Japan – In an uncommon fashion the Nintendo Wii was released to consumers in Japan this Saturday after it’s release to the US two weeks ago. Nintendo stated that the earlier release to the US was to capture more of the holiday shopping season, and speculations are that the timing was to also rival the PS3 release which was only days prior. Previous Nintendo releases have usually been done in their home country of Japan first, and then to the US.

Nintendo has 400,000 units available for sale in Japan and has already sold over 600,000 in the US. The price for the game console to consumers in Japan is about $216 USD, or 25,000 yen which is about half the price of the PS3, and about four times the number of consoles were available at the launch date.

According to reports, thousands …

We’ve received word that a respected member of our tech community, James Kim (whom many of you may know as CNET’s senior editor of digital audio), and his family have gone missing. As we understand it, last weekend James, his wife Kati (above right), and his very young girls Penelope (left) and Sabine (baby), drove from their home in the SF Bay Area to Seattle. They were expected back some time Sunday, but were last seen by a hotel clerk at 5:45 PM on Saturday in or between Gold Beach or Portland, Oregon. We sincerely do hope they are all safe, and our hearts go out to the Kim family.

We’ll have more information as we get it. If you have any information as to the Kim family’s whereabouts, please contact the SFPD at 415-558-5508 during normal business hours, and 415-553-1071 after hours.

Update: Crave …

YouTube has announced that its videos will now be available on mobile devices starting in early December. This announcement marks the first step by the Google-owned video-sharing service to deliver video entertainment to mobile consumers.

Initially, YouTube will give exclusive access to Verizon Wireless V CAST consumers. The service will give Verizon customers limited access to a sampling of YouTube videos from their mobile phones. More partnerships and features from YouTube for the mobile phone are expected to be rolled out over the coming year.

The YouTube videos will be available on any one of the Verizon Wireless V CAST-enabled handsets. Consumers will also will be able to record and share their favorite moments using their mobile phones.

Verizon Wireless customers can purchase a V CAST VPak monthly subscription for $15.00 or $3.00 for daily access. The VPak subscription includes unlimited basic video, but application download fees …

Today AMD did a demonstration of the world’s first Native Quad-Core X86 Processor, (codenamed Barcelona), at the annual Industry Analyst Forum in California. The demonstration was done on a four processor server platform running Windows 2003 Server 64 bit. The demonstration also showed the ease of upgrading the server simply by replacing the four DDR2-based Opteron processors with the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron’s and updating the BIOS.

Randy Allen, the corporate vice president for AMD in the Server and Workstation Division stated “AMD is guided by an overarching strategy to reduce datacenter complexity and to deliver performance increases without forcing customers to endure disruptive platform transitions,”. Allen added, “We discussed quad-core requirements with our customers and their end users, and determined that, as we did with the introduction of dual-core x86 processors in 2005, only a native quad-core x86 server processor …

Honolulu – Adrianus J. M. Houtsma with the US Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory has announced a prototype of a stethoscope to be used for patient chest auscultation in high-noise environments.

One of the big problems with traditional stethoscopes is the inability to accurately hear the heartbeat or breath sounds of a patient while in a high noise situation, such as a helicopter, a battlefield, a high traffic area and sometimes even in the back of an ambulance. Trained first responders often use electronic devices such as an EKG when available to pick up a heart rate, or simply use there hands to feel for bilateral chest movements or rough airway obstructions instead of a stethoscope when the noise level is just too high. Unfortunately this isn’t the most ideal way to identify problems at an often critical point in the care of …

Mobile phone giant Nokia and Yahoo! announced today that they will be expanding their partnership to include Yahoo! branded internet services including Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger on Nokia mobile devices.

The services will be made available on Nokia phones running Nokia’s Series 40 platform. Series 40 is the software system that powers many of Nokia’s mobile devices. With Series 40, users are able to access a broad range of applications and features, including messaging, browsing, music and video standards as well as personal information management.

Yahoo! internet services will initially be available on the new Nokia 6300 (pictured), the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic and the Nokia 5200. These services and the ability to synchronize Yahoo! contacts, tasks and calendar on the PC and phone will eventually be added to an even wider range of Nokia’s Series 40 devices.

The Nokia and Yahoo! partnership dates back to …

Cingular Wireless has become the first wireless carrier in the U.S. to offer a wireless navigation system with 3D maps. The new system will be featured on the Nokia E62 device and utilizes an enhanced version of TeleNav GPS Navigator.

The TeleNav GPS Navigator system will give customers 3D moving maps on the Nokia E62’s large, high-resolution screen. The system works much like an in-car navigation system; you received turn-by-turn directions while driving and the 3D maps turn, move and stop as the driver does the same, while also displaying images of the streets the driver is approaching. Users can also pan and zoom the map to view nearby streets.

Customers will also be able to take advantage of many robust search features provided with TeleNav GPS Navigator on the Nokia E62. These services include searching for a business, place of interest, and even the lowest gas …

Nintendo launched it’s new Wii video game console in New York last night at midnight, meeting more than a thousand eagerly awaiting fans. Some fans had been in line for days awaiting the launch in the hopes of being one the first to get their hands on the new console. Surprisingly, the US launch was done prior to the launch in the companies home of Japan. This was done, according to Nintendo, in order to take advantage of the earlier holiday shopping season in the US.

This bold launch by Nintendo comes only two days after the launch of the PS3, and puts the two gaming giants in a head to head battle in this seasons gaming console wars. The Wii game system does not have near the processing power or graphic capabilities of the it’s PS3 and Xbox rivals, and has a price that …

If you are one of the many that would like to be able to take great photos with the performance of a digital SLR camera, but never wanted to invest the money or take the time to learn all the features involved, Nikon has come out with the right camera for you. This digital camera could very well bridge the gap for many amateur photographers from the popular point and shoot compact cameras to a little more serious but manageable photographing instrument.

One significant features of this offering has nothing to do with the camera specs, but is the price. At an estimated $599, consumers can get a pretty nice, lightweight and SLR camera for less than most similar models. Another nice feature is the 2.5″ color display. Nikon has made a more novice, user-friendly display on the screen with a few different layouts to …

Microsoft and Sprint have announced an alliance in which the companies will develop and deliver a range of mobile search services for Sprint’s business and consumer customers.

The initial offering enables Sprint customers to use Windows Live Search for mobile on their wireless phones to search location-based content from the Internet. The new mobile search service based on Windows Live aims to provide a single access point to relevant online content based on a keyword or phrase. The search will include the Sprint catalog of offerings such ring tones, games, and screen savers as well as nearby stores and restaurants.

Windows Live Search for mobile offers features such as maps and directions but requires users to input their location by entering their ZIP code, address, or city and state. Future versions of the service are planned to enable consumers to give permission to automatically locate them …

Tuesday at the Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco, Marin Soljačić, assistant professor at MIT, along with colleagues presented an approach to power and/or charge electronic devices wirelessly from a couple of meters away.

The idea is that there would be some type of base station that the devices would need to be in proximity of to receive the transfer of energy through the air. The base station would be plugged into a regular electrical outlet, or “holes” to you old Seinfeld fans. The base station would then emit some low-frequency electromagnetic radiation around the base. The radiation would be at a specific frequency that would need to be matched by some type of circuitry component inside the gadget that would receive the power, and when the base and the component get close to each other resonating at the same frequency, the component could …

GM has released plans to introduce a upgrade to the common key fob for their higher end SUV style vehicles such as the Cadillac Escalade. The new key fob will be the first to offer two way communication between the device and the vehicle, as well as offering a liquid crystal display.

The remote gadget will be able to lock and unlock the doors and set of a panic alarm as most key fobs would, but the difference lies in what it gets back from the vehicle. The key fob will be able to display that status of the vehicles door locks, tire pressure, odometer reading, fuel level, radio settings and more, according to an article in USA Today.

Vehicle makers have been adding more features to the remote access of vehicles, such as unlocking doors when you get close, associating seat and mirror settings, …

MovaMail recently announced that it has released version 2 of its J2ME-based mobile email application. The new build of MovaMail allows consumers to access their WebMail, POP, and IMAP email services from their java-enabled mobile phones.

Building on the success of Version 1.0 which was first released to the public in October 2005, MovaMail V2 adds new features and performance enhancements that maximize the capabilities of today’s MIDP 2.0 mobile phones. New features include:

Phone Address Book Synchronization – complete synch and server backup
Complete Email Synchronization – including email status
Attachment Support – view images, forward attachments
Camera Phone Integration – email pictures from your mobile phone
Multi-lingual support – support for any language in the end users mobile phone
Optional XHTML interface – for users that can not or choose not to access via java client.

MovaMail’s Compression and Optimization engine has been completely reengineered to give users their email nearly …

Vodafone and Yahoo! have formed an alliance which pools their collective expertise to create a new advertising service for mobile devices. The partnership names Yahoo! as Vodafone’s exclusive display advertising partner in the UK.

Yahoo! can leverage its sizeable sales force and technology team to drive the most benefit from Vodafone’s unique mobile advertising opportunities. Yahoo! will use its ample advertising prowess to provide a variety of mobile advertising formats across Vodafone’s varied content services.

The new service is planned to be initiated in the UK in the first half of 2007. Certain plans are structured to give savings on certain Vodafone services to customers who agree to accept carefully targeted display advertisements. This service could extend to other Vodafone mobile assets including the Vodafone live! portal, games, television and picture messaging services.

While no one can accurately predict how the Zune will fare this holiday season, one can guarantee that it will take a piece of the considerable market share now enjoyed by the iPod.

Microsoft is currently in the midst of celebrating the U.S. launch of the Zune digital media player and Zune Marketplace music service. The celebration consists of six free concerts in public parks and plazas in urban centers across the country.

At the inaugural concert in Seattle, Gates outlined the Zune vision of creating new ways for people to connect, discover and share music. Gates demonstrated that through Zune-to-Zune managed wireless sharing, consumers are empowered to promote and sample tracks, thus increasing exposure for artists. The service logs the music that people have shared, making it easier to purchase the songs they like the next time they synch up their player. Consumers …