If you’ve heard about the LG Crystal, billed as the world’s first transparent phone, and you’re up to reading a marketing-oriented interview about the phone’s design, here’s a Q&A with Youngho Kim, LG’s VP of design. But before we get to it: We already know the phone looks good LG, how about showing us why we should get the phone, other than looks?

Your phones have always looked good LG, and that’s why you’ve managed to overtake Motorola in worldwide phone shipments a couple of years ago. Now that you have the beachhead, it’s time to start appealing beyond the superficial …read more

Apparently one of the first apps to appear on the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Dymo’s CardScan Mobile’s premise is very simple: you take a picture of a business card with your Windows Mobile smartphone’s built-in camera, and it takes care of encoding the text, adding the information to your contact list, and making sure the data is in the correct fields.
While I look for someone who can try out the app on his or her Windows Mobile smartphone, here are some five quick questions answered by Dymo’s PR:

CardScan Mobile uses OCR to decipher the text right? Yes.
Do your testers have …read more

To recap: the creator of iSinglePayer, an app that claims to document “the inefficiency of the US health care system”, is complaining about Apple rejecting the informational app, preventing it from appearing from the company’s widely popular App Store. The creator has thus accused Apple of “censorship”, claiming that it is inconsistent by allowing “certain propaganda” on the App Store.
In a certain sense, that claim is valid. How many RSS readers are available on the App Store? Ranging from free to several dollars in price, these kind of apps allow users to subscribe to liberal websites like The Huffington Post, …read more

So a big typhoon named Ketsana has hit the northern part of the Philippines, stranding thousands within the capital Metro Manila, and forcing the government to declare a “state of calamity” for at least 26 different areas.

And while families are forced to retreat to the roof to avoid the rising water, and while power and infrastructure failure accompany the typhoon’s destruction, at least one Filipino has found the time and resources to capture the flooding up-close—and share it with the rest of the world online.
Here are those snapshots below, with the low quality of the cell phone camera made obvious …read more

The contributions of Julien Madérou to humanity: the apparent invention of an iPhone dock made out of paper, and DIY instructions on how to make it made available for easy sharing. Now Apple fans have another way to maintain their snotty consumer-electronics superiority!
Seriously though, Madérou is a genius! He even made provisions for the iPhone cable! The instructions are available for printing on A4 or US letter (8.5″ x 11″) sheets, and are a simple matter of cutting out the template and following the video below.
I’m assuming a iPhone dock made out of Japanese paper will crumple in an instant …read more

Starting with a radiation-scare, suppositions into the cell phone’s effect on the human body have progressed to increased chances of cancer. But even as the consumer-level mobile enters perhaps the 15th year of its existence, how well known are these effects?
The answer: not enough. Sure, there are cases of users suffering from rashes due to the nickel on phones, and the declared (but not conclusively proven) effect of phones on children (Does Exposure to Mobiles Affect a Child’s Behavior? and Finnish Group Recommends Special Considerations for Children’s Cellphone Use). But, as always, scientists and research have yet to make definitive …read more

Seems we have a long way to go before translation technology can bridge the gap between metaphorical Chinese and relatively literal English, so we can only rely on this report from Reddit for now.

Based on the poorly translated Chinese source article, despite the culprit(s)—including someone apparently named Master Wu—the China Mobile employees were caught trying to overwhelm the competitor’s cell sites near a mass transit station, it seems by trying to make calls from 200 cell phones at the same time from inside a van. Said phones were strewn all over the vehicle’s floor.
The poor translation doesn’t make clear why …read more

Under fire for covering up incidents of exploding iPhones and iPods, Apple asserts these were caused by “external forces”.

In a statement to the AFP, Apple says ” To date, there are no confirmed battery overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS and the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits… The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone.”
In non-marketese layman-friendly terms, Apple is characterizing these incidents as isolated, most likely caused by user carelessness. What’s interesting …read more

It’s true that technology has created new needs for us, which are ultimately not really vital to our existence. Laptops and desktops have made internet access “important” for a lot of people, but they won’t literally die if they can’t go online, right?
Still, the necessity that gadgets create in our lives is still very significant. We use them to work, avoid boredom, socialize with others, collaborate, and a whole lot more—in ways that are constantly changing.
That’s why these essentials also change, based on our changing sentiments. My laptop used to be a frequent companion, letting me work practically anywhere with …read more

Take the E51 (a great candybar phone with a comprehensive feature set) add a better battery, a higher-resolution camera, a standard 3.5mm audio jack, faster over-the-air connectivity, and microUSB support. What do you get? The Nokia E52 of course!
The successor refresh comes at a cost though. While the older E51 hovered around the $200-range, the E52 pushes the price point to around $350 (both prices for unlocked, contract-free phones). The E52 is available in “Metal Grey Aluminum” or “Golden Aluminum”, versus the E51’s metal black.

Nokia E52
Nokia E51

Services
Full Ovi services suite

Dimensions
116 x 49 x 9.9mm
115 x 47 x 9mm

Standby time
Up to …read more