mobile

At the Office 2.0 conference, as you probably know, every attendee got an iPhone with their paid admission. There was a very useful iPhone-friendly Web site set up, and several companies were showing off shiny new iPhone business applications.

But is the iPhone a business-class product? I talked to the developers making applications for this platform, and to attendees at the conference, and came up with a disheartening answer: It is not. From the two-handed interface to capricious keyboard to the slow Edge network to the lack of a real developer's interface to the phone, it's just … Read more

For the hardware buffs out there, this morning's panel on "New Devices for Mobile Workers" at the Web 2.0 Conference was all about the tools out there to get work done while outside of the office. Laptops and PCs are far from disappearing from the work landscape, but with mobile development for iPhone we're starting to see that people like accessing work and play while away from their home base.

Battery life: The difficulty in using online office apps is that they require a constant Wi-fi connection, something that's partially being solved … Read more

We hinted at this a couple months ago, but Virgin Mobile has now made it official. The carrier's first Bluetooth phone, the Super Slice from UTStarcom, will be available by mid-September for $59.99. Besides Bluetooth, the Super Slice adds a VGA camera and a new user interface. All other features are carried over from the original Slice handset, including its thin (0.4 inch) profile. Check back soon for a review.

Ha! And people thought the PDA was dead. Today, HP introduced two new models to its iPaq line of handhelds: the HP iPaq 110 Classic Handheld and HP iPaq 210 Enterprise Handheld. Now, in this day and age of smart phones, will this type of classic PDA fly? I say yes. There are still plenty of people who want one device for organizing their contacts and appointments while keeping their cell phone separate. And heck, since Dell exited the handheld market in April and there hasn't been a new PDA from Palm in years, HP fills that void. Both … Read more

In addition to several other mobile product announcements today, HP showed off two new smart phones, and they're not for the faint of heart.

First, there's the HP iPaq 610 Business Navigator, a quad-band mobile with support for HSDPA and assisted GPS with integrated Google Maps. The Windows Mobile 6 (Professional Edition) device is also equipped with Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g with WPA2 security), 256MB Flash ROM/128MB SDRAM, and a 3-megapixel camera. Like the previous HP iPaq 510 Voice Messenger, the iPaq 610 has more of a voice-centric focus and includes the same advanced … Read more

With most of the focus being placed on new iPods, much of my focus (yes, I watched it) was on the Starbucks deal.

And while some coffee fanatics believe this is the greatest announcement since the iPod itself, I'm left wondering if there are some implications for AT&T.

Considering every wireless-equipped Starbucks in the nation is using T-Mobile's services and that same company is an AT&T competitor, how much can AT&T like the announcement made today that the iPod Touch and, more importantly, the iPhone will be able to connect to the Starbucks Wi-Fi? I think AT&T is upset.… Read more

Regional cell phone operator MetroPCS Communications bid Tuesday to buy competitor Leap Wireless International in a deal worth more than $5 billion in stock.

MetroPCS, which went public in April, said in a press release Tuesday that it would offer 2.75 of its shares for each outstanding common share of Leap. This represents a value of $75.05 based on Friday's closing price and is only 3 percent higher than Leap's closing price on Friday.

MetroPCS also said it would refinance $2 billion of Leap's debt as part of the deal.

"We believe that the … Read more

Just when you thought it was safe to talk on your cell phone.

Now some scientists say there is a chance that talking on a mobile phone for as little as 10 minutes could trigger changes in the brain that are associated with cancer, according to a story published on Thursday by the The Daily Mail.

The article said that researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel discovered that exposure to even low levels of radiation from mobile handsets could interfere with how brain cells divide, thus causing tumors.

But the scientists said there was no evidence to … Read more

Today Opera announced the latest release of its mobile browser, Opera Mini 4 beta 2. What makes this build stand out are some software trinkets designed especially for BlackBerry devices. Webware.com editor Josh Lowensohn described them in a news release. Now it's time to describe their effect on a luminescent BlackBerry Pearl I just happened to get in my possession.

In most cases, Opera Mini 4 beta 2 performed exactly as promised--beautifully fast and with a clean interface. I was able to scroll with the pointer mouse (a hand with index finger extended), play with screen width, and take advantage of zooming and scrolling with keypad numbers.… Read more