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Sling Media has been showing off a version of its SlingPlayer Mobile software for the iPhone which will be available through the iPhone AppStore with US$40.

The SlingPlayer Mobile client connects nearly any internet-connected device to your Slingbox, which is connected to your home television. This allows you to access your home television from nearly anywhere in the world.

Intera Group, Inc. today announced its partnership with Hard Rock Cafe San Francisco to deliver special offers and promotions to visitors at PIER 39 directly to their mobile phones and devices.

Hard Rock Café San Francisco will deliver special offers and promotions to visitors at PIER 39 directly to their Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones and devices.

Transferring data via Bluetooth is completely free and is not limited by the wireless carrier. The advertisement will pop up as a notification on any mobile handset with Bluetooth turned on and in 'discoverable' mode, asking if the consumer if he or she wants the coupon. If they agree, it is sent to their mobile devices in seconds. To redeem the offer, they simply go to Hard Rock Cafe San Francisco and show it to their server or at the cash register.

After Verizon and AT&T, Altel is the third major carrier which selects LTE, or Long Term Evolution, for its upcoming 4G roadmap. Alltel's spokesperson also stated that, due to the costs involved, the carrier does not expect to begin deploying LTE until 2011, at the earliest.

Verizon and Alltel both currently operate CDMA networks, so moving to deploy LTE will be somewhat more expensive, but will offer several benefits, as well, including more efficient use of spectrum.

With talks between Sprint and T-Mobile taking place for a possible merger, two other companies are looking to merge. Helio and Virgin Mobile are also in the first stages of the ‘proposed' deal.

Because both have had a very difficult time gaining subscribers, their merge is a good ideea to create a larger customer base which would result in higher bulk purchases of wholesale service from Sprint as they both work off of Sprint's CDMA network.

The deal would have SK Telecom dropping the cash, which would be used to buy out Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile would then purchase Helio in an all stock transaction.

"We don't comment on any rumors out there, but we have said that we believe that there are opportunities for us in terms of non-organic growth, such as another MVNO, or capability set that we might be able to avail ourselves of...Certainly there are a lot of opportunities that we see, and we think some of them are intriguing for us, but it's a matter of what makes the most sense." - Dan Schulman, CEO Virgin Mobile USA

Vodafone announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe.

After the UK (02), Germany (T-Mobile), France (Orange), Austria (T-Mobile), Ireland (O2), the iPhone will be available via Vodafone in 4 new European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic).

As you can see, Spain is not included in this announcement, probably meaning Apple will find another partner (Telefonica?) for this country. Benelux and Scandinavia are also still missing to the European iPhone equation but they represent limited volumes.

"After months of speculation an industry insider (who has asked to remain anonymous) has confirmed to CNET.com.au that Optus will be one of several Australian mobile service providers to be selling Apple's iPhone, with sales and service commencing in the last week of June," Joseph Hanlon reports for CNET.

ASUS is launching its Lamborghini-branded touch screen phone 'ZX1' during CeBIT 2008, which adopts Lamborghini design with yellow and black colors for the phone case made a carbon fiber and stainless steel.

The ASUS ZX1 Lamborghini Mobile Phone is13.2mm-thick slim size, the ZX1 runs on Windows Mobile 6 Pro. On the connectivity side, the ZX1 features 3G data support, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.The device is expected to bring an unsubsidized €1,000 ($1,500) price tag when this 3G world-phone launches in Europe this May.

One of the larger devices seen at last week's Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona was the Toshiba G910, a communicator style Windows Mobile 6 smartphone that wields a massive 3", WVGA (800x480) resolution touch display as well as a full size QWERTY keyboard. The first impression of the device iss that it's very large, and that the keyboard isn't so impressive, in spite of all of the physical space Toshiba's designers had to work with when putting it together. The clamshell's hinge seems too loose to be particularly durable.

Apart from those issues, though, the G910 seemed OK. The small external display is handy, though it doesn't provide all that much in terms of information. The device comes equipped with an auto-focus capable 2 megapixel camera. The fingerprint scanner, something found in a number of Toshiba devices over the years, is also a nice touch.

The real downside about the G910 has to be its support for only tri-band GSM and 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA, which means that we won't be seeing this device in the North American market any time soon.

The Kyocera E5000 has what can only be described as an intriguing hinge design, with the stainless steel curve becoming a design feature of the device.

Kyoceras new E5000 look to be a sure fire hit, with 210 hours of standby time, and 3.5 hours of talk time, a GPS locater, Bluetooth, email, text, and Java support. This phone is a slim EV-DO design, with a first of its kind "S" hinge, and touch-sensitive external controls for the integrated music player and stereo Bluetooth capability. Also, a memory expansion slot to support up to 2GB of media storage.

The phone will be available everywhere this fall, the price is not known at the moment.

Sprint has announced that it will soon offer the Samsung Rant, a candybar cell phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard featuring a 2 megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, for quick and easy storage expansion and Bluetooth connectivity.

The Rant also provides access to Sprint's high-speed EV-DO network, with support for the Sprint Music Store and Sprint TV.

The handset should be available in October, priced at $49.99 with a 2-year commitment and after a $50 mail-in rebate, in black or red color schemes from Sprint, with an exclusive purple color only available through Best Buy.