IntoMobile » CTIA Wireless 2009 @ Las Vegas

Verizon Wireless: HopeLine’s phone collections experience a double-digit increase in first two months of 2009

Dusan Belic — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:44:43 +0000

During the recently ended CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless announced that their phone recycling and refurbishing program, HopeLine, has seen a double-digit increase in phones collected since January 1st, compared to the first two months of 2008. As a result, the carrier expects to see more than one million phones collected by the year’s end.

Late last year, Verizon Wireless gave consumers the option to download a postage-paid mailing label from its Web site, enabling them to send old wireless phones, batteries and accessories to HopeLine for recycling. The company also increased distribution of its HopeLine envelope, giving customers who purchase or upgrade phones online a quick and easy option to recycle their old phones as soon as the new one arrives. These efforts led to a 44 percent jump in mail-in donations in the first two months of this year.

For the record, since its introduction in 2001, HopeLine collected more than 5.6 million phones and turned that into nearly $6.5 million in support for victims of domestic violence and the agencies that support them.

Nicely done Verizon – we can only hope other operators will follow with similar initiatives.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Kyocera Communications Inc. established in San Diego to integrate the company’s wireless device business

Dusan Belic — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:58:18 +0000

At the CTIA, Kyocera (NYSE: KYO) Corporation announced the formation of Kyocera Communications Inc. (KCI), as a “next step in the global integration of Kyocera’s wireless device business.” The new company will be headquartered in San Diego, and will comprise the combined sales, marketing and service functions from Kyocera Wireless Corp. (KWC) and Kyocera Sanyo (OTCPK: SANYY) Telecom Inc. (KSTI), to better manage those functions for all Kyocera- and Sanyo-branded wireless devices in the Americas.

From the official release:

KCI’s formation is the latest step in the global integration of Kyocera’s communication equipment product segment, a segment that began in 1979 in Japan. Looking to expand globally, Kyocera purchased the wireless handset business of Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) Inc. in 2000 and created KWC from its assets. Then, in April 2008, Kyocera acquired the wireless handset business of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. (Sanyo) and created KSTI from Sanyo’s North American team, which was headquartered in Chatsworth, Calif. On January 29, Kyocera announced that the global coordination of Kyocera’s communication equipment product segment will take place at the company’s product-line headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. Within the new structure, KCI will be Kyocera’s wireless sales, marketing, customer engineering and service operation for the Americas, representing virtually all products from the communication equipment product segment. Meanwhile, the remaining portion of KWC will focus on engineering, working closely with its counterparts in Yokohama.

Eiichi Toriyama, who joined Kyocera in 1972 and has spent 37 years in sales and marketing, has been appointed as president of KCI. Commenting on his appointment and on the company’s restructuring move, Toriyama said: “There is great strength in the combined global forces of Kyocera and Sanyo’s mobile device groups and KCI represents the new face of this unified business for the Americas. Not only are we streamlining duplicated functions within the organization, but also we are creating synergies with unified, complementary product and technology roadmaps that will ultimately benefit our customers.”

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

The Signal (Episode 22: CTIA Wireless 2009 Edition)

Simon Sage — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:56:59 +0000

Well, that was underwhelming.

CTIA Wireless 2009 wasn’t an especially stunning show, but Will and I run down the main device releases from Samsung and HTC, followed by an interview with RIM Manager of Developer Relations Mike Kirkup on their App World launch. I’ve been hearing some anger from abroad about the UK, Canada, and U.S. limitations on the App World, nevermind the 1.0 bumps expected in a product launch. Still, App World is overall a good thing for BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), and we all wait with bated breath to see how it evolves. We’re going to have another go at giving away those Z.buds – just leave a comment and you have a shot! This week’s poll has to do with restriction on Skype for the iPhone imposed by carriers. Are Wi-Fi-only versions of the software fair, or should the carrier protect their role as a service provider rather than just being dumb pipes?

Music by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, as featured on Tap Tap Revenge for the iPhone.

Filler by Krazy Baldhead.

The Signal is a part of the Tech Podcasts Network.

Download The Signal ( Episode 22 ) – iTunes – RSS – (36:07)

Headlines

Hands-on with the HTC Snap

Hands-on the Samsung Mondi @ CTIA Wireless 2009

Hands-on with the Samsung Instinct S30 for Sprint!

RIM Opens Doors To BlackBerry App World

~~P.S.: Sorry about cutting the interview short, but there were only two questions we missed. Hopefully I can get a hold of Mike again for a do-over.~~

P.P.S.: Got some more time in with Mike today! Skip to 30:06 for the new bits, if you’ve already listened.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Palm shows of new WebOS applications for Palm Pre

Will Park — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:03:06 +0000

Sprint (NYSE: S) and Palm (NSDQ: PALM) didn’t exactly hit CTIA Wireless 2009 in full force. Neither company had any real booth presence at the wireless conference show in Las Vegas, but that didn’t stop them from showcasing some impressive new WebOS applications for the Palm Pre.

We had already been given demonstrations of Sprint’s Sprint TV and NASCAR applications for the Palm Pre, but Palm has a few more applications lined up for the Palm Pre’s launch.

Palm showed off the Fandango, Pandora, FlightView and the PalmOS Classic emulator on the Palm Pre. More notable than all the demo’ed applications’ intuitive designs was how well all the applications were integrated into the WebOS. Taking advantage of the WebOS’s ability to multi-task applications in the background, all applications are capable of actively alerting the user to any changes, regardless of what application they are currently using. Browsing the web? Pandora will pop up and let you know which new track is playing. Ordering a movie ticket? FlightView will pop up to let you know you’re flight is delayed.

Sounds trick right? Hit the video for more

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Michael Bay backfires on LG promotional event

Will Park — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:04:25 +0000

At CTIA Wireless 2009, LG brought Michael Bay to Las Vegas to help announce a special-edition LG Versa. The special-themed LG Versa was aimed at promoting the upcoming Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen movie. After three separate press-event delays, Bay finally arrived at the LG booth, only to spoil LG’s party.

The highlight of Bay’s appearance was supposed to be LG’s Versa handset, but the PR-challenged movie-maker managed to blurt out that “I don’t know anything about mobile phones. In fact, look at my phone — it’s a thirty-nine dollar Samsung.” That single remark tainted LG’s entire promotional event. LG Mobile’s President Juno Cho attempted a bit of damage control by trying to offer Bay an LG phone to use. Bay, proving that otherwise inept individuals can make spectacular movies, responded to Cho’s offer by saying that “all my contacts are in the other one.” Talk about a one-two punch to knock out a press event.

To recap. Michael Bay was in LG’s booth with the intention of promoting the LG Versa. Instead, Bay managed to plug competitor Samsung while simultaneously raining on LG’s parade. We have to wonder what the behind-the-door conversation between LG’s people and Bay’s people sounded like. It might be safe to assume that the entirely clueless Michael Bay won’t be invited near any future LG Mobile press events.

[Via: EngadgetMobile]

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Truphone goes for the U.S. market

Dusan Belic — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:50:36 +0000

During the recently ended CTIA in Las Vegas, Truphone announced that it is entering the U.S. market in a big way. More specifically, the company launched its Truphone Business offering and the Truphone Channel Partner Program in the States.

We’ve already covered Truphone Business in the past, when we’ve talked about the service for the UK market. I’ll only repeat that we’re talking about a BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) application that enables business users to make low-cost international phone calls.

At the same time, they announced the Truphone Channel Partner Program to recruit partners to sell and distribute Truphone Business to companies throughout the U.S. As part of the program, resellers are offered generous commission plans according to a tiered structure, as well as a range of sales incentive schemes, co-marketing funds, and a wide variety of marketing support materials.

Additionally, the channel program offers sales and marketing training modules, dedicated channel managers to support partners’ sales teams in addition to secure and easy to use customer management tools to make all order entries, adds, changes, deactivations and trouble ticketing seamless and instantaneous.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Celio launches REDFLY Mobile Viewer in beta

Dusan Belic — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:28:45 +0000

Celio, the company behind the popular REDFLY mobile companions/terminals, has recently announced a public beta of the new REDFLY Mobile Viewer PC software for Windows XP and Vista. The software is designed to allow compatible Windows Mobile smartphone owners to use their mobile apps at full size on their PCs — i.e. send and receive SMS messages and emails in a full-screen window.

Four different resolutions are supported — including 800×480, 800×600, 1024×600 or 1024×768 — giving just enough space to conveniently do your “mobile thing” on a full blown screen…

Enough said – if you own a Windows Mobile-powered smartphone, you gotta try this. Hop over to Celio’s website and look for the download link. You won’t regret – trust me!

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

PCD TXT8030 is a low-end CDMA phone for frequent texters, music lovers

Dusan Belic — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:55:40 +0000

At the CTIA, PCD showed an interesting handset called TXT8030. What’s interesting about it is the bottom part of the device which rotates (similarly to the Nokia 3250 XpressMusic) — on one side there’s a full QWERTY keyboard, while the other one has music control keys coupled with big speakers. Moreover, we’re talking about a low-end CDMA phone here, which prides itself with 2.2-inch screen, 1.3 megapixel camera and a microSD memory card slot.

In a nutshell, it’s a perfect device for young people who mostly use their phone for texting and some music playback. Size wise, the PCD TXT8030 measures 4.5×2.4×0.5 inches. Release date is unknown and so is the pricing…

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

ZTE Booth Tour – Live from CTIA Wireless 2009 Las Vegas

Simon Sage — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:27:01 +0000

They might get a bad rap for cheap phones, but ZTE is bigger than you think – number 6 worldwide, though you might not be too familiar with them since they only have three handsets in North America, and they’re on metroPCS (NYSE: PCS). ZTE is working to crack the tough nut of the U.S. market after seeing plenty of business back home in China and abroad in Europe, but based on some of the phones they were showing off, ZTE has a reasonable shot at some market share.

Out front, ZTE was showing off some concept tech, like a slider with tiltable speakers called Xer, two USB modem watches (Rotta and Agate),and an MID with a removable power button dubbed Pure. Of their, y’know, actual phones, the D300 looked absolutely awesome, with its brushed aluminum face and sharp lines. The D300 just a simple CDMA flip, but apparently it one a design award of some sort. The D92 looked pretty cool, with letter keys in between the standard numpad – it landed on Telus not long ago. Samsung might still be working on Blue Earth, but the ZTE Solar-S312 at least has the charging part of that equation already implemented and ready to go.

On the higher end, they’ve three Windows Mobile devices (like the E810 and U990) that, if priced right, could be a cheap alternative to the upcoming HTC Snap. Talking with ZTE was actually really interesting since they’ve got so much stuff that might actually be finding its way to our shores, but combined with their transition from feature to smart phones, they’ve got an uphill battle.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Sony Ericsson Booth Tour – Live from CTIA Wireless 2009

Will Park — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:31:02 +0000

First off, the headline might be a little misleading. Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), for whatever reason, didn’t have an official exhibitor booth on the CTIA Wireless 2009 showfloor. The Japanese-Swedish phone maker has been going through a bit of a rough financial-patch recently. How that plays into the company’s decision to forgo any physical presence in the Las Vegas Convention Center isn’t clear – we’ll let you put your own spin on it.

Sony Ericsson was, however, at Pepcom’s MobileFocus trade-show in full force. The newly-launched Sony Ericsson T707 (apparently Sharapova’s favorite phone) was showcased alongside Sony Ericsson’s entire product lineup. From the 8-megapixel Sony Ericsson C905 Cybershot phone to the highly-regarded Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, Sony Ericsson wasn’t shy about showing off its range of handsets.

We had a chance to handle the Sony Ericsson T707 and the Sony Ericsson W995 Walkman phone during the event. While the T707’s gimmicky gesture-support failed to impress, the W995 Walkman phone more than made up for it with solid build-quality and a slick slider mechanism. Unfortunately, the W995’s styling exudes that been-there-done-that feel that we just couldn’t shake – it’s like we’d seen this Walkman phone before or something…

We’re all still waiting on pins and needles for the Sony Ericsson Idou to launch late this year or early the next. Peruse the gallery to keep your mind busy as we wait for the Sony Ericsson Idou to go live!

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Samsung Mondi video walk-through

Will Park — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:57:09 +0000

Despite WiMAX’s slow roll-out in the US, Samsung is committed to supporting the WiMAX revolution. The South Korean cellphone giant used the world-stage at CTIA Wireless 2009 to announce their first WiMAX device – the Samsung Mondi. The Samsung Mondi is headed to Clearwire’s WiMAX-based Clear network with WiMAX and WiFi connectivity, boasting a massive 4.3-inch touchscreen and slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

The Samsung Mondi uses a TouchWIZ-like UI overlay to hide the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional underpinnings, and we have to give Samsung kudos for a slick UI. The Mondi also features a 3.0-megapixel camera, GPS (Route 66), Bluetooth 2.0, HDMI video-out and 4GB of on-board storage.

Samsung’s Kim Titus was good enough to give us a little video walk-through of the Samsung Mondi. The Mondi isn’t going to replace a netbook or laptop, but with serious mobile broadband credentials, the Mondi will certainly find its place in the MID market.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

BlackBerry Booth Tour – Live from CTIA Wireless 2009 Las Vegas

Simon Sage — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:35:54 +0000

Research in Motion had their hands full at CTIA with the BlackBerry App World launch, which is ostensibly the biggest announcement of the show. Of course, RIM was showing off their full assortment of devices, but even the latest, the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) 8230 Pearl Flip, wasn’t anything more than a CDMA twist on the GSM version. RIM’s partners populated the booth in usual style, including the freshly-acquired folks from Chalk, some fellow Ottawa homeboys from Magmic, and plenty of others. The Movela Netflix manager looked especially cool, and they’ve got a Craigslist app coming sometime this summer based on the same platform.

Accessories were seeing a lot of attention at the booth, namely the car visor first spotted at the CES. The visor is yet another fine addition to RIM’s growing accessory lineup (although I have a thing or two to say about their “premium” earbuds), which shunts music from your BlackBerry to your car stereo via Bluetooth and FM tuning. Hands-free functionality lets you answer calls over your car stereo as well – very nifty. They went public with a $99 price point for the visor and it should be on the market in late June. The Remote Stereo Gateway, Unify4Life and Slingbox had a solid presence at the home theatre demo area, showing you just how many ways BlackBerry plugs into your home. Overall, RIM had a good show, but excitement was cut short since we’re still holding out for a BlackBerry 9630 announcement at WES in May. For more info on the BlackBerry App World, be sure to tune in to this week’s CTIA Wireless Edition of The Signal, where we chat up RIM VP of Developer Relations, Mike Kirkup.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Samsung Booth Tour – Live from CTIA Wireless 2009

Will Park — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:26:33 +0000

One of the gems of the CTIA Wireless 2009 show is Samsung. There’s a surprising lack of manufacturer and carrier presence in the Las Vegas Convention Center, and that plays to Samsung’s advantage. The Samsung booth, as always, sprawled across the showfloor and offered passersby a glimpse of the latest and greatest from Samsung Mobile.

Samsung launched several new handsets at CTIA Wireless 2009. The Samsung Impression, Samsung Magnet, Samsung Propel Pro and the Samsung Instinct S30 were all showcased in the Samsung booth alongside the 8-megapixel Samsung Memoir and Samsung’s projector phones. We were impressed by the Samsung Impression’s AMOLED display and slide-out keyboard. The Impression is aimed at consumers with a penchant for mobile messaging (email, SMS text, instant message) and holds its own against multimedia handsets from other manufacturers. The Instinct S30’s curvier, slimmer body also got our attention. The Instinct S30 doesn’t feature much in the way of upgraded specs, but the slimmed down body makes for one sexy handset that actually makes the 3.2-inch touchscreen display look bigger than it actually is.

Enjoy the booth tour!

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Nokia E71x video quickie

Will Park — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:44:37 +0000

It’s the end of the week and we’re slowly wrapping up our live coverage of CTIA Wireless 2009. One of the bigger product announcements at the show was AT&T (NYSE: T)’s Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E71x. The E71x is essentially the same as the Nokia E71, only the E71x supports the 3G frequency bands that AT&T uses. As the first noteworthy Symbian-powered device to get picked up by AT&T, the Nokia E71x is expected to give the No. 2 US wireless carrier’s QWERTY lineup a stiff shot in the arm.

Both enterprise users and messaging-savvy consumers will find the Nokia E71x’s comfortably large QWERTY keyboard a pleasure to use. And, with an enterprise-class email client on board, the Nokia E71x should be able to handle just about any kind of email account you throw at it – the E71x takes folder-laden IMAP email accounts in stride.

AT&T is aiming to get the Nokia E71x in stores within a couple weeks, and is planning to sell the E71x for $99.95.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Pocket Communications adds ZTE C78, C79 low-end handsets

Dusan Belic — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:51:39 +0000

Pocket Communications is joining MetroPCS to launch two low-end ZTE handsets - C78 and C79. The carrier will offer the devices to subscribers in its New England and Texas markets.

Here’s what you need to know about ZTE C78 and C79:

Both stylish and affordable options, the ZTE C78 and C79 are full-featured handsets that operate on AWS and PCS frequency bands and provide over 60MB of user memory for users who want to download games, ringtones and applications. The suite of features also includes Bluetooth capabilities and picture messaging. The ZTE C78 features a sleek design with a 2-inch backlit color display in a black and silver candy bar casing. The ZTE C79 is a clamshell phone equipped with a 1.3 Megapixel camera and an MP3 player with external music keys, a unique feature allowing users to listen to music and manage their playlists with ease.

In a nutshell, we’re talking about basic feature phones here that are good for taking and making phone calls and texting. If you need something more, move on — otherwise, if that’s exactly what you’re looking for – go for it. Just don’t tell we haven’t warned you about the limited feature set.

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

UI Evolution, Source Interlink Media team-up to bring lifestyle magazines to the AppStore

Dusan Belic — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:48:16 +0000

You may now know about Source Interlink Media, but they know about you.

Just kidding, the company is the “premier source” of lifestyle media with more than 75 publications, 90 web sites, 400 branded products, 65+ events and TV and radio programs, and they are partnering with UI Evolution (the same company which helped Samsung open up its TouchWIZ platform) to launch their first iPhone application called LOWRIDER Mobile.

Here’s what you need to know about LOWRIDER Mobile (from the press release):

The free LOWRIDER Mobile application offers consumers access to all of the latest news, features, cars, events, models and technology from LOWRIDER Magazine. Leveraging UIEvolution’s industry leading UIEngine technology, LOWRIDER Mobile provides an interactive experience that consumers can access anywhere from their mobile devices.

And the good news is that this is only the first application made by the two companies. In the coming weeks, more of Source Interlink Media’s properties will be released as mobile apps including Super Street, Import Tuner and Soap Opera Digest…

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

AdMarvel brings advertising mediation to the Apple iPhone

Dusan Belic — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:44:11 +0000

At the CTIA, mobile advertising mediation services provider – AdMarvel, unveiled its iPhone Advertising Toolkit to enable iPhone application developers to easily integrate advertising from virtually any ad network into their applications. The service/platform also provides metrics to the advertisers and publishers via a web console giving a near real-time view of the application’s ad performance. Moreover, AdMarvel can also act as a fully functional ad-server, supporting the “provisioning and management of direct-sourced or in-house advertising.”

And if you’re wondering which ad networks AdMarvel’s solutions supports, the list includes such well known companies as AdMob, Admoda, BuzzCity, Google (NSDQ: GOOG), JumpTap, Millennial Media, mKhoj, Mojiva, Movoxx, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Quattro Wireless, Ringleader Digital, RingRing Media, Smaato, Third Screen Media, and Zestadz.

Commenting on the announcement, AdMarvel’s CEO Mahi de Silva said: “We are excited to bring these developers a compelling path to revenue with a comprehensive platform to enable, manage and analyze the effectiveness of advertising.”

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Sound ID 200, Sound ID 300 Bluetooth headsets unveiled at the CTIA

Dusan Belic — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:08:59 +0000

Sound ID has unveiled two new Bluetooth headsets at this year’s CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas.

First comes the Sound ID 200 model, which was “ergonomically designed for all-day wearing comfort.” Among the features of the headset are RealComfort EarLoops, automatic volume control, NoiseNavigation technology that works in conjunction with dual microphones, and a micro USB charging. The Sound ID 200 measures 53.5×15.5×7.5 mm (2.1×0.6×0.3 inches) and has a weight of less than 8 grams (0.28 ounces). Its battery powers up the device for up to 6 hours of talk, or 220 hours (9 days) of standby time. The headset will be available from various retailers in mid-April, when interested users will be able to grab it for $99.99.

The other device announced is the Sound ID 300, which will be available through AT&T (NYSE: T) starting from April 15, 2009. From what we can tell, this headset builds on top of the Sound ID 200 model, adding PersonalSound (selection of three listening modes) and Secure Pairing to the mix. Size wise, it’s pretty much identical to the previous model, but thanks to the two features mentioned above, it’s bit more expensive — the Sound ID 300 will have a MSRP of $119.99, although AT&T will sell it for $99.99…

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Eclipse, InnoPath join Symbian Foundation

Dusan Belic — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:07:29 +0000

Symbian Foundation is now stronger for two more members.

First comes Eclipse Foundation which joined the Nokia (NYSE: NOK)-led initiative — at the same time, Symbian Foundation joined Eclipse Foundation. Together the two companies will co-operate on many levels in activities such as the promotion of EPL as a business friendly license (Symbian OS will be offered under Eclipse Public License, FYI). There’s an “official blog post” at Symbian’s blog talking more on the subject.

The second company that joined the “Symbian wave” is InnoPath, which will work to “enhance the platform’s existing DM capabilities to quickly adapt to mobile operator care initiatives.” The company’s goal is to help increase the supportability of the platform and enhance the end user experience with over-the-air support and updates.

There you have it. Two more points for Symbian Foundation!

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this:

Verizon Wireless announces its app store

Dusan Belic — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:42:45 +0000

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is joining the app store craze with its own offering. At the CTIA, the carrier announced its fairly hard to remember “Mobile Web Games and Apps Store,” which works across multiple platforms, supported by the carrier.

And while we’ve no much details at this stage, we know that Mobile Web Games and Apps Store features “cool graphics” and an “easy-to-navigate menu” to guide customers to the wide variety of titles and tools. Users can preview, sample and order popular games and applications – “quickly and simply.” Moreover, there’s a keyword search tool for customers to find games and apps they already know about…

If anyone of you had a chance to try out the new Verizon’s store, we’re eager to hear your thoughts. Comments form is all yours…

Related News from IntoMobile:

Share this: