The new Motorola Sidekick Slide is said to be ideal for deaf users. Jamie Trounce tried it out.

My first impression of the Motorola Sidekick Slide was that it looks like the Nokia N-Gage, or even a hand-held games console. It’s designed to be held horizontally (landscape), rather than vertically (portrait), and it slides open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard – hence the name.

It is a really well-built handset, and feels strong and solid in the hand, and the slider itself is strong without being overly resistant.

The keyboard buttons are small but not too small, while the main buttons are quite big and easy to use. The menus are navigated by use of a rolling “trackball”, making it very accessible for most people.

Size: 3.7 x 1.9 x 0.69 inches, Weight: 3.4 ounces
Talk Time: Up to 9.5 hours GSM; up to 3.5 hours UMTS (approx.)
Standby Time: Up to 250 hours GSM, up to 250 hours UMTS (approx.)
2.0 Megapixel Camera
Media Center
aGPS Built-in
TeleNav Navigator
RSS Feeds
MyFaves-enabled
Audio Postcard
Quicksend
Mobile Backup (T-Mobile Address Book)
Bluetooth 2.0 / A2DP / Stereo streaming
Tri-Band GSM (850/1800/1900)
Dual-Band UMTS (1700/2100)
GSM/GRPS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA

Emergency workers searching for next-of-kin information for an injured person now have a globally recognised way of doing so, through a new standard from the ITU. Simply prefixing 01, 02, 03 and so on to a nominated contact, such as '01father', '02wife' or '03husband' written in any script in the mobile telephone directory will enable emergency workers in any part of the world to identify contacts in order of priority and notify them

In some English-speaking countries , 'In Case of Emergency' - or ICE - has emerged, encouraging the public to list emergency contact numbers in their mobile phone in the form of 'ICE father', for example, or 'ICE doctor'. However, helpers who do not use or recognize the Roman script may not recognize the term.Now the ITU will work with the non-profit organization ICE4SAFETY to promote the new method of identifying emergency contacts.

The new standard, which is a clause to the ITU-T Recommendation E.123, internationalizes the ICE concept and recommends the use of Arabic numerals (0 to 9) to denote emergency contact numbers in a handsets directory. It exploits the fact that even though written scripts differ around the world these digits are universally recognized, making it usable by anyone, regardless of language or script.

For more information see www.ice4safety.com

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

3 Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband

Product Features

· Broadband without a fixed line
· Get online at home or on the move
· Plug the dongle into your USB port in your PC or laptop, and you''ll be online in a matter of minutes
· USB self-installing dongle (for PC)
· Compatible with PCs and Macs
· 91% population coverage (and more every month)
· True download speeds of up to 2.8Mbps in HSPDA areas (3G+)
· Typical download speeds of 1Mbps to 1.5Mbps
· No contract required, simply top up when you need mobile broadband
· Top up online - access to the 3 website is zero rated

Getting online with Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband is easy. Just buy a Top-up, convert it to the Add-on of your choice, and you can surf the net almost anywhere.

This is a great plus if you want to ignore calls during a meeting, or if you are attempting to block voicemails from being entered since the program goes to a busy tone rather than voicemail.

Like I said, its a simple program, but it works, it blocked my work phone number when I attempted to try out the program and that number is a toll-free number meaning although the program is simple it works as described.

Orange is killing its plan to release a phone this year based on Access Linux and wonders if this is a sign that Mobile Linux is in trouble. I think outside of Asia that Linux-based phones are indeed going to be rare as phones running Google's Android are nearing release. One of the problems that seems to escape us is that there are often so many flavors of open sourced platforms and this prevents a de facto standard, which should be the biggest benefit of open source solutions. It doesn't matter if a platform is open source if it's totally different (and incompatible) with other like open sourced platforms.

Do you have eco guilt? That is, are you anxious that the planet is slowly dying like in every JRPG ever because of human activity? If that’s the case then Samsung has a phone for you. The E200 Eco is the company’s latest “eco-friendly” cellphone. What makes it so friendly to the environment is that its outer case is made out of bioplastic, a material that’s derived from corn.