In an effort to make air travel easier, passengers at the Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport will soon be able to use their cellphones and PDAs to board flights. Continental Airlines is running a 3 month test allowing digital versions of boarding passes to be presented instead of their paper counterparts. A boarding pass containing a bar code encrypted with flight and passenger details will be emailed to passengers participating in the program. They can then present this bar code via a cellphone or PDA at the airport security checkpoints and gates, where the bar code will be scanned with a handheld scanner.
Get theater tickets, order and pay for snacks, then order a taxi home using only your mobile phone. Sound convenient? Oulu City Theatre in northern Finland is partnering with Nokia to do just that.
“It is often said that theatre is somehow old-fashioned. I’m hoping this will build the opposite picture,” the head of Oulu City Theatre, Ahti Ahonen, told Reuters.
The technology, NFC (near-field communication), is used by waving your phone over smart tags which transmit information back and forth. The theater is beta testing the technology with Nokia and teleco operator TeliaSonera through the end of this year, and will continue if the project is successful.
There’s been much speculation in the past and present regarding the rumored Google Phone or ‘gPhone”, and now it seems to be the closest it’s ever been. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google “looks set to make a splash in the mobile market on Monday.” Sprint and T-Mobile are two providers in the mix right now.
Apparently, Sprint is ready to help integrate Google’s new Linux-based OS into devices. While possible handset partners include HTC (most likely), Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson, nothing is certain at this point. Don’t get to excited, as The WSJ adds, “the middle of next year is the earliest Google-powered phones could come to market.”
Time magazine recently named Apple’s iPhone as invention of the year. I enjoyed their #1 reason for choosing the iPhone as invention of the year is that it is pretty. While it’s probably true that half the customers purchased the iPhone because of it’s sleek design, their reason #3, “It will make other phones better”, makes much more sense for choosing the iPhone. Eventually other phone makers will take some of the game-changing functionality encapsulated in the iPhone, like the internet browsing capabilities and touch screen, and integrate them into their own handsets. The iPhone really is a great product and the amount of buzz it drew before and after it’s release makes it a good reason to name it invention of the year.
SignalMap is a killer new site using Google Maps to show you the ups and downs of your cell service based on the signal (or lack of) experiences of you and other people. To post your signal strength, provide the zip code , what phone you’re using ,and what network you’re using. Current providers you can list are AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon.
A new Google Code app is out, based on the open-source NES emulator InfoNES. It apparently lets you play old skool NES games on your iPhone, but at reportedly lower speeds and there’s no sound. This is still cool as hell, and you can be sure there will be improvements. iPhone NES Emulator [Google Code] Watch it in action below…
A hot new Samsung slider has been leaked, it’s the i570. Features include GSM, UMTS and HSDPA connectivity, QVGA 320×240 screen, 2-megapixel camera, VGA cam, WiFI, Bluetooth, 160 MB of storage, and microSD. No Windows Mobile for this slider, instead it’s doin’ the Symbian 9.1 thing.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google is showing a phone prototype to some mobile device manufacturers. The other part of the rumor is that the phone would use an ad-supported system making it free of charge for consumers to use. The report also said this phone may be available by 2008, but I think that’s highly unlikely.
Even though Google declined to comment on the prototype they did say: “We’re partnering with carriers, manufacturers, and content providers around the world to bring Google search and Google applications to mobile users everywhere.”
This is all coming together after Google CEO Eric Schmidt made this comment: “Your mobile phone should be free,” in November 2006. But Google isn’t the only one developing the idea of an ad-supported mobile phone, the UK-based Blyk said they would have one out by now, but has seen some delays. Who will get there first? And does it even matter since Google’s already well anchored in the consumer market?
Some Brazilian peeps have written a little something in Python bring an iPhone-esque keyboard functionality to the beloved Nokia N800. What’s really interesting? The developer has never even used an iPhone. As I see it, no ‘predictive text’ is the only downfall to this. I’ve always viewed the N800 as nothing less than impressive, but I still love my iPhone. But then again, from what my friend Adam in SF keeps saying about his N800, I may just get one. Install for N800 via jk
It was only a matter of time before one of these mini-projectors made it into a mainstream mobile device. That mobile device will be made by Motorola, which has just inked a deal with mini-projector maker Microvision. Together with Motorola they will create a prototype handset will with Microvision’s new, WVGA 854 x 480 color wide angle scanner.
There’s been much speculation in the past and present regarding 
