Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Earlier this year phone manufacturers announced to bring in a universal phone charger in a bid to improve the mobile industries environmental outputs. Today an agreement was signed at European Parliament to see it happen. Many of the phone companies responsible for giving us a million different chargers agreed to sign up for it but now the deal has gone through the European Commission, it can finally go ahead.

However it’s not actually law, but completely voluntary. How good would it be though to finally be able to use everyone else’s chargers without having to carry yours with you everywhere you go. The new chargers will use mini-USB and should be arriving with our phones some time next year…..hopefully

Source : Electricpig

On first looks the Arena looks like a smaller, slightly fatter iPhone. The screen takes up most of the phone with three buttons at the bottom of the screen and a small camera at the top. On the back of the phone, the camera lens is very small as to is the flash. The brushed metal finish is attractive  but the plastic back seems to get dirty quick. Being a touchscreen phone thats very iPhone looking, this is obviously LG’s attempt to draw in those customers that Apple has attracted. However a smartphone this is not but this doesn’t stop it being a good all round phone.

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For all of those waiting for free HD TV, Freeview HD is set to be launched before the end of the year. The service will start first in the North of England and then will then unfortunately roll out to the rest of the country across the next 2 or 3 years.

Graham Plumb, Head of Distribution Technology at BBC Operations that transmission will start at Granada’s Winter Hill transmitter from 2nd December 2009, not long after the Granada region’s digital switchover.  “The plan has always been to roll Freeview HD out around the country following switchover and Winter Hill was selected as the first achievable transmitter. There will need to be a retrospective upgrade of regions that have already switched.”

For those in London, the Crystal Palace transmitter is due to be updated in December, then four other transmitters covering urban areas by spring 2010. However it hasn’t been made clear if these upgrades mean immediate switch on to the service and it’s said that London as a whole won’t get complete service till 2012 (just in time for those Olympics)

It has also been said that most people wanting to take up the service will more than likely have to buy a new set top box or TV to take the service which when it starts will only have 4 channels, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The service will also only broadcast in 720p(still good in my opinion)

Today Microsoft has revealed official release dates and for its forthcoming OS. The release has been set for October 22nd so not long now till we get the opportunity to ditch Vista (yay!)

Like Vista, 7 will be coming in a Home Premium package for £149.99, a Professional package at £219.99 and Ultimate at £229.99. Don’t worry though you wont have to pay the full amount as Microsoft are offering an “upgrade” price up until 31st December. You can upgrade upgrade to Home Premium for £79.99, Professional for £189.99 or Ultimate for £199.99 (not a massive saving but better than nothing).

However if you pre-order Home Premium you can pick it up for £49.99 or Professional for £99.99. This offer starts on 15th July and Ends on August or “whilst stocks last” (can’t see the world suddenly running out of discs in a hurry) also if you buy a Windows Vista PC after June 26, you’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7.

No doubt trying to steal some of Palms thunder WildCharge have announced a wireless charging solution for the iPhone.

Starting today, iPhone (3G and 3GS included) and iPod touch users can order up a WildCharge Skin along with a WildCharger Pad in order to bring wire-free charging to their Smartphone.

The phone will require a skin and this is then placed on a charging pad.

The cost? A not to obscene $34.99 for the skin, or $79.99 for the skin and pad.

Finally BD-Live is going to become useful. Sony is teaming up with Gracenote, those lovely media database peeps that gets all the track info when you put your cd’s in your computer, have brainstormed MovieIQ. Basically its IMDB while you watch your film.

If you want to know who’s who, what they’ve been in before or what music’s on in the background you’ll no longer have to fire up your pc or laptop to find out who or what. It’ll also tell you all sorts of facts and trivia about the film you’re watching.

This should be coming to Sony studio releases from September with new titles like Angels and Demons to the old skool ones like Easy Rider.

Microsoft have announce its Zune HD will be powered by Nvidia’s Tegra chipset giving the OLED PMP brilliant visuals, great performance and better battery life which we all know is a massice problem when playing video on a PMP. Nvidia’s Tegra can give 1080p output on HDMI. The Zune itself will only do 720p playback but if its powered by the Tegra, this will give the Zune great rendering capabilities and it will be interesting to see how the UI can get the full potential of it.

Microsoft has kept quiet on the full specifications of the Zune HD but on an official Zune Insider Podcast, presenter Matt Akers said the Zune was “like a mini laptop in your hand” after confirming that it would indeed use the Nvidia Tegra. Still waiting for a UK release date and price…….. can’t wait!!

6cm deep, £499.97, Tesco. The three things you need to know if you’re looking for a reasonably price 1080p TV that’s extra thin with pretty good specs, this one is for you. Ok Panasonic and Samsung make better quality thinner screens, but they’re twice the price. Might get myself down to Tesco and have a look with my own eyes, see if its much kop.

Specs :

• 100MHz Refresh
• 1080p
• 4 HDMI ports
• 8m/s Response Time
• Wall Mountable
• 

Source : Electricpig