PhoneTalk

The much-anticipated Motorola DROID for Verizon Wireless launched today with an availability date of November 9th, which is less than 2 weeks away. The smartphone, which runs Google's Android v2.0 operating system will sport both a slide-out and touchscreen QWERTY keyboard, 5-megapixel camera, WiFi, 3G connectivity, and 16GB of on-board storage (expandable up to 32GB). Additionally, this smartphone is all about personalization with the ability to customize three home screens where you can add folders, apps and widgets for easy one-touch access. It also comes with Amazon's MP3 store. If you want the DROID, you'll need to subscribe to a nationwide voice plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Nationwide voice plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access for 450 minutes and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan is $29.99 for monthly access.

To get a better idea of what the DROID has to offer, check out the demonstration video below from Cesar Da Costa, marketing consultant for Verizon Wireless.

Tags:	In The Know	Motorola	Sports	Verizon Wireless
	Music	Cell phone plans	Storage	WiFi
	Video	GPS	Android	Google

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Both Verizon and Sprint offer the BlackBerry Tour 9630 world phone. However, Sprint's version seems to be a bit more sporty. Watch the video below to see what we mean.

Tags:	Phone Smarts	Sports	Sprint	Cell phone plans
	BlackBerry	Smart phones	Business Use	Video
	E-mail

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Let's face it, Nextel push-to-talk cell phones haven't been the most attractive phones available to date. That's all about to change with the Motorola i856. The new slider cell phone sports a 1.3-megapixel camera, a 3.5mm headset jack so you can use your own headphones to listen to music, and Bluetooth 2.0. Combine that with its sleek design and red slide-out keypad and you've got a pocket friendly push-to-talk phone. Additionally, you can add up to an 8GB microSD card for storing pictures and music. Speaking of music, you can even have music playing while you text and talk on a direct connect call. Finally, this lightweight cell phone also has access to Sprint's mobile web features such as TeleNav Navigation, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and NFL Mobile Live.

Tags:	In The Know	Motorola	Sports	Music
	Text messaging	Sprint	GPS

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This weekend is time for the Live NFL Draft picks and if you're not by a TV, you can still stay on top of all the details with your Sprint cell phone. Here's a preview of how you can get the information you want:

• Draft Tracker, featuring live updates during the draft, including the previous selection, the current team on the clock with a live countdown clock, the next team drafting, and continuous access to all previous draft selections.
  
• Text alerts so fans know who their favorite NFL team picks and when their favorite college players are selected.
  
• Blogs from former University of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford and former University of Southern California quarterback Mark Sanchez offering a behind-the-scenes look at their experiences leading up to draft day.
  
• Exclusive live Draft Day blog by NFL expert Adam Schefter through Rounds 1 and 2.
  
• The latest news, opinion and analysis, including mock drafts, from NFL.com's draft experts Steve Wyche and Pat Kirwan and NFL Network's Charles Davis and Jaime Dukes. 
  
• A variety of mock drafts created by fans.
  
• Player bios.
  
• An extensive library of NFL Network-produced interviews with players, coaches and general managers, including video of the top players, all available on-demand.
  

If you already have a data and text plan with Sprint, you can catch all the NFL Network draft programming. To download the NFL Mobile Live, text NFL to 7777. If you already have a Sprint Simply Everyting plan that started at $69.99, the service is already included. With other Sprint plans, customers can get NFL Mobile Live by adding a Data Pack, starting at $15 per month.

Tags:	Phone Smarts	Sports	Sprint	Cell phone plans
	Video

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Has getting settled into the Fall semester made you re-evaluate your cell phone choice? Think it’s time to upgrade to a BlackBerry? Then be sure to check out the LetsTalk.com booth at the San Jose State vs. Boise State game on Friday night where you can sign up to get a new BlackBerry and $50 for your existing cell phone. That’s not all, you can also enter to win $50,000 to help pay off your school debt. It’s a deal that’s a win for everyone. If you can’t make it to the game, check out BlackBerry.LetsTalk.com for more details.

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Loyal football followers are probably already watching Monday night pre-season games on the big screen. However, Sprint users have the opportunity to be a little bit more connected to the latest NFL updates this season with the company's NFL Mobile Live application. Basically, this application lets users listen to the live radio broadcasts of every NFL game throughout the 2008 regular season. Users can also watch all eight of the Thursday Night Football telecasts carried by NFL Network live beginning on November 6th. Additionally, users can follow their NFL.Fantasy teams and even have their favorite team's latest information and quick links to live broadcasts for that team on game days to appear first on the log-on screen.

What's the best part about this application? It's included as part of Sprint's Everything Plans or part of the $15 a month Data Pack service, so there's no special subscription fee. Interested? Check out nfl.com/mobile or sprint.com/nfl for more information.

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Phone Smarts

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The 2008 Olympics will be going on over the next couple weeks, so we decided to ask Bloggers around the Internet for their thoughts on how to best use your cell phone to follow the events. Our final post comes from David Mould. To read more from him, check out his Orient Expression blog.

It's an exciting time for mobile media coverage of the Olympics. For the first time there are a plethora of tools and a real saturation of online access that will allow the closest coverage of an Olympics yet.

It will be interesting to see how the coverage to your phone will be achieved.

Points to consider:

There are three dimensions to the Olympics;

• Event: common and less common events that followers take an active interest in; and
• Country: national pride in supporting your country as it climbs the medal table; and
• Athlete: following your favorite athlete on their Olympic journey

2. Choice of channel will be controlled by timezone, technology choice and cost

• The biggest problem with the ESPN Mobile business model was that the concentration was on American Sport, for Americans in America. Why would I choose to watch my baseball team on a mobile phone when I could watch it at home on cable or over IPTV? Now with the Olympics being played out half way around the world the sport on your handset model would work due to the time shift required between the event happening and where the average American will be at that time, i.e. at work
• Will people choose to watch an event on their handset or simply receive updates? a great service would be a mobile offering of the Yahoo Service that allows me to program my TiVo from the Web. Combine this with watch lists and reminders so I can get an update as say the decathlon progresses so I can record the next coverage to watch later.
• The main driver for uptake will always be cost. In countries where "all you can eat" mobile internet plans are less common any service needs to be cost effective to be value added to the consumer.

The biggest winner in this will be micro blog services, Twitter, Jaiku etc. They all have phone based interfaces and I can see several channels springing up to cover the three dimensions.

• The USA Team channel
• The Fencing or Modern Hepthalon channel
• The Hem Bunting channel

These will become used as typically Olympic coverage is controlled by popular choice (Track and Field, Football) and skewed by broadcasting country (UK follows UK athletes, as do USA, Australia and New Zealand). This leaves minor events and minor countries with little to no coverage.

And one for the kids.... what about the (Read more)

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The 2008 Olympics will be going on over the next couple weeks, so we decided to ask Bloggers around the Internet for their thoughts on how to best use your cell phone to follow the events. Our next post comes from Joseph Hunkins. To read more from him, check out his Joe Duck blog.

Will NBC cover everything?

NBC has promised to cover all the events via online or broadcast media - a remarkable event in and of itself and I think unprecedented in Olympic history. Although there is more to the Olympics than just the actual sporting events NBC is also planning to cover opening ceremonies and certainly will do many of the athlete profiles that are fun to watch, so as a fan of some of the more obscure sports like Table Tennis I'm very excited to be able to follow things in a way I have never done before.

What do you think of Yahoo's mobile services for following the Olympics?

I have a feeling Yahoo's been so overwhelmed with corporate challenges that their mobile Olympics will be underwhelming. So far Yahoo's offering a few unimpressive links with old news at their mobile Olympics online spot:
http://beijinggames.netbiscuits.com/?refer=e00214

Fring is the really intriguing Web 2.0 player at the Olympics, and I'm anxious to see what they put out. From the Fring site we learn they've assembled a team of "reporters" who are now applying for this this:

We will happily provide the fring Olympics commentators with a 3.5G mobile phone with GPS, camera, local SIM card and (almost) unlimited data plan. In return, the fring commentator will regularly micro-blog with quick updates & pictures (the winner, the loser, the cutest flag-bearer, the poor girl who lost her swimsuit, the poor guy who dropped the baton in the 4×100 meter final… you get the idea). If you’re a real sports enthusiast you may focus more on the records; if you’re more of a night owl, we may all live vicariously through your night-time escapades in the Olympic village - pics & videos most welcome!

My guess is that Fring will be weak on the sports but much more interesting than NBC on the night life, especially if the Fring reporters get clever about getting out pictures and stories from Olympic Village and other Beijing nightlife venues. Celebrity spotting is a lot easier if there are legions of smartphones in the house, so look to Fring for the stuff you can't get elsewhere.

In terms of mainstream sports coverage I'm guessing it'll be NBC all the way. Veteran sportscasters will offer more insight than a microblogger standing at the finish line, and NBC appears primed to deliver great reports from dozens of venues.

(Read more)

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Phone Smarts

Sports

Smart phones

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The 2008 Olympics will be going on over the next couple weeks, so we decided to ask Bloggers around the Internet for their thoughts on how to best use your cell phone to follow the events. Our first post comes from David Cassel. To read more from him, check out his Blorge.com blog.

NBC paid over $600 million for exclusive rights to cover the Olympics — and they're not ignoring cell phone users. NBC is promising steady mobile alerts through NBCOlympics.com. I don't know if it's cell phone-ready, but NBC also has an online video site [requiring "Windows Media Center"] with a whopping 2,200 hours of live and interactive video (also available through NBC Olympics.com.) "Watch full length events" the site urges — even offering the downloading of video for repeat viewing offline. But the site's already drawing mixed reviews, so remember: they're not the only site for Olympics news.

ESPN Mobile has created a dedicated Olympics page, where they're promising a medal tracker, athlete information, news, recaps, and analysis. Meanwhile, ESPN.com has a complete schedule of all the events, and even created "Olympic Central." And yes, they'll be offering their own original reporting from China. ("ESPN forced to work Beijing's backstreets," read one headline.) ESPN reporters will interact with the athletes (without cameras), and they'll be allowed to use video highlights for news recaps — but only after they've aired on NBC.

But the Twitter feeds could become especially significant this year — bypassing the restrictions created by NBC's exclusive rights and the tight controls of the Chinese government. (Last month the Chinese police stopped interrupted a live interview on the great wall of China.) One San Francisco blog did a great job of collecting Twitter comments about the protests when the Olympics torch passed through San Francisco. A web site called Global Voices Online is already offering Twitter updates with Olympic news story (and the blogger at 2008 Games Beijing.com is (Read more)

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Phone Smarts

Sports

Video

GPS

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This weekend is the NFL draft and if you're a huge football fan the draft picks can provide insight into what you can expect this season. If you can't get around to watching the draft on TV, you can watch it live (April 26 & 27) on your video-enabled Sprint cell phone. Don't have a video-enabled phone, no worries, you can always get text alerts that let you know when your team is making its picks. Sprint is also offering a lot of other NFL draft coverage to its customers such as behind-the-scenes blogs, player interviews, player bios and more.

So how do you get the service on your Sprint cell phone? You can download it by texting NFL to 7777 or check out the Sports section on your Sprint Vision- or Power Vision-enabled cell phone. The service is free if you already have a data plan. If you don't have a data plan for your video-enabled phone, you can still get it, you'll just have to pay a little extra on your bill next month.

I don't know about you, but I'm currently reviewing the Motorola Q9c for Sprint and I won't be leaving home without it this weekend. I'm an Oakland Raiders fan and we all know they can use all the help they can get.

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Phone Smarts

Sports

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