Are you ready for ads on your mobile? Well they’re here!

40 out of 50 brand name companies surveryed by Airwide Solutions said that they plan on advertising on cell phones starting in 2008, and in five years more than half of all the companies worldwide will be advertising on cell phones.

Sprint has been one of the first to say that they will begin running banner ads on mobile screens. Amp’d Mobile also stated that they plan to place ads for Herbal Essence shampoo on it’s video demand service.

Another survey said that 58% of Americans stated that mobile ads are a nuisance and that they should be prohibited. (So does that really mean 42% don’t think that? I don’t know who could like ads period!)
Just think of the way advertising will soon be: You’ll be driving by the ice cream shop and you’ll get a text messaging say, “Large cone $1.99. Today only!” Of course you’ll want to stop in and grab one, but think of where else mobile adverting could go.

[More from SJ-R.com]

Are your mobile phone records being sold?

Well there may not be a clear answer to this question, but if you’ve been receiving text messages from advertisers and/or phone calls then the answer could be yes.

There are many websites on the internet that are selling peoples phone records for a pretty penny, charging anywhere from $10 to $99.99. The information they are selling is anywhere from your location and phone number to genealogical research. There are also services out there that you can pay a fee to get a person mobile number, but before receiving the information you have to sign a disclaimer saying you have a legitimate reason for wanting the number.

Don’t jump the gun however, the police, FBI and mobile carriers are taking action. Verizon has filed lawsuits with at least three website, and Sprint has done the same. Verizon also filters up to 50,000 text messages that are considered spam every day.

More…

Cingular offers BlackBerry Connect for Palm Treo 650

This week saw the joint announcement by Cingular Wireless and RIM of the introduction of BlackBerry Connect for users of the Palm Treo 650. Push email services are critically important for many mobile professionals and this new service will be welcome news for all Treo 650 fans.

Among other things, BlackBerry Connect provides:

• Push Corporate Email Services
• Wireless Calendar Synchronization
• Attachment Viewing
• Remote Address Lookup

Tim Roper US Region Vice President of Palm said during the announcement:

“Treo 650 already is one of the most compelling mobile-computing devices available today for business users, and the BlackBerry Connect functionality gives Cingular customers another great reason to adopt Treo as a vital business-productivity tool.”

Cingular has unlimited BlackBerry Connect services starting at $44.99 per month. The Palm Treo 650 with Cingular can be bought on Amazon starting at $44.99 on a new plan. More information on the services are available from PalmOne and Cingular.

[Source Cingular Press Release]

10 cool things you can do with your cell phone

Nowadays cell phones can do almost anything, but now there is more to add to the list. Some of these cool features may not be available yet or are for specific models only, but rest assured with the increase in cellular technology it is on the way.

1. ID that song: Next time you hear a catchy song on the radio, you don’t have to try to memorize the lyrics so you can Google it when you get home. Now all you need to do is dial a code number, hold the phone to the speaker for a few seconds and within moments you’ll see the artist, title and album appear. This is only available with select models.
2. Have your phone wake you with music: Tired of your normal buzzer alarm clock from the 1980s? With some new models, including the LG Chocolate, you can select music as your alarm.
3. Text message a landline phone: Companies are now starting to offer text to landline messaging. Your text message is sent from your cell phone to a landline and is converted to a voice message that is played back on the landline.There is a small charge for this, but nonetheless interesting.
4. Scan in a business card: Ever wanted to get someone info off of their business card, but they only had one? Ok probably not, but some models have features where you can take a picture of a business card and have the picture trasferred to your phone book.
5. Have your text messages read back to you: Vemail Voice Email 2.0 (http://www.nch.com.au/vemail/index.html) enables usuers to read e-mail and easily reply by speaking. This application is $28 but can sure be useful for people on the go. More…

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Sprint’s Palm Treo 700wx with GPS - Vodafone/Cingular Treo 750 on the way?

Sprint are expected to release the new Palm Treo 700wx next week with a host of great new features included double the RAM from the 700w and built-in GPS. sprintusers.com has what looks to be an official specs sheet. This new PDA will operate on the Sprint EV-DO Mobile Broadband network and have access to Sprints Power Vision network services.

The 700wx is expected to be released to business customers from 27 August with an offering at retail sales outlets from 3 September.

Treo 750…

In other Treo news, the Treo 750 is expected to be released in just two weeks time 12 September for the European market on Vodafone’s 3G network. As expected, the 750 will run Windows Mobile 5.0. While no official details have been released, it is hoped that the 750 will be an antenna-less design and have built-in wifi - something that has been lacking from all Treo handsets to date.

Reuters reports:

Palm is to launch the new handset to Vodafone customers in a number of European countries including the U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy and Netherlands as it attempts to win back the confidence of a market it once dominated with its Palm Pilot device.

PDAStreet is speculating that shortly after it’s release, Cingular users should expect a US version…

Phone Friday! News & reviews on some phones

HTC release the Excalibur, better than the Q?

The Excalibur is HTC’s version of the Q, but appears to blow the Q out of the water. This thin smart phone comes with Windows Mobile and a full QWERTY keybaord. It also will have Mi-FI and Bluetooth, and like the Q it will have a method for one handed navigation. The Excalibur will have a touch sensitive scroll pad including home and back keys as well.
The Excalibur is rumored to launch with Sprint in the US by the end of the year, but no word on an exact date or price.

[Thanks for Geek.com for the pictures, and check out HTC’s website for more of their sleek phones.]

LG releases some white chocolate

Although this may not be the Chocolate, the LF1300 certianly has some flavor. The LF1300 comes with a 2-inch QVGA display, 1.3 megapixel camer, SD expansion, Bluetooth, and of course, an MP3 Player.

This slider measures 98 x 48 x 16.9mm and will be available through CYON. The LF1300 is said to be released only in Korea, and no word on pricing as of now.

[Picture and story from I4U.com]

Milk chocolate from Sony Ericsson?

Well this also isn’t the Chocolate, but Sony Ericsson has released a milk chocolate colored phone, calling it the K800i. It comes with a brilliant 3.2 megapixel camera, UMTS high-speed data, and and MP3/MPEG4 player.

The K800i will be released in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

[Picture from Gizmodo.com]

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!]

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]

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]

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.

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.

Mmm…Chocolate… LG’s VX8500 Chocolate

Monday, 31 July, saw the official release of the LG VX8500 Chocolate by Verizon Wireless.

The “Chocolate” is “Part MP3 player. Part phone. Totally sweet.” according to Verizon, and it really does look the business. They’ve gone for the stylish Nano piano black finish with stylish red accents for a stunning, sleek look.

Consumers have long been fed up with only being able to get a small handful of songs on their mobile phone handsets, but the Chocolate, with its support for 2Gb’s worth of expansion via microSD memory card allowing for the storage of almost 1,000 songs (in MP3 or Windows WMA format), makes the “Chocolate” a viable MP3 Player/Phone convergence device.

iPod like controls are available on the front panel, with the keypad concealed under the sliding top panel.

Verizon’s Chocolate music phone is also fully compatible with Verizon’s V CAST music service, which, (somewhat coincedentally), dropped it’s US$15 per month subscription fee on Monday. Chocolate lovers can now buy and download songs over the air for US$1.99 each.

Other features :

• QVGA screen (320×240)
• Bluetooth
• EV-DO
• 1.3 Megapixel camera (with video)
• Verizon’s VZ Navigator
• V Cast Music and Video compatibility (now with no monthly fees)
• Dimensions: 3.8″ x 1.88″ x 0.69″
• Weight: 3.53oz
  

The Chocolate really does look quite delicious, but c’mon Apple, show us what YOU have got!

Pre-order your Chocolate from Amazon now.

More deals for T-Mobile = more Wi-Fi locations for customers

T-Mobile anounced that they have reached deals with three internet access companies to provide more locations to it’s customers nationwide.

The deal with IBahn, major provider for hotels, could reach more than 100,000 rooms in 525 hotels. This includes access to a few American airports such as O’Hare in Chicago and three well travelled airports in New York. As stated, this deal affects more than America and will contries that will have T-Mobile wi-fi access could include France, Philippines, Portugal, and Switzerland.
The other two companies are Concourse Communications Group LLC and Opti-Fi Networks LLC which plan to provide access in 39 other United States airports.

[Full story at PhoneNewz.com]