Navigon 2100: 3.5-inches of 3D navigation

Navigon is really speaking our language, and the language of our pocketbook, with the new Navigon 2100 navigation device. Not only is it a real charmer with curvy looks, 3D maps and 3.5-inches of touchscreen, but the device is hitting North America for the neighborly price of $249, and it looks like Europe will be getting a crack at it as well. Navigon of course isn’t leaving in all the bells and whistles of the 5100 and 7100 — like Bluetooth or real time traffic — but there’s at least some text-to-speech for reading you street names, and speed warnings to let you know when you’re breaking 55. If you’d like you can even get in on real time traffic info for $99, and toss on some ZAGAT reviews for another $39. The 2100 will be out this fall.

Colorful Mobile Phone Headphone Adapters

One of the current trends in cellphones that I particularly hate is the lack of a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. (And I know I’m not alone.) Almost every phone on the market now has some degree of music playback capabilities yet for the most part to use your own headphones (as opposed to the crappy bundled ones) you also need to use some inconvenient adapter. Even my iPhone which is supposed to be the pinnacle of an MP3-capable phone requires a short adapter to deal with the sunken 3.5mm jack.

So enough of my rant and onto a possible solution. These mobile phone plug adapters connect to a phone’s data port and provide a standard 3.5mm jack for plugging in any pair of headphones. And when not in use the adapters can be used as colorful phone charms ensuring they’re always with your phone whenever you want to use them. Unfortunately though I can’t figure out if the adapters are available in multiple versions for different types of phones/data ports or if they simply connect to any mini-USB port.

JOBO Digital Photo Frame With 1GB Of Storage

A company called JOBO has just announced a couple of digital photo frames and their PDJ701 model actually ships with a half-decent 1GB of memory on-board. Sure it’s not exactly gigantic when you consider we’ll soon be seeing 32GB SD cards but compared to all the other digital photo frames on the market it’s a nice change of pace.

The Photo Display as it’s called has a ‘better than most’ 7-inch, 800×480 pixel LCD screen and that 1GB of memory can actually be expanded with support for a wide selection of memory cards like CF, SD, MMC, MS and xD. It even includes a rechargeable lithium-ion battery for those times when you don’t have access to AC power.

The JOBO PDJ701 will be available for about $179 but there’s also a slightly cheaper model, the PDJ700 which only includes 128Mb but will sell for about $159

Toshiba announces HD-EP30 / HD-EP35 HD DVD players

While there’s certainly been quite a few new Blu-ray players to emerge from IFA, Toshiba is making sure the HD DVD faithful (at least those in Europe) aren’t slighted by launching a new duo for that crowd. The standalone HD-EP30 and HD-EP35 players will both tout “REGZA-Link (HDMI, CEC-Link) connectivity and native 24 frames per second playback support,” and moreover, the HD-EP35 also supports High Bit Rate Audio and Deep Color via HDMI. Additionally, both October-bound units play nice with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD, and DTS HD formats, and while the lower-end iteration is set to launch between €349 ($477) and €399 ($545), the EP35 will demand between €449 ($613) and €499 ($682).

TRAI to stop the menace of unwanted calls now!!!

Vipul Baranwal is a chartered accountant who grapples with a tele marketer at least five times a day, often in the middle of important client meetings.

“Sometimes they call during meetings and that causes problems. They either ask for more leads or start talking about their products,” says Vipul.

Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Nripendra Mishra feels that the end to this menace is not far off.

The National Do Not Call registry that already has 10,000 telemarketers registered with it may be able to stop the unwanted calls now.

“The first call will have a fine of Rs 500 and the second of Rs 1,000. And the third time the line will be disconnected,” says Mishra.

But how does one get on to the Do Not Call bandwagon?

• Hutch customers can type “DND” and SMS that to 111 or fill up a form on www.hutch.in.
• Airtel pre-paid and landline users can call 121 for help while postpaid customers can visit www.airtel.in for help.
• Similarly BSNL customers as well as those of Reliance can go to the respective company websites.

Telemarketers who haven’t registered with TRAI however, will have their numbers disconnected if a consumer complains about unsolicited calls.

Those who have registered say the ruling concerns them but they are in no danger of being shut down.

“Now that we are going to make less calls, our conversion rate is only going to be better,” says President, Call Centre Association of India, Saim Chopra.

And telemarketers say they will toe the TRAI line.