pda | ipod | mobile phone | GPS Info

Leap Wireless has made foundation to play catch up with Sprint, Cingular, and Verizon in the mobile music scene by partnering with Paris-based Musiwave to launch a music service through its Cricket brand.

Though neither Leap Wireless nor Musiwave will comment on the service, Musiwave provides full-track download and streaming music services for 35 carriers worldwide including Vodafone and Orange. It has not been confirmed whether the service for Leap will take the form of full downloads or just streaming.

“Cricket chose to collaborate with Musiwave because of their leadership in providing innovative features that drive subscriber value through their mobile music service platform,” said Larry Atwell, director of product development for Leap’s Cricket brand. This deal is Musiwave’s first foray into the US market. [via]

Although metropolitan 3G partner Vodafone will not take part in the new network build, Optus has confirmed it will continue to co-own the existing 2100MHz 3G network in metro Australian that it runs in a joint venture with Vodafone.

Optus has made it clear that the new “will be built and owned by Optus exclusively”, but that it expects to sell capacity on the network to mobile resellers as it already does with junior telcos such as People Telecom .

The new third generation wireless network will complement The co-owned metropolitan network rather than replace it and Optus intends to continue offering services using the Vodafone/Optus infrastructure in the cities, but by extending the network to a nationwide footprint reaching 96 per cent of the population Optus is certainly taking “a bold step to bring competitive” 3G communications the regional Australians as Paul O’Sullivan, Optus Chief Executive said.

“The incumbent though that it could lock up regional Australia under a 3G monopoly . But Optus continues to build its business on bringing competition and improved products and services to customers,” said O’Sullivan.

“Today, competition in rural and regional Australia is weak, with the incumbent having substantial excess market share. With the investment Optus is announcing today we are well positioned to grow share in non-metropolitan Australian,” he said.
(more…)

Samsung will be releasing two mobile phones for the American CDMA market, the SCH-R510 going to Alltel and the SCH-U540 heading on to Verizon Wireless.

Both
phones are actually re-named and re-designed versions of phones that are already available on other carriers, at least when talking about their looks, and features might end up being the same as well.

Samsung’s SCH-R510 is a CDMA EV-DO phone that appears to be based on the Ultra 6.9 phone, also known as the Trace, on T-Mobile.

It is expected to come with very similar features to the Trace and include a 1.3 or 2 megapixel camera, a music player and a MicroSD card slot for memory expansion so that the owner of the phone can store all the music he/she wants.

Verizon customers will be getting the SCH-U540, a phone based on the SCH-U520 that is currently available at Alltel. It’s not exactly clear what features this phone will bring but it’s expected to come with a music player, Bluetooth for connectivity with A2DP profile that allows users to listen to music wirelessly by using a stereo Bluetooth headset, external music controls and a mediocre display and built-in camera.

The SCH-U540 is a mid-range phone coming in a clamshell form factor, and its music features and design will appeal to a considerable number of customers.

There is no information on when the mobile phones will be available on Alltel and Verizon Wireless and the price is also unknown for the time being. [via]

Mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson has announced its intention to produce low-cost color screen and music mobile phones in Chennai, India with the help of its existing outsourced manufacturing partners, Flextronics and Foxconn.

The announcement was made by Sony Ericsson’s President Miles Flint and Communications and Information Technology Minister Thiru Dayanidhi Maran in Chennai.

According to the company, just about 10 million mobile phones, the equivalent of approximately 13 percent of all of the phones sold by Sony
Ericsson in 2006, will be produced in India by 2009.

The handsets manufactured in India will come with basic features and an attractive price. Sony Ericsson also aims to offer local content and customized keypads.
(more…)

AdMob has revealed that it has served 1 billion mobile ads in the last six months, considerably more than the 30 million ads in the previous 6 months.

The mobile ad marketplace, AdMob enables advertisers to establish a connection with customers on the mobile web while at the same time providing the opportunity for publishers to monetize traffic on their mobile web sites. Advertisers can reach out to users across a set of mobile content channels, including news, entertainment,
mobile communities and portals.

The US was the network’s largest mobile web traffic contributor with 90 million page views per month, surprisingly followed by South Affrica. The UK placed fourth with a 12 percent share of the mobile web traffic and Romania on the fifth place with 5 percent.
(more…)

It’s nice to actually see something else from Motorola apart from different versions and colors of RAZR phones.

It looks like the mobile phone manufacturer is to present a pretty large number of mobile phones in the near future, from the R*ZR series or not, including the Motorola Q2 that is to be released at the 3GSM and
a few low-end mobile phones for the users that don’t want or need an advanced handset.

The Motorola W215 is an entry-level mobile phone with only the most basic features included and has recently received the Federal Communications Commission’s approval.

The phone comes equipped with a 65k color screen with a 128 x 128 pixel resolution VGA camera, an FM Radio and the iTap predictive system; therefore, users won’t have to give up taking snapshots or listening to some music.

It will also feature the indispensable organizer and calculator. The dual-band 850/1900 MHz mobile phone is basically just an improved version of the W208 that was announced in June last year, with certain added features like the VGA camera.

Overall, the phone’s design is pretty simple and elegant and this phone will probably be a pretty good choice for the less pretentious users who aren’t willing to spend much on a phone. Since it doesn’t bring any fancy features, it will probably be very affordable.

The mobile phone will be available in two color variations, silver and black or dark red and black. After the FCC approval, the phone will definitely be heading on to a wireless carrier, but at the moment, there’s no information regarding availability or price. [via]