vodaphone
Latest
Sharp debuts 904SH, first with VGA display
We've been hearing rumblings of a Sharp VGA phone since before 3GSM, but Vodafone has finally announced the 904SH, a 3G phone sporting four times the fun of QVGA at a 480 x 640 resolution. There's also a 3.2 megapixel camera with 2x optical zoom and autofocus, a 3D motion sensor, Bluetooth, GPS, miniSD storage, and WCDMA (UMTS) data. The phone should be available in Japan late April, let's hope for some swift imports. [Warning: PDF link!][Via Phone Scoop]
Vodafone partners with Google for mobile search
While Microsoft may be ramping up for a presence in the mobile search market, Google is already there, and continues to make deals to position itself as the default search engine for service providers. The company's latest partnership is with Vodafone, and will net the search giant prime real estate on the Vodafone Live service. The service will provide location and time-sensitive search results for information such as weather and directions.
Sharp and Vodaphone show off VGA cellies at 3GSM
More 3GSM madness: Sharp and Vodaphone have teamed up to show off several cellphones that sport VGA screens- four times the resolution of the QVGA screens found in most Japanese handsets. It's unclear, however, whether these screens are true VGA or, like the display shown by LG at CES, they achieve VGA resolution through sub-pixel rendering. Not that it really matters- if it walks like a VGA screen and talks like a VGA screen, well, that's good enough for us.
GSM operators plan mobile IM standard
As if text messaging didn't lead to enough repetitive stress injuries, the world's cellphone carriers now want you to start using your cellphone to IM. The GSM Association, which represents carriers from around the globe, has announced an agreement among eight major service providers, including T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange, to develop a common standard for instant messaging. No word on when the new standard, to be known as Personal IM, will be rolled out. There's also no news about whether it will interoperate with any of the IM services already used by millions of people -- and compatible with many cellphone services -- from companies such as Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft. Chances are it won't be, but we'll count on the open source community to fix that as quickly as possible.
Carriers, equipment vendors line up behind Microsoft Direct Push
Microsoft is taking the stage at 3GSM to highlight the company's Direct Push mobile email technology, with announcements from Cingular, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone that they'll support the technology, which enables BlackBerry-style push email on Windows Mobile 5.0 devices. Hardware vendors are also lining up to promote Direct Push, with HP, Asus, Fujitsu Siemens and HTC all announcing support -- not that they have to do anything special to do so, since the function is built into a service pack for Windows Mobile 5.0. Nevertheless, hyping Direct Push is one way for both hardware vendors and carriers to capitalize on the buzz Microsoft is working to build. Hey, it's worked for years for PC makers; why not mobile device makers?
Sweet pics of Vodafone's Toshiba 904T and NEC 804N
There's not a lot we can say about Vodafone's Toshiba 904T and NEC 804N that you probably don't already know if you're following these handsets (2.4-inch and 2.2-inch QVGA displays, 3.2 and 2 megapixel external cameras and VGA and QVGA internal cameras, MiniSD and MicroSD slots, and USB, Bluetooth, and QR scanning support, respectively -- NEC's handset also has 450MB internal flash memory for tunes), but do some good shots of these things ever turn our jaded, weary heads.[Thanks, Adam]Read - Toshiba 904TRead - NEC 804N
Sharp to launch a new VGA phone at 3GSM?
Doest our ears deceive us? Apparently Sharp will be launching a new VGA display-based phone at 3GSM next week -- wait, didn't they just launch the W-ZERO3? Well, it sounds like it won't some relaunch since the W-ZERO3 has a 3.7-inch display, and this new one they're supposed to be dropping was developed with Vodafone and will have a positively squintastic 2.4-inch VGA display. Get out your eyeglasses, people, this is gonna be fun.
Vodafone to roll out HSDPA PC card
If you're in Vodafone's market area and want better wireless throughput from your laptop, help is on the way in the form of Vodafone's new HSDPA card, which can support data rates of up to 1.8Mbps on HSDPA networks, and can fall back to UMTS and GPRS/EDGE if no HSDPA network is available. Okay, it's really just a rebrand of the Option HSDPA card (pictured above), but chances are, if you're in an area where you can use this, you don't care whose name is on it. You just want it. Now.
