I know I’m not the only person who has had to search for his mobile phone while it rang or missed a call because my cell phone was in another room. For a lot of people, landlines have given way to cell phones, but there are still ways to get landline-like convenience with a cell more »

Starting October 11, the HTC Hero on Sprint will be available in all Best Buy stores for purchase. Normally, it sells for $179.99 plus a $100 rebate, however, Best Buy Mobile will be selling the phone for just $179.99 on a two year contract, taking care of the $100 rebate themselves. A nice thing about more »

One of the features that makes the iPhone easy to use is the ability to create conference calls or place calls on hold or mute without needing to know any special key codes. All you have to do is touch the big button on the touch screen and you’re all set. Today, snom introduced a new VoIP desk phone, the snom 870, which incorporates a touch screen. The screen is 4×3 inches in size and is primarily aimed for businesses, however I can see something like this easily finding its way into the home.

RFID is the future. It is if you listen to Ericsson’s vice-president of systems architecture, Håkan Djuphammar. Mr. Djuphammar expects every new cell phone to contain RFID chips by next year and these phones will usher in a whole new ecosystem of creative uses of the technology. Could RFID be a win-win for everyone?

One customer Ericsson is working with is an electric company with hundreds of unmanned stations that have a combined total of 15,000 access keys. The customer is not exactly sure where all those keys are and who has them. The solution Ericsson provided is RFID locks and enabled phones allowing the phones to act as a key and unlock these stations based on the workers proximity. Even cooler, these RFID codes can be set to allow temporary access by specific RFID enabled phones allowing the company to control who can get where.

Even though I took a week off from my Crack column, those feeding off the marketing hype definitely didn’t stop. We’ll look at the movers and shakers in the industry that clearly cry out for a good detoxing and we’ll look at the consumers that can’t get enough. This week on Who’s on Crack: DTV transition – 317,000 call for help? Palm ask devs to cool it on the tethering. Big government: there is an app for that. Nagging voices scare Apple fanboys.

Ever since the emergence of Google Android, cell phone manufacturers were intrigued, but only T-Mobile dared to venture and try it out initially. Soon after, other manufacturers jumped on the Android bandwagon, and many major handset manufacturers have plans to include the new OS on their phones. In an interview with the CEO of Sony more »

WildCharge is now taking orders for its WildCharge system for a number of cellphones. It looks like wireless power is finally happening. The WildCharge site is even offering one day delivery. You can buy a skin, a mat, or a bundle for several phones. It’s a simple idea. Place a case on your phone and more »

“Grandma, it’s me Jamie. Oh, you meant to call Jack? I know the names are small on your phone. Grandma, it’s okay. Please don’t throw the phone out your window.” Although not always true, there’s a very big possibility that you have an older relative that is not very tech savvy. They have a desire to keep in touch, but wish cell phones were more simplistic.

Doro has set out to create functional cell phones for the senior set, including baby boomers and active seniors. The Doro HandleEasy 330gsm and 326i have features like large display screens and keypads, easy to find speed dials and an easy grip shell. If the senior likes to do more than just make calls from the cell phone, the 330gsm has extras like color display, speakerphone, text messaging, and FM radio.

Click for a larger image. When I first heard of SanDisk’s slotRadio idea, I thought they were absolutely crazy. If you haven’t read the information, you get a slotRadio player and a microSD card full of 1000 songs for $100. Now, if my phone came with a microSD card with 1000 songs and I could more »

When I say beast I do not mean in looks (like the iPhone), in functionality (like the G1) or low cost (like the Motorola Dyna 8000X). I’m talking about the height of practicality, a phone designed to suffer the falls, scratches and splashes that your average Joe phone would break merely looking at. This phone is not about looks, being small, or taking high resolution photos: it is the sort of phone you would expect to see on a building site, or on the top of a mountain. Let me introduce the Sonim XP3.