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The TomTom Start will be customizable, inexpensive, and unavailable in the U.S.

(Credit: TomTom)

The Start is TomTom's newest entry-level car navigation device for the European market. Featuring a smallish 3.5-inch color touch screen and a fixed version of TomTom's (normally removable) EasyPort mounting system, the Start is aiming to be a low-cost, pocketable device.

The shape isn't the only thing that's been simplified. The menu's home screen has been simplified to two buttons, "Plan route" and "Browse map." No word has been given on if or how more-advanced menu options will fit into this scheme, but hopefully this reorganization will make the Start's menu as uncomplicated as the Garmin Nuvi menu hierarchy that we love so much.

Powering the route guidance is TomTom's IQ Routes and Map Share technology that have permeated the manufacturer's entire line of PNDs. IQ Routes uses aggregated speed data (both from the user and from other TomTom owners who choose to share their anonymous data) to choose the fastest route based on the time of day. Meanwhile, Map Share is an optional map-update service that employs user-generated corrections. Text-to-speech and graphic lane guidance appear to be absent, further differentiating the Start from the more-advanced One and XL lines.

Users can further customize their Starts (which are available with black or white shells) with removable covers (which cost 15 euros) available in six colors, or by choosing custom voices and start-up screens using TomTom's Home desktop software.

The TomTom Start is available in the U.K. and Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway with either regional maps or full European maps for 129 euros and 149 euros, respectively. Considering that the next least expensive IQ Routes-enabled PND (the TomTom One) is about 170 euros, that's a fairly good deal.

No plans for a North American release of the Start have been announced, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

(Credit: Mobile Phone Helpdesk Europe )

The Touch Diamond hasn't even gone on sale in most countries and already, another new version has been announced. T-Mobile Germany launched three new MDA phones (its name for the HTC devices) and one of them is the MDA Vario IV, which is the rumored HTC Raphael. The other two are variants of the Diamond and Advantage.

This PDA-phone is largely similar to the HTC Touch Diamond but comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard like the TyTN II. According to Netherlands-based site Mobile Phone Helpdesk, the Vario IV has all the features of the Diamond but comes with 256MB of RAM instead of 192MB. There's no indication if it will sport TouchFLO 3D like the Diamond. But looking at the flat front surface, it certainly looks ready for HTC's custom interface.

The T-Mobile MDA Vario IV will go on sale in Germany at the end of September. We're contacting HTC regarding its availability elsewhere.

(Source: Crave Asia)

(Credit: DS Fanboy)

If you want the latest choice of colors for the DS Lite, you have two options: You can get one of the rose princess versions being peddled by various celebrities, or you can go to Europe. That's where Nintendo has chosen to release its newest hues--red, green, and "Ice Blue"--reportedly scheduled for June.

Alas, there's no word on whether these pigments will reach U.S. shores, according to Slippery Brick. Still, if you're a Yank who's simply dying to get one of these paint jobs, there's always Colorware. But whatever you do, please show some mercy and avoid inflicting King Deco's atrocities on the world.

(Credit: Sony)

Sony's PlayStation 3 is a multimedia powerhouse, juggling the playback demands of Blu-ray, DVD, and DivX with ease. But while on-demand content is growing in popularity, there remain a vast number of people who watch regularly scheduled, over-the-air broadcasts. So it's not surprising to see Sony enter the market with PlayTV, a new device that will let you watch and record digital TV on your PlayStation 3. It was announced for the European market last year and will sell for 80 pounds, or about $156.

Using a USB tuner, plus the included software, PlayTV will allow users to play, record, and stream free-to-air digital programming. These types of broadcast are common across Europe, where the open DVB standard has been incorporated into such services as TDF in France and Freeview in the U.K. Our colleagues at GameSpot UK sat down with a pre-release version of the device at a recent Sony event. Find out how it works here.

(Source: Crave UK)

At this week's CeBit technology trade fair in Hannover, Germany, police raided 51 exhibitors' booths because of suspected patent violations.

(Credit: Deutsche Messe AG/CeBit)

Dozens of exhibitors at Europe's largest gadget confab were in for a surprise this week: Suspecting patent violations, German authorities raided 51 booths, carting off cell phones, navigation devices, and other gear that allegedly infringe on patents.

According to an Associated Press report Thursday, more than 180 police and customs officials took part in the bust, which affected 51 exhibitors at CeBit in Hannover, Germany. Of the accused, 24 were from China, 15 were from Taiwan or Hong Kong, nine were from Germany, and the others came from Poland, the Netherlands, and Korea.

The police didn't name which people or companies were targeted, but they did say the alleged patent violations deal with devices that have MP3, MP4, or digital video broadcast functions; DVD players; and blank CDs and DVDs. They managed to fill 68 boxes with gadgets, documents, and advertising material and took down the identities of nine people, most of whom were reportedly cooperative.

The raid was a response to a rising number of "criminal complaints by the holders of patent rights in the run-up to CeBit," and the patent holders had warned the accused companies in "good time" about their lack of licenses, police said, according to the AP.

When word of the raids first trickled out Wednesday, rumors started flying that an iPhone "clone" made by the Chinese electronics company Meizu was one of the targets. But, as it turns out, a portable MP3 player that Meizu makes, not the Mini One smartphone, was the subject of the investigations, according to reporters on the scene.

Could we expect to see something similar go down in the middle of next year's sprawling Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas? (This is assuming--only for the sake of argument--that any patent infringements might occur.)

Short answer: probably not.

U.S. officials regularly conduct raids in which they seize certain goods because of intellectual property violations--pirated Microsoft software, for instance, or mod chips that allow video game consoles to play pirated games. But the key difference is that those exercises deal primarily with copyright or trademark violations. There's no equivalent seizure authority under U.S. patent law.

"Because of the difficulty in determining issues of patent infringement, we don't have criminal prosecutions (or raids or seizures) for patented inventions (unlike trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy which are easier to determine)," a United States Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman told CNET News.com in e-mail.

Because it's generally impossible to look at a product and tell whether it's infringing on a patent, famously unsexy American patent lawsuits are generally resolved through complex court proceedings that may lead to fines against the infringer and injunctions barring use of the contested invention.

Things are a bit different when U.S. patent violations by international firms are concerned, but they're still not quite the same as what reportedly transpired in Germany this week.

Federal law gives U.S. customs agents the power to seize imports of goods that have been found to infringe on U.S. patents.

"You can get an order from the International Trade Commission in the United States barring any importation of a product that infringes a U.S. patent," said Gilbert Kaplan, a partner with the Washington office of King & Spalding who specializes in international trade and intellectual property law.

Sometimes, a U.S. patent holder who has won an infringement suit can also seek a temporary restraining order from a U.S. district court that similarly bars imports of infringing products. Unlike in the Germany situation, however, those cases aren't in the investigatory stage: a decision has already been reached about whether a certain patent has been infringed.

Seizures ordered by the ITC typically occur at the border, when packages and containers are inspected by customs officials. Kaplan said he wasn't aware of any cases where customs agents had blustered into a trade show, but "they do have that right," he said. "So (those ITC orders) theoretically could apply to these kind of infringing imports if they happen to slip through at a trade show."

Practically speaking, that may be hard to pull off because "you'd have to have a lot of warning that shipments are coming in," said Fabio Marino, a patent partner in Orrick's Silicon Valley office.

"I'm aware of other situations where that has happened in Europe, but I've never heard of it happening in the U.S.," he said of the CeBit raid. "There is no criminal provision under the U.S. patent laws."

Editor's note: This story initially incorrectly reported the discount that a German iPhone customer could receive by crossing the border and purchasing a unit in France. It's 250 euros.

Apple's learning fairly quickly that Europe is a very different place, especially when it comes to mobile phones.

The iPhone went on sale Wednesday through wireless carrier Orange in France, marking the third European country to carry the phone within its borders. The launch also marked the debut of the third pricing strategy for the iPhone in the three countries: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone to the U.K.

(Credit: Crave UK)

It appears that at least for a while, the iPhone is going to move more slowly for Apple in Europe. Orange said hopes to sell 100,000 iPhones by the end of 2007, and 400,000 to 500,000 in total by the end of next year, according to several reports Tuesday. Apple wants to sell 10 million iPhones next year in total, after expanding to Asia some time in 2008.

Was Apple blasé about the challenges it faces in Europe? The device's debut in one of the most hotly contested mobile phone markets in the world has been a little chaotic, with last-minute changes to pricing plans that don't appear to have been part of the plan.

Orange, the "exclusive" carrier of the iPhone in France, offers three payment plans. You can purchase an iPhone for 399 euros ($592.78) and sign up for one of the special "Orange for iPhone" plans, which range in price from 49 euros a month to 119 euros a month depending on usage. You can buy an iPhone for 549 euros if you want to use one of Orange's other rate plans. Or, you can buy an iPhone for 649 euros ($964.20) with no plan.

The only company that can sell you an iPhone in France is Orange (Apple doesn't have any stores in France) but it sure as heck isn't going to be the exclusive carrier. French law requires that carriers offer their customers the option of an unlocked phone. That will cost you 100 euros today, but if you're willing to wait six months, you can have it unlocked for free.

So French shoppers who want an unlocked iPhone today will pay the equivalent of $1,112,77, which is actually a significant bargain over what their German neighbors are being asked to pay for a key to other networks. After a legal challenge from rival Vodafone forced its hand, T-Mobile agreed to offer an unlocked iPhone in Germany for the equivalent of $1,478 (at last week's exchange rate).

At least in U.K., Apple's one-phone, one-carrier strategy is still in place. O2 and Apple have yet to release any sales figures, although O2 said it was its "fastest-selling" launch. No matter what, however, any expectations for lines and hoopla similar to what happened stateside on iPhone Day did not materialize in Blighty.

Simply put, Europe is different. Entering the European mobile phone market from the United States is like getting called up to the majors after just a few months in the minors.

One of the many things I've heard from U.S. iPhone owners is that many of them were relatively new to smartphones, especially the idea of getting e-mail and anything more than a real basic stripped-down Web page on their phones. They bought the iPhone because of its user interface, not because it was a data phone, although they quickly grasped what they had at their disposal.

And they didn't care that they'd be locked to AT&T for two years, because two-year wireless contracts are the norm in this country. Maybe that will change in upcoming years following Verizon's announcement earlier this week that it will open up its network, but it will take a long time before all of us are using our phones that way.

Unlocked iPhones are available through official sources in France and Germany, and there's nothing Apple can do about it.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It seems Apple didn't anticipate the difficulties it would have selling the first generation iPhone to European customers and carriers under the same terms and conditions that AT&T and O2 were willing to accept. That situation could very well change next year, when Apple is expected to unveil a 3G phone that would be much more attractive for both consumers and carriers.

But how could Apple possibly have expected that it would be able to sell locked, exclusive iPhones in Europe going into the launch? A German judge quickly imposed an injunction after Vodafone aired its complaints (which were opportunistic, to be sure). But from that swift action it would appear the law regarding locked cell phones wasn't exactly murky, although the carrier said it would attempt to "clarify" the issues.

Likewise, from the pricing discrepancies, it's hard to imagine that the current situation was part of the original plan. A German citizen living on the French border could cross the old Maginot Line and pick up an unlocked iPhone at a 250 euro discount, and then use it with any German carrier, without having to pay any sort of additional import tax. Perhaps the T-Mobile and Orange "exclusive" deals don't transfer as much revenue to Apple as the company gets from AT&T, which is likely the reason behind the steep premium to be paid for an unlocked iPhone.

As always, we have to remind ourselves that this is very early days for Apple in this market. It has very little experience marketing mobile phones and even less experience negotiating tough deals with carriers, who still rule this industry.

Just look at Apple's early dance partners. AT&T's Stan Sigman told attendees at Macworld earlier this year that he signed an exclusive (and expensive revenue-sharing) deal with Apple to distribute and promote the iPhone without having even seen the device. O2 was so eager to be the exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.K. that it allowed Apple to throw in a free subscription to The Cloud--a U.K Wi-Fi hotspot aggregator that offers access to more than 7,000 hot spots--even though that almost guaranteed that iPhone users would do any heavy data action over Wi-Fi and deny O2 a cut of that revenue. Not exactly a bunch of Red Auerbachs, there; Apple must have gotten almost everything it wanted from those two carriers going into the negotiations.

Of course, Apple has one very powerful negotiating chip: a sweet product. I've been to several conferences and conventions this year about the smartphone industry, and Apple's user interface and design prowess has come up in every single one--the CTIA Wireless conference devoted an entire session to it.

The entire wireless industry is trying to figure out what to do about Apple's iPhone. But Apple has to do a better job figuring out how to navigate the complicated minefield that is the international wireless industry. A strategy that works in this country won't necessarily work in other places; just ask Dell, Disney, or the National Football League.

(Credit: Samsung)

Is the Asia phone market getting too unpleasantly crowded for the likes of Samsung? In its latest mobile launch outing, the Korean chaebol has bypassed its Asian neighbors including even its own backyard, to court Europe. While we are awaiting word from the consumer electronics giant on the availability of the devices in our region, here's what Samsung fans in Asia are missing out.

Two of the models, the SGH-F330 (slim HSDPA slider) and the SGH-F210 (swivel stick), are already out in Germany for 260 euros ($368) and 280 euros ($396), respectively. The third model which resembles the Nokia N95 with its two-way sliding mechanism, appears to veer away from the usual Samsung handsets that proliferate mobile shelves in Asia.

What makes the SGH-i450 interesting is a touch wheel navigation to access the multimedia menus. There's also HSDPA, Bluetooth stereo, a S60 3rd Edition platform with Feature Pack 1. Oddly, this is targeted for Italy, out end this month at a price of 360 euros ($509) without subsidy.

(Source: Crave Asia)

Apple has chosen T-Mobile, O2, and Orange as its European launch partners for the iPhone after wrangling a revenue-sharing agreement, according to the Financial Times.

The four companies are set to announce their partnership by the end of the month, the report said. The deals would require the carriers to share 10 percent of all revenue from voice and data services over the iPhone with Apple, according to the report. Apple has a revenue-sharing agreement in place with AT&T, the exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S.

No new details surfaced in the report about the type of iPhone that would hit Europe, but most industry observers think Apple has a 3G model in mind for across the pond. T-Mobile provides mobile service to Germany, Orange operates in France, and O2 is based in the U.K.

Apple has said it wants to launch the iPhone in Europe by the end of this year. Tim Cook, the company's chief operating officer, mentioned that Apple wants to start in Europe with "a few major countries," and France, Germany, and the U.K. probably fall into that category.

Those crazy types in Brussels. If they're not forcing us all to eat straight bananas or swim in wine lakes, they're slapping tax on our cameras. To be specific, on new digital cameras with a certain level of movie capability.

(Credit: Crave UK)

At the moment, all digital cameras are manufactured outside Europe. They're all imported. All of them. Currently, there's a European Commission-imposed 4.9 percent import tariff on camcorders, but not on cameras, whatever their video-recording abilities.

The EC's Nomenclature Committee (oh, to be a fly on that wall) has cottoned on to this and wants to slap a tax on cameras that can record at least 30 minutes of video in one go, with a resolution of 800x600 pixels or higher at 23 frames per second or higher. The Nomenclature Committee has recommended the proposal (boo!) but has not, as yet, garnered the required majority vote (hurray!).

We're Eurosceptical about this here at Crave. Sure, we don't mind paying taxes to keep the hospitals clean and the trains running on time (wait a second...), but this is just daft. Profits on cameras are sliced ultra-fine as it is, so an extra 5 percent on the price is going to make manufacturers do some serious chin-stroking. The increase will no doubt be passed on to consumers.

The upshot, however, could be that manufacturers nobble the video function in their new cameras, so they can't record 30 minutes of video, or only at low resolution. We'd like to see manufacturers using this as a chance to concentrate on improving camera functions rather than trying to pack in extras like video, as they do now. But chances are they'll just use it as a chance to whack the prices up. Nice one, José Manuel Barroso. They'll be closing our post offices next. Hang about...

(Source: Crave UK)