Communicasia2010
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EPI Life phone sports ECG function, can let doctors know if you're not gonna make it
It seems like the promise of connected, doctor-monitored mobile and at-home health services has been a little slow on the uptake, but here's a promising step: a new phone from Singaporean firm Ephone that can run an ECG on you and send off the results for analysis. In this case, though, it seems like your doctor can't provide you with this thing so he or she can keep an eye on your ticker -- instead, you've got to sign up for a subscription with Ephone that runs between about $71 and $215 a month (depending on the monthly ECG upload cap), at which point the company's own team of doctors can check out your results and make recommendations or dispatch emergency services if need be. The so-called EPI Life itself runs about $350 in some Asian markets, which can also be used to track glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure (presumably with external sensors) and there's a fancier model coming later in the year. Oh, and if you don't live in Asia, hang tight -- Ephone is looking to license the tech to other companies.
Altek's Leo in the wild: point and shoot, Android phone, or both?
As cameraphone picture quality goes, the story is that it's not really about the sensor resolution, it's about the optics -- and if you want to go by that rule, Altek's beastly Leo should probably have your attention. Just because you've got a huge, telescoping lens doesn't mean it's any good, of course, but we'd argue that it's a good sign in a world dominated by tiny, plastic lenses atop 8 and 12 megapixel sensors of questionable heritage. Indeed, the Android-powered monster has bowed at CommunicAsia 2010 as promised, bringing a 14 megapixel CCD with an honest-to-goodness 3x optical zoom and 720p video capture, WVGA display, 802.11n WiFi, and HSPA for a Q4 '10 release. Amazingly, Altek plans on selling it for $499 -- unlocked, we assume -- and CNET Asia managed to score a few minutes with it this week. Follow the break for video from the event along with Altek's press release.
Samsung's Wave 2 and Wave 2 Pro slider join the bada OS party
Samsung's bada, heard of it? Samsung sure hopes so as it's betting heavily on the OS in its battle with Nokia to make cheap smartphones globally accessible. Today Samsung is introducing the Wave 2 (S5250) and Wave 2 Pro (S5330) QWERTY slider at CommunicAsia 2010. Both handsets are quad-band GPRS/EDGE (yup, no 3G) with 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1, a 3.2-inch TFT LCD, 3 megapixel camera with video recorder, A-GPS, and 80MB of memory with up to 16GB of microSD expansion. The all important user experience is handled by the TouchWiz 3.0 UI and bada's "social hub" that tightly knits together all your communications with contacts, be that over email, IM, or social networking sites. Both phones will be available in Russia and South East Asia starting in August.%Gallery-95202%
