Sliding-Clamshell Design by Samsung

Samsung has attempted to marry the two most stylish mobile phone designs in an attempt to make a practical design for Samsung's new mobile phone. The sliding-clamshell design is a combination of the sliding and folding forms.

The sliding-clamshell phone will be built from a soft cover that will allow the body to slide lengthwise and become extended and folded. In sliding phones, the displays are often large but are unprotected so they're susceptible to damage. They're also too bulky sometimes. Clamshell phones on the other hand are portable because of their small size, but the displays are also small. The sliding-clamshell phone tries to combine the great features of these two forms.

This new phone design will be portable because of its relatively small size and will have a display bigger than a clamshell's. When one opens the device, the soft external cover will become a track for the body. It has a corrugated hinge that links the track in place. When sliding the body upwards, the phone shows two keypad sections. This allows the user to use both hands in a horizontal. This design is also ideal for mobile gaming.

This design may look really odd in the start, but since usability is the essence of the sliding-clamshell design, people will eventually buy the idea. Samsung though, has not yet released any information on when they'll be manufacturing phones using this design. Hopefully soon.

Codemasters Reveals Casual Action Puzzler

Just hours ago Codemasters revealed their new casual action puzzle game titled "Bliss Island". This multi-platform action game features over 90 stages and 5 extreme game modes. Over the period of the next few months this game is planned to evolve even further for its launch on the Playstation Portable.

Bliss Island is an original funky, competitive and accessible interactive entertainment property created by and licensed from Pompom Software, a London-based studio that focuses on accessible gaming concepts with distinctive visual styling. Pompom’s previous games include the award-winning blaster Mutant Storm.

Gamers will take the role of Hoshi the Zwooph, a small blue fluffy creature with a long trunk, as he competes in loads of mini games that revolve around his unique ability to expel precision puffs of air at high velocity from his trunk - the game’s signature and unique gameplay mechanic.

Hoshi's puffs can be used to manipulate different objects in the game in addition to bouncing. They note being able to divert pieces of falling fruit into hungry mouths, or blowing creatures around an obstacle course.

Says Nick Pili, Codemasters’ Director of Casual Gaming: “Signing Bliss Island is a key development in Codemasters’ activities in the casual gaming space. By bringing outstanding original product into the mix it strengthens Funsta.com’s attraction as an online destination for casual players. Extending the title and making it available as a casual try-before-you-buy downloadable PC game, then as a full title for the PSP system, gives the game an organic expansion as the audience for the game grows.”

Comments Michael Michael of Pompom Software: “Codemasters immediately understood the potential of Bliss Island and we’re delighted to be working with a company that shares our vision of ‘gameplay first’ games, as well as one that shows such innovative thinking in the way it plans to grow the audience and Bliss Island brand.”

Extra comfort Analog stick and Cross-Pad now available

Gaming accessory company Brando has released an item which many of you action/fighting game addicts may be interested in. It's a replacement 'chunky' analog stick which enables you to fight better with more comfort. It is very similar to the product announced by Capcom to aid fighters out there. This costs $5 and comes with two replacement sticks. They are reportedly easy to fit, I'm guessing just lift the old one off, and place the new one on. The Cross-pad installation seems like it would be a bit more interesting...

Five Tips For Better Laptop Battery Life

You're in the middle of a long flight for a business meeting. Being the boy/girl scout that you are, you decide to brush up on some important business details, while reviewing, your laptops battery stopped being cooperative and finally shut down. Well if you want this scenario to stop happening to you, read on, for here are 5 useful tips for a better laptop/ notebook life that came from the people who know notebooks most - Tony Salinas, senior systems engineer and consultant at Dell, and Herman De Hoop, technical marketing manager at HP.

Tip #1 Power down the display

Tip #2 Turn off unused devices

Tip #3 Decrease hard drive activity

Tip #4 Disable startup items

Tip #5 Condition the battery

How To Traveling With Your Desktop

I still don't know what to make of this photo. Should I be laughing at the person who's obviously against laptops? Seeing this man carry his entire desktop around like this makes me glad laptops were invented.

Helio: Cell phone with Myspace

As technology moves and merges further forward, there's little surprise that we're seeing the likes of this device being touted as the next best thing. The Helio mobile offers Myspace integration, meaning you can actually post to Myspace from the handset. It's not just a gimmick device though, with plenty more to offer in the specifications department: Unlimited Data, picture and text messaging, data transfer, 3G network access, wireless internet, video streaming, and of course the aforementioned Myspace access.

Various plans are on offer that include 3D games that you can try before buying it, video downloading and streaming from varying sources, including major news, sport and music channels. Spec-wise it has a 2 mega pixel camera with flash (4x digital zoom, and MPEG 4 video camera), full screen video (Large 2.2” QVGA, 260K color TFT-LAC, 240 x 320 resolution), duplex stereo speakers. It's packed full and doesn't look half bad either, but the $275 price tag may leave some thinking twice.

Project Gotham Racing Heading to Mobile Phones

It has just been announced by Glu Mobile (Mobile publisher and developer) that they've made an alliance with Microsoft to develop and publish the mobile version of Project Gotham Racing, the hit-series you might know from the Xbox and Xbox 360. As of yet it's unknown which phones are supported (although you can count on those with the Windows OS), and there haven't been any screenshots released either.

"The PGR franchise revolutionized the racing genre by rewarding gamers for driving with speed, style and daring," said Greg Ballard, chief executive officer, Glu Mobile. "Glu will create the definitive mobile racing experience by delivering this same exciting challenge optimized for the mobile platform."

"The Project Gotham Racing franchise is loved by millions worldwide, and we're excited to partner with Glu Mobile to give gamers a new platform to enjoy it on in the near future," said Edward Ventura, director of franchise development, Microsoft.

Expect to see a worldwide release somewhere in early 2007.

Welcome

Welcome to Technoracity. Technoracity is my blog about gadgets and handheld stuff. I will try to post as much relevant *cool* stuff about pda's, gaming handelds, cell phones, mp3 players, and more. Check back each day for fresh stuff.