Sprint has a heart for the local community by announcing the availability of local, 10-digit phone numbers for internet-based Relay (IP), Instant Messaging Relay (IM), Video Relay Service (VRS) and Federal VRS customers. Their ‘Call Now’ service will enable IP and VRS users to be assigned a local 10-digit phone number so that they can receive calls directly and make 911 calls based on their geographic location. No longer will callers have to deal with dialing a toll-free number to reach Sprint Relay users with this new setup. VRS numbers are currently available while IP numbers will kick into action from tomorrow onwards.

With ‘Call Now,’ Sprint Relay users can be contacted directly by their family, friends and colleagues by dialing their personal 10-digit phone number and will automatically connect with a Relay operator or VRS interpreter. In addition, customers can set up their account profile including their physical address with city, state and zip code. The account profile will be ready for VRS or IP relay users to make 911 emergency calls.

This is good news as it shows Sprint isn’t just deaf (no pun intended) to the needs of their customer range.

Press Release

CES 2009 is upon us yet again – has it been a year already? Time certainly flies by too fast for our own good. GiiNii International has a fair number of devices in their lineup that will make their debut in Las Vegas, Nevada, slightly over a week from now. The offerings in question are :-

• PixPlus – A new line of 10″ Wi-Fi–enabled digital picture frames that also are powerful information and entertainment companions, delivering location-relevant online content to any room unlike any other digital frames on the market
• PixPlus Featuring FrameChannel – Streams content from more than 500 FrameChannel.com channels
• PixPlus Source – Streams content from HowStuffWorks.com
• C-U-C-Me digital camera feature – Patent-pending technology lets everyone in the picture see how the photo will look as it’s being taken. With GiiNii’s new reflective image feature, people in the picture can see what the lens sees. This innovative feature is on most of GiiNii’s new line of Clicka digital cameras
• Clearview HDTVs For The Other Room – A line of innovative high-definition televisions that perform double duty as super-sized digital picture frames
• Movit Mini – A portable social networking and communications device that features the Skype application, so it’s ready to use with any Wi-Fi network
• Wireless carrier- independent, it sports a huge, 4.3″ touch-screen and plays music and videos

Sounds like they’re pretty utilitarian gizmos to take a gander at. I’m sure our hardworking staff at CG will check these out on the showfloor, once we’re fed with enough pizza and good beer.

Press Release

Don’t we all love receiving gifts and presents? After all, it makes us feel loved, and there is that indescribable feeling of tearing open the wrapping paper to discover what we’ve been hankering after all this while sitting there, right in front of us. Unfortunately in this day and age, there are some presents that we receive which could come with a pretty serious defect – imaging getting a new digital photo frame that upon plugging into your computer, results in an attempt infecting the said PC with a virus. Yes, that is actually happening for folks who have received several different models of digital photo frames from retailers like Wal-Mart, Amazon and others. Talk about a blue holiday season!

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The holiday season often involves a whole lot of travel, and regardless of the mode of transport, kids will be kids. You will certainly be bombarded with questions such as “Are we there yet?” for at least a few hundred times, even more so if you’re on a long road trip instead of taking a flight that affords more mercies for your ears. After all, children these days tend to get bored much easier compared to their counterparts a generation back mainly because of the environment they grow up in – there are just too many distractions around and they need to be “wowed” in order to capture their attention. Good for you if you own an iPhone – you’ll be able to load it up with the iKids Play software that offers five fun, creative and positive alternatives to gaming for “i” generation kids.

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By Congressional standards, the Digital Television Converter Voucher program has been a roaring success. So much so that the program may run out of voucher coupons limit by the first week of January nearly a month before the February 17, 2009 transition deadline. Congress appropriated $1.34-billion for converter box vouchers to help absorb the cost of the mandatory digital handover. And nearly all of it has been handed out, which is not surprising considering that the program received 1.5 million requests for vouchers per week. So time, and available money are running out fast.

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I’ve played a few First Person Shooters (FPS) on the Nintendo Wii before, such as Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Tomb Raider: Underworld, and I’ve found that many of these “gunframes” that game accessory companies make for Wii FPS games are not really up to snuff.

These gunframes are meant to make the Wii controls like actual guns, but they end up being difficult to use because most Wii FPS games require the use of the directional pads and the A button. Most of these gunframes take advantage of the B or trigger button, and ignore the other controls.

It appears the WeeP5 that you see here has solved that problem. The A button is under the foregrip, and the directional pad is conveniently located on the left side. All the other controls are “centrally located along the spine or the sides of the gun for easy access”.

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If your USB gadgets have been stacking up, you might be getting to the point you need a USB hub.  At some point we all end up needing one.  It might even be that you still have room on your computer to plug in more USB gadgets, however, sometimes it’s just easier to have a hub on the top of your desk.  It means you don’t have to hunt around, sometimes at the back of the computer to find an available USB port to plug into.

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Today must be Advanced Watch Day, because I just finished reporting on a new Cellular Phone Watch from LG. This next watch feels just as advanced, as it comes with a 4GB USB Flash Drive.

This USB drive fits snugly into the case, where no one will look for it. In fact, that is one thing I like about this watch: it doesn’t look like heavily advanced spy watch. No, this watch looks completely innocuous with its fancy exterior.

The USB Hidden Flash Drive Watch has “a plastic case covered by a stainless steel mask with brushed silver finish and convex mineral glass with a shiny raised index”. It may not be a Rolex, but it is fancy enough for James Bond to sport.

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