Birthday -- Engadget Mobile

birthday posts

Jumpin' Jehosephat, we're three!

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 13th 2009 @ 12:00PM

Three years ago, mobile phones were but a twinkle in a handful of Motorola and Bell Labs engineers' eyes. The United States was steeped in civil war, Napoleon Bonaparte was gallivanting through Europe, and Julius Caesar had just been brutally betrayed by his most trusted comrades. Yes, it was a crazy time to be alive -- so crazy, in fact, that our dear parents at Engadget saw fit to spin off the choicest, juiciest cuts of phone news into a site to call their own. That site, of course, was Engadget Mobile -- and to this very day, our goal and mission is as clear and unwavering as it ever has been: keep you in the know.

Here's the thing, though: we know that we'd be nothing without you, our dear readers. You build us up, tear us down, keep us in check, and tip us with some seriously good stuff. That kind of dedication shouldn't go unappreciated, you know? So, on that note, we want to give out a really cool phone -- read on!

[Image credit hashmil]

Continue reading Jumpin' Jehosephat, we're three!

Vertu throws its own party with Constellation Rococo collection

by Darren Murph posted Apr 26th 2008 @ 11:31PM

You know how it goes -- when you're this high-end, don't even bother waiting for your bestest of friends to toss you a birthday party to celebrate ten years of mindless self indulgence. Instead, Vertu's doing the only thing it really can by cranking out a fashionable new collection to commemorate its decennial anniversary. The Constellation Rococo collection was reportedly inspired by "the eighteenth century French art, fashion and interior design movement by the same name," and if you're into floral patterns, bold colors and monogrammed Vs, you're sure to fall head over heels for this lot. Rest assured, however, that the epicurean handset maker won't be giving these away as gifts (or anything close to it) when they land this summer.

SMS parties down on 15th birthday... again

by Darren Murph posted Dec 7th 2007 @ 4:59AM

Ever wondered what it'd be like to have two birthdays in a single year? If so, just phone up, er, text SMS -- it's living the dream, baby! Apparently, the first "recorded text message" was sent from software engineer Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis, a director at Vodafone, on December 3, 1992, which is arguably the birthday of SMS as we know it. Granted, the Short Message Service Center has been around just a hair longer, but without an official birth certificate tied to either, who are we to argue? So, here's to you (yet again), dear text messaging, but if you really try to sneak a third shindig in before the year's up, don't look to us to provide another round of hors d'oeuvres.

[Via TGDaily, image courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald]

GSM cellphone technology celebrates 20 years, aims for 20 more

by Darren Murph posted Sep 7th 2007 @ 11:16PM

Just this summer we saw text messaging party down after turning 15, and now its time to get your weekend started right by celebrating 20 whole years of GSM. Reportedly, "15 phone firms signed an agreement to build mobile networks based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications" on this day in 1987, and while it took "12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made," things have pretty much taken off since then. So here's to 20 incredibly fruitful years, GSM, you've earned it.

[Image courtesy of RetroBrick]

Text messaging celebrates 15 years of debilitating thumbs

by Darren Murph posted Jul 24th 2007 @ 5:39PM

Just days after the IBM ThinkPad threw a shindig for its 15th, now we've reason to don our party hats once more for yet another notable birthday. The mobile phone industry is celebrating the 15th year of the Short Message Service Center (SMSC), which was the "principal application behind text messaging first brought to market by Acision in 1992." Over the years, the basic SMSC box has evolved into an IP-based SMS architecture, and while early iterations had a capacity of ten messages per second, current setups can handle a nearly infinite amount (good thing, huh?). So here's to you, dear SMS, and while we certainly hope you manage to hang around another 15 years or so, how's about cooling off the perpetual price increases along the way?

[Thanks, John]