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iPhone had us all taken on the wave created by the Steve Jobs keynote. No surprise there. Now, the Chinese have unveiled their own version of the iPhone with a more Apple-ish white colored body and, from what the released specs tell us, a better version of the iPhone.

Apple’s communication device cloned by the Chinese you say? No surprise here either because everybody was waiting for it to happen. And who do you think did it? Our old acquaintance Meizu, the exact same company that cloned the iPod and released it on the market under the name of M6 miniPlayer.

Oops, they did it again and one more time, they managed to pull it off big time. Their approach on the iPhone seems to have a better spec sheet and it just looks more Apple than the thing Apple has released at CES.
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US Wireless carrier Verizon seems to be releasing a different color version of the LG Chocolate every holiday, or maybe it’s just my imagination.

But it’s a fact that their customers will be getting a Chocolate with a new look yet again, this time just before Valentine’s Day.

At first, the stylish mobile phone was available in black and then out came a white version, released right before Thanksgiving
followed by the Mint and Cherry Chocolates that popped out just in time for Christmas.

Following this pattern, it should be very obvious that the LG Chocolate they are releasing now is pink.

The only thing that’s not entirely clear is why they would name it Strawberry, considering the fact that the phone is pink not red. Has anyone seen any pink strawberries lately?
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The Waltham, Mass.-based start-up has created–with help from Polaroid–a way to print photographs or documents without ink or an ink cartridge. Without an ink cartridge, a printer can be reduced to the size of an iPod or smaller, said CEO Wendy Caswell. The controlling factor when it comes to printer size is whether you want 2 x 3 inch prints or 4 x 6 inch prints. Zink says it has two manufacturing partners lined up, and products based on its technology will come out later this year.

The Zink system “can be embedded in any device,” she said. It is also more environmentally friendly, the company says. Ninety-five percent of ink cartridges never get recycled.

The first two products will likely be a standalone printer and a camera with a built-in printer. The company is showing off the technology this week at the technology conference Demo ‘07 in Palm Desert, Calif. (Sonny Bono and Gerald Ford territory).
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According to a recent report from Paypal, most mobile phone users aren’t very interested in all those hi-tech features the latest handsets bring.

In fact, even though technology is progressing very fast, over half of the people in the UK are not very satisfied with all this complicated hi-tech nonsense and would rather just ignore it. Some people in the UK are in fact using the new technological advances that make life more enjoyable. Others would still rather live behind
the times.

“It’s a worrying sign for Britain that so many of us are baffled and therefore turned off by technology. There’s no hiding from technology so burying your head in the sand won’t make it go away. We all must embrace technology or risk becoming the tech illiterates of the world.” Neil Edwards, PayPal’s technology expert commented.

Apparently, one in three people are unable to set a video recorder, although the technology has been around for quite some time now, and 77 percent are unable to set a DVD recorder, the modern video technology.

Although mobile phones can now be used for snapshots, listening to music, web browsing and more, around 61 percent of mobile phone users in the UK are only using them for making and receiving calls, text messaging, alarm clock and camera functions. Moreover, around 40% are not sure whether their mobile phone has a camera function.

While approximately three quarters of the people from UK own and use a mobile phone, the adoption of other portable devices such as MP3players has been significantly slower. Women seem to be lagging behind men in the use of gadgets, but not in the case of mobile phones which are equally popular with both sexes. [via]

Beijing Mobile, part of China’s largest mobile phone operator, plans to dramatically slash its mobile call fees in early February with a monthly package based on a one-way billing scheme.

The caller-pays scheme, in which incoming calls are free for the person who receives the call, has been welcomed by China Mobile and China Unicom subscribers in pilot areas in Guangdong, Shanghai and Tianjin, allowing the companies to reinforce their position in the market.

That has put the pressure on fixed-line operators China Telecom and China Netcom to lower costs and improve services, China Securities News reported Tuesday.
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Alcatel has been known for making many kinds of mobile phones, but it has never been considered one of the leading manufacturers of music phones. When considering buying a music phone, customers usually prefer brands like Sony Ericsson or Nokia who are known to make a wide variety of such phones, including many nice handsets.

And even though they have been releasing a couple of such phones lately, that didn’t really change anything because people don’t really associate Alcatel with music phones.

Recently, the Alcatel
OT-C820a was discovered on the FCC website, and frankly, it’s not a bad phone. It comes with a slider phone factor and allows the user to access most of the main features such as taking snapshots or answering calls when the phone is closed.
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