News Blog

(Credit: Electronic Arts)

Despite a failed deal with Take-Two Interactive, and a Spore DRM backlash, Eidos Interactive signed an agreement on Monday with Electronic Arts announcing exclusivity to multiregional distribution and licensing rights to selected titles from the their catalog for EA Mobile.

Now, Eidos will provide licenses to EA across all existing mobile channels and mobile devices for four key titles: Tomb Raider Underworld, Just Cause 2, California Games X, and Minesweeper, with a future option on the mobile versions of the majority of Eidos videogames for three years.

According to a news release, Javier Ferreira (VP of European Publishing for EA Mobile) was quoted as saying, "Eidos has a valuable portfolio of intellectual property including the world famous Tomb Raider games. This deal gives EA Mobile immediate access to not one but four high profile titles, which will appeal to a broad audience on mobile platforms."

EA Mobile has a piece of that action.

(Credit: Eidos Interactive)

Seconding the sentiment of the deal, Simon Protheroe (Online Publishing Director for Eidos) says, "EA Mobile is the world leader for mobile publishing, with excellent carrier and OEM relationships in all corners of the globe. We have had great success with our products on mobile platforms to date. This strategic relationship will allow us to focus on making quality mobile titles and utilizing the presence and scale that EA Mobile has in the marketplace."

HTC Touch Pro

(Credit: Sprint)

Unlike last week's slip up, Sprint managed to keep this bit of news under wraps and announced on the opening day of CTIA Fall 2008 that it will offer the HTC Touch Pro starting October 19. The ultimate replacement for the Sprint HTC Mogul, the Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone will go for $299.99 with a two-year contract and after rebates.

The Touch Pro is similar to the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint but has three major differences: 1) the smartphone features a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard; 2) it has expandable memory; and 3) the 3.2-megapixel camera has a flash. Of course, with the built-in keyboard, the Touch Pro is also slightly thicker and heavier than the Diamond, measuring 4 inches tall by 2 inches wide by 0.7 inch deep and weighing 5.3 ounces. On front, there's a 2.8-inch touchscreen with a 262,000 color output and 640x480 pixel resolution that allows you to interact with the 3D TouchFlo interface.

For the business user, the Touch Pro offers a full range of wireless options: EV-DO Rev. A, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP support, and GPS. To complement the latter, the smartphone works with the Sprint Navigation for real-time, turn-by-turn driving directions. The usual Windows Mobile suspects are there, including the Microsoft Office Mobile Suite, Direct Push Technology, and Internet Explorer Mobile. The Opera browser is also installed on the device.

Entertainment and multimedia goodies include the aforementioned 3.2-megapixel camera, support for Sprint TV and the Sprint Music Store, and an HTC-developed YouTube application. There's 512MB of ROM and 288MB of RAM and a 1GB microSD card will be included in the box.

We're expecting to see HTC Touch Pro in person at the MobileFocus event, so stay tuned for some first impressions and hopefully a video. In addition, we'll be receiving our evaluation unit of the HTC Touch Diamond on Wednesday afternoon, so expect to see a full review soon.

RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8220

(Credit: RIM)

While the fall CTIA show isn't really known for handset announcements, Research in Motion paid no mind and started the show off with a bang by introducing the RIM BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 on Tuesday night. While much of the attention has turned to the rumored BlackBerry Thunder as of late, the Pearl Flip 8220 shouldn't be forgotten, as it's the first BlackBerry to sport a clamshell design.

The flip phone, which comes in black or red, measures 3.9-inches high by 1.9-inches wide by 0.6-inch deep and weighs 3.5 ounces. It features a 65,536-color, 128x160 pixel external display and front-facing 2-megapixel camera, while you get a 65,536-color, 240x320-pixel TFT display on the inside. As part of the Pearl series, you get the SureType keyboard (groan) and trackball navigator. The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 also comes equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack and an external microSD expansion slot.

Moving onto features, the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) Pearl Flip 8220 offers true world roaming, a speakerphone, smart dialing, and background-noise cancellation. Wireless options include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support. There's no GPS, but the BlackBerry Maps application is onboard to at least provide you with maps and text-based directions.

Supported e-mail solutions include BlackBerry Enterprise, Microsoft Exchange, IMB Lotus, Novell GroupWise as well as POP3 and IMAP4 accounts. There's also an attachment viewer for Word, Excel, PowerPoint files, PDFs, and JPG images.

(Credit: RIM)

When you're done working, you can enjoy MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG4, WMV, and other music and video formats with the built-in media player. In addition, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 has a 2-megapixel camera with flash and video-recording capabilities.

In all, there aren't a whole lot of surprises, as the smartphone keeps very much in line with the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120. Research in Motion was a little vague as to release date, but it will be offered by carriers worldwide sometime this fall and the company did confirm that T-Mobile will be one of the U.S. carriers. No word on pricing.

Now, here's the question: Will the flip-phone form factor work for BlackBerry? There's only been a handful of smartphones to come in the clamshell design, such as the Pantech PN-820, but they never seem to really take off. Will the RIM BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 be any different?

While the official announcement wasn't supposed to cross the wires till next week, The Wall Street Journal went early with its story (please don't get me started on this) and published a review of the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint.

Yes, that's right. The Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone is officially part of the Sprint family; not that it was a complete surprise. The HTC Touch Diamond, as well as the HTC Touch Pro (no announcement on this model yet), were long rumored for a CDMA carrier months before Wednesday's early coming-out party. So now that the floodgates are open, here is what we know.

Word's out on the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint.

(Credit: Sprint)

There are a number of differences between the Sprint HTC Touch Diamond and the unlocked version we reviewed in late June. First, it sports a purple/burgundy backplate to add more flash to an already sexy phone. The smartphone is also a smidge thicker and heavier at 4 inches tall by 2 inches wide by 0.6 inch deep and 4.1 ounces, but keeps the same 2.8-inch, 262,000-color TFT touch screen.

Of course, one of the highlights of the HTC Touch Diamond is the TouchFLO 3D interface, which provides a toolbar along the bottom of the screen where you can move left to right with the swipe of your finger to launch applications. Sprint's version is optimized so that you can access things like live TV, weather, e-mail, photos, contacts, and more.

In addition to the toolbar, there are several programs, such as e-mail, the camera, and music, where you can go flip through your files and messages by swiping your thumb/finger up or down the screen with a cool animated 3D effect.

Moving on to the features, the HTC Touch Diamond for Sprint runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition, but rather than being content with the standard Microsoft Office Mobile Suite, the smartphone also ships with Dataviz's Documents to Go Suite and the Opera Web browser. We're sure many will be pleased with inclusion of these applications, which are arguably more robust than the former. Wireless options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (with A2DP support), EV-DO Rev. A, and GPS with support for Sprint Navigation.

This has to be the weirdest and saddest crime-of-virtual-passion story I've come across.

Kimberly Jernigan--a 33-year-old woman from North Carolina--was apparently distraught after her online relationship with a 52-year-old man from Claymont, Del., came to an end.

The pair apparently met through the online community Second Life and began a virtual relationship. The two finally met in reality several months ago, and the alleged victim ended the relationship, sending Jernigan into a downward spiral.

Kimberly Jernigan met her virtual ex-boyfriend in Second Life.

(Credit: CBS3.com)

In early August, Jernigan allegedly drove to the victim's Pennsylvania workplace and attempted to kidnap him at gunpoint, according to local news station CBS3.com. When she was unsuccessful, according to the report, she returned two weeks later to track down the victim's Delaware address, and posed as a postal worker to do so. After four days of searching, authorities said she found residence in the Whitney Presidential Towers on the 7100 block of Society Drive in Claymont.

On August 21, police said, Jernigan broke into the unnamed victim's apartment with a Taser, a pair of handcuffs, a BB gun, her dog, and a roll of duct tape. He wasn't there, so she waited. When the virtual ex arrived home he saw what looked like a laser beam projecting on his chest. He immediately fled the apartment and contacted the Newcastle County Police.

(Credit: Innosuisse)

Hydrogen peroxide is not just for blonds anymore. It's also used to power an experimental helicopter that the developer says is more economical and environmentally friendly than any other rotary-wing technology in existence today.

SwissCopter AG of Murten, Switzerland is working to certify a "ultra-covert propulsion technology" based on a secret sauce called Perosin, a mix of 50 percent H2O2 and some unspecified additives. Hydrogen peroxide was used as rocket fuel as early as the 1930s, but mixtures of over 70 percent H2O2 are highly explosive, making them unfit for civilian use.

"Air is mixed with the fuel inside the rotor blade that leads to the combustion chamber at the tip of the blade where it passes an ignition system," the company explained. Gases ejected through the nozzles are what provide the power.(PDF)

The company claims to have received a large number of pre-orders and plans to begin deliveries in 2010.

(Credit: DARPA)

A Silicon Valley company has integrated iLink, a social network analytics technology, into three online military communities in hopes of improving the way users, ranging from Army wives to platoon leaders, share critical information across a wide variety of domains.

iLink is a machine learning-based system that models users and content in a social network and then points the user to relevant content, discussions, and other network members with shared interests and goals across a broad range of scenarios.

"iLink learns to deliver the right answers to the right people at the right time," SRI International's David Gutelius said in a press release. "It identifies needs, questions, and issues as they emerge in online communities and matches them with highly relevant resources and people. The goal is a more adaptive, effective problem-solving military."

The technology was developed as part of CALO (Cognitive Agent that Learns and Organizes), funded under the DARPA PAL (Personalized Assistant that Learns), a program to develop an "enduring personalized cognitive assistant." (PDF) CALO, from the Latin word "calonis," means "soldier's servant."(PDF)

The military is currently evaluating the technology and how it can be applied to solve battlefield problems, promote professional development, and support military families, according to SRI International (PDF). The goal is to create online communities where soldiers can troubleshoot, converse, and brainstorm with each other in social networks, using software that learns from its users. One site is devoted to information exchange and mutual support between U.S. Army lieutenants, another is for captains, and the third assists families in dealing with the challenges of military life.

(Credit: SRI)

Internet phone company Vonage is turning to a former Cingular Wireless to help guide it forward.

Marc Lefar, CEO of Vonage

(Credit: Vonage)

Vonage announced Wednesday that Marc Lefar, former chief marketing officer at Cingular, will become the Vonage's new CEO. Lefar, 44, will take over the top spot at the company from Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's founder who stepped in last year to help guide the company through its legal battles and financial issues.

Jeffrey Citron, founder and chairman of Vonage

(Credit: Vonage)

Now that Vonage has made headway through these troubles, Lefar will take over to guide the company's long term strategy. Earlier this week, Vonage said it had gotten $215 million in debt financing to help it get it back on track. And earlier this year it settled its legal troubles over patent disputes.

But Lefar has a tough job ahead of him. Vonage faces stiff competition from cable operators that are also offering voice over IP services. And it faces competition from traditional phone companies selling wireless services.

It's so hard to keep a good secret these days. Just ask T-Mobile. Word of its new Sidekick model, code-named Gekko, got out months ago and was all but confirmed about a week ago when the ruthless blogosphere got hold of some internal T-Mobile documents about the upcoming model.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Well, today, the wraps were officially taken off the new model. Simply called the T-Mobile Sidekick (more on this new, puzzling naming scheme below), it's the first Sidekick to debut since device manufacturer Danger was acquired by Microsoft.

The Sidekick isn't a revolutionary, new product, but we think there's enough there to attract the young, hip messaging fanatics. The big highlight is the new level of personalization, as you can add your own graphics, images, and designs to the outer shell for a one-of-a-kind model. You can read all about this as well as the handheld's other features and performance in our full review. The T-Mobile Sidekick is available in select stores and online today for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after discounts and rebates.

Finally, for those of you who are curious about why T-Mobile has reverted to simply calling the handheld Sidekick, here's the official statement from the carrier: "The T-Mobile Sidekick family is going to have two lines of devices, the T-Mobile Sidekick and the T-Mobile Sidekick LX. Both Sidekick lines will have their own unique set of features so that consumers can choose the one that best fits their lifestyle. The T-Mobile Sidekick will focus on personalization at an affordable price while the T-Mobile Sidekick LX will be a little higher-end and have more of a 'luxury' emphasis; it will also likely include future limited edition models."

Alcatel-Lucent's CEO and chairman are stepping aside as the company continues to face big losses and increased competition from Asian suppliers.

The telecommunications equipment giant said Tuesday that CEO Patricia Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk will leave later this year. Russo will finish out the year as she helps the company look for a new CEO, and Tchuruk, who helped architect the mega-merger between Lucent Technologies and Alcatel, will leave October 1.

The company said the two executives had stepped down on their own accord. It is a move, however, that shareholders have urged for months.

And who could blame them. Since the combined Alcatel-Lucent started operating as a single company in December 2006, it has lost more than half its value. It has faced six consecutive quarters of losses and has shed critical market share in several telecom equipment categories.

Executives sold the merger to investors two years ago as a great way to cut costs and compete more effectively with emerging rivals in Asia. But the reality has been much different. Combining any two large companies rarely goes smoothly. But the task of combining the U.S.-based Lucent and France-based Alcatel was further complicated by cultural differences between the two companies, which analysts say remain unresolved.

As the company tried to combine forces despite the hurdles, its competitors rallied and began stealing customers. In addition to facing competition from the usual players, such as Ericsson, Nortel Networks, and Nokia Siemens, the company also faced increasing competition from new players like Chinese rivals ZTE and Huawei.

These competitive forces, combined with the company's inability to make decisions quickly enough or to retain key executives, have fueled major losses. The company has issued profit warning after profit warning.

Despite promises from Russo last year that a turnaround was in the works, the company's shareholders and board of directors apparently have lost confidence.

For the second quarter, the company reported sales and profits slightly ahead of expectations. It also reported a major loss due to writedowns.

Its immediate future looks bleak amid concerns over the economy. As a result, the company has cut its forecast for third-quarter sales, saying it expects revenue to remain flat or decline compared with the previous quarter. Investors had hoped for a 2.5 percent increase in sales. The company also expects 2008 revenue to fall "in the low to mid single-digit range."

In addition to the departures of Russo and Tchuruk, Henry Schacht, who preceded Russo as Lucent's CEO prior to the merger, will resign from the board immediately, the company said.