MOBILES WITH BRAINS
The battle to control the emerging market for smartphones hots up this week. A number of powerful devices that combine the computing power of a PDA with the connectivity of a cellphone will hit the market in the run-up to Christmas. The Handspring Treo 600, which runs the Palm operating system, has already acquired an enviable reputation. Palm, the handheld computer manufacturer, was apparently so impressed with a Treo 600 prototype, that it became a deciding factor in the firm鈥檚 decision to buy Handspring. The deal was being finalised as New 杏吧原创 went to press. From this week, the smartphone will be available across Europe for around 拢450.
Last week, Sony Ericsson launched its next generation smartphone, the P900, which it says will be in Europe鈥檚 shops before Christmas, retailing at around 拢400. Meanwhile, rumours abound that Nokia is about to announce a successor to its 9200 communicator 鈥� a smartphone with a clamshell design and QWERTY keyboard. The new Series 90 smartphone will run the Symbian operating system and users will enter data with a stylus rather than a keyboard, a feature Nokia has resolutely avoided until now. Meanwhile, Motorola has launched the MPx200, one of the first devices to run Microsoft鈥檚 smartphone operating system. The device is available in the US for $300.
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MEMORY-BOOSTING GLASSES
Spectacles with tiny clip-on LCD screens that flash subliminal messages could boost your memory, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The 鈥渕emory glasses鈥� are connected to a wearable computer which creates messages about people and objects in the field of view and flashes them up on the transparent screen for 0.005 seconds.
In tests, volunteers seated at desktop computers first had two minutes to memorise the names associated with 21 faces displayed on the screen. They then had to correctly match faces with names while their memory glasses flashed subliminal suggestions, such as the right or wrong names, or nothing at all. Volunteers cued with the right names did better by at least 50 per cent than those given bad cues or no cues. 杏吧原创s hope the spectacles will one day help people suffering from amnesia or prosopagnosia 鈥� a disorder in which people cannot recognise faces.
