mobile

We've long wondered if there'd ever be a digital equivalent to two tin cans a string (other than our lousy cell phone, that is), and this is the closest thing we've ever seen.

The "Boosted Tin Can Speaker Set" is the product of a collaboration between Sprint's Boost Mobile and various graffiti artists, according to Tech Digest. The 5-inch speakers are more for looks than for sound, but that's just fine with us: Anything that applies graffitti to something other than our car or house is a good thing.

Google will unveil its long-anticipated plan to bring its software to cell phones within the next two weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Monday citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

The "Google-powered" phones are expected to make it to market by mid-2008, possibly from Taiwan's HTC, South Korea's LG Electronics, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, France Telecom's Orange SA and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s 3 U.K., the report says. In addition to the ad-supported phone services bundling Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail, the operating system would be open to developers … Read more

It takes a second to realize that what you see on Dashwire.com's cool gray interface is content from your mobile phone. That's probably because you're not used to reading it so easily.

There on Dashwire's spacious Internet dashboard are your photos and videos, contacts, bookmarks, and SMS and call history laid out in movable AJAX tiles. There are ringtones you can click on the Web to play on your phone, and text messages you can reply to with your keyboard, and which are tagged with your identifying phone number so your friends know who sent … Read more

Have you ever found yourself in this quandary? You walk into your cell phone carrier's store, looking to purchase your first smartphone but you're too old to get a device like the T-Mobile Sidekick and yet, you're not really ready for a full-featured beast like the AT&T Tilt. So what's a girl or boy to do? Well, it seems the handset manufacturers and carriers are hip to this problem and are trying to fill the void in the market by releasing more user-friendly, affordable, and fun smartphones. We saw it with the Palm Centro … Read more

Culminating in a party at San Francisco's Rickshaw Stop last night, the biggest Web browser publisher from Norway--also, the only Web browser publisher from Norway--kicked off a number of beta versions. Opera 9.5 beta 1 and Opera Mini 4 beta 3 were made public yesterday, introducing a heap of new features.

… Read more

Cell phones weren't the only items giving off heat on the CTIA conference showroom floor this week. There was also the sizzling of a virtual mobile world, a preview of Guitar Hero Mobile, and really neat motion-sensor games.

Take a look at what was new and interesting in the latest video.

Talkster has been getting some buzz from fellow CTIA-goers. The new international dialing service is offering free global calls in exchange to listening to a few ads. The VoIP-based, phone-centered service feels like the perfect Skype (download) and Pincity mashup. It's free like Skype, and also relies on a VoIP backbone, but like Pincity, Talkster makes use of local numbers to initiate mobile and landline calls.

It sure sounds irresistible, and I've read a few glowing reviews, but in actuality it's a bit tricky. Talkster members enter their number and the number they're calling, and Talkster assigns a new, local number for callers on each end of the line. Say what?

If I want to call my sister in England, I enter both our phone numbers and receive a third number in my 415 area code. That's my permanent number for the phone number I just entered. My sister will get a number for me too. If I want to catch her at home, work, and on her cell phone for free, I'll need to enter each phone number and get three separate Talkster lines.

It wouldn't be so confusing if that were all, but of course it's not. Initiating a call isn't merely the result of dialing one of my Talkster-issued local numbers. There's an order to the calling system. Let's say I initiate the call to my darling sib using a Talkster phone number. I dial the appointed number in my area code and she picks up. But we can't talk yet. She first has to hang up while I stay on the line. My sister then quickly locates her local number, and while Talkster servers do some speedy math to connect our loose ends together, we both listen to an ad. Or that's the plan as soon as Talkster's ad deals are in place.… Read more

David Goldfarb's phone won't stop ringing.

The Vringo CTO is giving me a demo of Vringo's video ringtone service, now in public beta, to demonstrate how users can assign phone-formatted video clips as their outgoing ringtones. David has chosen a humorous singing cartoon of a green bear as his video calling card. He's set it up so that any phone he calls with a Vringo client will light up with his chosen video. If so desired, he could limit the output to his wife and send everyone else a much more sober video to announce his call.

Vringo reverses the conventional ringtone concept of users choosing songs to differentiate between contacts, entertain themselves with favorite songs, or make a stylistic statement. Here individuals control how they're perceived by friends, and can use "vringos" as a gift or personalized greeting. Users can upload their own clips on Vringo.com or record clips from within the Vringo phone app. It's easy to see how users could create happy birthday messages or video gifts.… Read more

Thumb open an ordinary flip or slide phone and nothing happens, except maybe the triggering of a robotic greeting (Hello to you, too, Moto.) Do it again with a phone enriched with Emdigo's 3D offering and football players might rush by.

The carrier-partnered content distributor isn't one I'd normally cover, but the offering is an example of compelling 3D software coming our way. Similar third-party, carrier-agnostic downloads are sure to follow.

NFL Team Tailgate and Hello Kitty are two such examples of these enhanced animated skins that users can purchase through Verizon and Alltel. Flipping or sliding … Read more