MRAM. Wired News on magnetoresistive random access memory, or MRAM, which store data magentically and could eventually lead to instant-on PCs and PDAs that don't lose all their data when they run out of power:MRAM is designed to eliminate several of the most infuriating artifacts of the computer age: the interminable wait for devices to boot up and power down, and those irritating operating system messages about "loading" and "saving your settings. Currently computers need to load information into local memory from the hard disk when the power is turned on, and that data transfer can't even start until after the hard drive has spun up to speed," Way said. "Whenever you shut down, data has to flow back in the other direction from the volatile memory to the hard drive."Read... [Gizmodo]

For Printing on the Run, Inkjets to Go. Tiny new battery-operated printers from Canon and Hewlett-Packard may have you making hard copies on the road. How good are they? By David Pogue. [New York Times: Technology]

Bluetooth camera. The wireless cameras keep coming. The latest is a 2-megapixel digital camera from Concord with built-in Bluetooth. The Eye-Q Go can beam images to a PDA, a printer, a cellphone, or a PC, or it can save them to SD and MMC cards. Read [Via The Gadgeteer]... [Gizmodo]

Cell Phones, Billboards Play Tag. Hyperlinks are spreading to the real world. A new infrared technology allows mobile-phone users to point and click their phones at a museum exhibit or advertisement to link to relevant websites and downloads. By Lakshmi Sandhana. [Wired News]

NEC to Offer TV-Capable Cellphone Handsets by 2005

"Japan's NEC Corp 6701.T unveiled on Thursday a prototype cellphone handset capable of receiving digital broadcasting signals, enabling users to not only make calls and take photos, but to watch TV.

NEC officials said the electronics conglomerate is the first handset manufacturer in Japan and probably in the world to unveil a trial model with a digital TV function.

The company is targeting a trial launch for commercial models by 2005.

Regular services for terrestrial digital television broadcasting are set to begin by the end of 2003 in Japan, while broadcasting designed for mobile terminals is expected to start in the next few years.

The trial model, which is a little bulkier than regular handsets, allows slightly more than an hour of TV viewing."