The German mobile phone arm of Taiwanese group BenQ (formerly known as Siemens Mobile) has filed for insolvency as unions and politicians protested at the company's treatment of 3000 employees who are set to lose their jobs. BenQ had said on Thursday it was withdrawing funding from the unit, just a year after acquiring it from German group Siemens.
A spokeswoman for the Munich district court confirmed that BenQ had filed for insolvency.The jobs are spread around former Siemens production sites in Munich and in western Germany.

A dream come true - finally! The Parrot MK6000 is the first professionally installed Bluetooth hands-free kit dedicated to music. It combines the very latest generation of signal processing with the capability of playing MP3 music files via Bluetooth's A2DP and AVRC profiles. In addition, it incorporates the very latest "Parrot Beamforming" signal processing technology by means of a pair of twin microphones. As a result, the kit picks up the driver's voice more clearly, while effectively reducing surrounding noise.
The Parrot MK6000 captures the music sent by your Bluetooth stereo mobile phone or MP3 player and redirects it to the vehicle’s speakers which mute automatically so your own music comes through loud and clear.

Can we believe it? Well, we have to (or not) since it comes from Jim Morrison himself - founder and CEO of Dubai based i-mate - who recently held a presentation during the 2006 Möbius conference in Boston and according to him, the i-mate JAQ isn't accidentally that ugly but "by design". According to Mr. Morrison, it was a request from corporate i-mate customers to have a device they can get to their employees. Feature-rich (which it is since it is based on Windows Mobile) to seriously support mobile workers but ugly enough not to be stolen ("Who is steeling an ugly phone? Nobody, as much as nobody is steeling an ugly car" said Jim Morrison). Another fact, Jim Morrison cleared up, that i-mate's contract with HTC isn't finished yet, as it was reported recently. In fact it's in place for a couple more months but from now, i-mate is looking to release exclusive devices only, exclusive to i-mate and its customers. i-mate isn't interested anymore in selling rebranded devices only but the device (design) has to be exclusive to i-mate.

For those who enjoy reading the Washington Post and, like me, have been frustrated at how unfriendly it is to small screens, I hope you enjoy the new mobile version of the website. The mobile version of The Washington Post is joined by mobile versions of Newsweek and Slate, all owned by the same company.

In a quick test of the mobile Washington Post website, it loaded quickly, displayed the top stories and links to the different sections, including numbered shortcuts for those who have a keypad on their phone. This comes just a couple of weeks after the launch of the New York Times mobile website.

Today, Greenlight Wireless Corporation announced that its Skweezer technology, which optimizes Web content for mobile devices, has been integrated into the mobile version of Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), a free online RSS aggregator/feed reader.
Bloglines Mobile (mobile.bloglines.com) users now view "skweezed" versions of the Web pages they access through their favorite RSS feeds. This allows Bloglines to both accelerate download speeds and present content that is easier to view and navigate on the small displays found on cell phones and PDAs. With the Skweezer technology, Bloglines also provides mobile access to more content than ever before by using Skweezer's paging feature, which allows Web pages to load that would otherwise be too memory-intensive for most devices.

Motorola yesterday announced it is the first mobile device manufacturer to offer its products to consumers through robotic retail stores in a pilot program providing automated, on-demand retail solutions in key markets.
Moving beyond the traditional retail experience, Motorola is testing this new automated vending format as a way to directly connect with consumers in places and at times where convenience is needed most. Leveraging small format robotic stores operated by Zoom Systems, the new retail option will be placed in high traffic locations giving consumers the immediate satisfaction of getting the products they need and want on demand.

Microsoft has recently released its RC1 (Release Candidate 1) of Windows Vista, another major step on the way to the final release and as I've heard, another major improvement to the previously released Windows Vista Beta 2 which was good already. And yes, as before for the Betas - Microsoft again accepts users who want to test out Windows Vista as early as possible (you can either download Windows Vista RC1 or you can order a DVD). However, if you are a Windows Mobile user, you should better be aware, that - at this stage - the Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) application isn't part of the Windows Vista RC1 because it is a separate component from Windows Vista.

While Windows Vista RC1 includes the WMDC Driver which enables you to sync music, acquire pictures and browse the contents of your device. The full WMDC application - enabling you to synchronize your Outlook E-Mail, contacts, calendar appointments and more - is ships separately (later; most likely via Windows Update).

After being publicly Beta tested for some months now, NewsGator Technologies, Inc. today announced the public release of NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile, a product that allows users to read content and manage their RSS subscriptions seamlessly from any Windows-mobile capable device. Articles and subscriptions are synchronized between NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile and NewsGator's other applications, including NewsGator Online, Inbox, NetNewsWire and FeedDemon.

As RSS continues to reach mainstream adoption among both consumers and enterprises, mobile workers need easy access to their customized news and information. NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile synchronizes with NewsGator's entire product suite - users can specify which RSS subscriptions to access from their mobile device, ensuring a streamlined and tailored RSS experience.

It's neither final nor fully tested yet but Microsoft recently released another ActiveSync Beta - this time for ActiveSync 4.5. With the introduction of Windows Mobile 5.0, ActiveSync 4 is the only way to get the latest Windows Mobile devices synced with Windows-powered PCs and Microsoft Outlook - right out of the box. ActiveSync acts as the gateway between your Windows-powered PC and Windows Mobile-powered device, enabling the transfer of Outlook information, Office documents, pictures, music, videos and applications to and from your device. In addition to synchronizing with a desktop PC, ActiveSync can synchronize directly with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 so that you can keep your E-Mail, calendar data, tasks and contact information updated wirelessly when you're away from your PC.

Changes in ActiveSync 4.5 Beta 2 help resolve issues related to setup, partnerships, and connectivity with the PC and Microsoft Exchange. In addition, it includes a troubleshooter utility that scans your computer and device to identify problems and offers information and corrective actions to solve them.

Motorola today confirmed, it will acquire Symbol Technologies Inc. for about US$ 3.9 billion in a deal that expands the world's second-largest cellphone maker's presence in the market for business-oriented mobile devices.
The deal for Symbol, which makes portable bar-code scanners and customized (mostly Windows Mobile-based) handheld computers, is expected to close in late 2006 or early 2007, pending regulator clearance and approval by Symbol shareholders, company officials said.

Anyone out there use TCPMP as their main media player? Me too, so you'll be excited to hear that the Core Code project has announced that they are inviting individuals to participate in a pre-release of the CorePlayer project.

CorePlayer will support even more standards that TCPMP currently does, plus it will include a whole host of goodies for developers and device manufacturers. This is great news for those who have media in a wide range of standards, no more re-encoding everything so you can use Windows Media Player. Plus, CorePlayer will be mult-platform software, so you will also be able to use it on your computer, or if you prefer Symbian or Palm.

As Arne reported yesterday Microsoft has finally announced the long awaited Zune media player, which competes with Apple's iPod devices. Interestingly enough though it seems that the Zune won't stop at multimedia. According to Zune GM Chris Stephenson "A Zune phone is definitely part of the future of this brand."

This brings up a host of questions about the future of Windows Mobile and how the Zune phone will fit into it. Jason Dunn over at Smartphone Thoughts has some initial questions, find the link and my thoughts after the jump.

All right, time for another update - this time from Alien6. Sometimes a .1 update can provide way more, than a version number can say and if you see all the new features and improvements bellow, you can wonder why it is released as such a minor update only. Anyway, during the past weeks, Alien6 publicly Beta tested A6.Times 1.1 and the Beta reached the release now. A6.Times is a RSS feed reader which shows you the feeds in a quite different way as most other RSS feed readers do. Discover an RSS reader like you've never seen before.

Here's a list a new features/fixes found in this new version:

Zune is Microsoft's music and entertainment platform that provides an end-to-end solution for Connected Entertainment. The Zune experience includes a 30 GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service, and a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music. Inspired by the vast and varied community of music fans, Zune focuses on helping emerging artists shape the digital canvas. Zune is part of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division and supports the company's software-based services vision to help drive innovation in the digital entertainment space.

Marking the next big milestone for its Connected Entertainment vision, Microsoft today unveiled details of the first products to be released under its Zune brand. Designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community, Zune will create new ways for consumers to connect and share entertainment experiences. The Zune experience centers around connection - connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.

HTC's (High Tech Computer Corp.) CEO Peter Chou and Vodafone KK President and Representative Executive Officer Masayoshi Son today signed a strategic collaboration agreement under which both parties will collaborate to develop and sell 3G PDA Phones in Japan.
With this partnership, HTC, the world's leading provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, will utilize its global experience to expand both companies' customer base and market share in Japan. By selling highly advanced 3G PDA Phones manufactured by HTC, Vodafone will gain a stronger foothold in the Japanese market.

Picsel Technologies, a dynamic mobile platform provider that brings mobile content to life, today announced it is making Picsel's Proviewer application available direct to consumers. So far, available to ODMs only (for instance the Motorola MPx220 and the Samsung SGH-i300 Windows Mobile Smartphones were equipped with the Picsel Proviewer), the launch follows substantial prosumer demand for direct access to the application. Picsel have shipped over 40 million units of the attachment viewer worldwide and are bringing this fantastic solution direct to consumers, thus allowing mobile users to take full advantage of the best attachment viewing experience on the market.

Mobility Electronics today announced the launch of the Stowaway Sierra, a next generation portable Bluetooth keyboard designed specifically for smartphone and PDA users. The Stowaway Sierra portable keyboard includes five rows and full-size keys, providing the closest replication of a traditional desktop keyboard available on the market.
The Stowaway Sierra is the latest addition to Mobility Electronics' Think Outside family of portable keyboards. Having shipped more than three million portable keyboards since 2000, Think Outside is the market leader in this growing category of mobile accessories.

i-mate, the specialist in Microsoft Windows Mobile powered devices and software applications, today announced it has launched two new devices for distribution in the U.S., Latin America and Canada. The announcement was made at CTIA Wireless IT 2006, a leading wireless industry tradeshow being held in Los Angeles Sept. 12-14.

The i-mate JAQ has everything the busy professional needs to do business on the move in a Windows Mobile powered heavy-duty device. The i-mate JAQ is a quad-band device that operates on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0. The device features a full QWERTY keyboard, 128 MB ROM/64MB RAM, 64k 2.8" color LCD screen, MiniSD memory card expansion, integrated antenna, Bluetooth compatibility.

Navigon, one of the world's leading suppliers of software for personal navigation devices, today announced the launch of new navigation software specially designed for use on smartphones. With MobileNavigator|6 Wireless Edition, carriers and handset makers can offer consumers the same rich, user-friendly navigation experience seen in today's high-end personal navigation devices.

MobileNavigator|6 Wireless Edition supports more smartphone platforms than any other navigation software provider, among them J2ME, Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone, Windows 2003 Phone Edition, Palm OS, and Symbian operating systems. Significantly, the software accommodates both onboard (media-based) and off-board (server-based) models. Onboard models place software and map on the smartphone whereas off-board lets users call into a remote server to download dynamic turn-by-turn directions and maps onto their smartphones.

Amazon.com has launched its new Video Store, which sells TV shows & movies. Prices are industry standard, $1.99 for TV shows with a discount if you buy a whole season. Movies start at $9.99 with newer and popular titles at $14.99. One great feature of the store for Windows Mobile users is that if you buy a movie you also get a smaller version that can be used on your Windows Mobile device. I expect you will need to use Windows Media Player to transfer it over since it's DRM protected, but this is a nice alternative for those of use who prefer to use their Windows Mobile device for media rather than carry around an iPod. Now if I can just get Activesync working on parallels on my Mac.

Virgin Mobile today announced the launch of its new mobile TV service, Virgin Mobile TV, and confirmed the that it will be offering a selection of much-loved premium channels and programming to Virgin Mobile TV viewers, starting on October 1st 2006.

Virgin Mobile TV will broadcast BBC One, ITV1, Channel 4 and E4, offering consumers a wide range of high-profile channels and TV programs (BBC One will be available on a trial basis for 12 months and will be provided free to consumers.
Channel 4 will initially broadcast Channel 4 Short Cuts, its made-for-mobile TV channel and expects Channel 4 simulcast will follow). Customers who have a Virgin Mobile 'Tellyphone' will be able to watch their favorite TV programs and listen to DAB digital radio wherever they are. Wherever you need to watch TV, whether it's Eastenders on the bus, or Coronation Street in a cab, Virgin Mobile TV will make sure you never have to miss an episode of your favorite program again.

HTC (High Tech Computer), the world's leading provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, today launched its Q4 product portfolio.
The four new additions to the HTC range are each specifically designed to appeal to new market segments, bringing the benefits of Microsoft's smart mobility to new audiences.
The innovative form factors and new designs showcase the latest mobile applications - from E-Mail to navigation:

• HTC S620 (HTC Excalibur) - HTC's new, super slim form factor with integrated QWERTY keyboard: perfect for email and messaging
• HTC P3300 (HTC Artemis) - HTC's first dedicated navigation PDA with in-built GPS and complete with TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 software
• HTC P3600 (HTC Trinity) - HTC's next generation multimedia compact PDA with 3G connectivity and HSDPA-ready
• HTC S310 (HTC Oxygen) - a small yet powerful messaging and internet Smartphone for both business and consumer use

Today, at Internationale Funkausstellung (international consumer electronics fair in Berlin, Germany) Deutsche Telekom Laboratories launched a new mobile information service called Qiro. With Qiro users can receive individualized information about their surroundings via their cell phones. Qiro displays current events, cinema listings, restaurants around the corner as well as the location of friends who are currently in the neighborhood. With Qiro for the first time dynamic information such as the locations of the railway’s call-a-bike service or the friend-finder service are linked with localization and city information.