phones

Bond's phone, James Bond's phone

Sony Ericsson wants to help you realize your dream of being James Bond--only don't expect a suave British accent or an instantly smooth way with the ladies.

Instead, expect limited-edition silver versions of the K800 and K790 Cyber-shot camera phones, which will be used by the famed 007 in Sony Pictures' upcoming Bond flick "Casino Royale." Finally, phones that let you conduct enemy surveillance and take pics of the dog!

Both phones have 3.2-megapixel cameras with Autofocus, Xenon flash for lowlight conditions, and BestPic, which allows consumers/secret agents to take nine pictures of a moving … Read more

Phone fun in Japan

KDDI, Japan's second-largest mobile-phone operator, has opened its Designing Studio in Tokyo's Harajuku area, sort of a ground zero for teen girls interested in fashion. I recently toured the facility, camera in hand, during Ceatec, a large consumer electronics show that takes place annually near Tokyo. Have a look at some of the latest trends in phones that caught my eye.

Cute phone, dorky marketing

Attention teen girls: Would you buy a phone from the woman in the picture?

For starters, do you know who this is? No? Come on, she created the iconic wrap dress in 1972! Hmm, let's see... She's married to Barry Diller, CEO of IAC/InterActive Corp., which owns online properties like Ask.com and Evite. Still nothing? Don't worry, that means you're completely--normal.

T-Mobile announced that a couple of limited-edition versions of the Sidekick 3 will be available starting Oct. 30, and one of them is designed by Diane von Furstenberg. Not to be ageist, but … Read more

The juicy details on 'low-cost' Treo

Hey, here's a shocker (well, not really, since we know Palm can't keep a secret): today, the company announced the new Palm Treo 680, a low-cost version of its famed smart phone. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what "low-cost" means as Palm, in its ever-teasing fashion, didn't reveal specifics on pricing, carrier (although we have our guesses, Cingular, cough, cough), or availability today. Palm CEO Ed Colligan did say, however, that it will be priced competitively with similarly featured smart phones out there, and its aim is to reach a broader and more geographically … Read more

Samsung's new skinny, skinny phone

The Samsung Trace might be the Nicole Richie of mobile phones.

Like the actress/tabloid fodder, it dresses well, debuting in "champagne," and is excruciatingly thin.

Samsung's newest candy bar-style phone, just 0.33 inch thick, is joining the ranks of other recent mobile launches vying for most anorexic-looking handset (see the LG Chocolate and upcoming launches of Motorola Razr's Maxx and the Krzr K1). But there's no intervention necessary here; the Trace is fattened up on features--it's a quad-band phone and an MP3 player with Bluetooth support, and a 1.3-megapixel camera with … Read more

StanaPhone's missing 100

Net phone operator StanaPhone Communications no longer offers free phone calls between computers running its software, and any home, office or mobile phone. It used to offer 100 minutes, replenished automatically every 30 days.

StanaPhone was trying to recycle a strategy from the 1990s, when Yahoo, America Online and Microsoft's MSN introduced Net phone calling through their instant-messaging applications. At first, the scheme prompted millions of minutes of calls, but when IM makers started charging for PC-to-phone service a few months later, traffic plunged.

When it started the offer if June, a StanaPhone representative acknowledged the roll of the … Read more