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Samsung's YEPP T9: pink, for someone special
Here's another V-day gadgety-gift idea for that special effeminate friend or iPod-less dictator with a taste for big red balls -- the Samsung Yepp T9, now in pink. That rose-colored bladder comes filled with Kenzo perfume which, presumably, is applied by hurling it at your mate like a water balloon... but that's us, and we date robots. This 2GB model comes blue in the tooth and festooned with plenty of doilies to show just how much of a sap you really are. Hitting South Korea on February 5th for 215,000KRW (about $228) just in time for their favorite Hallmark holiday -- who knew?
Samsung's YP-T9, now with 8GB of tasty flash
With the (official) launch of Samsung's Yepp K3 presumably just weeks away, who could blame you for taking your eyes off the T9? Until January's CES, the T9 reigns supreme in Samsung's lineup of flash media players. It even sports its own "series" of third party accessories like the big boys... albeit, from just a single vendor so far. So today, Sammy announced an 8GB capacity bump to keep the Yepp competitive with all the other 8 giggers out there. The T9, however, delivers one notable exception: stereo Bluetooth. No details, but you can expect it to be priced to compete.
World's fastest texter gets pwned by voice recognition
A young lad by the name of Ben Cook might be able to school his pals with his lightning-quick text messaging skillz (he even prefers plain ol' multi-tapping to predictive text) but one company set out to prove that the world's fastest texter is still no match for voice recognition. Nuance Communications is gearing up to release its Mobile Speech Platform to carriers -- a system that'll ultimately allow users to dictate SMSes, among other tasks -- and they obviously needed some high-profile way to get the word out, like picking on Ben Cook, for example. For the contest, Nuance pitted its software against Mr. Cook and two Nuance employees packing QWERTY and T9 devices, throwing them each this little tidbit of everyday conversation: "The razor toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygo centrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." Our world record holder finished in 48 seconds -- not bad, considering he was doing it without any predictive assistance -- but the software spanked everyone with just 16 seconds on the clock. Now we just need to take a hard look at why one would dictate an SMS (versus, say, placing a phone call) and we'll be jumping right on the bandwagon.
Big Brother is SMS savvy in some countries
It's no secret that China is rockin' some serious server power dedicated to filtering its SMS airwaves of unthinkable topics like Taiwan, democracy, and pornography, but other countries are getting in on the action, too. Belarus and Iran have both been called out in recent months for listening to its citizens' texts, and in Belarus' case, sending them as well. Although the technology for real-time filtering by keyword is largely homegrown (or so we hope), predictive text manufacturers like Tegic (disclaimer: Tegic is owned by Engadget's parent company's parent company, AOL) are receiving pressure from handset manufacturers to double- and triple-check their dictionaries for words that could be considered distasteful in countries with more oppressive governments than our own. Personally, discovering a word missing from T9 has never prevented us from typing it manually, but nonetheless -- between this and M-Track, we're about ready to head down into the Engadget bunker with a year's supply of Spam and just ride this whole thing out.[Via textually.org]
Microsoft "Wild Thing" text entry system for keypads
We've never had a whole lot of luck with predictive text-entry systems on cellphones, which is one reason we tend to get all hot and bothered every time we see a new, QWERTY model show up. But we're still intrigued by Microsoft's "Wild Thing" technology, which the company says uses artificial intelligence to translate keypad strings into useful text for searches. For example, if you want to search for Engadget, you would type 36423438, rather than having to perform multiple key-presses in order to toggle the correct character. Other abbreviations would allow you to search using abbreviations, such as TR SF for Thai restaurants in San Francisco. Microsoft is in talks with carriers and manufacturers to begin rolling out the service within the next year. We'll check it out, but our heart will still belong to QWERTY.
