News

Nokia announced that it has acquired certain assets of  Plum Ventures, Inc, a small privately held company with offices in Boston and San Francisco. The company develops services such as cloud-based social media sharing and messaging for groups like families, neighbourhoods, schools, etc.

Nokia will implement these assets into it's services unit. No financial details were disclosed.  

The HTC announced earlier this morning an update of its HTC Touch - Touch 3G. One new feature is an impovement of the connectivity options, sporting not only quad-band GSM/EDGE, but also dual-band (900/2100MHz) HSDPA powered UMTS connectivity that is rated for downloads up to 7.2Mbps in speed.

The other features are un upgraded camera to 3.2 megapixel unit, a 256MB of built-in storage that is backed up by a microSD memory card slot, and gives its applications 192MB of RAM to operate within, Bluetooth 2.0 and GPS and runs the latest Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system.

The Touch 3G's 1100mAh battery is rated for up to 6 hours of 3G talk time, or 6.7 hours of GSM talk time. The battery should also be good for over 2 weeks of standby time when left alone.

HTC expects the Touch 3G to be available in a number of different markets starting in early October of this year.

The new HTC Touch HD appeared online, destined to be the ultimate iPhone rival.

Based on Windows Mobile 6.1, the new HTC Touch HD measures 115 x 62.8 x 12mm and it has a large display (that's now confirmed as a 4-incher) with the overwhelming resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. It also seems to be running TouchFLO 3D.

The HTC Touch HD is powered by a 528Mhz CPU courtesy of the Qualcomm 7201A platform. There are 512MB flash memory and 288MB of RAM.

Of course, goodies like GPS, Wi-Fi and HSPDA go without saying, but the HTC Touch HD also has a 5 megapixel camera (without a flash though). Unfortunately, video recording is not that high-end as it maxes out at QVGA@30fps.

The Touch HD is due this Christmas.

Yesterday RIM officially announced the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220, its first clamshell cellphone. This handset comes with a QWERTY keyboard and features a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, Bluetooth, USB v2.0 and a microSD cards for expanding the internal memory.

The internal display of the Pearl Flip 8220 features QVGA resolution and there is a secondary external display with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels.

The new BlackBerry Pearl Flip measures 101.1 x 50 x 17.5 mm and weighs 102 grams.

The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 will become available at the beginning of this fall. The pricing details are to be announced at a later date.

A few day ago Sprint and LG unveiled the new LG LX600 Lotus, a QWERTY messaging cell phone. the handset comes with One Click home screen, which provides quite access to messaging, navigation, and even Sprint TV and the Sprint Music Store and features Bluetooth 2.0 support and a 2 megapixel digital camera with video recording ability.

The LG Lotus will be available in black and purple colorur schemes in October for US$149.99 with a two year contract.

Virgin Mobile has announced its new Shuttle cell phone, a slider that also sports EV-DO support for high-speed data.

The handset is the first Virgin Mobile handset to integrate features from Helio, an MVNO that Virgin Mobile acquired earlier this year. The Shuttle supports the Buddy Beacon service, which makes it easy to find your friends by displaying their location on a map shown on your phone. Other Helio features that are available on the Shuttle include easy access to various social networking sites, as well as YouTube and Accuweather.

The Virgin Mobile Shuttle features a 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth A2DP support for stereo headsets.

The Virgin Mobile Shuttle will be available exclusively at Best Buy on September 28th, though pricing has not yet been released.

Press images have surfaced showing two new colors for the venerable and hugely successful Palm Centro.

Other than the new colors, these new versions are identical save for the addition of the Facebook application that was released earlier this year, as well as a QVGA touchscreen display, QWERTY keyboard, 1.3 megapixel camera with video recorder, media player, Sprint TV access, microSDHC expansion slot, and Bluetooth.

These new colors are expected to launch late next month in time for the holiday shopping season.

Unlike other HTC Titan variants (on Sprint, Alltel, and other foreign carriers), the XV6800 refuses to provided an open GPS port. This is necessary for applications like Google Maps, TomTom, TeleNav, and any other GPS application to operate and access location data.

The update does, however, add EV-DO Rev A, and will allow for forthcoming support of the VZ Navigator application. PhoneNews.com has analyzed the update, and found that Verizon uses a secure GPS API, which allows VZ Navigator to work, but blocks any other application from functioning properly. Verizon has not set a release date for VZ Navigator on the XV6800.

Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney commented on the modifications, and reasons for limiting GPS access:

"We have not blocked other applications from our version of the xv6800. It is standard for third parties to have to make changes to their applications to be compatible with Verizon Wireless devices. Every carrier is different so what one does, doesn't necessarily mean every one else can or will accept the same product.

The U.S. based Mobile Marketing Association recently declared that unsolicited Bluetooth spam is OK. The UK's Direct Marketing Association, on the other hand, firmly stands behind an opt-in stance, whereby the consumer should consciously decide to opt-in to receiving advertisements before being sent any.

If you use Bluetooth on your cell phone it's more prudent to leave it in 'hidden' mode.

Helio has closed all of its stores except for its New York based location as part of its effort to cut costs, something it is contractually required to do as part of its deal to be acquired by Virgin Mobile. RCR Wireless News spoke with Helio about the closings and was told that the NYC store is not scheduled to be closed at this point, but that Virgin can do with it as it sees fit once the acquisition is complete.

The piece says that Virgin's plan for Helio is to cut staff from 570 to just 200. Virgin is expecting the deal to close by the end of September.