Techarati

Testing a new phone, the Nokia E62

Readers, I am testing a new phone, the Nokia E62 from Cingular.  The Nokia E62 is the 'light' version of the Nokia E61, which eliminates 3G and WiFi from the line up.  In addition to testing the phone itself, I am also testing Blackberry Connect, which I find has little written about this fascinating expansion for Blackberry into non-native devices.

So far, my first impressions are very positive, the phone has a great form factor, and the screen is incredibly crisp.  I was concerned that I might be facing a steep learning curve adapting to the new menus (to me that is) of the Symbian Series 60 UI, especially after using Motorola devices for so long,... but then again I was a long term tester for the Windows based Seimens SX-66, and the Palm Treo 650… yet so far it seems rather easy and natural to navigate within the device.

After I have had the phone for a week I will detail my thoughts and experiences in a review, so expect something new in the pipeline soon!

Nokia E62 from Cingular
Quad Band, Edge
MiniSD
Qwerty Keyboard
Hi res color screen
Blackberry Connect Software

[Nokia E62] [Nokia E62 from Cingular] [Blackberry Connect]

SXSW tickets via cellphone SMS

South By Southwest (SXSW) Austin, Tx., one of the largest film festivals in the U.S., with over 1331 bands playing live across seven days at 58 venues, offered wrist bands early to a lucky few who signed up via cell phone SMS message this evening (Wednesday Night, Febraury 22nd). 

The messages directed the interested to tickets being sold at Waterloo records in downtown Austin.

According to the SXSW official site:

If you are a SXSW Registrant, sign up and receive special notices through the Online Registrant's Directory. SXSW will send you alerts and updates specific to your badge type from last minute schedule changes, special events, breaking news and more. Get the latest lowdown and don't miss a thing!

In addition to an early notice of ticket sales, SXSW SMS, will also will notify you of band schedules, as well as allow you to vote in the Film Festival Audience Award, or vote for your SXSW favorite film.

"To sign up for general updates and alerts about SXSW 2006 just send the text message 'sx add' to '56658' from your mobile phone!"

Click here for more SXSW SMS info! or here for the latest SXSW info!

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Update: According to those who have recieved the text messages, there will be more wristbands on sale to the public Thursday, February 23rd, at Waterloo Records in Austin, Tx.

MobileTracker.net

Folks, I just thought I would give you an update as to what's going on here at Techarati and LoftyWords.

I realize post have been sparse for the last week, even though there has been quite a bit of cell phone news and breaking loft news to write about. Interestingly, I have been writing about cell phones all week, but not for Techarati.

Two weeks ago I accepted a position over at MobileTracker.net with Jon Gales, as the new News Editor, and as you can imagine with 3GSM going full tilt in Barcelona, there has been an inordinate amount of work!

As I ease into my new role, find the virtual bathroom and water cooler, I will develop the time management skills to write for Techarati and LoftyWords again (hey these are my babies, right...).

Nokia N80

The next big cell phone from Nokia is the new N80.

Here are the facts as I know them today:

                                                     

Shp. Weight	2.00 lbs
Band	GSM UMTS/ GSM 850/ GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 - OEM FACTORY UNLOCKED
Technology	3g/umts, BLUETOOTH, CAMCORDER, CAMERA, COLOR, EDGE, EMS, fm radio, gprs, IM, INFRARED, JAVA, MMS, mp3, PDA, pic book, POLYPHONIC, sd slot, SMARTPHONE, SMS, t9, upnp ready, video play, WAP, wi-fi, XHTML
Design	Slider

Here is what the pros over at celluloco.com have to say:

Nokia N80 N Series 3G/EDGE/Bluetooth/Wi-fi Enabled  Quadband Slider/Media Device with 3Mbpixel Camera/Camcorder, FM Radio, MP3 Player, 40Mb Shared Memory, Up to 2Gb miniSD Slot

Nokia N80, the first ever handset to enable seamless home media networking between compatible TVs, audio systems and PCs. The Nokia N80 reflects and harmonizes work and personal life through leading on-the-go productivity tools, multimedia entertainment and mobile photography in a design that communicates success. Weighing only 134 grams, the compact yet feature-rich 3G multimedia device is packed with performance, providing fast internet access and convenient intuitive browsing as well as the possibility to send and receive emails at Wireless LAN (WLAN) speeds.

Watching mobile TV beats out reading the newspaper!

A new Korean study shows that people will spend more time watching Mobile TV (DMB) then they spend reading the newspaper according to the Korean Broadcasting Advertising Company.

The study's results, titled "Consumer Behavior 2005", are inline with the world wide trend of the last decade witnessing consumers migrating away from paper based products, and towards electronic versions of the same products (i.e.: email vs. postal mail).

A synapses of the results show that the average Korean consumer spends 82 minutes watching TV, spends 61 minutes watching mobile TV (DMB), and only 42 minutes reading the newspaper each day. The most popular content on mobile TV is News - 19.2%, movies - 14.5%, and music - 14.4%, with 45% of mobile TV (dmb) users being in their 20's. Though most of these figures line up squarely with most first world nations, the most surprising figure was that DMB consumers are more willing to endure advertising versus other media (DMB 77.7%, Regular TV 74.2%, and Radio 68.8%).

Via: MobileMag.Com

One Cable to Rule Them All.

One connection for all device mania has hit, and it's about damned time!

Today's breaking news is that a beavy of computer industry heavyweights want to create a new device connection between your monitor and computer called the unified display interface or UDI, by Q1 2006. This interface will not only be used for computers but also for consumer entertainment electronics unifying the two, seperated at birth, industries. UDI will be backwards compatible with DVI, and looking forward, will be compatable with HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), the standard digital interface for High Definition TVs (HDTVs). Sadly, UDI will also use High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), a technology used today in HDMI-compatible products to prevent copying media to other devices.

Industry heavyweights involved in the movement to create this new interface (folks, it's just a new fangled cable) include: Apple, Intel Corp., LG Electronics, National Semiconductor Corp., Samsung Electronics and Silicon Image Inc., NVIDIA Corp., THine Electronics Inc., FCI, Foxconn Electronics Inc. and JAE Electronics Inc.. You can read the entire press release at eHome Upgrade.

Although this sounds to be an improvements, we already have a tangle of cords hidden behind our desks to deal with today. Lets take a look at a short and incomplete list, video (DVI/VGA), sound, three variations of USB, two variations of FireWire, our ancient standard power cord, ethernet, and now the Computer/Entertainment industry wishes to add another cable... whew, it almost makes a tech geek like me want to run and hide. I hope that this new cable standard will carry sound, USB and FireWire to the monitor, so that the snarl of cords really does get tempered.

This news follows closely on the heals of South Korean cell phone manufacturer's initiative aimed at creating one cable for all cell phones, making it easier for consumers to utilize their devices, and increasing the sales of cell phone accessories. You can read more about this development at engadget.com.

One Cable to Rule Them All.
One Cable to Find Them,
One Cable to Bring Them All
And in the Darkness Bind Them!

Cingular rebates, that burning feeling...

Gizmodo.com is running a post about how a reader was gypped by Cingular with their new rebate for the RAZR phones.  Cingular is sending out Visa Debit Rewards Cards in leu of rebate checks.  I know this readers pain first hand, as I just bought two phones (Siemens SX 66 and a Sony Ericsson s710a) from Cingular for my wife and I, and we received our $150.00 rebate in the form of three separately mailed $50 Visa Rewards cards.  You can't use them to pay for most things online... like my hosting service, or my Gizmo Minutes, you can't get cash back from an ATM, and you must use them inside at your local stop-n-rob for gas (pay at the pump won't work). 

All I can say is two words, "class action" anyone?

Mobile news from around the web...

Samsung Super Slim Slider Phone (via Mobile Burm)
Blackberry connect for Palm Treo's (via Mobile Tracker)
New Sony WalkMan Phone the W900i (via Sony Press Release)
iTunes Phone, Motorola ROKR Reviewed (via Mobile Tracker)

Cingular to launch 3G November 1st.

Hidden internal documents found on Cingular's web site confirms that the company plans to launch a nationwide 3G network on November 1st. The markets in the initial launch include: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco / San Jose / Oakland, Seattle / Tacoma and Washington / Baltimore / NoVa. Some of these markets are large overlapping metro areas.

According to Phone Scoop, "Cingular expects throughput speeds of 220-320 Kbps on the network, which is slower than what HSDPA is capable of, however the Sierra Aircard 860 is an HSDPA specific device, lending credibility to Cingular's statements that the network would be HSDPA on launch."

Coincidentally, the FCC web site let slip that a second new Motorola RAZR 3G phone has been approved for the U.S. Market, the Motorola RAZR V3x, as detailed on techarati.com two weeks ago, and on phonescoop.com today.

phonescoop.com
cingular.com>/a>
3G Phones

The New Motorola V3x - Q4 2004!

Folks, the latest and greatest from Motorola has dropped today, in the form of a good old fashion Hollywood remake - the new RAZR V3x - essentially a redux of the enormously popular RAZR V3.

This is a great series of upgrades to an already great phone. The transflash will be the greatest boon to those who keep large address books, extensive calendars, personalized ringtones, and who actually take picture with their cell phones.

The Motorola V3x (according to Motorola press materials):

Be seen and heard with the Motorola RAZR V3x – the supremely svelte, sophisticated mobile accessory for discerning fashion and tech enthusiasts. The handset’s intuitive multimedia offerings include: real-time 2-way video calling*, still and moving image capture and editing, and large color display. Additionally, the Motorola RAZR V3x features SCREEN3*, an innovative technology solution from Motorola that gives you zero-click access to news, sports, entertainment, and other premium content directly from your mobile device home screen* – no buttons to push, no browsers to launch. Motorola's SCREEN3 puts fresh content at your fingertips. A 2 mega-pixel camera, Bluetooth® wireless technology* and removable memory add to this lengthy feature set. Strutting a sleek, slim design and premium functionality, the Motorola RAZR V3x exudes multimedia perfection.

Creative Liberty
Two cameras are better than one. Open up a world of mobile visual imagery with a 2 mega-pixel camera to capture still and moving images combined with a VGA camera for 2-way video calling*. Extend your mobile artistry further with editing capabilities, allowing you to manipulate images and then share via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) *.

Patience Not Required
Choose to rely on the Motorola RAZR V3x to streamline your information and make life easier. Enjoy non-stop access to current events, news and celebrity gossip via Motorola’s dynamic idle solution. And, Bluetooth* connectivity furthers convenience by allowing the ability to talk hands-free using compatible Bluetooth* enabled accessories.

Get Blown Away
With progressive downloading, you can download media files and view them almost instantaneously, or store them and view at your convenience*. Still not impressed? 3D graphics energize your gaming entertainment, making each twist, turn and supersonic blast seem real. And with up to 512 megabytes (MB) of optional removable memory, you can download* and store music, games and videos from dusk till dawn.

SUMMARY OF FEATURES:

Sleek streamlined housing with large, vivid color external and internal displays
2 megapixel camera with 8x zoom, macro mode setting and , LED
VGA camera for 2-way video calling*
Bluetooth wireless technology* supports wireless stereo sound through Motorola’s Bluetooth Stereo Headset and other compatible Bluetooth enabled accessories for hands-free communication
Up to 512 MB of removable optional TransFlash™ memory
Motorola's SCREEN3 technology solution featuring zero-click access to news, sports, entertainment, and other premium content.*
Progressive downloading to view media files on demand
Support of AAC+, MPEG4, WMV, WMA, MP3 and Real Video/Audio files
Advanced speaker-independent voice recognition: state a number/name and be connected without pre-recording
Over the air synchronization with the PC via SyncML*
WAP 2.0 browser*

Note: This editor recently switched back to the original RAZR V3 after having horrendous reception problems with the Windows Mobile powered Audiovox 5600, while working and vacationing in New York. The pictures below were taken around 5th Ave. and 54th St.