Parents must be responsible for their kids cell phone use

The case of the teenaged girl from Michigan who took revealing photos of herself on a cell phone and sent them to friends - who soon shared them with their friends - has brought a new urgency to the dilemma faced by parents who want to give their kids access to technology but at the same time, protect them from their own impulsiveness and irresponsibility.

For the dilemma is this: The kids know technology a whole lot better then the parents.

Let me be even more to the point with some tech columnist preaching: If you’re going to give your kids technology, you need to know what they’re doing with it. Which means you have to take the time to learn it yourself, before unleashing it for your kids. Read more

The new G1 “Google Phone” from T-Mobile

The smartphone wars are on, with a tusanmi of new touchscreen phones flooding the market to compete against the iPhone.

The latest will go on sale next Wednesday (Oct. 22) when the much anticipated T-Mobile G1 is released… a phone that has been sometimes dubbed the Google phone.

The T-Mobile G1 is the first phone to run on Google’s new Android operating system, a phone that looks and works a lot like the iPhone… and more.

For starters, it’s a touchscreen. You can move stuff around with your fingers… open applications flick from screen to screen. It has a music player and downloads songs from the Amazon MP3 store. Read more

Doctors warn of rash from cell phone use

Say it isn’t so! Teenage girls will be mortified! Doctors baffled by an unexplained rash on people’s ears or cheeks should be on alert for a skin allergy caused by too much mobile phone use, the British Association of Dermatologists said on Thursday.
Citing published studies, the group said a red or itchy rash, known as “mobile phone dermatitis” affects people who develop an allergic reaction to the nickel surface on mobile phones after spending long periods of time on the devices. Read more

BlackBerry Storm takes on the iPhone

The BlackBerry Storm looks like the strongest rival to the iPhone and is sure to make this fall’s smartphone race the most intense yet.

Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world’s first “clickable” touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation. Read more

Delta will charge for on-board wi-fi on flights

Delta will be first airline to offer WiFi on all US flights. But it will cost you. You’ll pay $9.95 for flights under three hours, $12.95 for longer ones.

It will use a cellular service that connects with ground stations and work with the Web, e-mail, sms and even VPN access.

How to make a screen grab of the iPhone display

Here’s a tip for you new iPhone users: Want to grab an iPhone screen photo? Just hold down the home button and the on/off switch at the same time. It will capture whatever is on your screen and send it to iPhoto, where you can then e-mail it, print it out or post it on a Web site.

Review: Sprint’s Samsung Instinct

Sprint has launched a full-frontal assault on Apple with the release of the Samsung Instinct, a touch-screen phone that offers pretty much all the iPhone has. It’s also cheaper, but in a cumbersome and, ultimately, negligible way.

Sprint is clearly targeting price. The Samsung Instinct sells for $129 on a two-year contract, compared to an entry-level new iPhone that will cost $199 for a similar two-year contract with AT&T. Sounds good, right? But dig deeper and you’ll see it’s a bunch of marketing mumbo jumbo that gives you a $100 rebate after you pay $229 up front or $30 more than the cheapest iPhone.

Over two years, that’s a price difference of $15 a year. A little over a buck a month. Hardly enough to get excited about.

I wouldn’t buy the Instinct on price alone. After testing one a few days, I think, in the long term that Sprint may be shooting itself in the foot by emphasizing price so much. After a day of testing the unit, I think the Samsung Instinct really challenges the iPhone on features. It looks pretty much the same, works the same and has several new services and features that really stand out.

Among them is Voice Search. Looking for a Starbucks? Push a button, say “search” and then, at the prompt, ask for “coffee shops.” You’ll get a quick return of all the shops that the Instinct’s built-in GPS capabilities note that are near you. Punch one of the listings and you’ll get turn-by-turn voice and onscreen directions. How’s that for cool?

That same Speech to Action button provide many other functions using speech activation for calling, texting, picture messaging, traffic, movie, sports, news and weather information. If you really crave noise or have a short attention span, it has multitasking capabilities that allow the user to play music in background mode while surfing the Internet, texting or playing games.

I’m also impressed with Sprints’ video offerings of sports, news and entertainment clips. And the Instinct uses haptic technology, giving you a little force feedback vibration every time you punch a button.

The Instinct runs on Sprint’s EV-DO Rev A high-speed network, similar to Verizon’s BroadbandAccess network. The new iPhone (to be released July 11) will run on AT&T’s 3G network, also delivering near broadband speeds.

In the box with the Instinct is a 2GB microSD card that can hold approximately 2,000 songs you can download from the Sprint Music Store, two standard batteries that offer up to 5.75 hours of continuous talk time each, battery-charging sleeve, travel charger, USB cable, 3.5mm headphones with built-in microphone, and a carry case with stylus. The Instinct, besides clearly copying the look and heft of the iPhone, also mimicks the iPhone’s Visual Voicemail, which lets you look and listen to your voicemail messages in whatever order you want. And it comes with a 2 megapixel still and video camera, Bluetooth and support for corporate and consumer (POP3 and IMAP) email.

Access fees and voice and data plans are pretty flexible and competitive with AT&T and Verizon. They’re also a bit complicated.

Like the iPhone, the Instinct must be activated on a pricing plan offering unlimited data. Customers can choose from what Sprint calls Everything Plans for individuals starting at just $69.99 per month for 450 voice minutes or Talk/Message/Data Share plans for families starting at $129.99 per month for 1500 voice minutes to share between two lines. There’s also the Simply Everything Plan offering both unlimited nationwide voice and data services for just $99.99 per month. The Simply Everything Plan offers premium services, including GPS navigation, email, Web surfing, Sprint Music Premier and Sprint TV Premier, while letting customers easily budget for phone expenses.

Of all the smartphones I’ve tested this year… and it seems like a new one comes out each week… the Instinct is the most impressive iPhone alternative I’ve seen. It’s not an iPhone killer. But it’s a strong competitor.

More details can be found at www.instinctthephone.com

My favorite new apps for the Phone

From last week’s PCMike NBC-TV report (see video over on the right)… The iPhone is cool. The apps are cooler.

The apps, short for applications, are programs that Apple released for the iPhone on July 11. All of the programs work on both the new iPhone 3G and the older iPhones. But since many of those programs also use the Web for various functions, it is with a 3G connection that they shine the most.

There are now more than 2,000 iPhone programs available on Apple’s new App Store, many of them free, a great many others between $2.99 and $4.99.

Let me share my favs. Read more

Apple iPhone 3G sold out - three week wait to get one

Apple is sure on a roll. The iPhone 3G is - for all practical purposes - completely sold out.

An AT&T spokesperson says wait time is from 5 to 21 days (that’s three weeks!), even though they are receiving thousands of new shipments “each day.”

Same with Apple retail stores.

After having mine for 10 days and traveling across the state in that time, I can see why. The 3G wireless network is blazingly fast, although AT&T’s 3G coverage is limited in Michigan to just three locations right now — metro Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids.

While the EDGE network works just abut everywhere, it is very slow at times, no doubt because of the million-plus new iPhones that suddenly joined the system since the new units went on sale July 11.

AT&T says it will be building out and expanding the 3G network to more Michigan cities by the end of the year.

Where it does work, however, the 3G network makes the iPhone about as close to a laptop in convenience and functionality as a mobile phone can be.

Four phones that rival the iPhone

Remember all the hype over the iPhone last year at this time? Get ready for it again as Apple releases iPhone 2.0, a whole new model that works even faster on July 11 and, next Tuesday, a bunch of new programs for the current model. But this year Apple has some serious new contenders.

When you;re talking touch screen, check out the Samsung Instinct. It works on the Sprint network and offers all the iPhone has and then some, at a cheaper price, just $129. Voice-to-speech commands, GPS navigation, streaming TV and video, music and full e-mail and messaging capabilities.

Verizon has three cool phones to look at. The Samsung Glyde has an iPhone like touch screen, but a full QWERTY keyboard. It’s a bit tricky for one hand operation but the real keyboard will be appreciated by many. Cost? $299.

Next, consider the LG Decoy. Again, nice screen. Plays music and multimedia. But what’s really cool is a built in Bluetooth headset that docks right in the phone. $179.

But the top of the Verizon lineup is the all new LG Dare. It has big three-inch touch screen, offers a sort of visual speed dial and plays all media. But what really sets it apart is a 3.2-megapixel camera and high-quality video recording capabilities. It costs $199.

The phone’s camera has a Schneider-Kreuznach certified lens for outstanding image quality, and the camera offers advanced features, such as face detection and an LED flash so customers can take enhanced-quality photos from their mobile phones. Additionally, customers can use the photo editing tool to personalize their digital photos with features that include borders and landscapes, and they can draw on their pictures directly on the screen using their fingertips.

The touch-screen also supports handwriting recognition and tactile feedback so that customers can more easily select their options on the phone.

iPhone: You’ve got some competition.

New Sidekick LX draws crowds

There’s a hot new phone on the market for the young and hip and always connected. It’s the Sidekick LX and this past week, there were lines at many T-Mobile stores around the country as the device officially went on sale.

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