Looks like everyone wants a slice of that steaming-hot e-reader action these days. Right in front of us here is the Tianji — or in our language, Phecda, a distant star — iBook EB-605, which is purported to be launched by Lenovo at some point this year (and we first heard about such plan back in December). Features include a 6-inch electronic ink display, Samsung ARM 400MHz processor, newspaper subscription, music player, picture browser and support for a variety of digital book formats including EPUB ( hooray! ) and MOBI. ZOL also spotted the SIM card-like icon at the top, which might suggest a thing or two about its wireless capabilities, and estimates a price tag of under

According to rumors, next week at CTIA Research In Motion (RIM) might launch a mobile TV service that would feature full episodes of content. Other than that, there’s not much to go on at this point. The possible release would coincide with the release of its app store . [ NewTeeVee via StreetInsider via IntoMobile ]

It’s okay to be honest with yourself — if you’ve been struggling to keep your personal goods on your person, and hiring a personal bodyguard is simply out of the question, you might need nio. What’s nio, you ask? Why, it’s a Bluetooth security tag that links up your mobile phone and practically anything else you’d like: a briefcase, a set of keys, a pack of Doritos, etc. Essentially, it gives you the ability to be buzzed if your tracked belongings hover too far out of range with your cellie, though the inability to remotely taser the thief is a definite shortcoming. Seems that you’ll have to be real serious about this to even inquire about a price, but a totally explanatory video is waiting just past the break

The extremely-neat-but-probably-not-terribly-useful Google Voice Search app, of iPhone and Android fame, has been released for BlackBerrys , whose owners were judged 3rd most eager to talk to their handsets rather than through them. [ Crave ]

The U750 is your standard free-on-contract feature phone—except for one thing: when the dual-flip-action display is rotated and folded into landscape mode, the keypad buttons switch assignments (and looks!) to create a QWERTY layout. Witchcraft! Rather than just stamping two decals on each button like it did with the same-shaped U740 , Samsung opted to put some kind of display technology into its keypad. But what? Phonearena optimistically speculates that they keys could be e-ink, but that’s and expensive and unlikely possibility.

Is one of Acer’s mysterious smartphones packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon ? According to the folks at All About Phones who reportedly attended an Acer event recently, the F1 will be running the 800MHz ARM chip, which is a tad slower than the 1000MHz equivalent in the TG01 . The device will be Windows Mobile 6.5-based, but that’s supposedly gonna be shrouded by a Flash-based Acer Suite 2.0 shell. The report also mentions a September release, which jibes with what we saw on that makeshift roadmap at Mobile World Congress, and a 560 Euro ($760) price tag. Nothing’s confirmed, but between Acer, HTC, Samsung, and LG , surely someone’s gearing up to join Toshiba in the Snapdragon bandwagon.

Vuzix launched a camera add-on for the iWear VR920 video headset which surveys the space in front of the cam, and superimposes interactive, 3D graphics on top. Here what was on display at GDC 09. The hardware itself is just a camera that sits in front of the eyewear, and feeds a signal back to your eyes. The magic happens when an app is programmed to recognize certain objects, and know to augment what your seeing with 3D visuals on top. This resulted in four demos at GDC, developed by Metaio: A knight and dragon fighting in a Lego scene, An alien invasion on top of a magazine page, digital doodlings on top of a specially marked surface using the optional PhasAR controller and a virtual shooting range, where the PhasAR is clipped into a gun-like shell controller. While the headset itself still feels pretty clunky and dated, the new camera tech has a lot of potential

Society’s bad eggs are increasingly turning to the use of BlackBerry devices to skirt detection from law enforcement. Authorities report they have trouble intercepting illicit emails and conversations because of the relatively secure BlackBerry Enterprise Server . Developed by Research in Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry Enterprise Server works on a secure network that encrypts data. It was designed with the intention of keeping the security legitimate business communications intact. Faced against such a highly secure means of transmitting of information, however, it’s near impossible for law enforcement to listen in on and nab suspected criminals. The roadblocks have undoubtedly lead to the upward trend in gangs and other malefactors choosing the BlackBerry over other devices, where conversations can be more easily intercepted

Verizon’s original Alias U740 dual-hinge phone may not have rocked any worlds, but it was a clever attempt to provide the best of both a QWERTY keypad and a standard clamshell number pad in a single device — and it sounds like the Alias 2 we’re seeing leaked here improves on that concept by using dynamically-changing button labels to hammer home the mode switches. It’s not clear what tech is being used to switch layouts — there are some whispers that it’s an E-Ink display, since the labels apparently remain even without power — but given this phone’s expected price point, we’ll say we’re expecting more along the lines of one of those segmented LCDs found in cheap universal remotes. In other words, garbage. Hopefully we’ll be proven wrong at CTIA, we’ll let you know. Slightly bigger pic after the break.

The fine folks at BSQUARE have announced that they’ll be porting Adobe Flash to Google’s Android on behalf of a “global Tier 1 carrier.” Whether or not that implies this “global Tier 1 carrier” will have exclusive access to Flash out of the gate remains to be seen. Details are otherwise very scarce, and it’s unclear how this relates to the demo of Flash Andy Rubin showed off at Adobe MAX last year . However, BSQUARE bought NEC’s Adobe(R) Flash(R) Technology Consulting and Distribution business 12 months ago, and has done Android work for other customers, so the expertise should certainly be there — and naturally we wouldn’t expect them to go shouting about this if they didn’t have Adobe and Google’s blessing in one form or another. [Thanks, Peter R. ] Filed under: Cellphones , Handhelds Flash coming to Android courtesy of BSQUARE originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:28:00 EST