AT&T (NYSE: T) Developer Summit has been announced recently. The event will be held at the Palms resort in Las Vegas on January 6 in conjunction with the 2010 CES, targeting developers who want to reach AT&T’s 81.6 million customers.

Among the AT&T people who will attend the conference are CEO – Ralph De la Vega,  CTO – John Donovan, CMO – David Christopher, and senior VP of Devices at AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets – Jeff Bradley.

AT&T will also use the event to announce the members of a new third-party Developer Advisory Council, which will provide a forum for key wireless industry influencers and developers to give feedback to AT&T executives on major initiatives in the near and long term.

The 2010 AT&T Developer Summit is free to attend and additional details are available from a dedicated website.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Motorola Announces ‘MotoDev Summit’
• First iPhone game summit scheduled for March 19th in San Francisco
• UIQ Developer Program expansion
• S60 Summit 2007: Failed PR event according to Richard Bloor
• Upcoming Symbian-related developer events

Ever wanted to go to school and learn about BlackBerrys all day long? Well, two bits of news for you: one, you’re crazy. Two, RIM is officially offering curriculum to academic institutions under app development, support, and administration branches. This can help you provide students the knowledge they need to achieve those dreams of making the killer app, ruling a BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) rollout with an iron fist, or manning a soul-draining tech support cubicle. Instructors can use the textbooks, labs, and materials to teach the courses in whole semesters, or piecemeal as modules in other courses.

This is a really interesting strategy on RIM’s part, and reminiscent of their past efforts in certification programs. Plugging into legitimate educational institutes ensures that the hard skills necessary to maintain RIM’s infrastructure in the big wide world don’t die, and young tech professionals recognise the platform as a valid and real path to make a living. I’m interested in seeing the quality of graduates versus other IT professionals who have fallen into BlackBerry after finishing nonspecific courses…

For more information, hit up www.blackberry.com/academic, and be sure to stay tuned over the coming week for more information from the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Education: University of Oxford adds mobile-related courses
• RIM BlackBerry Javelin spotted hanging out amongst friends
• RIM to bring the BlackBerry to Russia in 2008
• Virtual BlackBerry coming to T-Mobile Dash?
• Sprint: It’s not about how many G’s you have – it’s how you use it

Yeah, yeah, we know, we’re a little late.

Sorry for the delay, y’all – between recovering from CTIA, and some technical difficulties, the podcast fell to the wayside for a few weeks, but we’re back on track now.

San Diego had a few treats in store for us, like the Samsung Moment and the Behold II, but there was a lot happening with T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) both before and after CTIA: the details of Project Dark came to light, so Will and I hashed out what hardware financing means for American wireless (mostly good things). On the downside, T-Mobile Sidekick data outage was a big blow to the brand’s credibility, and we wonder if cloud computing really is all it’s cracked up to be.

Of course we have more toys to give away – this time two pairs of in-ear headphones from Ifroz, specifically the EarPollution Timbres, with in-line microphone. Wooden gadgets are pretty sweet in terms of style alone, but in terms of sound quality, reviewers have been largely happy with ‘em. They normally retail for $49.99, but you can get two chances to win by A) dropping a comment in this podcast post, and B) tweeting using the hastag #intomobile. U.S. readers only please, international shipping will cost as much as the headphones themselves.

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

The Signal is a part of the Tech Podcasts Network.

Download The Signal ( Episode 44 ) – iTunes – RSS – (32:51)

Headlines

Hands-on with the Android-powered Samsung Moment

Samsung Behold II is smarter than its predecessor thanks to Android; Coming to T-Mobile USA just in time for holidays

Project Dark: T-Mobile Even More and Even More Plus Plan Pricing Revealed

T-Mobile posts Sidekick contacts recovery instructions!

FCC posts net neutrality draft rules, asks for public input

Related News from IntoMobile:

• The Signal (Episode 22: CTIA Wireless 2009 Edition)
• The Signal Podcast #25: WES Wrap-up and microSD Giveaway
• The Signal (Episode 17: Mobile World Congress 2009 Edition)
• The Signal 46: Canadian HSPA and H790 Bluetooth Headset Giveaway
• The Signal 45: The DROIDs We’re Looking For and Tenqa Bluetooth Speaker Giveaway

Here’s a look at Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s CTIA WITE 2009 booth from the San Diego Convention Center showfloor. Sure, it’s a little late, but better than never.

Motorola’s booth was dominated by Android. As you can see from the photos, the booth was all about Android and the new Motorola CLIQ. Android is at the center of Motorola’s plan to regain lost mobile market share, so it wasn’t surprising to see Motorola’s booth decked out in little green robots. There was even a “little person” walking around, playing DDR and posing for photos in an Android costume.

Will any of that matter to the consumer? Not if they don’t get to see it. To that end, enjoy the photo gallery!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Motorola Booth Tour – CES Las Vegas 2009
• LG Booth Tour – Live from CTIA Wireless 2009 Las Vegas
• Motorola Booth Tour – CTIA San Francisco 2008
• Video: We take the Motorola CLIQ and MOTOBLUR for a spin
• Live from Mobile World Congress – BlackBerry Booth Tour

During the recently ended CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2009, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) shared some numbers about its mobile navigation service – VZ Navigator. Here’s what we’ve learned:

• More than 65% of VZ Navigator customers use the service more than three times a week;
• So far in 2009, VZ Navigator users made 11.5 million more inquiries than in whole 2008;
• Searches for traffic updates and detours around traffic congestion hit more than 8.5 million per month, an increase of 93% from the previous year;
• VZ Navigator mobile consumers ran more than 480,000 searches to find gas stations;
• Searches for movie theaters were up more than 125% over last year, climbing to more than 1 million a month;
• Weather information was also popular with more than 1 million a month requests, a 128% increase from 2008.

And that’s about it. For the record, VZ Navigator is available for $9.99 a month for unlimited access or $2.99 for a one-day use on select Get It Now-enabled phones and select BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) and other smartphones. VZ Navigator Global is available on the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Tour and HTC Touch Pro2 smartphones for $19.99 per month…

Related News from IntoMobile:

• TeleNav GPS Navigator 5.2 released; Adds social networking
• VZ Navigator Version 4 now available!
• AT&T Navigator going global
• MovieTickets.com goes mobile
• AT&T adds traffic information to selected BlackBerry users

Kempler & Strauss, the folks behind the “W” watch phone we covered recently, have used the CTIA in San Diego to show off their Billionair 7 Windows Mobile smartphone. Here’s the specs rundown:

• 2.5-inch QVGA (320×240 pixels) “frameless” touchscreen
• Full QWERTY keyboard
• 624Mhz CPU
• HSDPA supporting speeds of up to 14Mbps on the downlink
• WiFi, Bluetooth v2.0
• 3-megapixel camera
• microSD memory card slot

The best thing is the price. It’s just $275 for the unlocked device, which makes it a great deal and an even better entrance to the smartphone world. Kudos to Kempler & Strauss for pulling this out.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Vodafone UK’s new USB Stick Pro HSPA modem is easy to carry around thanks to the retractable USB connector
• Four Low-End Samsung Phones Revealed
• AT&T future lineup shows two HSPA+ modems: Option 393 and Sierra Wireless Triple Lindy
• AT&T launches Samsung Epix – Windows Mobile touchscreen handset with optical mouse
• Velocity Mobile’s 103 Windows Mobile smartphone hits FCC

Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) didn’t have a CTIA booth this go around, so they sent their Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 with the “Windows Phone” booth to keep things interesting. There was no way I wasn’t going to get my hands all over the X2’s improved arc-slider and 3.5-inch OLED touchscreen. The X1 launched Sony Ericsson’s high-end XPERIA brand with high-end style last year, leaving some big shoes for the X2 to fill. We just had to find out if it did.

Changed from the X1 days is the touchscreen. The XPERIA X2 boasts a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen that’s flush mounted. No more recessed resistive nonsense here. The arc-sliding keyboard is more comfortable and feels less cramped than the X1’s. And, of course, there’s the 8.1-megapixel camera tucked into the curvy shell.

The Panel UI still allows you to change your homescreen to fit your changing needs and moods. There are new Panels available too: a kind of cheesy Sim City-esque Sony Ericsson panel, new Windows Mobile 6.5 panels and more. The new Slide View feature takes center stage in the X2’s interface, serving up an inspired shortcut menu design that makes it easy to hop around oft-used phone features like missed calls, messages and  panels.

We’ll let the video and photo gallery do the rest of the talking.

Quick look at the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 from IntoMobile.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 ‘Vulcan’ specs in detail
• Best Buy now offering Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1a pre-orders!
• Sony Ericsson may unveil XPERIA X2 on June 17
• Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 firmware update goes live with better signal reception
• Sony Ericsson: Yes, that’s Windows Mobile 6.1 with our very own XPERIA panel UI running on top of it

After getting a demo of some of the cool vector map capabilities on the N900 at CTIA, I prodded a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) rep about what they’ve been working on with augmented reality (since zooming down to street level on the map to check out the 3D rendering of a stadium was awfully close). He mentioned that there’s an project in alpha within Nokia that involves OCR character recognition that would effectively translate text seen through the camera into other languages. Sounds like a logical extension of Point and Find. Camera quality is a bottleneck, but now that phones are getting into the 8-12 megapixel range and optics are continually improving, picking up small text is becoming less of an issue. Given, this program will probably produce the garden variety hilarity of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) translations, it’s all you would need to get by in a foreign country.

And let’s face it: you know you’re living in the freaking future when you can point your phone at a bunch of alien characters and have them magically make sense. Combined with something like Sakhr’s voice translation software, one could be well-armed to handle some pretty exotic locales.

[pic]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Google Translate goes iPhone – Translate 24 languages on your iPhone
• PhotoCard v1.1 S60 released
• Google Phone = MVNO using O2’s network in the UK + Nokia + Google’s secret sauce
• Nokia E71, N82 honored by Wired Magazine
• Nokia N95 and Apple iPhone headed to Rogers Canada

Ever wanted to use an iPhone for work, but got stuck with the standard issue BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM)? Well, Good Technology has made progress on their iPhone application, the back-end management for which was announced in the spring, and was showing it off at CTIA. The app has all the usual fixings, like e-mail (complete with push notifications and tomato splat on the home screen), contacts, and calendar items, all synced up to your enterprise Exchange or Domino server. The Good app uses enterprise standards for encryption like AES, and through a web-based management console, IT admins can manage employee mobility. I’m still dubious on whether or not Good’s admin side is as robust as RIM’s, but even if it’s not, I’m sure it will offer a reasonable suite of tools to work with. No word on pricing just yet, but it should be available in the App Store in the next couple of weeks. For a closer look, check out their data sheet or sign up for availability notifications.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 Feature Comparison
• Good Technology at CTIA: Good for Enterprise 6.0, Good Works and the iPhone support
• BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 Due Q2 ‘09, Featuring Remote File Access
• Good Technology supports Nokia E61
• SAP and RIM partner for enterprise mobility

CTIA Fall 2009 isn’t the biggest show we’ve ever been to. In fact, this particular conference might be the smallest CTIA we’ve ever attended. But, that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of cool hardware to ogle on the showfloor. Take the Nokia N900 for example. It’s Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s latest Nseries smartphone, and the first of the Nseries lineup to run a non-Symbian OS. Nokia tapped its Maemo development team to craft a version of the Linux-based operating system for the new Nokia N900 smartphone, and we have to say it’s light-years better than S60. Say what you want about Symbian, just don’t say it’s “good.”

Anyway, enough ranting about Symbian. The Nokia N900 is a true multi-tasking powerhouse. The N900 is powered by the same 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor that you’ll find crunching numbers inside the iPhone 3GS. Nokia uses that awesome processor to bring serious multi-tasking to the Nokia N900. Take a look at the video below and you’ll see that the N900 we were playing with was running no less than six apps at the same time – no saved-state nonsense, this was legitimate multi-tasking. One of the apps (a game) even displayed an animated thumbnail showing the game in action while running in the background.

The UI is smooth and lag-free. Flick your finger on the touchscreen and you’ll be treated to a bit of kinetic scrolling. Maemo 5 supports widgets too, which means you can fill your three homescreen panes with all sorts of little info-windows that pull social-network information in real-time. And, as an added bonus, Maemo 5 runs a Mozilla-based web browser that boasts full Flash 9.2 support. This isn’t the crappy Flash Lite that some folks have been saying is a good alternative to real Flash support (even though it really isn’t). This is real Flash, running real fast and real smoothly.

As for the hardware, here’s a quick rundown. The Nokia N900 features a 3.5-inch WVGA capacitive resistive touchscreen, 5-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera (with dual-LED flash), 32GB onboard storage, 3G data, GPS, WiFi, FM radio and that speedy 600Mhz Cortex A8 processor. In a nutshell, it’s everything you’d expect from Nokia’s latest Nseries flagship.

You can pre-order the Nokia N900 from NokiaUSA.com for $649. Have at it!

Enjoy the video.

Hands-on the Nokia N900 from IntoMobile.

[Update]
Touchscreen is resistive, not capacitive

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Some thoughts on the next Nokia Internet tablet device
• Symbian first to deliver Arm Cortex-A8 technology for smartphones
• Apple rumored to allow limited iPhone multi-tasking with iPhone OS 3.0
• Is this the Nokia N920?
• Brief: Confirmed: Maemo 6 to bring support for multi touch and capacitive screens

Okay, let’s face it: there are people in your social networks you just want to mute sometimes. Inane tweets, stupid Facebook status updates, or a continual influx of devilishly entertaining links distracting you from doing something productive. On the flip side, sometimes you want to be on be on the pulse of things and just want to hear it all. Well, this neat little address book  app for iPhone called Orbit has an ingenious feature called Social Volume which lets you do just that.

At its core, Orbit aims to handle all of the native personal information management tasks under one roof – e-mail, phone, text, and social networking. The way Social Volume works is that you can adjust the frequency of updates from user-specified groups of contacts and specific types of updates. An “Inner Orbit” group lets you handle your top-priority contacts separately, along with being able to optionally populate the address book through Facebook.

I’d really like to see Trillibis plug multimedia social networks like last.fm and Flickr into their app, but in the end, I just really like the idea of Social Volume. It strikes me as a real poignant and natural thing for someone to do on their social networks; “I don’t hate you, but please, please, just shut up for a little while.” Free iPhone and BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) apps will be arriving before the end of the year, with Android following shortly thereafter in 2010.

[via Trilibis]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Mobile social address book Xumii launches iPhone app
• MobileSync pulls Facebook profile pictures into WinMo contacts
• Nokia purchases cellity, a company so insignificant they don’t bother capitalizing the first letter in their name
• YellowPin Lets you Update Facebook with Location by SMS
• BlackBerry Instant Messaging Clients Updated

Rock Band is on its way to the iPhone! Forget everything you thought you knew about beat-matching music games on the iPhone, EA Mobile’s Rock Band is by far the best in its class. We had a chance to sit down with EA Mobile at CTIA WITE 2009 to get a sneak-peek at Rock Band for iPhone, and it’s looking good. The game gives you the option of playing on your own, taking a world tour (as you unlock points for new songs) or jam with up to four of your iPhone friends in person or over the internet. Linking up for 4-way multi-player mode is done over Bluetooth, so you don’t even have to worry about finding a hotspot to get your jam on!

The iPhone port of Rock Band gives the gamer the same look and feel as the console version – graphics, gameplay and sound effects are all very familiar. Just like the console version, Rock Band for iPhone offers four different instruments to play – bass, guitar, drums and even vocals. The game comes loaded with 20 songs, all of them master versions from the real-life band (no cover songs). And, with in-app purchases now supported on the iPhone OS 3.0, Rock Band for iPhone will allow you buy new song packs directly from EA Mobile. How sweet is that?

[Update]
There’s no hard launch date set, but the game is going in for AppStore approval within a week. After that, it’s up to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to pull the trigger.

Keep reading for our sneak-peek video of the upcoming Rock Band iPhone game!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Rock Band iPhone Teaser Trailer Bringing Fun To BORED-room Meetings
• Rock Band Arrives for iPhone and iPod Touch!
• AT&T brings Guitar Hero Mobile to faux-rockers
• Guitar Legend: Get On Stage! – the first guitar simulation mobile game
• Apple announces in-app purchases for free iPhone apps

Midomi, an online community for amateur singers and music identification service, will be extending into Android soon. Until now, Shazam had struck me as the best mobile music ID service out there, but after seeing Midomi in action, I can see how handy humming a song could be when you’ve got it stuck in your head, or don’t have a chance to jam your phone right against a radio’s speaker. After either grabbing a sample of the song in question or simply speaking the artist/title, Midomi Ultra presents options for buying the track, YouTube videos, album information, lyrics lookup, and just about anything else you would want to know about a song. One of the key differentiators with Midomi is the social element – it’s heavily geared towards connecting you with people who have looked up similar music.  Unfortunately, the app will be exclusive to the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Cliq for the immediate future, but if you happen to be packing an iPhone, Midomi has got you covered.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Midomi Arrives in Android Market, Free for Limited Time
• Verizon Wireless launches Song ID service
• Nobex Radio Companion Updated With New Features
• Snow Patrol to release interactive album as iPhone application
• Pearl Jam’s debut album “Ten” to hit Verizon’s V CAST Music service first

A nice little treat from RIM last night at CTIA was these two devices, the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold 9000 and Curve 8520, in a brand new white paint job. We had heard rumours about the white Bold hitting up AT&T (NYSE: T), but the new 8520, which will be joining its black and blue brothers on T-Mobile (NYSE: DT), was a welcome surprise. T-Mobile’s offer is available now, and I’m sure AT&T’s will go live soon.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• White BlackBerry Bold hitting AT&T October 18 for $200
• Price Drops on Rogers BlackBerry Bold 9000, Curve 8900 and 8520
• BlackBerry Curve 8320 with BlackBerry OS 4.5 hitting AT&T soon
• Nokia E63 goes black!
• Rumor: T-Mobile BlackBerry Bold 9700 Coming November 18th?

The CTIA Wireless Association, which is also holding a show at this very moment if you haven’t been reading Will and Simon’s blog posts from the show floor, is starting an initiative that will require all mobile phones sold in America to have a 3.5 mm headphone jack and microUSB port. If the initiative is successful, then when you go shopping for a mobile phone come January 2012, every single model (except the iPhone probably) will have standard ports. No adapters, no worrying about losing cables, in one word: heaven. “By simplifying input and output features on mobile devices, economies of scale will reduce consumers’ costs” said CTIA President Steve Largent, and while cost is one of the benefits of declaring a standard, consumer ease of use is the one that’s really important here.

[Via: AFP]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• CTIA on board with standardized microUSB phone charger
• Paragon Software releases multilingual on-screen keyboard for Windows Mobile – InterKey 3.0
• NTT DoCoMo highlights Super 3G / LTE at CTIA Las Vegas 2008
• Apple accessories: modular, and pricey!
• Palm’s upcoming OS is code-named Nova; First devices with next-gen OS to appear in February 2009

There’s no doubt that the fall CTIA (also known as CTIA WITE) is a smaller shin-dig than the spring CTIA conference. That much was evident in Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s smallish booth in the San Diego Convention Center. We’re used to seeing Nokia’s massive booths bursting with cool hardware and enthusiastic people, so it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t find piles of new hardware at the booth. It just wasn’t the same this time around.

The highlight of Nokia’s booth was the Nokia Booklet 3G. It’s an insanely expensive ultra-light laptop (we call it a netbook, but Nokia apparently isn’t down with that) boasting an air-cooled (no fans) Atom processor that can go for 12 hours one a single charge. The entire bottom case of the Booklet 3G is crafted from a single piece of aluminum – like the MacBook and MacBook Pro from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL).

It’s small, it’s light and it’s incredibly sexy. Is it worth the money? We say no. But if we somehow come into a boatload of money, the Nokia Booklet 3G will be at the top of our gotta-have list!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Prediction: The Apple Tablet doesn’t exist and the new MacBook will use Pineview
• Video: Wall Street Journal reviews the Nokia Booklet 3G: 8 hours of battery with harsh use
• Brief: Best Buy to get exclusive retail rights on the Nokia Booklet 3G in the USA
• Nokia joins the netbook race with the Booklet 3G: 10 inches, 1.25 kg, 12 hour battery life, HDMI out
• Nokia Booklet 3G: BestBuy exclusive for $599 unlocked or $299 on a 2 year, $60/month plan

Passive display technologies rock. You’re probably familiar with the Kindle’s e-Ink passive display, but that’s already ancient technology. The future of low-power displays is color video, something the Kindle can only dream of doing. Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM), however, isn’t just dreaming it, they’re living it. The company’s mirasol division was proudly showing off their latest mirasol display with nothing less than full-motion color video at 30 fps. Impressed? We were.

Passive displays are great for saving battery power because they only draw precious electric-juice when changing the pixels on the display. The image continues to persist, sans power, until pixels need to be rearranged again. In Qualcomm’s case, the mirasol display technology uses millions (literally) of reflective mirrors to create an image using reflected ambient light. Somehow, Qualcomm managed to work those tiny mirrors in just the right manner to get color and video working – all the while sipping on battery juice.

Hopefully, we’ll see more color mirasol displays coming to smartphones in the near future.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Qualcomm Booth Tour – CTIA San Francisco 2008
• Qualcomm sees smartbooks on the rise, 3G phones to take half of mobile market
• ABI Research: LCD still rules mobile phone screens, but new technologies hunt for niches
• Qualcomm booth tour from Mobile World Congress 2008
• Qualcomm at MWC: Mirasol displays coming to smartphones, Sony to use GOBI, femtocell chipsets are in da portfolio

Samsung has officially gone Android. Today, at the CTIA WITE 2009 conference in beautiful San Diego, Samsung unveiled the Samsung Moment as their first Android phone to hit market. The Moment features a 3.2-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera (with autofocus and LED flash), slide-out QWERTY keyboard, GPS, WiFi and an optical mouse. There’s also a speedy 800Mhz processor lying within, ready to crunch numbers like it’s nobody’s business. The Moment will be only the third Android phone to sport a physical keyboard when it launches, putting in league with the HTC G1 and the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) CLIQ. Talk about being in good company. But, the real question is how does the Samsung Moment measure up?

We had a chance to put hands on the Samsung Moment, and it holds its own against the CLIQ. The keyboard slides out with smooth confidence. The camera is decent, especially considering it only packs a little over 3 million pixels onto its image sensor. The keyboard keys are a little small for our tastes, but provides reassuring tactile feedback.

Samsung will be bringing the Samsung Moment to Sprint (NYSE: S) on November 1st for $179.99 (after $50 instant savings and $100 MIR) when purchased with new 2-year contract. Check out the video and photo gallery below for a preview look at the Samsung Moment.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Samsung announces world’s smallest 8.4 MP CMOS image sensor
• Samsung’s new 8 megapixel CMOS image sensor is 8.5mm thick
• Video: We take the Motorola CLIQ and MOTOBLUR for a spin
• Motorola CLIQ Available for Pre-Order October 19th?
• OmniVision announces new 5 megapixel camera sensor that also does 1080p video at 30 fps

It’s been a long time coming, and they’ve had to trudge through a veritable gauntlet of bad press related to Global Verge and Buzzirk Mobile, but Zer01 Mobile is finally ready to show that they’re not just full of hot air. Zer01 CEO Ben Piilani was on hand at the Fall CTIA WITE 2009 conference to prove to the media that Zer01 service is indeed real and does work.

For those of you not aware, Zer01 hit the scene earlier this year with a revolutionary new wireless calling service that used some sort of patented VoIP technology to provide unlimited voice and data service for just $70 per month, sans contract. It’s an intriguing offer, to be sure.

Piilani explains the Zer01 service as a “VoIP carrier” of sorts that treats all network traffic as data. Zer01 says that their service piggybacks on partner GSM networks in the US, but stops short of mentioning just who those partner carriers are. Getting started with Zer01 service is as easy as popping in a Zer01 SIM card into a Windows Mobile smartphone. The handset will automatically download a Zer01 VoIP dialer that is required to place voice calls. Once that’s all setup, you can talk and surf without limits.

The Zer01 service was demonstrated on a T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) HTC Touch Pro2, and the service works on the 1700Mhz 3G frequency. Even our feeble minds can make the logical connection that T-Mobile may very well be Zer01’s partner GSM carrier. But, we could be wrong.

As for retail availability, Zer01 says they will have their retail channel setup through established retailers in about a month. For their sake, we hope this launch window holds.

We’re expecting our own Zer01 SIM in about a week, so keep an eye out for a more in-depth look at Zer01 Mobile’s service.

[Update]
Now with video!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Zer01 announces unlimited voice and data service nationwide!
• New US ‘VoIP carrier’ Zer01 to offer unlimited voice and data for $70
• Zer01’s unlimited voice/data service full of bull?
• Dual-Mode Telephony from Nokia and SingTel
• Use your iPhone to make long-distance calls at local wireless rates – RingFree allows VoIP over GSM

Slacker, a great music app for BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) and iPhone, will be launching on Android and Windows Mobile tomorrow, allowing you to browse, favourite, and discover music on your smartphone. The launch will come with some new Twitter integration which will let you tweet whenever you favourite a new track, and share a link to the station you’re listening to so your followers can take a listen for themselves. While Slacker might lack the immediate convenience of over the air downloads, its sideloading setup allows for much higher-quality tracks. Just like the previous versions, the app will be free to download, but of course you’ll always have the option to buy the tracks to do what you will with. Licensing issues are still a thorn in Slacker’s side; if you live anywhere other than the U.S., you won’t be able to use the service. Otherwise, take a look at Slacker, and keep an eye on their mobile app page for some fresh goodies tomorrow.

UPDATE:  Slight miscommunication. It’s only the twitter feature launching today – Android and Windows Mobile will be arriving at a later, undisclosed date.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Slacker Released on Android
• Slacker Announces Music App for BlackBerry
• Slacker Radio Updated to Version 2.0.49
• Slacker Available for the BlackBerry Storm
• Slacker Radio Updated to 2.0.91 for BlackBerry and iPhone