Philip Reed’s Technology Home

You read that title correctly, iriver’s Spinn is apparently touchscreen (not D-Click as mentioned in the FCC leaked user manual) and features haptic feedback to boot. Now that it’s officially spec’d on iriver’s Korean site, we’re also seeing a slightly degraded audio lifespan of 24-hours (not 27) and the apparent removal of the mini SD slot — it’s no longer mentioned in the specs and we don’t see a suitable slot on any of the pictures. Otherwise, it’s the same sleek slab of 10.7-mm thick metal and plastic sporting a 3.3-inch, 480 x 272 pixel AMOLED display, T-DMB TV, Bluetooth, and new analog SPINN Wheel we’ve seen kicking around since CES. Currently on pre-order for South Korea with the 4GB model fetching 259,000KRW (about $259) or 8GB for 299,000KRW (about $299). That’s right, it maxes out with just 8GB of flash. Check the gallery while we all anxiously await iriver’s international launch plans including the rumored August UK release.

Not that Samsung is actually looking to pump this out into beauty salons worldwide, but there stands at least a mild chance that sophisticated females shopping for new compacts would also spring for some storage. Joongoo Lee’s Costume is a sleek, deliberately styled 2.5-inch external hard drive that looks entirely at home mixed in with various makeup components. Additionally, the bundled dock is equally sexy, though we can only hope there’s a USB 2.0 port somewhere on this thing. Though this is just a concept, we wouldn’t put it past Samsung to turn into a reality — after all, it did just produce pink and blue BlackJack IIs. Your soft side is showing, Sammy.

Dell has never failed to provide compelling reasons — particularly pricetags — for students and / or their cash-strapped parents to pick up a Dell desktop or laptop on the way back to school. This year seems no exception, with Dell adding some special Inspiron configurations to its already beefy budget lineups. The Inspiron 13 laptop (pictured) is pretty much laptop 101, with a 13-inch screen, 8-in-1 media card reader and slot-loading DVD drive in the base model — you’ll have to fork over extra for WiFi, a webcam or Bluetooth. Wal-mart will be carrying a $699 version starting August 3rd, with full configuration coming to Dell.com later that month. The Inspiron 518 desktop (after the break) is similarly straightforward, with DirectX 10 integrated graphics, gigabit Ethernet and a pair of easy-access USB ports on top of the case, in addition to options for a 500GB hard drive and quad core processors. The starting price is $349, and the systems should be available today.

Like most product from Dell these days, there’s little surprise left in Dell’s Studio Hybrid desktop lineup of eco-friendly little PCs. First unveiled as a bamboo-clad concept in April, the computer is finally being released by the hardware giant with a starting price of $499, with interchangeable sleeves of Bamboo, Emerald, Quartz, Ruby, Sapphire, Slate and Topaz — the latter six being of the shiny plastic ilk. Dell isn’t slouching on specs though, and seems to realize the potential of the Studio Hybrid — which can be stood vertically or horizontally — in the living room. There’s an HDMI port standard, along with options for WiFi, a wireless keyboard and mouse, Blu-ray and a TV tuner. Dell doesn’t ignore the “green” roots of this project, either, and is including a system recycling kit, along with the natural reduction in packing and manufacturing materials. The Studio Hybrid should be available today.

Those fine folks at Buffalo are working on 32GB and 64GB PCI-E SSDs for the Eee PC 901 (and others, we’re guessing), to be released in September. That’s all well and good, but what’s even more exciting are the price points: 32GB will be retailing for around 16,800 yen (about $157 US) while the 64GB will go for 33,600 yen ($313 US). Sure, a storage device the same price as your computer is never ideal, but with SSD prices continuing to plummet — as evidenced by this nearly-wallet-friendly pair — they should be in striking distance before long.

Navigon’s 2150 Max isn’t revolutionary in terms of design nor specifications, but it does feature a rather delicious list of features for just £229.99 ($458). All-too-trusting UK motorists can look forward to a 4.3-inch display, pre-loaded maps of 39 countries, built-in Bluetooth, text-to-speech and support for live traffic information. Oh, and in case our header was unclear, it’s shipping this very moment in time.

In strict megapixel to dollar terms, the new Optio E60 from Pentax is a real steal, at a mere $140 for its absurd 10 megapixels. Of course, there’s more to the story. The 3x zoom and lack of optical image stabilization — “High Sensitivity Digital Shake Reduction” is little comfort — won’t be winning you any “best candid shot of whatever we did last night” awards, but there are some decent automatic perks like face recognition and a “Green” settings mode for absolute novices that should keep you from getting booted out of your Flickr pool. The E60, which is powered by AA batteries, will be available in October.

If you haven’t noticed, China’s going all out to improve itself before the world fixes its eyes upon Beijing in just over a week. Rather than plunking down license fees to use a protocol that’s widely accepted, China has chosen to create its own digital TV standard: CMMB. Amazingly, RAmos has actually churned out a PMP to take advantage of said standard, and just in time for the 2008 Olympics. Unfortunately, we really know nothing about the iTV except that it can understand CMMB, so screen size, internal storage and everything else remains unknown. Heck, we don’t even know how expensive it is — but hey, it supports CMMB (for the three weeks you’re in China, after which it’s partially worthless)!

It looks like those wanting to get some HD recoding done on the cheap but not willing to venture into some less familiar territory now have a new option to consider from Toshiba, which is set to release its new Camileo H10 camcorder. It’ll give you the usual 720p recording, along with a 5x optical zoom, a 10-megapixel sensor, 64MB of memory, an SDHC card slot for expansion, image stabilization, motion detection and, of course, an HDMI output to let you view your low-budget masterpieces. No word on a release ’round these parts, unfortunately, but those in the UK can apparently get their hands on one at the end of the month for £180 ($360, or less once the VAT and whatnot are taken out of the equation).

While most of us can get by with a laptop bag on our travels, if you really need to have your primo gear with you at all times, you may want to take some cues from this one-of-a-kind trunk from the folks at Monolab Design. Apparently, this project began years ago when its creator was living from hotel to hotel, and it has now wound up as a fixture in the first Monolab|Workspace in Palo Alto, California. Not exactly fulfilling its purpose, to be sure, but it is undeniably a pretty impressive piece of work, with the entire 300-pound rid constructed out of anodized aluminum, and it boasting custom-built accommodations for a Mac Pro, a 23-inch Apple Cinema Display 23″, a Music Hall Mambo amplifier, and a pair of aluminum-enclosed Webern loudspeakers. No plans for building your own, unfortunately, but you can get a better look at it by hitting up the read link below.