Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Tough times call for tough actions.  It seems in light of all the economic bad news, lower income folks are ditching gadgets to have just one: the iPhone 3G.  Who needs two iPods?  Who needs a netbook?  Who needs a home phone line?

Indeed, one could argue the iPhone is just a tethering application away from ditching your home line, your broadband connection, your cable or satellite company, heck—even books are not able to escape all the niches Apple’s wonder child can get its hands on.  My thinking here is tethering would allow you to use your laptop/desktop via the iPhones 3G connection, so you can ditch the $25 per month + for broadband.

See how many folks continue to flock to the iPhone, ditching other gadgets.

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As with any launch of an intricate smartphone, there are always some problems.  However, it is important that the manufacturers of the phone work quickly to solve the problems of their users.  Within a couple of days of the official T-Mobile G1 launch, there have been several problems, and now many users are posting on the T-Mobile forums saying they are having trouble accessing their e-mail.

Whenever a user tries to send an e-mail, it either doesn’t send or sends as null.  In addition, it is nearly impossible to receive e-mail and this isn’t just associated with one e-mail service, it’s practically tied to all of them, except for one - Gmail.  More after the break.

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Sections: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Web, Google

Better start writing to Santa folks because this one doesn’t come cheap.  Introduced on Tuesday, Motorola’s new AURA might even make Hugh proud.

It sports the “world’s first circular display” and certainly doesn’t lack colors, it has 16 million of them with a 300 dpi resolution. That cyclops display is covered with Grade 1, 62-carat sapphire crystal lens.  What does that mean to you?  The lens is made of one of the most scratch resistant materials on the earth.

Find out more details about this phone including the unbelievable price after the break.

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A judge in Anchorage has ordered Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to save her Yahoo! e-mail account and e-mails used for official state business. 

Another account, set up to handle e-mails between the governor and 15 of her closest advisors, including her husband, was also ordered frozen.  The Alaska attorney general has been asked to retrieve e-mails from the accounts so that the judge can determine why Palin invoked executive privilege by withholding over 1,000 e-mails in response to an open records request.

The Yahoo account was revealed last month after the son of a Democratic state rep from Tennessee hacked into it and posted some of the contents on an infamous hacker site.  More on this story after the break.

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Sections: Communications, Email / IM, Computers, Security, Web, Websites

You know those late night e-mails you send out pleading for your girlfriend to take you back?  Then, you wake up the next morning and remember all the reasons you broke up with her in the first place and think oh my God what did I do?!? and wish there was a big old RETRACT button on your e-mail?  Well, until they come up with that e-mail retract button, they have something else.  Something that will at least sort of slow you down and make you think before you send that pleading missive of unrequited love.  Something that makes you solve math problems.

Yep.  You read that right.  Solve math problems.  See, GMail Engineer Jon Perlow over at Google Labs figured that if you are actually going to sit there and be able to think through solving some math problems, then just maybe you are in fact thinking clearly, and actually do want to send that email and the desire isn’t just an alcohol induced psychosis.  Find out more after the break.

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Sections: Computers, Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Web, Downloads, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites, Google

With all the fun surrounding yesterday’s Android OS event and fondling combined with the lust still embodied by lines still at Apple stores for the iPhone, just how will Windows Mobile 7 compete?  Windows Mobile will not a have a new release for two-straight CESs according to C|NET whose sources say we’ll be waiting a full year before we see something that could possibly have been iPhone-inspired.

Microsoft spills the beans to manufacturers

Word is this delay has been announced to manufacturing partners.  After Microsoft is done with it, the OS has to go to manufacturers for their development and installation, a timely process for sure.  This lag has inspired new rumors that Microsoft may be thinking again about creating their own hardware.  Microsoft, with their proud admission that they “own” the business smartphone market thanks to Exchange integration, should have the cajones to create the ultimate business phone.  Instead, we get crippled, infuriatingly lacking phones that get email.

Click “MORE” to see how the new Android phone figures in to this.

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Because we all need all that extra stuff on our system when we bring it home from the store….right? Yeah. It seems as though Microsoft may actually be making a move in the right direction with this call. Their upcoming Windows 7 won’t include several of those built-in programs for email, movie making, and photo editing like they did include with Windows (*ahem*, memory hog) Vista.

In Vista, Microsoft had included Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, and Windows Movie Maker as a part of the OS; until they later decided to offer separate downloadable Live programs that just pretty much replaced those programs with versions that were able to connect to online services from Microsoft and others. As per CNET, “Last night, Microsoft announced it decided to totally remove those features from Windows 7 and only offer the service-connected Windows Live versions as an optional free download.“

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Sections: Communications, Accessories, Email / IM, Computers, Hardware, Software / Applications, Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle, Peripherals, Displays, Storage, Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites

With last weeks train accident in California, the general public is waking up to how consuming flying thumbs on a small keypad can be.  It is said the engineer on the train was texting instead of doing his job and this contributed to the event.  Could technology have prevented this?

Hands free texting solutions exist
Jott thinks so.  Their voice-to-text software turns your phone into a hands free texting machine, email responder, even voice control for many of Microsoft Outlook functions.  When I spoke with a founder and Jott CEO John Pollard earlier this year, he was extremely excited about their new app for BlackBerry.  Indeed, it is impressive allowing great functionality like replying to emails by voice.  Simple say “reply with Jott” and what you record will be sent off, as simple as that.

Find out how you can use Jott to stay “thumbs off” your phone

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Time Magazine is reporting that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s e-mail account was accessed by hackers. The Wikileaks website has published several screenshots of messages and other data hackers claim they got from one of Palin’s two Yahoo accounts. Palin had already been receiving criticism about her e-mail account after it was revealed she had been using them to conduct government business in an attempt to avoid compliancy and archive requirements, which happens to be a crime.

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Sending nasty text messages about your boss - or sending an email to another company asking about openings - always rated high on the employee risk scale if you were using a work-based account. Never mind the existence of personal email accounts; some workers felt they had a reasonable expectation of privacy even if they were sitting in a cubicle.

The Justice Department and lower courts said no, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has actually ruled in favor of those workers. The court said employers who outsource email and electronic communications to an outside company do not have the right to read those emails just because they’re paying for you to use those services; they have to get your permission first. Of course, all emails kept on internal servers are still fair game.

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