Under the agreement, all new phones announced from today for sale in the EU will have a standard micro-USB socket for charging the device.

The companies who have signed up to the measure, which is intended to reduce the number of chargers sold and discarded in Europe include Apple, Nokia, Qualcomm, HTC, RIM, LG, Motorola and Samsung.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts on Apple’s next iPhone as these phones have always carried proprietary hardware interfaces.  Will the next iPhone switch entirely to micro-USB, will it have a micro-USB socket alongside the standard iPhone connector and will any change only affect handsets sold in the EU?

The move was initialised a year ago by the EU to try to reduce the overall carbon footprint and the amount of waste produced by the electronics industry and very quickly all the major manufacturers signed up.  It means that within a year or two mobile phone companies will begin to sell phones without chargers, instead expecting consumers to either buy one separately or use the existing charger that came with their previous handset.

Some manufacturers including HTC have already been using micro-USB sockets for charging their handsets for a couple of years, indeed I’m now on my second HTC phone with such a socket and charger.

How this is taken by consumers who may resent having to buy a separate charger, or who may went to sell or give away their old phone and charger remains to be seen.  The move is being broadly welcomed by governments across Europe however.

Now the co-creator of T9, Martin King has passed away after a long battle with cancer.  T9 was the premier product of start-up company Tegic.  King hadn’t been involved with Tegic for some time because of illness but was there at the very beginning and saw his creation picked up by the likes of Morotola at first, and then every mobile manufacturer on the planet.

“It leaves a big hole in the Seattle tech community because Martin was known as a real innovator,” said Bill Valenti, the former chief executive of Tegic. “Martin was a very, very rare and unusual person. He combined the brilliance and curiosity of an Einstein with the heart and compassion of a Mother Teresa.” Valenti added that he’s never before met anyone with that “breadth of character.”

Tegic communications was founded in Seattle in 1995 by King and Cliff Kushler.  It was later sold to AOL for $350 Million and is now a part of Nuance Communications.

King served with the US Army in Vietnam as an air traffic controller and later attend Cornell University to study physics.  His career began developing technologies to help people with disabilities.

There can be no doubt that his most famous creation has been used by over three-quarters of all the people on Earth.  A full obituary of Martin King can be found at TechFlash.

Apple say it’s the largest number of pre-orders they’ve ever taken in a single day and AT&T say it’s ten times the number of iPhone 3GS handsets that were pre-ordered.

Here is where I’d like to offer a little calm and raise the point that this is not all down to the fact that the iPhone 4 is the best thing since sliced bread.

Obviously the popularity of the iPhone is as strong as it ever has been and, as such, a new version of this handset is only going to make hundreds of thousands of people (Facebookers and teenagers mostly) go weak at the knees.

Apple’s achieved something much better though that is making the iPhone 4 stand out for other reasons.  Since the launch of the original iPhone Apple have been extremely successful in popularising the smart phone.  This has reached such extremes now that almost every new phone that comes out is a smart phone and the task of finding one that actually looks like a traditional mobile phone, with buttons and the like, is becoming increasingly difficult.

So rather than slag off the iPhone 4 I would suggest that a great many people  are buying it simply because it’s got the Apple badge on it and they’re now ready to make the jump from a traditional mobile to a smart phone.

This is a great result for Apple as it means they will no longer have to always offer the best hardware in a market where standing out is becoming increasingly difficult.  Their name and reputation are now enough to carry them through and this will probably be the case for a good few years yet.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 has an enormous mountain to climb in this regard and while other companies may claim to be doing very well with smart phone sales, if you consider that they’re really only producing smart phones these days the answer why is fairly clear.

This is still an enormous number of sales for a product that’s not even out yet (perhaps I should put the Apple branding on my new book?) and both Apple and AT&T can be extremely pleased.

Source : Engadget

• Sleek design — Opera Mini 5 features a new, intuitive and advanced look and feel.
• Tabbed browsing — This desktop favorite is now available for Opera Mini. Tabs allow users to browser several sites simultaneously. This helps users easily jump from one page to another with the click of a tab.
• Touchscreen or keypad browsing — Opera Mini caters to the needs of your phone, offering optimal browsing for both touchscreen and keypad-based phones.
• Password manager — Opera Mini is a virtual memory bank, securely saving all passwords for e-mail, social-networking sites, online banking and more.
• Speed Dial — This is our take on a table of contents for your Web adventure. Opera’s Speed Dial will greet you with your pre-selected Internet favorites upon loading the browser.

The Opera developers have released a video that demonstrates the functionality of Opera Mini 5.

Mobile users who are interested in testing the new Opera 5 Mini web browser can point their mobile devices to m.opera.com/next to download it directly from the device or to the download page at the Opera website to download it to their PC.

The biggest question on most peoples mind is what the major differences are. First of all it should be pointed out that the latest update to the hardware is under the hood. The only difference in terms of visual design between the iPhone 3G and the 3GS is the name on the back of the device. But under the hood is where the real work has been done. Instead of reinventing the most popular smartphone on the market, Apple has decided to do the subtle thing and improve it. These improvements come in the form of a better processor (up from 412MHz to a rumored 600MHz). The camera has been bumped up a megapixel to 3.0 and comes with video recording and auto focus, although there still is no flash option. A hardware compass has also been included.

On the software front, OS 3.0 now comes with push notification, better MMS, tethering, the long awaited cut and paste as well as a proper GPS navigation solution. Spotlight has finally made its way to the iPhone which promises to allow users to do system wide searches. Rounding up the major features for OS 3.0 is Voice Control and stereo Bluetooth options.

So now that you get an idea of the major updates to not only the software but the phone its time to answer a few FAQ’s.

Q: Is there a big performance difference between the 3G and 3GS?

A: While the performance is noticeable, it is not one that is huge. Unless you’re running games such as Resident Evil etc. you will notice load times of one to two seconds faster but that is about it. On the other hand if gaming is a requirement for your iPhone then you definitely want to look into the 3GS as the gaming performance (including frame rate) are mark improvements over the 3G.
In terms of internet speed etc. this remains the same as the 3GS has the same wireless chip as its predecessor and AT&T is not rolling out 4G until another year or two.

Q: How useful is cut and paste?

A: There is no doubt that cut and paste is a standard feature of any smartphone, but one question everyone has on their lips is if cut and paste on the iPhone is comparable to that on other devices such as the Blackberry and Palm Pre.

First of all, Apple has decided to go with a predictive selection technology that tries and figures out how much of the text you want selected to cut, copy or paste. It’s pretty accurate and if it fails to give you what you want, you can always use the little nubs at the begging and end of the selection to increase or decrease your selection, something that is lacking in all other smartphones I’ve tested. Was it worth the wait, probably not, but at least it brings something new to the game.

Q: Is the Compass and Voice Control useful?

A: A compass in a cell phone wasn’t something most industry analysts were expecting. But Apple decided to shock us with a full working hardware compass in the 3GS iPhone. As to whether it is useful or not is yet to be determined. I will say that if you are planning to upgrade to the new 3GS, the compass should not be on your list of reasons. While it works perfectly, it’s yet to be proven how it is more useful then the built in GPS with Google maps. Had the phone been lacking GPS options then maybe, but honestly I am yet to see a real use for the compass except for hikers lost in Wyoming. It still is nice to play around with though.

Voice control is another new feature that I’m not quite getting. Yes it’s awesome to be able to tell your phone what to do instead of making it do it. But I just wish the voice control features were a little easier to operate. For one it requires you to hold down the home button for every use, and since multi tasking still hasn’t made it to the iPhone, once the Voice Control app is exited, you have to do the process all over again. However it is nice if you want to keep your eyes on the road instead of on your phone.

Q: What’s up with Tethering and MMS?

A: If you live in the U.S, I’m sad to say that AT&T sees no reason in bringing tethering (or MMS) to the iPhone3GS at launch (June 19th). While they have said that MMS will be available later on this summer, there is no word on when the tethering option will be available.

That said for those in other countries that will offer the tethering option, you should find it to work just fine. Unfortunately since I’m based in the U.S the option to try out both the MMS and tethering features were unavailable. Hacking could have gotten the job done though, but that would be too much trouble and more importantly would not make sense for this review.

Q: Should I upgrade/switch carries for the 3GS?

A: This is the biggest question on everyone’s lips. The question has so many factors so unfortunately the answer will depend on a few things. If you still have the original iPhone (not the 3G), the answer is obvious. You were due for an upgrade like yesterday, and I’m almost sure that most people who have the original iPhone have finished their contracts or about to finish them. So the answer is a no brainer, upgrade!

On the other hand, ff you are a 3G owner you should consider your options before upgrading. If you are still stuck in a contract it might be in your best bet to just get the software upgrade and live happily ever after. The only major difference in the 3G and the 3GS is the speed and unless you are a heavy iPhone gamer, you probably won’t notice the one to two second difference in app load time. However I understand that AT&T is allowing existing customers to get a 3GS at the subsidized price, based on credit, contract length and a few other factors. This is individually based so your best bet would be to contact AT&T. As for other countries such as England (Vodofone), I have no idea.

If you are with another carrier this is even a tougher decision. If you happen to have Sprint and due for an upgrade in the near future, I would advise that you check out the Pre before jumping ship. It rivals the iPhone in many areas and beats it in some (namely multitasking). On the other hand if you are tied to T-Mobile, Verizon etc, and your contract is either expired or about to expire, you cannot go wrong with the new 3GS.

It should be noted that the 3G will still be available for purchase ($99 on contract). I would not advise trying to save an extra Benjamin in this area though as the performance boost and other hardware upgrades are well worth the extra $100.

Conclusion:

So there you have it. The major questions about the iPhone answered. For those with the iPhone 3G you can download OS 3.0 right now. If you’re holding off for the 3GS however, that one is set to release this Friday (June 19, 2009).

I, too, was torn. I vowed never to buy an iPhone, on account of their price and lack of certain features (saying that, I too vowed never to run Windows XP but I ended up using XP about 3 years after its release, in 2004). I was strongly considering a Symbian-based smartphone, generally seen as a phone of someone a little more tech-savvy than an iPhone user. When I got my iPhone, I was shocked. iPhones are actually very good.

Whilst they do have many little annoying flaws, such as the fact you can’t use a landscape keyboard to compose an email or SMS (not until the next version of iPhone OS, anyway), they are remarkably user-friendly and after a little jailbreaking pretty flexible. I have yet to find something I would like to do, but I can’t do.

LCARS theme on iPhone

Another popular complaint people have with the iPhone is the lack of hardware keys. However, I soon became accustomed to the touch screen, because it has somewhat of a LCARS feeling – especially after you install a LCARS theme! There are some hardware keys though: volume control, a switch to turn it on or off silent mode, the ‘home button’ and a lock button.

Still, the most popular complaint is the price. I find myself paying 35GBP a month and about a 100GBP lump sum. For that, 600 minutes and 500 texts. Pretty expensive, but I am quite satisfied with the data plan that is also included in that price.

So, do you have an iPhone? If not, why not?

Nokia managers call it the Facebook phone. The reason is obvious. Nokia is gearing for the social networking and multimedia crowd as much as it tried to improve the business aspects of the phone.

The main features that make it interesting in my case are the full QWERTY keyboard, the WiFi support and the 640×360 screen. It does come with additional features like GPS, flash lite 3.0, tri-band HSDPA 3G, a 5 Megapixel camera or 32 Gigabytes of memory which will appeal to many users.

No word yet on the important battery component but Nokia is claiming that the cell phone is capable of 36 hours of continuous music playback. A video of the new Nokia N97 was published on Youtube that is showcasing some of its features.

A few factors will help me make the decision. The first and most important factor in my opinion is the responsiveness of the cell phone. The Nokia N73 for example is sluggish and slow. The keyboard should be good enough for the occasional article in an Internet Cafe or at a Wifi hotspot. Lastly the battery should last long enough to survive a workday without recharging. The current suggested price tag without contract is around 550€ ($695).

BBsnap can be used without registration which is the most user friendly approach. A new wallpaper can be created in just a few steps. It begins by entering a tag or keyword in the Flickr search box. The service will then automatically pull images from Flickr. A click on an image will load start the wallpaper creation.

The user has to pick his BlackBerry cell phone from a list of available phones first. The selected image will then be loaded. A rectangle with the same dimensions as the screen of the BlackBerry cell phone will be displayed. It can be moved around in the image to pick the best part of it for the wallpaper.

A click on Done will start the wallpaper creation. The wallpaper can then be downloaded to the computer to transfer it from there to the BlackBerry cell phone. The other possibility is to point the browser of the cell phone to that page and download it from there.

Some cell phone owners have a free data contingent per month before they have to pay for additional data transfers. The fees are usually ridiculously high for a Megabyte of data and cell phone owners who do not have another choice have to make sure that they optimize the data transfer.

A good way to optimize the traffic is to use services like Baresite. Baresite basically removes the unnecessary parts of a website before sending it to the client. It acts like a proxy server that alters every page to reduce the amount of data that gets transferred from and to the clients device.

The device is usually a cell phone but it could very well be used with desktop PCs since many users have to cope with slow connections or data tariffs there as well.

Baresite uses a basic optimized website for mobile devices. It provides access to two forms which can be used to load websites / feeds or search on the Internet. One interesting feature of Baresite is the automatic feed discovery. RSS feeds will be displayed instead of the original website if a site offers that functionality. RSS feeds have the advantage that they are faster to load because they usually come without any graphics or multimedia.

The Preference contain some important parameters that some users might want to change. Images can be turned off in here. It is also possible to change the default search engine from Google to Yahoo, Live or ASK.

The very same menu contains options to switch between full and partial feeds, select the number of history items that are displayed on each page or if the forms should be displayed on every page.

Everything will be saved without registration. It is possible to set favorites for easier access on the next visit. There is even an option to access the full browsing history. The service that is offered by Baresite is ideal for users on slow connections or users who have to pay per Megabyte. It can be used to access information rapidly.

I have spotted a Pepsi advertisement on Youtube that is airing in South-America only which has all the traits of an interesting fun to watch ad. Honestly, what can go wrong if you combine Kung Fu Fighting, Mini Me and Godzilla in an ad?

Interestingly enough that’s not all there is to be seen and done for the viewer. They did release a free browser widget for Nokia Mobile phones built by interactive design & marketing group AgencyNet that can be downloaded free of charge from a newly created website. Supported languages are Spanish, Portuguese and English. The Pepsimundo website itself is only in Spanish but easy enough to navigate.

How does this ad compare to the ads you usually see when turning on the television?

Update: The video has been deleted on YouTube, it is no longer available on the popular video hosting website. The account that has uploaded the video has been deleted as well. The video itself does not seem to be available as a copy on the site, which is often the case when a video goes down.

Here are related videos that you may enjoy. The first is a French Pepsi commercial.

A Dr. Pepper commercial featuring Godzilla.

Nike’s famous Ronaldinho commercial.

Please let me know if you find the original Pepsi Kung Fu commercial on the Internet, I’d like to embed the video again on the site.

The application works in principle like the Windows startup folder. The mobile phone owner selects applications that he wants to autostart and enables Powerboot afterwards. The selected applications will then be automatically started when the phone is turned on.

Powerboot offers several options on how to add applications to the startup. It is possible to pick an application from all installed applications, a running application or a Java application. There are also two modes to consider: Safe Mode and Quick Mode. Safe Mode displays a query before autostarting applications while quick mode will start them without interaction.

The PC server application has to be started first. A small notification area displays status information and error messages. Everything else is handled by the mobile phone application. It provides four different modes: Mouse mode, Keyboard mode, Application mode and Utilities.

Mouse and keyboard mode give the user control over the computer’s mouse or keyboard which can be controlled with a joystick or the numeric keys. Application mode handles six applications that can be controlled using that mode if installed and on top of any other windows on the computer desktop.

The applications are Firefox, Winamp, Windows Media Player, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Explorer. The last mode Utilities provides access to running commands or sending messages.

The application does not require any configuration of Bluetooth or Java on both the client or server which will appeal to many users who usually shy away from such applications. It could be handy in several situations like business presentations, lying on the coach at home and listening to Winamp or Windows Media Player or starting a command without having to go near the computer.

Taking those limitations aside the Android phone emulator does provide a good overview of some of the functions that the Android phone will offer. It is possible to get a first impression of the Google browser, Google maps and other functions like receiving calls, sms or mms. There is no real interaction with the emulator though. It is for instance not possible to use it to open any websites or actually call someone.

The flash based website about the Android phone contains two additional sections that are important if you want to get an impression of the phone’s dimensions because they seem to display the phone in the correct size.

The above screenshot has been taken from the Android phone emulator while the screenshot below was taken from the 360 view option. The screenshot from the Android phone emulator had to be reduced in size to fit on the screen while the screenshot below depicts the actual size of the original screenshot.

It would have been better if T-Mobile would have used the correct Android phone dimensions for the emulator as well so that potential buyers and interested users would get a real feeling for the phone’s dimensions which is especially important for tasks like web surfing, emails and the phone’s qwerty keyboard.

There is however one fundamental difference between Apple’s marketing strategy and Google’s. Android is an operating system and several companies are developing mobile phones based on the operating system which means more choice for consumers eventually.

The G1 is just the first phone based on Android and receives coverage because of that. Not everything is perfect yet though and the article tries to look at some of the functions and features that are missing or inferior to today’s standards.

It basically comes down to the user and the things that he might want to do with the phone.

A few problematic elements can be identified by simply looking at the announcements that have been made:

• No support for Microsoft Exchange Active Sync.
• Uses proprietary headphone connection.
• Access To Amazon MP3 store only over WLAN.
• Media player seems to be incapable of playing videos, only Youtube supported
• No Multi-touch.
• Only 1 Gigabyte of Flash Memory, maximum of 8 Gigabyte supported
• No video recording.
• No virtual keyboard

Every user has to make the decision on his own if any of the missing features is a criterion to pass and wait for the next Android phone.

Users should be aware that the Android Marketplace will host free and commercial applications just like the Apple iPhone App Store. Most of the applications listed below have been taken part in the first ever Android Developer Challenge.

This Challenge pushed the development of many Android applications and was an important step for the plattform.

Compare Everywhere: Compare Everywhere, formerly known as Android Scan, could be the killer application for Android. It uses the digital camera of the mobile phone to scan the barcodes of products to identify them. It offers then options to compare prices online, read product reviews and even sample music or video content. An alternative seems to be GoCart which basically does the same.

Cooking Capsules: The idea behind Cooking Capsules is simply. Let the user watch a short cooking video, show him the locations of the next grocery stores to shop for the items and give him a step by step instruction on how to cook the meal once he’s back home.

My Closet: The dream application for women. Take pictures of your clothing and the application keeps track and suggests outfits based on weather information and items chosen in the past.

Share Your Board: Jigsaw is an Android application to share, process and capture data on a whiteboard.

Wertago: An interesting application for nightlifer enthusiasts that makes use of Google Maps to show the hottest locations in town and provides means to coordinate with friends.

Got any other applications not in the list? Let me know about them. I did not include applications that would track friends and family members. This had various reasons, one being that every family member would need an Android phone for this feature to work.

Many mobile phones provide access to only one email account. That’s problematic if a user possesses more than one account. It is possible to configure the email accounts to forward all mail to one account which would be the main account on the mobile phone.

An alternative to that is the free mobile email service Momail which provides access to an account that has been specifically designed to work with mobile phones. It basically works by forwarding the mail to the Momail account which would be the primary account on the mobile phone. One advantage of this method is that Momail reduces the size of emails that are send to the mobile phone. A large image attachment would be automatically resized to lower the bandwidth needed to transfer the email.

Another interesting feature is called Push Mails. Mobile Phones that support this feature will automatically notify the user of new incoming mails. Users without such phones have to initiate the check for new mails manually.

Setup is more or less automatic. The user enters his mobile phone number during registration among other things like the mobile phone manufacturer and model. Momail will send a verification email and later on data that will automatically configure the mobile phone for the mobile email service. It usually does not take more than a few minutes to setup the service completely. Some mobile phones require additional configuration which will be mentioned after registration.

Microsoft Phone Data Manager is not a full blown backup solution like the software that comes from the mobile phone company directly which can backup data like sms, games or protocols. It is a beta product on the other hand that could see those features implemented in later versions.

The major advantage of using the Phone Data Manager is that it works with phones from different mobile phone manufacturers. That is handy for a family that possesses different phones but only one computer and basically everyone else who is using phones from different cell phone manufacturers.

The list of working mobiles include phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. About 30 mobiles in total are listed on that page that have been tested and are working with the Microsoft Phone Data Manager but there are also a few that are not working. Most cell phone owners will probably have to try and find it out for themselves if their mobile phone is not listed on that page.

Microsoft has posted a user guide on their website that walks the user through the process of installing and working with the Phone Data Manager.

It supports and can identify bluetooth and usb cable connections. While it lacks on features it could be a viable alternative for users with multiple phones from different manufacturers.

Basic functions that Nokia PC Suite 7 provides are backing up important data of the mobile phone, synchronizing all kinds of data like contacts, emails and calendars and providing Internet access for the computer the mobile phone is connected to.

That is obviously not all. The PC Suite can check the availability of new firmwares for selected mobile phones and instantly download them to the computer. Besides that you get a file manager and administration of messages, contacts and multimedia files on the mobile phone.

It’s furthermore possible to install applications on the mobile phone. My personal opinion is that it looks like the new version of the Nokia PC Suite comes with improved performance, everything feels a tad faster and more responsive.

It is however rather easy to create your own and it does not really take that long. Today I’m going to show you how you can easily create mobile phone wallpapers in no time at all.

The application that I’m going to use is called Weys. It provides a few default sizes for several mobile phones including a few Sony Ericcson, Nokia and Motorola phones but also an option to select a custom sized wallpaper.

If you select one of the mobile phones from the list the program window will change to that mobile phone and the display area is the area that will be captured as the wallpaper. The window can be moved around freely.

The custom window can be changed dynamically in size to fit the screen dimensions of mobile phones that are not available as templates.

The wallpapers can be saved in four different image formats including png, jpg, bmp and gif. Weys is offering a great way of creating a mobile phone wallpaper. It is missing an option to capture a larger screen area and reduce the size of it in proportion so that the screen would fit on the mobile phone.

Bandwidth is normally not a huge deal on my local computer and I do not pay that much attention to the amount of data that gets transferred which was a huge problem at first when I started using the mobile phone and notebook combination. It’s an unusual situation but I managed to adapt quickly.

I went on a quest to optimize firefox for low traffic volumes meaning that everything that was not necessary to grab the information of a website had to go. Here is what I changed:

Turn off Advertisement:

That’s a no brainer and I’m also doing that in my regular profile. I use Adblock Plus to disable advertisement on all websites in my mobile profile. That gets rid of banner ads which usually cost about 10 Kilobyte per ad displayed on a website.

Turn off Flash Content:

Blocking Flash content is another must. Sometimes interactive content is added to websites, a video that gets posted, some animation on the entrance page or something like that. Flash Block blocks all of those flash content.

No Script:

We also have Java, Javascript and other scripting languages that can add to the traffic volume of our connection. I disable them with No Script.

The great thing about all those add-ons described above is that you can add exceptions that do load the content. It is for instance important to add exceptions to websites that require scripts to run properly. It takes a while to fine tune everything but it is definitely worth it.

Disable Images:

That’s a setting in Firefox and once again exceptions can be added. You find the check box in the Tools > Options menu under the Content tab. If you uncheck Load Images Automatically images will only be loaded on request. A huge bandwidth saver.

Disable Link Prefetching:

Link prefetching is a browser mechanism, which utilizes browser idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future. Set the parameter network.prefetch-next to false in about:config to disable link prefetching.

Disable Auto Update:

Make sure that Firefox is not trying to automatically update the browser. This has the effect that Firefox is not connecting to Mozilla to find out if a new Firefox version is available and that it won’t download that version automatically. Change the parameter App.update.enabled in about:config to false.

Disable Search Updates:

Firefox checks regularly for Search Plugin updates which can be disabled by setting the parameter browser. search. update in about:config to false.

Do you have any additional tips on how to reduce the traffic caused by Firefox ? Let me know about them, looking forward to reduce the traffic even further. I would also be interested in finding out if there are significant differences between the traffic volumes of Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer.