CSR, a manufacture of Bluetooth chips, is planning to introduce a single chip that combines both Bluetooth and GPS technology. CSR recently bought two companies (NordNav and Cambridge Positioning Systems), and plans to combine their GPS software with CSR's Bluetooth software. CSR belives that by combining the two technologies into one chip, they can help save on space and power, as well as cost. The new chips are expected to cost only $1 more than current Bluetooth chips.

CSR also thinks that the combined Bluetooth/GPS solution will work better indoors, as well as in urban canyons. Currently, Nokia, Panasonic, and Samsung use Bluetooth chips, so we may see GPS popping up on more phones in the future as the new chip is utilized. Nokia has already started including GPS, although not with this new chip.

Asus has announced the new Z801- Karaoke mobile phone. Resembling a mirror chess board, the phone comes with a 2 megapixel camera, 260k colour QVGA screen, MP3 player, tri-band connectivity, and an A2DP. Speak the lyrics to a song as it plays, and the Z801will not only record them, it'll interpret what you say and display the words back to you as you play your tune, letting you sing along. Expect it to be a Chinese phone initially, but as it's being pitched as a designer phone, it may be sold in other markets

This is a sponsored review, but all opinions expressed are solely mine.

Lets face it guys most of us are extremely lazy when it comes to Christmas Shopping and looking for that perfect gift is quite a Herculean task! However UK Males readers are in luck as the website Mad 4 Mobile Website has listed The Top 5 Phones For Your Girlfriend! Don’t have a girlfriend? Well who knows, Santa may just play cupid this time!

For the uninitiated, Mad 4 Mobile is an independent mobile phone website where not only one comes across reviews and information on all the latest handsets but can also purchase them online. The website has considerably grown overtime and has clubbed all popular handsets with some great deals. Thus those looking for a hassle-free shopping experience can check out the website.

Now that we know what Mad 4 Mobile is all about lets continue with their coverage of “Top 5 phones to get your girlfriend this Christmas”. The first one to make it to the coveted list is the hugely popular LG Chocolate Phone, which is now available in Pink for all the ladies! Next in line is the Samsung E900, which is available in Black and Hot Pink and would be lapped up by the female population for its 16.5mm thin form factor and slide open design.

Cashing on the Pink Fixation, the Nokia 6111 is also available on the website in Pretty Pink and colors like Silver. The Motorola KRZR K1 has also made it on the list however this one is available in a Cool Blue, which we are thankful for! Last but not the least is the extremely chic Samsung D900 which and is a great high-end phone and ideal for woman who need more than a pretty face!

So here are the phones, which made the list, and you can check out the Mad 4 Mobile Website for more great tips, deals, reviews and other stuff.

This is a sponsored review, however all opinions expressed are solely mine.

With Christmas just round the corner, we thought of spreading some holiday cheer and thus found the ideal online mobile store for all our UK Readers. The Phone Stoppretty much lives up to its name and here one will come across some great mobile deals and bargains (who doesn’t love bargains as they make you all warm and fuzzy inside)!

On exploring Phone Stop, I was impressed how things were laid out and looks like pains were taken to make it as simple yet comprehensive as possible. They also have a nifty little Search Dude called Sherlock Phones (witty) and via his help you can search for the cell phone of your desires. One of the best things about the site is no doubt its search engine and the various categories and one can search via features, brands, carriers, connectivity etc.

You can also buy handsets with plans and according to mobile carriers. Here I must mention, that via the Phone Stop Website you can also get your number transferred and the site also provides you free insurance for a limited time. All purchases come with a 7-Day Guarantee and you can get a refund or a replacement if not satisfied.

The Phone Stop Website promises delivery by next day of order and takes all major credit cards. For easy navigation the website also includes sections like “Best Sellers” and Clearance. However what really got us excited were the many free products that are promised with certain purchases! So not only will you get a swanky new mobile phone but also get your grubby hands on PSP, Xbox and other gadgets! So if you are in the UK and in the market for a new handset then do check out Phone Stop.

http://www.thephonespot.com/

The Pantech Group once again swept the prestigious iF(International Forum) Design Award and added four more awards in their kitty! Out of the four products honored, the SP5’* and ‘HC1 were the winners in Consumer Electronics/Telecommunicatons category. Where as the Flexus 03’ (see pic) won in Advanced Studies, and the ‘One touch open cap’ in packaging design. As expected the company was thrilled as they have been able to successfully manage to create a buzz at the awards, time after time.

Jin Huh, Vice President, Design Division, Pantech said, “Pantech has put its efforts to offer better and more innovative handset designs to customers. It is a huge endorsement of Pantech’s design capabilities to have our designs honored by some prestigious institutions such as the International Forum.”

“As we develop the Pantech brand worldwide, our design competency - acknowledged by such a renowned design award - will be a cornerstone of our strategy to increase brand loyalty across all markets,” said Mr.Huh.

The first company to get the GPS navigation system to work in US cellphones has announced today that their TeleNav GPS Navigator is available to Palm Treo smartphones.

The Treo smartphones that can make use of the GPS system produced by TeleNav include the latest Treo 680 and all the other models like 700p, 650 and so on. Besides the main function of the GPS system which is to navigate the users to wherever they want to go by using the easiest way possible, there are also other features that other devices of the same kind have, such as turn-by-turn voice, on-screen driving directions, and colored moving maps.

Other more technical features include:
- Biz Finder to search for ATMs, restaurants and other services. It can also search for phone numbers
- Fuel Finder to search for gas stations with the cheapest prices on a five-mile area
- Spot Market to discover your car in big parking lots
- Automatic Map Updates

The price to get a hold of the TeleNav GPS Navigator is $9.99 per month.

It was just a few months ago that Samsung announced the development of the world's slimmest LCD for cell phones, and already they have broken their own record. Samsung announced that it has developed the world's slimmest LCD yet, which at 0.82mm is no thicker than a credit card.

Apparently, Samsung's Mobile Display Team redesigned the light guide plate subassembly and the glass substrate (if you understood any of it, you might consider joining Samsung!). Another development is the i-Lens technology resulting in a highly integrated LCD module that protects the cell phone's display by making it resistant to damage from vibration or shock.

The new LCD screen is available in 2.1" and 2.2" (diagonal) screen sizes. It features qVGA (240 x 320 pixels) resolution, 300nit brightness and a 500:1 contrast ratio. Expect commercial availability in H2 2007.

X-Series from 3 is out now, geared to deliver the best mobile experience to the consumer. Simply put, X-Series from 3 is "your life where you go." Instead of paying per minute, per message, per click or per megabit, X-Series customers will pay a flat access fee for accesssing broadband speeds on the cell phone.

X-Series from 3 will be available in the UK starting December 1, 2006, and in 3's other markets across the globe in early 2007. Expect never-before ways to communicate, find and share information and entertainment.

The 3 Group also announced partnerships with well-known brands like Sling Media, Orb and Google, apart from those with Skype, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Pricing will be different for different regions.

Sprint mobile phone carrier has long been on the forefront of supporting diverse options for its subscribers. Now Sprint has announced the upcoming availability of the MOTOKRZR™, MOTORAZR™ AND MOTOSLVR™ Motorola phones with Advanced Power Vision Capabilities on its network. Sprint will be the only carrier to offer Motorola's popular trio of devices on a high-speed EVDO network with exclusive content and live television with broadband speeds.

Selected phones will operate on Sprint's Power Vision(SM) Network enabling downloads of the latest news, music and entertainment content at broadband-like speeds. Key features include the access to Sprint’s Music Store for quick and easy over-the-air downloads, Sprint TV with live programming, Bluetooth® wireless technology, Sprint PCS Picture and Video Mail, a microSD™ card slot for memory expansion, and a VGA camera/ camcorder.

Also launched will be Sprint Movies, the first "pay-per-view" service for mobile phones in the U.S. that streams full-length movies, including recent box-office hits and timeless favorites from Buena Vista VOD, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Sprint Movies offers a growing list of more than 45 titles, including "National Treasure," "Spider-Man 2" and "Scarface."

Via Sprint

Nokia today announced, at the WiMAX conference in Boston, that they are beginning their work on WiMAX ((802.16e) enabled mobile devices. Joining other hardware makers in the decision, Nokia plans to have super high speed base stations starting at 2.5 GHz band by 2007 and up to 3.5 GHz bandwidth by 2008. Nokia mobile devices are also expected to be available in 2008.

Nokia Flexi WiMAX Base Stations will be compact in size, power consumption, and physical effort as far as installing and running the WiMAX networks. Modularity will allow for easy capacity upgrades with traffic increase, rolling in; the 4G era.

Nokia’s announcement comes right on time, as Intel also just introduced their system-on-a-chip (SoC) WiMAX Connection 2250. Installed in a mobile radio that includes a broadband modem, the SoC enables high-speed broadband handsets to connect to both fixed WiMAX networks, and mobile ones like those enabled by Nokia's new Flexi base station model. Intel says its 2250 SoC is capable of handling a discrete WiMAX channel of up to 10 MHz bandwidth. With spectral efficiency at 1.9 bps per hertz, and you have a the theoretical maximum throughput approaches a whopping 19 Mbps. Intel SoC chips will very likely be powering Nokia WiMAX handsets.

Sprint will be using the same frequency for its WiMax deployment, by late 2007, which leads to the conclusion- that partnership is inevitable-between the two already amicable companies. The WiMAX IEEE 802.16e version is expected to be standardized later this year.

Via BetaNews

Remember we had previewed the Motorola iRadio service, a subscription-based music service from Motorola? Well, it will soon be available to radio listeners.

The iRadio service will offer CD-quality music, and the line up of content on offer is impressive, including NPR podcasts (Story of the Day, NPR Shuffle, All Songs Considered), PRI's The World and Open Source and others.

More than 600 channels will be offered with the iRadio service. Depending on the operator, the subscription will cost around US $7 per month.

OmniVision Technologies announced its sixth generation 1.3 megapixel CameraChip sensor which has the distinction of being the ‘World’s Smallest 1.3 Megapixel CameraChip Sensor’. This would thus be extremely handy for cell phone manufacturers and is perfect for ultra slim handsets. The OV9660 chip features a 2-micron pixel and 1/5-inch optical format and is also ideal for Ultra-Portable Laptops which have been using VGA resolution cameras due to size restrictions.

The OV9660 measures 6 x 6 x 4.0 mm and the low-voltage CMOS sensor is equivalent to a single-chip SXGA (1280 x 1024) camera and image processor. The onboard OmniPixel2 technology helps to increase signal-to-noise ratio for better image quality and it is also capable of full-frame, sub-sampled, scaled or windowed 8-bit/10-bit images. It also ahs all the standard image processing functions like exposure control, gamma, white balance, color saturation, hue control, white pixel cancelling and noise canceling. For more info visit: http://www.ovt.com/

SanDisk has recently added new memory cards to their collection that will delight photographers and other gadget users, to start with they upgraded the Extreme III CompactFlash cards with two new bigger models in terms of storage capacity of course, now there are 16GB and 12GB cards.

The strong points in these Extreme III CF cards are: the read and write speeds which have a minimum of 20MB per second, this is mainly due to the ESP technology that is able to give awesome speeds and therefore an awesome performance; the other point is the RescuePro – a recovery system that as the name suggests has a professional status when recovering, not only it can recover any kind of files like images, audio and video, but it can also preview the files before making the recovery. At the SanDisk website the price for the 16GB Extreme III CF is $1,049 and for the little 12GB brother it is $779.

The other new card is part of the Ultra II SDHC series and can hold 4GB of data, with a write/read speed of 10MB per second it has a price tag of $219.99.

SanDisk

Via TrustedReviews

KingMax Digital, a company from Taiwan has recently announced the release of a new microSD card, according to them this card can be considered the “World’s 1st 1GB microSD equipped with Hi-Speed SLC flash“, they had to be the world's-first-in-something you know, since SanDisk presented the smallest 1GB microSD card back on January, it means that KingMax also had to enter the game.

A strong point comes in play when checking the previous cards they presented, like the 512MB model that won one award at the Taiwan Excellence Awards earlier this year. The other strong point is of course the speed values both in terms of Read and Write actions, this model is able to be better than the rivals or so they say. By using SLC Flash it has a maximum read speed of 10.5MB/s, while the maximum write speed is 8.9MB/s. This is certainly good news for the people that own devices such as digital cameras, mp3 players, PDAs that have a microSD card slot and want fast speeds when reading and copying data.

Press Release

Motorola, in association with Hong Kong-based PCCW-HKT Telephone Limited, will be conducting a six-month trial of mobile TV using the DVB-H standard. Starting this month through March 2007, the trial will include Motorola DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) enabled devices and network solutions.

With more mobile TV enabled handsets on the horizon from Motorola, consumers can look forward to a truly mobile experience. In fact, Motorola expects services to be rolled out commercially as early as the end of the trial. If you are anywhere near the Quarry Bay district in Hong Kong, check this one out, folks.

Texas Instruments Incorporated has unveiled a new dual-core processor which will be based on the DaVinci(TM) technology. These new processors are meant for portable media players and thus have already been selected to power the ARCHOS portable video players, the 404, 504 and 604. Thanks to the DaVinci technology one will experience excellent audio, video, imaging performance. The technology is also known to reduce the over all power consumption.

Those who have already previewed the ARCHOS portable video players have highlighted the players audio and video performance and the impressive battery life. The new processors include an ARM9(R) and TMS320C64x+(TM) digital signal processor (DSP) core plus video/imaging co- processors, thus making them ideal for PMPs. The processors support MPEG4, MPEG2, WMV9 and H.264 and DVD-quality video. For more info on this technology head over to the company website: Here

Nestle Purina PetCare is offering a host of goodies to pet lovers across the country. The offers include dog ("woof") and cat ("meow") ringtones, mobile wallpapers and even podcasts among others. For example, the popular It's Bacon ("Beggin' Strips") and Feelin' All Right ("Friskies") jingles are available for download.

Complement your new furry friend ringtone with an equally furry wallpaper for your mobile phone screen. And if you want to share your pet's voice with others, simply record your dog or cat and email Purina an MP3 file - and Purina could include it as a featured ringtone for other pet lovers to download.

Purina has partnered with FilmLoop to even offer photo sharing software to allow pet owners to share photos of their pets. The pet podcasts on the other hand give them information like training, veterinary care, behavioral theories and, most importantly, pet insurance.

All this and more are available for download from Purina. There's even a Sweepstakes on currently (till September 21), with a chance to win a 30GB Apple iPod with video playback.

Via CrunchGear

NVIDIA Corporation after ruling the computer world is all set to capture the mobile market with its powerful NVIDIA GoForce handheld graphics processing units (GPUs). The company’s chipsets will now be seen in a number of DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting handheld devices which will make it possible to run graphic intensive applications in the highest of possible quality without draining the battery life .

The Samsung P910 which will be launched anytime soon in the US is one of the first mobile handsets to include the NVIDIA GoForce handheld graphics processing units. Many of you will remember the P910 as one of the world's first DVB-H handsets which was launched in Italy before the 2006 World Cup. Thus the mobile phone has set the ball rolling and mobile devices with NVIDIA GoForce will soon be hitting the shelves with much gusto.

“The successful roll out of DVB-H in Italy illustrated a strong demand for mobile TV and video services, and these early indicators suggest that these high levels of adoption and usage will be reflected in many other markets around the world," said Michael Rayfield, general manager of the handheld business unit at NVIDIA. "Many of our customers are seeing the significant benefits of using a hardware accelerated solution to drive DVB-H content on devices, and our successful deployment of GoForce technology into these roll- outs is testament to that."

For more information visit NVIDIA

While mortals like me are still waiting to fully enjoy all the features and services associated with 3G handsets according to the trade pundits mobile operators and manufacturers are already in the process of developing fourth-generation (4G) mobile technology which would entail never before seen two-way communication in voice, video and data.

In fact companies promise that 4G mobile handsets would be at par with computers with high speed connections. Surprisingly now many cell phone giants are calling 3G a failure and according to Kim Ki-ho, Samsung's senior vice president for telecommunications networks “ 3G was a failure”. He further continues "The market did not respond, and it is already becoming an old-fashioned technology."

"4G is to deliver high-speed broadband for data- and visual- centric information. Everything before 4G is voice-centric," said Ali Tabassi, Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE:S - news) vice president for innovative technology.

For more info head over here

Their brash, their funny and now their hiring, Gizmodo gadget legends are looking for a cool Gizmodian to join their team, not that they need any help finding anyone, but hey they have done alot for us in the past and its a honour to help them find the perfect person, however small it is. We are know Monster Job Boards, but you never know someone who visits Mobilewhack might get the gig. Wouldn't that be cool :)

Here is the lowdown, Gizmodo writes:

"I’m looking for someone with hustle, and solid contacts in the gadget world. Someone who is technical, but can still write around the jargon. Someone who has a good sense of humor, a strong work ethic, and a competitive streak. Someone who has a few years of magazine experience, but isn’t scared of the blogging pace. Someone who can spot news fast, and has an innate ability to write strong headlines and leads. Someone in NY, who can spearhead the day, hit up the NY junkets, and help manage our NY writer and intern. One caveat: The job does come with a boss who runs the site like it’s a sailboat driving hard against tide and weather. It’s just more fun that way."

Goodluck Guys I'm sure you will find the perfect person.

Gizmodo is Hiring Apply Now.

A French aeronautics and defense communications company Thales announced that they will provide satellite technology where customers will be able to use mobile phone and wireless Internet services in flight. The Topflight Satcom Satellite Unit product is the result of a successful joint venture between Airbus and the Netherland-based technology company SITA Information Networking Computers. It has the capability to uplink communications to Inmarsat PLC's 14 series satellites. According to OnAir, Air France will introduce OnAir in the first quarter of 2007, making it the first airline to allow customers to use their mobile phones in flight. How does it work? If the plane reached 10,000 feet, users will be able to use any kind of mobile phone to send sms, e-mail and even making important calls. Having a mobile phone with GPS capability is pretty fun if it works in a airplane.

[via cellular-news]

The world's favorite mobile OS just got better. Symbian announced the availability of the latest version of Symbian OS, v9.3, incorporating enhancements to phone performance while offering cost-effective deployment for mobile operators. Whether a manufacturer is planning a 2.5G, 3G or HSDPA phone, Symbian aims to lower costs.

Some of the end-user related enhancements include faster boot times and startup of key apps, improved memory management and a new set of development tools. Nokia already has the Carbide.c++ set of tools ready to be launched this year.

Reference S60 designs for Symbian OS v9.3 are available; migration should be a breeze for third-party app developers as well as terminal manufacturers, since this version is fully compatible with the 9.1 version.

[Read via Darla Mack]

Get this Phone Now for the Best Price on the Internet!

Amp'd Mobile and Best Buy are in an exclusive agreement to distribute Amp'd Mobile's suite of messaging and entertainment services that target broadband mobile phones. Content includes entertainment properties like MTV Networks and Universal Music Group.

Consumers have an option to choose from three different phone models, coupled with various service plans that allow a wide array of selection in audio and video downloads. Geoff Fishman, Sales and Distribution VP at Amp'd, opines "Amp’d Mobile aligns perfectly with Best Buy’s overall strategy of combining entertainment and technology products in a customer-centric retail experience."

One step closer, starting this summer. Nice going, Amp'd. Details from Amp'd Mobile.

Hi everyone sorry for the lack of post over the last 24 hrs a whole lot of new gadgets were announced recently, sorry it is taking so long, we are working on them they should be on the site shortly.