Mobiles

The vintage themed laptop bags sporting football images on the new Mobile Edge DIG Messenger and Stadium bag have a striking resemblance to the character George Clooney plays in the new movie Leatherheads in theaters now. Our designer wanted to incorporate the retro themed sports icon images with modern day laptop messenger and vertical messenger bags blending style with innovation and technology.

The Messenger bag’s exterior icon image is that of a sports pulp magazine from the 40’s and 50’s while the actual vintage magazine cover is printed on the inside lining.

The DIG Stadium Laptop Bag is just right for you when all you need is your laptop and a few files for the day. For the fashion conscious male who enjoys the nostalgic sports of yesteryear. Either laptop case is the perfect choice for anyone on the go!

As for the movie, well I haven’t seen it yet. However, if you own a laptop and enjoy vintage themed sports images or know someone who does, you should take a closer look at this new Collection.

Yesterday we congratulated Ontela for winning first place at the CTIA Emerging Technologies (E-Tech) Awards in the Mobile Entertainment and/or Social Networking category.

Another Seattle company, Zumobi, also won a first place award at CTIA in the Consumer Mobile Widgets category, and we wanted to make sure we give them some love too!

The MobilePhoneBlog first wrote about Zumobi last December, when their beta was released. It's great to see them making additional progress. I am personally waiting to see their J2ME version as I don't have a Windows Mobile device. According to their website, it should be coming soon...

“We are thrilled that Zumobi has seen such success at Spring CTIA 2008, and are equally proud to be recognized at the same event we launched at a year ago,” said Eric Hertz, CEO of Zumobi. “We’ve seen tremendous interest in Zumobi at the show from a broad range of business partners, and are honored to be acknowledged for our product. Zumobi is looking forward to continuing product innovation with the upcoming application release that will support a range of J2ME/Blackberry devices.”

More bad news today about the US economy including the fact that U.S. employers cut payrolls for a third consecutive month in March and the jobless rate jumped to a 2-1/2 year high, adding more evidence that a housing downturn and credit crisis may have pushed the economy into recession. The Consumer Confidence Index is at a five-year low.

We often get asked what a slow down in the economy means for the mobile game industry here in the US. We don't really know the answer because we haven't been in this business long enough to have any meaningful data, but if you connect the mobile game industry to the overall video game industry, I don't think we have too much to worry about.

For support, read this article from CNN this week about Gamestop - the largest retailer of video games in the US.

Highlights:

- Times are good, with double digit growth expected for sales of games this calendar year as well as for the hardware that's used to play those games.

- Success for GameStop is "highly attributable to video game play attracting a mainstream audience," with the demographic expansion having much to do with "new consoles like the Wii, which pull back on the geekish complexity of typical content aimed at hardcore gamers."

We will keep you posted as we get more data.

ZTE is making a bigger push into the United States mobile handset market, showing off at CTIA 2008 with 2 new handsets. The C79 and C78 are both quad-band CDMA (800/1700/1900/2100MHz) and sport Bluetooth for wireless headsets.
Read the full story here.

It's been nearly a a year since the iPhone was first released. No one knew exactly what the device would be like, or do, or how it would change the mobile phone landscape.

At the end of 2007, approximately 4 million iPhones had been sold, mostly in the US. That represents somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% of the total US subscribers carrying an iPhone.

At Movaya, we love the iPhone. Our COO, John, owns one and loves it. More importantly, we love the data that has been released about iPhone users, which we have reported on previously;

During his keynote appearance at the Mobile World Congress, AT&T Mobility president and CEO Ralph de la Vega called Apple's iPhone "a game-changer," noting that since AT&T exclusively launched the device in mid-2007, mobile data consumption has grown dramatically. According to de la Vega, 95% of iPhone owners regularly surf the web, even though 30% had never done so prior to iPhone ownership.

Well, now it is time to see how the other handset makers (Motorola, Samsung, LG) and wireless carriers (T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon) will respond to the iPhone craze. Clearly, the form factor is a hit with consumers, based on all the impressive data.

This week at CTIA, Sprint and Samsung announced the first iPhone like device - The Samsung Instinct.

The Samsung Instinct will be available in June for a yet undetermined price. Executives hinted that the price would be substantially lower than the $399 for the cheapest iPhone. Like the iPhone, the Instinct lacks a keypad and has just a few buttons. Most of the functions are accessed by touching the screen.

The Instinct will have a few features the iPhone lacks. For one, it will be the first consumer phone in the U.S. to use EV-DO Rev. A, the fastest cellular broadband technology available on the Sprint and Verizon Wireless networks.

AT&T Inc. has phones that use a competing technology with equivalent speeds, but the iPhone is not one of them: It runs on a comparatively slow network, supplemented by Wi-Fi access.

The Instinct also contains a Global Positioning System chip, for location applications. The iPhone lacks one, but it can use cellular and Wi-Fi signals to determine an approximate position.

The Instinct certainly won't be the last iPhone killer - it's going to be fun to watch these devices hit the market and watch as the other 99% of cell phone subscribers in the US get hooked on the mobile web.

Today Verizon Wireless announced its LTE plans for its recently won C block of 700MHz spectrum. AT&T, the nation's largest carrier, announced similar plans just yesterday. Meanwhile, Google finally disclosed its own involvement in the auction process.
Read the full story here.

This week at CTIA 2008, Panasonic announced to all that it has been working to shrink Plasma display technology to use in mobile handset displays. The company revealed that it has been working with AT&T, to use mobile plasma displays for the upcoming AT&T Mobile TV service.
Read the full story here.

Kyocera made an impression at CTIA 2008 this week with a trio of new CDMA handsets with a fashion sense. The Neo E1100, Mako S4000, and Adreno S2400 are planned to be available in Q3 2008 and feature support for the AWS frequencies (1700/2100MHz).
Read the full story here.

Start from 2 April 2008, Air France and OnAir are launching the second phase of their three-month trial onboard mobile telephony service, initiated in December 2007. The onboard service will enable passengers to use their cell phone for makingreceiving calls, sms-ing and also emailing.

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Feel not enough on the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.1? Here is an walkthrough video on the new Internet Explorer Mobile, featuring the ability to easily view full-screen Web pages and H.264, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight for multimedia playing support.

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