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Imax Films To Appear On Mobiles

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

Yesterday Imax Corp. announced that it’s hired TV distributor Northstar Media to bring it’s supersized movies onto mobile phone screens and other digital platforms.

Toronto-based Imax said that Northstar have acquired the rights to 21 titles and will distribute them to TV, VOD, mobile phones and broadband platforms.

These titles include, “Tom Hanks Presents Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon,” “Space Station,” “Into the Deep”, “Blue Planet” and “Ray Liotta’s Guide to Visiting the Elderly”. Ok, that last one is a lie.

Is this a good idea? I think I share David Lynch’s sentiments (slightly sweary – be warned). When your biggest selling point is that you make massive films, to then put them on a 2” screen takes some of the magic out of it.

Source:Hollywood Reporter

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Turn your Smartphone into a Wi-Fi Router

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

The concept makes a lot of sense: turn your 3G Wi-Fi enabled smartphone into a Wi0Fi router for you and whoever you deem worthy of your wireless love. You wouldn’t have to rely on one-to-one tethered wires or Bluetooth. Taproot System’s WalkingHotSpot software for Windows Mobile and Symbian does exactly this. There are some catches though:

• The free demo available at Taproot Systems will only support one Wi-Fi connection.
• The system works with any 3G platform (providing the handset has Wi-Fi, obviously), but it will only allow voice calls through on HDSPA networks.
• Taproot wants to sell this software to carriers, not individuals. This could well lead to a monthly fee on top of the bandwidth you are already paying for.

Source: Gizmodo

Age Of The Ipod: 2001-2008?

By MattyBcloseAuthor: MattyB Name: Matt Bortone
Email: matt.barr@trafficbroker.co.uk
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: I've been a fan of mobile phones...since the beginning. Being a poor sharecropper's son, I'm less gadget-obsessed than some of our reporters who seem to have developed an unhealthy attachment to the idea of the HTC Diamond. Instead, I'm interested in the way mobiles have changed our lives at work, at home and anywhere else that people cooler than me go.See Authors Posts (60)

Will the ever dominant iPod finally see its sales start to dwindle? A MultiMedia Intelligence study found that sales of music playing mobile phones have surpassed half a billion units in 2007, outnumberin personal media player shipments (predominantly iPods) by nearly 300 million.

Chief Researcher, Frank Dickson, noted that “Music has been the first ‘killer app’ for the operators to drive the consumption of premium content on the handset.” To this end, they expect that by 2011 over 50% of mobile phones in use will be capable of playing music.

However, just because a phone has the capacity for playing a few songs doesn’t mean it’ll necessary replace someone’s 80GB iPod. Nevertheless, this is the first signs of a frowny-face on Apple’s money-printing machine.

Source: Macworld

(100,000) Penny Serenata

By MattyBcloseAuthor: MattyB Name: Matt Bortone
Email: matt.barr@trafficbroker.co.uk
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: I've been a fan of mobile phones...since the beginning. Being a poor sharecropper's son, I'm less gadget-obsessed than some of our reporters who seem to have developed an unhealthy attachment to the idea of the HTC Diamond. Instead, I'm interested in the way mobiles have changed our lives at work, at home and anywhere else that people cooler than me go.See Authors Posts (60)

Continuing on today’s theme of iPod trashing, here’s a look at a contender hoping to serious challenge Apple’s infamous portable in the handheld music market: the Samsung Serenata, launched late February by hi-fi experts, Bang & Olufson.

This 3G phone with a track-wheel, 2.6-inch touch screen with 4GB memory and download speeds up to 1.8Mbps. The system’s ICEpower system includes an ultra high-energy efficiency of about 93 per cent while offering less distorition than any other player on the market. It has also been designed to easily connect to any A/V system via cable to boost the quality even further. And if you’re a style guru, the Louis Vuitton designed leather holster adds a touch of class for any occasion.

It does have its drawbacks: it weighs about one and half times as much as the iPhone and suffers from using an iPod-esque trackwheel when being used to dial numbers. But if you’re a Joel Whitburn-esque sound-quality obsessive with serious concerns about sound quality, the Serenata gives you something to think about. If you don’t mind paying the £1000 for a SIM-free version.

Source: Herald Sun

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Motorola Amputates Handset Division

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

Motorola haven’t had an easy time of it lately. They’re the third biggest handset manufacturer, behind Nokia and Samsung. They created the Razr, one of the biggest selling mobile phones ever created. Where did it all go so wrong?

Today, Motorola announced that they are splitting into two publicly traded entities. This will separate its loss-making handset division from its other, more profitable divisions. These include network equipment, walkie-talkies and business products.

This move occurred after famous Wall Street investor Carl Icahn warned that Motorola is a mismanaged company. Icahn is the company’s second biggest investor. He pressurised Motorola to boost shareholder returns. In response to this, Motorola announced a strategic review in January. No potential buyers have emerged.

Source: Reuters

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LG-SH240 - I Can’t Believe It’s Not Skin!

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

I simply could not count the number of times I’ve used my mobile phone and thought “I’m having a good time with this keypad and all, but I wish it felt like real skin.” Oh no, wait, I can. It’s never.

We’ll probably never know why LG thought that making a phone with a keypad which feels like real skin is a good idea. It’s called the LG-SH240. It probably has other features too, but who cares about them? Korean beauties not included.

Source: Aving

Mobile Phones 1 – 0 Phone Boxes

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

Mobile phones are destroying a great British institution! According to the Office of Communications, Britain has more mobile phones than people. There are 70 million mobile phones and 60 million Britons. The use of pay phones has dropped by half in the last three years, according to B.T. They’ve removed about 30,000, or a third of all pay phones from the street since 2002. Of the remaining 61,700 phone boxes, 12,700 are of the archetypal cast iron or wood style.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the USA Today article which broke this harrowing news:

“It would be a shame if they disappeared,” Londoner John Pearl, 38, says after using his “mobile” — what the Brits call a cellphone — a few steps away from a cluster of the unused phone booths in central London.

“It’s everybody from professional people to celebrities to a guy who saved up three years and wanted one,” says Dockree, 53, who has been in the phone box restoration business for seven years. “There’s no common denominator but a fondness for the red box.”

“The red box is iconic. It’s like big red, double-decker buses, which are dying out too,” says Toby Atkins, 23, a book illustrator in London. “You hate to see them go,” he says after making a call on his mobile.

Jailbroken and SDK phones will exist concurrently. O’Reilly?

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

O’Reilly has published a book by Jonathan Zdziarski (the writer of NES.app for the iPhone and a premium iPhone hacker). It describes how to jailbreak and install BSD applications and programmes using the iPhone APIs. The book assumes that the SDK will be a completely different concept, separating “open” hacking from officially sanctioned hacking. If you’re looking for some SDK experience, or want to see your own code running on an iPhone, then this is the book for you.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Apple-sanctioned developers fair against the jailbroken iPhones. There are so many limitations placed on those who can actually get into the iPhone Developer program (apps can’t run in the background, no access to file servers etc.) that the unsanctioned apps may struggle to set the world on fire.

Buy it here: Amazon

The Modu Mini Phone is the World’s Lightest Phone

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

The Modu mini mobile phone phone weighs just 39g and is 0.76cm thick. It’s also been named “the lightest mobile phone in the world” by the Guiness Book of World Records.

The Modu works as a standalone mobile device or fits into different ‘jackets’. These take control of the mini core, and transform the midget handsets into smartphones, game phones or music phones.

Expect the Modu mini phone to make it’s sweet way around the world late this year or early next year.

Source: CrunchGear
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Big Savings on Nokia Phones

By Kate CrowleycloseAuthor: Kate Crowley Name: Kate Crowley
Email: talk@omio.com
Site: http://www.omio.com
About: Kate's interest in mobile phones began when she realised she was supernaturally adept at Snake 2. She was less good at Battleships and, frankly, we shouldn't even mention Pipes.See Authors Posts (206)

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