Bellperre announced the availability of a new luxury phone series, made out of “the very finest authentic materials”, including hand-crafted wood (Walnut, Elm, Zebrano or Wenge). The new Finest Woods Bellperre phones weigh 120 grams and measure 100 x 44 x 15,3 mm each, and can be customized with hand-polished Steel, Yellow Gold, Rosé Gold or Platinum. 110 types of genuine exotic leathers can be added (shark, lizard, alligator or buffalo). ... Read More

IBM researchers have created technology, initially developed for visually-impaired users, that makes it simpler for Webmasters to make their Web sites more readable on the small screens of mobile devices, reducing burdensome scrolling through out-of-order text and graphics. The Web has turned consumers into do-it-yourself travel agents, data entry clerks and librarians. With the rise of blogs and social media, they have also been turned into syndicated columnists. As such, many ... Read More

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), aka the telecomm branch of the United Nations, has recently approved a standard for a universal phone charger. The standard is based on the GSM Association’s earlier suggestion for a Micro-USB-based universal mobile phone charger. This is really good news for anyone who has been following the ‘universal phone charger‘ story. The ITU joins the GSMA and the CTIA, which jumped on board earlier this month, ... Read More

INRIX just launched a free (ad-free too) app for Google’s Android platform. The new traffic app can be downloaded from the Android Market Place. Inrix Traffic provides real-time traffic maps for over 160,000 miles of roads, predicts traffic to show how conditions will change over the next hour, gives details on traffic incidents, construction, and road closures. Inrix says they have the biggest crowd sourced traffic network in the world, powered ... Read More

When you say “Google phone” you’re instantly thinking about an Android handset that’s launched under brands like T-Mobile, HTC, Samsung and so on. And while some of these handsets also have Google’s branding on them, they’re not Google-only phones. Probably that’s why Google wants to have an Android phone of its own. The Street quotes Ashok Kumar, analyst at Northeast Securities, who has apparently talked with some of Google’s design partners and ... Read More

Spring Design has released a new type of e-book reader - the Alex - one with a normal E-ink display and an Android device built into the base. Featuring a six inch e-ink display and a 3.5-inch LCD screen below, the Alex allows users to view books and text normally on the upper display and then see secondary content in the smaller window. Similarly if you're browsing the web in the lower ... Read More

The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced Wi-Fi Direct, a new specification that will enable WiFi devices to discover and connect to one another without a router, a move that could potentially threaten Bluetooth technology. Wi-Fi Direct will allow WiFi enabled devices such as phones, cameras, printers, computers, keyboards, and headphones to connect on a one-to-one basis or several at a time. Standard data rates and connection ranges (100m) will be supported, so ... Read More

It would appear that retail giant Wal-Mart is offering two exclusive wireless plans on October 18th. The first plan is 1,000 minutes, 1,000 texts plus 30 MB of data for $30. The other is unlimited minutes, texts, and data for just $45. Of course, you can only use it on certain phones. The phones are generally $100 with no contract, and they aren’t exactly the iPhone. Source ... Read More

Seattle -- Amazon Payments LLC, an Amazon.com company, today announced the availability of the Amazon Mobile Payments Service (Amazon MPS), providing developers, merchants and distributors of mobile applications an easy way to process payments from mobile devices and extend Amazon’s 1-Click checkout experience to their customers. Amazon MPS enables tens of millions of Amazon customers to use the existing payment and shipping information in their Amazon.com accounts to make purchases ... Read More

The Android bug may have caught all the major manufacturers, but newcomers like GeeksPhone aren’t shy either. The Spanish startup had revealed the news already back in June and we have an update on its release date and a definitive price. The ONE Android smartphone will be available in Western Europe starting the end of this year going for about $375, which seems to be a pretty good price looking ... Read More