Musical phone
With the LG Electronics LX550 Fusic phone, every song you request will play on the radio, and you don’t even have to call a station. The phone can transmit songs from its memory card to any FM radio.
The Fusic, available from Sprint for $330, also plays video and can receive on-demand music, TV or subscription radio services such as Sirius and Rhapsody over Sprint’s high-speed data network.
The phone has other features that are by now expected on a jazzy handset. It has speakerphone capability, Bluetooth wireless to sync contacts and calendars with your computer and a 1.3-megapixel camera with built-in flash. Music, video and subscription radio can be purchased a la carte, or bundled with some phone plans. Songs from the Sprint Music Store are $2.50 each. You can also transfer your MP3s onto the phone’s 64-megabyte Micro SD card.
Be prepared for at least one tech disappointment: The phone can’t transmit your Sirius radio stream to an FM receiver, only songs stored on the memory card. – Roy Furchgott, The New York Times
Time and more
Dick Tracy may be able to get assignments on his two-way wrist communicator, but can he get hockey scores? The Microsoft Abacus Smart Watch can, and it has a few other tricks as well.
The watch, to be available this month, uses a wireless system created by Microsoft called MSN Direct that sends data over FM radio frequencies. For $179, you get the watch and a one-year subscription to the service, which includes news, weather, traffic information, stock quotes and movie listings. After that, an annual subscription will cost $40; for $20 more you can sync your Outlook calendar to the watch and receive instant messages through MSN Messenger.
The Abacus Smart Watch comes with a choice of six animated faces and a metal or leather band, and it has twice the memory of earlier models that worked with MSN Direct. It may give wimpier watches – the kind that only tell time – a run for their money. – John Biggs, The New York Times
