Technofile: Sony is now branching out into Wi-Fi phones. Mylo will be launched in the US next month (priced at €272), and presumably Europe soon after.
A little like a PlayStation Portable (PSP) without games, Mylo is more of a portable instant messaging device (using Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger) with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard which will connect to a Wi-Fi network.
Featuring 1GB of flash memory, web browsing, MP3, video and picture playback, Mylo also comes with Skype software. Cleverly, it will also interact with other Mylo devices.
But being pricier than a PSP means Mylo may not in fact make it into the hands of the college students that Sony has declared its target market.
n Minox, the famed German camera maker, is launching the 8.1-megapixel DC 8122 digital camera, aiming at high-end consumers. Features will include the ability to prevent blurred images, along with all the other mod cons of digital cameras.
The 32MB of onboard memory is too small, although this is expandible to 1GB, and it does sport a 6x optical zoom. No price or release date as yet.
n If you thought you could play PlayStation 2 games on the PlayStation 3, think again. It looks increasingly like you will need an additional adapter - read "extra cost" - which can transfer saved games over to the new machine.
n Mobile phone market analyst M:Metric reports that in the US, photo messaging has increased by 32 per cent since February; in France, it's gone up 20 per cent; and in Britain, it has risen 16 per cent.
To date the most popular camera phone in the US and UK is the Motorola RAZR while the Germans prefer the Nokia 6230, and the French prefer the home-grown Sagem X-5.
But while we are sending more pictures, we don't appear to be surfing much via our mobiles. New research from internet firm Hostway found that three-quarters of mobile phone users don't bother with the web-browsing feature.
n BlackBerry users beware. Security firm Praetorian Global has figured out a way for the common business e-mail device to be hacked and attacked. Because BlackBerrys are always on and always connected to a company's internal network, a programme called BBProxy can arrive via e-mail, then sit on the handset and attack the firm "from within".
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has now released instructions about meeting this threat.
In the meantime, avoid attachments on e-mail - even on your BlackBerry.
