Treeduck

Good news comes to TV-watchers with TiVo DVRs installed in their living rooms. On Wednesday, TiVo and BlackBerry-maker RIM unveiled a free TiVo app in that will let people control their TiVos from the BlackBerry smartphone.
The app will let TiVo owners see a guide of what's playing when, including browsing by category, popular shows, and daily picks. More importantly, it will program recordings while you're on the go.
TiVo for BlackBerry should be available starting now from the BlackBerry App World online, or on your phone, and from www.blackberry.com/tivo. If it's not, wait a few minutes and try again.
Also, check back with us for more details.
Originally posted at The Download Blog

How would you like a single-chip microprocessor with more than four times the performance (on some applications) of Intel's best Core i7?
Then consider that up to 32 of these chips can be directly connected to form a single server, achieving four times the built-in scalability of Intel's next-generation Nehalem-EX processor.
That's IBM's widely anticipated Power7, which it described at last week's Hot Chips conference. But if you're interested, you'd better be prepared to spend a lot more than four times as much per chip. IBM isn't talking about pricing, but large Power servers can cost more than $10,000 per processor.

IBM's forthcoming Power7 server processor has eight cores, manages 32 threads, and includes 32MB of on-chip embedded DRAM cache. Power7 also has the highest levels of off-chip bandwidth ever achieved by a microprocessor.
(Credit: IBM)
What makes the Power7 so powerful? Each chip has eight cores, and each core supports four-way multithreading. There's 32MB of level-3 cache on the chip, made using embedded DRAM (eDRAM) cells. Most CPUs use SRAM for cache because it's generally easier to combine with high-performance logic, but DRAMs--with only one transistor per bit--offer compelling density advantages. IBM spent years developing a new kind of eDRAM that would work with SOI (silicon on insulator) manufacturing processes, and the Power7 is the most advanced product to use the new technology.
Interestingly, the Power7 cores run much more slowly than those in the Power6 processor, which I wrote about here in 2007 ("Live from Hot Chips 19: Session 1, IBM's Power6"). The Power6 was designed to run very fast using a long CPU pipeline in order to deliver the highest possible performance on each thread of execution.
Maybe that strategy didn't work out as well as IBM hoped, because the Power7 returns to a more traditional microarchitecture with a shorter pipeline and much lower clock rates--though IBM didn't say exactly what those rates would be. (more...)

A sensitive e-mail mistakenly sent by a bank to a Gmail address that prompted a court to order Google to deactivate the account was not viewed by the recipient and has been deleted, the bank said on Tuesday.
The e-mail, sent by an employee of Jackson, Wyo.-based Rocky Mountain Bank on August 12, contained names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and loan information of more than 1,300 bank customers.

The bank sent another e-mail asking that the data be destroyed and went to court to get Google to intervene on its behalf. Last week, a judge in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., ordered Google to deactivate the Gmail account and Google complied. Google and the bank quickly resolved the matter and the court granted their motion to dismiss the case and allowed Google to reactivate the Gmail account.
"Rocky Mountain Bank, working with Google (through court order), confirmed on Thursday of last week that the e-mail containing client information was never opened and has now been permanently destroyed by Google's system," Tina Martinez, general counsel for Rocky Mountain Capital, wrote in an e-mail response to questions.
"As a result, no customer data of any sort has been viewed or used by any inappropriate user during this data lapse," Martinez wrote. "Rocky Mountain Bank acted to protect its customer's confidential information. That objective was accomplished. The matter is now closed and the TRO (temporary restraining order) entered on September 23, 2009 is now vacated."
Asked for comment, a Google spokesman said: "To protect the privacy of our users, we do not comment on their use of Google services."
The case poses some interesting questions. For instance, should the person who registered the e-mail address lose access to the account or have items deleted without his or her permission, particularly through no fault of their own?
And what recourse would the bank have if the data had been sent via regular mail to the wrong address? The U.S. Postal Office certainly doesn't have the ability to see the envelope sitting on the recipient's desk and vaporize it.
Update 4:35 p.m. PDT:The bank did not take any action against the worker who sent the e-mail, the bank's lawyer said.

A federal court on Tuesday reversed an earlier ruling that Microsoft's product activation technology infringed on another company's patent, overturning a $388 million verdict in the case.
In a ruling on Tuesday, the court vacated the earlier decision and decided the case in Microsoft's favor.
"We are pleased that the court has vacated the jury verdict and entered judgment in favor of Microsoft," Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said in a statement.
Tuesday's ruling is the latest twist in a case that has had plenty of them. Microsoft initially won a summary judgment ruling, which would have ended the case in its favor, but Uniloc appealed that ruling and a federal appeals court last year ruled that the case needed to go to trial with regard to two counts.
The victory in the Uniloc case comes as Microsoft is awaiting the result of an appeal in another patent case in which the custom XML feature in recent versions of Word was found to infringe on patents held by Canada's I4i. If it fails in its appeal bid, Microsoft faces damages of more than $200 million in that case as well as an injunction that would halt sales of word with the infringing feature.

The Latitude Z on wireless charging station, and wireless dock adapter on the right.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)
That Dell is releasing a new laptop for business customers is the opposite of surprising. But the fact that it contains notable features not seen in any other laptops certainly is.
Most everything about the new Latitude Z is expected: It's yet another very thin notebook (a metric which PC manufacturers keep using to try to one-up each other), with a different kind of exterior finish (soft-touch, in this case), and comes in a black cherry. It measures 16 inches across, and is 14 millimeters thin at its most narrow point.
But you probably wouldn't guess that the Latitude Z charges wirelessly. And as far as we can tell, it's the first laptop to do so. Surprised that this is coming from Dell? You're not alone.
The wireless charging is handled elegantly enough. An inductive pad that's built into a laptop stand can accomplish a full recharge in "about the same amount of time" as a standard-issue cabled charger, according to Dell. While smartphone maker Palm has a similar (albeit smaller) wireless charging system for the Pre, and companies like Visteon and Wild Charge have debuted wireless charging accessories for phones, no PC maker has incorporated the idea until now.

The wireless charging stand.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)
It's part of what Dell is terming its new "wireless eco-system." Besides being able to get juice without wires, the Latitude Z will also be able to dock without them. A smaller separate adapter can hook up the laptop with any accompanying monitor, whether it be one in a cubicle, or in a conference room.
Both cost extra, and are by no means cheap ($199 for each), but the intention is for companies to buy, not necessarily individual consumers.
Other cool things Dell is introducing: touch-sensitive controls on the screen's bezel, and its first take on "instant on."
The sliding touch controls--not visible to the naked eye--are located on the right side of the bezel and appear when contact is made. Any controls can be customized and placed there, such as screen brightness, volume, or easy access to specific applications. When controlling an application like Excel or a Web browser, the right side of the bezel can be used as a sort of touchpad for scrolling through a spreadsheet or Web page.
The instant-on capability works exactly the way it sounds. Instead of waiting for Windows to boot up, the computer uses a second smaller motherboard and a separate ARM processor. Through a separate, non-Windows interface, it allows e-mail, contacts, calendars, and a Firefox-based Web browser to be accessed right away. E-mail, contacts, and calendars are always running in the background and are constantly being synced.
The ARM processor doesn't have access to the main motherboard or the ports, which should alleviate security concerns, according to Todd Forsythe, vice president of Dell's commercial client product group. The secondary processor--used mostly in smartphones--also draws much less power than a more robust desktop or notebook processor and so while it's running in the background it doesn't drain the battery as fast: using just the instant-on mode will provide up to two days of battery life; when using Windows and the accompanying Intel Core 2 Duo processor, it will get four hours.
Companies like DeviceVM and Phoenix have built businesses out of instant-on capabilities--basically a quick-booting interface built right into the computer's BIOS that isn't dependent on Windows. Dell said it decided not to go with either of those because they wanted to use the separate low-power processor for the background syncing.
What Dell, and DeviceVM, and Phoenix, and plenty of others are doing is part of a trend that's gaining steam: doing a sort of end-run around Windows. HP came out with its own interface on Touchsmart PCs last year that allows for quick sorting between photos, e-mail, and Web browsing on a few models. Lenovo recently introduced a new touch-screen interface for its tablet, and Asus has its own for its popular Eee PC Netbooks and touch-screen desktop called TouchGate.
Most people aren't used to seeing Dell trying new things like this, some of it actually ahead of competitors. Last year, we wrote about how Dell was starting to be a little more risky about the types of products it was trying out. Not new to the market, just new to Dell, which has traditionally had a habit of waiting, analyzing the market's response to new products, and jumping in later with a more efficient, and less expensive way of making that product.
But that way of doing things is over for Dell now. The company has struggled to find the right mix of products and now has less opportunity to be picky. But it's a good sign that the company is trying out smaller, more innovative, and more practical ideas like wireless charging, docking, instant on, and touch interfaces. Though it's only in the Latitude Z right now, we hear these features are stirring a lot of interest in other product groups at Dell. It's easy to see how, for a cheaper price (the Z starts at $1,999), these new features could find much broader acceptance with retail customers.

It's no secret that criminals are stealing credit card and bank account data and selling it underground. But most people would find it shocking to learn just how little their sensitive personal information costs.
Symantec on Thursday is launching its Norton Online Risk Calculator, a tool that people can use to see how much their online information is worth on the black market. The tool also offers a risk rating based on demographics, online activity, and estimated value of online information.
I tried the tool when I was initially briefed on it a few months ago and was surveyed about my gender and age range; online assets (including credit card and bank account data, brokerage accounts, e-mail accounts, and social network accounts) and an estimated value of all that information; whether I use security software; how cautious I am when online; and how much I think my information is worth.
I use security software (and do my financial transactions mostly on a Mac at home), am fairly cautious while Web surfing, and didn't put a high dollar figure on the value of my digital information. My security risk turned out to be 37 percent, or medium, and the black market worth of my online assets was calculated to be $11.29. Those figures didn't change when I modified the gender, age, and estimated value of the data.
A recent Microsoft Research report concludes that stolen data offered for sale in underground IRC channels is difficult to monetize because of all the--get this--con artists there.
Regardless of whether the underground revenue figures are overblown, the data is being harvested, sometimes in huge batches, during data breaches at large payment processors, and there is a market for it.
It's discomfiting to think a criminal could pay as little as $11 to get access to my sensitive personal data for identity fraud purposes, while I could end up spending lots of energy and time--years even--reporting the crime, trying to fix my credit rating, and getting my life back to normal.
Symantec isn't trying to scare consumers with the Norton Online Risk Calculator, but to raise awareness of the risks, said Marian Merritt, Internet safety advocate at Symantec.
"We still find consumers who think using just antivirus is sufficient," she said.
Merritt recommends that people use security suites that offer antivirus, firewall, and intrusion detection and prevention software, as well as keep their operating system and browsers updated.

Researchers at security firm Finjan have discovered details of a new type of banking Trojan horse that doesn't just steal your bank log in credentials but actually steals money from your account while you are logged in and displays a fake balance.
The bank Trojan, dubbed URLzone, has features designed to thwart fraud detection systems which are triggered by unusual transactions, Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer at Finjan, said in an interview on Tuesday. For instance, the software is programmed to calculate on-the-fly how much money to steal from an account based on how much money is available.
The specific Trojan Finjan researchers analyzed targets customers of unnamed German banks. It was linked back to a command-and-control server in Ukraine that was used to send instructions to the trojan software sitting infected PCs. Finjan has notified German law enforcement authorities, Ben-Itzhak said.
"It's a next generation bank trojan," he said. "This is part of a new trend of more sophisticated Trojans designed to evade antifraud systems."
Finjan researchers were able to trace the communications from the code on an infected machine back to the command-and-control server, which was left unsecured, according to Ben-Itzhak. On that server, they saw the LuckySploit administration console and were able to see exactly what types of rules the Trojan was written to follow and statistics on victims.
About 90,000 computers visited the sites housing the malware and 6,400 of them were infected, a 7.5 percent success rate, he said. Of those whose computers had the Trojan installed, a few hundred had money stolen from their bank accounts, he added.
During the span of 22 days in mid-August, the criminals behind the Trojan stole the euro equivalent of nearly $438,000, according to the security company.

The Trojan code includes detailed instructions on how the trojan should calculate how much to steal from a victim's bank account.
(Credit: Finjan)
Here's how the trojan works:
Potential victims get their computers infected either by opening an e-mail and clicking on a link to a Web site created to distribute malware or by visiting a site that has been compromised and malware hidden on it.
In this case the malware, a toolkit called LuckySpoilt, exploits a known security hole in the browser, affecting the major browsers, and installs the Trojan on the computer. When the Trojan notices the computer user visiting the site of a targeted bank it springs into action.
While the computer user goes about his or her business on the site, the Trojan looks at the available balance and figures out how much money to steal. The Trojan is given a minimum and a maximum range that is below the amount that triggers antifraud systems and to leave a certain percentage in the account, Ben-Itzhak said.
After performing the calculation, the Trojan then makes the transaction, communicating with the bank site through the browser without the computer user knowing.
"The Trojan is sending requests to the bank and getting replies that your browser doesn't display," Ben-Itzhak said. "You are looking at your account and you don't see any of it."
The Trojan has the money sent to the bank account of a money mule, someone who has an account set up to receive the funds. Money mules are typically people recruited online as "independent contractors" or "financial managers" whose sole purpose is to wire the money placed into their account to someone else, typically out of the country, in exchange for a commission. Because their accounts are used only once or twice, they often do not realize the ruse immediately, Ben-Itzhak said.
Meanwhile, the Trojan hides the theft by erasing it from the report of account activity displayed to the computer user and shows a fake balance--what the amount would be if not for the theft. The victim will not notice something is wrong until a different, uncompromised computer is used to access the account, an ATM is used, or a transaction is denied because of insufficient funds.
The Trojan also keeps a log of the victim's bank account log in credentials, takes screenshots, and snoops on the user's other Web accounts, such as PayPal, Facebook, and Gmail, according to the Finjan report.
This is the first Trojan Finjan has come across that hijacks a victim's browser session, steals the money while the victim is doing online banking, and then covers its tracks by modifying information displayed to the victim, all in real time, Ben-Itzhak said.

Yahoo on Tuesday released version 3 of its Yahoo User Interface library, a software collection programmers can use to endow Web sites with fancy user interface elements written in JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets.

"YUI 3's core infrastructure and its utility suite are all considered production-ready with today's release," Yahoo's Eric Miraglia said in a blog post Tuesday. "The code we're shipping today in 3.0.0 is the same code that drives the new Yahoo Home Page, and it goes out with confidence that it has been exercised vigorously and at scale."

The YUI libraries are open-source, freely available, and used widely around the Internet for Web site tasks including animation, drag-and-drop, fetching data from various types of sources, and responding to events--chores that are more complicated but that often are useful as the Web moves from static Web pages toward interactive applications.
Compared with YUI 2, the new version is smaller, faster, easier to program with, and more secure, Yahoo said. It's easier to break code into minimum-size pieces through a dependency configurator or YUI's ability to download required components on its own. Also, Yahoo is working to add widget abilities for creating small programs.
A convenient YUI feature is that Yahoo is willing to host most of it on its own servers, saving hassle and Web server bandwidth.
The new version is the first ground-up reworking of the software since 2005. No doubt YUI will be the subject of discussion at Open Hack Day and YUIConf, both in October.

This chart illustrates the smaller file sizes of one YUI 3 libary that helps with retrieving data from various sources.
(Credit: Yahoo)

Announced at GSMA 2009, the Nokia E75 is the latest Nokia E series smartphone to hit the market. Unlike the Nokia E71/E71x, the E75 features a more compact, cell-phone-like design, which is a welcome change from the recent deluge of slate QWERTY devices. In addition, the E75 includes the company's new Nokia Messaging application, which improves the mobile e-mail experience. Yet, despite the robust messaging capabilities, we were slightly disappointed in the call quality, and the unlocked phone costs around $530. However, if you crave the design, something that's lacking at most of the major carriers, the Nokia E75 is a solid choice, and we favor it slightly more than the similar HTC S743.

Design
It's been a little while since we've seen something other than a slate QWERTY device in the Nokia E series, so the Nokia E75 is a refreshing change. In its closed state, the E75 looks like a regular candy-bar-style phone and measures 4.4 inches tall by 1.9 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and weighs 4.9 ounces. While fairly compact and pocketable, the handset is a little on the hefty side, but it's made with quality material and has a nice solid construction. We also like the design better than the similar HTC S743. Nokia offers the E75 in black or red.

The Nokia E75 features a compact design.
On front, you'll find a 2.4-inch, 16 million-color QVGA display. It's a good size screen considering the smaller chassis, and it's quite sharp and vibrant. In addition, it features a light sensing technology that adjusts the display's brightness depending on what environment you're in. As always, you can customize the Home screen with various themes, wallpaper, and change the font size.

Also, like the Nokia E71, you can switch between two different home views depending on whether you're at work or play. In Business mode, the phone gives you immediate access to your e-mail and productivity apps, while switching to the Personal view will bring recreational features, like the media player, N-Gage games, to the forefront. It's a nice touch by Nokia to help you get out of work mode at the end of the day, but if you find you don't use the feature that much or don't care for it, there's an option to turn it off in the control panel.

Below the screen, there are a set of navigation controls that include two soft keys, Talk and End/Power buttons, shortcuts to your Home page, calendar, and messages, a back button, and a Navi key. The latter is just Nokia's fancy name for the directional keypad. Also, by holding down the shortcut buttons, you can also perform other tasks. For example, with a long press of the Calendar key, you can create a new event. We were initially worried that the keys were too close to each other, but we didn't run into many mispresses in real-world use.

The alphanumeric keypad is similar to the Nokia N79, though the numbers and letters are more bold. As we said in our N79 review, we're not huge fans of the layout. The problem isn't the lack of spacing between the keys but the number rows are thin, so it's easy to press the wrong button if you're not paying attention.

The E75 is a slider phone, and when you shift the front cover to the right, you'll find the full QWERTY keyboard. The sliding mechanism is smooth and feels durable. The cover locks securely into place, and the screen orientation automatically changes from portrait to landscape mode. The keyboard buttons are large and have a nonslippery texture, so we were able to type messages without major error. Our only complaint is that the keys are pretty flat; we typically like a little raise or bump to them so they're easier to press, but otherwise, we're quite happy with the E75's keyboard.

We were generally pleased with the E75's keyboard. The buttons are large but just slightly flat.
The left side houses the micro USB port and microSD expansion slot, both of which are protected by an attached cover. Inserting and removing a memory card proved to be a little difficult, however, and it felt like we were playing a game of Operation. On the right, you'll find a volume rocker, a mute/push-to-talk button, and a camera activation/capture key. The power connector is located on the bottom, while the top of the unit has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which we always love to see. Finally, the camera, flash, and self-portrait mirror can be found on the back of the phone.

The Nokia E75 comes packaged with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 4GB microSD card, a wired stereo headset, a soft protective case, and reference material. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.

Features
The Nokia E75 is powered by Nokia's S60 platform (Feature Pack 2 based on Symbian OS v9.3) platform and offers a user interface and features similar to previous E series devices. There are some minor tweaks to the UI, but the biggest difference between the E75 and the rest of the E family is e-mail. The E75 is the first S60 device to ship with the new Nokia Messaging application, which allows you to easily set up access to numerous accounts and receive real-time delivery of messages.

Nokia Messaging supports a range of e-mail clients, including Yahoo, Windows Live, Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, and IBM Lotus Notes. Setup is a snap as you simply enter your e-mail address and password; we were able to hook up both our Yahoo and Gmail accounts with no problem. Once a new e-mail arrives, you'll receive a notification on the home screen where you can open the message. However, from there you can't go directly to your in-box. Instead, you have to exit the message and then go to the e-mail app, which seems pretty circuitous to us. From a drop-down menu in your in-box, you can view your various folders and Nokia Messaging also supports HTML-formatted e-mails.

The Nokia E75 is well-equipped to handle other duties aside from messaging. The smartphone comes with full support for viewing and editing Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents via the Quickoffice suite. The E75's Web browser is Nokia's own and includes support for Flash Lite 3.0, so you're able to view and use such sites as YouTube right from the browser. The handset also includes a number of PIM applications and organization tools, including Adobe Reader, a ZIP Manager, a calendar, notes, a calculator, a clock, a voice recorder, a currency converter, and more. If you're worried about security, you can encrypt the data both on your phone and your memory card.

Of course, applications have quickly become an important factor in the world of smartphones, and to keep up with the competition, Nokia has opened its own app store called the Ovi Store. While the store suffered some performance issues on opening day due to heavy traffic, we had no problems installing and accessing the storefront from the E75. The store's interface isn't the slickest but does offer tabbed category views and a search feature. We successfully downloaded a number of applications, including games, utilities, social networking apps, and news sources like AP News. The Nokia E75 only has about 50MB of internal memory, but the microSD expansion slot can accept up to 16GB cards and you can also save apps to the storage card.

The smartphone works with AT&T's 850/1900MHz HSDPA bands, so unfortunately, if you're using a T-Mobile SIM, you'll be restricted to EDGE, since the carrier's 3G network operates on the 1700/2100MHz bands. However, the E75 also has integrated Wi-Fi, so you don't always have to rely on a cellular connection to get online.

Moving on to the phone features, the Nokia E75 offers quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, conference calling, speed dial, voice commands, VoIP calls, and text and multimedia messaging. The address book is limited only by the available memory, while the SIM card can hold an additional 250 contacts. Each entry has room for multiple numbers, an e-mail address, home and work addresses, a Web URL, and so forth. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, group ID, or a custom ringtone. Bluetooth 2.0 is onboard with support for mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets, hands-free kits, dial-up networking, file transfer, and more.

The E75 has integrated GPS/A-GPS. The smartphone ships with the Nokia Maps 2.0 app, which offers plenty of navigation tools, including satellite and hybrid maps, and pedestrian and bicycle modes. With the purchase of the phone, you get a three-month complimentary subscription to its turn-by-turn navigation services. Afterwards, you will to pay $13.96 a month to continue the service or $125.77 for a one-year license.

While the Nokia E series is largely about business, the E75 includes a number of multimedia features as well. The built-in media player supports MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, and eAAC+ files. The music library categorizes tracks by artists, albums, genres, and composers; you can also create playlists right on the phone and adjust the sound with the built-in equalizer. There's also support for podcasts and the phone offers Internet radio and an FM tuner. If you'd like to watch other videos, you can use RealPlayer to check out 3GPP and MPEG-4 files.

On back, you'll find the E75's 3.2-megapixel camera and flash.
The E75 is also equipped with a 3.2-megapixel camera with an 8x digital zoom, LED flash, and video recording capabilities. You get a plethora of tools and options on the camera, including autofocus, a self timer, and red-eye reduction as well as your standard white balance settings, color effects, and more. In video mode, there are five quality settings, but you only have access to controls for the scene mode, white balance, and color. Once you're done snapping photos or videos, you can share them via multimedia message, e-mail, or Bluetooth; set them as your phone's wallpaper or assign them to a contact; or post them to the Web, whether it's on Nokia's Ovi service or a site like Flickr.

We weren't particularly impressed with the camera's photo quality.
Picture quality was a little disappointing in that there was a slight bluish tint to indoor shots. The objects in the image were clear enough. Unfortunately, video quality was pretty grainy, so the viewing experience wasn't all that great. There isn't much of a lag from the time you press the capture button to the time the photo is actually taken, but we did notice that you have to hold down the key for a while when you first want to activate the camera.

Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; HSDPA 850/1900/2100) Nokia E75 in San Francisco using AT&T service, and call quality was mediocre. On our end, there was a slight buzz that wasn't always evident when people were talking but definitely noticeable during lulls in the conversation, and friends reported a slight echo. That said, it wasn't anything bad enough that we had to end a call, and we were able to use an airline's voice-automated response system without problem. As for the speakerphone, there were some problems in terms of volume. Calls were hard to hear at midlevel but when turned up to full volume, the sound was blown out, so it wasn't great either way. We successfully paired the E75 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.

Overall, the E75 was quite responsive in terms of general performance. We didn't experience any dramatic lags when launching or using applications, and the system was quite stable during our testing period. Despite the Flash support, we found the E75's browser to be a little clunky compared with the competition. Also, the page load speeds weren't all that impressive over AT&T's 3G. CNET's page took over a minute to fully load, while CNN's mobile site took 30 seconds.

Thanks to the inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack, we were able to plug in our Bose On-Ear Headphones and enjoy our music that way. Videos took a little while to buffer and even then, the stream wasn't always smooth, with both choppy picture and audio.

The Nokia E75 includes a 1000mAh lithium ion battery with a rated battery life of 5.2 hours (GSM)/4 hours (3G) and up to 11 days of standby time. The E75 lasted 8 hours in our battery drain tests. According to FCC radiation tests, the E75 has a digital SAR rating of 0.99 watt per kilogram.

We can safely say that we've never seen a phone like the Nokia 7705 Twist. Sure, we've reviewed square handsets before, and swivel models were in style a few years back; however, we've never had the two design aesthetics combined onto one device. We're not quite sure if it works--it's certainly unique, but it's awkward. The Twist offers a fair number of features, decent performance, and a nice keyboard for messaging and e-mail; however, it can't measure up as a multimedia phone. It's available from Verizon Wireless for $99.99 with a $50 rebate and a service contract.

Design
As we said, the 7705 Twist offers a singular design for a cell phone. It's perfectly square (2.71 inches by 2.71 inches by 0.59 inch), but the rounded corners make it look only slightly less angular. We suppose that you'll either love or hate the overall effect. On one hand, it has a clean, minimalist profile and is a bit avant-garde, but some people may find its design to be harsh, weird, and uninspired. Indeed, it's certain to get looks on the street, though maybe not for the right reasons. The Twist's front cover is basic black, but you can use a purple or black battery cover (both come in the box). When closed, the phone slips easily into a pocket, and at 3.44 ounces, it won't weigh you down. It also fits neatly in your hand. (more...)