What is it?
The technology to transfer power was demonstrated as far back as 1893, when genius Serbian engineer Nikola Tesla lit up a light bulb without wires. That’s quite a long time to wait to see the dream of a cable-free charging finally come to life, but now, thanks to a team of bright sparks, wireless power has arrived.

Say hello to the Powermat – a sleek looking universal charger which miraculously revitalises your gadgets without the need for nasty wires.

What is so special about it?
The genius of the Powermat is not just the ability to charge kit wirelessly. The real beauty of this slimline energy giver is that it aims to end to the frustration associated with dreaded chargers. Anything that banishes the need for twelve chargers, frees up desk space and stops your home looking like your local Maplin has to be a winner.

So how does it work?
You simply take your electronic device, clip on a Powermat enabled receiver, drop it onto the mat, listen for the sound that tells you your device is connected and watch it charge.

The mats will renew the battery life of up to three gadgets simultaneously while the magnetic alignment feature ensures that charging is as efficient as possible, in some cases making it faster than using a normal adapter.

Using RFID tags the Powermat is able to determine exactly how much power to it needs to pump into each gadget. An auto-shut off feature recognises when charging is complete and switches off the charge to that device, ensuring there’s no juice wasted. So your green conscience and your bank balance are both appeased.

An additional advantage of the mats is that they all come with a USB port which means that you don’t always have to be near a plug socket to regenerate your gizmos – you can plug these straight into your laptop.

There is a downside. Currently a Powermat receiver can be only be attached to the back of an iPhone, Nintendo DS and a Blackberry. If you want to charge your other gear, you’ll need to buy the Powemat Powercube that sits on top of the mat and connects to your gadget via USB charger.

An Apple dock is also available but we’re hoping to see the main device support a wider selection of products in the no too distant and really make our wireless dreams come true.

There are currently two versions available; a main one for home and office, plus a smaller portable version which folds away so you can use it on the move.

How much does it cost?
Prices for the home/office mat start at £79.99 while the portable number will set you back £69.99. The Powercube universal USB adaptor is £29.99.

When and where can I get it?
The Powermat will be available from the late October at selected retailers including Carphone Warehouse, John Lewis and Amazon.

In a stunning press release, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple has announced that over 1 million iPhone 3GS models have been sold in 3 days. How often do you come with two huge news stories in one single sentence?

After much talk about his liver transplant and whatnot, the CEO is apparently alive and kicking at Apple. We don’t know the extent to which he’s back, or whether this is a permanent return, but we sure hope so. That said, kudos to Tim Cook and team for carrying Apple through these last six months. They did a hell of a job managing Apple through the economic crisis.

As for the iPhone 3GS—Steve settles the debate between 3GS, 3G S, and 3G [s]—the million units in 3 days is comparable with the 3G’s launch last year, which also took 3 days to cover a million iPhones. Note that the iPhone 3G launched in 22 countries on the same day, while the 3GS launched in only 8 countries. And by comparison, it took 74 days for the first generation iPhone to take up that much market share. This blows past what the analysts had to say, who predicted somewhere between 500,000-700,000 units.

On a similar note, over 6 million people downloaded the iPhone 3.0 software in 5 days of release. With new software at the App Store requiring the iPhone 3.0 platform, I don’t see how the rest of the iPhone users will hold out for longer. And lastly, we’re still waiting on word for how many $100 iPhone 3Gs Apple has sold. I’m sure Palm will be happy to compare Pre sales with the 6 people who buy the cheaper version.

Happy day today!

Two iPhones, 6 apps. We know the iPhone 3G S is supposed to be “on average” 2x faster than the iPhone 3G, but stats are stats and what we’re interested in is real-world usage. A few seconds here, a dozen or more there, and all of a sudden they add up to minutes.

In this video we launch apps on each iPhone 3.0 device at the same time, but imagine if every time the iPhone 3G S finished first, we immediately launched the next app. We wouldn’t make you sit through that much iPhone 3G lag, but that makes the point.

Also, we put a few webpages into Safari, then launched a heavy app, waited for it to load, then exited and went back to Safari to see how many would still be in memory.

Let’s just say, double the RAM makes more than double the difference…

via http://www.theiphoneblog.com

Elizabeth Frisinger, 18, lost her virginity on the beach during a senior class trip. Then she accidentally texted her dad, telling him about it. Woops! Gotta be careful with the iPhone texting app, Lizzy, it’s easy to text the wrong person. Seriously though, sweetheart, this could have been much worse. Just kidding — you’re totally f***ed! It could have only been worse if, instead of texting your dad, he was there.

With last week’s launch of Apple’s latest iPhone, the iPhone 3GS, the rumor mills are running in low gear on what the secretive computer-maker might be planning for its next cell phone.

But it seems everyone loves to speculate and gossip on what’s next for the iPhone so we did a side-by-side comparison of the iPhone and some competing, so-called “iPhone-killer” handsets, to get possible clues as to what changes Apple might be considering for its next iPhone.

And the biggest possible change could be in the screen. The iPhone’s screen has been praised since Apple launched the phone in 2007.

“The iPhone offers an amazing resolution,” said Macworld at the time, while Computerworld said: “It is the best screen you’ve ever seen on a device this small.”

But at 480 pixels by 360 pixels the screen has remained the same while the rest of the cellular industry has moved forward. Today the Nokia N97 offers a higher 640×360 pixels resolution on a similar-sized 3.5-inch display while HTC’s Touch HD and Toshiba’s Japan-only T-01A both have 800×480 pixel resolution on screens that are 3.8-inches and 4.1-inches respectively.

Apple might not want to increase the screen size if it means making the iPhone larger but it’s a good bet that a higher resolution display is set for the next model.

No phone maker obsesses as much about aesthetics as Apple so the company will almost certainly consider an OLED (organic light emitting diode) screen. OLED is a fundamentally different technology from the LCD (liquid crystal display) screens used in most cell phones and offers a noticeably brighter and more vivid display but it comes with a catch.

OLED technology is still relatively new and it becomes more difficult to mass-produce as the screen size gets bigger. While smaller 2-inch class OLED screens are already finding their way into products Apple won’t want to use OLED unless it can be assured of a steady supply of screens that are free of defects, offer a long life and are not significantly more expensive than prevailing LCDs.

Some upgrades are almost assured, such as a faster processor and more memory, although Apple might choose to add a graphics processor. A GPU, like Nvidia’s Tegra chip that is used in the new Zune HD, would enable higher resolution and smoother video playback including high-definition: possibly the iPhone HD?

Away from the screen, Apple could also look at the camera.

The iPhone 3GS brought in a higher resolution 3-megapixel camera but those are already becoming commonplace. Some competing phones, like the Touch HD and Samsung’s Omnia, offer a 5-megapixel camera today and this will become more common as the months go on.