Wallpaper and photos

A few days before CTIA Fall 2008 began, the National Geographic Society announced a new effort to bring its content to mobile devices. The society will launch a WAP site next month that will offer photos, animal ringtones, articles from National Geographic magazine, and video from the society's television shows. Though exact content and the URL are still under development, mobile division vice president Aaron Kohn said that there also will be an online "green" guide with tips on eco-friendly products and shopping for sustainable fish.

Kohn confirmed that National Geographic is not looking to form an … Read more

The new iPhone app from Palringo brings an official multi-instant messaging client to the Apple device. It supports eight chat protocols and includes some useful iPhone-specific features, but also suffers from several irritating limitations.

Palringo can handle Apple iChat, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber, and Windows Live Messenger. Assuming you've got no problems with the iPhone keyboard, creating a profile for one of these accounts is as simple as selecting the proper icon and typing in your username and password. First, though, you must set up a Palringo account. Not to worry: when you open … Read more

We'd almost forgotten about the "Pico Projector" as more than a year had passed since we'd heard of it making any significant progress. But when our colleagues at Crave Asia spotted a working demo using the technology earlier this month, we were reminded of its promises to project photos and video from mobile phones and other portable devices.

Now Taiwan-based projector company Optoma is partnering with Texas Instruments to bring its own version of the micro-projector to market. Its technology requires a separate companion product, rather than projecting directly from a phone or media player, but … Read more

Going to a cell phone store can be like going to the DMV. Typically you have to wait a long time to be helped, and there's seldom a place to sit while you kill time. The lack of chairs in carrier stores has always baffled me, but then a sales rep at the AT&T in Pasadena, Calif., told my mom that they removed the chairs because some klutz fell off one of them and sued. Who says baseball is the American pastime?

But seriously, buying a cell phone can be a trying experience, particularly if you're … Read more

Though carriers have loosened some of the reins in the last couple of years, it still can be a tricky process to get photos off your camera phone. The most common method, sending your snaps as a multimedia message to an e-mail address, costs money. Sure, you can offset individual messaging fees with a messaging plan, but that too will add a few dollars to your monthly bill. A Bluetooth file transfer is a better (and free) option, but you'll need Bluetooth on both ends. Also, up until recently some carriers restricted Bluetooth use so they wouldn't lose … Read more

Eastman Kodak hopes turning one aspect of chip design on its head will help improve cell phone cameras--or at least help their image quality catch up with their megapixel increases.

"We believe we've created a new camera sensor product that rivals that of real cameras, but it's small enough to be used in a camera phone," said Fas Mosleh, manager of CMOS market work for Kodak's professional and applied imaging group.

There have been nice cameras in high-end mobile phones such as Nokia's N95, but Kodak believes its technology, built into a 5-megapixel sensor … Read more

A whole heap of Web 2.0 companies are competing for recognition of their phone-to-Web and Web-to-phone services. Most are mainly media storage, sharing, or manipulation companies like Thumbplay and 3Guppies, that have added a proprietary push-to-phone service to make their brand do more. ShoZu, a 2007 Webware 100 winner, is one of the few I've seen whose actual goal is to push content to your phone and from it, using as many partner services as they possibly can.

Today ShoZu announced a partnership with Flickr that lets users subscribe to friends' individual media feeds. A lot has changed … Read more

And here I thought Alltel's commercials were bad. As I prepared to review the Motorola Rokr Z6m I was scrolling through the phone's available wallpapers to see what it offered. After passing by the standard options that come with any Alltel or Motorola handset, I found a wallpaper that stopped me cold.

In the middle of a blue sunburst pattern was an animated figure of the blue-shirted spokesman from Alltel's grating commercials. The wallpaper shows "Chad" (as he is called) gyrating away to some unheard music. Though I can't put my finger on exactly … Read more

Thumb open an ordinary flip or slide phone and nothing happens, except maybe the triggering of a robotic greeting (Hello to you, too, Moto.) Do it again with a phone enriched with Emdigo's 3D offering and football players might rush by.

The carrier-partnered content distributor isn't one I'd normally cover, but the offering is an example of compelling 3D software coming our way. Similar third-party, carrier-agnostic downloads are sure to follow.

NFL Team Tailgate and Hello Kitty are two such examples of these enhanced animated skins that users can purchase through Verizon and Alltel. Flipping or sliding … Read more