With ESPN’s X-Games 13 well underway, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has launched their temporary dedicated VCAST TV channel, EXPN, to bring Verizon Wireless’s customers the X-treme coverage they desire. Users will be getting a double-shot of the action with this temporary channel picking up where the permanent ESPN Mobile TV channel left off.

If you’re one of Verizon’s VCAST customers, go peep that new channel and revel in the X-treme glory that is the X-Games.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

It looks like Sanyo (OTCPK: SANYY) Electric Co. is wiping its hands clean of the mobile phone game. Sources “close to the matter” are saying that Sanyo  is prepping Osaka-based Telecom Sanyo Co. for the auction block – with an expected sale amount in the billions of Yen, a healthy boost to the struggling company’s coffers. The handset manufacturing division will be offloaded as a subsidiary.

With 38.4 billion Yen in revenue last year, the handset manufacturing arm of Sanyo is no slouch. But, fierce competition and 3 years of net losses for Sanyo may have prompted them to get out of the industry. We’re sure someone will be jumping at the opportunity to get in on the mobile phone biz.

Sanyo Electric Co. pans to refocus it’s efforts in its core business of manufacturing rechargeable batteries and commercial-use equipment.

Saya nara, Sanyo, it was fun while it lasted.

[Via: Slashphone]

If you’re the second-largest wireless carrier in the US, locked in a heated battle with top-dog AT&T (NYSE: T) for subscribers, what can you do to increase your customer-base? Well, one way would be to buy them, literally. Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless has announced their plans to buy the Unicel brand from Rural Cellular, netting the CDMA carrier about 716,000 users – with Verizon Wireless’s 62.1 million customers trailing AT&T’s 63.7 million, the addition of three-quarters of a million subscribers will be a healthy boost indeed.

Rural Cellular uses GSM and CDMA standards in their mixed-network, and Verizon Wireless plans to convert GSM users to CDMA service while holding onto the GSM network for roaming purposes (for subscribers on other GSM networks). Verizon Wireless will be paying $757 million, or $45 per share, for Rural Cellular.

Watch out AT&T, it looks like Verizon is planning on making a run at the top-dog title in the US. You aren’t planning on taking that iPhone exclusivity contract all the way to the bank are you?

[Via: Yahoo News]

What we have here is another unnamed Nokia (NYSE: NOK) phone passing through FCC’s approval system. Not much is known about it, except that just like the earlier RM-289 model, it is also made in Korea. And similarly to its older brother, the RM-276 features WCDMA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, suggesting this baby may end up in AT&T (NYSE: T)’s catalog. Of course, at this stage we can only speculate about it, as neither Nokia nor AT&T released any info about it. Still, you’ll always be able to get it unlocked in one of Nokia’s Flagship Stores or through Dell…

[Via: Engadget]

Recently conducted poll by Mitsubishi Research Institute and Rakuten Research Inc. suggests that 27.6% of the mobile users in Japan are willing to buy Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s flagship handset. One would think that all their high-tech gizmos fill-in the demand of the Japan’s modern man/woman, but apparently some of them crave for that iPhone coolness Apple is pushing on us.

Read the full article »

Yesterday, we showed you the iPhone-like virtual keyboard running on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. Today, we’ve spotted iPhone-like screen scrolling video on YouTube. Apparently, the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N800’s open Linux platform allows so much tweaking that at the end it will be able to do pretty much everything iPhone does. Yeah, there’s a lack of any cell phone radio in it, but hey, we have Skype. Enjoy the video!

We already wrote about that easy to use utility called iFuntastic that allows iPhone users to add a custom ringtone to their beloved handset. Thanks to Gizmodo, we spotted that the new version is now out and this time it goes one step further. Not only that you can make your iPhone sound different — you can also rearrange the main menu icons and swap the AT&T (NYSE: T) logo for any PNG image at 65 x 18 pixels. Plus, the new version also brings much better instructions, more sample logos and ringtones, the news feature to the Welcome screen, and more. Interested? Grab it from either Rapidshare or iPhone Alley.

One of the largest (if not THE largest) online dating services Match.com finally decided to join the ride of the mobile wave with its newly launched MatchMobile service. Developed in partnership with Trilibis Mobile, the new service allows users to search for profiles, receive text message alerts when they are sent a “wink” or an e-mail from another Match.com member, and send and respond to e-mails and “winks” directly from their cell phones.

In order to “date on the go,” Match.com users have to sign up from their existing account to opt to receive free text alerts, wink and search. Want to read and respond to your emails from a cell phone? Prepare to pay additional five bucks ($4.99) on top of your existing membership plan per month.

There you have it. In case you live in U.S., Canada or UK and are the existing Match.com, feel free to flirt from your mobile phone starting from today. Live somewhere else? Hopefully, the dating service will include your country in their “nine additional markets” expansion plan by year end.

Although it lacks the Uncle Sam endorsed 850Mhz radio, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) decided to push its 3.2 MP camera equipped T650 model through FCC’s filling. I never thought this baby will see its U.S. debut, and the approved-for-U.S.-soil seal won’t convince me either. Still, I can see phone importers jumping out of joy — after all that will be the only way U.S. citizens will be able to get their hands on this somewhat avantgarde looking handset…

[Via: Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]

Now here’s something I could easily imagine sitting at the reception desks of hotels in Egypt. The Phoebus MB6000 is a nice little Pyramid-shaped device that uses the 3G PCMCIA card from an operator, to create a WiFi network. As it doesn’t pick the 3G signals on its own, the “Giza router” will work with all flavors of mobile connections – from GPRS and EDGE to EV-DO, UMTS and HSDPA – depending of the card type inserted into it. Of course, high speed EV-DO and HSDPA networks are preferable.

Interested? It’s already available at X-treme Geek for $289.

[Via: Mobile Magazine]