SmartPhones4U.com

I have used a small set of portable wireless Bluetooth speaker for a number of years and have always found them excellent as a quick way to connect media devices and phones to play music.

Creative have just released details of there new ZiiSoundTM Bluetooth Speakers which have been awarded the celebrated red dot award for outstanding product design.

The speakers allow you to wirelessly stream music from any Bluetooth enabled device such as your mobile phone or notebook, from a range of up to 10 metres.

However you will need an extra adapter to use your iPhone,iPod or iPad. The adapter is available for $39.99. Simply plug the Creative BT-D5 Bluetooth transmitter into your iPhone, iPod or iPad and instantly control the ZiiSound D5 wirelessly.

You can buy the Creative ZiiSoundTM Bluetooth Speakers direct from the Creative website for $299.99

Via Chip Chick

On Tuesday, Apple announced that late last month, they closed a deal to acquire Intrinsity — the Texas-based chip maker responsible for the A4 chip used in the iPad.

Word has it that Intirinsity cast the voodoo that allowed the A4 chip in the iPad to clock up to 1Ghz without destroying battery life.

This dark magic is obviously attractive to other mobile device manufacturers, so it makes business sense for Apple to acquire this company.

Having wizards like this working for Apple would obviously help Apple develop chips in the future, too, and also helps keep future hardware developments “in house” and under the watchful eye of The Apple Secret Police.

This isn’t the first time that Apple have purchased a chipmaker: Apple purchased PA Semi in 2008. And with rumours of Apple considering purchasing ARM, it probably won’t be their last.

A more detailed dissection of the issue is over at TechCrunch.

[via The New York Times]

Get excited, Verizon Pixi Plus or Pre Plus owners! But not too excited. Just a little bit excited. Less “Holy crap, I’m getting a petting zoo for my birthday!” excited, more “Neat, it’s probably not going to rain on my birthday!” excited.

Verizon just pushed out a minor update for webOS, bumping things up to version 1.4.1.1. While there’s nothing in terms of new features, it’s jam-packed full of bug fixes. Check out the full list after the jump.

The full list:

• x Easier to use Bluetooth. ? Improved battery life when turning off Bluetooth without
  unpairing a device. x Displayed time feature is more accurate.
• Automatic updates for Daylight Saving Time. x Easier connection management.
• More consistent EV-DO connections when switching from Wi-Fi to CDMA.
• Better TouchstoneTM charger integration. ? The screen will now turn off and display the lock icon and time after the Pre Plus is docked with the Touchstone charger.
• Newly taken photos and videos do not overwrite existing ones.
• Improved picture display when cropping a picture for a contact.

Improvements:

• Pinch to zoom now works in more applications.
• The onscreen volume slider now appears correctly.
• More accurate keyboard input.
• The forward gesture now works in the browser.
• The back gesture now returns to the file list screen in
  certain applications.
• The shutter sound is more responsive when taking a picture
• The LCD reset issue has been resolved.

Ready for the new tweaks? Go pound the update button a few times — failing that, look for it to be automagically rolled to your kit within the next 48 hours.

Nice. The latest version of Cyanogen’s modded ROM (version 5.0.7) brings Android 2.1 support all the way back to the G1 and MyTouch. Being a G1 owner I can say I’m pretty pumped about this: check out the video above, it seems to work perfectly well. The only thing we’re waiting on is to get the package size down to G1 size — if he can’t trim it, we’ll probably see a holdover release for MyTouch users, though.

Expect a news post over at CyanogenMod when it’s cooked all the way through.

Augmented reality is being touted as the new hotness. I’m sure most of you have heard of the augmented reality browser, Layar. Basically, Layar offers a window through which to view the world, where handy hints and information are displayed over the top in real-time.

The Amsterdam-based company released Layar last year for both Android and iPhone, and a number of interesting “layers” have already made their way into the application. The layers mentioned in that post were created by interested developers, but today, Layar opened up a store for selling layers.

Layers in the store so far include a layer by travel-guide publisher Berlitz that points out hotels and places to shop, and EyeTour are offering a layer for tourists in Puerto Rico. There is also a layer for Disneyland and Disney World.

I guess the most obvious use for augmented reality is to make sense of an unfamiliar city, so it makes sense that the first layers are targeted at tourists.

However, commercialising layers like this will hopefully mean some really useful and innovative layers will appear in the browser in the future — especially when there are already 1.6 million copies of the reality browser floating around.

Currently, the store accepts PayPal in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, and offers a 60/40 split between developers and themselves, respectively.

Can you think of any layers you’d like to see (or would purchase) in the future?

For more info on (and screenshots of) the new paid layers, you can check out Layar’s site, here.

[via Mobile Beat]