Treeduck

To picture the next-gen microscope, don't picture a microscope at all. Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, is adapting cell phones to sample biological images.

This is no iPhone app. Ozcan, who formed the company Microskia (on the heels of the UC Berkeley team that developed CellScope), has built a prototype whose cell phone camera sensor can detect a slide's contents at a cellular level--reading, for example, an increase in white blood cell count that might indicate a new infection or injury. That information can then be forwarded wirelessly to a lab or hospital.

The brilliance of Ozcan's design is that magnification is done electronically, requiring no lens. (CellScope, on the other hand, takes a more conventional approach as a miniature microscope with expensive lenses.)

Ozcan simply added LEDs to the phone, and those diodes direct light over the sample, which is analyzed in front of the camera sensor. The resulting hologram is recorded by the camera as a collection of pixels, and can be analyzed through Ozcan's software for diagnostic decisions.

The applications for this kind of affordable and mobile device abound. Screening for malaria is a big one, or monitoring someone's white blood cell count throughout chemotherapy.

Viruses such as HIV and H1N1 are currently too small to detect at this point, Ozcan told me by phone: "They are so small compared to the wavelength of light that their scattering is not going to help. But there are ways to get around this through optics, that we are working on."

When the technology does get there, he says, you could "photograph" your own nasal swab, upload it to a Web site that compares images for diagnosis, and know whether you have the flu without ever leaving bed. Because let's face it: the last place someone with a compromised immune system should be is a crowded emergency room.

With the official launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 underway, Sprint got in on the action and announced the upcoming availability of its first Windows phone, the Samsung Interpid.
The Intrepid will be available starting October 11 for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. Aimed at business users, the smartphone has world roaming capabilities, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and support for Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network. The Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional phone also features a 2.5-inch touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard.
There are plenty of apps and services on the device as well. The Intrepid offers a Smart Read business card scanner (works with the phone's 3.2-megapixel camera), access to social-networking sites, and Microsoft's TellMe service for voice-activated dialing, texting, and more.
The Samsung Intrepid also supports a number of Sprint services, including Sprint Navigation, the Sprint Music Store, and Sprint NFL Mobile. Of course, you can also download more apps through the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
Originally posted at CTIA Fall show

By now, you've heard about the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 and some of the new features added to Microsoft's mobile operating system, such an improved Internet Explorer Mobile, My Phone backup service, and Windows Marketplace for Mobile. However, what if you want to get the benefits of 6.5 without having to get one of the new smartphones?
Well, to help current Windows Mobile phone owners, Microsoft has posted an update guide that outlines upgrade eligibility. Essentially, devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6.0 are out, but Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphones, such as the Samsung Jack, the T-Mobile Dash 3G, and the HTC Touch Pro2, have the green light. That said, release schedules and availability will be up to the carriers.
Originally posted at CTIA Fall show

On the opening day of CTIA Fall 2009, Samsung and Sprint started things off with a bang by announcing the Samsung Moment, the second Google Android phone to be released for both companies in the United States. The Moment will be available starting November 1 for $179.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate, but customers can preregister for the smartphone starting today at Sprint's Web site.
Unlike the Samsung Behold II, which will be available from T-Mobile on November 2 for $199.99 with contract, the Moment features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard in addition to the 3.2-inch AMOLED touch screen, which has a proximity sensor and accelerometer. The smartphone is powered by an 800MHz processor and is stocked with all the necessary wireless options, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and support for Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network.
Like the carrier's other Android device, the HTC Hero, the Samsung Moment offers access to various Sprint services, such as Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, NFL Mobile Live and, of course, you can download more apps and widgets through the Android Market. The handset also has a 3.2-megapixel camera, a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, Visual voice mail support, and up to 32GB expandable memory.
In addition to the Samsung Behold II and the Samsung Moment, Verizon Wireless and Google announced a partnership to bring two Android devices by the end of the year--rumored to be the Motorola Sholes and another version of the HTC Hero.

Earlier in September, Microsoft revealed that the first batch of smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.5 would start shipping on October 6. Since then, we've already learned the identities of some of the devices, including the HTC Touch2 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2. LG said it will introduce three new Windows Mobile phones in the next few weeks, and Samsung has revamped its Omnia line with Windows Mobile 6.5. Not a bad showing, but it looks like it's only the beginning.
According to Benjamin Tan, senior director of the GCR Mobile Team Unit at Microsoft China, there will more than 30 smartphones running on Windows Mobile 6.5 by the end of 2009. Tan told a group of reporters that the devices would come from more than 15 handset manufacturers. In addition to the companies mentioned above, HP, Acer, and Toshiba have voiced their support for Microsoft's mobile OS as well as carriers worldwide, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and Telus.
In fact, Verizon Wireless has already confirmed that it will offer a WM 6.5 upgrade for the HTC Touch Pro2 by the end of the year, and Sprint has alluded to doing the same for its version of the smartphone. AT&T is also rumored to be getting its own version of the Touch Pro2 under the Tilt 2 name as well as the HTC Pure (aka HTC Touch Diamond2).
While the merits of Windows Mobile 6.5 have yet to be seen in real-world testing, it's still nice to see a new crop of devices added to the mix. Microsoft has been noticeably absent during a busy summer where Apple, Palm, and Google dominated the headlines.
While well-known as a business-friendly platform, Windows Mobile has been criticized for its sluggishness and unintuitive user interface and the Windows Mobile 7 delays don't help, but in the meantime, Microsoft hopes the new touch-friendly interface, improved Internet Explorer Mobile Web browser, and additional services (My Phone backup service and Windows Marketplace for Mobile) of WM 6.5 will lure in more consumers. Microsoft will also start selling the handsets under the "Windows Phone" brand instead of Windows Mobile.
(Source: Digitimes via Engadget Mobile)
Originally posted at Crave

The Nokia 2705 Shade is a new compact flip phone for Verizon Wireless. Surprisingly, you can buy the Shade with or without a camera, and you also have the choice of various Xpress-on changeable covers, which are sold separately.
Features include a 1,000-entry phone book, text and multimedia messaging, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and Bluetooth. The Shade will be available starting October 6 as an online exclusive for $29.99 with a new two-year commitment. The Xpress-on covers are available in blue, red, and purple for $19.99 at Verizon Wireless' online store as well.

AT&T is on a messaging-phone craze lately, and Pantech has joined the effort with two new texting handsets, the Pantech Reveal and the Pantech Impact.
The Pantech Reveal looks like a regular, fat, candy bar phone at first glance, but it actually slides vertically to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard underneath. Interestingly, both keypads stay active when you slide the handset out. You get the typical text and multimedia messaging features, of course, plus GPS with AT&T Navigator, 3G, and a music player. It will be available in both red and blue starting October 18.
The Impact, on the other hand, has an unusual OLED touch screen on the outside with what looks like touch-sensitive number keys. It opens up to a secondary display plus a full QWERTY keyboard. We know that it'll feature a music player and tri-band 3G. It'll be available in both pink and blue.

The Pantech Impact sure makes one in pink.
(Credit: Pantech)
Both phones will come with a new proprietary AT&T mobile browser that promises a full HTML experience "similar to your PC browser at home." AT&T describes it as having three windows: one where you can assign bookmarks and shortcuts, another where you can get localized results for news, weather, nearby restaurants and so forth, and a third that just feeds in the latest news headlines. If you want, you can customize your mobile.att.net homepage by hitting the "Send to Mobile" feature. This whole browser thing sounds a bit odd, but we'll have to wait and see what it looks like.

Motorola has silently made the Entice W766 phone official, but with all the buzz around the Android-powered Cliq / Dext, probably no one has noticed.

Previously known as Motorola Harmony W766, the Entice is a simple clamshell that provides “one touch access to your favorite functions.”

The new phone comes with CDMA 800/1900 1X/EVDO connectivity and it will be launched in the US exclusively via Verizon Wireless – Sprint might get it too, but probably under a different name.

The full specs of Motorola Entice W766 include:

2.2 inch internal TFT display with 176 x 220 pixels and 65k colors
VZ Navigator
Email, IM
Web browser
Stereo Bluetooth
Music player
2.5mm headset jack
2MP camera with video recording
35MB of internal memory
MicroSD card support, up to 8GB
Talk time: up to 330 minutes
Standby time: up to 395 hours
3.8 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches
3.6 ounces
Verizon should launch the Motorola Entice W766 on September 22. The phone’s price will be of $39.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement and after a after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Via Motorola, BGR

Nokia’s Symbian smartphones are popular for many reasons – one of them may be the fact that Nokia allows mobile operators to customize their software.

Well, Nokia apparently intends to try a different approach when it comes to devices that will use its new Maemo platform.

According to Reuters, the Finnish giant plans to reduce the level of software customization that carriers are usually imposing – this way, its upcoming Maemo smartphones will be more like Nokia wants, and not like the carriers want.

David Rivas, Nokia’s vice president for devices R&D, was quoted as saying:

“Very clearly Apple, Android… are a whole lot less about providing customization to the operators and a whole lot more about providing a really cool, compelling value proposition to the end-consumer. We have an opportunity, that we are going to take advantage of, with Maemo platform to play the game a little bit more along those lines than with Symbian lines.”

Without being able to tailor the software the way they want, some carriers might refuse to sell Nokia’s Maemo devices. That’s why analysts believe that Nokia will actually do it the carriers’ way.

“I don’t believe Nokia can afford to say no to customization. For N900 to succeed on the market Nokia has to approve any service operator wants to run on the phone,” declared IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo.

Well, I guess we’ll see how things are going when the N900 – Nokia’s first Maemo smartphone – hits the market, sometime in October this year.
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Yahoo announced three new mobile applications Tuesday as the company continues to focus more on developing specific applications for the iPhone and other select smartphones like the BlackBerry.
The most widely publicized application to be announced Tuesday is Flickr for Mobile. This application is only available for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. It's free from the iTunes App Store. And it allows users to upload, share, and tag photos and videos. Flickr already has a browser-based mobile app at M.flickr.com.

The official Flickr app for iPhone and iPod Touch offers search, browse, and upload features.
Yahoo also created two new mobile applications for a few BlackBerry models.
Yahoo Finance for Mobile works on the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the BlackBerry Bold, Tour and 8900 series. This free application allows users to track companies, market indices, and news. It also lets users drill down into specific companies for more data. Yahoo already has a browser-based version of the application.
Yahoo also announced Yahoo Fantasy Football for Mobile. This application is available for the iPhone/iPod Touch and the BlackBerry Bold, Tour and 8900 series. Using this application, football fans can manage their teams from their phones, add and drop players, view match-ups and player stats, and get news and expert advice.
These new applications, which are specifically designed for the iPhone and a handful of BlackBerry devices, are part of the company's latest strategy to address the mobile market. Earlier this year, Yahoo shifted its mobile strategy to focus more on developing separate and distinct applications instead of creating services that fell into an all-encompassing Yahoo application.
"Before we had a one-size-fits-all approach to the application market," said Sandeep Gupta, senior director of mobile applications for Yahoo. "But the iPhone changed how consumers accessed applications. Now, they want to search for and download point applications. And we thought it was better for us to fit into this world."
Yahoo's primary goal with the strategy shift is to bring Yahoo's PC-based services to mobile phones. And in order to do this, Yahoo executives said they needed to develop and distribute applications like other developers, which meant adopting the iPhone model.
To execute this strategy, Yahoo is taking a two-pronged approach. It is offering browser-based applications for its more general properties, such as travel, personals, or some of its entertainment sites. But for more frequently visited sites, such as Flickr and Finance, Yahoo is creating native applications.
"Yahoo has a huge set of properties that we want to bring to all mobile users," Gupta said. "But we can't have customized application experiences for all of them. It's too much work. So we have created a broad experience for a whole host of sites. And we're creating a more customized app experience with a richer experience for certain vertical sites."
In February, the company announced the newly revamped Yahoo Mobile service, which combines all the organizational elements of Yahoo OneSearch, OnePlace, and OneConnect together in a single application. The redesigned service is a scrollable mashup of search, news, e-mail, social networking, finance, weather, sports scores, and other RSS feeds.
The company decided to offer the service to more than 400 mobile devices as a browser-based application. But it also built a version specifically for the iPhone. The app is free to download and is available on Apple's iTunes App Store.
Now, Yahoo has created three other native applications that have been customized for specific devices. Initially, these applications are only available on the iPhone and certain BlackBerry devices. The reason for this is simple. The iPhone and the BlackBerry currently have the most interactive mobile users, Gupta said. But he added that the company will eventually tailor these same applications for other smartphones, such as the Palm Pre and Google's Android phones.
"We're not waiting for these other devices to get popular," he said. "Work is going on. But it's a matter of priorities. There is a lot of investment needed to build these applications. And we have prioritized which devices have the most interactive users."
Originally posted at Signal Strength