mobile

Article updated and corrected on January 22, 2008 at 3:10 pm PST.

Microsoft and Zumobi, a content distribution platform for mobile phones, announced on Tuesday a partnership that will preload Zumobi (download here) on select Windows Mobile phones.

Zumobi's downloadable app (available now for Windows Mobile 5 and 6) offers an interface of 16 tiles to help users access key content quickly. Each tile is a widget that's entirely programmed by developers and partners--like Amazon.com, Flickr, and AP Sports--and which is subject to advertising banners. Zumobi's big innovation is the navigation that zooms into tiles … Read more

If Sex and the City popularized the punishments of urban dating, IceBrkr, a London start-up, offers a chance to get through them less battered and bruised.

The Web site, designed to be accessed from desktops and mobile phones, keeps a guest list of IceBrkr members frequenting a select London hot spot, like pub, club, coffee shop, or bar on a given evening. Subscribing singles can spy who's coming, then send text messages to other guys and gals whose online pictures catch their fancy, and await a request to approach or to politely scram.

IceBrkr's free SMS method may … Read more

Ahh, would that Microsoft really were adding an easy button to its Windows Mobile software. But alas, Microsoft is only announcing that it has hired one of the marketing executives behind Staples "easy button" campaign.

Todd Peters, who has also worked at Intel, joined Microsoft on Monday as corporate vice president for Windows Mobile Marketing, reporting to mobile-business head Peter Knook. Peters fills the spot created after Suzan Del Bene left last August.

"Microsoft is gaining a real foothold with its mobile products and services in the consumer world," Peters said in a statement. "I … Read more

If we were editors for a thesaurus, "brag" would become a synonym for "concept." Companies tease consumers all the time with digital renderings of products that never see the light of day. This is why it came as quite a surprise that Polymer Vision, a spinoff from Dutch company Philips, has committed to selling its Readius mobile phone with a rollout display.

This mobile phone is not much bigger than your average candy-bar handset but still manages to include a 5-inch display that can be folded out to one side. The screen is a monochrome one (… Read more

If you frequent trade shows or spend a lot of time making new business contacts, you invariably wind up with stacks of business cards and the tedious task of adding the info to your contact manager. A card scanner can speed up the process considerably; now's your chance to scoop one up for $16.99, shipped, after a $60 mail-in rebate.

The Plustek OptiCard 820 is a portable color scanner designed for business cards and photos up to 4x6 inches. It weighs just under 7 ounces and draws power from your PC's USB port, so there's no … Read more

There's nothing earth-shattering here but Samsung launched a new cell phone for T-Mobile today. The SGH-T819 sports a thin slider design we've seen many times before, but the SGH-T819 offers a redesigned navigation array and a chocolate brown color. The feature set is fairly standard. Inside you'll find a 1.3-megapixel camera, a digital music player, stereo Bluetooth, text and multimedia messaging, a speakerphone, a 262,000-color display, personal organizer applications, a microSD card slot, instant messaging, polyphonic ringtones, and a vibrate mode. The quadband GSM 850/900/1800/1900 handset is available for $99.99 with … Read more

Several news stories have noted that China's Internet user base increased by more than 70 million in 2007 to a count of 213 million at year's end. Little noted is that 23 percent of these users access the Internet from mobile devices, the remainder counted as broadband users.

The statistics, released by the China Internet Network Information Center and reported by ChinaTechNews, do not seem to specify how many of these mobile users also use broadband, and I can't find data on whether people use broadband at home or at work.

CINIC also reported (translated) that almost … Read more

I love e-books. For years I've read them on whatever PDA or smartphone I happened to be carrying at the time. (Currently it's a Palm Centro.)

Sure, the screens are small, but you get used to that pretty quickly. For me, nothing beats the convenience of having a good book in your pocket (or clipped to your belt) everywhere you go.

eReader, one of the oldest e-booksellers, was recently acquired by another e-book veteran, Fictionwise. To celebrate, the company just dropped the prices on over 8,000 titles: Every book over $10 has been discounted up to 20 … Read more

Of the photo solutions mentioned in the BlackBerry forums I've been visiting lately, SplashPhoto and Ascendo Photos were the two most-often mentioned. That's just the kind of head-to-head challenge I like, and I threw in one more, ITookThisOnMyPhone, for flavor.

Ascendo Photos Desktop ($29.95) gathers JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, and PNG photos on your PC in a crisp, smart interface. The photo organization is reminiscent of Picasa--sibling images in a folder are horizontally arranged, with folders scrolling vertically. Photos drag and drop into an emulator, which you use to center the photo and perform basic editing--rotation, flipping, and color correction. Three sizing choices determine if photos appear cropped, shrunken, or alarmingly large. A button click transfers photos from desktop to device.

On the BlackBerry, Ascendo Photos shows transfered images clearly, but not quite cogently. It requires a click too many to see your photos, and the app wastes an opportunity to corral snaps taken from the cell phone. However, there's good file information; options to save to phone or SD memory, add galleries, and assign icons; and the ability to e-mail photos.… Read more