Kin Studio closing January 31st, Verizon offers free phones to affected customers
Though the final nail in the Microsoft Kin coffin has yet to be tapped into place, the software that made the pair of ill-fated handsets strangely compelling will soon get the axe. Come January 31st, Kin Studio will be no more, effectively neutering existing Kin phones by removing them from the cloud. They'll still be able to make calls, send SMS, email, browse the web and even stream music via Zune Pass, but their formerly live homescreens will become lifeless, stripped of social networking functionality -- and will actually remain stuck on their very last status update, much like a broken clock
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: from-the-cloud, kin, music, phone, phones, sms, studio, Transition, vzw
Dell’s mobile chief Ron Garriques is out
Ron Garriques , who has been leading Dell's mobile communications group ever since its formation a year ago, is leaving the company. Ron originally joined Dell in 2007, after a high profile career at Motorola , and has overseen a rather ambitious entry for the company into the phone industry
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: comeuppance, dell, garriques, lightning, mobile, mobile-communications, motorola, result, ron garriques, rongarriques, streak, Transition, venuepro
AT&T details transition for acquired Alltel customers
Yes, Verizon got the lion's share of Alltel's peeps post-merger, but AT&T is reaching out to the handful of customers it scored as a result of Verizon's divestitures and offering them deals on handsets in an effort to get them switched over to GSM in a smooth, timely fashion. Though owners of different Alltel phones are getting mailings offering different replacement devices (a Tritan owner is getting dumbphone promos and a Hero owner is getting what you see above, for instance), it would appear all upgrade deals apply to all customers making the transition, regardless of device
Categories: BlackBerry, htc, Mobile Phone Tags: acquisition, all-customers, Alltel, BlackBerry, engadget-mobile, entry, lion, make-the-switch, mobile, Switch, Transition
Fring matches Skype, intros FringOut for low-rate Android calls
We didn't think competition in the cheapo calls market was quite so intense, but here we are, with Fring and Skype gunning for each other with near-simultaneous launches.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: addition, calls-market, chat, fring, fringout, iphone, latest, life-on-symbian, little-as-one, rollout, Transition
Windows Phone 7 coming to Europe in October, US in November, according to Microsoft COO (video)
Here's something that seems to have slipped the net from Kevin Turner's recent presentation on Windows Phone 7 devices. While discussing the move to Microsoft's next great hope in the mobile space, the Redmond COO told the world that the transition is expected to happen in the October timeframe across Europe, and in the November timeframe in the US
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: entry, kevin, launchdate, microsoft, phone, redmond, result, Transition, windows
Confirmed: Palm’s Matias Duarte joins Google as User Experience Director for Android
We'd heard rumors this morning that webOS design guru Matias Duarte had left Palm for Google , but now we've got it straight from Mountain View: Mr. Duarte is the new User Experience Director for Android
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: breaking-news, design, designers, duarte, matias, matias-duarte, matiasduarte, mountain, palm, printers, result, Transition, user, userexperience, view
Sausage stylus for the iPhone now on sale in the US
So you thought awesome gear never made the transition from Korea to the USA, huh? Not so in the case of the infamous sausage stylus we spotted a month ago. That cold weather peripheral -- allowing its ingenious users to operate a capacitive touchscreen with gloves on -- has made the big leap over to the Americas and can be yours for the low (seriously low) price of $0.99
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: capacitive touchscreen, cold weather, iphone, leap, peripheral, sausage, seriously-low, touchscreen, Transition
Keepin’ it real fake, part CCLVI: BlueBerry gets upgraded with optical pad
You see, this isn't our first run-in with BlueBerry . Nay -- this is a firm that has shadowed Waterloo's moves for some time, so when it came time for the real thing to make the transition from trackballs to optical pads, the Shenzhen doppelganger naturally had to follow suit. The result is this here BlueBerry 9500, a device that looks more like a Bold 9500 grafted to a Nokia E72 than it does a Bold 9700 -- but hey, for folks torn between their Finnish and Canadian loyalties, this might be the perfect solution.
Categories: BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: access, blueberry, dual, perfect, Retractable, Sheet, sheet-includes, trackballs, Transition, wifi, world
Can I use my US bought PS3 in the UK by switching power and connector cords?
Hi there. I have a PS3 that I bought here in The States, but I am planning to move to the UK
Categories: PS2 Tags: between-the-two, Cord, different-power, formatting, machine, power, ps3, Transition
RIM’s BlackBerry Presenter makes mobile PowerPoint all too sexy
BlackBerry users tend to fancy themselves true road warriors -- you know, the kinds of road warriors that live and die most days by a four-shot latte and a copy of Office. It's exactly for these types of folks that RIM seems to have designed the new BlackBerry Presenter, a slick little module measuring 86 x 60 x 23mm that connects to your compatible handset wirelessly and lets you beam up a PowerPoint preso via VGA or S-Video connection. As you mesmerize your crowd with the 24 supported animations and 55 transition styles, you can read your notes right from the comfort of your BlackBerry's display, controlling the whole show without a single laptop in sight.
Categories: BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: BlackBerry, Comfort, crowd, curve, entry, four-shot-latte, puppies, single-laptop, Transition, video, your-compatible