Verizon Wireless and Motorola, Inc. today announced the availability of the MOTORIZR Z6tv on October 5. This sleek phone comes with a hot slider design and is equipped with V CAST Mobile TV, V CAST Music and Video, making it the ultimate in entertainment.

The MOTORIZR Z6tv provides entertainment lovers 24-hour access to broadcast-quality full-length TV shows through V CAST Mobile TV from Verizon Wireless. V CAST Mobile TV offers programming for TV viewers of all ages and interests including the “Late Show with David Letterman,” “24” and “Dora the Explorer.”

The service offers live shows and mobile television content from CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2GO, NBC News2GO, and Nickelodeon. V CAST Mobile TV customers can enjoy fast channel surfing, view upcoming programs on the easy-to-use program guide and access parental control features.

Beyond V CAST Mobile TV, the MOTORIZR Z6tv can access Get It Now® applications, such as VZ NavigatorSM which helps customers access location information to more than 14 million points of interest.

Sprint today introduced the Palm Centro smart device. With voice, text, IM, email, web, contact and calendar capabilities, a full-color touch screen and full keyboard, Centro brings Palm simplicity and organization to customers who want to stay connected with co-workers, friends and family. Centro will be exclusive through Sprint in the United States for 90 days and is available in onyx black or ruby red.

With Centro, Sprint customers can quickly and easily text co-workers and friends, manage email, keep track of their schedules, check stock quotes, watch videos on YouTube, keep current on the latest news, capture and share pictures, browse restaurant reviews on Yelp, and get directions on Google Maps; all in one small, compact phone. Centro operates on the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network - the fastest and largest national mobile broadband network - giving customers a fast and flexible experience with entertainment and resources on the go.

With a fun, new compact design, Centro is the smallest and lightest Palm phone to date. Centro has a modern, stylish look that feels comfortable in the hand, pocket or evening purse.

Another MVNO bites the dust! Fist Mobile ESPN, then Amp'd Mobile, now its the Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) announcing that they will cease operations of its U.S.-based mobile virtual network (MVNO) phone service later this year and will instead explore a new business model for its content and services that might include offering its popular Family Center product through a partnership with a major U.S. carrier.

The Family Center suite allows users the ability to display the location of a child’s handset on a map, to limit when and how the child’s phone is used, and to set limits on expenditures in terms of voice and data.

WDIG, a worldwide leader in the mobile content business, is exploring opportunities with major U.S. carriers with regard to a new business model for the Family Center features. Current Disney MVNO customers will continue to receive service and support until Dec. 31, 2007.

Today Nokia announced that its luxury brand, Vertu, has started selling a phone designed jointly with Ferrari for about $25,400 at its stores in London, Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore. Vertu manufactured the Ascent Ferrari 1947 phone to celebrate Ferrari's 60th anniversary.

Don't know who can afford these phones, but the luxury goods segments are benefiting from fast economic growth in countries such as China, India and Russia, while Middle East markets have strengthened as a boom in oil prices has increased incomes.

Nokia and other cell phone manufacturers are increasingly teaming up with designers. Last Monday Italian designer Giorgio Armani teamed with Samsung Electronics to design an Armani-Samsung phone that will be the size of a credit card and 10.5 millimeters thick.  We are sure it won't be cheap!

MontaVista Software, Inc., a provider of Linux for intelligent devices and communications infrastructure, yesterday announced the new 5.0 release of MontaVista Mobilinux, the mobile operating system used in 90 percent of Linux-based smartphones.

Mobilinux provides a commercial-quality, field-proven embedded Linux operating system (OS) optimized for mobile devices plus a rich development environment for the engineers who design them.

Mobilinux 5.0 will enable manufacturers to deliver new mobile devices (such as phone handsets, GPS devices, portable medical devices, and wireless point-of-sale terminals) to consumers more quickly and with new functions, breakthrough connectivity, fast performance, NSA-level security, and battery-extending dynamic power management.

In an effort to ensure that mobile WiMAX wireless products work well together and with other products globally, Intel Corporation, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks today announced that they are testing interoperability across Intel's forthcoming WiMAX silicon for laptops and mobile Internet devices, Nokia WiMAX devices and Nokia Siemens Networks WiMAX infrastructure equipment.

Nokia also said it will use Intel's WiMAX silicon product, which is codenamed "Baxter Peak" and designed specifically for mobile Internet and consumer electronic devices, in its forthcoming Nokia Nseries Internet Tablets. The Internet tablets will be among the very first WiMAX-enabled open Internet devices expected to ship in 2008.

obile WiMAX is a broadband wireless technology that provides multi-megabit speed, great throughput for accessing large amounts of such data as movies and multi-media content, and wide range to access the data over long distances.

There have been numerous research reports claiming that cell phone usage doesn't cause any physical harm. (See recent article about study on brain cancer.) However, now there are concerns about the impact of cell phone on hearing.

As many people age they may find it more difficult to hear.  Some hearing loss is due to overexposure of noise. However, a new research study is claiming that hearing loss can also be blamed on cell phones. (See Video)

The study claims that people who use cell phones for about an hour per day had a harder time hearing high frequency sounds, especially in their right ear where most people tend to hold their cell phones.  High frequency sounds were particularly difficult to hear especially when they are trying to distinguish between the sounds represented by "s" and "f" and "t" and "z".

The study involved researchers studying 100 people who used cell phones and compared them with 50 people who did not.  The study lasted for 12 months. 

Motorola Inc. today announced it will be showcasing its mobile WiMAX chipset modem solution at booth #501 at WiMAX World USA. The chipset is part of Motorola’s new "controlled application centric architecture" that will efficiently support 3G and 4G mobile devices.

Uniquely designed to deliver ultra-high-speed functionality through thin devices, this WiMAX chipset modem solution is optimized for both size and low power consumption to further connect consumers around the globe with mobile wireless broadband.

Key Highlights
Motorola’s new WiMAX chipset modem enables mobile WiMAX for a variety of new experiences through voice and data-centric devices with a chipset solution that surpasses existing 3G technology:

Today T-Mobile will be announcing the Sidekick LX and the Sidekick Slide. Both handsets feature quad-band GSM/EDGE radios, Bluetooth,  support for up to 4GB in the microSD slots, 1.3 Megapixel cameras, the standard Sidekick communications software and the new MySpace mobile application.

The Sidekick LX, manufactured by Sharp, is a slimmed down update to the Sidekick 3. It features a 3-inch WQVGA display that is thinner than the SK3's and has an improved swivel joint. There are a set of lights placed around the edge of the LX that can be set to different colors to indicate different types of messages. It comes with a 128MB microSD card and its camera has a flash. It will be available to existing T-Mobile customers on October 17th, and new customers October 24th. It will cost $299 with 2-year agreement.

The Sidekick Slide, manufactured by Motorola, the Slide is a smaller version of the Sidekick LX. Rather than swivel around, its 2-inch QVGA screen slides straight up to reveal the QWERTY keyboard underneath. Its camera does not have a flash. It will be available November 7th for $199 with 2-year agreement.

Revenue Science, Inc. today announced that in conjunction with mediba, a Japanese mobile web portal operator, Revenue Science will offer behavioral targeting services to advertisers on mobile phones in Japan.

This new service will be available in the fall through a partnership between mediba, Revenue Science, and Digital Advertising Consortium (DAC). This is an important step in moving behavioral targeting beyond the desktop to content on mobile devices.

mediba will create audience segments using the content categories on KDDI's "au one" Portal (e.g. Auto, Games, and Music) and will distribute behaviorally targeted ads to news and search results pages. Advertisers will be empowered to deliver a highly relevant ad to members of that audience segment, defined by consumers' online activity, at the right time, regardless of where they are surfing the web on their mobile device.