Archive for December, 2005

Pay for the bus with your phone

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005

In light of the MTA transit strike here in NYC; I thought this would be an interesting news bit to share. As the MTA struggles to allow cell phone coverage in subway stations, in Finland they have given cell phone users the ability to pay for the bus with their ...

Big Brother is Tracking your Mobile Phone

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005

The US Department of Justice has been hammering the courts for the ability to track mobile phones without warrants. Several failed attempts did not deter the DOJ from their mission. It seems that they eventually found a court which was stupid sympathetic enough to realize their vision. The EFF notes that, ...

Nokia Adds N-Gage Gaming to Series 60 Handsets

Wednesday, December 21st, 2005

Series 60, Nokia's bread and butter operating system, is getting features once exclusive to the N-Gage handsets. "N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of developing a new category. We learnt that people want to play games on all devices. As such we ...

NTP Patents to be thrown out, RIM exhales

Wednesday, December 21st, 2005

A few weeks ago it looked that RIM's Blackberry email service may have gone dark. However, it seems that the USPTO is backtracking, after realizing that NTP's patents are "bad". This move is very unconventional for the Patent Office, but no doubt stems from the very public case which is putting ...

MBlox Pays for Jamster Ad Plays

Tuesday, December 20th, 2005

(I had to make it rhyme.) By now we are all familiar with Jamster's legal battles due to misleading advertisements. If not, click the previous link and read. Anywho, it appears that in the ICSTIS, UK's mobile premium service regulator, has fined MBlox, not Jamster, $70k and ordered them to pay ...

Get Your Mobile Voicemail in Email

Tuesday, December 20th, 2005

Waiting around for your cellco to deliver your voicemails to your email box. Should be easy enough. My Asterisk PBX can do it; so can most modern voicemail systems. Should be a no brainer for the cellcos. Wait no more, a friend of mine turned me on to GotVoice- a ...

Crazy Frog headed to the silver screen or graveyard?

Tuesday, December 20th, 2005

Emily, a professed Crazy Frog fan, shares 2 links with us today. The first is a report indicating that Crazy Frog may make an appearance on the silver screen. After having a successful music CD release in the UK, they are looking to give Crazy Frog fans more. On the ...

Theater Owners to FCC: We Want Cell Jammers

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Engadget reprots that theater owners will petition FCC to jam cellphones. With flat panel prices in free-fall and sizes approaching those anaemic megaplex screens, it’s no wonder the National Association of Theater Owners is in a panic about the decline in consumers willing to slap down a near-sawbuck to watch a ...

Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Boost Mobile

Monday, December 19th, 2005

A few weeks ago, CSI users felt slighted when they cross-promoted Coldplay ringtones in a CSI:NY episode. Hoping to break new ground, the episode and producers only drew criticism for the ringtone product placement. CSI:NY's audience may not be the ringtone industry's target market, but Aqua Teen Hunger Force is. Last ...

Xbox Live SMS text alerts - Yawn

Monday, December 19th, 2005

XBOX 360 is set to add SMS alerts to XBOX Live!. FYI, the XBOX Live! messaging feature is pretty much MSN Messenger in disguise. So, in essence, MSN Messenger, not XBOX, will allow you to send text messages to cell phones from the console. Something AOL has had for many ...