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Better not plan that jewel heist over SMS. The police have known how to wiretap a cellphone for some time now (60% of wiretaps these days are for cellphones), but until recently they couldn’t intercept digital photos sent from a cameraphone or text messages. Such a relief that they’ve finally figured this out, though we…
A man in Britain has been convicted and fined over $8,000 for doing something that all of us have probably dreamed of doing at some point or another: used an electromagnetic jammer to block cellphone calls. They’re illegal to use in the US (though not to buy!), but you have to admit that the prospect…
A new handset for making voice over IP calls that connects to a PC over USB. You can make phone calls for free with the Taichi III, but only to other people also using VICQ Planet, which apparently is some voice over IP network. Read [Thanks, Gert]
Weird new one-handed portable keyboard for PDAs. The FrogPad measures just 3″ by 3″, with the arrangement of the letters determined by how frequently they’re actually used Read [Via I4U]
This is a pretty good indication of where things are going: A new prototype cellphone from Mitsubishi that includes a high-resolution digital camera, a large color screen, a slot for a Memory Stick Duo card, built-in WiFi, and the ability to do voice over IP over WiFi calls. This last feature is huge, and one…
Speaking of cellphones with WiFi, Nextel and Motorola are working on handset with integrated WiFi that would let you seamlessly roam from a wireless LAN to Nextel’s cellular network. But the really interesting tidbit is this: Nextel also could work with providers of cable data services to send phone calls from the Wi-Fi network over…
Sharp says it’s just months away from bringing out a true 3D flat screen monitor that can be viewed with out having to wear special glasses. And what are they using to demonstrate the 3D qualities of this new monitor? Why Quake, of course. Read
New WiFi HiFi from Philips. The Streamium MC-i250 has built-in 802.11b, so it can hook up to your local wireless network and stream MP3s off your PC, play Internet radio stations, and connect to Gracenote’s CD database to automatically find artist and song information when you play a CD. Read [Thanks, Robert]
The Kuwaiti government is planning to send all news and announcements about the impending war with Iraq via SMS text messages: The intent is clear: detailed messages from a reliable source (unless the enemy takes over the cellular operator) to inform citizens and dispel rumors. The service is free of charge to recipients. According to…
Kyocera’s new Kurv cellphone has a 65,000 color screen, integrated digital camera, an MP3 player, and a built-in FM radio. But the main selling point is that the Kurv has swappable “Smart Skin” faceplates, and to demo the product they just happened to pick one that features those two blonde twins from the Coors Light…
Looks like Microsoft is going to incorporate RIM’s always-on email software, the same kind used in the BlackBerry, into its Pocket PC and Smartphone operating systems. It’s good news because anyone who has used a Pocket PC Phone to check their email knows that it doesn’t work all that well, especially when compared to a…
A new telephone called the Vidicode Featurephone 175 that comes with a built-in CD-RW drive so you can easily record all of your phone conversations. Perfect for journalists and prank phone callers alike. Read
New mini-robots from Seiko Epson that can be controlled wirelessly over Bluetooth. The Monsieur II-P, as it’s called, can run around at up to 150mm per second, but it doesn’t look like it can do much else. Read
Once again FCC filings have been the source of another leak about an upcoming cellphone. This time it’s Motorola’s new 3G cellphone, the keypad-less A920. The A920 runs Symbian as its operating system, has a slot for an SD memory card, and has built-in GPS. Read
Apple G4 Cube that’s been “modified” to run Linux. Andy Woo, a senior engineer at Mattel, swapped out all the Apple components and replaced them with PC ones, in the process transforming it into one of the better looking PCs on the planet. Read
Peter Lewis of Fortune magazine doesn’t think Microsoft’s, Sony’s, or any other company’s “convergence strategy” is going to work: It’s far too complicated for a consumer audience, unless the consumers have a technical degree from the University of Pluto. Most Americans still connect to the Internet over dial-up modems. The VCR clock is still blinking…
Getting those pictures stored on your cameraphone off of your cameraphone is getting easier. Panasonic has a new printer coming out which connects to its GD87 phone for making prints. Siemens is working on a way so that cameraphone users can get prints of the pictures they’ve taken made at photo shops. And O2 and…
New CompactFlash memory cards for Pocket PCs from Pretec which combine 128MB of memory storage with a GSM/GPRS module for making voice calls and connecting wirelessly to the Internet. Read
Mobile Burn gallery of all the new cellphones from Siemens, including the mystery concept phone pictured at right, about which nothing is known. Read
The New York Times on how small fuel cells will be powering laptops, digital cameras, and cellphones by the end of the decade. Read