Phones

It's not too often a midtier phone with middle-of-the-road features impresses us in the design department, which is what made us sit up and notice the LG CU400, an upcoming Cingular offering for the holidays. We don't know too much about its specifications, but it seems to be a pretty standard midtier phone with what looks like a VGA camera. Engadget Mobile says it's set to be released before the end of the year is over, which should be good for you cell phone shoppers out there. No word on pricing and availability, but we'll keep … Read more

As any regular partygoer can tell you, mobile phones are an essential part of the nightlife experience. You can use them to text-message from noisy dance floors, quickly grab the digits of cool new people you meet, and even find out where all your friends are thanks to social networking services like Dodgeball. But with a new service called PartyStrands, you can use your cell phone to actually shape the party.

Last Thursday night, I had the opportunity to hang out at the TechCrunch 8 Meetup party at BED (see photo), a pretty cool nightclub in NYC's Chelsea neighborhood. … Read more

That chill in the air means two things: the holidays are approaching, and the height of sports gambling season is upon us. The upcoming slate of college bowl games, the Super Bowl, and March Madness always warms the heart of even the casual gambler.

But this year, techies can get in on the fun. A sports betting site called Bodog.com is taking bets on the launch date for Apple's long-rumored iPhone. Bodog's using the money line system to gauge whether Apple will introduce the iPhone by the end of April 2007, or whether it will introduce the … Read more

Add this as yet another awesome smart-phone stocking stuffer to hit the scene this holiday season. Yep, the full details on the LG VX9900 (otherwise known as the enV phone) have been leaked yet again. It appears that the enV is set to launch on November 27 for $150 with a two-year service agreement (pricing at retail is $320; a one-year contract will get you one for $200).

As a reminder, the enV maintains the QWERTY keyboard and number keypad that we know and love from the old VX9800, but with a sleeker look and upgraded features. We're talking … Read more

After hosting a panel on mobile Web access at the Under the Radar conference on mobility last week, I moderated the digital imaging session, where four CEOs showed off what they can make camera phones do.

Daem Interactive makes a system that lets camera phones recognize images in the real world. Primarily designed for advertisements, the idea is that if you see an ad in the wild (like on a billboard) that's part of a special promotion, when you snap a picture of it and MMS it to the system you'll be rewarded with content, a prize, or … Read more

Way back in March, Palm cofounder Jeff Hawkins alluded to the fact that he was working on a mysterious third product category for the company, but we really haven't heard much about it since. (And frankly, that's quite a feat given Palm's horrible record of keeping its product announcements a secret, but I digress.) However, yesterday, a former vice president of product planning at Palm, Michael Mace, asked Palm CEO Ed Colligan if the project was still a go, and though he was quick to move on to the next question, Colligan said yes. You can read … Read more

You know, it'd be really sad if you could make a ho-hum keyboard colorful, but couldn't do the same thing to a more personal gadget like, say, your T-Mobile Sidekick 3. Fortunately, we don't have think of such awful things, thanks to ColorWare, the same company that turns those drab white iPods into rainbow-colored delights. Now you can do the same with the Sidekick 3: ColorWare has teamed up with T-Mobile to offer the same customization options for the popular messaging device. The service costs $99, and you can choose from 28 colors in any combination, so … Read more

As we told you yesterday, iPhone rumors in the past year have become like I Love Lucy reruns--you just can't get away from them. But in recent days some of the most interesting gossip has emerged with a report that a Taiwanese company has received an Apple order for 12 million iPhones. This is the latest picture of the supposed device, but as with every other "iPhone" photo we've posted, we have no way of knowing whether it's real or fake.

We're also hearing again that Cingular will be the exclusive launch carrier for … Read more

If you crossed a mood ring with a cell phone, what would you get? More importantly, why would anyone think of such a thing?

The people at Panasonic and NTT DoCoMo have apparently done just that, and the result is a mobile phone that changes color depending on your emotional state. The key to this bizarre feature is something called the "Feel Talk" function (so Japanese), which analyzes your voice tones and patterns while you're conversing.

Depending on what kind of day you're having, according to Gear Live, the phone can show "10 variations of … Read more