Each year on the evening of December 31st an estimated one million people from around the world flock to New York City’s Times Square to cheer in unison as the final 10 seconds of the year are counted down and the iconic glowing ball is lowered down a 130-foot pole from atop 1 Times Square. BGR recently attended the Philips Ball Test, during which the city does a dry run of the ceremonies that will take place seconds before midnight on New Year’s Eve. We had a chance to sit down with Jeff Straus, ...

Personal fitness GPS products could be a possible growth market for struggling PND companies. A new report from ABI Research is forecasting that the personal fitness GPS market could soon surpass 10 million units. Products such as the Garmin Forerunner 610 have helped its Outdoor and Fitness division deliver 27% of the company’s operating income last year, ABI said, and that growth continued into 2011 when the company recorded a 25% increase in fitness sales during the second quarter. “Garmin rema...

In the future, the cost of your next smartphone might decrease by a few pennies thanks to a new lawsuit brought on by Nokia against some of the world’s largest LCD manufactures. Filed simultaneously in both the United States and the England on November 25th, Nokia is alleging that AU Optronics, Hitachi, LG, Philips, Samsung, Seiko Epson, Sharp, Toshiba and others willingly conspired to “artificially inflated the price of liquid crystal displays ultimately incorporated into LCD products purchased b...

Philips makes cell phones? Sure the manufacturer is all but forgotten here in the US where handsets are concerned, but that apparently won’t stop it from churning out Sony Ericsson-like handsets such as the K700 for other markets. Truth be told, at the right carrier-subsidized price the K700 would likely fair pretty well here in the States. Purported specs:2.8-inch touchscreen TFT-LCD, 262,000 colors, 400 x 240 pixelsGSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz Supported file formats RMBV, AVI, FLV, Divx, MP3, WMA, ...

Some things in life just can’t be explained. Bush’s presidency… Ryan Seacrest’s popularity… And the Philips X800. Sure it’s an iPhone designer impostor but plenty of manufacturers are going that route. The spec read out on this puppy is what confounds the mind and warrants a viciously loud “WTF!?”General: 2G Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 Display: Type TFT touchscreen, 256K colorsSize: 240 x 400 pixels (Wide QVGA), 2.9 inchesData: GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 3...