justamp.blogspot.com

Nokia  – always known to break a phone-lover off some snazzy new junk — currently wants to get up in your headspace with its new Bluetooth earpiece, the BH-101. What can the BH-101 do for you, you ask? Well for starters, it’ll deliver eight hours of talktime, 180 hours of sweet, silent standby, Bluetooth 2.0 (with EDR, Handsfree v.1.5, and Headset v.1.1), plus it will go easy on the wallet with a €30 / $40 price tag. Ready to give the appearance that you’re talking to yourself? Do it this “Christmas season” with Nokia’s help.

Far more than Americans, they prefer faster methods of communicating rather than e-mail.

BEIJING — Real estate agent Xu Jianzhong is wired — but in a way that few in the e-mail addicted, BlackBerry-packing West would understand.

The 20-year-old from China’s rural Henan province doesn’t own a computer. He visits the local Internet cafe to check his e-mail every couple of weeks.

That’s not to say Xu is out of touch. He just prefers tapping out text messages to his friends on his Lenovo cellphone — the most expensive piece of electronics gear he owns — over typing an e-mail on a computer keyboard.”When I communicate with my friends, I use short messages,” Xu said. “I send messages in mornings and afternoons, asking, ‘Do you want to come out to eat?’ ”

E-mail has become the new snail mail for many Chinese as they turn to the immediacy of text messages on cellphones and instant messages on personal computers. The most affluent and educated use e-mail, but by and large people here rely much more heavily on the shorter, faster and more conversational methods of electronic communication.

E-mail here is treated with the same disdain as the telephone answering machine, said Guo Liang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

“You won’t have a direct response; you have to wait,” he said.

China’s mania for messaging — particularly mobile messaging — is largely a product of how technology developed here. Like other emerging global markets, rural regions of China lacked phones or even a television as recently as two decades ago. The country modernized just as mobile technology was broadly accessible throughout the world.

China is now the world’s largest mobile phone market.

Read more »

The long awaited GSM-enabled Skypephone has just been officially announced by Skype and the “3″ mobile operator. The Skypephone is a 3G mobile phone that lets you make free Skype to Skype calls (video calls too) and send free Skype instant messages from your mobile to other Skype users. It also has all the standard functionality of a mobile phone.

3 Skypephone offers more than a free Skype to Skype calls - based on the Qualcomm BREW platform it also sports a bunch of modern features as a 2-megapixel camera, mp3 player, mobile TV and internet, as well as Java 3D games. The Skypephone is colored in shiny white with blue trim. A white-with-red-trim and a black version will also be available to suit different preferences of the consumers.

The 3 Skypephone will be available in either black or white with two different trims

The information is displayed on the 2-inch 262K TFT display with 176 x 220 pixels resolution. You can store images and other files on the main memory, however since it’s only 16MB capacity, you would better off throwing in microSD cards (up to 1GB is maximum supported). Receiving files is possible trough Bluetooth, but Wi-Fi is not within the options of the device. The phone is made to be actively used, that is why it draws its power from a large 1150 mAh Li-ion battery.

The lack of Wi-Fi is not the only flaw of the device, the other one is that the Skypephone does not support Skype Out service and hence there is no way to make low-cost long-distance call via your Skype account.

The Skypephone will be sold exclusively by “3″ in the UK, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macau and Sweden. UK will be first to get the handset as soon as November 2nd.

The Skype to Skype calls will be free as long as the Skypephone is used with contract or on pay-as-you-go which is topped up monthly. In the UK, the 3 Skypephone will be available at the cost of GBP 49.99 on a pay-as-you-go tariff or free on a contract.

gsmarena.com

Is this the real iPhone Nano? Robert from gadgetzone has notified us on the spy shots, which revealed a mini iPhone with merely 80mm long. The hardware design is same as the Apple iPhone, though the leaked photos could be photoshoped.

slashphone.com

SEEK allows MOSH users to make requests for content they crave and the community can then respond with suggestions or custom created content answering the ‘SEEK’.
SEEK allows the rapidly growing, and global, MOSH community to connect with one another and to obtain content not yet available. Looking for a specific mobile application but can’t find anything close? Visiting Amsterdam and want a great mobile map?  How about video of a specific dive in the Maldives? SEEK it.

SEEK is the third dimension in the evolution of MOSH. The first dimension was the ability to upload and share content with a global audience; the second was downloading and customizing your device; now SEEK provides the ability to seek content and interact with the community, SEEK will tap into the power of the MOSH community and provide customized responses to people’s mobile needs.

Officially launching on December 14, an exclusive demo of SEEK will be seen at CTIA Wireless in San Francisco October 23rd through October 25th.

MOSH, short for mobilize and share, has seen more than 6 million downloads since its beta launch on 9th August. MOSH was built from the ground up with mobility in mind and its seamless web and mobile integration has facilitated rapid growth with 80% of all downloads happening through mobile browsers. MOSH allows content creators and technology leaders to post their content to a global audience. Focused on the sharing of mobile content, MOSH is intended for all mobile devices and is not Nokia specific.

phonemag.com

Not very many people get excited about the ROKR musicphone line anymore, but after having a sneak peek at the ROKR E8 and its incredible situation-sensitive keypad, that might change.

What you see here is a blurry hands-on picture of the Motorola ROKR E8 music phone, and while its actual feature set may not be all that exciting, the mighty morphin’ power keypad is enough to grab your attention. You see, instead of having a physical keypad, the entire bottom half of the candybar appears to be touch sensitive, adapting to the situation.

If you’ve got to make a call, it shows a numeric keypad. If you’re jamming to some tunes, it’ll bring up music controls. Seems pretty spiffy, but the color display is definitely on the smaller end of things. The glossy black finish is pretty attractive too, but I’d imagine that it’s one big fingerprint magnet.

mobilemag.com

Someone in Poland got their hands on a Sony Ericsson W890i. We don’t care how they did it, who they contacted or when it happened, we’re just happy that a group of Sony Ericsson fanboys that write over at SE-Center got their hands on it. The review is in Polish so we’re at a loss of words for what these ninja spies had to say. It is obviously a prototype due to the SE 123 markings on the back, we’re going to have to wait for a retail unit before judging this unit. No 3.5 mm headphone jack = not interested, no matter how awesome TrackID is, I refuse to have a bulge (pictured above) hanging off my device.

intomobile.com

Last time we checked we were still in America. But, apparently, once you step inside an Apple Store, you’re on Steve Jobs’ turf - and subject to his rules. In an effort to curb the seemingly rampant sales of unlocked iPhones through, say, eBay, Stevie has limited iPhone sales to 2 per person!

Just how does Apple intend to enforce this ruling? Well, in his infinite wisdom, Stevie has decreed that iPhones will henceforth only be sold to plastic customers - if you want an iPhone, you’d better warm up your credit or debit card, no cash will be accepted. Don’t have any plastic? You might be SOL.

You see, Apple has estimated that fully 250,000 of the 1.4 million iPhones sold thus far were summarily unlocked and sold for use outside of AT&T’s network. And, with Apple speculated to be making a couple hundred dollars per iPhone per year from their revenue sharing deal with AT&T, 250,000 unlocked iPhones represents millions in lost revenue. Apple only gets the kickback from iPhones using AT&T’s network - unlocked iPhones on other networks are outside the scope of that deal and essentially take money put of Apple’s healthy coffers.

So, if you’re planning on buying all your friends and loved ones an iPhone this holiday shopping season, you’d better distribute your iPhone allotment across multiple cards. Pre-paid debit cards anyone?

intomobile.com

Sony Ericsson wastes no time in their preparation for the upcoming Christmas shopping season. Lately we’ve spotted their new commercials for the K850i Cyber-shot and W910i Walkman phones. These two are top of the line products from the Swedish-Japanese handset maker, and are made to provide their users with top camera and music playback experiences respectively. Too bad they’re not running on top of some mobile OS, but I don’t find that to be a deal breaker for many people.

In addition, Sony Ericsson has also prepared the virtual W910i site, allowing users to try the Walkman phone before actually purchasing it. Nice!

intomobile.com