Travel Overseas with an iPod Touch

As we know the Apple iPhone and iPod touch are great multimedia players on the go if you live in the iTunes ecosystem, many of us have a ton of videos which have to be converted to play of Apple's mobile devices. The new VLC Media Player for the iPhone and iPod touch now enables you to play a variety of video files on the go.

The VLC Media Player is already on the Apple iPad and the new app will bring much of that video-playing goodness to your iPhone or iPod touch through a ipad video converter. It's not quite as simple as just dragging and dropping movies and television

Given that, rather than facing exorbitant cell-phone roaming charges, we can travel to Europe with just an iPad and an iPod touch. Though that meant that we could only look up restaurants or things to do when we were in a free Wi-Fi . And rather than being tethered to Facebook updates, we both paid more attention to the scene at hand.

Over the course of eight nights, I stayed in six hotels that all had free Wi-Fi access. Here's what I learned about traveling overseas with the fourth-generation iPod touch:

The iPod touch is an affordable way to stay connected while on the road. For the newest 8GB version with FaceTime, the iPod touch starts at $229, compared to the iPad's $499 starting price tag. Since there is no data plan for the iPod touch, you don't have to worry about incurring a monthly bill. Also, since both devices are light and compact enough to carry, I didn't have to fret about leaving a laptop in our luggage, which we left with the hotel's front desk during the day before moving on to the next one. Though I normally travel with a netbook or an ipod touch or an ipad because we can get the videos to our ipad or ipod touch easily and timely with an ipad converter software to back up digital photos and clear memory cards, I solved the memory problem by bringing 18GB's worth of SD cards, which was more than enough even when shooting RAW files.

What's more, Sometimes the iPod touch was able to log on faster than the iPad. For whatever reason, we sometimes couldn't get the iPad to connect right away. Having two devices that could access the Internet also proved invaluable when plotting our next destination. I used the iPod touch to check simple things like the weather, the time (I still don't wear a watch), and the train schedule.

Apart from this, some hotels used a computer system to print out a unique Wi-Fi code for our stay. Other hotels used our passport number to create a password. One downtown hotel gave us a username and a password that we could use while sitting in the attached cafe. Even after we checked out, we'd stop by that cafe to order a coffee, rest our feet, check our e-mail, and look up restaurants. At one hotel, we were given a code for one week of complimentary Wi-Fi access.

So owing to these convenient and assured supplies for us, why don't we have a try to travel overseas only with an ipod touch?

Touch Screen Kiosks for Entertainment Downloads

With most of the music industry already emigrating to the Internet, the younger generation are no strangers to downloading their favourite tracks. Many new bands are making use of YouTube, the blogosphere and other web-based marketing to promote themselves. An entertainment touch screen kiosk draws on this new way of distributing music and other entertainment in digital form, expands on the idea and allows users to not only download music to their Ipod, MP3 player PDA or USB memory stick, but also allows users to download movies and games too.

The touchscreen kiosks have multimedia touch screen technology, and you are able to browse the downloadable items and watch trailers, listen to excerpts of music tracks, or watch a demo of the game. The kiosk's information also draws feeds of reviews to display, so the user can see what other people thought of the item.

The entertainment download kiosks are networked so that one main machine stores all of the downloadable material. Multiple kiosks can then be located around the shop or shopping centre, and drag all of the relevant information from the main machine as it is called from a kiosk.

The beauty of the entertainment download kiosk is that it is a self-service kiosk with no staff required, so is really cost effective.

The kiosks is space saving. Usually this amount of stock needs to be kept in a sizeable shop, however this technology means that the same quantity of stock is now kept in a very reduced space.

Russ Crupnick, an NPD senior industry analyst said; "consumers still have a huge appetite for songs, as the amount of money customers are spending on downloads has risen from an average of $33 a year to $50 a year." Of course these figures are based on Internet download sales. However with a download kiosk available in shopping centres and in retail shops, the high street could take a slice of the downloading action.

Furthermore the kiosks have bespoke fascias, so they can bear any logo or branding that your company already has. Additionally the kiosks can be multi-faced with up to four screens, which is ideal for a busy location where you would expect numerous users wanting to access the kiosks. By using a dual screen music download kiosk one screen is handling the user transaction whilst the upper screen can be showing advertising.

Music download kiosks can also be used for downloaded ring tones, desktop images and styles for mobile devices and phones. Customers could also create their own mixes using a selection of dance music which gets mixed using their preferences.

The music or other file can be downloaded to an MP3 player or mobile phone using a USB connection, WLAN or Bluetooth depending on user preference.

Touch The World With Xperia Pro Mobile Phones

Sony Ericsson has introduced its new business class touch screen handset model Xperia Pro mobile phone. It is entirely different from other devices with its QWERTY slide out Key board and stylish design which attracts the social networkers. Sony Ericsson claims that the body of the phone is designed in such a way that it fits exactly the users hand and thus to avoid the typing and sending errors. It has a dimension of 120 x 57 x 13.5mm and weights 140g. The model will be available in three eye catching colors black, red and silver.

Xperia Pro mobile phone is designed with LED display and capacitive touch screen with 16M colors in the size 480x854 pixels. The touch screen display of the model is entirely different from other handsets with its special features accelerometer sensor for auto rotate, scratch resistance surface, multi-touch input method, proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Sony mobile BRAVIA Engine and so on.

The device doubtlessly will support both in 3G networks HSDPA 900/2100, HSDPA 850/1900/2100 and in 2G networks GSM 850/900/1800/1900. The Xperia Pro mobile phone is specialized with Qualcomm MSM8255 snapdragon 1 GHz processor. The handset model is enabled with the latest version of Google Android platform that is Gingerbread. It is an advanced model in touch screen mobile phones era with Adobe 10.1 flash support which could be used as both business and entertainment device.

The Sony Ericson Xperia Pro is also advanced with 8 mega pixel main camera with Led flash light and a 2 MP front camera facing the front for high quality video calling. The Xperia Pro also features a standard battery, Li-Po 1500 mAh with a standby of 450 hr in 2G networks and 400 hrs in 3G networks. It has a talk time capacity of up to 6hr 55 minutes in 2G networks and up to 7hr in 3G networks. It also has a music play up to 31 hrs.

Xperia pro mobile phone is pre loaded with an office suite which allows the users view and edit office documents directly on phone. The Xperia Pro also stands front in features like Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, A-GPS, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, and Bluetooth 2.1 A2DP. The mobile phone is also provided with an internal memory of 320 MB and a Micro SD slot expandable up to 32GB which includes 8GB MSD card. The device is integrated with java MIDP 2.1, SNS, HDMI port, MP4/WMV Player, Organizer, Voice commands, Track ID music recognition etc. A stereo FM radio with RDS is inbuilt in the device.

The exact price and date of release of Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro touch screen mobile phones are not yet determined. It is suppose to be at the end of February 2011.