10 reasons to pick a Nokia N800 instead of an Apple iPhone

Jim Mendenhall of Starry Hope lists 10 reasons why he would pick a Nokia N800 instead of an Apple iPhone. It looks like he’s not believing the hype at all: the extra cost and lack of freedom of the iPhone is just not worth the small advantages it has over the N800.

From my point of view, his two most important points are:

The price: The Nokia N800 retails for $399 and it is currently available. The iPhone will be $599 with a 2-year contract from Cingular.

Software: The iPhone will most likely not be allowed to run third party applications. The N800 however is open source and Nokia encourages developers to write software for it.

On the negative side though, the N800 internet tablet requires a bluetooth connection to an actual cell phone with a data transfer plan if you want to browse the net away from a Wifi spot. It looks like a very affordable, full-featured internet tablet though.

Via: Darla Mack

The Carnival of the Mobilists is back after a long holiday break. This installment of the Carnival is hosted by Wap Review and it features a selection of 20 great articles on mobile technology sorted in 4 categories: History and Prognostication, Reviews, Technology and Business Plans.

I encourage you to visit Wap Review for a good read!

Have you ever been disturbed in a movie theater by the aggressive ringtone of a cell phone? Your problem could be solved soon. NaturalNano is currently developing a cell phone blocking paint that could prevent all cell phone signal from going in and out of a building.

Halloysite nanotubes coated with copper blended with the paint can prevent specific radio frequency ranges from entering or leaving a room. The paint can be applied to the exterior of a building to prevent any cell phone signal from entering it. To enable transmissions in specific rooms, a small antenna which will relay the signal outside can be installed in the room.

This anti-cell phone paint, however, raises some public safety concerns. Because it would hinder communications greatly in the case of an emergency, cell phone blocking has been made illegal in many states by public safety officials.

I could see the cell phone blocking paint used first in detention centers, where many prisoners can get a hand on cell phones and continue their activities while being detained. However, I don’t think we’ll see anti-cell phone rooms in public buildings anytime soon because of the safety concerns it would raise.

Source: teleclick.ca mobileguerilla.com

Now that we have phones combining a camera, a calendar, web browsing, television and much more in a small device, what else could we possibly add to the lot? A metal detector, of course!

Nokia has patented a metal detector cell phone. The primary purpose of this cell phone is to help people with bad hearing position the phone on their ear, by detecting their hearing aid and emitting a high pitched noise as the phone gets closer to it. However, the metal detector can also be used to detect metallic objects at short distances.

Imagine what you could do with a metal detector in your pocket! The possibilities are endless…

Source: Yahoo News

According to the Dominican Today, the danger of being struck by lightning is increased when you use a cellular phone during a storm.

They base their assumption on the case of a 15-year-old female teenager who was struck by lighting in a large park of London while talking on her cell phone. One year after the incident, she is still in a wheelchair and suffering from physical and emotional problems. The doctors of the British Medical Journal were surprised by the severity of the wounds and decided to bring attention to the case.

In my opinion, the Dominican Today is overreacting. What did they expect? The poor girl got hit by lightning and survived, that is by itself a miracle. I don’t see why they warn people to not use a cell phone during a storm - in fact, any contact with a conductive material is subject to increase the injuries.

So the real conclusion we can get from the article published in the British Medical Journal should be: you have more chance of being struck by lightning if you stand in the middle of a parking lot during a storm, and there is no evidence that using a cell phone during a storm will increase your odds of being struck by lightning.

The Carnival of the Mobilists stops this week at All About Symbian.

For the best articles on mobile technology, head over to the 31st Carnival of the Mobilists and spend some time browsing through the excellent articles that have been submitted this week!

I have contributed to this edition of the Carnival with 7 tips to help protect your cell phone privacy.

Carnivals are a great way to discover new people who share your interests!

As cellular phones become more like portable multimedia centers, the small display on the device becomes a limiting factor. To solve the issue, companies such as Inventables are developing origami cell phones with foldable display. Other companies adopt a more realistic approach: a cell phone with two displays.

The dual display concept phone, named The Polygon, is being developed by a group of design professionals called Alloy. Bearing resemblance to the Nintendo DS portable gaming system, The Polygon cell phone features a high quality upper screen to play games or videos and a lower touch screen display to navigate the menu system using a stylus.

I can see a few drawbacks to this concept phone though - dialing a number using a stylus is quite unappealing to me. The touch screen will probably end up with a few scratches, and most of the time when dialing the user won’t bother to pick up the stylus and will touch the screen directly with his fingers, leaving the screen very dirty and with even more scratches.

It is nice to see all the new innovation in the cell phone business. The Polygon cell phone brings something unique to the market that could be adopted as a standard in the mobile industry.

Source: Innovative Dual Sceen Interface Cellular Phone

To celebrate its first birthday, MobileWhack is giving away 10 $50 Amazon.com gift vouchers! The first 10 persons to leave a comment on this post over at MobileWhack will be contacted by email to receive their voucher.

I think this is a great idea to bring new visitors to your site and to get yourself known even more. The whole mobile blogosphere will probably write a word or two about MobileWhack. As for me, it is a blog I link often to and I recently subscribed to their RSS feed.

At the time of this writing there are still a few prizes left, so hurry up and go!

A new domain is about to be born on the internet. Soon, you will see sites bearing the .mobi suffix appended to their domain name. All the biggest players such as Google and Microsoft are currently registering their dot-mobi domain names for your mobile browsing pleasure.

A site hosted on the .mobi domain name will be optimized to be viewed on a mobile device such as a cell phone or a blackberry. When you access a dot-mobi site, it will load faster and look sharper on a mobile device.

The dot-mobi domain is currently open for registration for trademark names, and will be open for public registration on August 14th 2006. The registration, currently priced at $140USD, is about 14 times more expensive than registering a dot-com domain. This is to help prevent cybersquatting.

It’s rather funny to see all the giants rushing to register their dot-mobi domain names before registration is open to the public. I don’t see dot-mobi as a bad thing as it should help mobile users find content that is easily viewable on their small display.

Source: Brand Naming: The Dot Mobi Domain

Origami, the ancient japanese art of paper folding, might very well have a purpose in the future of mobile devices such as cellular phones.

A problem faced nowadays with technology getting smaller is fitting a large display on these small devices. To circumvent that problem, Inventables are developing an origami based folding technique to expand or fold the screen of a cellular phone or DVD player as the mobile device is opened or closed.

This technology will allow you to have a larger display on a small device, effectively solving the issue of multimedia devices getting smaller. The technique was inspired by the electronic paper (e-paper), a paper made of organic electronics that operate pretty much like a computer screen.

I am eager to see whether or not this technology will be used. For my part, I will be waiting for the holographic display ;)

Source: The Origami Cell Phone