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What do you get when you cross Facebook with iTunes and Slingbox? A big fat trainwreck of an application, you'd have thought. So it's something of a surprise to see a company produce a different result to this equation: Phling, a "free" music streaming service for mobile phones, with social-networking elements built in.

Silly name aside, Phling's service is simple: An application sits on your desktop computer and creates a library of your MP3, AAC or WMA collection. A Java app then sits on your mobile phone (downloaded over the air) and lets you browse … Read more

This coming Saturday marks the start of the new Barclays Premier League season--and the weekly heartache of trying to keep up to date with the footie while attending weddings and going to visit the in-laws high up in the Pennines. But don't fear, just because you're not sat in a pub or in front of your brand-new HDTV doesn't mean you can't follow the football--all you need is your trusty mobile phone and a little know-how.

There are five main ways of receiving updates using your phone: text alerts, mobile football sites, video clips, using a … Read more

The glossy hype over the Apple iPhone has certainly faded some, but that hasn't bothered the independent and corporate third-party developers that have been polishing up iPhone apps to run over the device's mobile Safari browser.

There's some sweet, juicy webware out there, including iPhone-friendly versions of multinetwork IM giant Trillian, and Twitter, the social-microblogging upstart.

There are also some lesser known but no less deserving offerings, like the Mobile Home headline feed, Box.net Web storage, and eBuddy IM, a Trillian and Meebo IM competitor.

Check out the CNET editors' roll call on iPhone Approll, and … Read more

A few weeks ago, we told you about Leaflets, an iPhone-friendly portal that presents a series of small Web applications on a single page. It turns out there are many more portals like this out there, and uPhoneHome is one such site. Instead of having to sign up to use the site like you do with Leaflets, uPhoneHome doesn't require a log-in at all. You can go ahead and add all kinds of iPhone-friendly Web apps to this page (everything from Facebook to Meebo), and arrange them by date added, categorically, or even alphabetically. The one downside is that … Read more

Amid the growing group of instant-messaging solutions for the IM-less iPhone, Mundu (a Webware 100 winner) has just released a new contender that handles four of the most popular chatting protocols with a fantastic interface. If you're an iPhone user, just navigate your Safari browser to http://iphone.mundu.com, which takes you to a log-in screen with access to your AIM, Yahoo, MSN, .Mac, and Google Talk accounts. You can log into all of them simultaneously, although there's no master password system like you get with Meebo.

Each client gets its own buddy list, and any additional … Read more

For starters, the Cocoon is highly stylish, featuring a smooth, curved white casing that slips easily into a pocket. In a neat touch, there are hidden LEDs behind the front cover that light up and tell you the time, and preview text messages and incoming caller details. But what's really impressive about these lights is how they work in conjunction with the provided dock, or "nest," as O2 likes to call it.

As well as charging the Cocoon, the dock turns the handset into a fully fledged alarm clock that constantly displays the time and can wake … Read more

The brawniest smart phones may be equipped to withstand a hearty flinging across the room, and the brainiest may be able to finesse your multimedia or autocorrect your photos, but few can do on their own what CodeWallet Pro and eWallet Professional (various versions) can to manage and secure your data in a central, locked-down location.

I'm not talking about one smart phone with separate notebook, word processing, e-mailing, and database programs that have been shrunk down from their original desktop formats to disco with your data. I'm talking about programs that have been made with mobility in mind, that regard themselves as serious guardians of very sensitive information. Whether they stand up to the task and whether you really need them are issues we'll get to. To begin, let's take a look at eWallet Professional and CodeWallet Pro (which shall henceforth simply be known as eWallet and CodeWallet).… Read more

Fumbling around with your iPod while it's in your pocket or engaging with it full-force may be getting old, especially when you're in the middle of a triathlon. Timex aims to fix that by putting basic iPod controls on its new iControl Ironman watch.

The new watch includes a dongle that attaches to the iPod or iPhone connector, allowing users to play, pause, navigate forward and backward, and turn up the volume remotely from their wrists.

Both Engadget and Gizmodo already have some hands-on experience with the watch, which lists for $125.

Although buying info for the watch … Read more

Hundreds of cell phone users in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening complained that they were unable to make or receive phone calls during the aftermath of the I-35 bridge collapse. But many people said they could still contact loved ones via text messaging.

This is not unusual, experts say. People in London and New York City after terrorist attacks in those cities reported similar issues. So did some students during the massacre at Virginia Tech earlier this year. While some of these issues can be blamed on damage to infrastructure, as was the case after the September 11 attacks and during … Read more