If you’re in Dallas or visiting Dallas for a while, and if you plan to pass through a school zone (for whatever reason) you’d better start refraining yourself from using your mobile while driving– unless you’d rather want to divest yourself of 200 bucks. Apparently, that’s the new city law. Before, there were only seven school zones where the ban was effective but now, they’ve added about 230 more. The city just passed that ordinance today, following others. How serious is the city? About
$145,000 sure. That’s the amount they are using to install signage to alert drivers to the changes.

SOURCE: WFAA

Motorola releases its newest innovation of in-car phone – Introducing the Motorola Smart Rider. Features of this phone includes a 2.8 inch colored display, a GPS navigation system which is a perfect tool for a car navigation system. Can be voice activated and most of all, it has a wireless connectivity useful via Bluetooth. This car phone will be available in the market starting June of 2008.
Motorola also announced the arrival of its latest Bluetooth headset, the Motorola H690 which includes a dual microphone, comes with noise reduction and echo cancellation technology. This one also features True Comfort ear-bud design.

Part one of features you may want to consider when buying a new phone:

Phone book
Are you a social butterfly who has a friends list as long as Rapunzel’s hair? Then you might want to consider a phone that has a big enough phonebook storage. We don’t want you missing out on anyone.

Voice dialing
This feature is perfect for people on the go (especially the ones using headsets) as they can do hands-off dialing.

Camera and video recorder
Older phone models have low-grade VGA but the new ones can have megapixel resolutions for quality images and they also have extra editing features.

Polymer Vision, a Dutch Company has pioneered the world’s first cell phone that features a fold-out display for viewing email, podcasts, text documents, news, and blogs. This amazing gadget is called the “Readius.” Despite its many features, the Readius is actually the size of your usual mobile. Well, quite compact in fact considering that is one with a large 5-inch screen that is folded out from the body of the phone.

Great for people constantly on the go, the Readius is also able to update any podcast, blog content, or email account through the 3G mobile phone network. But personally, I would love it for its reader. Yeah, that�s fun for a bookworm like me.

Unfortunately, the device is yet to hit the market. It�s supposed to come out in mid-2008, and no word yet on the price.

Source: InventorSport

Image from Blog Big Dutch

Yes, you�re seeing it right – a pink (or purple) Hello-Kitty themed bluetooth headset that you can pair with your cute pink (or purple) Hello-Kitty themed cell phones. Er, before you say, �Kyaaa!� just yet, I�d like to warn you that the price just maybe more than you�re a month�s allowance. But then again�

Source: Engadget

Have you fallen in love with Apples iPhone’s sleek, neat design, and touch screen capabilities, yet you couldn’t afford to splash as much as $400.00? Then might as well settle for it’s China-made clone, the HiPhone i32.

It’s half the price yet you get almost all of the features of the Apple iPhone (except for WiFi, smooth scrolling, ability to add applications since it uses a China manufactured operating system etc.). You might say that the cons outweigh the pros but at least you get the basics for half the price. What’s cooler about this phone is that it has an added feature, the shake control and auto rotate feature found in Sony Ericsson’s W910i! You can just shake the phone to change the music being played or when viewing a picture or video, you can just rotate the phone and the picture or video will automatically rotate!

Photo taken from http://www.expressgsm.com

Apple has released a warning to iPhone users and buyers about downloading unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs that are rampantly available on the Internet. Company executives state that these programs can cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software. It�s better to wait for official software updates because any damage caused by said unauthorized programs is not covered by iPhone�s warranty. Besides, the new update will include exciting new features such as iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, not to mention that you only have to wait a few days for that one as it will be released later this week. So be warned, iPhone republic (catch phrase mine), and listen to your elders.

Source: Engadget

Sweden’s Mobycator is pretty chummy with cell phone company Nokia as it has recently launched a media publishing system for the Nokia S60 models. This system called Mobypal is a free application that allows customers to publish and store photos and videos on the Internet in a flash. Media can be uploaded to the server via WLAN, 3G or Edge at the original resolution without reducing the quality when published on the site. Another feature is a Mobypal Face book plug-in for users who want to categorize certain media as “blog” which will then be directed to the user’s Face book account after uploading. All of these free of charge!

Mobypal can be downloaded here

Source: CameraCore

Cellphones with the qwerty keypad, that is, keypads that are similar to a computer’s keyboard, are the “innest” thing in town. Most cellphone manufacturers have entered the competition of “qwerty” phones (since not so long ago, only PDAs have this interface). Companies like Blackberry, Apple, Motorola, Nokia and so on and so forth, have produced their own creations to cater almost all of the people who wish to have qwerty phones at an affordable price. Phones with this type of keypad normally reduces the time of texting (SMS message) and inputting data into some of its programs/applications like phonebook, MS word and the like.

Photo taken from http://cellphones.lovetoknow.com

Presenting the newest cellphone monogamy in the world! From now on, you can use your hand held mobile to surf the net, listen in to good music, do bank transaction, GPS, send sms and talk from anywhere, anytime. By the late 2006, household cellphone-users outnumbered landline phone users. As of today, 4 out 5 Americans both have a cell and a landline home phone.
A traditional home phone maybe $50 a month. But usually, it doesn’t include several features such as voicemail, a caller id, call waiting, plus long distance connection. A mobile phone costs the same, but it basically includes those features.