HTC Aria Social Networking Smartphone

Need a friend on the cellular networks? Don’t get a dog. Get FriendStream. It let’s you stay in touch over Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. You’ll be connecting with the HTC Aria, one of the newest and hottest Android smartphones.

It starts with a single block of jet black aluminum that forms the smooth and seamless case of the Aria. Small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. Powerful enough to use for both business and personal needs. Its large 3.2 inch touchscreen features pinch-to-zoom, which automatically reflows text for easy reading as you zoom in and out of websites.

Yes, this is an Android smartphone. It runs Google’s Android 2.1 operating system and HTC Sense user interface. You can create and save multiple customized home screen layouts. You’ll be able to access thousands of apps and widgets on the Android Market. The Aria comes to you preloaded with Google Maps, Gmail, Google Talk, search and YouTube video access. Being on the AT&T 3G network, you’ll be able to surf and talk at the same time. That’s not true on all cellular networks.

The HTC Aria is set-up for messaging. The Email client accesses and syncs your corporate Email, Push Gmail and POP/IMAP regular email accounts. Or use your Web-based email account. There’s an HTML Web browser that gives you PC-like viewing and navigating of the Web with pinch and zoom capability. Multimedia messaging lets you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll take some nice ones with the built-in 5 Megapixel autofocus digital camera that doubles as a camcorder.

The Aria is loaded with connectivity. It works on the worldwide GSM standard networks at 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz. It also supports UMTS on 850 and 1900 MHz. You’ll be downloading at 3G speed over the AT&T HSDPA network. Want even more speed or to save your data plan? Use the WiFI capability with AT&T HotSpot support.

Mind you, this is a small phone that weighs-in at just 3.9 ounces. Dimensions are 4.1 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches. Yet it sports 384 MB of RAM and expandable to 32 GB using plug-in microSD memory cards.

Like Music? you can stream stereo music to and from A2DP compatible Bluetooth devices. The MP3 player supports AAC, MP3 and WAV formats. It’s also a high performance streaming multimedia phone. Watch full length TV shows with AT&T Mobile TV and stream music and videos.

Does this sound like the kind of high performance phone you’ve been looking for but not sure you can afford? Relax. You can get the HTC Aria for AT&T for FREE when you order it with new cellular service online.

Of course, there are many more free and low cost cell phones available to you right now. Check out the current specials and see what meets your needs. You’ll probably have a hard time picking just one.

Cisco Steps In Front Of The Video Parade

John Naisbitt, author of the future-looking book Megatrends, is quoted as saying, "Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it." Cisco has apparently decided that parade is consumer generated video and they're jumping in front of it by acquiring the producer of the most popular and innovative camcorder line, Flip Video. What do you suppose they have in mind?

To get a bead on Cisco's thinking, we first need to take a look at the video camera that has taken the camcorder market by storm. The original Flip Video camcorder was innovative in the same sense as Apple's iPod. There were music players before the iPod and camcorders long before the Flip. But Pure Digital created a product for capturing video that mirrors the clever design that Apple applied to the iPod. Both products are pocket-size, offer high quality performance, are trivially easy to use, easily connect to personal computers, and have internal power sources compatible with their expected usage.

The Flip product line now includes the Flip Video, Flip Ultra, Flip Mino and FlipMinoHD. Each has a form factor similar to the new slim touchscreen cell phones. Being small and lightweight, they slip easily into a pocket or bag for use on impulse. There's no messing with tapes or discs. These cameras have solid state memory ranging from 1 to 4 GB. There's also no motor driven telephoto lenses or command center worth of controls to make the camera big and chunky. In fact, the Mino series measures just 0.63 in. thick by 1.97 in wide by 3.94 in long.

The Flip Mino is simplicity in itself. The front of the camera has a designable case, such as the MegaTrunks Elephant Camera. All you see is a graphic and a fixed focused lens on front. The back sports a 1.5 in. TFT display and a set of touch sensitive capacitive buttons to record and play your videos. There's also a speaker and microphone to capture audio along with the video. Charge up the lithium Ion battery and you're good for 60 minutes of VGA recording. When you want to move your video to a Mac or PC for editing or uploading to YouTube, just flip out the USB connector and plug it in to your computer. The FlipMinoHD is a very similar device, but offers HD recording at a resolution of 1280 x720 pixels.

So how does Cisco fit into this picture, or perhaps video as it were? Cisco is building a portfolio of consumer products and pursuing a strategy known as "visual networking." They've got the resources to build-out this product line, perhaps adding wireless access for instant capture and upload. As computing and storage move more and more into the cloud, a personal video system might even be able to download as well as upload video content. Multimedia messaging may soon be as pervasive as text messaging is today.

If you think that sounds like an intrusion into the space now occupied by cell phones, you're right. One thing the wireless carriers are onto is that consumers can't get enough of personal video. The wireline broadband providers are feeling the bandwidth pinch even now and wireless will go the same way as multimedia phones become more pervasive and wireless data plans become more affordable.

In the meantime, Cisco must be clucking to itself as it eyes the booming market for devices such as the Flip Video camcorders and the networking life support resources such as routers and switches and make "visual networking" and all other computer networking possible.