Plenty of digital cameras offer a panorama mode, allowing you to take several successive photos, side by side, using on-screen ghosted images to help you line them up. The camera stitches them together.
T-Mobile’s Motozine ZN5 cellphone/camera, however, takes the screamingly obvious next step: It snaps the second and third shots of the panorama automatically at the right moment as you move the camera into position. Why should you have to eyeball the adjacent part of the scene if the camera is perfectly capable of it?
LG DECOY
A cellphone is a great idea. A Bluetooth earpiece is a great idea. Put them together, and what do you have? A lot of hassle. Two things to keep charged, two things to track and pack. The genius behind the LG/Verizon Decoy cellphone, then, is that its Bluetooth earpiece clips right into the phone itself. You can’t lose it, you don’t have to “pair” it, and, of course, the earpiece charges whenever the phone does.
THE CELLPHONE APP STORE
What a concept: an online software catalogue, stocked with thousands of wildly creative, visually stunning, free or cheap new programs that download directly to your phone, no computer needed. It began with Apple’s iPhone App Store, then spread to the Google Android market; the Palm App Store opened next and the BlackBerry Store opens in March.
An app store turns the smartphone into something completely different: a pocket laptop, a stamp of individuality, an indispensable companion. It becomes the reason you buy one of these machines in the first place. And by making room for those 10,000 individual great ideas—the apps themselves—the cellphone app store takes the trophy as the Tech Idea of the Year.
Good night, everyone!
©2009/ The New York Times
Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com
CONNECT
KNOW
Want to completely wipe all the data off a BlackBerry? One simple but repetitive way is to lock the phone and then type the wrong password 10 times. If there’s no password set, or you want to clear the data faster, click Options on the Home screen. Depending on which version of software is on the phone, select either Security or Security Options and then General Settings. Next, choose Wipe Handheld and then Continue. Type in the word “blackberry” (without the quotation marks) and press Enter to erase all the data. Research in Motion or RIM, has other methods on its website. ©2009/The New York Times
Do
A little Apple-centric device might just be the device you should have the next time you’ve had one peg too many. The iBreath ($79, from DavidSteele.com), an iPod-iPhone accessory, turns Apple’s devices into a portable breathalyzer-type gadget. Blow into a flip-out tube on the iBreath and voila! It estimates your blood alcohol concentration. The small device, which attaches to the iPhone’s dock connector interface, may not be as accurate as the one the police uses, but it’s a good idea to hand over the keys if the iBreath says you’re over the legal driving limit, or edging into headache territory. ©2009/The New York Times
Write