We all know that cellphones these days come with a pretty decent digital camera embedded inside, but these cameras are good for only shots under bright light conditions, faltering badly when it comes to scenes with very little light. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the limitations of a cellphone camera. The other major weakness would be the inability to capture shots that are far off in the distance, as the lens is just not capable of zooming in that much. This could potentially be a problem as some tourists rely on just a camera equipped cellphone to capture their memories in a digital format. Brando of Hong Kong has a solution in the form of the Zoom Telescope.

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On Friday afternoon I heard a rumor that the “iPhone” was coming out on Monday, December 18th. It was an interesting rumor because most people thought that Apple would announce their mobile phone product at the January 2007 Macworld conference.

Well, a new product called the iPhone did indeed come out today but not from the company that everyone thought. Linksys announced the iPhone in this press release, not Apple. So what the hell happened? For almost a year now people have been speculating about the possibility of Apple releasing a communication product called the iPhone. But apparently Linksys, a unit of networking equipment maker Cisco, already owns the “iPhone” trademark. According to BusinessWeek.com, a company called Infogear registered the “iPhone” name in 1996. Cisco then absorbed the “iPhone” trademark when it acquired Infogear in the year 2000. Oops. Score -1 for the bloggers. We really should have picked up on that little tidbit months ago.

Just like the rumored Apple version of the iPhone, the Linksys iPhone a Web-enabled telephone handset is compatible with all major Internet chat services including Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, QQ, and ICQ.

So if Apple really has a mobile phone product in the works, they obviously can’t call it the iPhone. What about a variation of a name they already own like iChat Mobile? While the name of this product may still be in question, a trail of clues about an Apple phone product have been popping up all over the Internet for over a year now:

• In June 2005, the source code of an iTunes update contained multiple references to an Autofill phone playlist function.

• Apple has owned the domain iphone.org since December 1999. It redirects traffic to apple.com.
• In March 2006, a source at BenQ, a Taiwanese phone manufacturer confirmed that an Apple phone product was in the works. Why would BenQ leak info about an Apple phone to the media? Sour grapes. Hon Hai Precision, a competitor to BenQ, allegedly won the phone contract with Apple.
• Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, might have let the ‘cat out of the bag‘ on an Apple analyst 2006 Q3 conference call when he said the following: “As regards cell phones, we don’t think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And [Apple is] not sitting around doing nothing.”
• According to analysts, Apple is rumored to be ready to release an Internet phone product at the January 2007 Macworld conference. “From a technical standpoint, the phone is pretty much done,” said American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu. “It’s a big endeavor and we believe it’s beyond speculation.” Apparently the rumored existence of an Apple phone has morphed from a question of “If” to “When.”

Here’s the official Linksys press release on the iPhone.

digg story | methodshop

How many of you have had moved on from the mono ringtone cellphones to versions with MP3 ringtones, multi-megapixel cameras, and a large touchscreen for all your Internet surfing needs? Even the large QWERTY keyboard has been shrunk to fit into the smartphone form factor, and while all the extra bells and whistles might appeal to the gadget aficionado, there are plenty of people out there who are sick of being flooded with way too many choices offering a bunch of functions that they probably have no need for. In fact, there is a large percentage of the population who would most probably prefer something extremely simple, which is why BloodRabbit at the Product Design Forums decided to take up the task of creating a concept phone that whittles away all the extra icing on the cake, leaving only the barebones essentials.

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Despite the VoIP revolution being well underway in most advanced countries around the world, there are still many more who are apprehensive of using this technology to streamline their business model as well as cut down costs on costs due to phobia or just plain old resistance to new ideas. Hopefully the SkyPartner SP101 dual-mode VoIP-enabled phone from 3J Communications will be able to change such mindsets, offering the best of both worlds.

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Still wondering if all the iPhone rumors are true? There has been a trail of clues about the iPhone’s existence all over the Internet for over a year now. But many people still remain skeptical. Perhaps the discovery of the iPhone patent application and a recent quote from Kevin Rose will make the skeptics iPhone believers.

First things first… the iPhone patent pictures. If you go to this page on the US Patent & Trademark Office website, you will find a patent filed by Apple Computer for a “portable computing device capable of wireless communications.” The mystery device is also defined as a “cell phone” and “media player.” Apple filed for the patent on August 7th of this year.

Although the patent page doesn’t include any photos of the “iPhone,” I was able to find several credible looking patent pictures on MYiPhone.com.

Now let’s talk about Kevin Rose. Apparently Mr. Rose, the mastermind behind the mega-popular website Digg.com, has his own “deep throat” informer at Apple HQ. This is what Rose had to say after a couple beers in his Diggnation video podcast.

“I don’t know if I should talk about this or not… I have a little bit of inside information on the Apple phone.”

Despite his initial reluctance, he did go on to talk about the iPhone. According to Rose, the iPhone will come in 4GB and 8GB versions and will feature a touch screen and a slide-out keyboard. This seems to support the credibility of the patent images from MYiPhone.com. Rose also said the iPhone will be ‘carrier independent’ and support both GSM and CDMA phone standards. This means just about anyone can use an iPhone. To quote Borat, “Very nice..”

As you can probably tell, Rose was very forthcoming with iPhone details. But in my opinion, the coolest thing Rose said in his video podcast was about the iPhone battery. According to Rose, the iPhone will have two batteries – one for the MP3 player and one for the phone. Personally I’ve left my iPod on before and killed the battery. I absolutely wouldn’t want that to happen to my cell phone. The two battery system should prevent such an occurrence. Excellent idea and kudos to Apple for such a smart and useful feature.

The phone is to (supposedly) be released in January.

digg story | methodshop

YouNeverCall, an online cellphone retailer, decided to break new ground in terms of business by moving into the virtual one. They have a ready market of 1.5 million potential customers by jumping straight into the Second Life online community, offering a fully functional in-game cellphone for free. These virtual cellphones in Second Life are meant to be more than an accessory that offers meaningless fun – YouNeverCall will incorporate actual cellphone features in the virtual world by enabling them to ring, and there is no need to download any additional module to snag one for yourself. All you need to do is to head on here to get your very own virtual cellphone.

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Is the arrival of the iPhone, a hybrid mobile phone and iPod music player from Apple Computer, right around the corner?

According to analysts, Apple is rumored to be ready to release the “iPhone” at the January 2007 Macworld conference. “From a technical standpoint, the phone is pretty much done,” said American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu. “It’s a big endeavor and we believe it’s beyond speculation.” Apparently the rumored existence of the iPhone has morphed from a question of “If” to “When.”

A trail of clues about the iPhone’s existence have been popping up all over the Internet for over a year now:

• In June 2005, the source code of an iTunes update contained multiple references to an Autofill phone playlist function.

• In March 2006, a source at BenQ, a Taiwanese phone manufacturer confirmed that an Apple product called the iPhone was in the works. Why would BenQ leak info about the iPhone to the media? Sour grapes. Hon Hai Precision, a competitor to BenQ, allegedly won the iPhone contract with Apple.
• Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, might have let the ‘cat out of the bag‘ on an Apple analyst 2006 Q3 conference call when he said the following: “As regards cell phones, we don’t think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And [Apple is] not sitting around doing nothing.”

Since Apple’s introduction of the iPod five years ago, the company has sold more than 67 million of the devices and more than 1.5 billion songs from its iTunes online music store. We can only speculate what the iPhone will mean for Apple’s bottom line. But as a result of all this iPhone hype and rumors, American Technology Research has upgraded Apple stock (AAPL) to a ‘buy’ and raised the target price to $92 (US).

digg story | methodshop

The era of personal computers is coming to an end, and the future lies with the Smartphones. That is what Symbian is claiming, at least. This claim was reinforced lately when Sony Ericsson decided to acquire UIQ Technology, Symbian’s devision dedicated to user interfaces.

For those of you not familiar, Symbian is a consortium composed of the largest mobile manufacturers in the world (including Ericsson, Nokia, Panasonic and Samsung) and it represents the largest rival for Microsoft in the mobile operating systems segment. The consortium was created in 1998 and it has already shipped more than 100 million Smartphones worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »