Last week, Nokia filed to patent technology that will charge your new or refurbished cell phone from the motion of the phone in your hand, pocket, etc. The technology is similar to that of watches that are charged from kinetic energy harvested from the movement of the wrist.
From what I’ve read, the heavier internals of the phone (the battery, transmitter, etc.) will sit on a pair of rails, allowing it to slide up and down as the user moves. That energy is then collected and sent into the battery.
Kinetically charged phones should be great for people constantly on the go. Might not be worth it if you’ve got a desk job though.
This is great if you use Google Adwords. Google has now enabled Click to Call, which shows your business phone number below your ad as a live link that will immediately dial the number when clicked from a new or refurbished smart phone.
If you are using AdWords, you should definitely set up Click to Call as it’s a simple/quick set up. Just go to your account and set up “Phone Extensions,” add your business number, and people will be able to call you with one click from your ad.
For more information about Click to Call and installation, visit Google’s AdWords Blog.
Google phones just keep getting better and better. Google released Gesture Search for Android phones today, which allows you to quickly search through your contacts by simply drawing on the screen.
Say you want to call your buddy Chris, just open your contacts and draw a ‘C’ on the screen. Instantly, your address book will scroll to the Cs. For a more refined search, draw ‘CH’. Swiping left to right will cancel the search, and swiping right to left acts like a delete key.
Gesture Search is intuitive as well. After you search and call your friend Chris, the next you search by drawing a C, your address book will go straight to Chris.
To download Gesture Search, just search for it in the Android Market.
This is wild. A new company called ecoATM has developed an ATM machine that pays you cash to recycle your old cell phones. In addition to buying refurbished cell phones, recycling your phone is a great way to cut down on the need for conflict components and reduce the world’s waste. These ATMs make it really easy to do your part – and they pay you!
This is how it works: You walk up to the ATM and plug your phone in via a cord attached to the machine. The machine then scans your device to determine how much it is worth and then makes you an offer. If you accept, you deposit your phone and the machine spits out your cash. The average payment from machines in San Diego is $20 per phone.
ecoATM is based out of Sand Diego but has been sending test machines to Midwest, San Diego, Boston, Dallas and Seattle. Apparently, people have been lining up to recycle their old phones. ecoATM has also secured investors, so it shouldn’t be long until you see these machines in your city.
Google released the Google Earth App for your new or refurbished Android cell phone today. The app is claimed to be the fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet with “a smooth framerate and a beautiful 800 x 480 screen.” The people at Google are thrilled with the way the Nexus One is handling Google Earth.
With the release of the app for Android comes a nice little improvement to Google Earth, which is the Roads Layer. You can now have the names of roads layered over the satellite imagery view to get a better understanding of where are you are or are going.
Like always, Google has packaged the best of their technologies with their newest release. With this Android app, you can now use voice search to locate things in Google Earth. Just say things like “Empire State Building” or “Romantic getaway Santa Barbara” and watch the pin marks pop up.
I think the app is only available for the Nexus One right now, but Google says it will soon be available for all Android devices running 2.1 software.
In response to the Apple iPad buzz, Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, plans to release a free Kindle app for your new and refurbished Blackberry. The app will provide Blackberry users access to over 420,000 books online.
Amazon’s Kindle for Blackberry app will allow users to purchase and read books directly from their devices for, on average, $10 or less. Apparently, the following Blackberrys will be compatible with the app: the Bold 9000 and 9700, the Curve 8520 and 8900, the Storm 9530 and 9550, and the Tour 9630.
Amazon’s vice president for Kindle said that the Blackberry app is a direct result of the iPhone app’s success.
In December, I did a post about what Google Goggles can do for your new or refurbished cell phone. I just read a post from Google today that was pretty impressive. Google is working to integrate their translator program into Google Goggles so that you can take pictures from your phone of things written in a foreign language, and, within a fraction of a second, Google Goggles translates the text for you.
In the video below, you can actually see it working with a menu written in German. According to Google, German is the only language that Goggles can translate as of now, but they plan on making it compatible with 52 languages in the near future.
Google’s online translator does work incredibly well (with, I believe, 52 languages), but Google Goggle with the translator will save you the time of having to enter the foreign text, and, being an avid traveler, I can tell you that the few seconds it takes to enter the foreign text into your phone usually costs you the entire conversation.
This is crazy. At this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress), a company called NTT Docomo reveiled a headset that you can control with your eye movement. When you are listening to music on your new or refurbished cell phone, you can use this technology to control volume and to skip tracks.
Want to turn the volume up? Just roll your eyes all the way up. It’s just the opposite to turn it down. To skip tracks, look as far as you can to the left or to the right. Apparently, the left and right side of your eyes emit positive and negative electrons, and this headset can register them. Check out the video below for a demonstration.
At first, this seems to be a little overkill, but it really would be convenient to be able to control your music without having to use your hands.
Last week, Nokia filed to patent technology that will charge your new or refurbished cell phone from the motion of the phone in your hand, pocket, etc. The technology is similar to that of watches that are charged from kinetic energy harvested from the movement of the wrist.
