T-Mobile lands the Motorola Rizr

Looks like we'll have another cool phone to add to our employee phone list soon.

Here's an excerpt from Crave about the new Motorola Rizr due out next month:

I have to tip my hat to T-Mobile lately. The carrier has been off to a good start this year by introducing a couple of high-quality phones that haven't received any carrier love so far. First it started offering the excellent Nokia 5300, and it looks set to introduce the satisfying Motorola Rizr Z3 on March 12.

Though we've grown tired of the thin phone mania, the Rizr is quite the conversation piece. Not only does it successfully pull off the slider design, it's also much prettier than both the Motorola Razr and Krzr. The feature set is squarely midrange; there's no 3G support but you do get a Bluetooth, a speakerphone, and a 2-megapixel camera.


And here's CNET's review of the Rizr:

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

This amazing video has been viral since early Feb. I picked it up from John Battelle's Searchblog.

Zlango Snags Zillions, er, Millions (12 to be exact)

Nick (Mobilecrunch) brings us some Zlango fun today:

Benchmark Capital and Accel have invested $12 million in Israeli mobile
startup Zlango.

Zlango is an icon-based mobile messaging service. Users
send short texts typed in representational images instead of typing out the
messages . It’s like a modern hieroglyphics. Users can also add images to the
basic icons of the language, as Zlango has in their press release.

Zlango is a phone based application that has grown through close
relationships with carriers, who see Zlango as a way to drive higher SMS usage
or by a flat fee. Zlango is currently partnered with Pelephone in Israel, Orange
& Cellcom in ESC, P4 in Poland, and bMobile in the Caribbean.

This is kinda fun and catchy - but you can call me crazy.

The largest bank in the United States -- Bank of America -- is about to roll out a mobile banking service to all of its 21 million online banking customers. And I would be one of those 21 mil customers.

According to Finextra.com,

"Subscribers to the free service will be able to use their cell phones and smartphones when they're on-the-go to check account balances, pay bills and transfer money."

I knew there was a reason I stuck with BOA all these years.

Top 10 Phones of 3GSM (Gizmodo)

Gizmodo's Noah Robischon brings us the coolness of the Top Phones debuting at 3GSM:

The 3GSM World Congress only started today. But like children who can't keep secrets or hold their bladders, every handset maker announced its new lineup in "me first" fashion.

Which is why we're able to bring you this top 10 list of the most outlandish, impressive and iPhone-like phones of the show. Starting with number 10...

10. Possio GRETAWhen it comes to ballsy innovation, no touchscreen or banana phone beats this combination fax machine, printer, copier, scanner and cellphone in one. Why they painted it the color of maroon nail polish is a question that can probably only be answered by a regional manager for Dunder-Mifflin.

9. Motorola Q9The Jay Leno chin is gone, the color is much, well, blacker, and it's a true global phone. Sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference.

8. RIM Blackberry 8800The jury is still out on SureType, so RIM took all the best features of the Pearl (including the nipple-like navigator) and combined them with a full QWERTY keyboard. Crackberry-licious.Gallery.

7. Nokia 6110 NavigatorA GPS phone with 3.6 Mbps throughput will keep you one step ahead of pursuers, that's for sure. The $600 price tag, however, means that you are being chased by debt collectors. Gallery.

6. Samsung U100Two words: Wafer thin. 5.9mm. Gallery.

5. LG PradaThe LG Prada is so hot right now it could take a crap, wrap it in tinfoil, put a couple fish hooks on it and sell it to Queen Elizabeth as earrings. It's going to be break-dance fighting with the Samsung U100 later tonight. Gallery.

4. Motorola Z8A hinged slider phone that automatically switches into landscape mode? Everyone is going to want to try it once. Gallery.

3. Nokia N77The great thing about Nokia is that they can take a bunch of features that everyone has seen before—mobile tv, push-to-talk, FM radio, micro SD slot—and freshen it up by turning the phone sideways. Gallery.

2. Samsung SGH-F520This side-to-side and up-down slider with a touchscreen wins the award for the most iPhone-competitive handset at the show. Its Achilles heel? It will probably never be released outside of Korea.

1. Neonode N2This phone, which uses an open software platform, probably has a snowball's chance in hell of being used outside of the homebrew mobile phone club. But the 3-inch tall, gesture-controlled phone is also a true harbinger of phones to come.

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Boy Genius exclusive with the BlackBerry 8800!

Boy Genius does it again!

Source: EngadgetMobile (Michael Caputo)

"We knew our pal Boy Genius would be able to get his hands on the much anticipated BlackBerry 8800, and sure enough, he did. BG was able to obtain the svelte new RIM device by any means necessary through completely legitimate channels for preview.

From the initial pictures, the 8800 is thicker than we anticipated, only beating the current 8700 by a marginal amount.

This device is setup for Wi-Fi, so it only makes sense that T-mobile might be getting this version. We should know more when the device launches later on this month on the orange splat."

What the Zune Phone Needs to Beat the iPhone (Gizmodo)

from Gizmodo (Jason Chen):

Now that we're pretty sure the Zune Phone is coming, what do we want to see in it? Well, even though Microsoft's been leaving a lot of features out of first-generation products—especially when compared to Apple's feature-rich phone—here's a list of stuff that we think the Zune Phone needs to have to beat the iPhone.

• Touchscreen: This probably isn't going to happen, but if you're going to compete with the iPhone's fancy multi-touch system, you're going to need to come up with something similar. It's either that or have a phone with loads of buttons.

• MP3 Ringtones: You can do this on current Windows Mobile phones, but you can't do this on the iPhone. Why? Because the ringtone and music industry don't want to give up another source of revenue. Being able to use songs you downloaded off of Zune's marketplace as ringtones would be great.

• Wi-Fi syncing and downloading: Let's use the Zune's Wi-Fi to grab songs on the go and to sync up with the PC when you're in range.

• 3G syncing and downloading: How about being able to access any song from the Zune store wherever you are? Now this would be a killer app.

• Live Anywhere over 3G: Being able to communicate or even play with your buddies on Xbox 360 and the PC from your Zune Phone would make gamers really happy.

• Gaming: Not PSP or DS level gaming, but a bit above the current iPod games would be nice. Possibly tied into the Xbox 360 arcades as well.

• Streaming media from your Media Center or Xbox 360: How about a Slingbox-esque ability to watch your Vista Media Center's recorded shows or your Xbox 360's downloaded shows wherever you are?

• Vista Sideshow capability: Using this as a remote sideshow so you can keep track of your PC and use Vista Gadgets on the go? Sweetness.

• Open application interface: Let us install anything we want on the phone. Apple's strict iPhone policy really irks power users like us who know what we're doing.

• OS X Compatibility: Yeah, right.

• Not carrier-locked: Cingular's going to make a killing on the iPhone, but we'd like to see the Zune Phone be open to all four.

Of course, we'll be lucky if we see even a quarter of these features implemented on the first Zune Phone, but if we had to design one, this is what we'd want to see. – Jason Chen

Mobile phone operators mull creating rival to Google

Some of Europe's biggest telecoms groups are to hold talks next week about creating a mobile phone search engine which could challenge US giants Google and Yahoo!.

Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and American network Cingular will come together for talks at the industry's annual trade show in Barcelona, Spain, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported.

The operators believe that creating their own search engine could help them to "retain a greater share of advertising revenues", it added.

"There is a big play in mobile search that we need to be part of, and we are exploring those options at a very high level," an unnamed British executive at one of the companies involved told the paper.

The implications for existing deals between the networks and the US search companies are not clear -- Google has signed up Vodafone, Hutchison's 3 and T-Mobile, while Yahoo! has signed up Vodafone and 3.

Source YahooNews