Seven big names in the online and mobile industry have banded together in an effort to release a new standard of mobile application software that will be easily available for mobile users everywhere.

ARM, a British company responsible for designing chips for cellphones, announced its plans during the fourth annual ARM Developers' Conference held this week in Sta Clara, California. ARM, along with Samsung, Texas Instruments, Mozilla, Marvell, MontaVista, and Movial have decided to design a Linux-based open source platform to base the next generation of mobile applications on.

The purpose of this new collaboration is the hope that they will be able to create products and technology at a quicker pace with the help of the online community by developing enhanced applications through this open source platform.

ARM plans to release the full platform by 2008 and expects that the first devices bearing this new platform will be available by 2009. However, some critics were saying that the iPhone already has the exact same capabilities as the ones planned by ARM and the other companies.

However, the potential of this new platform is still very high considering the amount of applications open source programmers can contribute to the effort. Mike Inglis, an execute VP at ARM had this to say about the collaboration:

Today's consumers are very knowledgeable about technology, want to be connected to the Internet and access multimedia content and applications anywhere, at anytime, yet they do not want to be restricted by short battery life and inadequate features that will limit their experiences.

By stepping up the collaboration among key stakeholders in the mobile market, we will be able to jointly deliver the devices and applications with the cutting-edge innovation consumers have come to expect.

The chairman of a House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet Rep. Edward J. Markey is very upset by the fact that the iPhone has a US$ 175 termination fee. He said that the phone essentially becomes a very expensive paperweight if owners decide to discontinue their AT&T plan.

To put things into perspective, he was quoted at saying that the phone has "Hotel California service. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave—you're stuck with your iPhone and you can't take it anywhere." This entire argument started from a hearing regarding the cellphone industry's wish to pre-empt states from regulating wireless phone companies.

So far the state public utility commissions have no authority over the pricing of wireless plans but have control over the terms and conditions of wireless service agreements. Be that as it may a law professor at Columbia University Timothy Wu had another take on the entire system saying that our current cellular phone industry is a "spectrum- based oligopoly" and that we, as consumers, have already given up our property rights.

He gave a very good example on this: "Imagine buying a television that stopped working if you decided to switch to satellite or a toaster that died if you switched from Potomac Power to ConEd." Now it's time to ask yourself, is this the way we want things to be run? Or do we want more from the system.

There's no doubt that the Apple iPhone's launch was a runaway success, and new owners of the handset couldn't be happier. But Gizmodo reports some flimsy incidents that might dampen the parade a bit.

According to the report, AT&T might be cashing in on the launch by forcing consumers to buy two accessories if they want to get the handset. This happened in two stores in Seattle, one in California, one in New York and a weird variant of the act in North Carolina.

According to sources, consumers who waited in long lines to buy the iPhone were required by shopkeepers to purchase two of the product's accessories. If they didn't, they were simply denied the privilege of trading. In the New York branch, it took a man hollering that AT&T was doing illegal stuff to get them to sell without forcing accessories.

In one Seattle store, a source reports that AT&T had 20 units in stock and declared them sold out after 10 people entered the shop. However, they did offer the remaining people that they could get them handsets through "special deals" within a couple of days if they ordered two accessories along.

Gizmodo also reports that there are sources saying that AT&T personnel were required to sell products on a given quota. Unless they perform according to the company's benchmarks, they were subject to termination.

In Greensboro, North Carolina, accessories weren't forced on buyers but accessories were placed within the package of the iPhone. This way, the store was able to charge an additional 10 percent for restocking if the box was reopened.

And in the mobile world today, Steve Job's hobby - the iPhone - has just hit North America's east coast today, at a very prompt 6 p.m. launch as announced by the Cupertino-based company. People have lined up on Apple's retail outlets in New Jersey, Florida, New York, and Philadelphia, among some.
 
And while the west coast nears its launch window, Apple stores in California and Connecticut have already been prepping up for their share of the iPhone purchase craze. There are claims of people whisking past potential iPhone customers lined up, teasing folk with their iPhone.

The first iPhone owners have walked out of the official Apple stores with iPhone in-hand, although not one person has been named as the first official iPhone owner post-launch as of press time. Photo courtesy of Engadget.

Earlier, during the wake of the D: All Things Digital conference held in Carlsbad, California today, mobile device mogul Palm, Inc. and its co-founder Jeff Hawkins announced that they were going to reveal a new secret device that was either going to redefine the concept of mobile computing or introduce a "new category of mobile devices" available in the world today. Either way you see fit, Palm definitely pushed the envelope an inch further.

 

That product codenamed the "Hawk," has been revealed far earlier than expected, after a press release accidentally leaked the info through its own news feed. Enter the smartphone: a computing device that is frequently eyed as the next desktop computer, but perfectly fits in your pocket.

Enter the Foleo: a sub-notebook device powered by Linux that hooks up (figuratively) to your smartphone, giving you all the aesthetics for computing, while providing all the convenience of mobility and Palm's new secret device.

The techie world of gadgets and gizmos is driven by size and portability, but Palm foresaw that contributing to the mobility of devices is fraught by two weaknesses that oppose miniaturization. 

As things get smaller, people still want a manageable size of the device's screen and a roomy viewable area, while having an input interface that's more comfortable to a mobile computing consumer.

Palm introduced the Foleo as a filler to that grey line between mobility and computing experience, offering a solution to syncing emails, providing wireless web surfing and image browsing on a laptop that couldn't be bigger than an average-sized paperback notebook.

The Foleo stays connected to your smartphone through a Bluetooth connection, allowing it to quickly extract emails sent to your smartphone, while using the phone's own Internet access for a unique mobile surfing experience. The perfectly laid-out keyboard and 10-inch diagonal-wide screen allows for an easy viewing experience, while allowing you to reply to emails or browse the Web right where you are, at that very moment.

Rob Mead at Tech.co.uk shared some of the "secrets" that were revealed at the Apple shareholder's meeting at Cupertino, California.

Third-party apps for iPhone. First, it seems that the iPhone will be open to third-party applications. Apple CEO Steve Jobs had said that the Apple iPhone wouldn't be open to third-party applications, that it would be a closed system based on Mac OS X (the goal was to make sure that the iPhone wouldn't be buggy). But it now seems that Mac developers are free to make apps for the iPhone.

Leopard delay. Steve Jobs also said that the delay of the launch of the Mac OS X Leopard operating system, the next version of Mac OS X, was partly due to the iPhone. According to Jobs, the issue isn't money; the issue is talent. It seems that Apple has dedicated a lot of time and talent to the iPhone, and there just wasn't enough left over for the Leopard. "I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check," said Jobs. "If so, then Microsoft would have great products."

The smaller and innovative iPhone. It looks like there's a smaller iPhone on the way. Apple has made an application to the US Patent & Trademark Office for a sleek little device with a display on each side (patent number 0070103454). This "Back-Side Interface for Handheld Devices" has a rather interesting concept:

An electronic device uses separate surfaces for input and output. One of the surfaces (e.g. the bottom) includes a force-sensitive touch-surface through which a user provides input (e.g. cursor manipulation and control element selection). On a second surface (e.g. the top), a display element is used to present information appropriate to the device's function (e.g. video information), one or more control elements and a cursor. The cursor is controlled through manipulation of the back-side touch-surface. The cursor identifies where on the back-side touch-surface the user's finger has made contact.

In other words, the new iPhone is a dual-screen set-up with a touch screen. Hm. That reminds us of the Nintendo DS (over 40 million units sold worldwide).

Apple and the mobile phone market. Jobs also said that Apple really has to look deeper into the mobile phone market. In 2006, there were 135 million MP3 players and 200 million PCs sold. But in that same year, there were 1 billion mobile phones sold. That's a big market to explore.

If Apple thinks that the mobile phone market is worth exploring, then we at QJ.NET wish Apple the best. Several of us love our iPods, and if Apple's iPhone can do for mobile phones what the iPod did for "mobile audio and video," then we don't mind the Leopard delay at all.

We've previously reported a few weeks ago that Cisco Systems gave the Cupertino-based Apple up to February 15 to respond to the Lawsuit that they've filed over the iPhone trademark. Well, here's an update to that situation, and from the looks of things, Cisco is one patient bunch.

Jennifer LeClaire of NewsFactor Network reports that Cisco is offering Apple yet another extension on its deadline to respond to a trademark lawsuit over the iPhone name.

The trouble between the two companies began when, on January 10, Cisco representatives filed a lawsuit at the District Court of Northern California "seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco's registered iPhone trademark."

Cisco apparently obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of InfoGear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. That was around a day or after Steve Jobs introduced Apple's iPhone to the world.

Perhaps Cisco felt that this was the appropriate way to let Apple know that any negotiations they had before weren't settled. Just how long is Cisco willing to wait? How is Apple handling this? We'll update you as soon as more information is made available.

You ever wish that your camera phone could take crisper and more detailed images? Of course there are camera phones who could already do that, but their price tag is something that might put a dent in your pockets. So it's a good thing that engineers at the University of California San Diego is developing a new lens that could improve cam phone pics.

They already created an ultra thin camera. How did they do that? They dabbled on a little origami to fold the telephoto lens which resulted to an imager seven times more powerful than a standard lens. In layman's term - cameras can now be much thinner and more powerful all the same time.

Hopefully, this would make its way on future mobile phones.

Twistbox Entertainment has just announced that they have legally acquired all the assets of Infospace Inc.'s mobile games studio located in California.

The studio is formerly known as Atlas Mobile, Inc. and is a pioneer in the Play for Prizes mobile business across major cellular providers in North America that includes multiplayer tournaments and loyalty campaigns for consumer and entertainment brands. Twistbox CEO Ian Aaron says,

This acquisition is a perfect fit for our value added mobile game strategy... By integrating Play for Prizes into our current RapidPort development and porting platform, we will be able to accelerate the delivery of new games to market, provide broad handset support, and bring our carrier and content partners new and innovative ways to reach and retain customers.

To celebrate this acquisition, Twistbox will be launching three new mobile game titles: SuperSlyder for Prizes, Take Yer Meds for Prizes and Card Player Poker for Prizes.  And not only that, they'll also be announcing three more titles that are slated for release this year.

Having Google on your mobile sure could be one of the sweetest things ever to happen to it. And why not? After all, it most likely becomes your golden ticket to unlimited internet-surfing fun!

Well, how would you like it if Google itself comes up with their own cellphone model? Good idea, huh? Actually, we wouldn't just say it's good. We'd say it's great! Although for now, nothing's still confirmed.

What goes on in the grapevine is basically that Google might be working with HTC and mobile/telecom giant Orange to come up with a Google Phone. The Observer of London reports that the head honchos of Orange flew to Silicon Valley, California for a meeting at the 'Googleplex for the preliminary discussions regarding a joint deal.

Here's an excerpt from the column:

Their plans centre on a branded Google phone, which could probably also carry Orange's log. The device would not be revolutionary: manufactured by HTC, a Taiwanese firm specialising in smart phones and PDAs, it might have a screen similar to a video iPod. But it would have built-in Google software which would dramatically improve on the slow and cumbersome experience of surfing the web from a mobile handset.

If this turns out to be true, this sure would prove to be an interesting breakthrough in the telecommunications industry. For now, the buzz is that it should be on sale by 2008. However, neither Orange or Google appears to be ready to comment on the rumor. So we guess you'll just have to keep it posted here for more updates, eh?