Y!

Sprint Nextel introduced a music store for cellphones Monday, the first to offer direct-to-phone wireless downloads.

Sprint’s store offers music downloads for $2.49 each, compared with 99 cents a song at Apple’s iTunes Music Store or RealNetworks’ Rhapsody.

The store works with only two new Sprint phones, which sell for $230 and $250 after rebate and contract. Customers must also invest in a data plan for their cellphone service, a $15 to $25 a month add-on.

Without the data plan, Sprint charges 2 cents a kilobyte for data transfer, so one song download could end up costing $22.50 in purchase and data charges.

Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media, says Sprint’s offering is “way overpriced.”

Longer term, he noted, the convenience “will be attractive to many people once the price comes down.”

Cingular introduced a music phone in September, the poorly reviewed ROKR, which connects to iTunes via PC to transfer purchased songs. Songs can’t be purchased directly on the phone.

Cingular and Verizon say they will have their own music stores in 2006.

More►

From USAToday

Bill Gates, founder of software giant Microsoft has been reported as recently countering the idea of One Laptop per Child. It has been said that Gates has suggested using cell phones instead.

The basis for this viewpoint is that cell phones rely upon proven technology and are already being cheaply mass produced by several manufacturers. Cell phones also require little power and provide both internet connectivity as well as communication. Also a single cell phone tower can power an entire town. In regions which do not have internet connections this is a plus, as laptops to be beneficial in this regard would require web accessibility.

From Sprint

The local communication company which is a part of Sprint Nextel has unveiled its new logo and name. EMBARQâ„¢ is the name of the new company. Daniel R. Hesse, who is expected to be the new company’s CEO made the announcement.”The company’s new name, EMBARQâ„¢, and logo are meant to signal the way we will do business and establish what a next-generation local communications company can be,” Hesse said.

EMBARQâ„¢ is expected to make a dramatic entry in the local market. Once seperated from Sprint Nextel it will serve as the fifth largest local communications company in the US, with 7.4 million access lines and approximately 20,000 employees.

From Reuters

The Big Apple is split but, New york is making plans to allow mobile phones to work virtually everywhere. Planes, trains and subways are all in the works to becoming connectable. New York’s city officials are currntly fielding bids from service providers to bring this to immediate reality.

However, the Federal Aviation Administration is still determining its standing, as the on and off relationship with electronics in the sky continues. Although, memories of September 11 may be the turning tide in allowing calls from the sky.

As of this writing timetables are not set as to when the citywide connectivity goes into effect.

M-Wallet is the name of the payment system to be launched by Motorola. The downloadable application will work with mobile phone handsets from other manufacturers and PDAs as well.

Once the M-Wallet application is loaded onto the mobile device, users can then manage their accounts through the Wallet Service Center. At launch the M-Wallet system will only allow banking transactions and purchases from participating retailers.

Contact-less payment is expected as soon as the technology is available for US handsets. “Contact-less payment” is built on Near Field Communication (NFC) which allows devices embedded with NFC chips to serve as methods of payment when linked to accounts. This allows the device to complete the transaction without much effort and takes only seconds.

Motorola is hoping for agreements from other US mobile phone carriers for the technology to reach its full potential.

From Korea Times

In Korea and surrounding markets Motorola has announced another entry into RAZR Family of mobile phones, the RAZR Z. The Motorola RAZR Z is a slidier/candybar styled phone, that will first be available through SK Telecom. In appearance the new model is reminiscent of the SLVR L7 moreso than the “original” RAZR.

The RAZR Z specs:
14.8 mm thin
2.2′ screen 262k color display
mp3 player

Motorola has made no announcements for a US/GSM version of this phone.

- BigBerries

From Sony

The Sony Memory Stick Micro dubbed (M2) is about 1.2mm thin. The removable media features an eject function to prevent loss. The M2 operates as dual-voltage media. The M2 also provides 3.3 volt operation to allow for operation with existing Memory Stick PRO compatible products.

The Sony Ericsson M600i is the first M2 compatible mobile phone.

M2 sticks can store all the usual stuff music,pictures,video clips ad documents. The M2 adaptor allo0w you to connect to a PC.

256MB and 512MB versions should be available form Sony in about a month or so. Expect 1 GB and up later in the year.

From PhoneMag

The other day I was buying some bed sheets. While waiting, I noticed the cahsier was fiddling with her mobile phone. Poking my nose over the counter, I asked, “What are you doing? She enthusiastically replied,”I’m putting my daily intake of calories into my phone.” Well I was happy and so was she. She then told me it was through her carrier which was either Verizon or T-mobile at the time I can’t recall.

Anyway she gave me the rundown on how it has all these categories and calories and it just tallies it all for you. I do wish my carrier had this nifty feature as I’m a tad bit into fitness.

To this date no sales rep at any kiosk for either Verizon or T-Mobile has any idea of what I’m talking about.

Well a mobile fitness application might be a step in the right direction for everyone with Sprint.

Sprint and Bones in Motion have partnered to offer BiM Active. BiM Active is part of an application suite designed to help users acheive fitness goals.

Monitor your activity and upload your results to www.bimactive.com track progress and exchange info with other users. With this new service offered by Sprint mobile users can record all stats for excercises, view progress reports on the phone and share and compare with the BiM community.

Sprint is offering BiM Active for $9.99/month.

Symbian is all over the news recently. Well, where do we start?
In a nutshell:

1. Symbian has partnered with Freescale and Nokia to develop a mobile phone design intended to work on 3G wireless networks. The end product will be based on Freescale’s chip and is expected to open the market for other producers.

2. It is announced that Windows based phones will overtake Symbian based products.

3. Symbian slashes it’s rates in half increasing competition and allowing for more smartphones to enter the market at lower prices.

From Sprint

Sprint and The HistoryMakers, announced “Moments in Black History,” a series of daily, announcements delivered via text message during the month of February.

Sprint mobile phone subscribers can opt in to receive a daily Black History factoid with a link to Sprint’s Black History Month Web site. http://www.sprint.com/blackhistory