Tuesday focus: Gadgets
Nintendo Co. will launch the latest version of its portable video game system in the U.S. on April 5, adding two digital cameras and the ability to play with sound recordings.
The DSi, which is already available in Nintendo’s home country of Japan, will cost $170 and come in two colors, black and blue. This is the third iteration of the world’s most popular handheld gaming system. The DS Lite, its predecessor, costs $130.
The new handheld is slimmer than the DS Lite, sports bigger screens and includes two digital cameras – one facing outward and one pointing at the user when the device is flipped open. Nintendo likened them to a set of eyes.
The launch comes as millions of people are turning to mobile games – on the DS and on smart phones like Apple’s iPhone – to pass their time.
Free and smart: Skype’s software for making free and cheap phone calls over the Internet will be built in to some Nokia Corp. smart phones.
In a move announced this week at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, the companies said Skype will be initially integrated with Nokia’s Nseries devices, which run on Nokia’s Symbian S60 operating system.
The integration will start with the N97, which will be released in June. A U.S. carrier for the phone has not been announced.
The built-in Skype application will be integrated with the phone’s address book, so users can see when their Skype contacts are available and make free voice calls or send instant messages to them. As with other Skype applications, users will also be able to pay to make voice calls through Skype to cell phone or landline numbers.
Re-kindled: Amazon.com Inc. says it is shipping the new version of its Kindle electronic reading device a day earlier than it initially planned.
The Seattle-based online retailer said it began shipping the $359 Kindle 2 on Monday to make sure it is going out to customers today, which was the date it gave when Amazon announced the updated device on Feb. 9.
The new Kindle keeps the same price as the first version of the e-reader, but is thinner and includes upgraded features. It can store more than 1,500 books – instead of 200 in the previous version – and can read text aloud from two small speakers on its back.
From wire reports