Hands-on: Sony Ericsson's 12-megapixel Idou 
Here at Mobile World Congress, Sony Ericsson has unveiled what it dubs the future of mobile entertainment -- a 12-megapixel concept handset currently known as Idou.
This will be the first 12-megapixel mobile to hit the UK when Sony Ericsson releases it later this year. It's a fully touchscreen device, featuring a true 16:9-resolution display, a Xenon flash for making those 12-megapixel photos even smarter in low light, and the latest Symbian operating system for running games and movies. Continue reading...
Media Go: Sony Ericsson's war on media management
Sony Ericsson's hoping to take a lot of the complications that even we, as reviewers, have to suffer when reviewing mobile phones: file management. Its new Media Go application, which debuts with the all-new W995 Walkman handset, promises pain-free media management, and it could be the sorely needed final piece to the Sony Ericsson puzzle.
Typically with phones and media players, dragging and dropping a music or video file onto your new device will give you compatibility errors like 'incompatible format', 'unsuitable frame rate' or 'incorrect aspect ratio'. This is what Sony Ericsson aims to make a thing of the past. Continue reading...
Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman: 8-megapixel music monster
Holy 3.5mm jacks, Batman! Sony Ericsson just announced its latest and certainly greatest Walkman handset -- the W995 -- and it's got a real headphone socket! Oh, Sony Ericsson, you shouldn't have. No wait -- you should've. Well done. Took you long enough.
Anyway, Son Eric's latest flagship slider handset's a juicy little peach. It's got an 8.1-megapixel camera with autofocus, a 66mm (2.6-inch) 240x320-pixel screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support, an 8GB Memory Stick Micro M2 card, stereo Bluetooth, and that all-important 3.5mm headphone socket, of course. Continue reading...
Make money on Twitter
Crave may be a team of dedicated tech journalists with a peerless collective expertise on just about every gadget going, but frankly we have the financial nous of a houseplant. Fortunately we have a team of mercenary cut-throats upstairs taking care of the coffers, so we invited them to take a break from holding schoolkids upside down by their ankles to nick their lunch money, and offer some suggestions on how to monetise your Twitter experience.
If you're setting up a Twitter feed for your company, band, charity or organisation, or if you want your personal feed to start paying its way, here's how to get exposure, build your brand and get yourself minted. Continue reading...
Play the name game
The five most spurious Valentine's Day press releases
It's Valentine's Day tomorrow! That can mean only one thing: romance? Unlikely. A posh dinner? Expensive. Lots of cards? No chance. No, the only certainty on Valentine's Day is that every journalist in the world is drawing straws and the work-experience kid/the newest team member/whoever's too hungover to say no, has to write a gift round-up. And where journalists go, PR follows. So pucker up gadget fans, and give big air kisses to the five most spurious Valentine's Day-themed press releases of 2009! Mwah! Continue reading...
CNET UK Podcast 123: The good and bad of Twitter 
This week on the CNET UK Podcast, Ian, Nate and Rich discussed the news and cool stuff they've got their hands on.
It wasn't a good start to Thursday, with Pioneer announcing it will pull out of TV production. As if that wasn't bad enough, we found out that satellites are colliding with each other in orbit. In happier news, Her Majesty the Queen decided to re-launch her official Web site. She did all the coding herself, and is rumoured to have learnt PHP for the project.
Eidos, one of the UK's biggest games companies, announced it would be bought by Japanese publisher Square Enix. We assume Lara Croft will get tentacles and a cat tail any minute. Amazon, meanwhile, announced the second version of its e-book reader, the Kindle. It won't be available in the UK just yet though, which is annoying. We also discussed lying politicians, but that's hardly news, is it? Continue reading...
Microsoft: £172k for the arrest of Conficker virus writer
Microsoft is offering a $250,000 (£172,000) reward to anyone with evidence that results in the prosecution of the coder who wrote and distributed the Conficker computer virus -- an enormously dangerous worm that infected millions of PCs worldwide, including entire hospital networks and the UK's Ministry of Defence. Continue reading...
Samsung Blue Earth: The plastic-bottle phone
In an attempt to help consumers be more eco-friendly, Samsung has come up with the Blue Earth, a pebble-shaped, solar-powered touchscreen phone. The Blue Earth is free from harmful substances such as beryllium and phthalates, and is made out of recycled water bottles.
On the back of the Blue Earth, you'll find a solar panel designed to harness the sun's energy and pump it into the phone's battery. To add to the Blue Earth's green credentials, there's easy access to controls for screen brightness and backlight duration, as well as an energy-efficient Bluetooth mode, so that you can save power. It even features an 'eco walk' function that uses a built-in pedometer to show you by how much walking, instead of driving, reduces CO2 emissions. Continue reading...
Vista buyers to get Windows 7 for free
Want Windows 7 for free? Buy yourself a copy of Windows Vista after 1 July, and you could qualify for a free upgrade when Microsoft's new operating system ships, say sources for CNET UK's sister site CNET News.
Further details of the so-called 'Windows 7 Upgrade Program' came from technology blog Tech ARP, which suggested purchases of Windows Vista -- between 1 July 2009 and 31 January 2010 -- may be insured with the offer of an upgrade to Windows 7 when it finally hits shelves. Continue reading...
NBS Audio Cables EVA and Butter/Fly speakers: What recession?
The sky's the limit when it comes to hi-fi, and if you have $200,000 (£137,800) of loose change, you might like to take a closer look at NBS Audio Cables' latest EVA and Butter/Fly speaker systems.
This kit has an exotic design that hardly resembles anything remotely similar to a conventional loudspeaker. Its most interesting feature is a pair of 1.2m-tall pyramids. These have a unique smooth, grille-free finish and are designed to reproduce music in a room via indirect sound radiation. Continue reading...
