Mobility Phones - Mobile Phones

Verizon Wireless and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung) today announced the availability of the SCH-u550 from Samsung. This fashionable clamshell sports a trend-setting brown finish and lets customers download and listen to music, check out short video clips and take pictures and videos while on-the-go.The SCH-u550 features a 1.3 megapixel camera with Night Shot to enhance the camera’s capabilities in dark environments and digital zoom, a camcorder, and Bluetooth wireless capabilities for headsets, hands-free, serial port, certain dial-up networking profiles, and object push for vCard to further enhance customers’ wireless experience. Verizon Wireless customers can also access V CAST Video, Verizon Wireless’ multimedia service with news, sports and entertainment video clips, 3D games, and more; and V CAST Music, which offers access to over 2.7 million full-length songs from well-known and independent artists that can be purchased and downloaded over-the-air, directly to the SCH-u550. Additional features of the SCH-u550 by Samsung include:

* Get It Now-capable — download games, ringtones, wallpapers, location based services, and more

* VZ NavigatorSM — visual and audible directions to a destination, locate businesses and other places in an area, get a map of a location, bookmark favorites and recent searches, and even share locations with others

* Mobile Web 2.0SM — customizable, enhanced wireless access to the latest in news, sports, weather, and more

* Text, picture and video messaging

* Instant Messaging using AIM, MSN, Yahoo!

* Expandable memory with microSD memory card slot

* Dimensions: 3.77″ x 1.93″ x .64″; 3.35 ounces with standard battery

* Advanced Speech Recognition

* Speakerphone

* Personal organizer with Calendar, Calculator, Notepad, Alarm Clock, World Time, and Stop Watch

* Bilingual user interface: English and Spanish

* TTY/TTD-capable

* Hearing Aid Compatibility rating: M4/T4

The SCH-u550 is available today for $69.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. For more information about Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or visit www.verizonwireless.com.

Yahoo! is driving the industry towards the future of mobile communications with Yahoo! oneConnect(TM). In 2007, Yahoo! revolutionized mobile search with Yahoo! oneSearch(TM), an optimized search experience designed for the mobile device. Today the company will unveil a plan for similarly reinventing mobile communications by demonstrating its upcoming Yahoo! oneConnect service. Yahoo! oneConnect is expected to become available in the award-winning Yahoo! Go 3.0 and Yahoo!’s new mobile home page in Q2 2008.”Last year we set out to reinvent mobile search with Yahoo! oneSearch, and today with 29 operator partnerships around the world covering more than 600 million subscribers, we believe we have certainly succeeded,” said Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo!. “Now, we intend to reinvent mobile communications through Yahoo! oneConnect, a revolutionary new mobile communications service that will combine integrated mobile messaging with a socially-connected address book.”

Yahoo! oneConnect will be the first mobile product with an open architecture that aggregates communications tools - email, instant messaging (IM), text messaging (SMS), and social networks - for a new level of convenience in mobile communications.

Yahoo! oneConnect is designed to include the following features, which will:

– Socially-connected address book - Provide users the capability to integrate activity from popular social networks, professional networks, and communities into their address book, keeping it always in sync. Consumers will be able to view status updates, photo uploads, and the recent activity (”pulse”) of contacts across all their networks.

– Integrated mobile messaging - Offer seamless integration of IM and SMS, including threaded conversations. Any messaging service will be able to use Yahoo! oneConnect’s open APIs to plug into the application’s messaging feature - enabling consumers to access a wide range of popular services, such as Yahoo! Messenger, Google(R) Talk, AOL(R) Instant Messenger and MSN(TM) Messenger.

– Status - Give consumers the capability to view their contacts by their most recent status updates on popular social networks, as well as update their own status on their favorite social networks - in one easy step - and automatically broadcast it to their friends.

– Pulse - Provide consumers the functionality to see a dynamic overview of what friends are up to, including recent photos, their status, profile updates, and recommendations based on their most recent actions on popular social networks.

– Favorites - Keep the people consumers interact with most at their fingertips. Users will be able to set up messaging shortcuts to make reaching out as quick as possible.

– Social contact card - Allow users to aggregate the most relevant information on any given contact, including archives of past communications, detailed pulse history, and one-click ways to initiate communication.

– Innovative location-sensing technology - Provide new ways to locate, chat with, and exchange contact information with nearby Yahoo! oneConnect users. Proximity alerts will notify consumers when a contact enters their vicinity.

– An open communications platform - Give users the functionality to communicate via multiple communications tools - such as IM, SMS, and social networks. Widgets will provide users the capability to access their email across major email providers, such as Yahoo! Mail, MSN Hotmail(R), Gmail(R), and AOL(R) Mail. Additionally, Yahoo! is in discussions with DataViz(R), a company that allows mobile users to access their corporate Microsoft Exchange(TM) email accounts and Microsoft Office(TM), documents, to work together on widget versions of its industry-acclaimed RoadSynch(R) and Documents To Go(R) applications.

After its release, Yahoo! oneConnect is expected to become available across hundreds of devices and mobile browsers around the world.

Visit the Yahoo! booth at Mobile World Congress to see Yahoo! oneConnect - 7B26, Hall 7. For more information on Yahoo! oneConnect, go to http://mobile.yahoo.com/oneconnect. Screenshots of Yahoo! oneConnect as well as Yahoo!’s complete Mobile World Congress 2008 press kit can be found at http://mobile.yahoo.com/newsroom.

Gizmo5 Technologies announces Gizmo5 mobile and desktop software is now connected with the MySpace IM network. For the first time ever, MySpace users on any mobile network can receive MySpace alerts, see who’s online and send/receive messages with their MySpace buddies directly from their mobile phone or desktop using Gizmo5.Through this new feature, users can be alerted on their mobile phone to MySpace activity in the same manner that MySpace IM alerts work on the desktop. There is no charge for this service and only a data connection on the user’s phone is required. Anyone can chat with their MySpace buddies for as long as they wish, for free.

At Gizmo5.com, users can get an SMS sent directly to their phone to download the software. Hundreds of phone models including, but not limited to, Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, Palm Treo and Samsung devices can be used. Even lower end phones are supported, which are commonly provided for free with a mobile plan. No WiFi or advanced functionality is necessary. With a simple installation, users can be chatting and receiving MySpace alerts.

Users can add all of their MySpace IM contacts with just a few clicks. Once the user completes this process, all of their buddies from MySpace will appear in their Gizmo5 buddy list. No need to add contacts one by one, no need to add contacts when changing computers or devices; contacts are stored safely and securely online along with existing Gizmo5 buddies.

“We saw heavy daily usage of the AIM, Yahoo and MSN networks in our Gizmo5 software once we connected to them,” said Michael Robertson, CEO of Gizmo5. “Our users indicated that MySpace IM would be next network on their wish list. Now, for the first time, Mac users and mobile phone users can get full MySpace connectivity.”

Support for MySpace IM is available on all flavors of Gizmo5 software, including hundreds of mobile phones and blackberry devices, Windows, Apple Macintosh and Linux. All versions are available for free download at http://gizmo5.com for mobile phones and http://gizmoproject.com/download for desktop.

Verizon Wireless and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung) today announced the availability of the Verizon Wireless Gleam by Samsung in purple. A shiny thin clamshell with a new living wallpaper user interface, the purple Verizon Wireless Gleam by Samsung will be available tomorrow at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com.The purple Gleam’s living wallpaper capability allows Verizon Wireless customers to easily see the phone’s status with either a city or country view that changes with the time of day. The phone also features the same popular multimedia and messaging capabilities as the original metallic bronze Gleam, such as Get It Now, Mobile Web 2.0SM, V CAST Music and Video, Instant Messaging using AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, and text, picture and video messaging. Other features include:

* Bluetooth wireless technology for certain profiles (including Object Push Profile for vCard, as well as headset, hands-free, serial port and certain dial-up networking profiles, phonebook access, Bluetooth stereo support for music, basic image for sending/printing non-protected images to a compatible device, and basic print profile) * microSD memory slot for up to 4 GB of expandable memory * 240 x 320 pixel, 262K TFT color internal display and 96 x 96 pixel, 65K TFT external display

* Dimensions: 3.88″ x 1.91″ x .55″; 3.35 ounces with standard battery * Bilingual user interface: English and Spanish

* TTY-TTD capable

* Personal organizer with Calendar, Calculator, Notepad, Currency Converter, Alarm Clock, World Time, and Stop Watch

The purple Gleam will be available Friday for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores from coast-to-coast and online at www.verizonwireless.com.

“Microsoft began on Monday to place advertisements on its U.S. MSN Mobile page, moving into the nascent mobile phone advertising business.”