mobile

Episode 608: Shorter days and longer eyelashes

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Sony Ericsson concept with full-size USB port

Another handset that tries too hard? Not quite. We actually would like to see this Sony Ericsson mobile phone with a full-size USB port on store shelves. At least that's one designer Vincent Palicki's dream.

But it's far from reality. From the picture, the concept phone is shown together with a Sony Micro Vault Tiny with exposed USB contacts, so we're not sure if flash storage devices with shielded contacts would work. Also, the alphanumeric keypad could do with larger keys and the control panel more tactility. What were we thinking? This is just a concept … Read more

T-Mobile's new Samsung SGH-T439

T-Mobile and Samsung announced the new SGH-T439 today. It's a slim flip phone (not a new Samsung concept by any means) that sports a 0.60-inch profile and a black-and-blue color scheme. Features are mostly midrange; offerings include a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, a WAP 2.0 Web browser, a music player, a microSD card slot, instant messaging, and quad-band world phone support. Normally $149, you now can get the T439 free with service on T-Mobile's Web site.

User tip: Turn Opera Mini 4 into an iPhone

We love feedback, and this great tip describes the behavior of the new Opera Mini 4 mobile browser on one phone, in a way that challenges iPhone browsing.

This from Marion in Texas:

"Good review on Opera Mini 4, but you should try it on a Pocket PC, too! The interface (using Java midlet) has "the O" working like the iPhone! You tap on the screen and the Web page enlarges, and you can scroll with your finger left to right or top to bottom to view the larger page, as well...who needs iPhone?! Opera Mini … Read more

Zoove improves on SMS short codes

Of the companies I saw yesterday at the Under the Radar: Mobility conference (more stories), the most audacious, and therefore my favorite, was Zoove. This company makes a service and a technology that allows mobile phone users to dial a short code (preceded by **) and then receive information via SMS or e-mail.

Sounds like SMS short codes, right? But there's a big difference: to get data from the Zoove service, you dial your phone. That is you press a code, like "**coke," then the Talk key. It's just like making a call. Except that instead of … Read more

Mobile platform pitches at UTR: Getting media to your pocket

Wrapping up today's pitch sessions at the Under the Radar Mobility conference are four companies focusing on the platform, also known as "how to get things on your phone." It's one of the deepest levels of the mobile space, and also one of the most nebulous and hard to explain.

mPortico (whose name is not to be confused with a pizza place near CNET's San Francisco headquarters) creates the technology for branded memory cards people can stick in their mobile phones that has embedded games, applications, and video content. These cards end up on retail store shelves that anyone can buy and plug in without having to deal with navigating to Web sites or download huge files while on the go. To help save the content from being shared openly, the company has employed a proprietary DRM system.

To get cards to the shelves, mPortico has partnered with Kingston, Universal, and I-Play mobile gaming. Kingston actually makes the memory cards, while mPortico takes care of the rest.

The judges questioned mPortico's move toward solid state storage as a medium instead of going for Web downloads, which mPortico's CEO Shimon Constante noted as offering higher capacities for slower mobile networks while offering consumers a useful piece of storage they can use when they're done with it.

Remotv is a streaming platform that serves up your home content to remote devices. It has a desktop application that you can install on your computer to access your content from anywhere similar to Orb, Simplify Media, and others. They've also got a Facebook app that lets people access their stuff and share it with others. To actually make money off this, Remotv has an integrated directory of content made by both users and content providers that gets mixed with contextual advertisements.

What sets Remotv apart from its competitors is its centralized server system that will take media from your home machine and serve it up to others without sucking up your bandwidth. One of the weaknesses about most other services that offer media sharing is if the machine with your content goes down or has too many people leeching, the system falls apart. … Read more

Meet emerging mobile social networks

New social networks are born each day, and at the Under the Radar conference (see all posts) a new batch is on display. Most are in early funding stages, and one is so new it's still in closed beta. The other three are ready for a try-out.

I'll give Frengo this--it's certainly different than most mobile chatting services. Case in point: Neither of Frengo's main competitors, Twitter and Jaiku, asks users to vote, compete in contests, or earn points. In that sense, a bit of the social-discovery element of social networks creeps in. Except, of course, the goal isn't necessarily to become friends with other users. Frengo is more interested in social collision--sort of a tamer, more innocent Hot or Not. Example? The Flirtable Facebook application launched last Thursday.… Read more

Bango makes mobile Web downloads easy

A company called Bango is trying to make it easier to get content onto your mobile phone.

On Thursday, the company, which specializes in providing back-end technology for mobile Web sites, introduced a link that users can put on regular Web pages to link their content to mobile phones.

The Bango Button, which is free for download on the company's Web site, is designed to be used with blogs and social-networking sites. The way it works is that a user puts the icon or "button" on a Facebook page, which then enables friends who visit the page … Read more

Voice services: Other people making money on your mouth

Voice services are the next generation of technology evolving from person-to-person phone calls. Voice services can solve some of the big problems like having to press buttons or pay attention to what you're doing. That's good for people with vision problems and for road warriors. In the past, people associated automated voice services with the fictional computer of the Starship Enterprise, but these days we're able to use it for mobile Web services like GOOG-411 and 1-800-DIRECTIONS, which showed off their stuff in the last session.

First up was Lypp, which offers a mobile conference-calling platform. Lypp … Read more