Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 preview (Cell, mObile, phone, PDA, tech, review, report, David Lim)

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 has been in the center of attention ever since its first unofficial shots leaked online. Much like most other gadgeteers, we've had our hands itching to get one and luckily our wishes just came true.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 is one impressive device full of industry leading features - it's the first Windows Mobile smartphone with an 8 megapixel camera and WVGA video recording and it's actually the first ever full QWERTY phone to have that sort of imaging prowess as well.

The XPERIA X2 most other features, though not as innovative, are a nice match as well. We guess they are worth going through one more time.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 at a glance:

* General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/1900/2100 MHz, EDGE class 10, HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
* Form factor: Slide-and-tilt QWERTY touch phone
* Dimensions: 110 x 54 x 16 mm, weight 155 grams
* Display: 3.2" TFT resistive touchscreen, 800 x 480 pixels
* Platform: Qualcomm MSM 7200 528 MHz processor
* OS: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
* Memory: 110MB storage, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, microSD card slot
* Camera: 8-megapixels auto-focus camera, LED flash, touch focus, geotagging, face detection, image stabilizer, Smart Contrast, WVGA@30fps video recording
* Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, TV-out
* Misc: Optical trackpad, accelerometer for motion-based gaming, office document viewer and editor, XviD video support
* Battery: 1500 mAh Li-Po battery

We just got the XPERIA X2 and we wanted to share with you our first impressions of the device. So consider this article as a quick and dirty preview, with a more detailed one coming up in the following week. We hope to get as much as possible from our encounter with the X2 and you can bet we surely won't keep anything to ourselves.

The XPERIA X2 should be available in two colors - Elegant Black and Modern Silver. There's hardly anything missing from the broad range of connectivity options. Perhaps the only two things it seems to lack are the FM radio and the automatic screen rotation. Yes, there's an accelerometer on board alright, but the screen doesn't auto rotate to match the orientation of the handset.

While the XPERIA X2 uses the vanilla Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, the thing that sets it apart from competing products is the X-panels interface. X panels have gone a long way since the XPERIA X1 and have turned into a full featured system for using various animated and interactive homescreens. But we'll get to that further down.

Anyways, enough talking, let's get to some walking. Jump on as explore what the XPERIA X2 is made of with even a brief rundown of the interface later on.

Lock Your Spot before 15 May, 2010 and change your life 360 degree from 16 May 2010. It will change the way you feel, act and live! Tell your friends now or someone else will!

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£350,000 for the world's most expensive dog (world, record, costliest, pet, buying)

A Tibetan mastiff with the catchy name of Yangtze River Number Two has reportedly been sold to a woman in the Chinese province of Shaanxi for around £350,000, making it the most expensive dog ever.

The previous record of £90,000 was paid out by a family in Florida for Lancelot Encore - a cloned version of Lancelot, a much-loved but deceased Labrador.

The Times reports that Yangtze River Number Two's new owner, identified only as Mrs Wang, is rumoured to have spent years searching China for the perfect Tibetan Mastiff. When she located her dream dog in Qinghai province, she was determined to do whatever was necessary to make it hers.

The canine's newfound celebrity status was confirmed when a motorcade of 30 luxury cars turned up at Xi'an airport to collect it. Mrs Wang's wealthy friends sent their Mercedes limousines to the airport, and also organised a welcoming committee of local dog-lovers, complete with banners.

Dog-ownership is becoming increasingly popular in China, and is already causing problems in some of the country's over-crowded cities. A ban on pets in many public areas is being considered in Shanghai, while the city of Guangzhou has introduced a limit of one dog per family.

 

Flowers at Northcote, North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand, NZ, David Lim

Colorful flowers at Northcote, North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand. When I take the picture, it was brigh sunny day at the end of winter 2009. Nokia N95 8GB used for this shot.

Cat-sized rat discovered in South Pacific

If you have a tendency to jump shrieking on to a table when you see a mouse, look away now: a species of rat the size of a cat has been discovered.

The outsized rodent, which has been named the Bosavi woolly rat, is almost a metre long and weighs in at 1.5kg. It was found trapped inside the crater of Mt Bosavi, an extinct volcano on Papua New Guinea, which has been described as a "lost world" in which scientists have found some 40 previously undiscovered species.

The rat has dense silvery grey fur and the shape of its teeth suggests it is primarily a vegetarian. It is thought to live in subterranean nests.

The animal was found by a BBC Natural History Unit film crew and Dr Kristofer Helgen, of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.

"This is one of the world's largest rats," he said. "It is a true rat, related to the same kind you find in the city sewers, but a heck of a lot bigger."

Despite the BBC's claims, there have been previous reports of the species existence.

In 2007 Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, reported the rat was "about five times the size of a typical city rat".

Dr George McGavin, the head scientist of the BBC Natural History Unit, however, suggested the rodent was not aggressive.

"This rat was incredibly tame," he told the Guardian newspaper. "It just sat next to me nibbling on a piece of leaf. It won't have seen a human before."

Some of the other new species found include a fanged frog, a fish that grunts and a gecko. The fish has been called the henamo grunter because of the noises it makes with its swim bladder.

The Bosavi silky cuscus, a marsupial that lives up trees and feeds on fruits and leaves, was another creature not to feel threatened by the human visitors, climbing on to the shoulder of Steve Backshall, a climber and naturalist.

"I can't begin to describe how it feels to have an animal in my hands that in all probability has never before been seen by science," he told the Guardian. "Most biologists would consider it a great achievement to name one new species but at some points on this trip it seemed like everything we were looking at was new. The end of every day was like a massive party. It was very special."

Taken there by local trackers, the group stayed in the crater for two weeks in January to film a BBC series on Mt Bosavi called Lost Land of the Volcano.

The area was so remote the expedition team had to organise for fields of sweet potato and spinach to be planted in the jungle six months in advance so they would have a ready food source.

Weeks were also devoted to negotiations - which had to be translated into the local language, Kasua, spoken by fewer than 1000 people - to gain permission to cross land owned by local clans.