phones

It's been a while since we've seen a new, exciting cell phone for T-Mobile, so when Samsung announced its SGH-T729, we took notice. Also called the Blast (yet another crazy Samsung nickname), the SGH-T729 offers a thin slider design, Bluetooth, a megapixel camera, and a QWERTY keyboard modeled on the SureType technology found on some BlackBerry smart phones. On the whole, the Blast is a solid effort for a messaging phone. We liked the design and the simple interface, but T-Mobile's lack of a 3G network is beginning to put it behind its rival carriers. The Blast … Read more

SpiralFrog is a proposed online service that would let users download songs for free in exchange for viewing some sort of advertising. It got some press coverage last August when it announced an agreement to license the music catalog of Universal Music Group, the largest of the four major labels. Over the next few months, however, a missed launch date and executive shake-up led many to write it off as dead.

But the company survived, and now its founder, Joe Mohen, is heralding the beginning of a closed beta test in the United States, with wide release expected by the … Read more

In the pantheon of phone straps and trinkets, this one stands above the rest on so many levels. This "DS Cell Phone Charm" is a miniature replica of Nintendo's DS Lite, complete with functional clamshell lid and navigation buttons, but it opens up to reveal a geek's version of an old-fashioned compact mirror. In place of the real thing's double LCD screens is a "Double Mirror" that will come in handy, as GeekSugar says, so "you can check and make sure your lip gloss is popping before making a call." Or, … Read more

InfoWorld's Tom Yager tries his prima ballerina slippers on:

Apart from habitually being at odds with conventional wisdom, I share one other trait with Jobs: Far more often than not, when everybody else writes me off as an idiot, I turn out to be right. It's just a matter of patience.

Hubris, thy name is Yager.

Despite its successful initial launch, Yager apparently thinks the iPhone will fail if you just give it long enough. Well, good luck with that one, Tom. Although, the horned one should point out that only one of you and Jobs is going … Read more

I usually get up in the mornings and go to my office and turn on my desktop CPU to check the day's news, my email, etc. But before I even turn on my desktop on a given morning, the iPhone, which sits atop my office desk, will now tell me if I have new email that has come in overnight. (Note: I have to leave my iPhone outside of my room because the GSM signal interferes with my iPod/JBL music dock's speakers, making that noise--you know that noise). Being aware that I got email overnight is nice, … Read more

The market timing for products like the "Tele-Data Guard" couldn't be better, coming on the heels of the recent spate of spy movies such as The Good Shepherd, Breach and The Company. We can think of no better way to heighten people's sense of paranoia.

Besides, who hasn't had their phones tapped as part of international conspiracies? That's what this device is aimed at detecting (well, maybe not the conspiracy part), by flashing a green light during conversation if someone is eavesdropping on your line, according to Uber-Review. It supposedly works on faxes and … Read more

Just because you can't see a sales clerk doesn't mean you can't get help from one--or from a fellow shopper, even one in a distant aisle.

That's the premise behind the DIY Shopper project under development at IBM's research facility in a stately Georgian manse in southern England. The concept retail Web site, developed with retail group Kingfisher, uses Web 2.0 concepts--not just blogs, but also buddy lists of in-store advisers and people doing similar projects. While store employees would use tablet PCs to access DIY Shopper and communicate with customers, the shoppers themselves … Read more

While doing some research for our review of the 2008 Audi TT on Audi's Web site, we came across a selection of free downloads for your cell phone, including wallpaper and some very dynamic ringtones. If you're looking to pimp your cell phone and you dig Audis, then you're really in luck. If you just want to add some flair to your cell phone, well, the ringtones are pretty good. You can download ringtones named Energy Sweep, Melt Groove, or Moving Fast. They're all fast electronica clips that would make for pretty unique cell phone ringtones. … Read more

With all the bills and expenses of daily life, most of us need to follow some sort of budget. With Expense View for the iPhone, you can post your expenses as they happen and then track and analyze your money on the ExpenseView.com Web site. You'll need to register to use this application, but fortunately it won't affect your budget: It's free.

iPhone Link: http://www.expenseview.com/gadgetLogin.aspx

Web site link: http://www.expenseview.com