Tech Buzz: Facebook Jabber Chat, HTC Diamond

It’s been awhile since I’ve relegated our audience to my dribblings on about gadgets, video games, and computers, but that is only because I sift through the fodder and bring you the good stuff.

First up is the announcement that Facebook has chat.

Wait, what? You already knew that? O, ok.

Well, did you know that Facebook will soon be releasing Jabber functionality with Facebook chat? Yeah, I didn’t think so. What this means is that soon you will be able to take your favorite instant messenger client, like pidgin or adium or trillian, and chat directly with users on Facebook. Updating your status in your instant messenger client will also update your status in Facebook, which will be interesting to see as a lot of my friends use their current track in Winamp or Itunes as a status. The main reason, I believe, this interoperability step becomes important is because I’m finding that a lot of my friends and family use Facebook, more than they do AIM or Gmail. In one fail swoop, I’ll be able to immediately connect to my network from one client, whether they’re using Yahoo! chat, Gmail chat, AIM, interoffice Jabber, or Facebook chat.

The summer is upon us. That means new movies, new days, and new phones! While I’ve never been a hardcore phone officianado, I do appreciate efficiency, and any device that can make my life easier, I’m all about. The IPhone, at one point of time, did tickle my interest, but the rampant gouging of Apple with its pricetag and monopoly of service through AT&T was too much to bear. Phone-maker extraordinaire HTC, Inc., who made the first wirless Pocket PC and first Windows 5.0 smartphone, have officially unveiled their IPhone killer, albeit in the UK for now. What you see below is the HTC Diamond. It will sport a 2.8″ touch screen, TouchFlo 3D technology, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 4 gigs of storage, built-in broadband HSDPA connection speed, and integrated GPS. And…it’s black. Gotta love that. No word yet on which carriers will have first dibs to supply it here in the States, but if Sprint does pick it up and barring any egregious price tag, it looks like this will be my next phone.