Phones

A Norwegian company has developed bridging technology that links cell phones with Skype Technologies’ VoIP service in a configuration that enables users to make worldwide calls at local rates.

On June 8, Cingular--a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth--sent a letter to Marion C. Blakey, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, that raised a red flag about the prospect of cell phone blabbing on airplanes. "We believe there is a time and a place for wireless phone conversations, and seldom does that include the confines of an airplane flight," wrote Paul R. Roth, Cingular's executive vice president for external affairs.

Is this the iTunes phone? To be honest, we won’t know until we know (and we’re leaning towards this being more of a concept design more than anything else), but check out this mocked-up image of a handset sporting an Apple logo and the makings of scroll wheel that popped up in a presentation that Motorola execs recently made to analysts from Morgan Stanley in Beijing.

I recently switched to Cingular for my cellular service, and of course got a new phone. Like some other people have noted, I’ve been having problems with my new phone’s T9.

UGH! Who wants to go through all that! So, if you have a T5 or a Treo 650, please do yourself a favor, and check for and download all the updates that apply to your handheld! It may take a little extra effort upfront to download and install those patches from PalmOne, but you’ll save time for yourself and everyone in troubleshooting all kinds of strange and rare problems that might otherwise crop up.

It is interesting to see a growing resitance to the feature-creep that is central to mobile phone marketing. I’m sure there must be some folks who use all the features on their new mobile phones (as part of their careers in espionage or satellite navigation perhaps), but they are lost on me. At the risk of of sounding extremely non-geeky, I only use my mobile phone for voice and on rare occasions SMS communcations with a handful of people (and these days I’m literally talking about a number you can count on one, maybe two hands).

Anyway, the task was, indeed, much larger than I expected, which is why I’m now typing it up. Hopefully, Google will find this post and future people trying to do the same thing will be helped out. The technical specs matter a bit, but there is general information (and terminology!) here, too, on getting your connection to work. I’m using a PowerBook, a Nokia 6820, and Cingular is my provider. Sadly, even with my free dial-up into the University’s modem pool, there’s still no such thing as free internet, but this comes close.

can you remember what we did before cell phones, pda’s, and other bullshit electronic gadgets we really don’t need?

Nokia released the 6170 cellphone today. It’s a direct attack on Motorola’s awesome Razr phone. I personally think it’s not up to the high standards set by Razr. The features are there but the style certainly isn’t. The 6170 basically boasts the exact same features as the Razr with the exception for a thicker body and lack of quad-band. (Which I think are reasons enough to get a Razr instead!)

We have Cingular cell phones and the coverage was great on Kona. There were only a few dead spots. We brought both of our phones because sometimes Wendy and I went different ways.

Nokia USA is conducting a 2 to 4 month study to investigate how people use their Nokia phones. The study is accepting new panel members for a limited time only.

After Swisscom had to delay the roll-out of IPTV ('Bluewin TV') due to technicalities, shivers went through the vendor and telco communities. After all, Microsoft right now is the only company to provide all software parts of an end-to-end IPTV solution. And Microsoft has trials or outright orders for its Microsoft TV software suite from a.o. Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, Telecom Italia and Swisscom. Most likely SBC will not be able to launch this year.

Alexandria City Council has approved a new tax on cell phones as part of its fiscal 2006 budget. Residents will pay $3 a month on cell phone bills of more than $30. People on lower-cost plans will be charged ten percent of their monthly bill.

Cox just upgraded their cable modem users in Virginia to 15mbps/2mbps. Now THAT’S some bandwidth. Thought I’m (mostly) loyal to BellSouth, our 3mbps tier doesn’t look so hot now. We’ll have 6mbps by the end of the year and 24mbps by the end of next year.

I learned from a Rogers rep this afternoon that the Treo 650 will be released next Monday. Many people have been waiting for its release in Canada since it was released in the US in November. I think I can safely say that this is currently the best smartphone on the market.

There's a new version of Skype out there. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Skype - the quality for me has been as good as a cell phone call, and I use it on a regular basis to communicate with team members on the other side of the country.

Motorola has announced three new Bluetooth headsets - the RAZR H3, H700, and the H300. The RAZR H3 is designed to complement the RAZR V3 mobile phone.

Today,I have succeed in connecting the internet from my mobile LG b2000. I was just waiting for data cable, which was unavailable in Pune. LG mobile service centre in Pune gave me Data cable today. I am quite happy with the speed. While connecting, the dialer shows speed 115 Kbps. Actual speed is 30 to 40 Kbps. But speed is constant and do not vary like ordinary landline phones. From today, I can use internet without fear of large phone bills. Airtel charges 5 Rs. per day for GPRS facility. With my prepaid connection, I can start and stop my GPRS facility anytime. So I can use internet for some days and then can stop. I just have to pay for the days which had GPRS facility on. This is nice. I am going to use GPRS service all days.

They say all it takes is a spark to cause a fire and yesterday’s move by Yahoo to buy six year old Internet phone company Dialpad could be the first of the moves made in the VoIP sector that triggers consolidation.

If you are a user of Cingular (or AT&T Wireless). MSN Mobile Messaging, which I wrote about in the past, is a really cool feature where you can have a two way conversation between yourself and a mobile phone user.

Bryce Howitson suggested an unlocked Nokia 7280. The 7280 fills all my requirements, though I’m not quite comfortable buying an unlock phone off eBay…yet. This left the Motorola RazR and the Treo 650 in the running. Emails with T-Mobile customer service confirmed neither are available through them.

I switched to LG phones from being a long-time Nokia user because I wanted a flip phone and all of LG's phones seem to offer so many more options, and picked up the VX8000 because it's currently the best LG has to offer. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. While this phone does have some flaws, it has proven to be the best cell phone I've ever owned.

If you’ve been interested in trying out the Vonage VoIP service well Linksys and Vonage has a deal for you. Purchase one of the new Linksys Wireless-G VoIP routers and receive several rebates that essentially makes your router free. This only works if you had a previous Linksys Wireless Router before hand AND if you plan on using Vonage’s VoIP service.

In a rare corporate display of coming out against something they stand to benefit from, Cingular has sent a missive to the FAA indicating their position against lifting the in-flight cellphone ban. Their official take on the matter is that there is “a time and a place for wireless phone conversations, and seldom does that include the confines of an airplane flight.” They even go so far as to say that, should the ban be lifted, they would be encouraging its customers to refrain from in-flight talking and use data services only (”tap, not talk”). However, oddly, in a joint letter to the FCC with Verizon, they indicated they might support lifting the ban if safeguards were in place to protect consumers on the ground from interference. So… which is it, dudes?

Nokia’s getting into the VoIP game, but if you’re expecting to be able to use your handset to make Skype calls, you’re going to be disappointed. The Finnish phone giant is partnering with Cisco, OnRelay, IBM and others to develop technology for “enterprise voice mobility.” The basic idea is that you’ll be able to use your company cellphone from anywhere, and be able to switch transparently from the cellular network to the company’s VoIP or standard PBX. We understand Nokia’s decision to do this; there are big bucks to be made in the corporate cellphone biz. But, still, we’d really like a Nokia Skype phone (though we suppose the IPdrum Mobile Skype Cable just might do the trick).

I just made the switch from Time Warner cable internet to SBC DSL. I got a great deal at 14.95 a month. This gives me an extra $20/mo.

i'm already recommending my friends the nokia phones, because of the great and easy usability, intelligent features, the good and long lasting quality (hey, this was my fault, i don't expect, that a mobile phone has to survive such a crash without any damage), their customer support and now also because of their great obligingness!

So the boys at PhoneScoop were at a Motorola conference last week when during a presentation they dropped “the whoops! slide”, which clearly shows Moto’s new oh-so-hot 3G RAZR-alike V1150 in all its glory… with a Cingular logo right there on the lid. When asked, Moto’s American PR apparently said they’d heard nothing of such a device and insisted it must merely be a mockup they were using just to demo the device (what, they expect us to believe they just let that kind of a tease into a presentation being shown to loads of press?), and that they’d only slated a WCDMA 2100 version of the device (i.e. Asia and Europe). We suppose that could truly be the case since the device was supposed to be tri-band GSM, but would it be hard for them to develop...

The MVNO model has been pretty successful in using up excess cell capacity, but you’ll notice that there are not too many MVNO that are using networks other Sprint. Why is that? Because most of the mobile carriers don’t have excess capacity, or at least shouldn’t give up that extra capacity until their core customers are satisfied. Take Cingular for instance who can barely suppor their own users. The MVNO model is all marketing and distribution (7-eleven, Virgin Stores) and that’s where the COGS go way down-much like Open Source.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) today announced an agreement with Sprint (NYSE: FON) to offer select SIRIUS Satellite Radio programming. Some of the music channels being evaluated by Sprint and SIRIUS for the new service include new hits, classic rock, hip-hop, country, blues and soul to jazz and Broadway’s best music. The new Sprint service will be available nationwide, and both companies plan to announce more specifics of the service, as well as the price later this year.

Video calls are coming to Skype, thanks to vSkype, a plug-in developed by Santa Cruz Networks. The company has just released a public beta, which for now works only on windows machines. (Of course, most Mac users have lovely iChat/iSight combination to get their video calling groove on!)

This is a post that has been a long time in coming…a little about skype. It is a platform that I use on a daily basis and have even disconnected my home phone in favor of skypein (in combo with my celly). While I could talk and talk about the new wonderful things skype is doing (video, the family in the rainforest in guyana who use it as a their primary phone, skype in your celly, skype your mindmap, skype stories and radio…the list could go on and on.) what I have chosen to talk about is using skype and blogging in education. Last month we had a very interesting conference in HUMlab about IT in education. At a workshop on mobile learning (a bit of a pet subject for me) we were asked to create a learning task using mobile technology. Our group discussed using skype as a tool for mobile, authentic language learning.

On the tech front, my friend Eric, who’s currently doing anti-corruption work in Kosovo, introduced me to a nifty new (to me) internet phone and chat program: Skype. It was developed by the same folks who did Kazaa, and like Kazaa it uses distributed computing and networking. You can talk back and forth over the computer for free, and there’s also the option to call landlines at some ridiculously cheap cost. I’ve talked back and forth with Eric serveral times, and the sound quality is spot-on, which is mighty impressive considering the sketchy net/bandwidth situation in Kosovo.

I called BellSouth to see about hooking up DSL but it’s a total rip-off. Not to mention that their customer service system sucks big donkey wang. The actual people I talked to were nice enough but I called an 800 number for internet service and got a woman who could only give me pricing on DSL–she couldn’t help with phone service. Evidentally, you have to set up a phone line first and then call for internet service 3 days later. I asked her to transfer me to BellSouth’s phone service. She sent me to just some dude. The guy answered his phone and when I asked about phone service, he said, “who are you trying to call?”

Unication was showing off a Linux OS PDA at Computex Taipei that had some very interesting features. Built-in VoIP phone capabilities (via 802.11b), an FM radio transmitter (for broadcasting your favorite MP3s to the nearest radio), rotating screen with Tablet style input and of course all the typical PIM applications you’d expect in a PDA.

That's what I did. A year after moving to Los Angeles from New York, I was reading my Verizon Wireless bill and noticed I was still paying New York taxes. New York, as it happens, has the highest state and local taxes in the country: 16.2% (if you add federal charges, it's 22.2%). I estimated I was giving my former city and state about $75 per year they didn't deserve.

Today we learned why Nokia phones had become scarce at U.S. service providers - they introduced a bunch of new phones today, especially for the U.S. CDMA service providers (Verizon, Sprint, Cricket, etc). Nokia’s line up was also missing the so called “clam shell” designs that have become extremely popular, especially amongst college and high school students and others.

“GPS-enabled cell phones are now mostly a curiosity, Ludford said. However, such technological obscurities have a way of worming themselves into everyday life, which is why researchers are already working on applications.

Place Mail stores the latitude and longitude coordinates of the users’ favorite spots - Washburn Library, Bayer’s Hardware, Discount Video or the Wedge - into the cell phone’s memory. The user also programs in location-specific reminder notes.”

Qwest, after losing the battle for MCI is not averse to being taken out itself. “We’re looking at every opportunity as we look at the consolidation that is going on in our industry… And that’s all I’d better say about that,” Qwest chairman and CEO Richard Notebaert said at the Executives’ Club of Chicago. He also said he was frustrated by MCI’s unwillingness to take the Qwest offer seriously. But back to the buyout question. With $10.5 billion in debt, the company is still a high risk proposition for anyone to acquire. The best recourse for them would be to merge with Sprint’s local business, and try and add more heft to its operations by nibbling at smaller players. By doing so, it can make itself attractive enough for a decent offer from either BellSouth or SBC. The good news is that some of Q’s states have the new growth demographics working in their favor.

Unlike the world of Wi-Fi, where one manufacturer’s products can be virtually guaranteed to work with another, the Bluetooth consortium in the past seems to have taken the idea of compatibility purely as an option. We have spent hours, for instance, trying to pair earlier-generation Nokia phones with various Bluetooth devices.

Not too long back, Athens, GA was the posterchild for the concept of flooding the downtown hub of a college town with free wifi and little meshnets. Bellsouth seems to feel otherwise. I have to wonder if the concept of multiple WiMAX deployments in a specific service area is going to become a reality or if there's a first-mover advantage here that defeats the purpose (or marginalizes the longer-term viability of the deployment) as others enter at lower barriers to entry when the WiMAX gear becomes more easily justifiable.

BellSouth tips its toes in pre-WiMAX fixed wireless, will launch trials in Athens, Georgia, later this summer using gear from Navini Networks. More details at Daily Wireless. Mike thinks this is old wine in an old bottle with a new label: WiMAX.

Mike's beef is that the company backing BellSouth, Navini, are supplying their propriety technology based on the 802.16 WiMAX protocol, whereas the competing 802.20 is more likely to become the ratified standard (whenever that happens), so the trial is based on technology that has already been trialed, it's just been rebranded to jump on the WiMax bandwagon.

Instead you have someone like Vonage operating their own closed voip network as the posterchild for voip (sorry Jeff) much like AOL for many really IS or WAS the Internet...for several, Vonage IS VoIP - let's face it. Even worse, we're letting that happen all over again. Think about it. VoIP/Vonage is just like Internet/AOL a few years back. Sure the LECs will have their own flavors but one independent company is taking the lead as the top proprietary service. Doesn't have to be this way guys, we've got to find a way to take the maverick mentality and polarize for the greater good. Otherwise, we're going nowhere fast in small, isolated silos and repeating history with VoIP and limiting our businesses every single day.

Today I finally got my package from DHL (courier company), the VoIP provider is Vonage, they are located in USA but they have just increased their services to Canada now. First of all, the voice quality is so good, if my ears are any better I could say the quality is MUCH higher than regular phone line. I love it. I’m paying 19.99 per month with 500 minutes of talk time (that only includes outbound calls), any inbound from Toronto is FREE! So, if any of you are out of town and still like to keep in touch with your love ones (family and...

I happened upon a link to this article on municipally-owned broadband, with Provo, Utah as an example of a successful fiber rollout. Wow, 3 Mbps symmetrical up-and-download speeds! I’d love to have that. Right now, I’ve got 3 Mbps down/256kbps up (Charter Cable), and wish I had a more-symmetrical connection. With VoIP and other home server applications becoming more popular, cable and DSL providers are getting pressure from consumers (well, some of us) to provide more upload speeds. Comcast just announced upgrades to 384 kbps upstream...

The move comes as Vonage is gearing up via VARs to sell to the same small business market. But Vonage has a different spin with the SOHO and SMB offering. It's the folks doing the selling. The Vonage sales force are proven telecom and IT sales and installation companies (or are supposed to be). Pitney Bowes sells stamp machines and office related equipment. So just as P8 preceded Vonage into the consumer VoIP space, as they also did in the business space, they are hoping via this move to avoid having what happened in the residential market, where...

Conventional wisdom, even among telecom cognoscenti is that Skype has become so big, that it can be declared a platform. Who can argue? After a shinny pretty face, a Mac-like ease of use and millions of users, when married to superb voice quality, it is hard not to like Skype. Even I have fallen prey to the charms of the product, and have found that I am shifting my VoIP minutes away from Vonage to Skype.

I've had my Motorola Razr V3 for a couple of weeks now and have a better feel for its strong and weak points.

The WSJ says, "The question Wall Street is asking is whether Comcast will act as part of a cable-industry consortium, or strike an alliance of its own. The most attractive partner may be T-Mobile USA Inc., which isn't a direct threat to Comcast in the way that SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have become.

Desautels said customer service concerns led carriers such as Cingular Wireless, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless to abide by the guidelines to avoid situations where "people are running up $500 for services they didn't realize they subscribed to."

I love the lightness (4.3 oz) and size (large candybar) of the Blackberry. It works as a phone, no questions asked. I'm doing pretty well using the Suretype QWERTY and think it's a boon to solving a key problem with big pdas trying to be cell phones.

Does it work? I assure you it does. I forgot to pay my VOIP bill over the weekend and my service was suspended. Then, last night after work, I got word of this incredible program, downloaded it, set it up, deposited 10 Euros via Paypal, and have been making calls to land lines and cell phones all day today. Best of all, I have yet to spend an entire dollar.

Cellular companies are reluctant to say how much they make from their directory assistance services, though Verizon Wireless spokesman Paul Lemchak called it a "pretty good business."

Why did you bring Microsoft into it? As Jared said they most likely will not go into this type of thing since they are motivated for office use. Windows Mobile is very clucky and not easy to use, as Jared said its Pocket Pc for a phone and the only reason they have sold any is because origianlly those phones were the only phones to sync with their own exchange server. Exchange rulls the corporate world and I would assume that microsoft say the need for cell users to sync there data with thier phone, that is why we see the smart phone, not because people wanted a phone and a PocketPC in one. how could I speculate this? because the ealry smart phones advertised this to the extreme and they didn’t have querty keypads or touch screens to enter data. Although recently this has changed with Microsoft exchange allowing the Treo 650 to sync with the exchange server 2003, I don’t know who or how they got that going but they, I think, are the only phones that sync nativily (out of the box) with exchange.

Bhute recently purchased a Sony Erricson P910i which, despite its ugly body, is a revolutionary convergent device. It is a serious PDA-killer with amazing audio output (unlike Nokia phones) and a reasonable camera to boot. Its QWERTY keypad though a vast improvement over P800 wouldn’t be your preferred input device.

But the major cellular carriers--Sprint PCS, Verizon Wireless, Cingular,and T-Mobile-- have so far declined to provide such APIs. (This is one of my biggest pet peeves, as I've blogged about before.) This exclusionary policy would be understandable if the carriers were busy rolling out their own location-based services. But they aren't. Mossberg again:

Cell phones really have changed the way we live. Sometimes I feel like I got into a time machine and landed in the future. Do you know that in Japan and Korea, you can actually watch TV on your cell phone? What else is coming, I wonder.

I started my sales and marketing career in 1977 as a sales trainee for ASG Industries. My tools were a legal pad, a couple of Bic pens and a secretary named Darlene, who typed everything on an IBM Selectric typewriter. I sat at a Steelcase desk actually made from steel and painted gunmetal grey. This was before fax machines (at least reliable ones), FEDEX, email, cell phones, desktop publishing, the Internet, and all the other tools and technologies available to marketers today.

The biggest problem facing us now is that I live in Florida and she lives in New Zealand. We’ve spoken on the phone, though; prepaid calling cards are relatively inexpensive. (I have one that costs 1.9 cents per minute with a $0.39 surcharge per call.) I’ve linked to her blog in my sidebar, but she has another website here.

More than 20,000 will attend it. Conference speakers include Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon Chairman and CEO; Duane Ackerman, BellSouth CEO, Kathleen Abernathy and Jonathan Adelstein, FCC Commissioners. John Chambers, Cisco CEO will be a keynote speaker. Other keynotes include Bill Owens, Nortel CEO and Pat Russo, Lucent CEO.

When I initially signed up with Vonage, almost a year ago.. I had to buy an ATA from them. This was no problem, because I didn’t have something like Asterisk in place. Their device performed beautifully for quite some time. Because the Vonage ATA and Asterisk is redundant, I called them to see if I could link Vonage directly into Asterisk. I can, but not using their unlimited plan, only using their $9.99 a month 500 minute “soft phone” plan. I found this most unacceptable and chose to suspend my account.

Digits 0-9 are standard stuff, but what are the * and # buttons for? And why are there letters above almost every digit? The configuration of these two buttons along with the letters above the digits is the same as you'd find on a telephone. Could there be a Vonage-like VoIP function in the works? If this is old news or has been explained elsewhere someone should tell me because I must have missed a press release somewhere.

I'm actually intrigued by the offerings from this VoIP startup. The reason? They are about to beat Vonage out of the gate with a Starcomm WiFi phone and have pricing that seems to be very low.

Our connection to the internet was out since about 5:35 local time yesterday and did not return until just after midnight. I knew that I did a lot online but never really noticed how much. Not just blogging but paying bills, checking the weather, getting the news, googling and so forth. It was strange phoning in the outage. I looked up the number in the paper telephone directory. Ordinarily, I look up everything on line.

From May 1 to June 30, 2005, Jabra will donate $1 to breastcancer.org for the first 15,000 Pink Jabra EarWave Boom mobile phone headsets sold exclusively at Sprint Stores nationwide. With Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and National Wireless Safety Week all occurring in May, the pink version of the popular Jabra EarWave Boom makes a functional yet fashionable gift for a loved one that supports a worthy cause.

According to the Wall Street Jrl the government has just made a deal with a former chief financial officer of Qwest Communications International Inc. This individual will plead guilty "to one criminal count of insider trading" and in return there is an agreement to cooperate with the government in their investigation. This is likely to be a significant advancement in the government's investigation as this is the "former chief financial officer" and "is the highest-ranking former Qwest official to be charged...

Voxilla has posted a review of AOL CallWays Internet Phone Service. Using the familiar combination of functionality and advertising, AOL has created what many hope will be the catalyst for the VoIP explosion. AOL CallWays is call management application that interfaces with a supplied telephone adapter to allow subscribers to make calls from within the AOL CallWays interface. Users can call from their telephone, launch calls from their contact manager, listen to e-mail messages and reply by phone, and obtain voice mail from anywhere in the world.

I was also able to get my first experience with number portability. I only use a mobile phone (no landline), so it was very important to me to keep my number as I moved from T-Mobile to Cingular. It may have been because I was calling for business service, but the Cingular customer service reps were all very helpful. I got my phone in just a few days and they scheduled my number to port on that Sunday - and wonder of wonders it ported over without any issue. It is just too bad that it took so long to get number portability.

I ordered some extra accessories for my new Razr phone, and one of the bonuses included was an antenna booster. Since I live at the bottom of a hill, and don’t get great reception on any phone, I decided I’d give it a try. However, after installing the antenna booster, it seemed like I had even less bars throughout my house (and I only had one to begin with). This afternoon I removed the antenna booster, and so far I’ve manged to get my one bar back, but my reception in my house still isn’t that great which has so far...

The new improved and recently ratified VDSL2 standard has one enthusiastic support at the very least - BellSouth. The company says it will use Tellabs’ AFC gear for its fiber to the curb project. “BellSouth will use VDSL2 to upgrade existing FTTC systems and achieve broadband speeds greater than 50Mbps on systems installed over the last decade,” said Bill Smith, chief technology officer of BellSouth, which even now has 1.1 million FTTC curbs. Tellabs will provide the technology to upgrade those customers to bring them upto speed....

On the telco side of the fence, BellSouth and Comverse announced the final resolution of their patent battle, a pact that makes official the cease-fire announced in December. Comverse supplies a critical technology to telcos: voice mail. Under the deal, Comverse agreed to license BellSouth’s voice mail and other emerging important technologies, including patents for integrating wireless and wireline phone numbers.

Three former Bell companies are upgrading their networks with optical fiber so they can deliver television to consumers. It's a multibillion-dollar undertaking that will stretch out for years. But it will take even longer if SBC, Verizon and BellSouth also must secure video franchises from every city, village and hamlet where they operate.

I did have one backup solution. If all attempts failed, I'd use Verizon's DSL software CD to make it reconfigure everything on the PC. And it worked. Makes me wonder why I called Verizon in the first place.

Video Clips can be accessed from the Get It Now data store on Verizon Wireless for the LGvx8000, Samsung a890 & CDM8940 cell phones.

In what may be the first great news about enhanced 9-1-1 service for VoIP providers, Verizon announced today that it will allow VoIP providers to access its enhanced 9-1-1 infrastructure, linking VoIP callers to public safety answering points in New York City this summer. If this initial connection is successful, Verizon will extend the arrangement to other localities.

"Linux is a logical choice for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet as Linux and the Open Source development platform provide us with fast and efficient solutions to build products for this new, Nokia product category. This is the first step in creating an Open Source product for broadband and Internet services. We will be launching regularly updates of the software. The next software release planned for the first half of next year will support more presence based functionalities such as VoIP and Instant Messaging", continues Janne Jormalainen.

I installed the drivers on both my T3 and the Treo 650 and it worked right out of the box. The keyboard has a QUERTY layout (I am used to QWERTZ), but it is close enough to let me type at almost full speed. I once had a foldable keyboard for my Palm V, that was also very neat, but had a huge delay between typing and display. This now works just nicely. Another treat that lets me leave my notebook behind.

So I finally broke down and got rid of my Cellular One service. I was planning on going with Sprint, but really wanted to get the Motorola Razr. Ultimately, wanting the Razr won, so I went with Cingular instead. I’ve only had Cingular for one day, but so far my coverage in my house is much better - there aren’t any dead spots, but this post isn’t really about Cingular, it’s about the RAZR.

There’s some more info on the upcoming Samsung SPH-N2000 mobile phone on Akihabara News. This phone is the Motorola Razr lookalke (except better) which offers a 1.3MP camera, 120MB of memory for MP3 files, integrated GPS, Video On Demand capabilities, Music on Demand capabilities, and a document viewer.

I mentioned, in an off-hand way, when talking about Backpack a couple of weeks ago that I had got a Sony Ericsson P910i. Those with long memories and high boredom thresholds might remember that I used to have a Treo 600, and might be thinking, “Oh, that Bsag, she’s been hankering after new gadgets again�. Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but it wasn’t far off.

And, I saw a Cingular online ad that seemed to imply they were better because they have more bars on their signal strength chart. Sort of like the fictitious rock group Spinal Tap whose amplifiers were louder than other rock groups because Spinal Tap’s volume control went to “11″ while the competitors only went to “10″. Uh huh.

So, will cell phones be next on the feds' censorship wish list? You better believe it. I'll make a prediction now: Within the next two years, legislation will be introduced proposing the extension of the FCC's current clear-as-mud indecency rules to mobile content and devices.

7. Inconsiderate people leaving their cell phones on audible ring mode. The ridiculous ring tones (for example, the Sanford & Son theme song) are distracting and irritating, especially when some individuals’ cell phones ring ten to twelve times per day.

Yet it's the press that the Bush entourage continually wants to hold responsible for its failures. Rumsfeld, at a recent speech to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, said that a globalized press in this digital age can instantly spread damaging information. He lamented "a global Internet with universal access and no inhibitions, e-mails, cell phones, digital cameras wielded by anyone and everyone," and "a seemingly casual disregard for the protection of classified information, resulting in a near continuous hemorrhage of classified...

Games based on location. Now that is intriguing. I don't know if it would interest ME, per se, but it does sound like a neat concept and something perfect for cell phones.

As someone from a smaller city with large-city driving habits, one of my pet peeves is the constant whining about people who talk on their cell phones while driving (usually from people who don’t own cell phones). I came across this article today, and just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to rant. The article is documenting efforts by an increasing number of states to regulate the use of cell phones while driving. From the article (emphasis mine):

Is Microsoft’s IPTV strategy falling apart? Over the past few years they’ve made some massive investments in developing new software and technology for delivering television over broadband and cut some serious deals with telcos like Verizon and SBC, but El Reg says that lately things haven’t been playing out the way Microsoft had hoped. For starters, the one IPTV rollout they did have underway, with Swisscom in Switzerland, has been delayed, reportedly because of problems with Microsoft’s expensive and “overly complicated”...