Microsoft has decided to pull the plug on their smartphone for children which they named KIN. According to reports, the reason for this immature death of KIN is poor sales. I guess they didn’t have the patience to wait for the market to improve as they improve their product, like what they did on most of Microsoft products.

I myself think that the KIN has plenty of potential so I was caught by surprise when it was discontinued. Of course, small phones are not very practical and are not work tools but then again, their target is on the younger set.

I guess this just came at a poor time when the economy is still just starting to pick up and most people do not have spare cash, especially when spending on a novelty product like KIN.

This probably mean that people who already have bought KIN may have something of value in the future when it could become a collector’s item. I would love to have a KIN too because if it’s size but then it again, it never reached Malaysian shores.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of faceVsion Technology USA. All opinions are 100% mine.

With a sister living across the Atlantic for the past ten years, we have been looking for ways to communicate in cheaper ways than conveniently lifting the telephone. The bad thing is that every time I have discovered something new, I would have to teach my parents how to operate it.

Skype has been one of the more popular ways in the household but my parents have lamented that the webcam is of such poor quality that they would rather just voice chat instead of make video calls online. I feel bad about it and have even purchased quite a few webcam models to try out but they don’t have the kind of quality when streamed over the internet.

This morning, I learned about the FV touchcam N1 which is the first internet streaming true High Definition (HD) webcam that is Skype-certified. It can deliver full screen 720p streaming video over the internet without a drop in video quality thanks to the H.264 hardware encoder built in Touchcam N1 chipset.

The best thing about faceVsion‘s touchcam is not only easy plug-and-play but its 78 degree super wide angle lens with fast auto-focus so that more people can participate in video calls. This would be perfect not only in households like mine but also in video calling conferences in a business environment.

If you are interested to purchase an FV touchcam or FV ExpressCombo, visit faceVision on line store. These are also available through their value added partners.

If you have wondered what are the top ten mobile phone brands this year, wonder no more. The top brand so far is Nokia. The Finnish mobile company, according to an article on Bloomberg, has shipped 107,800,000 phones in the first quarter of 2010 alone. This translates to a total of 37.4% of the market share. Can you imagine that a third of the mobile phone using population using Nokia? I have to admit that I use it too.

Coming at number two is Samsung. This is a South Korean electronics giant which is making a lot of heads turn with its Omnia series of smartphone. It garners a market share of 22.4% with 64,300,000 units shipped in the first quarter of this year.

At number three, and I am surprised, is LG Electronics. I do concede that LG mobile phones have very interesting designs but I can’t say the same for their quality. A lot of my friends say that their LG mobile phones break down one way or another after using for slightly more than a year.

Wrapping up the list of top ten mobile phones in the first quarter of the year are:

1. Nokia
2. Samsung
3. LG Electronics
4. Sony Ericsson
5. RIM
6. Apple
7. ZTE
8. Motorola
9. Huawei
10. Alcatel

Rumour has it that Apple iPad will be available for pre-order on Thursday, 25th February, 2010, though shipping will be a month later. This is for the WiFi version only since the 3G version will only be available in April. Not too long a wait, is it?

While I think that the iPad would be an awesome gadget to own, especially to play games with its 9.7 inch diagonal LED backlit glossy widescreen multi-touch display, I don’t think one should hurry when buying first generation electronic products!

The price for an iPad will range from US$499 to US$699 with 3G versions possibly more expensive, and this isn’t something that everyone could afford unfortunately, but yet, this isn’t a perfect product because again, flash doesn’t work! How awful could that be?

My friend told me that he was going to look for a dual-SIM 3G mobile phone last evening. However, he came home not with a mobile phone but with a HD media player instead. He said he was very impressed with what the HD media player could do even though he paid a little more for it than other HD media players available in the market today.

According to him, his new HD media player also comes with a 1tb hard drive so that he could store all his HD media files and through the HD media player, play the files directly on his HD TV screen.

Configuration of the HD media player isn’t easy, it seems but my friend was able to do it with the help of the internet. My friend suggested I buy a similar but cheaper HD media player and he could me set it up. I am so tempted! I can then watch all my downloaded video clips on TV!

Apple announced its latest innovation today, called the iPad. It’s a huge screen that could be an eBook reader, an electronic photo frame, a portable music and video player and a web browser all rolled into one. Of course, to list out all its amazing functions would be too tedious but you can just think of it as the large version of an iPhone minus the phone part.

A friend told me that he had wanted to buy a Kindle for his niece, a bookworm, but now that the iPad is here, he may upgrade to the iPad instead. However, the iPad is more than twice the price of the Kindle!

Also from what I read on the website of Apple, the wi-fi version of the iPad will only be shipped this March while the 3G version will only ship this April. I wonder if the 3G version will also be wi-fi capable because I don’t want a gadget that has an exclusive connectivity only. If the 3G version also is wi-fi capable, then it is worth considering. Let’s just hope the price will adjust lower a little. Hehehe…

I understand that Google Nexus One will only be sold at a limited number of countries for a start and one of them is Singapore. The good news is that it will be sold with a contract and without. An unlocked unit will be sold at US$529.99, not a good deal but it isn’t extremely expensive either. A couple of years ago, my Nokia E61i was retailed at around that price too.

I am wondering which telecommunications company will be bringing the Google Nexus One to Malaysia. Sure, it is not a smart phone that particularly stands one from the other Android powered phones and the camera is “only” 5MP, not good enough when you compare it with Nokia, Samsung and even LG whose phones are sporting 8MP cameras already. Besides, it looks like an HTC phone. Wait. It IS designed by HTC. Hahaha!

In any case, it will be interesting to see if Maxis, Celcom, DiGi or even U Mobile will triumph this round. The competition was intense with Apple iPhone and it will be the same with Google Nexus One.