Spy shots of Nokia’s “Tube” emerge

 A smartphone blog claims to have the scoop on Nokia’s mysterious, touch-screen “Tube,” and coughs up some spy shots to boot. The good news (allegedly, at least): It’s packed with features, including GPS and Wi-Fi. The bad news: We won’t see it until next year.According to Symbian Freak, the Tube (a code name only) will arrive with a 3- to 3.5-inch touch screen, quad-band GSM calling, HSDPA data access, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, built-in GPS (plus the ability to geotag photos), and an auto-focus camera that’s “not as good as [those] on the latest Nseries devices” but “way better than the one…on an iPhone.”

The bloggers also claim that the touch screen doesn’t support multi-touch (so no “pinching” or multi-finger gestures), but note that it will come enabled with haptic feedback (meaning the phone will vibrate with each screen tap). There’s also a stylus revealed in one of the spy shots.

Symbian Freak says the Tube (or whatever Nokia ends up naming it) should arrive in the first quarter of 2009—almost a full year from now—and that a more powerful version of the phone will follow shortly thereafter.

Anyway, that’s the story—all unverified, of course, so take it with a grain of salt. Hopefully, we’ll be getting some official details from Nokia in the near future. [Photo credit: Symbian Freak]

A better TV Compability

If any one has ever tried to import any electrical goods from Europe to the USA (or visa versa) that are in any way related to TV, they will know the excruciatingly annoying problem of the fact that the TVs are different. Frustratingly due to the different power systems American TVs work at 60Hz, whilst European ones work at 50Hz. This led to the development of different systems, as the then dubbed NTSC (National television standards comity) did not work to its full potential in the 50 Hz countries, so PAL (Phase Alternate Lines) was created. It did has a slightly slower frame rate (at 25 compared to 30) but it did the job well.

It does get more complicates, escpecially with the introduction of color, but we will leave it at that for now in the knowledge that they are different. So, with the massive globalization that has occurred within the last few decades, many people called form TVs that would be NTSC and PAL compatible so they could use VHS systems and US region DVDs anywhere. However this is where it gets even more complicated. Some TVs (mainly the relatively new ones) then started being ‘NTSC’ compatible, but these was only compatible with the 60 HZ input for NTSC 4.43, which was the Japanese system.

So as many people got pretty annoyed by the misleading promises by the TV companies, converters came around, that meant you could convert US NTSC 3.58 to the NTSC 4.43 that the TVs supported. Now, most new TVs are NTSC 3.58 compatible (as well as 4.43 and PAL), but what for the older TVs that many people still have? The ultimate converter is the answer, and at only £100 you can get one that will convert NTSC 3.58 and NTSC 4.43 to PAL (you can also get the reverse). The best one on the market at the moment its the ALLREIONS2PAL, which converts all the different TV standards into PAL with no delay (so good for gaming) and godd definition (up to 28 inch).

In real terms this means that on any TV now you can play DVD playters and consoles that are on any compatability. This is brilliant for the import market, as you can finally imprt goods, to give a lower price, and they will still work, which is good for the consumer, the importer and, er….. less good for the producer. But they can cope with it, right ?!?