phones

Oh boy, we've got a BlackBerry down, many BlackBerrys down, in fact. Last night, Research In Motion experienced a widespread system failure that interrupted e-mail delivery to all BlackBerrys in North America. According to the company, the root cause of the meltdown is still under review, but the network is back up and running. Unfortunately, message delivery seems to be due to the backlog of e-mail in the system.

Check out CNET News.com's story for more details, and please feel free to exercise your BlackBerry thumbs to share your stories and gripes with us.

Of all the brands on the fashion world's A-list, Bulgari has always seemed to stand apart. You've got to admire a company that insists on using the Latin spelling of its name (BVLGARI) hundreds of years after the language was pronounced dead .

So we think it's noteworthy that the storied Italian purveyor of luxury goods has joined the hypercompetitive fray of designer phone straps. Bulgari's version is detachable, turning into a cube pendant of palladium when the handset is separated from the black calf leather strap, according to Sybarites. (Who says luxury accessories aren't practical?)… Read more

Toshiba announced today that it has created a 16GB flash memory chip intended for consumer products such as cell phones and MP3 players. This is the highest capacity NAND flash memory chip to date, doubling the existing ceiling of 8GB. The 16GB chip is set to ship in the fall, just in time to make Apple's flash memory-based 8GB iPhone seem cramped.

The chip is designed around eight 2GB elements and boasts a copy speed of 6MB per second, with a 15MB per second read speed. Expect a wave of tiny 16GB flash MP3 players for the holidays.

Via … Read more

Well, well, isn't this interesting? There's a report out of DigiTimes that Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese-based laptop and hardware manufacturer, is working on a "PDA handset" for Dell with an expected launch date of Q4 2007. Code named Fly, the project is reported to be a Windows Mobile 6 smart phone that will feature a QWERTY keyboard and HSDPA support. The news comes a week after Dell announced it would be discontinuing its Axim line of PDAs. The move would make sense; smart phone sales continue to climb and overshadow standalone PDAs. Plus, let's not … Read more

I was having lunch in a quiet outdoor restaurant last weekend when the words "Gentleman, start your engines" pierced the peaceful air like an explosion. It turned out to be a fellow diner's ringtone, and it was not a pretty sound to hear over and over again.

I don't think I'm alone when I say that ringtones with spoken words are just plain wrong. I'd much rather hear that ubiquitous Nokia ringtone for the hundredth time than endure something like "Hey! Your phone is ringing" or "Pick up the phone. I … Read more

Sony Ericsson tends to be serious about Bluetooth and has never been satisfied with producing a simple line of wireless headsets. Granted, some of these products haven't made a whole lot of sense (remember the Bluetooth remote control car?).

Others, like the HCB 300 Bluetooth car kit are indeed functional. Yet the company's MBW-100 Bluetooth Watch is a little harder to classify. It goes beyond entertainment and definitely serves a purpose, but we're still not sure if it's really necessary.

When paired with a Bluetooth phone (it doesn't have to be a Sony Ericsson model), … Read more

We've heard plenty of stories recently about how cell phones can visit all manner of disasters on the human race, from rendering us infertile to burning our houses down, not to mention the death and destruction that they wreak on the roads.

So it's about time we got a good-news story about the world's favorite gadget. Nissan announced today that it is working on a program that will enable cell phones to communicate with its cars to reduce the risk of pedestrians being knocked down. Nissan's Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) uses 3G cellular communications networks to … Read more

Crave generally tries to stay away from concept products and designs, as we have enough trouble as it is staying grounded in reality without them. But every once in awhile an idea comes along that we just can't pass up--and the "Radia Cell Phone" is one of them.

This handset, if it can be called that, has an outer rim of brushed aluminum encircling a large touch display but is still small enough to fit in your pocket, according to Yanko Design. Granted, it may not be the most practical design (we can't imagine using it … Read more

As mobile phones and MP3 players become increasingly difficult to distinguish from one another, we're tempted to start a contest displaying pictures of gadgets and asking what they're used for. Kind of a geek version of What's My Line?

The South Korean-made "Atree UJ10" could easily pass for a handset from a distance, until one notices the keys, which control the MP3 tunes and video that appears on its 2.2-inch LCD screen. DAPreview also notes that its specs are "eerily similar" to the second generation of the iRiver "Clix2," though … Read more