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Clearwire's WiMAX ordained with official Atlanta launch

by Ross Miller, posted Jun 16th 2009 @ 2:21AM

Sure, Clearwire has actually been running its WiMAX network in Atlanta for six weeks already, but that technicality isn't stopping the company from deciding now is the time to "launch" the service in the metro area, with an appropriately-sized marketing blitz to boot. Portland travelers already using the service should feel at home now with their own personal 4G network to keep them company while they engorge on the recommended dosage of Chik-Fil-A sandwiches and Varsity chili dogs. Prices are identical to what we've already heard and, yes, even though the company just quietly launched the service in Las Vegas, expect to see the delayed red carpet rollout for that city sometime later this Summer.

Clearwire sneaks WiMAX into Las Vegas, won't admit it until Summer

by Ross Miller, posted Jun 10th 2009 @ 3:51AM

Clearwire's been slowly planting its WiMAX seeds around the country, and with nary a peep, it's rolled out the service into the Las Vegas area, designated by the image above. According to a company rep, the "official" launch -- including new store openings and a marketing blitz -- will begin this summer, but for now, it's operational and ready for those in the know. Portland and Atlanta vacationers, you can now watch your online bank account dwindle faster than you ever could before.

[Via Fierce Wireless; thanks, Zachery]

Read - Clearwire Goes Soft in Vegas
Read - Clear coverage map

Renesas's 1080p-decoding processor coming soon to a cell phone near you

by Tim Stevens, posted May 5th 2009 @ 6:59AM

Plenty of modern cell phones have HD-quality screens on them, but few can manage any sort of high-definition video content at a respectable frame rate. That's set to change with the release of the Renesas SH7370, a chip we first got wind of back in December with its promise to offer 1080p video at 30fps in a package small (and efficient) enough to be included in a handset. The first units are now shipping to manufacturers, and while the size has increased (it's about 1cm square vs. the 6.4 x 6.5mm package previously discussed) it's still impressively small given its functionality: 1080p H.264 video decoding and encoding along with on-chip Dolby Digital 5.1-channel output. Overkill? Maybe for now, but you might change your mind when the first head-mountable satellite speakers with subwoofer seat cushions hit retail.

Nokia E55 blushes red for the camera

by Ross Miller, posted Feb 27th 2009 @ 8:51PM

We doubt you need a translation to figure out what's going on here, but to summarize: the crew at mobile@mail.ru managed to get what they're saying is an exclusive hands-on with a red Nokia E55. It's the same compact QWERTY phone you've grown to love vicariously through photos and video, only now with a little rouge. Check out the read link for more pics.

[Thanks, Zavackiy]

Steve Ballmer pounds chest, decrees Windows Mobile 7 coming next year

by Ross Miller, posted Feb 24th 2009 @ 6:03PM

Sure, we're still anticipating -- but not necessarily merrily -- the release of Windows Mobile 6.5, but for those who wish to look even farther into the future, Microsoft head honcho Steve Ballmer said in a conference call this week that WinMo 7 will be out sometime next year. That jibes pretty well with what we've heard from Motorola and ZDNet before, although there's probably a dozen or so known unknowns that could push it well into 2011 or beyond. For now, however, we're willing to take Steve at his word. Hey, at least they're not gearing up for a Windows Mobile 6.75 in the interim... right?

Renesas aims to bring 1080p playback to your next cellphone

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 1st 2008 @ 7:35PM

Believe it or not, this is far from the first we've heard of bringing high-def video to cellphones, and it's not even the first application to dabble in mobile 1080p. Still, we'll take all the innovation we can get in this space, and when the real Touch HD ever arrives, we'll be ready and waiting with Full HD capabilities. Announced at ISSCC 2009 in San Francisco, Renesas Technology is showing off an application processor that enables handsets to process 1,920 x 1,080 resolution video at 30 frames-per-second; the processor's core has a maximum operating frequency of 500MHz and supports MPEG-4 AVC / H.264, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video formats. There's no telling when the 6.4- x 6.5-millimeter chip will be available en masse, but we need the HTCs of the world to get us a 1080p phone and a retina implant or two to read 0.2-size fonts before it even matters.

Video Bulletin Board enables mobile-to-Blu-ray player interaction

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 15th 2008 @ 7:41PM

After seeing what we saw at CEDIA this year, we knew this innovation was only a hop, skip and a jump away. RCDb and Nortel have teamed up to showcase what they're calling the Video Bulletin Board, which is an interactive application that enables cellphones and Blu-ray players to communicate like never before. With it, you can "send a photo or video from your mobile phone to your own or a friend's BD Live-enabled Blu-ray deck and then, using the remote, activate a click-to-call feature that would automatically have your phone call back the mobile user who sent you the photo." It won't be long before you're ordering pizza from your Blu-ray player and watching outtakes on your handset -- at least, we hope.

[Image courtesy of Blu-ray.com]

DoCoMo serves your DLNA content to a friend's TV via mobile phone

by Samuel Axon, posted Oct 10th 2008 @ 4:49PM

Eager to live in the fantastical future it has prophesied, NTT DoCoMo went to CEATEC and demoed an upcoming addition to its Pocket U service: MH2H (Mobile Home to Home), which gives you the ability use your cellphone to stream content from your computer at home to a friend's TV. The phone connects to your friend's WiFi network and sends his or her DLNA-compliant receiver the IP address of your also-DLNA-compliant server, then tells said server to accept the connection and start streaming any videos, songs, or photos you feel like sharing. When you leave, the connection ends and every one goes back to partying on their own isolated media islands like it's 2006.

[Image courtesy of Tech-On!]

UN communications chief predicts four billion mobile phone subs by year's end

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 27th 2008 @ 5:32PM

No need to adjust your set -- the United Nations communications chief has boldly predicted that half of planet Earth's population will be hooked on some sort of mobile phone before 2009 dawns. Granted, the numbers he's talking about do look strictly at subscriptions, so a small percentage will be skewed by those with multiple accounts (and thus, multiple numbers), but really, the forecast isn't all that outlandish. After all, we already hit 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions back in November of last year (and 4 billion lines overall). As predicted, it's growth in developing regions such as Africa and the Middle East which will boost the overall figure the most, with yearly increases in those areas expected to hit 27% and 25%, respectively. So, what are the chances a post eerily similar to this pops up in 2012 or so saying the entire world has a cellphone? Our trusty Magic 8-ball says "Signs Point to Yes."

[Via Core77, image courtesy of Road and Travel]

Padded lampposts in London not really being tested

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 17th 2008 @ 1:36PM

We had a sneaking suspicion that the world hadn't really come to strapping pads around lampposts in order to keep walking texters safe, and sure enough, the whole shebang was more of a stunt and less of a bona fide trial. Reportedly, only a few pads were put in place and photographed for around 36 hours -- afterwards, the PR firm responsible for putting them up simply took them back down. It seems as if the scheme was meant to "test out [the idea] and gauge people's opinions," according to a 118 118 spokesman, and safe to say it certainly accomplished that.

[Via textually]

Padded lampposts for distracted texters being tested in London

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Mar 6th 2008 @ 5:39AM

According to a recent report, human beings are becoming so incredibly stupid that they require cushioned lamppost bases so that when they run into them they don't mess up their idiotic faces. Apparently, a study in the UK found that one in ten people actually managed to hurt themselves by walking into a post while peering down at their mobile phone screen. The mishaps -- called "walking and texting" injuries -- have spurred the charity Living Streets to launch the padded-post-pilot scheme in Brick Lane, London. It seems that if all goes well, there are plans to roll out the idiot-proof system in Birmingham, Manchester, and Stupidton.

[Image courtesy Yahoo! News]

700MHz band: future home to worldwide mobile broadband standard

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 16th 2007 @ 8:02AM

If you've been losing sleep over not knowing precisely what was going to happen to all that spectrum space that will be freed up when the imminent analog-to-digital cutover takes place, your insomnia is about to be (at least partially) cured. The US of A apparently pushed hard for a worldwide consensus on spectrum use -- suggesting that a common approach was more reasonable than each nation choosing separate frequencies for next-generation services -- and sure enough, it ended up getting exactly what it wanted. Apparently, the 700MHz band will now be reserved for a mobile broadband standard accessible throughout much of the globe, including most of North America, Central America, South America, Europe, China, India, South Korea and Japan. Of note, Europe was able to land a concession that enables it to offer up "about half of the bandwidth available for mobile services in their region" compared to what is offered elsewhere, but the agreement definitely makes the forthcoming auction that much more interesting.

[Via RCRNews, image courtesy of toddemslie]

IDEA-IN Yuento presents calculator-cum-phone

by Sean Cooper, posted Jun 16th 2007 @ 1:01PM

IDEA-IN presents the YUENTO branded calculator that is shaped and has a similar key layout as a mobile. Clever, huh? The idea behind this molded bit-o-madness is that most human's fingers are rather adept at tapping away on mobile phone keys, so taking that insight a step further produced the "Mobile Calculator". Available in pink, white, yellow, and black. This, ahhh, interesting concept should set you back about $20 bucks if you can find one.

[Via Akihabara News]

Microsoft releases "Deepfish" browser for Windows Mobile

by Sean Cooper, posted Mar 29th 2007 @ 4:08AM

Nothing, and we mean nothing, can distract us from sleep like a new and cool bit of software and a bit of spare time late in the evening. Microsoft's Live Labs threw down an interesting take on mobile browsing today with a technology preview of their new mobile browsing interface, Deepfish. The Deepfish gimmick is the ability to see an entire web page on your Windows Mobile screen and then zoom in on the bits that you want to read, click, and the like. The software takes a screenshot of the webpage and uses it as a map; the rub here is that because of this approach, no dynamic content is supported. The controls are dead simple: hit the joystick on your Windows Mobile device to bring up a small gray focus window, move it where you like, hit it once more and bam! Zoomed. Poking the joystick again displays an arrow to tackle the clickable elements on the page and fill in forms. A fun first effort, and only Microsoft knows where it may end up, so hit the link to download a copy, but hustle, the preview is of the limited variety.

Opera lands contract to infect Samsung handsets

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 22nd 2006 @ 4:10PM

Continuing along Opera's silent, yet somewhat noticeable pursuit of conquering the mobile browser realm, the firm has sealed a deal with Samsung "to provide Internet browsers for its advance mobile telephones." Similar to the renditions already found on Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Blackberry / Treo, and basically every other handset out there, the browser will reformat pages for optimized mobile viewing and give Samsung owners one less thing to download when setting up their phone. Interestingly, the licensing deal is "per phone sold," but there's no information on just how much coinage will be changing hands when all this goes down.