kyocera

After years of producing only CDMA cell phones, Kyocera announced today that it would neglect GSM user no longer. At CTIA the company unveiled four GSM handsets, all of which are destined for the Latin American market. They range from the feature-rich to the basic and functional while offering a selection of designs. Here's a roundup of the four new models.

Kyocera E4600 A slider phone vaguely reminiscent of a Motorola Rizr, the E4600 is the flagship model of the series. It offers an MP3 player, a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, an expandable memory slot, a 262,000-color display, and … Read more

Paul McDougall at InformationWeek may be reading too much into Microsoft's recent patent deal with Kyocera, but he does ask an interesting question. Does the agreement reveal Microsoft's patent position, at least as it relates to embedded Linux? (Or does it simply reveal that Japanese companies would rather settle with Microsoft than stand up for themselves, since they seem to be falling like flies before Microsoft's patent FUD?)

McDougall writes:

Under the deal, Microsoft gets to add patented Kyocera Mita technology to its Windows and Office products.

What does Kyocera get? The right to use patented Microsoft technology in its printers, copiers and "certain Linux-based embedded devices."… Read more

Microsoft said late Tuesday that it has signed a patent-swap deal with Kyocera Mita, the latest in a string of such announcements. Like many of those arrangements, Kyocera is getting protection for its use of Linux in various products.

Microsoft is also getting the right to use Kyocera Mita's patents in products like Windows and Office. The two companies did not announce the financial terms for the deal.

Other recent deals by Microsoft include agreements with TurboLinux, Linspire, Xandros, Samsung, LG, and Fuji Xerox.

Virgin Mobile has been selling the Kyocera Wild Card since October 7, but it's finally making the phone available to its retail partners like Best Buy, Target, and RadioShack.

Also known as the Kyocera M1000, the Wild Card is exactly the same as Cricket's Lingo except for a few services that only Virgin Mobile offers.… Read more

Alas Sanyo, we hardly knew ye. It looks like the rumblings of a Sanyo mobile division shutdown from earlier this year came true after all. Reuters reports that Sanyo has reached an agreement to sell off its mobile phone division to Kyocera, making it the world's seventh-largest cell phone provider. The sales price hasn't been finalized, though it sounds like the sale is pretty much done. Even after a number of notable cell phone releases this year, like the two new Sanyo Katanas--the Sanyo Katana DLX and the Sanyo Katana II--Sanyo was just not getting the market … Read more

Though Kyocera made a big splash earlier this year at CTIA with some fancy new cell phones, carriers haven't exactly been rushing to pick them up. Or on the other hand, maybe Kyocera has just been fine-tuning its new toys.

But in any case, Cricket yesterday said it would offer the Kyocera M1000. Now called the Lingo, the M1000 offers much more than meets the eye. Though it may look like an ordinary candy-bar phone at first glance, it opens up horizontally (much like the LG enV) to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard for easy messaging. The Lingo is … Read more

I was in the Air Force in 1983, serving at Hahn AB in Germany (now a civilian facility somewhat misleadingly renamed Frankfurt Hahn Airport, although it's 110 km-- 68 miles-- away from Frankfurt).

In March, I was given a temporary duty assignment back to the US, and I was able to take some leave to go back home to Miami.

I dropped in at the old Radio Shack Computer Center, where I used to hang around-- yeah, I was the kind of kid who would hang around at a Radio Shack Computer Center-- and they had this new gizmo for sale.… Read more

The last day of CTIA is always quiet as show attendees hurry to the airport and the convention center begins the changeover to whatever show comes next. Yet, that didn't stop our editors from nosing around for the last bits of news.

We checked out Kyocera's Bluetooth Music Gateway, CallWave's new Vtxt application and we caught news of the Nokia 5700 Xpress Music, the update to the admirable Nokia 5300. Bonnie Cha posted a slide show for the new Motorola phones, and I gathered several shots of the action on the show floor.

As we said earlier, … Read more

Beyond showing its slick new cell phones at CTIA, Kyocera also demonstrated its new Bluetooth Music Gateway. This nifty device receives music from any stereo Bluetooth phone or device and then transfers the tunes to your home stereo via a standard RCA cable. You can see it here with the Kyocera E5000 music phone. Though not the first such device on the market, it still caught our eye due to its compact design and simple, easy-to-use functionality. It's also reasonably priced at $79.99. Look for a full review from CNET in the next couple weeks.

The company also … Read more