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Kyocera DuraPlus: a Sprint phone so masculine it'll kick your face in for misdialing
Sprint's announced that it'll carry the Kyocera DuraPlus -- a rugged cellphone that recalls a lifetime of tedious internet memes. It's certified to "Military Standard 810G," for its resistance to dust, shock, vibration, temperature extremes, humidity and it's able to withstand water depths of one meter for, erm, up to half an hour. You'll also find an embedded LED flashlight capable of lighting the darkest of very dark rooms. Using Direct Connect, you can push-to-talk to other subscribers or use Group Connect to chat with 20 at a time. It'll ship with a 1650 mAh battery (9.5 hours of talk time) with an additional 2300 mAh battery for those long trips round the secure compound. You'll also be able to buy an external charging port to juice multiple units at once -- if you're running your own private militia and need to swap out devices on the go, for example. It'll be available in the first half of the year for an undisclosed price, but we'd wager it'll be something really manly, like the teeth of a wild animal you've vanquished or in exchange for capturing Denis Leary.
Sprint and Qualcomm partner on patent workaround
With the Qualcomm-Broadcom spat still in flux, Sprint has decided to ensure it has a backup plan in place should Broadcom force some kind of CDMA shutdown in the U.S. As such, the carrier has joined up with Qualcomm to test a software update related to its CDMA handsets that would allow EV-DO handsets to continue working should a court outcome side with Broadcom and enforce a patent infringement situation on Qualcomm. The CDMA chipmaker has the most to lose here, as customers Verizon Wireless and Sprint would be barred from using and importing CDMA chips with Qualcomm tech inside if Broadcom prevails. [via phonescoop]
Virgin Mobile USA to offer Yahoo! mobile services
Virgin Mobile USA, considered to be the first MVNO in America, has landed Yahoo! as of last week to get the web portal's mobile services available to its 4.6 million wireless customers. Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger will be first up to bat, with those mobile services coming as downloadable applications for several Virgin Mobile handsets this month. In addition, Virgin Mobile will be pre-loading Yahoo! Mobile applications on many of its phones starting now, according to both companies.
