Wireless

Mobile phone operators may face legislation from the European Commission to crack down on what the EU executive sees as overcharging, but industry said such a step would amount to micro-management. European Union Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding is concerned that some mobile operators are charging by the minute rather than second for calls made while traveling between EU states. - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Mobile phone operators may face legislation from the European Commission to crack down ...

Vimpelcom, Russia's second-largest mobile phone operator, said on Thursday it had signed a distribution deal with Apple Inc. to sell iPhone 3G in Russia. Vimpelcom announced today it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring iPhone 3G to Russia, expected later this year. - MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vimpelcom, Russia's second-largest mobile phone operator, said on Thursday it had signed a distribution deal with Apple Inc. to sell iPhone 3G in Russia. quot;Vimpelcom announced today it has signed...

Sony's joint venture with cell phone maker Ericsson must do better, Sony's CEO Howard Stringer said. Asked whether Sony is planning to end its Sony-Ericsson joint venture, Sony CEO Howard Stringer told German newspaper Die Welt: It's certainly been a difficult year but buying out a partner is never an easy thing. Sony CEO Howard Stringer added that it was hard for a company to be as nimble as possible when it works in a joint venture. - FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Sony's joint venture with cell ...

A Chinese factory worker at an Apple iPhone factory has become an Internet sensation after a picture of her smiling and flashing a peace sign to a co-worker testing an Apple iPhone stayed on the phone that was sold to a man in Britain. Photos of the unidentified Apple iPhone factory worker were posted on the Apple discussion website MacRumours.com by a customer identified as markm49uk from Kingston-upon-Hull and quickly posted around other sites. Some people voiced concern that the Apple iPhon...

With its latest two devices #8211;the Treo 800w for the Sprint network and the unlocked, 3G Treo Pro for GSM providers #8211;Palm has rejoined the modern smart phone community, packing in features such as 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, 3G connectivity and integrated GPS found in most current-generation smart phones. Palm is aiming both devices at corporate customers #8211;both run Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and will work out of the box with Microsoft #8217;s back-end mobile management systems #8211;but t...

Review: The Motorola U9, part of the mobile phone makers LiMo Phone line, impresses with a strong signal, good voice quality, a decent camera and MP3 player plus Java support. Linux Devices' Henry Kingman takes the Motorola U9 Linux Mobile phone through its paces. - The Motorola U9, part of the mobile phone makers LiMo (Linux Mobile) Phone line, with its quot;mesmerizing quot; external OLED display, strong radio, and small, finger-friendly form factor could make the U9 a top seller. 1:...

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi says a weakening global economy will stunt cell phone market sales in 2008. Indeed, cell phone sales in this key region for phone makers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson fell 16 percent year-over-year in the first quarter and 8 percent in the second quarter. No mention how the slowdown will impact Apple's highly touted iPhone. - HELSINKI - A weakening global economy will blunt cell phone market sales growth this year, research firm Gartner said on Wednesday. Gart...

USB solar chargers are nothing new; we have seen several including the Brando Solar USB charger before. One of the things each of the solar chargers has in common is a rather blocky and utilitarian design. A new solar charger concept makes for a cool looking charger that looks like a bonsai tree. Each of the trees leaves is a small solar cell for collecting power. The concept uses little limb sections that connect with what appear to be headphone style plugs. This allows you to build any shape t...

HeadlinesIntel Releases USB 3.0 Controller Interface Spec (xHCI)USB 2.0 Achieves 60% of its Intended SpeedWireless USB Speed up, Finally... FireWire is Back! DisplayLink USB Video Supports for Vista 64-bitSkuku USB SIM Stick Saves $$$ on Roaming CallsIomega's Low-cost Missing Link between DivX and TVAsus 'Pulse Rate' Detector MouseUSB Instant Messaging Man is Always WhackingUSB Dongle Breaks Great Firewall of ChinaBio-Degradable Flash DriveSony DSC-T700 10.3MP 4GB Camera2008 Beijing Olympics Fla...

One of the most common threads between many notebook and desktop computers using on-board sound is that the sound quality is typically not good. Creative has announced a new product that should fix the problem with poor sound quality on most computers. The product is called the Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! and the dongle uses X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity technology. The sound card plugs into the USB port of a computer and has 1GB of built-in flash memory. The software needed to install and run the X-Fi Go! is...

Samsung maybe hard at work bringing out the next best cellphone, but that doesn't mean the Koreans have stopped thinking about MP3 player. Planning to be unveiled at IFA, Samsung YP-Q1 has received a little design overhaul. It appears to be a mid-range DAP, and will use physical controls unlike the P2. The vertically-oriented Q1 accompanied by a 2.4" screen has a diamond-shaped control that is reportedly touch-sensitive. The GUI is reminiscent of that of the P2 also. The YP-Q1 will come in 4...

Displaylink and Intel must be working towards on a long term goal to persuade more people to adopt multi-monitor setup. A joint press release said the duo has been working on optimizing Displaylink's USB video technology for Intel 4 Series Express chipset family. This should be interesting as corporate PCs and low-end home PCs aren't as expandable and are limited to an on-board graphics card providing a single DVI or VGA interface. A USB monitor like the Samsung 940UX provides the extra deskt...

Even though Beijing Olympics was over, Lenovo - gold sponsor of the multi-sport event - still has a boatload of commemorative gadgets left over. Among those are of course all the different Olympics USB thumbdrives and now a quintet of wired USB mice that are named after each of the Fuwa mascots: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and NiNi. The mouse asymmetrical design reportedly took six months to complete, after no less than two hundred modifications. The 1000 dpi optical mice are elevate...

For a long time the missing link with digital photography was the ability to print images in any room of the home and carry a printer with you on the go. The latest line of photo printers from many manufacturers are very portable and allow you to print the images you take digitally virtually anywhere. The latest portable photo printers from Canon and are called the Selphy ES3 and ES30. The pair of printers share many of the same features like a 15 format memory card reader, PictBridge compatibil...

Every time we turn around there seems to be some new Star Wars themed gear for computers. Most of the stuff is rather goofy if you ask me - like the Star Wars Mimobots. Despite the goofy factor, the latest Star Wars USB gadget is sort of cool. The gadget is called the Star Wars Desktop USB Lightsabre Lamp. The little lightsabre charges via your USB port and when turned on it works as one really cool desklamp any geek would be proud to own. The device stand keeps the lightsabre lamp upright in al...

Filed under: WirelessSprint's oft-delayed XOHM service is finally about to go live, ready to launch in Baltimore sometime next month ahead of Chicago and D.C. later this year. We already know about the potential joys of city-wide 4G access, so Sprint is taking this opportunity to talk up "geobrowsing," uLocate-based functionality that enables WiMax surfers to get location-specific info on traffic, events, and weather, provided by third-parties like Google and NAVTEQ. With Sprint offering profit ...

Filed under: Wirelessdigg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/802_11r_WiFi_roaming_standard_approved';While 802.11n has been stuck in endless certification hell for years, the IEEE keeps cranking out additional wireless standards -- the latest is 802.11r, which allows devices to move from access point to access point with less than 50ms in downtime, even for authenticated connections. That's quick enough to keep a voice call alive, which should make the next generation of VoIP phones and other devi...

Nokia unveiled two new high-end phone models, the N79 and the N85, as the world's top cellphone maker battles against increasing competition from the likes of Apple and Samsung. The news lifted shares in Nokia more than 2 percent on Tuesday as it reassured investors the company was on track to refresh its offering for the key Christmas sales period. - HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia unveiled two new high-end phone models, the N79 and the N85, as the world's top cellphone maker battles against inc...

1.8" hard drive capacity hasn't quite caught up with that of 2.5", but at least Samsung has broken through the 100GB barrier with the its SpinPoint N2. Besides begging Apple to buy a million of these for future iPod classic and MacBook Air, Sammy is also pushing the drive in Chinese market. It doesn't appear there's an official name for the 120GB USB drive in a glossy black enclosure with the size of a credit card. What we do know it's incredible power saver with impressive performance. The 4...

In a nod to mobile and wireless security, Google Android advocates explain why the SDK for the forthcoming Android mobile operating system won't include Google Talk and Bluetooth wireless support. GTalkService just wasn't safe as a Remote Procedure Call, while the Bluetooth API just wasn't finished. Both are admitted failures to finish APIs that could have proved useful, but expect Android to produce a new RPC system and support Bluetooth in the future. - Google's Android team extended an oli...

KVM switches traditionally take multiple USB and DVI/VGA cables and connect them to the PCs which you can control from a single set of keyword, video monitor and mouse (hence the acronym KVM). Therefore, for every additional PC sharing on the KVM, there are two additional cables (USB & video). IOGear's new USB Laptop KVM Switch however goes with a different approach in that the same USB cable is used to carry video data as well, saving you from lugging a VGA cable around. It does seem like it...

Here comes another practical WUSB application (and "native" peripheral) that follows Kensington Wireless USB Dock Station. The IOGear Wireless USB to VGA Kit is touted as an alternate in-room display adapter that can stream HD (720p) within a 30-foot range wirelessly. You could say this is another niche multimedia product for connecting your PC (XP 32-bit, Vista 32-/64-bit) to a projector or a LCD TV. However, when you come across wiring obstacles such as marble and fireplaces, cutting this ...

T-Mobile CEO Hamid Akhavan says his business sold more than 120,000 of Apple's new 3G iPhones, which hit retail stores to much fanfare July 11 and proved a smash hit for the mobile and wireless space. The news indicates that problems delivering consumers the popular gadgets has been solved. The question is: will 3G iPhone's spotty connection issues get resolved? - FRANKFURT - Deutsche Telekom's wireless business T-Mobile has sold more than 120,000 new 3G iPhones since its sales launch on July...

Dream Cheeky once again brings us yet another questionably useful USB gadget. The USB Webmail Notifier reportedly works in the background to inform you of new emails by illuminating in blue, red or green. It even tells you the capacity of unread emails by audible alerts. Supposedly, a soft red illumination means an incoming email arrived in Gmail, but you can associate each of the three colors with a different email client. The bundled software will work with Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook Express an...

Weird USB drives are popular among users and companies looking to hand out memorable trinkets to employees and customers. Some of the most memorable flash drives we have seen in a while would have to be the new line of Star Wars Mimobot drives. Those wanting a flash drive that looks like a person, but is perhaps a little less geeky than the Mimobot, can get their own USB People drive. The USB People flash drive is exactly what it sounds like - a USB flash drive that has movable arms and legs. Th...