So I was typing away this evening, and thinking about the movie Swordfish – an enjoyable romp featuring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, and of course (who could forget) Halle Berry

There are several priceless moments in that film where the lead characters are spewing techno-babble that is devoid of any joined up thinking – trojans, firewalls, ciphers, you name it – all mashed together in meaningless, cringe-inducing, gibberish. But that’s kind of what makes the movie good!

It got me thinking, there must be some of these types of moments involving mobile devices – and then suddenly a couple hit me – but before I name them, feel free to zing a comment on the end of this piece if you can think of others – as I said, there must be lots, right?

Great moment #1: Die Hard 4.0 (2007) - Justin Long is using a Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Communicator, when the mobile networks all drop (as the bad guys are busy taking them down). He turns to Bruce Willis and says something along the lines of surfing the military satellites, and lo and behold, one dodgy cable later, he’s up and running with a mobile data connection!

Great moment #2: Cellular (2004) – a thriller movie, with Kim Basinger and Chris Evans. There’s not a specific moment as such in this film, but they sure do eke out the moment the battery on the mobile phone is running down – it goes on for seemingly forever. As we all know from the irritation of real-world calls, once the battery bleep comes on in-call, you are very soon going to be out of juice!

So what moments can you think of – and no using ‘The Matrix’ as an example please, although there are some quality moments in there too

I’ve reported on the Amazon Kindle International Edition before (here), which is an interesting device, because its packing a SIM card in it that can roam seamlessly across network in Europe – in fact you could argue it’s the main way of acquiring e-books for that device.

Well now there’s another (yes, another) e-book reader, the Bookeen Cybook Opus, which has a couple of interesting traits:

1. Some kind of landscape mode
2. A price-point that is worryingly close to the Kindle

Yep, that’s right, this bad boy isn’t packing 3G data, yet it’s only $40 cheaper – that’s not good, is it?

Right now, from a mobile data connection perspective, Kindle is cream of the crop – but could we see a newer revision of the Opus coming soon, with 3G or WiFi data? Quite possibly.

[Via: e-reader-info.com]

Want to totally customize your new Curve 8900, but really don’t want to send the whole device in? I can’t blame you, going without your ‘baby’ for more than a day is a hard thing for most of us. Thankfully, Colorware is now offering a ‘parts only’ option for their Curve 8900 customization. How does it work? You select the colors you’d like to have, and Colorware will send you the parts. From there, you get to do all the nitty-gritty dirty work and install for yourself. Pricing for this option is $175 (rapid return of your device is $159, and the purchase and customization of a new device is $599)…

In my eyes this service is truly a luxury… Not necessary at all, but ranks high on my personal ‘BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) goodness’ scale. Yeah, Colorware is awesome

Get started over at Colorware >

[Via: CB]

The most visited technology blog, Engadget, recently changed their design. People appear to have mixed feelings about the new look, and I could personally care less since I read Engadget via RSS. That being said, I think I speak for everyone at IntoMobile when I say that Engadget was what inspired us to start blogging in the first place, and eventually, one by one, come together to form IntoMobile. Engadget has done, and continues to do, a fantastic job at throwing fuel on to the fire known as techno-lust that is deep inside our cores. That being said, their RSS feed has changed, subtly, for the worse.

When Engadget, and many other technology blogs, cover a story, there is almost always a source that is attributed. At IntoMobile we usually have a link at the bottom of our stories with pointing people to where we got our information. The text reads: [Via: NAME_OF_SOURCE]. Engadget does the same thing, and with the redesign they’ve made that source link stand out. Look at the bottom left:

This information is no longer present in the RSS feed however. As a reader I have to go to the page that has the article I’m interested in to locate the source of information. Here is a screenshot of the item above as it appears in my RSS reader, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Reader:

Why did you do this? You’re better than this and you know it.

Please consider fixing the “issue” or at least walk us through the decision to make your RSS feed the way it is now.

Update: And before anyone asks, there is another site that does this: Slashdot. Their RSS feed removes links that point to the sources of information used to write their articles. They’ve been doing it for a while now. I hate it, but they have not changed their ways.

Update: Looks like someone at Engadget has read this post (or at least my ego would like to think that) since I just saw this in my RSS reader. Notice the scrunch up text that says SOURCE? I’m assuming they’re working on fixing that bug, but at least they’ve started listing sources now!

Time for a little off-beat fun. Ever want to throw down your mobile device, take a break, sip some whiskey and get involved in a rousing game of chess? I know I don’t. But if I did, chances are I’d pick up the Jack Daniel’s Lynchburg Chess Set for $197.50.

The description:

Highly-detailed, sculpted and painted pieces complimented by a top-quality wooden board branded with the Jack Daniel’s logo. Board doubles as a carrying case for the pieces. Comes in a gift box that includes detailed photographs of the individual pieces and historical/trivia information. This is one beautiful chess set!

Commemorate your love of deep thinking, the American Civil War, and smooth Tennessee sippin’ with this beauty of a chess set. Check it out here.

Happy Wednesday

There aren’t too many things super-exotic sports cars, like the $1+ million Bugatti Veyron, hate more than being sentenced to a life of grocery-getting and night-on-the-towning. Salt water is high on that short-list. Being driven by a cellphone-distracted driver also makes that list. Combine those two super car pet-peeves, and you’ve got the makings of a disaster… the kind of disaster that ends with a Bugatti Veyron half-submerged in a salt water marsh Texas.

Rather than let his super car of super cars wind out its four turbo-chargers on some smoothly-paved track or a private airstrip, the Lufkin, Texas man took his million-dollar car for a drive on I-45 in La Marque. He tells police that he was startled by a low-flying pelican that caused him to drop his cellphone. He could have let the cellphone sit there until he pulled over, but apparently decided to reach down and retrieve the mobile phone while driving. The result? He took the Veyron off-road and into a briny marsh.

A driver on an adjacent highway lane managed to record footage of the accident as it happened. The video isn’t all that clear, but we can’t see any pelicans flying anywhere near the Bugatti Veyron. There does, however, seem to be an abundance of dumbass-ness surrounding the car at the time of the accident.

The cops say the Texas man wasn’t injured, but we beg to differ. Broken bones heal, bruises go away, but this guy is never going to live down the fact that his mobile phone distracted him enough to drive into a marsh. There’s also a lesson about not using your cellphone while driving somewhere in this story. If you find it, let us know.

This is the accident:

This is the aftermath:

[Via: Mirror.co.uk]

Usually the construction of new a new cell tower meets opposition from surrounding communities… At least, that has been the case in my area, and in other parts of Canada. However, the good folks of Cranbrook B.C. are welcoming the build of a new $1,000,000 TELUS (NYSE: TU) (NYSE: TU) cell tower. I’m hoping this is a sign of the times!

The new tower will provide residents in the area with access to TELUS’ new 3G+ network… something most folks in Cranbrook have wanted and will no doubt enjoy.

TELUS service manager Frank Mungiello commented on the situation:

“Finishing this project is very rewarding not only because of the tough construction challenges related to the geography, but because of the community support shown to us for bringing new wireless coverage to the region.”

Congrats Cranbrook residents. Enjoy your new tower and improved network performance.

Note to TELUS: If you want to throw up a tower in my back yard, yeah… that’s cool with me.

[Via: Media Newswire]

Few advertisements have the power to stop me in my tracks, make me think, and then smile. Dentyne, a manufacture of chewing gum, are running two advertisements in the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit that remind people that communicating with people digitally can never, and will never, reach the fidelity of “face time”. Since leaving Facebook over 3 months ago, and discussing the reasons why with several people in meat space, I’ve discovered that I’m not alone. Many have admitted that they share the same feelings of nostalgia, longing of the days before social networks, and frustration with the digital, you are my friend, you are not my friend, systems of today. The efficiency of which we can communicative with people today removes the effort that was once required to truly know someone.

Now there are people who will argue that online social networking, in moderation, is healthy. The same can be said about masturbation, and that’s all social networking has become. Make a profile, find people you know, say how you feel, read what they said about how they feel, comment on their feelings, give their feelings a thumbs up; it’s remarkably easy to fool oneself into believing that you’re interacting with someone on a meaningful level. “Face time”, exposing your thoughts and feelings in real time, changing the tone, pace, and subject of a conversation based on the area you’re sitting, who is around, and most importantly how the other person moves their body in their seat and the features of their face; the challenges of recognizing, interpreting, and then reacting to someone during “face time” are what you use to discover friendship, truth, and compassion.

A thumbs up doesn’t quite do it. Dentyne realizes this, and they know that many of you have these feelings, but you’re too comfortable in your online social network to take a risk. They’re pushing you to get back out into the world, to experience things without the safety of your laptop. They want you to be prepared for the people you’re going to meet, and to them that means having fresh breathe.

They sell gum, but in the process they try to remind you what life is all about.

[Images from Flickr user "acordova"]

Many of you are surfing IntoMobile, downloading illegal torrents, and watching a YouTube video of a cat playing the keyboard, all at the same time thanks to broadband. I personally don’t know anyone who uses dialup, and I doubt you do as well. Have you ever stopped and thought to yourself why the business model for broadband delivery to your home isn’t the same as wireless data on your mobile device? All home broadband connections are offered with unlimited consumption, you simply pay for speed.

Take a look at AT&T’s plans for DSL:

And Comcasts’s plans for cable:

See how pricing plans are structured? You want more bits per second, you give us more dollars per month. Now why is it that mobile data is so analog in the USA and many other countries around the world? Usually there is only 1 package. You either have mobile internet on your device, or you don’t.

Check out how my Finnish operator, Saunalahti, charges for their mobile internet:

Notice how you pay more for speed, just like you do in America for broadband at home. What plan do you think I use? You’d be surprised to know I have the cheapest (slowest) package that only offers 384 KB/s. I use the living hell out of it thanks to Opera Mini, but at the same time I’m not hogging up all the bandwidth available at a cell tower. Why do you think AT&T’s network has been a steaming pile of shit after they launched the iPhone? There is no throttling, everyone gets the same big fat pipe.

If mobile data was priced in tiers based on speed, how many more people do you think would sign up? Some of us just do a lot of Twitter and email on the go, we don’t need 3G, and we don’t want to pay $30 a month just to tell our Facebook friends how we feel about a movie we just saw. Some of us like to surf full websites all day on our iPhone, and we want the snappiest experience possible, and we’re totally willing to pay for that.

More user choice (more packages) is all I’m asking for from operators. It helps move more people on to the internet, and it gives speed to the people who really want it, the people who want to pay, because all the cheapskates like me don’t use up all the bandwidth.

Discuss.

A few weeks back, I wrote a post, asking which the laggiest handset you have used is – this was following a try-out of the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, and my own suggestion that the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N96 I used a good while back didn’t seem to be too fast at the time either!

Well, it generated some responses, and I thought I’d just take a quick look over what the responses were – here they are, in all their glory:

• Nokia N95-3
• HTC Fuze (HTC Touch Pro)
• HTC Imagio
• Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) P990i
• HTC Mini S

Wowzer! Did anyone see three HTC devices in there? Ponderously, there’s a mixture of new AND old handsets, from Mini S, right through to the Imagio of today. But what’s more interesting is that they are all packing Windows Mobile – hmm, could that be the cause of the lagging?

Well, from my own personal experience of running an HTC TyTn, I can definitely say that it wasn’t the fastest thing ever, that’s for sure – and reviewing the Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF) TG01 recently (with a  1GHz CPU in it!), I was still seeing bad lagging issues in the WinMo camp. But all the fault can’t rest at the hands of the O/S (probably) – often if there’s a poor implementation on the hardware, that can create real issues too.

Fascinatingly though, HTC have been getting great reviews recently for their devices – and those have been packing both Android and WinMo – so apart from the Imagio, which is perhaps an anomaly (can anyone else confirm?), then maybe they have sorted the issues out…

Certainly I don’t think HTC are the only vendor out there with handset lag issues, there are some worse offenders for sure – so if you’ve got an opinion, hit us up for a comment and let us which device’s UI felt like swimming the wrong way in a river of treacle when you were using it!