GITEX
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The future of surveillance is hidden in airport ads
Public anonymity is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Coming soon to an airport in Dubai is an artsy, colorful video security and customs tunnel that scans your face, adds you to a database, indexes you with artificial intelligence and decides if you're free to leave -- or not. By the end of summer 2018, Dubai International Airport's Terminal 3 will have replaced its security-clearance counter with a walkway tunnel filled with 80 face-scanning cameras disguised as a distracting immersive video.
BlackBerry PlayBook 64GB variant confirmed, strapped to a 5,300mAh battery (video)
You already know most of the spec sheet delicacies that RIM has in store for its PlayBook, but here are a couple more details to complete the picture. The PlayBook will indeed match the iPad in having 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants available, and will also come equipped with a pretty huge 5,300mAh battery. That'd be a generously proportioned cell for a full-sized laptop, we imagine it'll turn the PlayBook into quite the endurance champ. Beside those tidbits, there's another video appearance by the tablet that we weren't allowed to touch just after the break. You know you wanna see it.
BoEye MID700 unveiled with Android OS, vaguely familiar form factor
BoEye -- a company we've seen from time to time in the eBook reader space -- has been recently spotted at Dubai's GITEX with its own take on the Android MID. Aside from some obvious (and, quite frankly, tedious) comparisons to the mythical Apple Tablet, we don't have too much to report: some excessively iPhone-esque features, including silver bevel, capacitive glass touchschreen, and that familiar solitary button on the bottom of the screen; a front-facing webcam; and, of course, that open source OS you crave. If you ask us, our favorite part of the affair is the rumored sub-$300 price tag -- makes this one well worth keeping an eye on, at any rate. One more pic after the break.
The handsets of GITEX 2008: HTC, SE and TechFaith
Given that Dubai pretty much has it out for every other spectacle in the entire universe, it's no shock to see the mecca pick up a major consumer electronics trade show of its own. This year's GITEX 2008 has come and gone, but there are still images left to remind us of the show that was. PocketPCDubai was fortunate enough to tour the show floor with a camera in hand, and while the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 wasn't a shocker, there were quite a few intriguing WinMo handsets in attendance. For a look at what all TechFaith had to offer (along with a few shots of the luscious Touch HD from HTC), head on down to the read link.
Samsung's i640v for Vodafone caught on camera
Hot on the heels of its Christmas announcement, it turns out Vodafone teased with a preview of Samsung's i640v at GITEX. Hoping to improve upon its predecessor, the just-released i620, newest model adds a WiFi radio under its hood along with GPS support. Add these key features in with Bluetooth 2.0, microSD storage, a 2.4-inch QVGA display all running on Windows Mobile 6 Standard, and we figure this device is built to please. There doesn't seem to be any solid release info floating around just yet, but we can take a solid stab at the launch carrier, eh?[Via the::unwired]
Samsung shows i780 with Windows Mobile 6, possible BlackJack 2?
Remember that trick Samsung with Windows Mobile and the mouse pointer? Turns out it's the SGH-i780, a device that was passed around at Dubai's GITEX show earlier this month. From the spec sheet adjacent to the display phone, we can pretty clearly make out Windows Mobile 6 Professional (as opposed to Standard -- score), WiFi, HSDPA, a 2 megapixel camera, GPS, and an "optical mouse" (whatever that means), which explains the presence of a pointer on the screen. HTC pulled this off with the trackball-equipped Artemis; we toyed with it briefly and it seemed usable, so we'll be curious to see what approach Samsung takes. We've heard talk of a BlackJack 2 coming to AT&T later this year; we don't know whether this (or a model based on this) is it, but it certainly looks the part, doesn't it?[Via the::unwired, thanks Daniel F.]
HTC Shift, others to see release at Dubai's GITEX show
With interest in the Shift -- HTC's foray into the wacky UMPC market -- coming to a rolling boil, we're glad to hear the company has finally shored up firm plans to get the sucker released. Vishnu Vardhan, HTC's exec for the Middle East and North Africa, says that the Shift will see an official release at Dubai's GITEX Technology Week starting September 8. That's not all, though; Vardhan says that four "brand new products" will see the light of day for the first time at GITEX, too, and if we had to lay money on it, we'd guess they're all Windows Mobile handsets. We'd previously heard that the Touch-like Nike might get called out in September, but the other three are anyone's guess.[Via the::unwired]
