Telecom New Zealand is gearing up to launch the BlackBerry smartphone in New Zealand together with associated back end server products.
According to Telecom about 400 Blackberry 8830 World Edition handsets are currently on trial with Gen-i customers but the company will offer the device to the general market early next year. Pricing has yet to be determined.
The BlackBerry 8830 features a full QWERTY keyboard and a trackball, and provides phone, email, messaging, organiser, web browser and multimedia services. The World Edition model is CDMA-enabled but is also capable of roaming on GSM/GPRS networks.
Telecom general manager of business products Martin Butler says the BlackBerry 8830 will enable Telecom customers to travel internationally with mobile voice, SMS, email and data coverage, without having to change their phone, phone numbers or email addresses.
For individuals and smaller businesses, the BlackBerry Internet Service allows users to access up to ten supported corporate and personal email accounts, including most popular ISP email accounts, from a single device.

Posted by Michael Foreman at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Google is gunning for Wikipedia with a new service called Knol that aims to capitalize on the growing popularity of social encyclopedias. The Google Knol (defined as a "unit of knowledge") project is in closed trials right now with no word on when it will be open to the public to try.

According to a recent blog posting about the Knol project by Google we know a bit about what to expect. From what I can tell Knol shares a lot of the same traits as the pre-existing types of social reference pages such as Wikipedia, Squidoo, and Mahalo. As with these other services Knol users have the ability to create a page on any topic with information, pictures, links and more. It's in the details where Google is looking to one-up the competition and justify its existence.

What Makes Knol Unique

Google's primary focus on Knol will be with the authorship of each page. The original creator of each page will have a miniature profile on the page and will be given a wide variety of options to control the page.

One significant difference between Knol and competing services is that authors will be given the option to place Google ads on the pages they manage and receive revenue from those ads.

The author of a page can also limit what other users can and can't modify on their page. A comments section will always exist, allowing users to weigh in on the page, but actual modification of the bulk of the content can be completely restricted by the author and owner of the page. Will this create wars between experts of similar topics? I wouldn't bet against it.

One of the major problems with Wikipedia is the credibility. Because Wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone credibility issues crop up a lot. With Knol, author profiles are directly placed on the page giving browsers a sense of who is behind the information. Authors also have the ability to disallow other users from modifying the entries.

Another layer of checks and balances are offered as Knol integrates five-star rating system used for each individual page.

Some other concerns that Google has already addressed is the ownership of the content, which will be entirely owned by the authors, therefore allowing for reprinting, reuse and more by the author. Google has also addressed the search engine optimization and how the Knol pages will not be given any preference on Google's search engine and each page, like all Web pages, will be crawled, ranked and placed by search engine spiders.

It's obvious that Wikipedia has a lot of flaws, and while Google is taking the right approach to attempt to address these flaws in Knol, it's tough to tackle these social knowledge aggregators in a way which will make everyone happy.

Google, Wikipedia, and others should be given a little slack, though, it's hard to design a system that makes billions upon billions self-proclaimed experts happy.

Posted by Michael Foreman at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Google has launched a Google Maps New Zealand service at maps.google.co.nz. In addition to map and satellite images, the expanded service includes New Zealand business listings, driving directions, and the ability for New Zealanders to create, share, personalise and annotate maps. Support is also provided for Google Maps for mobile.

Business listings are provided courtesy of a joint venture with New Zealand company apnfinda (finda.co.nz).
You could, for example, search for a mechanic in your neighbourhood by simply entering the keyword [mechanic], plus your suburb into the search field to receive a list of nearby mechanics. Each result is accompanied by a phone number, street address and links to related websites such as those of other mechanic services in the area and further useful information.

Popular Google Maps applications include:
My Maps, which enable users to quickly and easily create personalised maps and share with friends and family anytime. Users can mark locations on a map from a wide-selection of icons, draw lines and shapes, add text, photos or YouTube videos.
Mapplets, which are mini-applications that enable users to add valuable third-party content directly on Google Maps with a single click. Users can save their customised maps to their personal library. This makes it easy for users to view and integrate different tools and maps, containing information such as distance measurement, hiking trails, events and photos.

People who are out and about can also search for local information on their mobile phone at www.google.co.nz/gmm. The dynamic mapping feature provides them with a simple way to find location and local business information and then navigate around the map from their mobile device. Google's recently announced My Location technology enables New Zealand users to approximate their location on their mobile phone and view surrounding local businesses.

Check out some sample images of the service here.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Panasonic launched its new top-of-the-line full HD home theatre projector, the AE2000, yesterday and announced a retail price of $5699. That's right shoppers, the Christmas price war has begun. The AE2000 steps into the market at $300 cheaper than Epson's recently announced TW2000, and it is more than $2000 cheaper than the launch price of the model it replaces, the AE1000.

The AE2000 shares the same 0.7-inch D7 LCD panel from Epson that the TW2000 uses but apart from that, it's Panasonic all the way.

Panasonic maintains a projector lab in Hollywood in order to learn from movie colourists and directors of photography and incorporate those findings in its projectors. This process has been going on for a number of years now and the AE2000 continues that evolution.

The first new feature of this projector is a lens made under licence from Leica in the same factory as the Panasonic Lumix camera lenses and the lens on each projector is aligned by hand to ensure focus and image uniformity.

The 2000 also introduces a new Detail Clarity Processor, which is an advancement on the traditional Sharpness control. Instead of searching for and sharpening everything in the image that looks like an edge, thereby creating what is often called a ringing or halo effect, the Clarity Processor looks only for high-frequency areas of the image to sharpen. As high-frequency areas are the parts of the image that are most detailed and clearly in focus, this sharpening is able to increase clarity without unwanted side-effects.

The AE2000 also incorporates the Pure Colour Filter introduced with the AE1000 that slides in and out of the light path depending on the chosen image mode. This filter works to deliver more accurate film-like colours, as opposed to a television or video look.

In fact, Panasonic was so confident of the quality of this projector that it held the launch in the colour grading suite of Auckland post production company Toybox Studios. Toybox has installed an AE2000 in the suite to be able to show visiting clients what their final film or TV advertisement will look like when it its screened. This means the AE2000 must be able to produce an image identical to what the colourist sees on their $40,000 professional grade monitor with its $12,000 HD card. Toybox manager, Michael Bach, said the AE2000 had been installed straight out of the box, with no further tweaking, and everyone on his staff agreed it looked spot on.

if tweaking is your bag, however, the AE2000 is a dream come true. It offers split-screen adjustment so that you can freeze frame an image and then split it so that you can see the original image, and the adjusted image beside it. There's a waveform monitor so you can measure the incoming signal and adjust it to ensure blacks are black and whites are white, and all colours inbetween line up accordingly. You can also adjust individual colours within the image, and there are a total of 16 user-definable memory positions in which you can store and name your tweaks!

More info: panasonic.co.nz

Oops, looks like Panasonic NZ is a little slow getting this projector on the website so try the US site in the meantime.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Microsoft has released the "Fall" dashboard update for Xbox 360 and among the many hidden treasures, is the much publicised (though not by Microsoft) inclusion of DivX video support. This is, of course, a good thing, in fact the more video formats the Xbox 360 supports, the more versatile it becomes. As video format support expands, customers will be able to spend less time converting their existing videos and more time enjoying them.

Bigger news though is the arrival of Xbox Original games on Xbox Live. Now users can buy and download original Xbox games, such as Halo, Crimson Skies and CrashBandicoot , via the internet directly to their console. Games are well priced at 1200 Microsoft Points (about $20) and as more titles are added to the list of downloads, the appeal of Xbox Originals will only broaden.

Xbox Arcade now has a new section called Xbox Live Arcade Hits, where you can find all your favourite "old" Arcade titles at newly reduced prices (400 or 800 points by the looks).

Other improvements include enhanced online profiles, expanded friends lists, parental controls and some navigation tweakage. Much of the rest of the update revolves around media support (media being video, music, TV and photo handling) and will really only interest those who use their 360 as a Media Centre Extender (which should be everyone right? I mean, why wouldn't you?). There's plenty of good stuff in there and I suggest you check out the full list of improvements here.

Posted by Scott Bartley at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )