MobHappy

LG has released a new device called the LG-SH240. Looks pretty basic with its 2-megapixel camera and all (especially for a Korean handset). But its key feature isn’t one defined by tech specs. Apparently its selling point is a keypad that feels like human skin. You know, I never really thought about that before, but [...]

Both Russell and I wrote last week about the tussle between native mobile apps and mobile web apps. I posited that we’re nearing a point in which the “best” mobile devices (from a development viewpoint) will be the ones with the best and most powerful browsers, rather than the ones with the best operating system. [...]

Over at the CeBIT show in Germany, Vodafone has been showing off Otello, a visual search engine. It’s still in the early stages, but it works like other similar systems, allowing users to send a photo in by MMS, and Otello’s servers will do their image-recognition magic, and send back search results or other info. [...]

Japan to get cellphone ‘sommeliers’: official – Yahoo! News: Japan is to start licensing cellphone “sommeliers” to guide consumers through complicated functions as mobile telephones become ever more advanced, an official said Monday. The communications ministry said it was planning to support a private-sector plan to launch an exam to license specialists who sell cellphones. [...]

I’ve had a little time to mull over my CES experience and form some thoughts about it. The show itself is more than a little overwhelming; it’s hard to express its scale, and the difficulty in shuttling between its different locations, on and off the Las Vegas Strip, doesn’t help things a whole lot. In [...]

The blogosphere’s been abuzz with the NYT story about how much mobile traffic Google got from the iPhone on Christmas and a few days after. Apple +iPhone + Google + tech blogs = lots of mindless gushing. Do the stats really tell us anything? Not really, other than that iPhones were probably somewhat popular Christmas [...]

Japanese operator Willcom has been showing off (via Engadget) a prototype device running Google’s Android platform. The screenshots look pretty nice, but they’re really going to have to work on the form factor and design if they want to sell many of these. Also, having an ethernet jack instead of a mobile data connection probably [...]

Via Om Malik, Google has released another upgrade to Google Maps for Mobile, which in addition to GPS support, can now show users without GPS their location. As Google notes, it doesn’t have the accuracy of GPS, but it’s free, and it’s likely to be good enough to be useful in many cases. A quick [...]

Over in Germany, Vodafone sued T-Mobile, alleging that its sales practices were against the law because it locked the iPhone to its own network and forced customers to sign a two-year contract when they purchased the device. It won an interim injunction in the case, but T-Mobile has responded by selling the iPhone without a [...]

One more thing about the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, which I mentioned yesterday. I noted that the inclusion of a cellular radio was the first step in a trend of embedding mobile connectivity in specialized consumer electronic devices — strengthening divergence but also blurring the line of convergence. In any case, Joel Johnson over at [...]