A few years ago cloning was synonyms with Dolly, the beloved cloned sheep. If only Dolly knew back then that her 15 minutes of fame would be robbed by, well… the next cloned object to be, the iPhone.

Originally we thought we’d do a nice informative segment on all the Dolly sheep clones, but quickly found out we where unable to tell the difference in looks and features among the sheep as it became apparent that Scottish scientists do a much better job at replicating stuff than Chinese factories.

Instead, with dawning of iPhone 2.0 we decided to pay tribute to all the original iPhone-Dolly’s out there, and count down the Top Asian iPhone 1.0 clones:

7. C-002 HiPhone - The Dolly to my iPhone

HiPhone is such a iPhone knock off, You’d swear this baby was made by a bunch of Scottish scientist !

6. HiPhone S688 - The Dolly to Dolly

5. Cect P168- iPhone goes Surround  !

Take the iPhone, replicate everything about it and add well … Surround sound ! (huh?)
How’s that for catching ya off guard ?

4. Desay N8 - Shake Shake Shake

That’s not an iPhone owner suffering turrets syndrome , it’s the Desay N8 with full on shake control!
Nothing says hey baby can i have your number like a few twitches.

3. Maxspeed MAK003 - I’m watching you !

Maxspeed decided to clone the iPhone, take that home button and put to better use by turning it into a freaky glowing red eyeball thingy…

2. Cent Dual - Take that Locked iPhone !

While the original Apple iPhone is locked down to it’s providing carrier, Korean Cent Dual replicates the iPhone, offers it unlocked and, you ready … packs in a DUAL sim card holder ! Pure genius..

1. Meizu M8 - The Mongoose to my Snake

Still pretty much a prototype and not yet available, this baby went from being a typical run in the mill iPhone clone featuring the usual Multi touch, auto screen orientation and other standard iPhone features, to having it’s user interface fully redesigned and packing on features the original iPhone was missing, including:

• Video Camera Function
• Native Games
• External Keyboard
• USB Host
• TV Out ports
• Line In for Audio Input
• Fully featured blue tooth Connectivity
• Embedded GPS Chip

Could it be that the hunter becomes the hunted ?

Follow this beast on this active Meizu M8 forum thread

With the exception of a few iPhone accelerometer controlled games (My favorite being this one ) the vast majority of cell phone games are make shift projects that serve merely as in between Dentist appointment entertainment.  The biggest contributor to this mediocreness is the lack of suitable control schemes on a phone to play the game with .

Until now that is …

We’ve all dabbled with Nintendo’s Wii and loved it’s intuitive controller, it’s just brilliant !
Technical Warning : Since the Wii’s controller talks to the console via a sans-fil standard bluetooth connection this implies, theoretically at least, that any device that can do bluetooth can communicate with the Wii’s controller

(Light Bulb Appears)

Yes you evil genius, that’s exactly what has been done! A bunch of bright lads managed to write a nifty little program allowing use of your beloved Wii-mote as a controller of your favorite cell phone game !

Granted i won’t be packing my Wii-mote while visiting the dentist (wait a tick.. isn’t such a bad idea?)  non the less,  cell phones are already starting to pack 3D acceleration hardware and openGL API as part of  their SDK and letting Murphy’s law do it’s thing , slap on some decent TV output ports and we might have mobile entertainment units of the future ! Muahahaha ..

In the meantime some tiny SSX3 on a Sony Ericsson P1i  will do :

Love it !

The beginning of it all was the sub par digital light capture sensor protected with a “made in China” plastic shield absurdly labeled lens, packaged all together and marketed as Phone-with a-Camera.
With time, the marriage between phone and camera was nothing like most of that of it’s human counterparts; It blossomed, grew more intricate and interdependent , finally giving birth to their love child the term Camera-Phone

We now find 5 Mega Pixel camera phones,  with lenses from heavy weights like Carl Zeiss boasting optical zoom and advance compact flash systems.
Even the controlling software is now capable of on the fly image stabilization, Impressive color balance calculations and ever more focusing on refining video capture capabilities.
In fact some upcoming cell phone prototypes are really gunning after Video capture, boasting realistic frame rates , good pixel density and in some cases, EDTV output .

On the other front, we have the current renaissance in the mobile internet market.
Make no mistake we are in the Henry Ford days of mobile internet connectivity . People more than ever are demanding their data  like their food: On the go and all experienced on-the-go food makers know, the faster you serve it, the more they’ll gobble up !

It’s only a matter of time before destiny throws camera and phone’s love child, camera-phone , into the path of WAP’s latest descendants, 3 and 4G, spawning an incredible array of cutting edge offspring’s with great derivatives .

Imagine sharing breath taking views seen from Italy’s Capri in real time HDTV quality with your loved ones back home.
Picture herds of enthusiasts streaming video from a across the globe to single web server for the masses to view creating a decentralized, truly democratic and sponsor free news network:  Wikipedia on steroids.

Mentioning only two obvious possibilities we connect the dots and come to see with little effort the fruits created by the fast mobile Internet revolution and quality mobile video’s evolution will not only be cutting edge and very useful in their application but most importantly very humanistic in our social sense , enabling all of us to come even closer than ever in an ever more globalizing world.

Get ready for the new Generation of Mobile Broadcast Units.

In an effort to raise awareness about it’s latest mobile platform ,Android , Google launched a 1 Million dollar developer challenge: Hit us with your best !

Results of round one are out, the judges have filtered through the submissions and the top 50 Android applications have been published. I must say , the stuff people came out with is nothing short of amazing !

From the Top 50 Applications our favorites include:

1. Phonebook2.0
   Here’s a thought, take Facebook + flickr + your phone book , mash’em’up = Phonebook 2.0 : Get  the lowdown on John before dialing that number .
   John’s status says what now ? Ok maybe i should call later. Brilliant !
2. PiggyBack
   See who’s going where and see if you can share a ride .
3. AndroidScan
   Finds pricing and reviews for anything with a bar code. Android scan automatically recognizes bar codes and searches high and low for where you can get it and details. I can see pushy sales man go “Merde !“
4. Beetaun
   Social networking based on Geographical content.
5. BioWallet
   Biometric authentication : Identify your self using your eye’s Iris, finger print etc.. Madness !
6. BreadCrumbz
   In a past article we told you of free GPS maps for your cell phone, Breadcrumz takes it to a new level by creating picture based navigation.
7. Commandro
   Find where your friends are and what are they doing at the moment. Picture this :
   Clever Cindy: Where were you honey bun schnooks ?
   Wise John:  Having a beer with the boys.
   Clever Cindy: That’s not what your phone says !
   Not-so-Wise John: I love you.
8. Eco2Go
   Go green by tracking your C02 Footprint ! Al Gore’s got nothing on me !
9. gWalk
   Get your custom created tour when traveling
10. MyCloset
    Build your closet inventory in the phone then plan your look for the night in true high tech diva style !

A PDF with the full list of Android’s Top 50 Applications can be downloaded here.

Anyone that has their life on the go has at one point felt frustrated  searching for an unsecured WiFi connection while traveling . If like me, and have experienced this more often than not, at one point you must have dabbled with the thought of using your mobile phone as a “modem” through which can can connect  your laptop to the internet for ultimate internet mobility. The bad news is you’re not an original genius. The good news it is possible and infact widely used,  a process known as Tethering .
When done correctly this works like clock work, however the key point is getting it done correctly, which invovles technicalities that most just find cumbersome.

Solution for the masses : Turn your WiFi enabled phone into a wireless router !

This has to be one of the niftyiest things i’ve seen done with a mobile phone in a long time .
Basically if you have a WiFi enabled phone,  running this application you can turn your phone into a WiFi router that your laptop can connect to just like the regular wireless router you have at Home or Office, except in this case you laptop connects to your mobile phone , which then connects to the internet using your 3G/Edge connection.

Absolute Sheer Brilliance !

We all know how disgustingly cluttered Mac user interfaces tend to be , after all isn’t that the reason why so many people are leaving Mac and taking the leap of faith into the wonderful world of clean Windows designed interfaces ?

(Serious pun intended)

If you’re one of the few that took the above with an ounce of seriousness, fear not, you are not an estranged lonely creature (well not lonely at least), there are others like you that are in fact so believing in the cause they’ve decided to take the iPhone and make it look like Vista !
Not only does it look like Vista , it quacks like Vista: with Start Menu action and occasional blue screens of death (not really)

For the other 99% of people that may ask Why would you do such a thing ?

The answer: Attention

PCOnline in China gave what we believe was the first hands on test run of Samsung’s latest beast : i900

What’s so special about it ? Check it :

• 3.5 touchscren display
• 16 GB (yes, that is GIGA bytes) of onboard memory with microSD expansion.
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera.
• 3.5G HSDPA connectivity, Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro OS,  Wifi
• The standard features (Bluetooh, ADP, FM radio…)

Reports are suggesting Samsung is doing an extensive polish on the user interface to make it very touch me friendly….oh behave !

A Red version of the Sidekick Slide is now available for purchase through T-Mobile. Expected retail price is 199$ with two-year agreement.

The Sidekick Slide Crimson is identical in specs to it’s previous counter parts, except well the obvious Crimson paint job.

Sexy non the less…

Sony Ericsson’s latest P5 model seems to have gone from artist rendered concepts into actual prototypes as indicated by the latest images leaked on the net (see below)

Rumored specs are as follow:

• 5 megapixel camera
• Integrated GPS
• 2.6-inch touch-screen display
• Just like the K850i, there is row of touch-sensitive keys located at the very bottom of the screen
• UIQ 3.3 User Interface

Knowing SE’s constant bad luck and delays with P-Series phones, let’s hope this one makes it out of the production line this century..

GPS (Global Positioning System) is really going main stream . Previously limited to military and governmental use, GPS chips can now be found in an endless array of devices ranging from dedicated GPS-talking-tablet type gadgets, to your laptop and If big brother has his way: Your arm.

While GPS chip’s usually output Latitude and Longitude coordinates, this in it’s RAW format proves to be of very little help to us average Joe’s . Instead the true power of GPS lies in extrapolating the data and producing useful , usually visual, information from the above data.
One of the most compelling and widely used Application of GPS data is mapping software, where your location is super imposed on a map . This allows you to see where you are relative to your location, search for objects of interest and even get real time (sometimes spoken) driving directions.

While commercial mapping software for cell phones does exist and does a great job at all the above, believe it or not you can get free GPS mapping software on your cell phone that is nowadays as reliable and robust as any other paid for commercial solution.

Since the best things in life are free, staying true to Sinatra’s mantra, we list the top 3 free GPS mapping solutions below, additions to the list are more than welcome:

Free GPS compatible Maps Software List:

1. Google Maps Mobile
   Advantages: Global , Up-to-date, Huge index of points of interests , Cross platform compatible, Multiple views of area (Terrain, Map or Hybrid)
   Disadvantages: Data is not locally saved, Data intensive internet connection always required, No speech guided directions.
2. Smart-2-Go
   Advantages: Maps saved locally, Internet connection not needed, Speech guided directions.
   Disadvantage: Not as comprehensive as Google maps, Maps can be rather large to download initially.
3. Map Quest Mobile
   Advantages: Same as Smart-2-Go + Cross platform compatibility
   Disadvantages: Not as comprehensive as other methods.
4. Leaf
   Advantages: Free, Smart Search, 2D-3D Views
   Disadvantages: Windows Mobile Only

More to be added as discovered …