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Samsung Jet photos

Last month we got a sneak preview of the new Samsung Omnia 2 and Samsung Jet. Though only the Omnia 2 is set to come to a U.S. carrier (Verizon Wireless), it was the Jet that arrived on my desk first for a review. As a touch-screen phone with a focus on multimedia, the Jet largely resembles comparable Samsung phones, but it offers a few unique design elements like a hexagonal menu button and an attractive design on its rear face.

Most of the standard features like the music player, 5-megapixel camera, and personal organizer are nothing new, but the Jet does offer a few things unseen on previous Samsung phone. This first is an upgrade to Samsung's signature TouchWiz interface. TouchWiz 2.0 offers a number of improvements including a three-page menu design for both the home screen and the main menu and a unique interface for accessing media features.

The Jet also uses its accelerometer in new ways. The Motion Gate feature lets you control various phone functions by flipping, tapping, and twisting the phone. That's all pretty cool, but we especially liked the new Speaker Call feature that automatically routes calls to the speakerphone when you remove the Jet from your ear and place it flat on a surface.

The HTML Web browser gets a welcome upgrade of its own. Thanks to Samsung's new Dolfin browser, we now can zoom in on a page by tapping the display and swiping our finger. It's makes for a better experience than using the magnifying glass controls on other Samsung touch screens.

Though most of the new features aren't perfect, they are more than welcome. We always berate Samsung for producing too many handsets that resemble each other, so we're glad to see some real innovation. The Jet isn't a speakerphone, but feature are plentiful, and performance was mostly satisfactory. You'll have to buy it unlocked in the United States for around $525, and it's not optimized for U.S. 3G networks. Check out our Jet review for the full story.

(Credit: Jeff Bakalar/CNET)

In just a few weeks, John Madden will unleash his annual iteration of a yearly purchase obsession for NFL fans worldwide. For some, this matters little. For die-hard fans like Scott, though, it's an addiction that must be tempered with some sense of restraint. While Jeff enjoys Madden but prefers NHL, Scott has a year-long addiction to endless New York Jets franchise seasons that borders on complete OCD.

In previous years, we had gotten a chance to play Madden a little earlier on. This year, however, our enthusiasm (or at least Scott's) had to wait until EA's Holiday Showcase this week in New York City, where Madden 10 lay waiting, along with a sofa. We had a promise to each other: Jeff would take on Scott for half of Madden, and Scott would try to keep up with Jeff in NHL 10 afterward.

How did it play? This is our story. ... Read more

No U.S. carrier has been announced for the Jet.

(Credit: Samsung)

At an event in Manhattan Monday, Samsung unveiled its new Jet smartphone, which features a fast 800MHz processor and Samsung's proprietary OS that includes its Dolphin Web browser. Alas, the Jet won't be flying into the U.S. anytime soon, though its designation as a UTMS phone leaves AT&T as its most probable destination if it does hit these shores. All that said, it is available for the rest of the world later this year.

Unlike the Omnia 2, which was also announced at the event, Samsung did have the Jet on hand for reporters to play with. Several remarked that the touch screen seemed quite responsive despite being resisitive. But there was some disappointment that the phone didn't seem even zippier with that 800MHz processor (until now, smartphone processors have tended to top out at 600MHz). However, Samsung reps said the software wasn't final and was still being tweaked. (It was also impossible to test the Dolphin browser because there was no network connection).

All in all, the look and feel of the Jet was appealing. It's smaller than the iPhone and is more on par with the size of the Palm Pre. However, we're just not sure how appealing a proprietary OS is at this point when you have an open OS like Android sitting out there.

Samsung Jet smartphone

Here are the Jet's specs:

The StoreJet 25M will now come with a storage capacity of 500GB.

(Credit: Transcend)

Transcend is kicking up its pocket-size external hard drives to 500GB, the company announced Tuesday. This is the second vendor I've run into that now offers compact external hard drives of this storage size. The first was OWC, with its Mercury On-The-Go, which came out awhile ago.

The new hard drives include two models: the StoreJet 25C and the StoreJet 25M, both of which are the company's most popular external storage products.

Both models are based on 2.5-inch 5400rpm SATA internal hard drives and feature USB-only connection interfaces with bus-powered capability. These drives are compact enough. However, the StoreJet 25M is a little less compact than the StoreJet 25C, due to the fact that it features an advanced dual-stage antishock technology and meets U.S. military drop-test standards to help protect your data against accidental bumps or falls.

The new drives ship with a two-year warranty and the StoreJet elite software package, which includes Web site auto log-in, mobile favorites with no-trace Internet browsing, Secret-Zip 256-bit AES file encryption, mobile e-mail, online updates, and an intelligent backup feature that offers to schedule security file-compression functions.

You can buy the new 500GB StoreJet 25C and StoreJet 25M directly from Transcend now for around $220.

TransferJet will revolutionize the way devices communicate.

(Credit: TransferJet Consortium)

Obviously, it's been convenient to operate plug and play bus-powered peripheral devices that use USB and FireWire connections, since all you need is the device itself and one data cable that, once plugged in, also draws juice from the computer to feed the device. However, admittedly, that definitely is less convenient than no cable or plugging at all.

A consortium was established on July 17 in Tokyo to promote a radically new and exciting close-proximity wireless technology, called "TransferJet." This new technology enables a high speed data transmission rate of 560Mbps (by comparison, USB 2.0 has the rate of 480Mbps), while eliminating the need for complex setup and operation. The idea is that just by holding two TransferJet-compliant products closely together (approximately an inch apart) you can transfer data automatically from one device to the other. For example, touching a TV with a digital camera enables photos to be instantaneously displayed on the TV screen.

Alternatively, multimedia content can be easily shared and enjoyed by touching a mobile phone to a portable player. TransferJet can be used as a universal interface across all consumer electronics devices.

TransferJet doesn't create interference by using a separate frequency, keeping the signal within a very short radius and implementing access point-free operation.

(Credit: TransferJet Consortium)

TransferJet uses the 4.48GHz frequency and works in a very close proximity, so it therefore won't interfere with other wireless devices. Using low-transmission power (averaging at about 70dBm/MHz), the technology is also slated to have very high effective (real) throughput of 375Mbps. To put this in context, at that rate, one hour of high-resolution MPEG4 video can be transmitted in a few seconds.

The TransferJet Consortium consists of Sony, Canon, Eastman Kodak, Hitachi, Victor Company of Japan, KDDI, Kenwood, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), Nikon, Olympus, Pioneer, Samsung, Seiko Epson, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, and Toshiba.

The group will develop specifications and guidelines to ensure interoperability between products that incorporate the technology. The consortium will also promote the advantages of this new technology across industries and directly to consumers, hoping, ultimately, to create and expand the market for TransferJet products.

During installation, you have to be careful if you don't want to set JetAudio Basic as the default application for audio and video files. However, the freeware application gives you plenty of reasons to make it your only player.

The interface has a modern design that looks like an equalizer. You can customize each section of the program, from CD ripping to format conversion, to your heart's content. The program can convert files among some a number of formats, as well as read and edit MP3 tags. The built-in Cross-fader, Reverb, and Wide-sound modes provide a nice touch not found in most MP3 players. The program becomes truly unique with its clock, however, which features a timer and an alarm. We also appreciate the inclusion of a tool for seeking out song lyrics.

One quibble is it treats a playlist as an album but uses the artist as its primary key field, making it difficult to locate mixes. Still, JetAudio's appealing feature set should attract audiophiles.

(Credit: Drinkstuff)

Some of us at Crave are old enough to remember when the Harrier "Jump Jet" gained fame (or notoriety) in the Falklands War of 1982, an aircraft that seemed to arrive from the future because it could take off vertically like a helicopter. That, anyway, is what came to mind upon seeing this "RC Jump Jet Stealth Plane."

Unlike most remote-controlled aircraft, this one claims to have a Harrier-like vertical lift powered by four "gyro-stabilized" propellers. Unfortunately, OhGizmo says it looks more like "a four-bladed helicopter that's been adorned with small wings" than any kind of real jump jet. But judging by the video below, it will probably be more than adequate in making the cats jump out of their skins.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

Is your tiny desk space making you feel down? Do you have secret desires to dismember that elephantine beast your IT department calls a laser printer? Well, you can stop popping that Valium because HP has launched its smallest laser printer to date, the LaserJet P1005. Crave first learned of this black-and-white model last summer, but it's now available on the market.

Taking up about the same area as a 15.4-inch notebook, the printer claims to be able to push out its first copy in under 8.5 seconds (from the PowerSave mode) with an average speed of 14 pages per minute. It uses a special ink developed by HP--formed from perfectly spherical particles--which it says should give better image quality over other inks.

(Source: Crave Asia)

For those of you who've lost hope that you'll ever have a robot butler or drive a hovercraft, here's a glimmer of possibility: a jet pack! Thunderbolt Aerosystems has developed the Thunderpack, a "rocket belt" that can propel you through the air at up to 75 miles per hour. Okay, so it will only fly for 45 seconds. And it'll cost you $100,00 to buy one. Then there's the fact that I'm sure a few safety-freakish representatives of Congress will do everything in their power to keep these out of the sky. But they're still jet packs, for heaven's sake!

Click here for CNET News.com's Thunderpack photo gallery.