New SE P910i P950i leaked

Gizmodo are reporting that Ubergizmo has been served with a Cease & Desist letter for revealing pictures of the new Sony Ericcson P910i P950i update, codenamed 'Hermione'. Update: It seems Gizmodo received a C&D themselves, but unapologetically ignored it. Ubergizmo got the picture from the French site MobileMag (who appear to have removed the offending article). The images are apparently from an Orange (France) internal presentation.

From the image we can see that the phone features a slick new all-silver look, as well as a prominent new central directional keypad. Other obvious differences include a forward-facing camera aperture (presumably the original aperture is still present on the rear of the phone). Other improvements supposedly include 3G UTMS connectivity and a 2 megapixel camera.

Comment:
This looks like a solid update. 3G will be a welcome speed upgrade, provided you live in an enabled area. It never made sense that a high-end phone like the P-series was limited to crawling along at GPRS speeds. And the 2MP camera is a drastic improvement over the current VGA resolution which again was a notable weak point in the P910 specs. The directional pad doesn't sound too appealing here, but some may prefer it over the scroll wheel.

Update: More info via Gizmodo, and collected here.

Failures on Google

This has been getting some attention recently - do a search for 'failure' in Google. The results are surprising (or not, depending on your point of view):

Cabir finally spotted in the wild!

Mobile anti-virus software makers must be deliriously happy. The mobile virus Cabir (covered earlier) has finally been spotted in the wild. Although the article mentions previously reported infections at the Live8 concerts, Google was unable to find any reports of it. Cabir still only affects Series 60 phones, and unless you're in a crowd of thousands is still not any kind of serious threat.

Video on your old iPod

Using the magic of iPodLinux you can now play videos on your third-generation (or earlier) iPod! These are the greyscale iPods, and there is not (yet) support for sound, but amazing stuff nonetheless!

Google Maps vs. Virtual Earth

Whilst reading today's Ars Technica article on censorship of security-sensitive areas in Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth, I rediscovered something I had vaguely noticed on the day of Virtual Earth's launch, but had not investigated due to the sluggishness of the Virtual Earth servers (the speed issues have since been addressed). You can see what I mean in these side-by-side pictures of Washington DC's Capitol Hill Reflecting Pool - both images are at maximum magnification:


(Google Maps is on the left, Virtual Earth on the right. Click to enlarge.)

As you can clearly see, maximum magnification on Virtual Earth is significantly 'closer' to the ground. Even though the two images are clearly from the same satellite photo (note the positions and colours of the cars on 3rd Street, just to the west of the pool) the Virtual Earth image is of considerably better quality. Now all we need is for Virtual Earth to expand outside the US, but apparently that won't be long now.

eWeek embarrasses themselves

The venerable eWeek, normally a fairly reputable online news outlet, embarrasses themselves with an apparently serious comparison of Apple's OS X Tiger and Microsoft's Windows Vista. What's that I hear you say? What sense does it make to compare Tiger, which has been available for 6 months, with Vista, which will be available in 18 months? That's a very good question, and one to which I know no answer.

Mighty Mouse!

Apple introduces the Mighty Mouse! I first learnt about this $49 USB mouse via Tech Ronin, and after reading a little more, all I can say is that it sounds great! You've gotta hand it to Apple, they don't do things by halves.

Buttontastic
As you can see in the image, the Mighty Mouse keeps Apple's favoured 'simple mouse' philosophy. They have kept the appearance of a single mouse button, but by using the touch sensitive technology used on the iPod's scroll wheel users can assign the left and right forward quadrants to react as left and right buttons. This is apparently customisable, so presumably a single button will still be the default behaviour. In addition to the touch-sensitive main buttons, the mouse also has two old-fashioned buttons on either side of the body. The idea is that the user squeezes the mouse to activate a user-defined function (this is likely intended for Exposé ). A good idea, but perhaps a step too far in attempting to be original. The squeezing motion certainly doesn't sound all that comfortable, and apparently the buttons are not individually programmable. I think simply adding a third button assignable to Exposé might have been a simpler and less RSI-inducing approach. Speaking of third buttons, the division of what is presumably a single large touch-sensitive area into two sections seems purely arbitrary. Look out for unofficial hacks to divide the touch-sensitive area into three or more discrete 'buttons'.

Balls to that
Not content with simply improving button aesthetics, Apple have also taken the scroll wheel concept a step further by implementing a "Scroll Ball". Don't get me wrong, scroll wheels are great - I don't function well without them. But the current implementations for scrolling sideways - such as positioning the cursor over a window's horizontal scroll bar before using the scroll wheel - are simply unsatisfactory. Granted, Apple themselves appear to concede that the scroll ball will only work in certain 'scroll-ball-enabled' apps - iPhoto, iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro, GarageBand and Logic Pro are mentioned by name on Apple's Mighty Mouse page. The ball does not seem to be pressable in the way some scroll wheels are.

Click chirp beep swoosh
Yet another (as far this technology geek is aware) "innovation" is embedding a speaker into the mouse. This is to provide audible feedback of various mouse functions, primarily clicking to add feedback to the touch-sensitive 'buttons', but likely also including scrolling and dragging. This will clearly be divisive, with some loving and some hating it. Hopefully users will be able to control the volume, if not completely silence it if they wish.

Still smilin'
Apple have been seen exercising their sense of humour in public on a few occasions recently, but giving a high-profile product a name like Mighty Mouse takes the cake. For those of you too young to remember, Mighty Mouse was a superman-clone (but obviously a cartoon mouse instead of a being from Krypton) who featured in an eponymous Saturday morning TV show with its origins in the 1940s. This was incidentally a particular favorite of mine as a pre-teen. Apple credit the Mighty Mouse name on their page, with acknowledgment going to Viacom International. Interestingly, while 'borrowing' Apple's image of the (computer) mouse used at the beginning of this article I noticed that the name of the JPEG file was "mightymousehero". Which I thought was a nice touch. :)

Why no blue teeth?
The burning and obvious question - why isn't this mouse Bluetooth capable? Some are speculating (fairly wildly in my opinion) that Apple are waiting to sell a few million of these mice before introducing a wireless version. That doesn't quite ring true - I see a design issue as carrying heavier weight here. Perhaps the batteries increase the mouse's size too much. Or perhaps the Apple design philosophy requires something more elegant than batteries or a power cable, such as a recharging dock, but a dock pushes the price up to unpopular levels. I prefer the latter explanation, and wouldn't be surprised to see a "pro" wireless version, with snazzy Apple dock (and obligatory pulsating light), available next year sometime.

Good mouse? Bad mouse?
On paper, Apple's new super-hero mouse packs a KABAAM-like punch. It is cunningly innovative in so many ways that it simply screams Apple quality. The price tag isn't overly outrageous, and given the fact that it is Windows XP/2000 compatible it will surely lure some curious PC users into a test drive and, if all goes to Apple's master plan, perhaps encourage them to consider an Apple option when it comes time to upgrade the home PC. It's not all rosy though - initial reports suggest some problems with the touch-sensitive buttons, for instance not being able to 'press' one button while a finger is still touching the other. This will likely be fixed in a coming software update. A more serious complaint I've read is that some find it difficult to 'squeeze' the side buttons. The mouse is also only compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and later, which rules it out for those Mac users still happily using Panther and Jaguar. Still, if you are running the latest version of OS X, and need a new mouse, this Mighty Mouse appears to be worth a try.

Update: c0nsumer has posted an initial review with images and screenshots.

Final update, I promise: Engadget have posted links to no less than six reviews of this mouse. When was the last time you ever heard of a mouse getting this much attention?

London A-Z on your P800

VisualIT's Tube London program is now on version 2. This new version moves on from a mere subway map to a full streetmap of London. Just tap on a station and see the nearby streets! Great stuff!