Neonode to debut at CES

Neonode expects to participate at CES for the first time, the event will take place in Las Vegas, January 7-10, 2008. The company will exhibit its N2 mobile phone and new concepts. Neonode believes that CES is a good opportunity to showcase company’s new products and strengthen its position on the world market. At CES Neonode will hold a press conference to unveil its plans for the future and introduce new developments.

I’d remind you that Neonode N2 was released in the middle of 2007 in Europe. The device features compact size and light weight, a 2” touchscreen display and has no buttons. It works in GSM networks. According to Neonode the phone will come to several more countries by the end of 2007 – beginning on 2008.

Apple iPhone secretly monitors personal data

After all the restrictions that Steve Jobs has imposed on the owners of Apple iPhone, now it turns out that Apple is probably secretly collecting personal data from any iPhone.

A power user has found bits of code in the iPhone, that may collect and send personal data, such as IMEI, IP address, and companies you are interested in, to an Apple server via the Weather and Stocks applications. The sent information however is encrypted, so it is not that sure whether it holds the IMEI code of your iPhone. Some experienced users have already reverted the code so that it sends zeroes only. Data monitoring could provide valuable information of how many iPhones have been unlocked, how they are distributed around the world and also for studying user preferences and habits, for example.

Just before you put your tin foil hat on, remember that Apple have stated that "… when you interact with Apple, we may collect personal information relevant to the situation, such as your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and contact preferences; your credit card information and information about the Apple products you own, such as their serial numbers and date of purchase; and information relating to a support or service issue." Regardless the legitimate issue of the case, it is definitely immoral for any company to collect personal information in such a secretive manner. Lately, Steve Jobs has been accumulating lots of negativism concerning the iPhone. The latest hot topic was the prosecution of all owners of sites with a domain name including iPhone in it, which led to a spirit of high discontent among the internet society.

The other hot news on behalf of the iPhone, announced by some major news sources, concerns the German unit of Vodafone Group, which has obtained a court order against Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile mobile carrier stating that the German telecommunications giant should start selling unlocked versions of the iPhone in Germany. Deutsche Telekom is selling the iPhone exclusively in Germany along with a mandatory 2-year contract and as such is accused of misuse sales practices. Specifically, Vodafone is questioning the iPhone's exclusive use in T-Mobile's network and the use of the device being limited to certain fees within T- Mobile's subscription offerings. A T-Mobile spokesman has confirmed that the restraining order will be disputed by the respondent.

Update 21 Nov: Point taken, iPhone isn't actually sending IMEI to the Apple web site. In the IMEI parameter it sends encoded data, identifying the application used, not the device, which runs it. However, not all iPhones are sending the same data, so yes, it can be used for some kind of tracking. Here's a list of different IMEI values, obtained here.

A021D9E9-28F3-4144-AC1D-D1344D703D39
EDF47604-CDF8-47D8-9BDF-F0E0E8E9A1D4
7D0A1F42-D3B4-481A-8430-F6F7C663083A

Now, this may not be a tin foil hat case, but it's hardly a night cap either. The fact that iPhone is accessing the Apple web site without its owner knowing is upsetting per se. It can be used for tracking, because the Apple web server knows your IP, which is to say your country and your approximate location. Besides, who knows what the IMEI will be carrying come the next iPhone firmware.

Nokia patent pumps up the megapixels

Seems like Nokia aren't wasting any time and have filed a patent application on an extraordinary new slider cameraphone. Besides the intriguing construction Nokia-N93-style, the fine print under the camera lens sounds tasty, as it says either 6 or 8 megapixels. Anyways, in both cases it is not something we see in mobile phones every day so at least it deserves a look.

The display will still serve as a viewfinder and photos can be still be taken in landscape mode, as the camera-part on top can be pulled up and rotated. When it's pulled up, the xenon flash unit gets revealed.

It seems that the worthy successor of Nokia N93 is already on its way. Unfortunately as of now there is not even the vaguest prediction about any of the other hardware specifications.

Nokia comes with free music now

Nokia managed to surprise everybody with their latest service called "Comes with music". Nokia users will be receiving a 1 year free subscription to the service which allows unlimited music downloads to your mobile phone and PC. When the year expires, you get to keep the music.

It's first of a kind service and has no competition. We are yet wondering where the trick is as it sounds too good to be true. It's not yet clear which Nokia handsets will receive the service for free.

Universal Music is the first partner of the Nokia service, more will follow later on. The music downloading fiesta will obviously begin somewhere in mid-2008.

The free access to music will undoubtedly create some pressure on Apple's iTunes Music Store. Universal Music pulled out of iTunes earlier this year.

Update: We finally got a hold on of the full story abut the Nokia Comes with Music service. The whole deal is that Nokia is paying Universal Music a 5-dollar-monthly-fee for every handset sold by Nokia with the service. Nokia may or may not charge the user with a premium price for the handsets. It seems that indeed, you can keep the tracks after the 1-year-free-subscription expires, however they are all DRM protected, so you can forget about listening these songs on other music players beside your Nokia phone. In case you want to transfer them to other media, you'll have to buy all the tracks.

Samsung U600 Limited Black Gold Edition

Another alluring Samsung Limited Edition phone is about to become a fact, as today a sleek and exclusive Samsung U600 Limited Black Gold Edition is to start selling.

As usually, there is no official information about the phone on the Samsung site. There is also no word on the special materials used in the phone but currently the Samsung U600 Limited Black Gold Edition can be found for around 320 EUR.

Samsung U600 Limited Black Gold Edition photos

Samsung U600, a phone we reviewed recently, had become a common favorite and till now it has been introduced in seven color variations. Samsung U600 is a 10.9 mm thin slider with a 262K QVGA display and is packed with multimedia extras such as a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, MP3 player, FM radio and even TV out. The business applications of the quad-band phone are on par, including business card recognition, document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF), organizer and Yahoo search. The integrated 60 MB of memory is expandable via the microSD card slot and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support completes the worthy set of phone functions.

Picture of the day: Audi TT coupe phone

The mobile phone market can boast of a pretty good number of handsets applying car theme: remember the Hammer by Fly, Ferrari and Porsche phones. This time we have another interesting handset, in addition to car design it kept the form.

The device is packed in the popular Audi TT coupe form. It looks like a car toy from the top, make it upside down to reveal a real mobile phone with a 2” touchscreen (260K colors) and the support of MP3, MP4 and other formats. I’d note a 1.3-megapixel camera on the car hood. Unfortunately, we don’t have the info on the price of the model or where to buy it.

Unknown BenQ S7 got iF Design Award China 2007

The International Forum Design site has posted pictures and the short description of an unknown mobile phone BenQ S7. It got iF Design Award China 2007 in “Communication & Entertainment”. This is a candy bar handset packed in the metallic shell. According to the source, it is designed for business users. The source mentions the support of 3G networks, GPS and multimedia functionality (no details). The picture gives us a hint that the device has two cameras – one on the rear panel and the frontal camera for video calls. Other specs might be unveiled at the official announcement. BenQ hasn’t disclosed any info on the model so far.