DISPOSABLE PHONE NUMBERS??

Yep you heard it right. Vumber is a service that allows you to link your current mobile phone number to a Vumber account, thus masking your real mobile number. This is useful for short business trips, filtering contacts and gee, for practically anything that has to do with your “other life.” (LOL)

A Vumber is a number from any area code you want, linked to your home, cell, or work phone. When someone calls your Vumber, Vumber lets you control how you handle the call: you can a) answer it; b) send them to VumberMail; c) give them a busy signal; d) tell them the number is out of service; or e) play them a custom message you create.

It provides unequaled privacy protection when anyone calls your Vumber, and when you call anyone. And it’s not limited to a pre-defined one-to-one calling relationship like you sometimes see out there – it is as simple as having another phone number. Even simpler. Vumber puts you in total control of your communications and your identity.

Here are the rules for the contest:

1. Contest will run from the 19th of May to the 23rd of May 2008, ending at 23:59 EST.

2. To qualify, all you need to do is leave a comment with a valid email address, answering the question, “What’s the best way to DISPOSE of a bad memory?”

3. You can leave more than one comment to increase the chances of winning BUT you can’t repeat your answer to the question “What’s the best way to dispose of a bad memory?”

4. Each entry entitles you to a raffle. I will enter all ballots into a raffle and choose the lucky winners. The winners will be announced on the 26th of May, the Monday after the contest closes. Although there are 5 prizes, you can only win once so if your name gets picked again, the raffle will be discarded and another winner will be chosen until we have 5 different winners!

GOOD LUCK!

Notes:

* Vumber should work with all US phone numbers and so far it works with Canada as well

* Vumber is still being tested with Asia. BUT, if someone is coming to the U.S from Asia and wants a U.S number, they can get a Vumber with a U.S. area code and hook it up to their Asia number and phone. That way when people with a U.S. number calls them, they can be reached and not have to deal with long distance costs.

Post from: Cellphone9

You know, I’ve been reviewing gadgets for the past 5 years – it may be considered a long time for some, but highly unlikely to reach veteran review status soon. The thing with reviewing devices is that one tends to get stuck in the game of tech specs where the premise of “mine is bigger than yours” seems to win out (thus proving that the worldwide tech scene may just really be a man’s world). However, technical specs doesn’t seem to be the way the game is played anymore. In the same way that the smaller Japanese cars have a great following compared to your huge Fords, sometimes, form factor and the smaller, almost insignificant details DO matter.

Perhaps the best example of this would be the RAZR line of phones from Motorola. In terms of user interface and durability, I’ve heard many a complaint with this particular model (ironically, the other phone models from the same brand are A-OK). And yet it still seems to be one of the fast selling phones in last year’s market. It’s all about the form factor for a significant market share.

I guess all I wanted to say was that I’ll never laugh again when a company introduces a new sub product like this Pink BlackBerry Pearl, where there really is nothing new about the phone sans the color scheme, which mind you is quite killer.

Post from: Cellphone9

While I was in Indonesia last week, our guide had a Nokia E90 with him. It was preinstalled with several hits from the 70’s, but all in minus one format. This was his portable karaoke in case he would be asked to sing.

Ah, technology.

Post from: Cellphone9

Well, it’s nothing much. But considering that phone company websites don’t really do this, a huge kudos to Samsung for exerting the extra effort to get batty this Halloween. If you visit their website today, you’ll be rewarded with a screen filled with falling bats and a jack o’ lantern at the bottom right.

Post from: Cellphone9

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.

Post from: Cellphone9

As for when this will reach critical mass, I really can’t tell. But I do know this: the adoption rate for “Web 3.0″ will be much slower because not all phones are created equal and more so, not all telcos are created equal.

Post from: Cellphone9

They say that there are always two sides of the same coin. The same can be said with mobile phones. The most out of the box yet functional design to grace a phone’s real estate is the two sided Samsung F300, sporting a 2.1 inch multimedia screen on one side for video and music and a smaller screen on the other side for calls. Back home, the advertisment with Beyonce has been playing across movie theatres for the past several weeks. Beyonce is the official endorser for Samsung’s line of mobile phones.

I wonder where the battery is located.

• 2 Megapixel Camera
• Display 262144 Color TFT Screen (2.1\”,176×220)
• Features Dual Face & Sweeping Touch UI
• Music Library (ID3 Tag Support)
• Multi-Format Music Support (MP3,AAC,AAC+,e-AAC+,WMA)
• Music Download (WMDRM/MTP)
• Multi-Format Video Support (MPEG4,H.263)
• Bluetooth Stereo Music Profile (A2DP)
• Stereo FM Radio
• Bluetooth v2.0 / USB 2.0

Post from: Cellphone9

This must be the standalone Nokia-branded music service we reported on only days ago? The date, the venue, and the details all match the rumoured reports.

Very exciting but perhaps a little daunting for Nokia following the news today that iTunes, who have the music download market practically sewn up, announced their three billionth song sale… [SOURCE]

Post from: Cellphone9

The vote was a partial victory for consumer advocacy groups and Internet companies such as Google, which wanted rules that would allow consumers to use a variety of devices on a network. But those groups also sought more-ambitious rules that would open the network to third-party companies. That measure did not pass. Creating an open network would mean companies like Google would not have to arrange with wireless carriers to make services like Web search and online video available, as they do now.

Google is sure to be one of the companies participating on the bid, as they are slowly transforming themselves into a telecommunications hub.

The news is significant because it allows consumers to buy the phones that they want, not having to depend on the network exclusivities (TAKE THAT, iPhone!!!). Though the news is exciting, the actual benefits may only be felt come 2010:

“Consumers will still face restrictive use of their phones and BlackBerries for years to come and will only get the benefit of a more open attitude to devices if there is thorough regulatory oversight five years down the road,” said Gene Kimmelman, vice president for federal affairs for Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

The news is indeed exciting, as the FCC had decided to open the bidding. Evil thought: I guess the US treasury is in need of $15 billion to make up for certain expenditures in some country we are all familiar with.

Post from: Cellphone9

In my interview with James Young, we briefly talked about the new T9 upgrade to be released with new Windows Mobile devices.

Word completion has been a feature embedded in most Windows Mobile devices – and if not, it was an easy download as far as the early days of the Palm OS. What the upgraded predictive text does is map out the possible words you could spell with the letters in the vicinity of where you press. As you can see, this feature is basically geared towards consumers with huge fingers. Never again will you have to push buttons at pinpoint accuracy.

Pardon the photo as I took this with my MacBook’s built in iSight, which explains why the image is reversed.

Post from: Cellphone9