Amazon's always looking for creative new ways to distribute digital media -- and in light of its recently-launched Video On Demand service and the decent head of steam AmazonMP3 has managed to build, it'd probably just love to shoehorn its way onto a high-profile mobile device right about now. VentureBeat is reporting a juicy rumor of a G1 that made an appearance somewhere in San Fran's seedy underbelly over the weekend bearing an Amazon music and video app designed to dole out media for cash, suggesting that Android's first commercial hardware might come out of the gate ready not just to lock horns with the iPhone's WiFi App Store, but also to straight-up beat it by throwing in movie and TV download capability. Then again, no 3G network -- particularly one with as small of a footprint as T-Mobile's -- is mighty enough to effectively do feature-length movie downloads over the aether, so it remains to be seen exactly how this would all play out. Get a good night's sleep this evening, folks, because if everything goes according to plan, we'll have some solid answers in just a few short hours.

Speaking at this week's Software 2007 gathering in California, Motorola CEO Ed Zander took a break from his company's woes and struggles to share the news that Moto's got a rather exciting new phone waiting in the wings. Details were slim -- the phone was apparently just mentioned in passing as part of the speech -- but the as-yet-unnamed handset is said to be video-centric, capable of a solid 30 frames per second for enjoying movies via SD card. Like other hot Motorolas in recent memory, Zander indicated that it'd be slated for a European release when it's officially announced next week. Any guess as to what the four-letter MOTONAME for this one might be?

It's not terribly uncommon to see a manufacturer try to push a product (or platform) into every crevice of your life, and it seems that Texas Instruments is diverting quite sharply from its calculatorish ways of old and making an aggressive push to get that DLP logo slapped on everything you own. While we've seen (literally) the diminutive Microvision display do its thang here at CES, TI is hoping to steal that thunder away by talking up its forthcoming palm-sized DLP projectors. The "fully featured" Pocket Projectors, which are co-developed by OMAP, would weigh "less than one pound," use the .55 DLP chip, and could purportedly connect to handsets or PDAs to beam up that big(ger) screen imagery for a crowd to see. Unfortunately for TI, these devices are not (at least initially) supposed to be integrated units, which could easily get overlooked if those built-in alternatives can muster acceptable quality. Additionally, TI is hoping to get that DLP logo stamped on your brain even when you visit the cinema, as the company now has its technology in 3,000 theaters worldwide and is frequently throwing logo-clad splash screens onto the canvas during pre-show advertisements. So if you wonder why you're strangely drawn to the DLP sets during your next HDTV shopping trip, trust us, it's not the mirrors, it's the marketing.

[Via AboutProjectors]

While consumers' love affair with mobile TV has been debatable, that hasn't stopped a number of firms from teaming up to deliver all sorts of multimedia to our diminutive LCDs, and now MTV Networks and Amp'd are partnering to bring exclusive, original made-for-mobile content to Amp'd users. Hoping to give customers (pre-teens, at least) something to actually get amped up about, the two firms announced at CES that they would be developing unique content, such as an elusive "episodic series," that would end up appearing on both MTV and Amp'd Live. It was also stated that MTV would "retain the rights to develop and cross-program the projects for television and other platforms," possibly suggesting that the content could leak over to other networks if the price was right. Although a "comedy" series -- Lil' Bush: Resident of the United States -- was recent ported from mobile to TV, this marks the first time that an Amp'd production will have the hefty wallet of MTV Networks / Viacom backing it, which essentially means that future content rolling out of Amp'd Live will hardly be suitable for marginally mature adults. Laguna Beach fuheva!

[Via mocoNews]

Verizon seems to be throwing as many trendy extras as humanly possible into its (oftentimes overpriced) monthly add-on pool, and may now be nearing a deal with the video clip-broadcasting extraordinaire, YouTube. Not long after announcing a simplistic fee-based system to keep your contact list from being destroyed, Verizon Wireless "is in advanced talks" with YouTube in a deal that would bring the zany segments we all love to your very own mobile screen (and television, too). America's second-place carrier is looking to grab an edge in the marketing department as it hopes to "further its efforts to expand into internet and entertainment services." Under the terms being discussed, V CAST users would have access to YouTube videos for a currently undisclosed price, and Verizon reportedly hopes to "offer YouTube videos as an on-demand feature" while watching TV (FiOS anyone?). YouTube isn't selling the rest of its soul without caution, however, as the deal could end up being exclusive in nature, but only for a limited time. We'll keep you posted on how much "America's most reliable wireless network" plans on bumping your already overwhelming monthly bill should this deal go down.

It seems like staring at a sub-3 inch display for hour upon hour could prove to be a punishing experience, which is exactly what Sprint is asking bleeding-edge customers to do with their new Sprint Movies service -- but in practice, how does it pan out? LAPTOP Magazine spent a few minutes straining their way through Spiderman 2 on an SPH-A900 and found that the image quality and sound synchronization were both surprisingly good; in fact, it sounds like they'd actually have come away with a positive recommendation if it weren't for the fact that the viewer is restricted to an approximately 1-inch area of the phone's screen. Obviously, the screen's small enough as is, so we share LAPTOP's sentiment that Sprint needs to maximize the available real estate and provide a full-screen player if they're actually going to go through with this (especially at $4-6 a pop). Otherwise, they saw the occasional (expected) dropout, but came away with the belief that this might all actually make for a compelling product one or two iterations down the road. If true, we're hoping California drivers don't start feeling the urge to catch a flick on the 10.

Finding out movie information on-the-go just got a little bit easier with the launch of a new service called Forty Three Kix that responds to texted queries with movie locations and showtimes based on the user's location. The free service works on any SMS-enabled handset from all of the major carriers, with support for regional networks promised at a later date, and requires only partial movie titles (even misspelled ones) or select keywords in order to supply a result. Forty Three Kix, who seem to have adopted their name based on their phone number (43549, or 43KIX) as opposed to vice versa, also offer an online movie "blog" where film buffs can submit what we imagine will be rather humorous reviews via SMS ("OMG! garfield2  t0tally 0wns garfield1!!!"). Additionally, the company offers a subscription service for automatically delivering new release info to your phone, and allows you to forward showtime information to friends so they can discover how bad your taste in movies really is.

[Via Yahoo!]