Touted as the thinnest and smallest full Battery available
Anyone who has used Slacker’s online radio service on the desktop will feel right at home using this mobile app. You can skip tracks, rate them as favorites, or ban them using intuitive controls beneath the main playback area (which has a Cover Flow-like look). We had no problem navigating the interface using our HP Compaq Business Notebook nx8220 Battery Bold’s trackball, although you can also use keyboard shortcuts. For example, the N key skips to the next song and the Space key toggles play and pause.
RIM, which promises to launch its IBM THINKPAD X61 Battery Application Center in March, and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS (which hasn’t even set a timetable for a digital storefront) are playing catch-up, but finding the apps you want for these operating systems is far from difficult. In general, it’s easiest to visit the mobile Web site of a given application and install it directly
You also have the option of choosing from Slacker’s collection of more than 100 professionally programmed genre stations. The Alternative category alone, for example, has 13 stations. (With Pandora all stations are user-created.
The programs that made our short list can help you do nearly everything, from performing Google searches with your voice to keeping tabs on business travel plans and finances on the go. And because smart phones are just as much about play as they are about work, we’ve also included some fun entertainment apps and games for killing time between meetings or while on a long flight. (That’s what airplane mode is for, after all.)
Downloading the app wirelessly to our Laptop Batteries Bold and Curve took a little less than a minute over a 3G connection. Opening the app took only 4 seconds after the initial setup on our BlackBerry Bold, but three times as long on an older Curve 8330, which has a slower processor and less memory
.According to Martyn Williams of the IDG News Service, who drove it around a track in Yokosuka, Japan, the Versa-based version “handles and performs just like you’d expect from a car in its class.” He added: “Coming out of a curve I put my foot down on the accelerator and the car took off quickly and easily reaching 100 kilometers per hour in a few seconds.” That translates to 62 miles an hour
.The larger the battery pack, the bigger the subsidy. The law calls for a base credit of $2,500 for plug-in hybrid purchases, which increases by $417 for each kilowatt-hour of HP Compaq Business Notebook nx8420 Battery capacity over four kilowatt-hours, to a maximum of $7,500. So the Chevrolet Volt, scheduled to go on sale in late 2010 with a 16 kilowatt-hour pack, would presumably qualify for the full subsidy. Other vehicles with smaller packs, including a possible plug-in version of the Toyota Prius, would get a smaller credit even if the car had superior performance and range.
Another application, WeatherEye, forced us to reset our BlackBerry Bold before it could complete installation. More than three minutes later, we had control of our device again. That’s not good. These are not issues with the App World itself but with the underlying architecture of IBM THINKPAD X60 Battery software.
In the meantime, Nissan is giving the world a teaser peek at the production car at the Nissan Zero Emission micro site. Could that be a charging port in the nose? From the little we can see, it has some family resemblance to the tiny Micra, and there may be a little bit of Versa in there, too.