Cell Phone Hub

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

High-tech foreign criminals may have hacked into retail security systems in order to remotely monitor customers and employees in the course of at least 12 bold robberies in as many states during the past week, officials say. FBI agents are seeking an individual or group of conspirators who have been calling stores and banks from Texas to Kansas to Rhode Island on pre-paid, overseas cellphones and informing whomever picks up that a bomb will be detonated at the location if funds are not wired to a specific offshore account. What's more, the caller claims to have visual surveillance of the premises and proceeds to give certain accurate details about the environment -- in one case attempting to get a hostage to cut off another's fingers, and in another forcing everyone in the store to strip naked. CNN is reporting that at least $13,000 has been extorted so far -- though the total is likely much higher -- and that investigators are now pursuing a suspect in Portugal "who appears to be linked to the account number" that the money is being transferred to.

Read- CNN
Read- KPHO

[Via Slashdot]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Features

As Nokia said yesterday, "If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride." Alright then, fine with us -- now let's take it to the next level. We don't know what you're doing to further the big-name iPhone knockoff revolution, but we did our part and pitched in by making our pals at Nokia a commercial for that hot new non-device of theirs -- free of charge. Sure, maybe it seems a little familiar, but gratis is a hell of a lot less than what TBWA \ Chiat \ Day charges. Commercial and downloads after the break.

Continue reading The Nokia iPhone commercial

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Wireless

Hot on the heels of the AirCard 595U, Sierra Wireless is expanding its HSUPA offerings with a new duo of USB modems. The AirCard 880U and 881U both connect to your Windows or OS X-based computer via USB, sport the company's TRU design features, and offer up a "theoretical maximum [upload] speed of 2Mbps," while downlink speeds tout a "theoretical maximum of 7.2Mbps." Additionally, in areas where HSUPA networks aren't available, both modems are "fully compatible with HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS, and GSM network technologies on all frequencies currently used worldwide." The 880U is said to be "optimized for Europe and Asia, while the AirCard 881U is optimized for North America," and both units are slated to ship out next month.

[Via Macworld]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

Just weeks after Sony Ericsson's sexy W580i Walkman phone went live on Rogers, AT&T customers can now get their hands on the mobile, too. According to AT&T's own listing of the handset, this svelte slider will (obviously) tout a two-megapixel camera, video recording / playback, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, a built-in pedometer, Memory Stick Micro support, quad-band connectivity, and even PacMan / Ms. PacMan games (huzzah!). You can snap it up right now for $269.99 sans a contract, or $79.99 after inking your name to a two-year agreement and waiting for a pesky rebate to return.

[Thanks, Bernard]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops

California certainly won't go down as the first place to ban cellphones whilst driving, but if Governor Schwarzenegger signs a new bill into law, mobiles won't be the only thing teens can't operate while behind the wheel after July 1, 2008. The bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Assembly, prevents anyone "under the age of 18 from using their cellphone," even with handsfree devices; as if that wasn't enough, any "mobile service device" -- such as "walkie-talkies, pagers, two-way messaging devices, PDAs, and laptops" -- will also be illegal for teens under 18 to use while driving. If signed into law, violators will reportedly be fined "$20 for the first offense, and $50 for subsequent offenses with no violation points on the driver's record."

[Via Textually]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

There it is, the HTC HT1100, aka Nike, aka the Touch II WinMo 6 Professional slider we've been anticipating. This FOMA handset packs HSDPA (naturally, for DoCoMo) and GSM for international roaming while representing HTC's second handset to feature the TouchFLO interface. The QVGA display has been trimmed back to 2.6-inches while the sliding keypad chunks it up a bit to 112 x 51 x 16.9-mm / 130-grams. 802.11a/b/g WiFi, SIP support, Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera (with a 0.1 megapixeler up front), FM tuner (?), and microSD round out the specs. So it's official, now we just need a release a bit say, closer to home.

[Via Akihabara News]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops

We're still of the opinion that Palm should just abandon the whole Foleo concept and work on making the Treo competitive again, but despite our pleas, the company appears to be proceeding towards launch -- manufacturing delays or not. Our tipster spotted the gentlemen pictured rocking what certainly appears to be a Foleo at an oil-change joint in Redwood City, California, and sent in a few snaps. According to her, our guy was happily typing away on the unit, occasionally stopping to refer to his phone (which obviously appears to be a Treo). That's all the info we've got -- but judging from the look on this guy's face, the Foleo is just as frustratingly not-a-laptop as we assumed from the start. Two more shots after the break.

[Thanks, Michelle]

Continue reading Palm's Foleo in the wild?

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Bet you didn't see that coming, did you? The shock of a real, honest-to-goodness N95 with North American 3G bands becoming reality (sorry, T-Mobile, not you!) is still wearing off, and now the company's spouting off about a September release for the darned thing. As we found in our hands-on, this particular variant of the S60 superphone gets tweaked just a bit from the original -- though not as much as the bigger-screened N95 8GB -- offering a redesigned, recessed camera lens (sans protective cover), twice the RAM, dimpled music control keys, and re-upped battery capacity. Nokia claims this very special version of the N95 was made in part because it's been "extremely pleased" with response to the European N95 in these parts -- so to everyone with an N95 in your pocket right now, thanks! As we mentioned, grab it starting next month through a variety of online retailers plus Nokia's flagship stores in New York and Chicago for $699.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays

So yeah, we talked to Nokia today about that iPhone knockoff of theirs. Turns out they totally neglected to mention that they were trying to show off the iPhone-esque software, not the iPhone-esque hardware. The concept they were driving at is they want to take Symbian S60 into the wonderful world of touchscreen, and that kind of input system they demoed could show up on any form factor device. Why they decided to show off said S60 touchscreen software on a total ripoff of the iPhone (and not, say, on some mockup N-series device) is a little less clear, but it certainly made for some hilarious fodder this morning. Seriously though, don't forget to check the video, you can almost hear the soothing sounds of the iPhone ad mandolin playing.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Still no love for AT&T customers just yet, but Palm's Treo 750 is slowly transforming from a Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC to a Windows Mobile 6 Professional device across the globe. Following an earlier Australian announcement, it now seems that the official upgrade is available to customers of the Vodafone variant -- the 750v, naturally -- in the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Even better, the free download flips the switch on HSDPA, but careful: it's one download per customer for whatever reason, so make sure you drop it on a hard drive that's not seconds away from crashing.

[Via the::unwired]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!