Bluetooth users know that the device can drain a battery in no time and it’s pretty inconvenient and annoying.  Texas Instruments has come up with a demo for a new low-energy Bluetooth that can run off of a watch battery for up to a year – without recharging.  
The company says that this enables applications “such as sports and fitness equipment, medical and health, home and office, and mobile accessories, to use coin cell and energy harvesting solutions to operate for more than a year on a tiny button cell battery.”  That’s pretty impressive.
The new Bluetooth is expected sometime next …read more

Looks like Jawbone is sponsoring some Revision3 shows. The Jawbone is not your ordinary Bluetooth headset. It takes into consideration a special noise cancellation technology that mutes ambient noise around you when you’re talking on the headset.

Not only does the Jawbone technology virtually eliminate all background noise from your call, but as your background changes it also seamlessly adjusts the speaker output so you can hear your caller’s voice better. Jawbone’s intelligent system of sensors, software, and ergonomic features allows you to use your mobile phone in any environment without shouting or straining to hear. The result is a clear, …read more

With gaming becoming a core model in mobile phones (just look at the repackaged Nokia N-Gage platform), there is still an unadmitted obtrusion to the entire gaming experience turned miniature: phones aren’t really made to play games.

Zeeto’s Zeemote concept might change that as the Bluetooth enabled controller that resembles the Wii nunchuck finally received funding worth $6.9 million.

If you check out a posting from Crave, you’d see that this Asian phone maker, Naxin, has designed a phone that opens a compartment for keeping a Bluetooth headset. As to how they made it fit, well these and many other questions are part of life’s greatest mysteries.

Nice things happening in Asia. Singapore manufacturer Verzio, a new player in the digital market, has come up with the first batch of dual SIM phones. Called the Verzio Twinn and Verzio Duplii, these two phones come with two SIM card slots.

I have nothing bad to say about the phones’ design. What I do wonder though would be how battery life would perform given that the phone is emitting two signals at once. Nonetheless, the engineers and designers put in a lot of work in the user interface:

Many of you Macintosh users may not be aware, but Nokia has been constantly releasing a set of plugins for iSync for certain E and N series phones. You cna view the full list here. The list covers a great amount of Nokia’s new phones, allowing you to sync your contacts and calendar via Bluetooth or USB cable. The ability to sync notes is not available to all phones.
Proceed to the plugin page.
You might not even need to wait for Missing Sync for Symbian anymore which is due out in the first quarter of 2008. I hope you find these …read more

Now, it comes with Bluetooth! Kyocera’s modest phone lineup consist of clamshells with integrated VGA cameras, with one particular model sporting Bluetooth connectivity. The K323 comes with an option for 900 mAh or 1800 mAh lithium ion batteries and voice recording capabilities.

The main difference between the K323 and the other units is that this particular cellphone sports Bluetooth.

Are you jealous of those Sony Ericsson users who can pair their phones with their PC / Macs with a bundled application? Well, fret no more because ControlFreak is now available for free as a Christmas gift from the guys at mtvoid.
What is ControlFreak?
ControlFreak enables you to control Winamp and the rest of your computer with your Bluetooth Series 60 phone. It has all of the music and video controls like play, pause, stop, next, previous, fast forward, rewind and volume.
ControlFreak 2 is now even better at controlling music and video thanks to full Winamp Media Library support. If you’ve …read more

It was around this time one year ago that I became fascinated with the new product line of just-merged BenQ-Siemens. Sadly, the company had filed for bankruptcy a few weeks ago ending the one year reign of the East meets West partnership. Here is a short Q&A I posted at that time with an excerpt:

Our focus is on creating value with profitability before market share. We are targeting to achieve breakeven by the end of 2006. We will get there by:
- a market strategy exploiting complementary strengths of both brands in terms of multimedia, design, operator customization and market / …read more