How does your provider and brand score?

Forrester Research released a recent survey asking how much they trust their provider, and their handset brand. Forrester Research asked 4,700 consumers across the USA and compiled all of the information and gave the major providers and brands grades.

Lets get right to the report cards, first the providers:

• Verizon: C
• Cingular: C-
• Sprint: D-

Now for the mobile brands:

• Palm: B+
• Motorola: B
• LG Electronics: C-
• Samsung: D-

[To read more, check out Yahoo!]

Bluetooth watches, what next?

Chronotech may make everyones dream come true on November 8, 2006, they will be releasing a watch that doubles as a bluetooth headset. Ok maybe not everyones dream, or even anyones dream, but Chronotech hopes that their product will be the next big hit to consumers.

The bluetooth watches will be available in analog and digital, retailing for $127.95 USD and $119.95 USD, respectively. They will come in a combination of colors as well, black, black/white, gray, navy, green sparkle, white sparkle, blue and pink.

[Check out Bluetooth Watches for more info]

Picture-in-picture . . . on your phone?

Samsung has released another new phone today that is capable of picture-in-picture. Yes, two pictures of completely different screens, on a phone.

The SCH-B470 also comes with a somewhat standard 2-megapixel camera as well as a music player. So now you won’t miss your favorite TV show while your friend is embarrassing himself in front of hundreds of spectators.

There is no word on the release date or price, but it is speculated that it will be released in Korea only.

Be frugal with your cell and use Frucall…

Frucall is a great new FREE service which gives buyers more confidence in making sure they are getting the best price on their purchases.  Another in a line of excellent ways of making use of your phone for non-telephony purposes while out and about.

From Frucall’s About Us page:

Frucall (http://www.frucall.com) is a free phone-based price-comparison shopping service for consumers to compare prices and purchase products using their cell phones, anywhere, anytime. Frucall blends the benefits of in-store shopping with the flexible nature of shopping online; providing consumers with a unique mobile shopping experience.

Buyers wishing to avail themselves of the service need only dial 1-800-DO-FRUCALL (1-800-363-7822), enter a few details from either the UPC or ISBN barcode of the product and bingo - online price comparisons for new and used, customer ratings etc for that same product across the web from retailers such as Amazon.com read out to them over the phone.

Next Frucall are hoping to add the ability to buy products through the same call - brilliant!
[Read more at Frucall.com]

Blackberry’s Precious Pearl - 8100, no longer just a number

Employees at RIM have let details slip of the soon to be released Blackberry 8100 a.k.a Blackberry Pearl. The Pearl has a number of features that people have been longing to have included in their Blackberry’s - a camera, external storage and other multimedia goodies - the perfect mix of business and pleasure.

Features include:

• EDGE mobile broadband data services
• Bluetooth
• microSD card support
• Camera with built-in flash

Engadget has scooped the leaked RIM internal release (officially under embargo until 18 September) and has the full details. Here’s a snippet describing the new unit:

The BlackBerry Pearl is a very cool, incredibly small, easy-to-use smartphone. It comes complete with digital camera, multimedia capabilities and expandable memory. And it, of course, offers the full BlackBerry experience – including email, phone, web browser, text messaging, organizer applications and much more. This year, give your loved one the gift of freedom – with the BlackBerry Pearl they can do all the things they “have to do” and more of the things they “want to do.”

This adds just a few more reasons that will prevent “crackberries” from kicking the habit!

Due for release next month through T-Mobile first and then presumably Cingular some time later, the Pearl will have a retail tag of US$199.

[More from Engadget]

Nokia buys Loudeye for mobile music

Today Nokia released that is has reached a $60 million agreement with Loudeye, the #1 supplier across Europe of music platforms, hoping to gain an edge on mobile-music. With the purchase of Loudeye, Nokia can offer a full-scale mobile music experience, ranging from handset to applications.

Loudeye is currently in over 20 countries and has 60 services across Europe, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Loudeye also aggregates rights and content from both major and independent labels, and offers over 1.6 million tracks.

“This is an entry to a new business for us, so far Nokia has sold mostly devices,” said Nokia’s Tuutti.

[Read more]

Sprint to announce building of a WiMax network

Sprint is scheduled to announce later today that it is choosing the WiMax technology to build a brand new wireless internet network. Although this will not be available until 2008, this is definitely something to look forward to. Sprint will be working with Motorola and Samsung using Intel chips to make headsets that are compatible. The service is said to be available nationwide (in the United States), and could even replace cable and DSL.

[To read more, check out dailywireless.org]

New system to deliver cell phone photos to 911 operators

There are over 370 million camera phones in use worldwide, and increasingly they are being used to communicate news as it breaks.

In July 06, the London bombings saw images of the devastation being uploaded from cell phones to blogs and sites like Flickr as the event unfolded, and many cell phone recorded video clips made the mainstream broadcast news.

PowerPhone who specialise in software and training for 911 operators, have developed a new system named Cell Phone Delivery (CPD) allowing callers to send photos from a camera equipped cell phone handset via email direct to the console of the 911 operator, providing the operator with far more accurate information from the scene of a crime or emergency than a mere verbal description might allow.

“Citizens are now the eyes and ears for our 9-1-1 operators — and camera phone photos are going to be an important part of improving safety and security.” Chris Salafia, PowerPhone’s president and CEO

[More from PRWeb]

Franklin helps fill the gap with new CDU-550 USB EV-DO Modem

Wireless broadband manufacturer, Franklin Wireless, anounced on Friday the launch of their new USB 1x EV-DO modem, the CDU-550, a first for the industry.

This new modem released under a partnership with Sprint, who now have the largest mobile network in the US (Sprint Power Vision Network), offers high speed wireless internet access to laptops that do not have PCMCIA card slots, offering instead a USB interface. The card will have immediate benefit for those with new MacBook Pro laptops where a PCMCIA slot was dropped in favour of the incoming ExpressCard/34 format interface.

The Sprint Power Vision Network now covers 153 million people and services customers in 220 major metropolitan areas as well as 470 airports across the nation, the most of any carrier.

[Press release from Franklin-Wireless]

Samsung releases first ultra-thin slider to US

Samsung has been doing their homework lately, trying to push out some new stylish phones that phone lovers will enjoy.
Released under Cingular, the SGH-D807 is one of the first candy bar like sliders released in America. It is said to be released during the summer, but everyone knows release dates are alway a guess. The D807 isn’t just thin though, it has plenty of goodies packed into it.

• 97 x 52 x 14.9 mm
• Bluetooth
• 1.3 megapixel camera with video
• mp3 player
• microSD external memory slot
• WAP 2.0 compliant browser with EDGE technology

To read an extensive review, continue to Mobiledia.

Welsh shop worker fired by SMS

21 yr old Kate Tanner, a shop worker at Blue Banana (a clothing store) in Cardiff, Wales was recently fired from her job by SMS.

The company defended the decision by saying that they had tried to call Ms Tanner several times before texting to say that since her performance hadn’t been up to scratch they had to let her go. Although not their general policy the company explained that it was an appropriate last resort method of communicating their decision given the circumstances and because SMS messaging is considered such a large part of “youth culture”.

The terminating text:

“Hi katy its alex from the shop. Sorry 2 do this by text but ive been trying to call u + ur phones been switched off. Ive had a meeting with jon + ian and weve reviewed your sales figures and they’re not really up to the level we need. As a result we will not require your services any more. You will receive your last pay packet on friday 28th july. Thank you for your time with us”

What next? Your boss putting comments on your Blog or your MySpace profile? How about a slightly more personal message from your boss on YouTube?

[Full story from icWales]

Yet more iPhone speculation - could THIS be the one?

The web is abuzz once again with yet more dubious, ‘top-secret’ images of the much anticipated Apple cell phone. Just take a look at Flickr. More pictures of a new supposed, handset dubbed ‘iChat Mobile’ have surfaced along with a scratchy video on YouTube of someone supposedly wielding one.

These new images feature a phone sporting iPod shuffle like controls along with a keypad that would presumably have a similar feel to the click controls of a traditional iPod.

The thing that seems to have most people puzzled is the appearance of what looks to be an iSight camera on the rear in combination with the name iChat. The camera could either be a traditional camera, as we’ve come to expect in most handsets, OR maybe this is for a Wifi/VoIP/Skype like application (akin to iChat proper) offering video conferencing facilities and not a cell phone at all….but, then shouldn’t the camera be on the front so you can see the other caller while they see you?

While, I like really like the look of this thing, to me the corners look far too sharp to be slipped in and out of a pocket and the handset looks to be the size of a very large remote control. Apple’s specialty is designing functional, stylish and practical technology and this to me doesn’t fit the mould and the whole package just doesn’t add up.

As convincing as this unit looks, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this is not THE cell phone we have all been expecting. We’re itching to see what Apple really has in store for us though. Roll on WWDC…

T-Mobile gets some candy from Samsung

Recently the FCC has approved two candy bar phones made by Samsung. The T629 and T519 are candy bar sliders and are quad-band GSM EDGE enabled and will be released by T-Mobile. There is no set release price or date, but once the FCC approves it, it shouldn’t be too long.

Both phones are likely to have microSD card slots, bluetooth, and a 2-megapixel camera. There has been some speculation on some other details on these phones, but nothing has been released officially.

[FCC reports: T629 & T519]

Big day for Sprint!

Today Sprint has released two things that every cell phone fan wants to hear.

Sprints COO Len Lauer said today they will be adding two popular lines from Motorola, the Q and the SLVR. Some analysts commented that Sprints poor quarter was due to them not selling phones from Motorola, although Sprint does have a entry level Motorola phone in their lineup. Well I think everyone can agree that it is about time Sprint adds some popular phones to their unpopular lineup.

Sprint hopes to have these phones in their lineup sometime in the fourth quarter, but an exact date or month wasn’t stated.

The other big news item is that Sprint has decided to push out is EV-DO Revision A, an upgrade to the EV-DO 3G network. This was originally not going to be launched intil January of 2007, but Sprint is more than confident about releases this sometime in the fourth quarter of 2006.

• So what does this mean for you? Faster downloads, faster uploads; and not just 3-4% faster. Sprint claims Revision A to be 50% faster for downloads, and 400% uploads than EV-DO 3G, topping off around DSL speeds.

• So you may ask next, will this reach me? Sprint plans to reach 220 major metropolitan areas and 908 airports across the United States, and hoping to reach 220 million people by then end of 2006. By the end of 2007 they hope the network will be competely updated to EV-DO Revision A.

Sprint also has released its quarter two revenues. To check that out in further detail, head over to PhoneNewz.com.

To read more about EV-DO Revision A, check out Sprint’s news release.

And finally, a little about the Q.

Too many MB of files on your phone and not enough space?

Samsung has plans for a phone that will eliminate the tedious procedure of making space for all your files on your phone, at least for now. The Samsung SCH-V940 comes with 1GB (no, that is not a typo) of onboard memory. At this time Samsung has said nothing about an expansion slot, but is there really a need?

Samsung also did something else new and edgy with this phone, it comes in orange! So orange may be a little ‘out there’, but it will in black, white and silver for the more conservative folks.

Some other specs on this phone are:

• TFT LCD display
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• built-in media player

There is no word on when this phone will be release, where, or the price tag.

[Read more]