Accessories

I know I have a strange fetish for cell phone speakers, which is why I had to scope out these Samsung ASP700 speakers that I first saw at CES. I found them at CTIA sitting pretty in Samsung's booth (where else would they be?) while attached to a Samsung Juke. These round little beauties, which have a decent sound for their size, include an ICE amplifier. Considering they're designed by Bang & Olufsen, it's not surprising that they're so eye-catching.

Phew! Day 1 of CTIA 2008 is in the bag, and as usual, the opening day provided plenty of action. Here are some of the highlights of the day.

Samsung was certainly a show stopper as it revealed its Samsung Instinct, an iPhone competitor that features a sleek touch screen interface and a boatload of features. Senior Editor Kent German has all the details for you and says it look promising. Kent also got some hands-on time with AT&T's new Motorola Z9, which left him with some mixed feelings. And Kyocera kept busy as it announced a … Read more

When I first saw Motorola was releasing something called the Rokr EQ3, I thought it was a phone. Instead, the Rokr EQ3 marks Motorola's foray into the portable speaker market. The EQ3 is a compact little speaker that folds up to a smaller and more portable size. It's not a Bluetooth speaker though; you'll still have to use the regular ol' 3.5mm plug, which is great for MP3 players, but not so convenient for most cell phones that still use the 2.5mm jack, so you might want to spring for an adapter if you want … Read more

At CTIA next week, Parrot is showing a digital photo frame that can receive pictures sent from a cell phone in a multimedia message. The Parrot DF7700 is the first digital photo frame (as least that we know of) with an integrated SIM card and dedicated phone number. The phone number will allow you to send photos directly from your camera phone to the DF7700. And in case you don't want to send a multimedia message, you also can add photos to the frame using its mini-USB port or its multiformat memory card slot. The DF7700 does not offer … Read more

CTIA always marks the end of a busy trade-show season for cell phones. We start at January at CES, travel to Barcelona in February for the GSMA World Congress, and then wrap it all up at CTIA. This year, it's back to Las Vegas for the wireless fun. The 3-day show will kick off April 1 at the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center, and I won't be the only one scouring the show floor. My reviews colleagues Bonnie Cha and Nicole Lee, News.com's Maggie Reardon and Tom Krazit, and Download's com's Jessica Dolcourt will … Read more

It's Valentine's Day and the GSMA World Congress is coming to a close. It's been a busy few days for the CNET team. Bonnie Cha and I journeyed from San Francisco with CNET TV's Ariel Nunez, CNET UK's Andrew Lim flew in from London, and John Chan of CNET Asia came all the way from Singapore. As one of the biggest mobile shows on the planet with more than 55,000 attendees, GSMA produced a lot of interesting news, from new smartphones to the first prototypes of the Android platform. Barcelona was a good host, … Read more

After attending CES four times, CTIA eight times, Macworld two times, and several smaller show in between, I thought I have the whole trade thing mastered. You spend the day meeting with companies, wandering the show floor, and battling crowds before returning to your hotel for a night of work. You also go a few days without enough sleep or a decent meal. As I prepared for the GSMA World Congress, I knew it would be different--a different continent, a different culture, a different language, and an international focus. I had no idea of just how different it would be. … Read more

Yesterday, I finally got a chance just to walk around the vast halls of Fira de Barcelona and really take in the sights of 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress. While doing so, I stumbled upon NTT DoCoMo's booth and ended up spending a fair bit of time there, wandering in awe. For those of you who don't know, NTT DoCoMo is Japan's leading cell phone provider, and they have got some amazing devices. There are ones that you can fully submerge in water. There are gaming and mobile TV handsets, and I know we've got those … Read more

While scanning the Sony Ericsson booth at the GSMA World Congress, we noticed this eye-catching item in the accessories case. The ball-shaped Sony Ericsson MBS-100 Bluetooth speaker goes far beyond what we normally see in cell phone speaker design. Designed for use with any stereo Bluetooth music phone (it doesn't have to be a Sony Ericsson handset, even though the company might prefer it to be), the MBS-100 can wirelessly broadcast your tunes to the world. And in case Bluetooth isn't your thing, it also comes with a 3.5-millimeter headset for connecting to a stereo. At 3.… Read more