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Nokia 2720 Fold

(Credit: Nokia)

Nokia's long focus on emerging cell phone markets was further solidified today when it unveiled three low-priced phones in Finland. The three models offer varied designs and features sets, but all come in at under $135 (100 euros) without a contract.

Nokia 2730 Classic

(Credit: Nokia)

The Nokia 2720 Fold offers a thin, flip-phone design in black or deep red. Nokia emphasizes that the front face of the phone acts as a mirror, though we're not sure how that helps a user "stay organized with easy access to e-mail, calendar, Internet connectivity, and file sharing applications." Features include Bluetooth, a personal organizer, messaging and e-mail, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a music player, an FM radio, a voice recorder, a wireless Web browser, and a speakerphone. It comes in two dual-band versions: GSM 850/1900 and GSM 900/1800.

Nokia 7020

(Credit: Nokia)

Moving up the scale a bit is the Nokia 2730 Classic. The quad-band GSM handset supports four WCDMA (3G) bands, making it a super world phone. Inside, you'll find a speakerphone, messaging and e-mail, a wireless Web browser, a music player, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, PC syncing, GPS with Nokia Maps, and a personal organizer. The candy-bar model also has a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm headset jack.

Back in flip-phone land, the Nokia 7020 comes in hot pink and graphite. Features include a 2-megapixel camera, a speakerphone, a music player, voice commands, GPS with Nokia Maps, Bluetooth, a personal organizer, messaging and e-mail, and a wireless Web browser. The 7020 is a quad-band world phone with support for EDGE networks.

(Credit: Mobigrips)

Technology might be the only medium where smaller is always better, but it's starting to get ridiculous. I'm worried that my next cell phone is going to be the size of a sunflower seed. There's got to be a point where we finally decide that things need to start getting bigger, and Mobigrip thinks that now is as good a time as any.

Mobigrips, also known as "device leashes," aren't exactly at the forefront of tech innovation; it's essentially a circular hunk of plastic with adhesive on the back and a lanyard attached to one side. If you tend to drop or lose your tiny devices, the idea is that you can "install" a Mobigrip and physically tether your finger to your mobile phone, MP3 player, remote control, dog, boyfriend, or whatever object you deem utterly forgettable. The Mobigrips exude the same universal appeal as the Hercules Hook or the classic Bedazzler. They're $10 a pop (about $5 too much, in my opinion) and come in a wide assortment of colors; you can even customize them with a personal design or even...a corporate logo! Finally, a give(throw)away to replace the infamous fold-up LCD calculator!

Nokia goes flippable with the Nokia 3610 Fold.

(Credit: Nokia)

Nokia quietly rolled out its new 3610 flip phone Tuesday. Also called the "Fold" (for obvious reasons), it has a slim design that reminds us of both the Nokia 3555 and 6555. Features are solidly mid-range; inside you'll find a 1.3-megapixel camera, organizer features, text and multimedia messaging, a microSD card slot, and a 262,000-color display.

It should be available in October for about $185. We don't know yet if it will arrive on North American shores, but its quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) supports suggests that it might.

The HA-SX500 will carry a list price of $79.99.

(Credit: JVC)

You remember those fold-up Sony headphones that you used to take with you to the gym? Well, JVC's added a new "high-end" version of that type of headphone to its Bi-Metal line of in-ear canal headphones. JVC's HA-SX500 will be out this month with a list price of $79.99. Oh, and it's iPhone-compatible.

Here's the news release if you want the details:

"The new JVC HA-SX500 achieves high quality sound by employing JVC's original Bi-Metal structure and a new large 16mm neodymium driver unit, offering greater power handling and sensitivity.

JVC's Bi-Metal structure is designed to enhance performance across the frequency range by housing the drive unit in a steel base wrapped in a high-specific-gravity brass ring to eliminate vibration and energy loss. The HA-SX500 also offers a vast reduction in friction noise. The headphones feature flexible rubber joints, reducing friction noise while increasing comfort, and use OFC (oxygen-free copper) to minimize transmission loss in the 0.8 meter friction noise reduction cord.

The lightweight HA-SX500 headphones are designed to provide a comfortable and secure fit while delivering superior isolation from external sounds and minimizing sound leakage. The ergonomic silicon rubber earpieces come in three sizes to provide snug, customized sizing, supported by a cushioned metallic foldable headband for a secure fit and hours of comfort.

(Credit: Matias)

The idea of a roll-away or fabric keyboard has never appealed to us, even if they do glow in the dark. We'd worry that they'd never lie completely flat, especially after being crumpled in a coat pocket for days on end, and the resulting bumps and wrinkles would drive us nuts. At the same time, the folding keyboards we've seen often have some kind of awkward design that hardly seemed to be the most efficient or elegant use of space.

That's why the "Matias Folding Keyboard" was so striking, as it appears virtually indistinguishable from a regular full-size version while open. Yet the USB keyboard still stows away compactly, according to Gadgetell, folding in half to fit in most laptop bags.

The trend makes perfect sense. After all, if musicians can do it with their keyboards, then surely geeks can do the same.

PlayStation 3 users have been able to connect their consoles online to Stanford University's Folding@home project, allowing researchers to tap into the machines' substantial processing power as they study the effects of a process called protein folding on a series of serious diseases.

(Credit: Folding@home)

It's a small thing, but Sony got some good news today related to its troubled PlayStation 3 video game console. In fact, the system helped set a new Guinness World Record.

The record was set by Stanford University's Folding@home project, a distributed computing system utilizing PS3s among other computers, to help scientists study the effects of a process called "protein folding" on a series of serious diseases.

Well, Guinness has apparently certified the project as the world's most powerful distributed computing system. According to a release from Sony, Folding@home topped 1 petaflop last month, meaning that it surpassed a thousand trillion floating point operations per second. By comparison, the well-known SETI@home project has topped out, according to Wikipedia, at around 265 teraflops, or 265 trillion floating point operations a second.

What has Sony excited is that it seems that much of the computing power behind Folding@home comes from the excess cycles of many hundreds of thousands of PS3 users' consoles. More than 600,000 PS3 users have signed up to be part of the project, the company says.

Any Guinness record is cool, of course, and Sony is probably very happy to have some good news come out of the PS3 program, since the much-ballyhooed console has struggled in its first year on the market and still finds itself in third place in the next-generation console wars behind Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii.

But while those machines may be outselling the PS3, neither can lay claim to a Guinness world record that reflects an attempt to help out with real science.

And though that may not translate into huge sales for Sony, at least it's some great PR spin fodder.

(Credit: Technabob)

We've spent altogether too much time on guitars lately, whether they be real, virtual or even double-necked. The infatuation even extends, so to speak, to those that can do yoga.

But it's in this last category that we can bridge to another flexible instrument, this one in the form of a folding keyboard. Much to the delight of roadies everywhere, the "Vax 77" from Infinite Response folds in half specifically to fit into those ridiculously tight overhead compartments on airplanes according to FAA carry-on specifications. It also weighs about 25 pounds, which Technabob says is roughly half as heavy as most standard keyboards.

Pricing and availability information have yet to be released, but the Vax 77 supposedly won't be lacking in performance, including a highly touted "polyphonic aftertouch" feature. What we'd really like to see, though, is a version like this for the 280-key "Terpstra."

We may not be advocates of Japan's future human-free society, but we do think there's at least some hope: A few of the country's robots are actually providing some useful functions like doing the dishes, not just handing out Kleenex or presiding over weddings (perhaps both, at some auto-nuptials).

(Credit: Yaskawa Electric)

The latest practically minded bot comes from Mitsui and Yaskawa Electric, which have partnered with the Hokusho packaging systems company to develop a mechanical worker that can sort parcels, clothing and other relatively small objects. The "Motoman-DIA10," according to Pink Tentacle, has "a pair of smooth-moving, seven-axis robotic arms mounted on a human-sized torso."

We're not sure which is more frightening--the part about the human torso or its name, which sounds like the closest thing yet to something that can truly replace us. Oh well, it was just a matter of time anyway.