Two months after the Blackberry 8707v was introduced in Spain, Blackberry is now ready to pump up the PDA scene again with its latest innovation, the Blackberry 8707g.

Set for launch this week, this black beauty supports the usual Blackberry "push" email, phone, text messaging, organiser, browser and other corporate data applications.

It boasts of a QWERTY keyboard, 320x240 color LCD, 64MB of flash memory, built-in speakerphone and Bluetooth (2.0) connectivity. The handset can also be used as a tethered modem, with the ability to access the Internet from laptops.

Having a split screen on your TV is cool. Now, imagine that on your mobile phone. Now, Samsung makes that a reality through SCH-B470. This mobile's screen allows you to watch digital broadcasts on one channel, while simultaneously surfing 11 other channels of S-DMB program with a small subscreen. While it is not exactly split screen, the sub-screen's size can be enlarged to half of the main screen. And it is up to you if you want to stick to the main screen, or jump to the other, and vice-versa. You can also rotate the 2.2 inch LCD to a horizontal position according to your viewing preference. 

This new wonder also has a 2 Megapixel camera, MP3 player, and dedicated music keys on the front flip. Priced at 700,000 Korean won (around ($725), SCH-B470 is not yet due for release outside Korea.

Vega of Korea has a new UMPC that runs XP Home. Using the very reliable Babelfish Translation Services, Vega's UMPC goes by the name of "Hemp Cloth". And that's what we're going to call it for now. With its slim dimensions (160 X 80 X 27.5mm) and weight (16oz/ 480g), the Hemp Cloth is small enough to carry in one hand. Its specs include:

• 30GB HDD
• 256MB memory.
• 4.3in LCD 800X480 screen
• WiFi
• USB port for external keyboard
• VGA terminal
• 6 hour battery life

The Hemp Cloth will be available starting September and will retail for about "60-70 bay great levels".

Following in the footsteps of fellow industry giant Nokia, Samsung recently unleashed its newest thing of beauty - the SCH-B450 aka Samsung's answer to the Nokia n-gage. This baby is jampacked with features such as 3D-motion recognition games which will enable future users to have some good gaming fun with this one. Too tired of playing them games? Then go ahead and watch some television with this Samsung contraption which has a DMB Tuner that makes TV watching a reality. Beat that n-gage!

The SCH-B450 is also equipped with 1M polygon 3D game chip and vibration solution of Immersion Company 'Vibe Tonz' to really enhance your gaming experience. Other features include 2.2-inch wide LCD, Bluetooth, motion recognition, 2M camera, MP3 player, my pet, black UI, file viewer, and mobile printing.

Suggested price is 600,000 Korean Won or roughly $632 American bucks. No word on availability for now but you are free to take a closer look at the thumbprint on your left. Let's just hope that this thingamajig steps foot on foreign shores.

Apologies for the Off-Topic post, but some things just need to be said. Hey, even WE need to rant sometimes! Excuse us while we vent...

For many of you, technology is your life. For those of us at QJ.NET, technology is also our work - but this bit of technology has been more work than we bargained for and has damn near driven us back to the 'ol pad of paper and abacus.

We like to keep up on the newest bits of computing, and from time to time, we have the chance to get our hands on some primo gear. So when AlienWare announced the availability of their monster laptop series, the Aurora mALX, we were first in line - literally. Order #1. Boasting to be one of the first 19" SLI notebooks, featuring a Dual 256MB NVidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX, can you blame us? So on May 9th we placed our order and tossed down the cash, foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the promised June 10th delivery.

A month later we're still sloshing around on a floor covered in drool, and have another month of crusty carpet to look forward to.

So what's the darn hold up? Beats us. According to our Order Status (seen right) we're stuck in the limbo known as "Phase 3", which seems to translate to "Thanks for your money, sucka." As weeks went by, we naturally got a bit curious. Multiple emails to AlienWare went unanswered, and only after a few phone calls did we start to get an inkling as to what was up.

According to the folks at AlienWare, we had to wait for their flagship notebook because they were trying to round up some parts. What parts, you might ask? Well, I'll tell you. Seems that they've been hyping up a product with fancy features without having any of that equipment actually ready for building. SLI Video Card? Nope. 19" LCD Display? Guess again. At least they have the case though, right? Wrong.

So what we have here is a case situation where AlienWare is selling a product which doesn't actually exist and that they are incapable of manufacturing. All the bells and whistles that make this notebook the bad-boy that it's supposed to be are MIA. And as an added kick to the throat, they weren't even going to bother telling us about it - despite the fact that "in the rare occurrence that a PC component is not readily available, you will be notified via email."

Oh, did I mention the $4,500 price tag? Apparently you don't always get what you pay for. And so we wait. Right now our ship date is slated for July 10th, a whole 2 months after the Aurora mALX went on sale, and the exact same shipping date you'd be quoted if you bought one today. We'll be sure to keep you updated on the status of this debacle as it unfolds...

...in the mean time, we'll be icing our asses, because it fees like AlienWare has given us a good old fashioned anal probing.

If you have a nightmare purchase story of your own, feel free to tell us about it in the comments - especially if you happen to be in the same predicament as we are. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program...

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Update #1: Here it is! The magical day has come and gone and now it's time to share with you the really-worth-it result all our frustration! So, without further ado...

...nah, I'm just joshing ya. You didn't really expect it to get here 3 months after ordering, did you? That's crazy talk! Apparently there is no escaping the limbo of Phase 3, cause we're still there. As if being stuck there wasn't enough, they insist on taunting us with phrases like "Payment has been received" (thanks for rubbing our nose in it) and "the order is now in queue for production." Excuse me, but we ARE the queue! First in line! Remember?

As you can see the saga isn't even close to being over. Hopefully we'll have another update for you before August 10th.

Here's a little device that will definitely get your attention.

Think of an LCD projector that you would normally use for your class or office presentations, or for your own home theater to watch movies on. Now, make that projector smaller. As small as a mobile phone.

We're not pulling your leg here. There really is a device now that's portable and very useful especially for those who have mobile devices like cellphones and iPods.

The Nano-Projector from Explay is a mini projector which you can plug into your mobile devices directly. It displays the image on a screen as big as 30 inches.

The Nano-Projector's engines are made with a proprietary ASIC that binds the components used including a unique laser-based diffractive optical technology and a proprietary technology for enhancing micro-display efficiency.

The mini-projector from Explay will be released early 2007 for an as-yet-undisclosed price.

The newest kid on the PDA block is looking sleek! Korean electronics company, Blue Bird have announced the arrival of their newest contraption -- the BM-300 T-DMB. From a distance, it resembles one of LG's chocolate phones, but chocolate phone it is not. The PDA is housed in an elegant all-black finish and the 5-way D controller is amped with a red lining.

This one runs in Windows Mobile 5.0, but the biggest factor that this baby boasts is that it supports T-DMB or Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting which lets TV addicts-cum-executives watch their favorite shows when they are out and about. The only problem is that you'll be able to watch in a really small and somewhat beyond satisfactory screen - the 2.8 inch touchscreen TFT-LCD (QVGA) display can only support a 240 x 320 pixel resolution, a bit disappointing for a promising PDA/TV.

The BM-330 is powered by a Bulverde CPU, which comes along the lines of 520 MHz with 64MB RAM and 128MB ROM onboard memory. Memory can be further expanded via an SD SDIO card slot. As for connectivity, it has WLAN 802.11b/g, Bluetooth (v1.2 Class2), USB, IR. Blessed with a 110 x 60 x 13.8 (mm) figure, it is pretty handy. The price tag will follow and as for availability, it will be out in Korea this coming October, as always, there is no word about a worldwide release.

Konica Minolta Japan will surely get cheers from people who are left groping in the dark when their cellphone backlights aren't bright enough to illuminate the LCDs in case of total blackout. The company has unveiled the world's brightest Organic EL backlight, which boasts a brightness level of 1,000 cd/m2. It'll be used in mobile phones and other portable devices to increase readability in both low light and bright light conditions. I'm thinking that with this technology, we can look forward to portable gaming devices that will be as bright (or even brighter) than the DS Lite.

No word yet from Konica as to when the technology will be commercialized.

Continuing the chronicles of our laptop purchasing misadventures, (the first part of this tawdry tale can be read here) comes this next chapter in the saga, complete with a twistier plot and a happy ending (but not really). Alternative titles for this blog post included, "AlienWhere: All Your Cash Are Belong To Us" and,  "AlienWhere: I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!"

For those not in the know, here's the lowdown. We love things that go vroom here at QJ, and so we plunked down some cold hard cash (of the digital variety) in order to secure a sweet, sweet, oh so sexy AlienWare laptop, and not just any laptop, we wanted the monster, the Aurora mALX. I might mention that we were pretty darn chuffed at being Order #1 in the queue as well, we sat down and waited patiently for the June 10th delivery date to arrive. Two weeks after the due date and $4,500 later, and we're still sitting in that chair, ankle deep in a pool of QJ bloggers' collective saliva (seriously, it's a little icky in here).

So we did the only thing any rational geek would do, we ordered another uber laptop, but this time we made sure to steer well away from They Who Shall Not Be Named (Alienware). Buying expensive toys on the interweb can be a risky thing (as we've since found out) but there are tools that can help guide you. A quick search on resellerratings.com turned up a neat site called Xtremenotebooks.com, it helped that they offered "Legendary Prices On Products That Rock," and they had the resellerratings to back up the bold claim, so we took a chance.

Present day: While our Alienware laptop is still stuck in "Phase 3: Oblivion", we're humming along to the sweet sounds of the Nova 988W. Not only did they get this piece of kit to us in just a few days with zero delays, they also fixed a small issue we had with the CD drive and replaced it immediately, with FedEx overnight delivery to boot!

Specs please? Sure thing, here's the rundown, it's got a 19" High Contrast Glossy Wide Angle WSXGA+ LCD, perfect for ogling life size boobies productivity, an AMD Turion™ 64 ML-40 with up to 2048MB Dual Channel DDR PC3200 400MHz RAM,  NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7800 GTX GeForce™ Go DUAL SLI 16X PCI-E with 256MB GDDR3 RAM and an SATA150 7200RPM HDD 8x Dual Layer DVD±R/RW. Oh yeah, it's also got a built in 4-in1 Card Reader, a Digital Web Camera and 5.1 Surround sound with subwoofer, a Built in Mini PCI Wireless 802.11G (54 Mbps)and Bluetooth for high speed net access to the aforementioned boobies productivity and of course a Built-In Avermedia TV Tuner w/Remote Control, so we can watch the boobies productivity on local TV without having to... lean forward... and... push the buttons?

In other words, we're darn happy - thanks for the fantastic service, XtremeNotebooks! So you see some fairy tales have happy endings, and if we ever see the fruits of that missing $4,500, it'll be an even happier ending, but for now it's enough that we can start mopping up that stagnant pool of drool in the office.

Ideas and designs are double-edged swords, it could either be insanely popular or it could be just that-- insane. Now picture this: a cell phone that doesn't look like a cell phone even if you are already using it. Nokia just presented a fun yet impossible concept, the Nokia Open phone. It seems that the thingamajig borrowed its design from a fan in the sense that it opens like a fan with a scrollable touch screen-- a concept which will take a considerable length of time to become a reality.

This design by Hugo Danti won the 1st prize project done for NOKIA 4G mobile concept competition. It incorporates a scrollable LCD screen, with touchscreen technology and allows the user to adjust the space on screen to each function he/she wants to use like video conference and internet navigation at the same time. One main button controls the primary functions. All others are accessible on the screen. The idea is that with the push of a button the thin phone opens up, revealing a spacious screen on which buttons and menu options appear for you to manipulate with your digits.

Just don't lose sleep waiting on this one, it may take a long time before Nokia engages in some massive marketing and campaigning for this beautiful contraption. Then again, maybe it's not such an impossibility. We have been reporting about the developments of the e-paper and most likely if Nokia is seriously considering making this one, they'll be using the e-paper. But, for me, concept or no concept, I want one!