Oh dear - a really good phone is about to come out, better start saving up some $$.

By the way I read this news on msmobiles.com - a good site for news on Microsoft OS based phones.

It comes from the same Taiwanese company that designed the Compaq Ipaq, and the O2 mini XDA. The company is called HTC (www.htc.com.tw).

This new model is called the HTC Tornado, but you will see it in shops with various different model names, depending on the brand that sells it.

HTC is an ODM/OEM; they design and build consumer electronics but they don’t sell to end-consumers. Instead they sell to branded consumer electronics firms who market and sell the products to end-consumers like you and me. As you see, these days, consumer electronics firms don’t have to be bothered with designing and producing, but instead can rely on expert ODM/OEMs (many in Asia) to built tomorrow’s products.

Come to think of it, the two key innovating consumer electronics devices of late came from Apple in US and from HTC in Taiwan. More and more, Asia is becoming the R&D centre of the world rather than the cheap production centre of the world.

Anyway - back to this phone, the HTC Tornado, or the Qtek 8310 (as one of the companies that will sell it calls it).

It’s got WiFi !!

That’s a key selling point. There is only one other model by Nokia that has WiFi built-in. Just think of having Skype installed on your phone and sitting in an airport, or a Starbucks. You will be able to have long distance calls using a WLAN hotspot, rather then the much more expensive IDD rates of your mobile provider. What’s more, you won’t really require 3G now that you have WiFi on your phone. Downloading stuff from Internet and browsing sites on WiFi is just a much better experience than doing the same on the slow 3G networks of today.

One point on Skype though; the Skype version for Mobile 5.0 (the new Microsoft OS version for Smartphones) is not yet available. It’s currently being beta-tested, but I’m sure the availability of this phone from HTC will help speed up their development process.

Besides WiFi it’s got Bluetooth, is Quadband (so you can use it in US, which is not the case for other Smartphones) and 64MB memory. The memory is not very large, but mini-SD cards will allow you to add additional memory - up to 1GB.

I’m saving up my money!! I reckon I need about 550 USD and will have till the end of October before these phones appear in shops.

A first look can be found here:

And the picture below comes from that same site.

Living in a more or less tropical region of the world, the weather is very irregular this time of year.

Yesterday I was laying in the pool, Saturday night we got hosed down on the way back from a party, and by the looks of it the rest of the week we’ll be needing the umbrellas.

There’s a striking picture on esa’s website. It was taken by the Mars Express orbiter, a spacecraft that’s currently orbiting the planet of Mars.

Apparently the white patch at the bottom of the crater is ice!

Another reason I guess to go and check out this planet in person. However, other news today reported that manned space travels to Mars would result in lethal amounts of cosmic radiation to astronauts. This in fact would cause all kinds of problems for astronauts in the longer term. The research mentioned that it’s likely that 1 in ten astronauts would die of cancer after coming back from a trip to Mars.
On the other hand; a mars round trip would likely take about 3 years, so just think of the earthly threats that the crew WON’T be exposed due while they’re on Mars… What’s the problem?

Full article here

(courtesy of ESA, www.esa.int)