The iPod Touch looks incomplete, never though, did I think about this earlier. What’s been missing is a camera. Rumors suggest that Apple, by divine interference, has accepted to answer the prayers. Possibly, the next gen iPod Touch will flaunt a camera on its back, just like the iPhone does. Maybe, a 2MP or so to start with.

Besides listening to that captivating music from your library or watching your favorite movies and videos, you will also be able capture images and record the beautiful moments of your life that you’d love to revisit in a video. However, even if they include a camera, we cannot be sure if it’ll have video recording capability.

If Apple were to introduce a camera into the next generation iPod Touch, it would make the divide between iPhone and iPod much lighter, because the primary aspect where the iPod Touch would differ from an iPhone would be carrier connectivity.

Rumored iPod Touch 3G : First Take By Covinoandrich Blog

If these rumors were to be true, Apple will release the next generation iPod, the iPod Touch 3G at a media event in September (that’s when Apple does it always). This would be another milestone in Apple’s history, an iPod with a camera (sounds interesting, right?).

There are rumors that even the iPod Nano would flaunt a built in camera.A few geek nerds, have even put up some casings for iPod Touch 3G. They look pretty old for the next gen ipod, though. Check out the testimonial below.

Featured : iPod Touch 3G Casing [ Courtesy : Cellphonesforum.net ]

There are probable chances that the next generation iPod Touch will also have microphone that will swerve its existence from an entertainment-centric device to more practical and communicating device, if only Apple were to  bless it with Wi-Fi connecivity. It may also have voice control, just like its bigger sibling, the iphone 3GS.

Engadget has put up pictures of so called  (leaked pictures) Apple iTouch Tablet which is expected to be available not before 2010 for some $800-$1000 like we mentioned in our recent post on Apple Tablet PC.

Reportedly Leaked : Apple iTouch Tablet

If you’ve been waiting for the next gen iPod, a little more patience will do no harm. We’ll keep you updated. Should you feel to justify them, feel free to pen down a comment, on anything we missed.

Meanwhile, we’ll keep counting on the rumors and wait to number how many of them see the day of light in real. You know what that means.

The Safari browser would not close at any cost. It was acually eating up the memory in the iPhone and ultimately forced it to crash down. When asked, Apple presumptively said it would not occur unless the iPhone was jail broken.

In a crave to enrich the applications suite on the iPhone, many users had their iPhone jail broken, well it does enough good but more than it, it does the evil. Jail breaking your iPhone opens a security hole that hackers can exploit to take control over your iPhone wirelessly and effortlessly.

This means that the iPhone users have something new to worry about besides their AT&T bills, bad coverage, and slow 3G speeds. It also creates business possibilities for the antivirus companies, the company who comes up with the first Antivirus for iPhone is likely to win. Do you really need a iPhone Anti-virus? It’s hard to say at this point but if a company comes up with a Antivirus for iPhone they will scare the users to death if they don’t get one.

The first iPod virus named Podloso was discovered by Kaspersky Labs that infected the iPods running iPod Linux, a very few of the majority. And what different is the iPhone from the iPod? Sooner or later, we were expecting this sort of chalk to infect the iPhone and today, the day has come.

It’s now the iPhone SMS Virus or iPhone Virus. It’s not really a virus, it’s a bug that was discovered by Charles Miller and Collin Mulliner, two researchers at BlackHat Cybersecurity some six weeks ago.

When the first time, the bug was discovered, it was only meant to crash the iPhone, now it has outgrown the possibilities and it can take over virtually any iPhone with just a simple SMS. So beware!

How do you identify the infection? Not a big deal. Some fine day if you receive a text message with a square character, you must immediately turn off your iPhone or just switch to airplane mode. That’s only how you can resist infection.

The virus can spread to any iPhone, you don’t even need to click a link or so but only if one of the infected phones has got your contact no in it, then you are done. Reports reveal that it is a consequence of the “serious memory corruption bug” that occurs due to the way the iPhone handles messages.

Latest Update: ‘i’ got Company!

When the iPhone bugs or so called iPhone virus was first reported, F-Secure, a security research organization said:

“Hopefully this serves as a warning for those who have opened their iPhones using a security hole in the system and then installing unverified software without a second thought to what they are doing.”

Once your iPhone virus is infects the phone, the hacker is at liberty to take over all the functionalities of your iPhone., from making a call to browsing the web, from accessing the camera to corrupting your applications, and more harmfully, forwarding this virus to other iPhone user. Cnet also termed jailbreaking posed a threat to national security.

“This is serious. The only thing you can do to prevent it is turn off your phone,” said cybersecurity researcher Charles Miller. “Someone could pretty quickly take over every iPhone in the world with this.”

Even if antivirus security organizations decide to confront the iPhone virus, the biggest hurdle will be the inefficiency of the iphone to run the applications in the background. JR Smith, CEO of AVG said “We can’t add a layer of protection on to the iPhone today, so that’s a lot of the conversation that we’re having with Apple.”

In the league: i Like It!

McAfee which has been providing security solutions to Mac for sometime, said “We are working on a much more comprehensive suite for the Apple family.” Because the big deal is providing real time protection from viruses and not actually the antivirus.

More iPhone viruses are likely to emerge as people can’t resist cracking the iPhones and the hackers wouldn’t leave any chance to exploit the wicked possibilities and make the iPhone Original, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S vulnerable to this attack.

We are expecting a bug fix for this from Apple in its final OS 3.1 release, however Apple has been numb over the issue for all this while, even though the SMS Virus bug was brought to their knowledge about 6 weeks ago.

Time to taste the soup…..’cause ” . . . our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for . . . ” and it implies to iPhone users as well.

Update – 31st July: Apple just confirmed the SMS exploit and also released an update to patch the exploit. To get the latest update, plug your iPhone into your computer, launch iTunes and click on “Check for Updates” and install the new update.

New Vista : Pocket Projector for iPod/iPhone

I remember reading a quote on the web that said – “the world is shrinking into an iPhone” and that seems practically obvious now. Until now, your iPod/iPhone was a great gadget for entertainment where all the fun was trapped into its sleek and glossy 3.5” screen.

But, ever since the iPhone has landed into the mobile market, things have changed and we hear about a new accessory for the iPhone/iPod Touch almost every week.

You can now enjoy a greater and rich entertainment experience from your iPod/iPhone by just connecting your device to a pocket sized projector available through Phonesuit.com.

Let me introduce you to a pocket projector for iPhone/iPod which is termed as “MiLi Pro”. Just nudge your iPod/iPhone onto the MiLi Pro’s dock and it is ready to multiply the fun. It can display pictures and images at a max resolution of 640X480 pixels at 10 Lumens brightness.

You can connect this mini projector for iPhone/iPod to your laptop through the VGA port on its dock or just plug in your camcorder or any other digital player that connects through a RCA port and other such compatible devices that can connect through direct AVs.

That's how it Works!!

It is compatible with iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, iPod Touch and iPod Classic and uses LCOS, a LED driven micro projector with a life time of 20,000 hours that can produce display up to the size of a 40” screen.

The dock comes with built in speakers that enhance your entertainment experience. The iPhone/iPod video projector lives on the power from the rechargeable and swappable PhoneSuit MiLi Battery which needs 3hrs of charging after a complete drain out.

This mini projector for iPod/iPhone is ideal for business professionals and also for entertainment addicts, precisely for anyone owning an iPhone (except 1st generation iPhone).

It would not be a false prophecy to say that iPhone will soon have the highest score of accessories and applications than any other phone in the market. This iPod/iPhone projector is one cool accessory that you must look out for your iPhone and iPod when it is released this fall.

Price and launch dates are yet to surface. Meanwhile, you can click here to become a member of the PhoneSuit family and keep yourself updated about the latest news from its core.

Click here to view the product page.

Priced at $79, with a storage capacity of 4GB which can store up-to 1000 songs, the ability to talk and size as small as an AA battery makes this iPod Shuffle a must buy for everyone.

Available now in silver and black with a built-in stainless steel clip which makes it wearable on anything and lets you carry anywhere without any hassles.

The new exciting feature that Apple has introduced with this iPod Shuffle is known as VoiceOver, with the press of a button this feature lets you know what song you are playing and who is the performing artist.

It also voices-out the names of your playlist making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists as well and the best part is all of this is done without interrupting your music.

Volume of the song is dipped when the VoiceOver is active and pumps the volume up once done. VoiceOver is available in 14 languages or you can say it speaks in 14 languages to you.

They say size matters and this iPod shuffle is definitely the smallest ever music player sized at 1.8” tall X 0.3” thin. To create an iPod shuffle as small as this Apple has moved its controls from the iPod shuffle to the earphone cord. Now, moving all the controls to the earphone cable means that you cannot replace the default headphones with your better or more expensive ones (not a smart move I’d say).

With this new change in the location of the controls it has become even more convenient for the users to control the music. You might be on a ride, drive, walk or whatever; you do not need to take your eyes off it with just a press of a button you can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and activate VoiceOver.

With a battery life of almost 10 hours the system requirements are as mentioned below.

Mac system requirements

• Mac computer with USB 2.0 port
• Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later
• iTunes 8.1 or later

Windows system requirements

• PC with USB 2.0 port
• Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later
• iTunes 8.1 or later

Click here to check it out on the Apple store.

Today we are going to see how to manage your iPod using Winamp without needing iTunes. This is a complete tutorial to use iPod with Winamp.

Requirements

• Windows XP/Vista
• Latest version of Winamp
• iPod device
• iTunes (Just to change one setting)

1. Enable disk usage in iPod

Just for this step you’ll need iTunes and it’s a one time process.

1. Connect your iPod to your computer and start iTunes.
2. Select your iPod and click the settings tab.
3. Go to the Options section un-check the check box labeled Open iTunes when this iPod is attached.
4. Also check the checkbox labeled Enable disk use box.
5. Click Apply.

That’s all from now on you’ll not need iTunes. Feel free to uninstall in case you want to

Mount iPod as Drive

Make sure your iPod is still connected and is mounted as a drive.

Install Winamp

Download an Install Winamp’s latest version with default installation.

Launch Winamp

With iPod connected to your PC launch Winamp. You’ll be prompted to add your iPod device. Select the model of your iPod and click OK.

In Winamp make sure that your Media Library is viewable. If it is not then simply hit Alt+L to view Media Library. Make sure you see your iPod listed under portables in the media library as shown in the image below.

Add files to your iPod using Winamp

Now all you have to do is add files. To do this just add the music files to Winamp first. You can do this by adding individual file or by adding folder.

Transfer tracks to iPod device

Now go to playlist window and right click the tracks that you want to send to iPod. Right click the track(s) and click send to and select your iPod.

You’ll see the transfer status in portables, something like the one below.

Once all the tracks are transferred you can see them in the portables window something like the one below.

That’s pretty much. Enjoy using Winamp to manage iPod.

There are many ways of personalizing your gadget. You can add diamonds, paint it, use accessories to personalize, Skin it and latest in the fashion is Etching it. It’s the “In Thing” for gadget personalization.

Most of the Etching happens on Apple products and Etch A Mac (etchamac.com) is one of the best sites which can do the job for you. The site does almost all the products of Apple including Shuffles, iPod Nano, iPod, iPhone and Mac Book or Macbook Pro’s. Another favourite is Etch Star (etchstar.com/) (http://www.etchstar.com/samples.php) and they do an amazing job in transforming a gadget to a piece of art.

Etching on such products will cost you anywhere from $30 to $200, depending on the product you want to personalize. 

Following is the list of few other sites in the business.

• etchamac.com
• etchstar.com
• adafruit.com
• markapod.provitron.com

By now if you are thinking that you haven’t seen anyone do this in India and what to setup a business then you can start here epiloglaser.com. EpilogLaser offers the machinery used for etching on these gadgets.

Following Video shows how the etching is done on a iPhone.

Have Fun! Let your Gadget Speak Your Language!

This is a great gadget to have, creates a huge virtual screen of 50 inches and keeps you entertained. This gadget can play videos from any of the PMP’s available in the market, it also has built in headphones and they look pretty good.

Specifications:

• i-Theater Display
• Input signal: NTSC PAL SECAM automatic distinction
• Resolution: QVGA 320×240 (230K Pixels)
• Display type: 2 TFT LCD
• Virtual image size: 2.5m / 50 inch screen
• Angle of visibility (FOV): Diagonal 25 degrees
• Ratio: 4: 3
• Power source: Charge type lithium ion electric battery built-in
• Continuous duty: 10 hours
• Charge necessary time: 4 hours
• Electric power consumption: Maximum 450m W
• Input connector: RCA terminal and iPod terminal
• Audio: Stereo audio
• Control: Volume power switch
• Operating temperature: 5 – 35 ?
• Storage temperature: -20 – 60 ?
• Size: W170 x D195 x H35mm
• Weight: 78 g

This is a beginning of such products, I expect to see more of such advanced and personalised entertainment products in the future. I personally will wait for a better one

Motorola introduced something it called “Mountain Gear”. A jacket, helmet and a Padded Hat are part of the Mountain Gear series.  The jacket is called “Audex Jacket” and comes in two different colors for men and women, Black and Brown for Men and Black and Pink for women.

Phone in the pocket no longer means, phone out of reach. It has a control panel on the jacket through which the phone can be completely operated, from taking calls to listening to music. The jacket comes loaded with the equipment which can handle other Bluetooth devices such as Bluetooth headphone, A wired audio jack for privacy calls.

No more searching for the phone in your jackets pocket when it starts ringing, just turn your arm and push the button. I personally like the way control panel and speakers are placed on the jacket. Click here to have a look!

This jacket costs $329 currently in sale and $599 otherwise. Click here to visit Motorolas official site or here to buy the jacket on sale.

How about downloading all the episodes of Lost and taking it with you on a camping trip into the woods. It’s not easy to choose a PMP (Portable Media Player) especially when there are more than a few options available. Let’s talk about a few popular PMP’s (Portable Media Player) and not so popular but worth its money. By the end of this post we will have a clear winner as to which is the best PMP available in the stores today!

In this post I will not discuss pointless features which do not affect the performance of the player. For example: PIM or What does the package include or whether it can read PDF’s or not.

I have highlited a few key features which a potential buyer should ALWAYS keep in mind while buying a PMP.

Listed below are the PMP’s we will discuss:

1. Apple iPod Video (30 GB)
2. Zen Vision W (30 GB)
3. Archos 604 (30 GB)
4. Cowon A2 (30 GB)

Comparison chart of Archos 604 and 604 Wifi, Apple iPod Video, Zen Vision W, Cowon A2

Archos 604/604 Wifi: This is a master piece and for other PMP’s to catchup with Archos 604 features will take couple of years. The only difference between Archos 604 and 604 Wifi is that the 604 Wifi is touch screen and Wifi enabled. It comes with amazing accessories such as a DVR station which converts Archos 604/604 Wifi to TiVo which enables Video recording from external sources such as TV. A special camera which is an optional accessory turns Archos into a video recording Gadget. This camera is specially designed to be attached to the helmet for shooting sporting activities. Archos has added a real smart feature to Archos 604, a stand which supports and holds the player vertically which makes it really easy for viewing videos.

Archos 604 Wifi is truly next generation PMP as it offers the option of IPTV to its users.

Archos 604/604 Wifi virtually plays all the video formats, however Archos believes in the saying “There is no such thing as free lunch” so offers paid plug-ins to play certain media formats. This is something you should keep in mind while buying Archos PMP. Over all it’s a great gadget to have, in fact, it is a must have!

Apple iPod: This is probably one of the most popular Gadgets ever made. iPod was a great player about a year ago however as Steve Jobs refuses to update and include new features to keep up with its competitors it’s popularity is fading by the day. Apple does not offer an FM Radio; it does not have the option of voice recording. iPod plays very limited video formats.

It is still one of the best looking PMP’s available in the market; however lack of features make it less impressive and desirable.

Creative Zen vision W: This is my favorite PMP as far as design and interface goes. Creative Zen Vision W offers almost all the features Archos offers except Video recording from external sources. Its battery life is not as good as Archos and is not compatible with MAC. 

Cowon A2: Cowon A2 is one of the best, stylish and a smart looking PMP’s. Cowon offers smart features like viewing lyrics of the current playing song. I love its designed and easy navigation. It offers the option to set your own wallpaper.  I did browse through the accessories list offered by Cowon for Cowon A2 and did not find as interesting accessories as Archos offers, which means Cowon A2 cannot real time videos and does not offer removalble battery.

Alright that’s enough of writing and reading about PMP’s! Here is my verdict.

1. Archos 604/604 Wifi: 4.5/4.8 respectively (Must Have – Winner)
2. Cowon: 4.3 (Excellent)
3. Creative Zen Vision W: 3.8 (Good)
4. Apple iPod: a pitiful 2.0 (Poor)

I hope it helps the readers in making the right decision and buying the right product.

Good Luck!

iPod Nano has emerged as one of the worlds most popular mp3 player. The newly released second generation of Nano is designed all new from the ground up.

It comes in an Aluminum case now and is much thinner than the 1st generation of [tags]iPod [/tags]Nano. Battery life offers 24hrs nonstop and Gapless playback. It has enhanced software features like Instant search and quick scrolling and it comes with the new headphones.

It comes in 5 different colors and 3 storage options. 2GB, 4GB and 8GB.

Storage and Price

• 2GB – $149
• 4GB – $199
• 8GB – $249

Apple also released a new universal iPod charger which is 40% smaller than the previous version.