Six Apart released a native mobile client for select BlackBerry phones, Pearl and Curve included. The mobile application will “enable” CrackBerry users to enhance addiction to their beloved handset, by allowing them to upload photos, manage comments, and draft, edit and post to their TypePad blogs. Yes, this means that you can take a photo and instantly upload it to your blog, without moving the file to your computer first.

Aside from supporting RIM’s devices, Six Apart also has mobile clients for Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and Palm OS platforms. Now, with the addition of BlackBerry platform, we expect to see many of the blogs being updated more frequently. After all, you do want to put that QWERTY/SureType to some extra use, don’t you?

Hop over to www.typepad.com/mobile to download the app, or check out the full release which follows after the jump.

PRESS RELEASE – Six Apart, the world’s leading blogging software and services company, today announced availability of a native mobile blogging application for the Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl smartphones that lets users upload photos, manage comments, and draft, edit and post to their TypePad blogs with just a few clicks.

TypePad customers can now easily capture and upload photos directly from their Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl phones to their blogs wirelessly. TypePad bloggers can also use their device to compose draft blog posts, store them for later editing or publish them from within the device’s trackball and keyboard interface. In creating and saving drafts for later editing, bloggers are able to use popular desktop publishing controls with the convenience of mobile blogging.

TypePad members who use any Blackberry model have always been able to post to their blogs via the mobile browser and the email-to-blog feature. The new native application for the Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl rounds out these offerings by making mobile blogging even easier.

“TypePad has always been the leader in mobile blogging, and we’ve spent years creating dedicated clients for popular platforms. The addition of the Blackberry mobile platform extends Six Apart’s leadership in mobile blogging,” said Stephane Delbecque, mobile product manager at Six Apart. “Our commitment is to help our community blog from wherever they are, powering blogging on-the-go by providing the best mobile solutions available.”

Six Apart leads in the mobile blogging space as the only blogging company to support over 90% of the fast-growing smartphone market, including Symbian Series 60, Windows Mobile and Palm. A native application for the Apple iPhone will also soon be available.

By providing an exclusive TypePad solution for Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl, Six Apart opens up mobile blogging to the most popular mobile platform in the US smartphone market. And TypePad’s status as the professional-grade blogging service is a perfect match for the professional focus of Blackberry users.

To download the TypePad application for the Blackberry or to start a free TypePad trial, visit http://www.typepad.com/mobile.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Sling Media working with RIM on BlackBerry compatible SlingPlayer
• SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry announced
• EQO releases Symbian S60 3rd edition client
• OtterBox releases two semi-rugged cases for BlackBerry Pearl, Curve
• T-Mobile goes live with BlackBerry Pearl 8120

 

HP will use Qualcomm’s Gobi, while Fujitsu-Siemens will rely on Sierra Wireless’s HSPA solution to provide HSPA connectivity in their future laptops. Now, Dell announced a deal with Ericsson to use the Swedish company’s mobile broadband modules to “provide the end user with a simple and cost effective solution for broadband access while on-the-go.” In addition to the HSPA radio, Ericsson’s module also has a GPS receiver, but also uses such technology that takes less power from the battery.

Commenting on the announcement, Dell’s VP of Small Devices John Thode said: “Dell’s model is uniquely capable of putting the technology and wireless service in customers’ hands. Teaming with Ericsson to offer built-in HSPA in our laptops ensures Dell delivers on the basic assumption that one can access critical information anytime, anywhere, with the speed and rich content that we have all come to expect.”

The new Dell HSPA-enabled laptops will be released in the beginning of Q2 2008.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Dell not exhibiting at Mobile World Congress, but they’re in town
• Dell: Not working with Google on new handset – no hardware to show off at Mobile World Congress
• Dell Could buy Motorola
• Dell ends its PDA line; Will it buy Palm?
• Rogers Wireless announces 7.2Mbps HSPA service trials in Canada

 

Is it the lack of innovation at Motorola or just an idea to maximize revenue from the existing devices? Or both? Don’t know, but following the introduction of the ultra-cool RAZR2 V9 Ferrari Edition, the American handset maker has unveiled a new flavor of the device. With its “luxurious yet tranquil look and carefully-selected features”, the MOTO RAZR2 Pink Silver is obviously targeted towards female consumers. Actually it’s designed to “appeal to the confident young generation,” according to Lim Joung Ah, Marketing Director of Motorola Korea.

Unfortunately, or not, you won’t be able to grab the pink RAZR2 at this stage. That’s if you’re not living/working in Korea, and judging by IntoMobile’s stats, it’s not that likely you’re reading this from Seoul. SK Telecom will be selling the device but we’re not sure how much it will cost. My guess is not that much with some contract.

Finally, in case you care, the specs of the RAZR2 Pink Silver edition are unchanged to the original device.

Pico projectors, as they’re called, promise to bring the convenience of projector technology into the mobile space. With miniaturization advances allowing projectors sizes to scale down to fit in cellphones, it won’t be long before we can all start projecting our most obnoxious images and videos across our co-worker’s cubicle wall.

And, to make the prospect of pico projectors in mobile phones that much more solid, John Van Scoter, the senior vice president of Texas Instruments (TI) has confirmed that mobile phones will hit market with pico projectors in tow later this year – mirroring other pico-projector manufacturers. That’s right, before 2008 comes to a close, we’ll be seeing real-deal projectors inside cellphones on the consumer market.

If things go well for the pico-projector market, TI expects to see the prevalence of projectors in mobile phones start to rival that of cameras in cellphones. TI recently unveiled its DLP Pico technology to bring the vivid colors and sharp pictures of DLP displays into the world of mobile devices. With any luck, we’ll have our hands on a DLP-based pico-projector cellphone before the holiday season!

[Via: Unwired View]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Texas Instruments preparing to offer TI OMAP processors to more than just mobile
• Taiwan-based Young Optics to start shipping pico-projectors in Q2-Q3 2008
• Lenovo using Texas Instruments LoCosto chipset in new mobile phones for the Chinese market
• LG: Mobile projectors to arrive by 2010
• Texas Instruments’ DLP and OMAP technologies to enable content sharing

 

While Sprint is banking on WiMAX as the next-generation wireless data network of choice in the US, all other carriers are looking to bring on 4G LTE technology in the coming years. With AT&T and Verizon Wireless already planning LTE network roll outs for 2011 and on, the smaller guys risk falling behind in the mobile broadband game if they don’t keep up.

To that end, Alltel, the No. 5 US carrier, has announced that it has committed itself to rolling out a 4G LTE network in three to five years. “We do currently plan to move towards LTE in the three-to-five year timeframe versus WiMAX, but we’re still early in that,” according to Alltel President and CEO Scott Ford.

The move to the 4G LTE technology makes Alltel the second CDMA carrier (Verizon Wireless being the first) to adopt the GSM-based LTE network evolution path as its future wireless communications standard.  The announcement of Alltel’s intention to go with LTE comes on the heels of 380,000 new subscribers last quarter. Given the substantial infrastructure and network deployment costs that will undoubtedly be racked up by Alltel in the next few years, an increase in subscriber sign-ups will definitely help fund the adoption of LTE. 

It’s looking like LTE is the way to go for the long-term. So, with WiMAX hitting the stage earlier than any LTE technology, can Sprint win over and keep mobile broadband users’ hearts? Or will LTE prevail? Sound off in the comments section.

[Via: RCRNews]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Verizon: Mobile broadband LTE on 700Mhz spectrum by 2011
• Vodafone CEO Sarin: Vodafone will take its time with LTE, Verizon can’t afford to
• Verizon confirms LTE 4G network trials with Vodafone; to share with AT&T
• NTT DoCoMo achieves 250Mbps on Super 3G LTE network test
• Huawei EC360 wireless broadband card brings Alltel’s high-speed EVDO to notebooks

 

Chief Exec of Ericsson, Carl-Henric Svanberg, has said he expects the number of mobile subscriptions to hit 6.5bn by 2013. He has also said that he is expecting internet broadband usage to hit about 2.5bn, of which two-thirds would be “mobile broadband”.

Of course, there is a link from his predictions to where his company comes in – all that extra capacity that is going to be needed on the Mobile Networks could come from Ericsson. To that end he also stated that Ericsson would be spending about $25bn USD over the next 5 years on R&D – presumably to deliver the kind of next-gen solutions that will manage both the capacity and QoS that are going to be demanded.

Personally, I can see the mobile broadband usage stats hitting these dizzy heights, IF the current rate of sales continues. Of course, “mobile broadband” will mean something entirely different in 5 years time – that is to say, the technology underlying it will have changed. Will it be LTE, or some other next-gen bearer? Only time will tell.

[Via: International Herald Tribune]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• ABI Research: More than 90 million 4G subscribers worldwide in 2013
• Mobile penetration to break 100% by 2013
• One in three mobiles to be smartphones by 2013
• Nokia says that the Internet is the key to the next phase of growth in the mobile phone industry
• ABI Research: Global GSM subscriber growth rate to slow in 2008 due to migration to 3G

 

Vodafone UK is extending it’s HSPA coverage for mobile broadband to 6 new cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading. This will give users downlink speeds of up to 7.2 Mb/s, with up to 1.8 Mb/s on the uplink. Right now, HSPA is only available in London and major UK airports, so it’s a big step forward in the always-tricky coverage equation.

Right now, the mobile broadband market (and by that I mean the market segment served by those USB 3G dongles, attached to Laptops) is extremely competitive – all the Operators now have an offering, with the dongles selling like proverbial “hot-cakes”. So it’s going to be interesting to see in the next few months, how the marketing battle play out in the media for download speed, cost, and coverage!

[Via: silicon.com]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Vodafone CEO Sarin: Vodafone will take its time with LTE, Verizon can’t afford to
• Vodafone is now onboard the WiMAX Forum
• Vodafone to acquire Tiscali?
• Cablevision looking to build wireless broadband network – WiFi access to cable customers
• Vodafone launches Vodafone 125 and Vodafone 225, first ultra-low cost handsets

 

 A survey by Canalsys has found very high awareness of satellite navigation (“Sat Nav”) amongst consumers, with more than 80% being aware of what it does. 60% of those surveyed said they used the web to search for directions and then print them.

So when asked which services they were interested in having on a mobile device, maps and navigation, unsurprisingly perhaps, came out top. This was apparently much more popular than either TV or music on a mobile. Canalsys say this reflects a common trend in results from other countries where GPS/Sat Nav always scores highly.

As a utility service, I think GPS/Sat Nav is great – however, I believe, as do many others in the industy, that the real power of it is harnessed when it is twinned with other mobile-unique services to create service-mashups such as geotagging photos (and other media).

[Via: cellular-news.com]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• TeleNav GPS Navigator 5.2 released; Adds social networking
• Samsung’s ambitious plans for Taiwanese handset market
• Spectec SDG-811 brings GPS to your miniSD slot
• WILLCOM WP004 “Transforming Phone” – YOU Pick Your Cell Phone’s Features
• Sprint GPS/Data Bundle – Finally

 

 Nielsen Mobile has just released stats showing that the UK leads Europe in mobile social networking – apparently 810,000 subscribers visited social networking sites on their handsets in Q1 2008!

Facebook was the most popular SN site in the UK, with myspace in second place – which is the opposite to what was found in the US, interestingly? Could it be the often reported “cool” factor, or some other reason, such as the suggested fickle nature of mobile users?

Certainly the two leading SN providers have different strategies – myspace have signed a number of deals with Network Operators to re-provide their services, whereas Facebook seem to have a somewhat Operator-agnostic strategy. Whatever the strategy, both sites are now being accessed regularly by a growing number of Mobile users – driving the usage of the Mobile Web, and Mobile “data” generally.

[Via: vnunet.com]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Microsoft serious about mobile social networking; Acquires technology from WebFives
• O2 brings MySpace and Facebook to mobile users in the UK
• Raketu launches social network
• GyPSii’s geo-location social networking platform accredited for Nokia N95, 6110 Navigator
• Bebo Mobile To Launch On Orange

 

dotMobi, the mobile domain name consortium, has hoovered up the IP and site, of Mowser, a service that has been publicly EOL’d (End-of-lifed) only recently. General opinion is that the buy-out is a good thing, with both parties (here and here) blogging that they are very happy with the end result.

For those of you that don’t know, Mowser is short for “Mobile Browser”, and the website (here) offers you the ability to use it as a kind of “proxy portal”, which reformats web content to work on a mobile browser. There are lots of these kinds of services about, but this one seems to work pretty well.

dotMobi will integrate Mowser in to it’s newly-announced find.Mobi service – which is a mobile search engine that you can reach by typing http://find.mobi/ (surprisingly enough!)

[Via: TechCrunch]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• dotMobi’s announces “Go Mobile!” initiative
• dotMobi upgrades its mobile website testing tool ready.mobi
• dotMobi launches dev.mobi to help developers optimize content for mobile phones
• dotMobi claims 500,000 registrations
• dotMobi benefits small businesses

 

Q1 2008 has delivered a shake-up in the rankings of Mobile Handset Vendors in India.

Nokia continues to dominate, follow by Sony Ericsson. However, Samsung have now passed Motorola to take 3rd position (echoing changes that we have seen occurring in other countries).

If you want some stats, and I’m sure you do, Nokia are around the 70% (!) mark, whereas SEM is at about 8%, and Samsung at 7%. Motorola are now around the 6% mark.

Samsung, which according to some sources is the world’s second largest handset vendor, is planning to double it’s market share in India by end of year (remember above is only Q1 stats) – you can expect a slew of new devices covering across all the tiers/segments of the market.

Motorola on the other hand will need to ship high volumes of handsets over the next few months to reverse the trend above – something that no doubt many industry commentators will be watching closely.

[Via: telecomtiger.com]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Motorola brings Good Mobile Messaging 5 to India
• Motorola opens Global Flagship Store in New Delhi, India
• Samsung steals Nokia India’s sales and marketing director; Appoints him as new country head for mobile division
• Nokia owns 79% of the GSM market share in India
• Motorola unveils six new low-end phones

 

 Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) is poised to launch Mobile TV next month, signalling just how far the pervading influence of this service is spreading globally. MTNL will initially have 21 channels on their platform.

With Mobile TV, slowly but surely, we are witnessing the mobilization of what was a “lean-back”, in-home service, in to a “watch anywhere, anytime” on-demand service. In some countries, as has been the case with simple voice calls, we may well even see the consumption of TV primarily via the mobile (data) medium, rather than via a cable/satellite system. Will the day ever come when broadcast is dead?

[Via: IndianTelevision.com]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Sprint delays PTT QChat system to June 15?
• Will Australia get the 3G iPhone in June?
• Apple iPhone gets a Release Date – June 15?
• T-Mobile preparing to launch Fire Red T-Mobile Sidekick Slide?
• What exactly is Series 60 version 3 Feature Pack 1 all about?

 

No doubt you read my previous post on the future of voice, and had your thoughts provoked – however, since then, SpinVox have hosted a session on the future of voice. Their chief of “Interweb bloggery”, James Whatley, was present, along with their VP of consumer business, James Scroggs.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, due to being “logistically challenged” – however, by all accounts it was a great session, with some excellent points raised. I draw your attention to the lead-in statement made by James Scroggs:

“I’ve long held that people have lost their voice – call it the stuttering of the democratic process, not in having a right to vote or the mechanic to do so, but the real sense that a person’s voice can count for something, be purposeful, weighty, and heard amongst the din of Rice Crispy culture and politics.

I spent five years at MTV striving to have a 25 year old brand continue to earn its place as a platform for young people to have a voice in a formalised broadcast environment, while YouTube and the new social nooks and crannies became the new playground.

Now I find myself in the realms of a brilliant system, SpinVox, that can make the human voice matter again. How? Because SpinVox takes a voice – literally the energy in motion of particles in the air – and converts it into text data. That data can then be posted as content into the digital world.

It’s a revolution: for me, voice is the last human faculty that has not been obfuscated or complicated by the advances of science. It remains entirely naked, and therefore a pure expression of your ID, your self.

If only 30% of the language processed by our system is Dictionary-documented, then the complexities and personalities contained in the spoken language and vernacular suggest that the voice continues to be an immensely powerful tool for us all to emotional connect with each other, create and find social order.

So what is the future of voice?
What’s is its summit of its mountainous journey?”

It raises some questions, I’m sure you’ll agree. For more detail on the session, hop on over to the SpinVox site, and check out the blog write-up. Whilst you are there, check out the SpinVox service too – if your country is covered, I recommend signing up – voice-to-text (in my opinion) is a killer app for the mass-market!

Ben

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• SpinVox Stat attack: uplifting messages
• Alltel launches Voice2TXT voicemail transcription service
• SpinVox: What is the future of voice?
• Alltel to offer Voice-to-Text voicemail service – SpinVox
• New SpinVox plug-in links voicemails with contacts

 

With iPhone stock dwindling to near-bare levels and completely unavailable in some places, AT&T has started to cut back on bulk iPhone purchases. AT&T has announced that customers can purchase a maximum of one iPhone per person – and all transactions will require a credit or debit card.

According to an internal AT&T memo, “Effective May 14, 2008, customers can only purchase one iPhone at AT&T stores. The prior limit of three iPhones is no longer in effect.”

So, if you’re in the market for a handful of iPhones, you will have to make do with buying them up one at a time and with a pre-paid debit card. But, with most of us waiting for the 3G iPhone to drop, we can’t imagine many people are too miffed at the prospect of and iPhone buying-limit.

[Via: Apple Insider]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Apple increases iPhone purchase limit to 5 per person
• Apple: Only TWO iPhones per person, please.
• Apple cracking down on unlocked iPhone sales – limits iPhone purchases to 2 per credit card, no cash
• AT&T: Only ONE iPhone per person!
• O2’s iPhone activation system buckling under pressure

 

Ad-supported mobile games distributor Greystripe announced a deal with Sega to offer three classic game titles through its Catalog Platform partners. Sega will monetize their mobile game content via Greystripe’s AdWRAP advertising network, which includes brands like Diet Coke, Yahoo!, New Line Cinema and eBay.

Under the agreement, Sega and Greystripe are launching the following popular mobile games:

• Sonic Jump – Go vertical with Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Afterburner II – A classic SEGA arcade favorite, where players control a fighter jet and combat swarms of supersonic enemy fighters.
• Golden Axe – what can I say. Golden Axe for mobile is free! Save the land of Yuria from the evil forces of Death Adder!

Commenting on the announcement, Greystripe’s CEO Michael Chang said: “Our partnership with them [Sega] is a huge win for our end users and demonstrates that Greystripe is able to bring the biggest brands to the mobile gaming audience.”

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Greystripe adds 10 new distribution partners; Free games coming to the portal near you
• Greystripe and MoCondi partner to bring free mobile games to MoConDi’s MeYou community
• Opera Software and Greystripe report initial numbers from their partnership; In a word – impressive!
• More than 14 million free mobile game downloads at Gamejump
• Publishers treat DS games like mobile games, says developer

 

Recently, location-based social networking service GyPSii improved its service by adding a couple of very neat features, including:

• New and improved (faster) user interface for Windows Mobile users.
• Extended contact invitation methods – members can now invite their friends through Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, AOL, FastMail.FM, Gmail, GMX, Hotmail, Indiatimes, Mail.com, Yahoo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, Linkedin and MySpace.
• Event feeds on member profiles and home pages – any public action involving a member’s friend appears on the member’s homepage.
• Comment feed subscriptions
• Mobile PlaceMe reminder – allows users to share their PlaceMe information with friends or edit the content.
• Friend search filtering

In addition to the new feature set, GyPSii announced the opening of a China Data Centre, “to offer localised content and an enhanced user experience to customers across China and the Asia Pacific region,” and, we might add, to prepare to serve Olympics’ visitors in a much better (i.e. faster) manner. The data centre will accommodate GyPSii’s existing users, while supporting new customers and the surge in the games-related user-generated content.

GyPSii’s press releases are available from these two links.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• GyPSii coming to China for the Olympics
• GyPSii goes iPhone
• GyPSii’s geo-location social networking platform accredited for Nokia N95, 6110 Navigator
• Shanghai Unicom and Nokia demonstrate EGPRS
• Symbian opens office in China

 

I think we all (or at least most of us) agree the newly announced HTC Diamond rocks. It’s not just the look of the device — it’s also the specs (gorgeous VGA screen) and that ultra-cool UI that makes me want one. So I wasn’t surprised to learn HTC plans to sell 2 million of these this year. As a matter of fact, they already got Taiwan-based Chunghwa Telecom — which BTW plans to sell a total of 200,000 HTC smartphones in 2008 — to order about 20,000-30,000 Touch Diamond handsets.

And if Taiwanese mobile operator wants 30K units, how much will be enough for Vodafones, Oranges, T-Mobiles, AT&Ts and Verizons of the world? For the record, Taiwan has a population of about 23 million people.

HTC has shipped a total of 2 million HTC Touch smartphones and pushing the same number of Diamonds doesn’t sound like a problem. Any thoughts?

[Via: DigiTimes]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• HTC expects Q2 2008 revenues to grow 20% on year
• HTC Touch Diamond goes toe to toe with Apple iPhone
• Loads of HTC Touch Diamond pics!
• HTC bringing HTC Diamond and HTC Raphael to Sprint with VGA touchscreens and WiFi
• HTC ships 1 million HTC Touch handsets in 6 months!

 

Vodafone announced that it has agreed to acquire 100% of Denmark-based ZYB for 31.5 million EUR. We’ve already wrote about ZYB in the past– to recap, it’s a social network and an online management tool that enables mobile phone users to back-up and share their phone contact and calendar information online.

The acquisition of ZYB is a further advance in the implementation of Vodafone’s Total Communications strategy which is delivering new revenue growth around fixed broadband, mobile advertising and a rich set of internet services that integrate the mobile and PC customer experience. ZYB fits into this strategy by enhancing the range of communications services Vodafone can provide to its customers.

Under the agreement, ZYB will remain based in Denmark and upon acquisition will be incorporated into Vodafone’s Internet Services Division.

This is just one more proof Vodafone doesn’t see itself as a dumb pipe — rather they want to partner, acquire or work alongside service providers to offer their users what they think is best for them. We’ll see how long that can last…

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Vodafone Chief: VF not a dumb pipe
• zyb.com reaches 70,000 users
• Zyb moves into social networking; Brings life to your mobile data
• Store your mobiles contacts and calendar securely on ZYB
• Vodafone adds BlackBerry to the set of preferred consumer operating platforms

 

Today, France Telecom-owned Orange released a short announcement:

Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.

Again, we see that exclusive country deals are out — Switzerland, Egypt, Portugal and Austria will have two iPhone carriers. However, what we don’t see is Spain on the list. Guess that’s left for Telefonica’s O2, Apple’s UK partner, which we think is next in the queue.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Bidding for iPhone rights in the UK; Orange vs Vodafone
• T-Mobile UK to get an iPhone?
• Orange unlocked iPhones truly unlocked?
• Orange France working with Apple to cut iPhone price, boost iPhone sales ahead of 3G iPhone launch
• It’s official – Apple and Orange launching iPhone in France on November 29

 

Samsung launched the F400 dual-slider, for which the Korean company used some of the Bang & Olufsen’s technology and I guess some of their designers. The phone looks awesome and is built out of high-quality materials.

The specs include 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus, 2.2-inch 262K color screen, HSDPA support, dual stereo speakers, standard 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio with RDS, Bluetooth 2.0, and of course the microSD memory slot. As for the technology being used, there’s B&O’s ICEpower, Smart Bass (provides rich and powerful sound), Smart Limiter (ensures that audio signal not exceed the amplitude of the threshold), and Shazam (used to identify song and artist by simply pointing a phone at the music). As for the size, the Samsung F400 measures 103.2×48.2×16.9 mm.

Citizens of France will be among the first ones to get a chance to buy the stylish device in two color options – black and white. Afterwards, Samsung plans to roll it out in other European countries, as well as many other places across Asia. No word whether it will hit North American shores.

[Via: Unwired View]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Samsung Anycall Dual Sliding PSP Knock/Rip-Off
• Samsung to preload Hard Candy on F400
• Sony Ericsson’s patent application for dual-sliding QWERTY-keyboard and numeric keypad
• Samsung introduce sleek new Samsung F250 slider
• Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” Cellphone By Samsung

 

Last month, we saw it passing the FCC hurdle, and now it’s here! It’s the Jawbone 2, not a headset but an earwear. Those are the words Aliph, the maker of the stylish headset uses, and they’re right on target. The new Jawbone headset rocks! It is 50% smaller than the original award-winning Jawbone, and features noise elimination technology (NoiseAssassin) that provides even better voice quality than the original in a smaller and more ergonomic package!

Jawbone’s NoiseAssassin technology literally feels your speech with its patented Voice Activity Sensor (VAS). The Jawbone headset uses the VAS to distinguish the sound of your voice from ambient noise with incredible accuracy and then uses proprietary Digital Signal Processing (DSP) algorithms to subtract the noise so only the sound of your voice comes through.

Don’t know about you, but I’m sold. The Jawbone 2 is available for $129.99 at AT&T retail stores and at www.jawbone.com or www.wireless.att.com. Few more images, including size comparison of Jawbone 2 and the original Jawbone (from Gizmodo), follow after the jump.

Ad-supported mobile games distributor Greystripe announced a deal with Sega to offer three classic game titles through its Catalog Platform partners. Sega will monetize their mobile game content via Greystripe’s AdWRAP advertising network, which includes brands like Diet Coke, Yahoo!, New Line Cinema and eBay.

Under the agreement, Sega and Greystripe are launching the following popular mobile games:

• Sonic Jump – Go vertical with Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Afterburner II – A classic SEGA arcade favorite, where players control a fighter jet and combat swarms of supersonic enemy fighters.
• Golden Axe – what can I say. Golden Axe for mobile is free! Save the land of Yuria from the evil forces of Death Adder!

Commenting on the announcement, Greystripe’s CEO Michael Chang said: “Our partnership with them [Sega] is a huge win for our end users and demonstrates that Greystripe is able to bring the biggest brands to the mobile gaming audience.”

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Greystripe adds 10 new distribution partners; Free games coming to the portal near you
• Greystripe and MoCondi partner to bring free mobile games to MoConDi’s MeYou community
• Opera Software and Greystripe report initial numbers from their partnership; In a word – impressive!
• More than 14 million free mobile game downloads at Gamejump
• Publishers treat DS games like mobile games, says developer

 

Recently, location-based social networking service GyPSii improved its service by adding a couple of very neat features, including:

• New and improved (faster) user interface for Windows Mobile users.
• Extended contact invitation methods – members can now invite their friends through Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, AOL, FastMail.FM, Gmail, GMX, Hotmail, Indiatimes, Mail.com, Yahoo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, Linkedin and MySpace.
• Event feeds on member profiles and home pages – any public action involving a member’s friend appears on the member’s homepage.
• Comment feed subscriptions
• Mobile PlaceMe reminder – allows users to share their PlaceMe information with friends or edit the content.
• Friend search filtering

In addition to the new feature set, GyPSii announced the opening of a China Data Centre, “to offer localised content and an enhanced user experience to customers across China and the Asia Pacific region,” and, we might add, to prepare to serve Olympics’ visitors in a much better (i.e. faster) manner. The data centre will accommodate GyPSii’s existing users, while supporting new customers and the surge in the games-related user-generated content.

GyPSii’s press releases are available from these two links.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• GyPSii coming to China for the Olympics
• GyPSii goes iPhone
• GyPSii’s geo-location social networking platform accredited for Nokia N95, 6110 Navigator
• Shanghai Unicom and Nokia demonstrate EGPRS
• Symbian opens office in China

 

I think we all (or at least most of us) agree the newly announced HTC Diamond rocks. It’s not just the look of the device — it’s also the specs (gorgeous VGA screen) and that ultra-cool UI that makes me want one. So I wasn’t surprised to learn HTC plans to sell 2 million of these this year. As a matter of fact, they already got Taiwan-based Chunghwa Telecom — which BTW plans to sell a total of 200,000 HTC smartphones in 2008 — to order about 20,000-30,000 Touch Diamond handsets.

And if Taiwanese mobile operator wants 30K units, how much will be enough for Vodafones, Oranges, T-Mobiles, AT&Ts and Verizons of the world? For the record, Taiwan has a population of about 23 million people.

HTC has shipped a total of 2 million HTC Touch smartphones and pushing the same number of Diamonds doesn’t sound like a problem. Any thoughts?

[Via: DigiTimes]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• HTC expects Q2 2008 revenues to grow 20% on year
• HTC Touch Diamond goes toe to toe with Apple iPhone
• Loads of HTC Touch Diamond pics!
• HTC bringing HTC Diamond and HTC Raphael to Sprint with VGA touchscreens and WiFi
• HTC ships 1 million HTC Touch handsets in 6 months!

 

Vodafone announced that it has agreed to acquire 100% of Denmark-based ZYB for 31.5 million EUR. We’ve already wrote about ZYB in the past– to recap, it’s a social network and an online management tool that enables mobile phone users to back-up and share their phone contact and calendar information online.

The acquisition of ZYB is a further advance in the implementation of Vodafone’s Total Communications strategy which is delivering new revenue growth around fixed broadband, mobile advertising and a rich set of internet services that integrate the mobile and PC customer experience. ZYB fits into this strategy by enhancing the range of communications services Vodafone can provide to its customers.

Under the agreement, ZYB will remain based in Denmark and upon acquisition will be incorporated into Vodafone’s Internet Services Division.

This is just one more proof Vodafone doesn’t see itself as a dumb pipe — rather they want to partner, acquire or work alongside service providers to offer their users what they think is best for them. We’ll see how long that can last…

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Vodafone Chief: VF not a dumb pipe
• zyb.com reaches 70,000 users
• Zyb moves into social networking; Brings life to your mobile data
• Store your mobiles contacts and calendar securely on ZYB
• Vodafone adds BlackBerry to the set of preferred consumer operating platforms

 

Today, France Telecom-owned Orange released a short announcement:

Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.

Again, we see that exclusive country deals are out — Switzerland, Egypt, Portugal and Austria will have two iPhone carriers. However, what we don’t see is Spain on the list. Guess that’s left for Telefonica’s O2, Apple’s UK partner, which we think is next in the queue.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Bidding for iPhone rights in the UK; Orange vs Vodafone
• T-Mobile UK to get an iPhone?
• Orange unlocked iPhones truly unlocked?
• Orange France working with Apple to cut iPhone price, boost iPhone sales ahead of 3G iPhone launch
• It’s official – Apple and Orange launching iPhone in France on November 29

 

Samsung launched the F400 dual-slider, for which the Korean company used some of the Bang & Olufsen’s technology and I guess some of their designers. The phone looks awesome and is built out of high-quality materials.

The specs include 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus, 2.2-inch 262K color screen, HSDPA support, dual stereo speakers, standard 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio with RDS, Bluetooth 2.0, and of course the microSD memory slot. As for the technology being used, there’s B&O’s ICEpower, Smart Bass (provides rich and powerful sound), Smart Limiter (ensures that audio signal not exceed the amplitude of the threshold), and Shazam (used to identify song and artist by simply pointing a phone at the music). As for the size, the Samsung F400 measures 103.2×48.2×16.9 mm.

Ad-supported mobile games distributor Greystripe announced a deal with Sega to offer three classic game titles through its Catalog Platform partners. Sega will monetize their mobile game content via Greystripe’s AdWRAP advertising network, which includes brands like Diet Coke, Yahoo!, New Line Cinema and eBay.

Under the agreement, Sega and Greystripe are launching the following popular mobile games:

• Sonic Jump – Go vertical with Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Afterburner II – A classic SEGA arcade favorite, where players control a fighter jet and combat swarms of supersonic enemy fighters.
• Golden Axe – what can I say. Golden Axe for mobile is free! Save the land of Yuria from the evil forces of Death Adder!

Commenting on the announcement, Greystripe’s CEO Michael Chang said: “Our partnership with them [Sega] is a huge win for our end users and demonstrates that Greystripe is able to bring the biggest brands to the mobile gaming audience.”

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Greystripe adds 10 new distribution partners; Free games coming to the portal near you
• Greystripe and MoCondi partner to bring free mobile games to MoConDi’s MeYou community
• Opera Software and Greystripe report initial numbers from their partnership; In a word – impressive!
• More than 14 million free mobile game downloads at Gamejump
• Publishers treat DS games like mobile games, says developer

 

Recently, location-based social networking service GyPSii improved its service by adding a couple of very neat features, including:

• New and improved (faster) user interface for Windows Mobile users.
• Extended contact invitation methods – members can now invite their friends through Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, AOL, FastMail.FM, Gmail, GMX, Hotmail, Indiatimes, Mail.com, Yahoo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, Linkedin and MySpace.
• Event feeds on member profiles and home pages – any public action involving a member’s friend appears on the member’s homepage.
• Comment feed subscriptions
• Mobile PlaceMe reminder – allows users to share their PlaceMe information with friends or edit the content.
• Friend search filtering

In addition to the new feature set, GyPSii announced the opening of a China Data Centre, “to offer localised content and an enhanced user experience to customers across China and the Asia Pacific region,” and, we might add, to prepare to serve Olympics’ visitors in a much better (i.e. faster) manner. The data centre will accommodate GyPSii’s existing users, while supporting new customers and the surge in the games-related user-generated content.

GyPSii’s press releases are available from these two links.

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• GyPSii coming to China for the Olympics
• GyPSii goes iPhone
• GyPSii’s geo-location social networking platform accredited for Nokia N95, 6110 Navigator
• Shanghai Unicom and Nokia demonstrate EGPRS
• Symbian opens office in China

 

I think we all (or at least most of us) agree the newly announced HTC Diamond rocks. It’s not just the look of the device — it’s also the specs (gorgeous VGA screen) and that ultra-cool UI that makes me want one. So I wasn’t surprised to learn HTC plans to sell 2 million of these this year. As a matter of fact, they already got Taiwan-based Chunghwa Telecom — which BTW plans to sell a total of 200,000 HTC smartphones in 2008 — to order about 20,000-30,000 Touch Diamond handsets.

And if Taiwanese mobile operator wants 30K units, how much will be enough for Vodafones, Oranges, T-Mobiles, AT&Ts and Verizons of the world? For the record, Taiwan has a population of about 23 million people.

HTC has shipped a total of 2 million HTC Touch smartphones and pushing the same number of Diamonds doesn’t sound like a problem. Any thoughts?

[Via: DigiTimes]

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• HTC expects Q2 2008 revenues to grow 20% on year
• HTC Touch Diamond goes toe to toe with Apple iPhone
• Loads of HTC Touch Diamond pics!
• HTC bringing HTC Diamond and HTC Raphael to Sprint with VGA touchscreens and WiFi
• HTC ships 1 million HTC Touch handsets in 6 months!

 

Vodafone announced that it has agreed to acquire 100% of Denmark-based ZYB for 31.5 million EUR. We’ve already wrote about ZYB in the past– to recap, it’s a social network and an online management tool that enables mobile phone users to back-up and share their phone contact and calendar information online.

The acquisition of ZYB is a further advance in the implementation of Vodafone’s Total Communications strategy which is delivering new revenue growth around fixed broadband, mobile advertising and a rich set of internet services that integrate the mobile and PC customer experience. ZYB fits into this strategy by enhancing the range of communications services Vodafone can provide to its customers.

Under the agreement, ZYB will remain based in Denmark and upon acquisition will be incorporated into Vodafone’s Internet Services Division.

This is just one more proof Vodafone doesn’t see itself as a dumb pipe — rather they want to partner, acquire or work alongside service providers to offer their users what they think is best for them. We’ll see how long that can last…

—
Related Articles at IntoMobile:

• Vodafone Chief: VF not a dumb pipe
• zyb.com reaches 70,000 users
• Zyb moves into social networking; Brings life to your mobile data
• Store your mobiles contacts and calendar securely on ZYB
• Vodafone adds BlackBerry to the set of preferred consumer operating platforms

 

Today, France Telecom-owned Orange released a short announcement:

Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.

Again, we see that exclusive country deals are out — Switzerland, Egypt, Portugal and Austria will have two iPhone carriers. However, what we don’t see is Spain on the list. Guess that’s left for Telefonica’s O2, Apple’s UK partner, which we think is next in the queue.