Lenovo, the giant Chinese electronics manufacturer mainly known for producing desktop PCs and laptops, announced it will quit the mobile phone industry and sell its mobile division
for $100 million to Legend Holdings Ltd., one of its main shareholders.

2007 was a great financial year for Lenovo, with overall profits of $171 million, a huge increase when compared to 2006’s profits that raised to $57.7. Despite this, the company’s mobile business is far from being profitable, as it made losses of 134 million CNY (about $18.6 million) in the last year.

Lenovo entered the mobile business in 2001 and limited its handset distribution to China, but in the last years it started producing devices based on Windows Mobile with the intention of penetrating other markets, like Europe and North America. However, this did not happen, and the Lenovo handsets remained in China. Apparently, the Chinese market – where phones from Nokia and Motorola have a huge demand – is not suitable for Lenovo’s mobile plans, otherwise the company’s losses cannot be explained.

Lenovo is currently the world’s fourth largest personal computer manufacturer, after HP (Hewlett-Packard), Dell and its Taiwan-based neighbor Acer. It reached this position after acquiring IBM’s PC division, back in 2005. By selling its mobile branch, Lenovo will be able to concentrate on its main PC business, at the same time allowing the mobile business to overcome the loss-generating period and re-think its market strategies.

After completing the acquisition of Lenovo Mobile, Legend Holdings will continue to produce handsets under the Lenovo brand and will probably try to conquer a bigger portion of the Chinese market share. Also, we might see Lenovo phones expand to Europe and North America, as initially planned. This can only be a good thing, as a bigger competition generally means better products – better mobile phones, in our case.

via softpedia

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Luxury cell phones are not a new thing anymore, but they keep on appearing to satisfy the fashion needs of those who have larger bank accounts. SoftBank, a leading Japanese mobile carrier,
partnered with Tiffany Japan to bring such a phone, that will be sold for 10 million Japanese Yens, meaning about $93,600. It cannot compete against the world’s most expensive phone, Goldvish Le Million, which costs more than 1 million USD, but it’s still a terribly expensive device.

The handset comes encrusted in no less than 400 diamonds, totaling a bit over 20 carats, and will be available starting this month, most probably before Valentine’s Day, to make an extravagant gift.

There aren’t many technical details about the Tiffany handset, except the fact that it’s a 3G device. However, judging by the specs the other SoftBank phones announced for 2008 have, this diamonded clamshell might pack a good photo camera and even Mobile TV features.

The real manufacturer of the phone is unknown for the moment, but it sure isn’t Tiffany, known mainly for being one of the most respectable US jewelry brands. It’s hard to believe they have a secret cell phone division, so it is more likely that they only worked on the handset’s luxurious cover. Most probably, as the phone seems to be a clamshell resembling the majority of the phones released in Japan (except the diamonds, of course), the non-jewelry part was created by a Japanese producer. So it could be a Sharp, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Sanyo or Hitachi. Hard to tell.

The new Tiffany phone is available only from SoftBank starting February, as a limited number edition, so the Japanese men who want to offer their lovers a flower and hundreds of diamonds on a phone should quickly pay a visit to their bank for a small withdrawal.

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Motorola Z10 is now official. Like its predecessor, Z8, Z10 Moto key selling point is the video. In fact, they consider it a “complete, pocket size, the film studio mobile.” Something like Nokia’s high-end smartphone which could also handle 30 fps.As for the rest of the specifications, there is a 2.2 “QVGA screen, HSDPA, 3.2 MP camera, UIQ 3.2, microSD slot, the ability to download photos and videos directly from the device using ShoZu. Available in Q1 2008, no carrier partners mentioned so far.

via intomobile

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Researchers from Stanford University have discovered a new way to use silicon nanowires in rechargeable batteries that power mobile phones, laptops, video cameras, iPods and other similar devices. The new batteries will be able to store up to ten times more electrical power than existing Li-Ion batteries.

“It’s not a small improvement. It’s a revolutionary development”, said Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who lead the research for the new battery technology.

Thanks to the new concept, a mobile phone that now has a stand-by time of 6 days could operate for 60 days with a single full battery charge. The same goes for laptops, video cameras and other devices – they will be able to provide a much longer operating time compared to the one they are currently capable of.

A standard Li-ion battery has an electrical storage capacity limited by the amount of lithium that can be retained in the battery’s anode, usually made of carbon. When made of silicon, the anode can retain much more lithium, but silicon’s disadvantage is that it pulverizes during charging cycles, lowering the battery’s performance and life-cycle.

The Stanford research team found a way to avoid this problem, by leveraging on nanotechnology. To store lithium, they use silicon nanowires, each with a diameter one-thousandth the thickness of a paper sheet. When soaking up lithium, the nanowires grow four times their size and then come back to normality, but due to their extremely small wired shape, they don’t fracture in time. Hence silicon is better than carbon after all, it only has to be used as nanowires.

This expanded storage capacity that Li-ion batteries proved to be capable of could make them appropriate for electrical cars and, as Mr. Yi Cui believes, also for homes and offices, where they could be used to store electricity produced by rooftop solar panels.

Although the new batteries are not yet available, the Stanford team has filed for a patent and, hopefully, the batteries will start to be manufactured in 2008. Charging your mobile phone only six times a year – imagine that!

via softpedia

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Those spreading rumours via SMS on racial clashes can be detained under the Internal Security Act.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan, who issued the warning, said police were aware of unscrupulous persons spreading rumours via SMS to incite racial clashes.

He said there were such messages being circulated predicting racial clashes in Kampung Baru.

“We have our intelligence and we are prepared,” he said after attending a seminar on Neighbourhood Watch at the National Institute of Public Administration in Bukit Kiara Saturday.

On the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), Musa said more of its members had been arrested but he could not reveal the number yet.

He said the DAP had the right to go to court to seek the release of the Hindraf members being held under the ISA.
“It is their right and they can try to do it,” he added.

via thestar

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Wondering what your homies at AT&T are listening? To help you out and to get some media attention along the way, AT&T has released its top 10 best-selling ringtones of 2007. The music is a matter of personal preferences, hence I won’t comment it… Anyway, here’s the list:

1. Shop Boyz - “Party Like a Rockstar”
2. Mims - “This Is Why I’m Hot”
3. Soulja Boy - “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”
4. Nickelback - “Rockstar”
5. Akon - “Don’t Matter”
6. T-Pain - “Buy You A Drank (Shawty Snappin)”
7. Hurricane Chris - “A Bay Bay”
8. Sean Kingston - “Beautiful Girls”
9. Huey - “Pop, Lock & Drop It”
10. Fergie - “Big Girls Don’t Cry”

As expected, AT&T’s full release contains more text, including the ways how you can download (buy) music from their 40,000-ringtones-strong catalog. If you still haven’t figured that out, you should be reading some other blog.

Just kidding, here’s the link to the official press release.

via intomobile

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Americans logged more than 1 trillion cell-phone minutes in the first half of 2007 alone, so it came as little surprise that this is the year cellular-phone spending is predicted to surpass that of landlines, according to Labor Department data released this week. But even as more people give up their traditional home phones altogether, and ever younger kids get their own cell phones, there are still questions in the scientific community about whether this new American staple is safe for heavy or long-term use.

Experts say the concern over cell-phone use stems from a form of radiation that’s produced when the devices communicate with their base station. Wireless phones transmit via radio frequency (RF), a low-frequency form of radiation that is also used in microwave ovens and AM/FM radios. While high-frequency radiation (the kind used in X-rays) is known to cause cancer at high doses, the risks of this milder form remain unclear. A cell phone’s main source of RF is its antenna, from which it sends a signal to the nearest base-station antenna. The further a cell phone is from the base station, the more RF it needs to establish and maintain a connection. So, the theory is that any risks posed by RF would be greater for people who live and work in areas with fewer base stations. In fact, Israeli researchers reported earlier this month in the American Journal of Epidemiology that long-term cell-phone users living in rural areas faced a “consistently elevated risk” of developing tumors in the parotid gland (a salivary gland located just below the ear) compared with users who live in suburban or urban areas.

Other research, including an ongoing multinational initiative known as INTERPHONE, has yielded mixed results so far. While a number of studies have found no correlation between cell-phone use and various types of brain tumors, most of those studies focused on people who had been using cell phones for three to five years. Long-term cell-phone use may be another story. A handful of small studies have indicated that using a cell phone for an hour each day over a 10-year period can increase the risk of developing a rare brain tumor and that those tumors are more likely to be on the side of your head that you use to talk on the phone.

But quantifying the health risks of cell phones is a trickier proposition than understanding how they work. The gadgets have been widely available for only about a decade; tumors can take twice as long to develop. And hands-free devices, which minimize a person’s RF exposure by enabling them to keep the phone’s antenna away from their head, have only been commonplace for a few years. The data on kids who use cell phones is even more scarce because not enough time has passed to examine the effects on children who use them extensively as they grow. However, many researchers believe younger cell-phone users may face a higher risk of developing tumors because their nervous systems are not fully developed and their skulls are not as thick as those of adults.

The bottom line: more research is needed before a consensus emerges. In the meantime, the Food and Drug Administration recommends minimizing any potential risk by using hands-free devices and keeping cell-phone talk to a minimum. Also, the Federal Communications Commission requires manufacturers to report the relative amount of RF absorbed into the head by any given cell phone. This number is known as the SAR, or specific absorption rate. You can find out how to check your phone’s SAR here.

via newsweek

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