "I would look forward to improvements in the device as a gaming platform both for the phone and iPod Touch."

Apple made clear its plans to seize the gaming market in November 2008 when Apple marketing executive Greg Joswiak called the iPhone and iPod Touch "the future of gameplay," posing a serious threat to dedicated gaming consoles such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. The reasons? A few things: The quick, electronic distribution method of games and apps via the iPhone's App Store; the accelerometer and multitouch display, which are introducing new approaches to gameplay; and the iPhone's lighter, more portable form factor compared to its rivals.

Numbers say the iPhone is indeed in a position to assault the gaming market. Analysts predict Apple is on track to sell 40 million iPhones or more per year. By way of comparison, Nintendo sold 42 million DS consoles from January 2007 to June 2008.

Add to that the fact that the iPhone App Store has already got the DS and PSP beat in terms of game titles available: When the App Store was just three months old, it had 1,500 games; the PSP and DS had about 600 and 300 titles, respectively.

There are just a few weaknesses the iPhone needs to address before it's truly acknowledged as a serious game device, said Steve Demeter, developer of the Trism iPhone game: Processing limitations, graphic capabilities and memory management. For example, the PSP's advantage as a dedicated gaming device is that its application programming interface (API) is geared toward loading complex textures — a task the iPhone falls short on.

If Apple is serious about making the iPhone a gaming platform, it's a good bet that the next upgrade to the iPhone will address those limitations.

Tero Kuittinen, a Global Crown Capital analyst, agrees that the next iPhone will have enhanced graphics and more powerful processing capabilities. And those improvements will likely be incorporated in a new ARM chip that Apple is developing in-house. In April 2008, Apple acquired semiconductor company PA Semi to manufacture ARM chips for future iPhones.

Other than introducing graphical improvements it's unlikely the iPhone will see dramatic changes. Kuittinen noted that Apple enjoys keeping its interfaces consistent to ensure software is backward-compatible — so forget about a slide-out keyboard or a screen that's either much smaller or much larger than the current iPhone. Developers Decrem and Demeter agreed that Apple will likely be conservative with changes so as not to require software coders to rewrite applications to be compatible with the next iPhone.

One minor change Apple will likely introduce in the third-generation iPhone is an improved web camera with video-recording capability and a flash. Kuittinen said the camera will have to sport at least a 3.5-megapixel resolution in order to compete with Research In Motion, Samsung, HTC and LG, which are already selling handsets with superior cameras to the iPhone.

When can we expect the next iPhone? Considering the first iPhone launched June 2007 and the second iPhone shipped July 2008, the third-generation iPhone should land no later than summer 2009.

At less than 1cm thick it's the thinnest TV in the world and it has just gone on sale

At slightly less than 1cm thick it is the world's thinnest TV and it has just become available in Britain.

But it will cost you: £3,489 to be precise. And it's only 11 inches across.

However, plasma and LCD televisions will soon be a thing of the past as a result of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) - technology that harnesses organic molecules to produce light.

Imagine a TV screen that is almost as thin as a piece of paper, which weighs no more than a few ounces, that is so flexible it could be worn around your wrist and is virtually indestructible.

Previous LCD TVs have been backlit, often with a fluorescent tube behind the screen.

But the Bravia XEL-1 is lit purely by light-emitting diodes which are much smaller.

So the TV is thinner, but the viewer sees the picture in the same way.

Adrian Northover-Smith, of Sony, said: ‘It is incredibly thin – the thinnest on the market.

This telly has a wow factor.’ And for those who’d like to hang the screen on the wall, like a picture frame, trailing wires needn’t spoilt the look.

The model comes in two parts, the screen and a wireless transmitter which can be moved out of sight, with all the cables.

Sony’s next project will be the 'Contrast Flex' OLED Vaio laptop.

The Japaneses firm appears to be assuming OLED will be the preferable choice of display for future laptop devices.

The Contrast Vaio laptop uses a foldable seamless OLED for the display and the keyboard.

The concept has no restrictions on layout and size, and is extremely durable and shock resistant.

Like the other Contrast product concepts, it is made of high performance flexible bioplastic.

Windows 7: Upgraded version of Vista

A year ago, I wouldn't have predicted that I'd be reviewing a public beta test of Windows Vista's replacement this week. And yet here I am, assessing Windows 7 in today's column.

Microsoft deserves some congratulations for moving forward this quickly on Vista's successor. But the speed with which the company has brought Windows 7 to beta status itself constitutes the strongest evidence that 7 won't provide any drastic break from Windows as we've known it.
(Bear in mind that while I don't love Vista, I don't hate it or prefer XP over it; I think all of these Windows releases have serious problems, some more serious than others.) The interface improvements that Microsoft has been showing off since last fall represent welcome changes. The new taskbar tiles both leave more room to display open applications and eliminate the redundant "Quick Launch" toolbar. 7's practice of providing access to recently-opened files via pop-up menus from those taskbar buttons and Start menu items looks likely to be the Windows 7 feature that I'll miss most when I'm not using this operating system. And the new gesture-based windows management tricks sure do make for an impressive demo.

Plus, I will never complain too much about an operating-system update that uses less memory than its predecessor. But other changes in Windows 7 look like they'll only complicate matters. I don't get the "Libraries" concept, for instance; hasn't Windows provided specifically-named "documents," "pictures," "music" and "videos" folders for most of the past decade precisely to group your files by type? Why do we need yet another set of folders to sort our documents, pictures, music and videos? Windows 7's "homegroup" feature seems even more impractical. The idea of declaring a new "standard" that only works in the very latest version of Windows exhibits the sort of kooky arrogance that I thought Microsoft had left behind after its antitrust settlement. Put another way, can't this company do better than to provide a (sort of) zero-configuration home-file-sharing scheme with such restrictive system requirements when an open standard allowing about the same thing has existed for over a decade and has been supported in a competing operating system since 2002?

Microsoft's decision to remove most of Vista's accessory programs also puzzles me. Why yank the e-mail (e-mail!), photo-album, instant-messaging, calendar and address-book applications, but keep the usual folder's worth of games and both WordPad and Notepad (which is itself joined by a Sticky Notes applet)? It's less than clear what kind of rationale Microsoft used before voting some of these programs off the island. Also unclear: how many inexperienced or nervous users will bother downloading the replacements Microsoft offers at its Windows Live site.
And many of the things I didn't like in Vista when I first reviewed it and when I took a second look at it a year later--not to mention the items many of you have complained about here--show no signs of departing Windows 7.

To fix those deeper-seated ailments, however, Microsoft would have had to put in a lot more than two years of work. We might not be able to try out Vista's replacement for another year or two--but at that point, we might see a dramatically improved operating system that could never be mistaken for a Service Pack update to Vista. That's the question I want to put to you: Are you happy to get 7's bundle of evolutionary upgrades to Vista this soon, or would you rather wait longer for a revolutionary improvement to Windows?

Coming soon to a home screen: Pop-out TV

TV makers show off high-definition 3-D screens at Vegas show

IMAGINE TV and even video game characters that are so vivid that you can almost reach out and touch them.

NOW SHOWING: Samsung's PDP 450 TV 3D.
High-definition (HD) TV manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Panasonic showcased new 3-D (three-dimensional) television systems at the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. These screens display images with depth, for that 'eye-popping' effect.
Stereoscopic, or 3-D, imaging works by allowing the human brain to combine two separate images into one with the help of special glasses.
So you can 'see' bullets coming out of the TV and heading straight for you.
At the Vegas event, Panasonic unveiled its 3-D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System. It consisted of a 103-inch plasma screen, a dedicated Blu-ray player that can process two full HD images at the same time and a pair of special glasses.
But it wasn't just HDTVs doing the 3-D tricks at CES, which closed on 10Jan.
Viewsonic, for example, showed off its FuHzion PJD6220-3D DLP projector, which costs US$1,499 ($2,260).

Panasonic's 3-D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System, complete with special glasses and a 103-inch screen.
Gamers eager to transform existing PC games and even photos into 3-D showcases can do so with the Nvidia 3D Vision for GeForce (US$199) - as long as you already own a compatible GeForce graphics card and a compatible LCD monitor like Viewsonic's new FuHzion VX2265wm (US$399).
On the game console front, Sony's PlayStation3 demonstrated video footage of games like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in 3-D - but it was more to show that the console has 3-D capability.
But TV buffs expecting 3-D content to flood the market soon shouldn't get their hopes up. Forget about The Little Nyonya in 3-D, for example.
Japan is the only country right now that has an existing 3-D TV broadcast satellite channel. Sky TV in the UK may launch a similar service this year.
3-D fix now
Still, if you need your fix of 3-D content right now, there are ways to do so.
You can use the Samsung Series4 plasma screens (from $2,599) to play selected PC games in 3-D - as long as you have the right computer hardware and game to start with.
Or hunt down DVDs or Blu-ray titles like Journey To The Centre Of The Earth that conjure traditional 3-D visuals - using old-fashioned red and blue glasses - on existing HDTVs.
But by 2010, you can expect more advanced 3-D content, coupled with special glasses that won't induce a headache.
The Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory Advanced Authoring Center in Hollywood will be working with studios to develop and produce Blu-ray 3-D movies under a new format labelled as 3D Full HD (3D FHD).
So hopefully it won't be too long before there are more 3-D movies in Full-HD quality, coming right at you in the living room.

Talk to the hand! Wristwatch phones have arrived, Australia gets them first

Mention a wristwatch phone and the first thing most people do is make Dick Tracy jokes. It’s no joke however, wristwatch mobile phones are now a reality in Australia and they’re so new, they’re not in retail stores yet. “Dick Tracy had a watch phone 40 to 50 years ago,” said NV Mobile CEO, Anthony Cooke. “Now it’s a reality.”

NV Mobile is an Adelaide-based company that designed wristwatch mobile phones and smart phones in collaboration with Chinese manufacturers. It has been 18 months in the planning and Australia is the test market because the company also has plans to sell the phones internationally. And while the company is currently selling these fully functional mobile phone wristwatches on their website, www.nvmobile.com.au, NV Mobile is also looking to appoint retailers to sell the product. Cooke is convinced that this is the best thing in phones since they went mobile. “In 10 to 20 years this will take over the large screen phones,” Cooke said. “If we didn’t think it would take off we wouldn’t do it.” He could be onto something, LG Electronics recently announced a wristwatch mobile phone at the CES show in the USA. And the two-way wrist radio ‘phone’ was launched in to the Dick Tracy comic way back in 1946, but people are still talking about it today. It clearly made a huge impression.

The Dick Tracy two-way radio eventually evolved into a two-way TV and while two-way TV is not available yet, these wristwatch phones do have TV tuners with global roaming. While the current generation of these phones have analogue TV tuners, a digital tuner is on the way.
“We’re 12 months ahead of what you’re seeing here today,” said Cooke, who also said that he wasn’t concerned that other massive consumer electronics manufacturers might launch wristwatch mobile phones themselves and carve up the market. “Our benefit is that we’re fluid,” said Cooke. “We can change a model in four weeks if required.” Cooke was referring to the fact that large companies often typically introduce one or two models to test a market and will often require months or a year or more to react to the market with new product because of their sheer size and accountabilities. While Cooke said he was not targeting a specific demographic, he quoted sales statistics that 10 million mobile phones are purchased in Australia every year and that the average phone turnover is nine to 10 months. Cooke is aiming for a modest market share, at first. “We’re aiming for 100,000-plus in the first year and then increasing 10-fold after that,” he said. Cooke said that the company’s website will have a retail store locater within 20 weeks, once retail partners come on board to sell the product. He says that the company is also set up to deal with wholesalers, resellers, distributors and retailers.

In terms of future products, Cooke said his company has a water-resistant model but not in this first release. This release does have a model that allows you to unclip the watch unit from the watch band so you can keep it safe on land if you’re going swimming.
Some models in this current range of smart watch phones and smart phones feature handwriting recognition so you can write text messages. Cooke also demonstrated the LCD screen and multimedia capabilities by playing a Matrix movie. The phones are available with a 12 month warranty and a 30-day replacement warranty. The company’s smart phones also have twin sim capability so they can run two sim cards, even from two different phone networks, on the one phone. Cooke also said that the company’s next generation products are 100 per cent Australian designed and he said the company is hoping to manufacture them in Australia as well.