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Filed under: Cellphones

Wireless carriers in this country are no strangers to all manner of legal action, so it comes as little surprise to us to hear that we have a couple fresh lawsuits brewing of the class-action variety. In Cingular's case, it seems a group of former AT&T Wireless customers are worked up over the degredation of AT&T's legacy network following the merger, forcing many of them to either deal with the inferior reception, buy so-called "orange" phones and get on Cingular's network proper -- often incurring a transfer fee in addition to the cost of the phone, or leave Cingular entirely and pay the early-termination fee of $175. Verizon meanwhile is taking heat for covertly slapping some of its customers with their roadside assistance option starting in January 2004 at $2 / month, then later refusing refunds when folks got wise to the charge. We dream of one day achieving world peace between human- and carrier-kind -- but in the meantime, good luck sticking it to the Man, folks.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

With S60 3rd Edition, UMTS, a 3.2 megapixel camera with optical zoom, WiFi, miniSD slot, and QVGA display, Nokia's N93 dual-pivot clamshell pretty much does it all -- at the cost of some considerable bulk, that is. Mobile-review had a chance to spend some quality time with the beast, and if you can get past the portly 188 grams of mass in your pocket, they appear to come away liking the device for all that it does. As flimsy as it may look, we're told the stalk connecting the display to the remainder of the phone is rock-solid: "Even if you shake the phone with all your strength, there is no way the halves will move towards each other." Triband GSM plus UMTS 2100 make the N93 a tough sell in the States, but everyone else seeking out a worthy N90 replacement can expect Nokia's latest superphone to drop this month for around €600 ($765).

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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Ok, by now it's more or less an open secret that Microsoft is going to shift away from its current model and go straight after the iPod with a portable media player of its own, but we've landed some exclusive details about the new player courtesy of a trusted insider who is party to some of the discussions Microsoft is having with potential content partners.

Here's what we've learned:

Microsoft's new portable audio and video player will have a screen that's "bigger than that of the iPod video" (which isn't really saying much) and built-in WiFi so you can not only download content directly to the player (sort of like with the MusicGremlin), but actually participate in an Xbox Live-like social network that will help you connect with other people with similar taste and interests. Whether that's going to be the Live Anywhere service they introduced at E3 we don't yet know. But we do know the tag line they're pitching for the device combined with this new network is "Connected Entertainment."

But it gets better. To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you've already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They'll actually scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it'll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.

Right now the new player is schedule to launch in November, but our source also tells us that Microsoft isn't stopping with a WiFi-enabled PMP, they're actually going to launch an MVNO next year using all Windows Mobile-powered HTC handsets. These handsets will let users connect to the same social network you'll be able to access over WiFi using the portable media player.

P.S. - Yes, we're still trying to get our hands on a non-blurry pic.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Features, Misc. Gadgets, Wireless

It's not very often that we here at Engadget adopt an issue and stand behind it; one of the only notable examples includes the Broadcast Flag, which in 2004 -- very early on in its life -- we made our feelings pretty well known. But when one Joseph Ferrara emailed us to point out a New York Times story that slipped beneath, well, just about everybody's radar, we knew we had to look further into the matter. After all, it shouldn't surprise you that we wouldn't take it lightly when someone threatens to raze the birthplace of the cellphone.

The facility in question, one time Holmdel, New Jersey home to Bell Labs -- one of the most prolific technology innovators of the 20th century -- was owned by Lucent technologies until a recent round of asset liquidations. Barely 40 miles out of New York City, in its heydey the six-story, two million square foot campus, employed over 5,600 people who toiled away in its bowels; it became home to the work of numerous Nobel laureates, and has long since been cemented in the annals of tech history as the birthplace to some of the most important communications technologies ever conceived. And it'll soon be torn down.

Designed and erected between 1957 and 1962 by the inimitable and infamous Eero Saarinen, Holmdel is former home to Bell Labs' optical transmission, microwave, and wireless work, including the High-Speed Networks Research Department, High Speed Mobile Data Research Department, and Data Networking Systems Research Department. It was Holmdel's Wireless Research Laboratory, however, and the work Richard Frenkiel and Joel Engel that ranks among all Bell Labs' most notable contributions. In the early sixties Frenkeil and Engeld led a team of over 200 engineers to develop the first cellular wireless voice transmission technology, and eventually created AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System), the first and one of the most widely deployed cellphone technologies (still active even today in many parts of rural America). Holmdel is effectively the birthplace of global wireless movement, possibly the most crucial communications development of the 20th century, the internet notwithstanding. But there's more. Lots more.

Before the current facility was erected, Harald Friis' work at Holmdel in 1938 produced one of the first microwave communications and RADAR systems, which was utilized by the US in World War II to defend against enemy munitions; Friss also worked closely with Bell Labs scientist Karl Guthe Jansky at Holmdel, who developed there the rotating antenna (aka "Jansky's merry-go-round") and was credited in 1933 with the discovery of the science of radio astronomy. This, in turn, gave birth to the research and work of two later Holmdel scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who in 1964 used the Bell Labs' infamous horn antenna (above) to lay the scientific groundwork for a little something we call the "Big Bang Theory" (for which they were jointly awarded 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics).

We could go on about Holmdel's technological contributions, from Linn Mollenauer's groundbreaking work in the development of multimode fiber transmission systems and Andrew Chraplyvy's, Kenneth Walker's, and Robert Tkach's invention of optical fiber for dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) -- some of the technologies which now enable the fiber optic backbone of today's internet infrastructure; to the lab's direct contributions to Telstar, the first communications satellite, which prompted President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send a message of his own into space by way of Holmdel; to Jerry Foschini's BLAST technology (1998), the original precursor to MIMO wireless transmission systems; to Steven Chu's Nobel Prize-winning work in cooling and trapping atoms with lasers; to Arthur Schawlow's and Charles Townes' 1958 invention of the frickin' laser. But somehow we think you get the point.

So what is to become of this irreplaceable landmark? Well, Lucent sold the site to a billion dollar real-estate developer known as Preferred Real Estate Investments, whose founder and CEO Michael O'Neill remarked the "useful life" of this facility is over. Perhaps O'Neill might is right that as a hotbed of technological ferment and advanced research and development Holmdel's life may have come to an end -- but certainly not so as a historic site for technology and the communications industry. Preferred Real Estate Investments has expressed their intentions not to repurpose the facility as such a historic site, or even retrofit the mammoth campus as an office space anew, but instead to raze and replace it with a three facility office park.

So if you're anything like us, you immediately began wondering what we can do about this. Unfortunately they now own the property, so legally the general public's options are limited. First, someone who knows the score needs to get in touch with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Historic Preservation Office and file with them to enter the Holmdel Bell Labs facility into the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places; though this might not ultimately make it an illegal act to destroy the labs, it would certainly make it morally and officially reprehensible for PREI to create their new office park; if nothing else, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 might at least call for an MOA for the facility to be properly documented for the ages in such an event that it is to be demolished.

The other option, of course, is to directly petition Preferred Real Estate Investments whose founder and CEO (Michael O'Neill), board of directors, and senior management can all be reached by phone or email here. (We will not post O'Neill's email and phone number here -- they're currently listed under "Principals" -- but we imagine a torrent of phone calls and emails might soon find that page removed from their site, so we assume you, dear readers, will take care of preserving that information for others.) We do not suggest anything but metered, reasonable, and kind -- but firm -- requests of PREI to suck up the financial burden and reinvigorate the Holmdel facility into a museum of science and technology -- perhaps even under the auspices of Lucent -- as well as gutting and repartitioning the old space for use by new technology companies in the New York metro area. Because honestly, it really doesn't take a Bell Labs scientist to see what a remarkable and truly historic monument to man's technological ingenuity the Holmdel facility is -- while it's still around, anyway.

IEEE's "Lab for Sale," Bio of Harald T. Friis
CE Hall of Fame - Richard Frenkiel and Joel Engel
MIT's Inventor of the Week Archive
Bell Labs / Lucent - Penzias and Wilson, Chraplyvy, Walker, and Tkach, Foschini, Linn Mollenauer
Reference.com - Karl Jansky
GA - Saarinen's work at Holmdel
Images via Bell Labs and DLT Consulting

Additional research and thanks to Joseph Ferrara.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

While we loved the specs on Sharp's W-ZERO3 / WS003SH, let's just say that its plastic, chub of a case was seriously short on swank. Now check the W-ZERO3 [es] / WS007SH hotness which our brethren at Engadget Japan got the jump on this AM. Developed under that same partnership with Sharp, Willcom, and Microsoft, the new WS007SH variant keeps the Pocket PC flavor of Windows Mobile 5.0 and 416MHz Intel PXA 270 proc but brings a second, standard phone keypad to the mini, sliding QWERTY. They even managed to squeeze that same VGA resolution into a smaller, 2.8-inch screen while keeping the best of the rest: 128MB flash (60MB allocated to the user) and 64MB of SDRAM, miniSD expansion, USB, and 1.3 megapixel cam. All this and she still manages to slim-down from 70 x 130 x 26-millimeters and 220-grams to 56 x 135 x 21-millimeters and 175-grams. Ok, no WiFi or Bluetooth yet folks, but these, like a Japanese OneSeg expansion pack for digital TV on the go are currently under development and will certainly increase the bulk. Available only in Japan starting July 27th for ¥29,800/¥36,800 (or about $260/$321) with/without a one-year contract. Many more pics, including the OneSeg TV expansion after the break.

[Via Engadget Japan]

OneSeg TV tuner clipped on and in to the USB port.

 

 

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops, Wireless, Networking

Seemingly always at the forefront of the latest and greatest technologies, little South Korea has once again trumped almost the entire rest of the world by rolling out commercial versions of the long-range wireless networking standard known as WiBro. Based on Intel's version of WiMax, the services offered by both SK Telecom and KT Corp will provide broadband speeds to users in and around Seoul from base stations with one kilometer ranges, allowing subscribers to maintain their connections even while traveling at speeds up to 74MPH. Although a slew of WiBro-enabled devices are on the verge of release, currently that Samsung PCMCIA card we saw last month is one of the few ways to go for getting your mobile WiBro on. Initially SK will be charging around $31.50 per month for its service, while KT's is significantly cheaper at less than $17, although both carriers are planning on introducing tiered pricing based on usage, as well as subsidies up to $105 on compatible gear.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

While much of the world awaits 3G to grace their airwaves, a coalition of companies in the wireless industry are putting together a nonprofit organization in the UK this month to promote the development of 4G. The "Next Generation Mobile Networks" group, consisting of founding members KPN Mobile, Orange, Sprint Nextel, Vodafone, and T-Mobile plus add-ons China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo, is looking to 2010 for the commercial deployment of 4G devices -- that's less than four years away, folks. We're somewhat skeptical 4G is going to come together for any substantial population in that amount of time, but just in case, we're going start compiling our list of things to do with 2.5Gbps of WWAN bandwidth now.

[Via EE Times]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

We've just spotted what purports to be the HTC Trinity, and while it's looking quite a bit different (and a bit less sleek) than the last time it surfaced, the specs are just as spiffing. The Windows Mobile 5.0 actually doesn't look too much different than HTC's Hermes, with the main addition of GPS and some reworked face buttons. There's 64MB of RAM, 128MB of ROM, a 2.8-inch QVGA display, Bluetooth, WiFi, EDGE, HSDPA and a microSD slot. Just like the Hermes there are VGA and 2.0 megapixel cameras, and the phone is similarly slim at 0.7-inches thick. No more info as to when this will be out, and we can't say we aren't disappointed about the fairly generic look, but there's always a chance (hope) this report is a bit off.

[Thanks, Sean]

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