The Samsung Tobi is a simple and cutely unadulterated mobile phone for your nephews and nieces this Christmas. Remember the whole “paint scandal” everal months back where toys were coated with harmful toxins from paint? Well, fear no more as SAmsung stresses how environmentally safe and biodegradable these phones are. The Samsung Tobi comes with safety features for kids such as SOS calling / messaging to let parents know where their kids are at all times.

Samsung Tobi is designed to meet the needs and desires of the mobile users to express their personality and style with mobile phones. First, Samsung Tobi features unique GUI themes which have never been applied previously in any other mobile phones. Affable animated characters in three themes, Monster theme, Snowman theme and Ocean World theme, capture the hearts of viewers instantaneously. Moreover, Samsung Tobi features changeable backside cover. Users can insert their favorite photo or image under the see-through protective sleeve on the back to customize their Samsung Tobi. [PRESS RELEASE]

The Samsung Tobi comes with a 1.3MP camera, GPRS connectivity, Bluetooth and MP3 player.

[Photos from Samsung PR]

Not sure why they had to choose this phone of all models, but the Sony Ericsson T650i is now encased in gold. It isn’t the whole phone, mind you - just the screen, You know, cost cutting measures here and there especially with the weakening of the dollar. What this basically means is the screen is scratch resistant.

I love shows that do audience participation. Especially in the form of SMS voting for talent shows like American Idol. Well, we have our own franchise back here called Philippine Idol. And as a fan of these talent shows that, I’ve become a little disturbed with some developments in blatant SMS padding of votes. For instance, applications such as SMSPal exist that turns your phone into an SMS Machine gun spitfiring the same SMS to the same number multiply times.
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So what’s your take on the latest development of the London currency being dispensed by mobile phones?

“Early next year Barclaycard will run a trial of the technology on the back of its new ‘OnePulse’ contactless card, which was launched in September. OnePulse cards are combined credit cards and Oyster cards, and also allow small purchases (under £10) to be made without entering a Pin.

About 1,000 retailers in the capital are already equipped with the contactless terminals for OnePulse, so putting the technology into mobile phones will not require them to install yet more expensive kit. Several hundred Barclaycard customers will be issued with compatible phones supplied by Nokia, which has been pushing the technology for several years. [Textually]

Honestly, I feel that this is a neat concept that is highly dependent on the culture of the society. For instance, although online purchases are quite common nowadays, there is a certain charm to lining up for Black Friday sales. Nonetheless, the adoption of mobile phones as pay methods is not new. However, there has to be a mindset change on the fact that if you lose, your cellphone, you lose more than your address book. Risky, ain’t it?

First it was Apple. And then Google announced their own. Now Skype is joining the bandwagon too. Yes, Skype is partnering with telcos to release their first cell phone.

Code-named the “white phone,” the Skype handset will be introduced by late October in Britain, Italy, Hong Kong, and Australia, and will reach 3’s other five markets later, BusinessWeek has learned. There are no immediate plans to bring the device to North America, though the companies may try to license it to other carriers or sell versions straight to consumers for them to use on other networks.[Full Article]

Two things:

First, unlike the iPhone, the Skype Phone will be available on a massive scale throughout the world. This shows the growing demand of international VoIP calls from everywhere else. Second, the seemingly nonchalance of telcos to not minding an exclusivity deal only shows that there is big business in data calls.

The Skype phone will feature multimedia capabilities, high speed browsing, and of course a huge Skype button that allows for easy data calls.

Look at the chart. I was able to swipe this survey off The Register as they’ve done a fine job of showing that a great percentage of people between 20-30 years of age suffer from Internet anxiety. Which is why the market for wireless connectivity, mostly through laptops and mobile phones is booming.

Have a closer look at the survey results at The Register.

See the hole in the middle? If fulfills two purposes: storage and charging the unit via induction. This ETNA phone design, made by Maxie Pantel inspires mobile phone users to never misplace their phones again. Having a dedicated dock / storage is practical for easy findings and not to mention aesthetic value.

Proceed here for the design implementation of the “donut hole.”

The Motorola RAZR2 V9 is Moto’s flagship product for the midyear. It’s got the perky improvements from the V8 including external music keys, video calling via HSDPA: the primary camera is utilized for video calls by closing the clamshell and the external display turns into the video feed. This is really smart!

Additional features include memory expansion up to 2GB with an internal memory count of 45MB.

• Sleek, slim iconic RAZR design with clamshell form factor, metal and glass housing, internal antenna, tandem 2.2” and 2.0” 240×320 QVGA 262K color displays
• Touch-sensitive external music keys
• Integrated 2.0 megapixel camera, with 8x digital zoom
• Connectivity featuring Micro USB, USB 2.0 Full Speed, USB mass storage and version 2.0 Bluetooth wireless technology with Enhanced Data Rate2
• 3G High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) 3.6 Mbps wireless broadband connection and EDGE/GPRS class 10 & 12
• 45MB of end user memory and support for up to 2GB of memory with an optional microSD card
• Stereo Bluetooth wireless technology supporting A2DP and AVRCP profiles2
• Video and audio streaming¹, capture and playback
• Video telephony and See What I See capable¹
• Messaging via MMS, email, SMS, MotoSync¹
• Independent Voice Recognition

The Best Page in the Universe has released a comparative review of the Nokia E70 (his current choice) and the iPhone. Everybody who scours the Internet knows the Best Page in the Universe. And now, he reviews the iPhone…

First of all, the E70 has a full keyboard, not some *bleep* stripped down, tap-and-pray smudgy piece of *bleep*. Nokia uses a technology that’s even more advanced than the iPhone’s tap screen, allowing you to actually feel the keys you press as you’re pressing them! The technology is called “tactile response,” and it allows you to do things like dial a phone number without staring at your screen like a *bleep*-chucking ape. In fact, every other cellphone ever made has this technology, sometimes called “buttons.”

Read the full article here.

Sony Ericsson has introduced their Shake Control technology to their line of Walkman phones. Shake Control allows you to browse through your music playlist literally with the flick of the wrist. From the instructional text, shakiin your phone to the left or right will trigger the playlist to move to the next or previous songs. Shaking the phone vehemently will shuffle the playlist.

[source]