Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Nokia released its first mass market navigation-enabled mobile phone, the 6110 Navigator. Using integrated GPS, the phone enables consumers to quickly and easily view their current location on map, search for destinations, find specific routes, or locate nearby services such as restaurants, hotels or shops. Featuring full turn-by-turn 3D navigation, it suggests the best route to follow by car or on foot, using voice or visual instructions on a map.  The Nokia 6110 Navigator is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2007.

If you are afraid of losing all the contacts stored on your mobile, try ZYB.com. ZYB is offering a new online service that allows users to store, manage, and share their mobiles contacts and calendar online. The service is free and works with almost all operators and more than 200 different phone models. It’s very simple to get started, just sign up on zyb.com, select your mobile phone model and in a matter of seconds you will receive a message (SMS) that automatically configures your mobile to your ZYB profile. Once configured, the mobile is now ready to be synchronised with ZYB. No installation of software required. After the first synchronisation the mobiles contacts and calendar can be edited from the user’s personal profile on zyb.com and all changes can be copied directly to the mobile.

ZYB allows users to store an unlimited number of contacts and calendar entries and access them online from anywhere in the world. As such ZYB also works as a backup, so if a user is unlucky and loses his mobile, all he has to do to get his data back is to sync a new mobile with his ZYB account.

So now when you drop your cellphone in the lake you don’t have to worry about your contact, you just have to figure out how to convince your wireless company that the red water dot is not actually from water and it is their fault.

[Thanks Tommy]

TV Guide and 4INFO are getting together to bring TV listings directly to cellphones. You will now have the ability to quickly search for channel listings, specific programs, and time-based programming from any mobile phone via SMS or WAP. The service is available to all mobile phone users regardless of carrier, and will allow TV fans to easily locate air dates, times, and channels for their favorite programming while out of town, or just on the go.

This builds on 4INFO’s ability to deliver sports scores, yellow page listings, stock quotes, movie times, hotel reservations, weather forecasts, horoscopes, flight status, package tracking, fantasy sports, drink recipes, and yes, even pickup lines.

So this solves the problem of how to get the girl but why can’t we have a DVR in the U.S. that is programmable over your phone. If 4INFO can do that for me I will be screaming accolades all the way home (while managing my baseball team, grabbing some drinks, on my plane, while tracking my Fedex, managing my portfolio...)

[Thanks Bob]

It’s frustrating when you go to access a website on your portable device and the text and image just keep wrapping and wrapping all the way down, not only extending the scroll bar indefinitely but also making the content gibberish.

Thankfully Gadgetell is optimized for your mobile browser (sorry for the plug) as well as many Google apps. Today Google’s mobile web services get a bit more worldly with a bunch of new languages (U.S. and U.K. English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, and Turkish) for the mobile versions of Gmail, News, and Personalized Home.

So give ‘em all a whirl—visit Google in your mobile phone’s browser, and click the Maps, News, Gmail, Personalized Home, or Gadgetell links.

Read [Google]

Nokia’s 8800 mobile phone has won the “best of the best” prize at the red dot design awards, the world’s largest design competition.  The 8800 beat off all competition to become the only mobile phone to receive this renowned design quality award.

The Nokia 8800 was singled out for its innovative, high quality design as well as for its smooth deskstand.  It is the first mobile phone to use stainless steel and mineral glass in its sleekly sculpted body. Its features include a 260,000 color screen and ringtones created by Ryuichi Sakamoto one of the world’s leading composers.

Dr. Peter Zec, President of Icsid and initiator of the red dot design award said, “Only products with outstanding design qualities are rewarded with a red dot best of the best award. With its innovative use of precious material, combined with extraordinary high quality usability and features, the Nokia 8800 really does represent design excellence.”

Out of 2,068 products submitted to the product design 2006 awards, only 36 received the coveted best of the best award for the best design in their category. In addition, 485 products were given the “red dot” seal of quality including products from Sony, Phillips, BenQ, Nokia, Motorola, and many more.

Read what the designers had to say about the Nokia 8800 and see some more pictures.

A mobile phone reveals a lot about its owner. People choose a model according to their personal lifestyle and taste, the ring tone is a favourite piece of music and here people store their most personal data such as addresses and photos. The design of the Nokia 8800 is well thought-out and clear, and for its owner it is an expression of a self-assured individuality. The phone presents itself as a statement of purism, accentuating a harmonious balance and sublime sensuousness, which follows the maxims of Zen. Its language of form was developed from the challenge to create a new housing shape for innovative technologies; a housing that would nevertheless maintain Nokia’s recognisable and familiar look. Softly rounded forms made of stainless steel give the impression of flowing surfaces with a tension of natural appearance. The design of this mobile phone seeks to attain its balance in a clear arrangement of detail and function and, thus, was inspired by watch and jewellery making. Due to borrowings from these fields, the Nokia 8800 now resembles an accessory with a feel of exclusiveness. An important design element is its precisely engineered slider mechanism for opening and closing the phone. It implies sophisticated functionality yet with a high degree of understatement. Attention to detail is evident even in the design of the sound quality, and in this regard too, the aspect of harmony is underlined: The Nokia 8800 has its own characteristic sound, by which one can recognise it. The “soundtrack” was composed by the Japanese musician and electronic music aesthete, Ryuichi Sakamoto, who found inspiration for his composition in the language of form and the organically rounded curves of this mobile phone.

Read [Nokia]
Read [Nokia Red Dot Page]

“Bluetooth is that thingy that allows me to talk without a cord on my phone, right?”—Sound familiar to that random guy in ther Verizon store with you? Most consumers out there look at Bluetooth as this weird word that is limited only to cord-free calling.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is trying to change that limited perception with the launch of the Bluetooth Experience Icon Program. The icons will, at a glance, tell consumers and retailers about the products’ functionality enhanced by Bluetooth technology.

The current icons available to illustrate five functions of Bluetooth wireless technology are:

• Transfer – The transfer icon tells you that the device can wirelessly send and receive data, text, pictures, music or other files with other devices.
• Headset – The headset icon lets you know that you have the ability to talk on your phone “hands-free.” Getting rid of annoying cables means being able to move around freely while using your cell phone.


• Input – The input icon shows that you can control as well as input data wirelessly to a device. This makes for fewer cables on your desk and improved control over portable devices without using the tiny, built-in keyboards.


• Music – The music icon means these products allow you to listen to Hi-Fi stereo music wirelessly. You are able to send music from your mobile phone, computer or other device bearing this symbol and listen using compatible speakers, headphones, home stereos and many other devices.
• Print – The print icon lets you know that printing can be simpler by allowing you to wirelessly print directly from your computer, mobile phone, PDA or any other device displaying the print icon.

There are plans to release other icons later this year, such as an icon for dial-up networking (DUN) and the automotive hands-free use case, and others will be developed as the Bluetooth technology experience expands to additional popular applications.

Read [Bluetooth]

T-Mobile is now offering nationwide availability of the affordable Motorola V195. The clamshell Motorola V195 is an ideal mobile phone with quad band “world phone” capabilities, Bluetooth, speakerphone, a 1.7-inch color screen, ergonomic keypad, and a powerful battery (8 hours talk time, 17.5 days standby). The V195 also supports AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

The Motorola V195 is available at T-Mobile retail stores and select authorized dealers for $39.99, and online at www.t-mobile.com.

Read [T-Mobile]