Treo Pro Smartphone By Palm Made Simple

The Treo^™ Pro smartphone by Palm is thoughtfully designed for people who define their workday the way they see fit. Respond to business and personal email, stay on top of appointments and contacts, and use Wi-Fi or GPS when you’re out and about. Then watch a video on YouTube, catch up with news and sports on the web, or listen to a few songs. Treo Pro. Perfectly balanced.

PHONE + MOBILE OFFICE
Whether you’re rehearsing a presentation over breakfast, making changes to a spreadsheet at the ballpark, or picking up email1 while you’re picking up the kids, getting work done on the go is easy.

Phone
Look up a contact directly from the Today screen by entering just a few letters of their name. Then call, email, or text them right from the same screen.

Messaging
Chat-style messaging lets you keep track of the entire conversation, while the full keyboard makes it comfortable to type messages of any length.

Windows Mobile® 6.1
Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional Edition provides the familiar look and feel of Windows®, plus mobile versions of applications you use every day. Download, view, and edit Word- and Excel®-compatible files. Rehearse PowerPoint® presentations. Even review PDF and open ZIP files. And do it all with the ease of a touchscreen and a keyboard at your fingertips.

Touchscreen
The large color touchscreen gives you one more way to access the applications you use most—great for checking email or opening your calendar. Just tap the screen to navigate without scrolling through menus.

Organizer
Carry your calendar, contacts, tasks and notes, so you’re prepared and organized wherever you go. You can sync with Outlook®, accept meeting invites, look up people in your company’s directory, or set an Out of Office email reply when you’re away from your computer.

Add-on applications
Boost productivity by adding an expense tracker, shopping list, or any of the other applications made for the Windows Mobile Professional platform. Even use sales force automation software or your organization’s custom applications.

GPS AND WI-Fi
With GPS and Wi-Fi, you can find where you’re going—and then have wireless connectivity options when you get there.

GPS
Search for the nearest café using GPS and arrive easily thanks to turn-by-turn directions on your touchscreen. (Ah, there it is.) Before you leave, look up the address of your next meeting, and get there without worrying about being late or getting lost.

Wi-Fi
Just press a button and you’ll be online faster than you can say double non-fat latte. The instant-on Wi-Fi button lets you join a local Wi-Fi network, whether you’re in a hotel lobby or an airport, a conference room or a café.

EMAIL + WEB
The Treo™ Pro smartphone by Palm works at mobile wireless broadband speeds, so you can do the things you want to do—even away from your computer.

Outlook® email
Stay on top of your latest Outlook® email on your touchscreen thanks to Microsoft® Direct Push Technology. You can even view graphics and links in HTML email.

Personal email
Check your Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! account and make dinner plans for the weekend. You’ll never miss a thing and always be in touch.

Web
Check news, stocks, or sports scores with Internet Explorer® Mobile. Access your company data in seconds. Stream audio or video without annoying pauses and delays.

High-speed modem
You can even use the Treo Pro as a high-speed modem for your laptop when you’re traveling for business. Suddenly all this speed makes perfect sense.

MUSIC + VIDEO
The large color touchscreen brings your photos and videos to life. Add a pair of headphones, and you’ve got an entertainment center to go.

Windows Media® Player Mobile
With Windows Media® Player Mobile, you can listen to music or podcasts on the train to work. Or watch video clips when you’ve got a few minutes to spare.

Photos
Snap a picture of your son’s first little league hit, and share it with his grandparents as it happens.

Built-in storage
The Treo™ Pro smartphone by Palm gives you plenty of room to carry songs, photos, and videos, and you can always add gigs more with a microSDHC expansion card.

PALM SHORTCUTS
Palm shortcuts and a touchscreen make Windows Mobile® simply effortless, so you can do the things you need to do much faster. With the Treo™ Pro smartphone by Palm, a little ease goes a long way.

Wi-Fi
Join a Wi-Fi network with one touch.1 There’s no scrolling through menus or navigating to different screens—just press a button on the Treo Pro and you’re connected.

Web
Do a quick web search by typing directly on the Today screen. You’ll get your answers without having to locate and launch another application.

Voicemail
The voicemail light flashes on the front of the device, letting you know that you’ve got a new message without even turning on your phone.

Calendar and email
One-touch shortcut buttons take you directly to email and Calendar. So when you need to quickly access your inbox or look up an appointment, there are no complicated steps or wasted time.

Ringer Switch
Palm makes it quick and easy to silence your phone for meetings—just by sliding the ringer switch. No menus, no scrolling, no worries.

SPEC
Platform: Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional Edition

Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7201 400MHz

Display: 320x320 transflective color TFT flush touchscreen

Radio: HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM radio
Tri-band UMTS – 850MHz, 1900MHz, 2100MHz
Quad-band GSM – 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 1900MHz

Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g with WPA, WPA2, and 801.1x authentication

GPS: Built-in GPS

Bluetooth: Wireless Technology Version: 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate

Memory: 256MB (100MB user available), 128MB RAM

Camera: 2.0 megapixels with up to 8x digital zoom and video capture

Battery: Removable, rechargeable 1500mAh lithium-ion; Up to 5.0 hours talk time and up to 250 hours standby

Expansion: microSDHC cards (up to 32GB supported)

Connector: MicroUSB™ 2.0 for synchronization and charging

Audio: 3.5mm stereo headset jack

Dimensions Length: 4.49", Width: 2.36", Depth: 0.53", Weight: 4.69 oz

Color: Obsidian

System Requirements: Windows® XP, Windows Vista™

Software on device
ActiveSync®; Adobe Reader LE; Bluetooth®; Bubble Breaker; Calculator; Calendar; Communications Manager; Contacts; File Explorer; Get WorldMate; GoogleMaps; Internet Explorer® Mobile; Messaging; Microsoft® Office Mobile including Excel® Mobile, OneNote Mobile, PowerPoint® Mobile, and Word Mobile; My Treo; Notes; Pics & Videos; QuickGPS; Quick Tour; SIM Manager; Solitaire; Sprite Backup; Streaming Media; Tasks; Telenav; Voice Command; Windows Live™; Windows Live™ Messenger; Windows Media® Player Mobile

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Palm Rolls Out Its Treo Pro Smartphone

Palm, Inc. today introduced Treo(TM) Pro, an effortlessly usable smartphone for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastructures and lower costs, and for users who want to stay on top of their professional and personal lives. With its streamlined design and Palm shortcuts layered on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Treo Pro is a unique combination of sleek simplicity and robust productivity -- including email, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities -- that meets the needs of businesses and end users alike. Treo Pro, which will be available from Vodafone and O2 in Europe and from Telstra in Australia, also will be available in an unlocked version in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific.

"Businesses want the control and savings that Windows Mobile affords, in an innovative and elegant package that keeps their users happy. That's where Palm comes in," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer, Palm, Inc. "Everything about Treo Pro -- from the hardware design to the packaging and accessories -- embodies the elegant and simplified end-to-end experience that our customers expect from Palm."

The Treo Pro smartphone lets IT managers support an increasingly mobile work force with the ease of use and robust feature set business professionals demand. Besides the benefits of lower costs and increased productivity, Treo Pro can deliver the increased security, easier device management and access to information on the corporate network that Windows Mobile 6.1 provides.

Users can quickly respond to business and personal email, access the web, stay on top of appointments and contacts, and use Wi-Fi or GPS on the go. Treo Pro's thin design blends a flush, high-resolution color touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard with a removable battery that packs up to five hours of talk time and enough strength for the business user's needs, offering a powerful yet effortless mobile experience.

"I'm really happy with Treo Pro -- it's a technology leap from a device design and capability standpoint, enhancing Palm's presence in the Windows Mobile realm," said Wasif Malik, senior systems consultant, Student Educational Services & Mobile Solutions, Ohio State University Medical Center. "It's cleverly designed for Windows Mobile, with a large touch screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and all the productivity applications for Windows Mobile 6 in a much thinner design."

Palm Experience on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional

The Treo Pro smartphone, based on the popular Windows Mobile platform, helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, including:

-- One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).

-- Today screen enhancements -- Web search directly from the Today screen.

-- Ringer switch -- Silences the device immediately.

-- Screen saver -- Lets users know at a glance -- without turning on the device -- what time it is and whether they've missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.

-- New voicemail indicator -- The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.

-- Dedicated email and calendar buttons -- Fast one-button access.

"Windows Mobile is delivering mobile solutions that help businesses address the changing competitive landscape," said Andrew Lees, senior vice president of Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business. "The Treo Pro smartphone brings together a powerful combination of Palm's feature innovations and Windows Mobile 6.1, providing access to the information people need when away from the office."

Lower Costs, Increased Productivity

With Treo Pro, businesses can quickly and easily deploy a secure, low-cost and compatible infrastructure for their mobile workforce by taking advantage of a tightly integrated Palm and Windows Mobile 6.1 solution, including:

-- Microsoft Direct Push Technology -- Direct connection to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or 2007 gives users up-to-date email, contacts and calendars.

-- Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 -- With the deployment of Mobile Device Manager, the Treo Pro can deliver increased security, easier smartphone management, and access to information on the corporate network. IT professionals can confidently manage large Treo Pro deployments.

-- Thousands of applications available for Windows Mobile -- Businesses can extend mobility beyond email to optimize business processes.

-- World phone -- With high-speed UMTS/HSDPA network capabilities, Treo Pro is a sleek world phone that's ideal for companies with an international work force.

-- Integrated GPS -- Users can access maps, turn-by-turn directions and point-of-interest (POI) searches.

-- Support and training -- Palm shortcuts make Treo Pro so easy to use, businesses can spend less on training and support for their users. End-to-end enterprise support means companies can expand the scope of their mobile deployments without putting a strain on internal support personnel.

-- Familiar Windows experience -- Users can browse the web with built-in Internet Explorer Mobile; open, view, and edit Word and Excel compatible files; review PowerPoint presentations and PDF files; and open ZIP files remotely.

Pricing and Availability

Treo Pro will be available in September in Europe through Vodafone (from free to EUR 399 with contract) and O2 (pricing is available from O2 direct sales and online business stores), and in Australia through Telstra (from free with contract). It will be available in the United States in the fall through the Palm online store (http://www.palm.com/store) as well as select Internet, retail and enterprise resellers for a suggested retail price of $549. The U.S. version is unlocked and unsubsidized, giving end users the flexibility to simply insert their existing active SIM card and immediately start using their Treo Pro without a new contract.

Detailed regional pricing is available from local resellers and distributors. Additional Treo Pro availability is scheduled to follow worldwide.

The Treo Pro smartphone comes with an international power charger, microUSB cable and a stereo headset (3.5mm). Other accessories designed exclusively for Treo Pro (sold separately) include a vehicle power charger, leather side case, travel microUSB cable, cradle, extra battery, TTY audio adapter, and replacement styli.

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Samsung Instinct Challenges Apple's IPhone Via Sprint Nextel

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones, began selling its touch- screen Instinct handset for $70 cheaper than Apple Inc.'s new iPhone to win sales in the U.S.

Sprint Nextel Corp. will offer the phone, which can access e-mail and get live television programs, starting today for $129.99 each, according to Sprint's Web site. That's below larger rival AT&T Inc.'s $199 price for the iPhone. Unlike Apple's latest phone, the Instinct can also record videos.

The Instinct joins High Tech Computer Corp.'s Diamond and LG Electronics Inc.'s Vu in challenging the iPhone, which helped Apple become the second-largest maker of so-called smartphones in the U.S. in less than a year. Still, like other touch-screen models, Samsung's new phone is ``no match'' for Apple's product because it fails to replicate the strength of the iPhone's software, according to technology columnist Walt Mossberg.

``I still feel like the Instinct is inferior to the iPhone, in part because it seems so obviously to be imitating it, but falls short in quite a number of areas,'' said Jan Dawson, an analyst at London-based researcher Ovum. ``There's been so much hype and excitement around the iPhone 3G that almost no matter what Sprint does to publicize this launch it will be very hard to compete with the iPhone buzz.''

Apple will probably ship 4 million iPhones in the U.S. in the second half of this year, or quadruple the number of Instinct phones Samsung is likely to sell, according to estimates by Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics in London. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment.

3G IPhone Launch

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, announced the faster and cheaper iPhone this month, which will go on sale in 22 countries on July 11 and run on third-generation, or 3G, wireless networks. AT&T said it would subsidize the device, which will sell for half as much as the previous version.

Unlimited 3G data plans for iPhone consumers will be available for $30 a month, in addition to voice plans starting at $39.99 a month, according to AT&T. The Instinct can be activated with Sprint's plan for unlimited data service starting at $69.99 per month, which will include 450 minutes of voice service.

LG, the world's fourth-largest handset maker, began selling its Vu to AT&T last month, increasing the number of touch-screen phones sold by the Korean company in North America to five. Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, has also promised to introduce touch-screen handsets this year to take on the iPhone.

Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, earlier this month unveiled its latest touch-screen model, the Omnia, which may be introduced in the U.S. by the end of the year.

Omnia Negotiations

``We are negotiating with a number of carriers in the U.S. and we are optimistic that we will come to an agreement soon,'' Youngcho Chi, senior vice president of Samsung, said in a Bloomberg Television interview on June 18. The company is talking to all four major U.S. carriers, Chi said.

The Instinct will run on Sprint's EV-DO Revision A network, which provides faster wireless access to browse the Internet and access e-mails.

The phone also comes with so-called ``haptic'' technology that makes the phone vibrate when the screen is touched. Equipped with 2 gigabytes of memory, the phone can store approximately 2,000 songs from the Sprint Music Store, according to Sprint.

Still, the Instinct is less attractive than the iPhone because of the smaller screen and user interface, according to Ovum's Dawson.

``If you're a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it's no iPhone,'' Mossberg wrote in a column on the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

Fastest-Growing Market

Phones with Internet, e-mail and video are the fastest- growing part of the handset market, with users forecast to quadruple to 400 million units in the next three years, according to RBC Capital Markets estimates.

Samsung boosted its global market share of the mobile-phone market to 16 percent in the first quarter, closing the gap with Nokia, which had a 41 percent, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., ranked fifth after LG Electronics, also plans to introduce its touch-screen X1 device under the new Xperia brand.

Motorola Inc., ranked third worldwide, may lose its No. 1 spot in the U.S. this year as consumers abandon its handsets for more-advanced models, research firms IDC and Strategy Analytics said last month.

``The iPhone is something Samsung will watch out for and may have to sell their phones at lower prices to compete,'' said Choi Hyun Jae, an analyst at Tong Yang Investment Bank in Seoul. ``Samsung will probably have to compete with the iPhone to win market share from Motorola, which is losing share in the U.S.''

Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kansas, fell 21 cents to $8.07 at 9:34 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Apple declined $1.48 to $179.42 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

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TelstraClear Australia Uses CDMA To Re-Enter Mobile Phone Market

Australian owned TelstraClear said today it was re-entering the mobile phone market ahead of schedule with a full service offering for small and medium enterprise business customers.

Early next year, the service would be offered to residential customers and large businesses.

TelestraClear previously resold Vodafone's service, but the pair parted company in June.

The new service will use Telecom's CDMA network. TelestraClear will attempt to woo its fixed line service small and medium business customers to its mobile service.

Spokeswoman Brenda Stonestreet said that in the past TelstraClear offered the same plans as Vodafone at much the same price, but it would now deliver something different.

It had successfully run a pilot scheme of its service with selected customers.

The small and medium business offering includes two voice plans and one data plan, with further plans and bundled products planned for the new year.

TelstraClear's BizMobile Plus plan costs $99.95 per month including 400 minutes of calls to any local landline or mobile at any time. Customers can also buy three gigabytes of data for $75 per month.

The Starter plan costs $30 per month access, with a straight calling rate 40 cent a minute.

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When Your Mobile Phone Sounds Like Your Sound System

Michael Dwyer

Monday is vinyl night at my house. Yeah, real old school.

It may have been some deep-seated ironic impulse that made my friend Richard kick off one recent evening with This is Tomorrow by Bryan Ferry.

It was as good a start as any. For the next few hours, cardboard record sleeves, red wine and informed commentary passed around the living room as the hi-fipopped and crackled like the shared fireplace of prehistoric times.

Then came the heresy."

Hey, check out my new ringtone," said Rich, whipping out his Sony Ericsson W880i mobile.

The cosy analog mood of the evening was suddenly split by the piercing shriek of an MP3 sound file tortured through a speaker the size of a mosquito.

The song was cool - Get it On, by Nick Cave's new band, Grinderman - but the difference between my record player and Richard's mobile digital apparatus was like a lullaby being severed by a dentist's drill.

Nobody's trying to turn back the clock. Vinyl is dead and the MP3 may be crushing the CD into shards of landfill. But can this shrill mobile system really be the future of music consumption?

That future is now, according to one mobile outlet I visited the next day. "Listen to how loud this one goes," the giddy sales assistant cooed, unleashing a screech that made my teeth ache. A 4GB memory card can handle 1000 songs, she exclaimed over the din. "Now, if you want a really loud one �" Louder. Smaller. More songs.

That's progress, as yesterday's mobile phone transforms into the portable music player of tomorrow.

But who's driving the revolution here? Not musicians, surely, and not music fans, either - at least not the kind who sip red wine and listen to old Bryan Ferry albums.

Any major shopping mall has the answer. At my closest, there are a staggering 14 mobile phone outlets, not including several electronics dealers and department stores with phone counters.

A larger-than-life poster of the Wolfmother guy stands sentry at the Vodafone shop, spruiking 500,000 songs for sale at vodafonelive (vodafone.com.au). The Telstra store promises discounted album downloads at $15 from bigpondmusic.com.

The Optus shop has its own free music magazine on the counter.

Inside are interviews with Avril Lavigne and the Doors, an SMS competition to win Good Charlotte tickets and invitations to browse 400,000 songs at the online MTV Music Store.

At the 3 counter, a salesgirl pulls an $1100 Nokia N95 from her pocket and shows me how to download Delta Goodrem's new video for $1.99 from Planet 3 Music Store (what, only 300,000 tracks?).

It's telling that Nokia, the world's biggest phone seller, now sees itself as a major player in the music marketplace. The company launched its online music store last month with a couple of million songs (it's all about quantity these days).

David Watkins, Nokia's regional director of multimedia business, is keen to confirm the marriage of music and mobile phone technology, if only as a detail in a larger push to complete mobile internet access."

I think everyone understands that digitalisation of music has completely changed the industry and the music business is looking at opportunities for its future," he says.

'WE BELIEVE people will use what they previously called their mobile phone (he prefers 'multimedia computer') as their preferred access medium to the internet. And if it's their preferred digital medium, then they are doing their digital music on it."

Purely at a gadget level, there's obvious appeal to phones such as Nokia's N series, Sony Ericsson's Walkman range and Apple's infamous iPhone, to be launched in Australia next year: it's a telephone, web browser and media player in one sexy gizmo.

But as music players, these merged devices currently all share the same problems: price, battery life and storage capacities all compare poorly to existing MP3 players.

Infinitely more complex are the issues concerning how the music finds its way into your gizmo. Today, the most common way is free and easy: "sideloading" CD tracks and MP3s you've acquired elsewhere using Bluetooth or a USB connection.

If you want to download direct to mobile, the best rule currently is don't. It's still mostly slow and expensive because of timed network costs and mobile broadband limitations. So buy it on your PC, then transfer. Mac users? Sorry, you're unwelcome at most of the online stores mentioned above.

But let's get real here. At best, about 15 per cent of music fans buy music online. Of these, about 80 per cent do so at Apple's iTunes site (6 million songs). Their phone options are limited to high-end models that play AAC files, Apple's proprietary MP3 variation.

But all of these numbers, compatibility irritations and market allegiances are shifting fast. The old music business - dominated by major labels and resistant to change for so long - is now awash with new corporate partnerships crucial to its survival in the new digital realm.

Somewhere in the vast grey zone between Bryan Ferry and your mobile phone are legions of middle men - telecommunications companies, internet service providers, digital distribution agencies, "technology solutions providers" - all forging secret handshakes over a multitude of copyright, technological and financial complexities.

From a music company point of view, the mobile future appears so volatile and unpredictable that one major label's digital operations manager opted not to answer questions for this story, even after they were emailed for scrutiny by the international office. "Don't want to affect the share price!" was the paranoid explanation.

Back in the real world, this "Wild West land grab" is simply no place for music consumers yet, according to English music biz veteran Stuart Knight. For 20 years he's worked for record companies, artist management and CD retail. Today he's a partner in Xtaster, a marketing company that uses a digital social network to monitor the musical tastes of Britain's youth.

"There's very little sound evidence to back up a lot of claims as to how the future of the music industry is going to develop in relation to mobile phones," he says.

"Mobile companies have spent billions acquiring and building and marketing high-speed 3G networks and, frankly, they've enjoyed mixed results. They've got to persuade folks to download tracks onto their phone and they've got to persuade them to get these phones in the first place."

Mr Knight believes it will take time before format and delivery methods are standardised and advises consumers to beware the echoes of the Beta mishap that burned VCR buyers in the '80s.

He also suspects that 99 cent music downloads will never make anybody's business viable unless they also have a stake in the gadgets that consumers need to play them. This, he says, is what record companies need to invest in if they are to survive.

"The reason Apple has cornered the market is because it makes the iPod," he says. "The hardware supplements the revenue (from iTunes). If you had to rely solely on the revenue that comes from the downloads, you'd be broke."

All this seems a long and bothersome way from the effortless magic that occurs between a simple music fan and an old Bryan Ferry record.

Martha Ladly sang backing vocals for Ferry in the early '80s, after she'd left Martha and the Muffins to work for Peter Gabriel's Real World Multimedia division. Today, she's a professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design where her specialty is interactive communication and mobile experience design.

"There's such a divide between the people who are making the devices, the people who are providing the service to the devices and the (artists) who are making stuff," she says. "The lack of communication in the industry is actually appalling.

"I think there are way better things to do with this new communication model than to serve broadband content. That's not what it's meant for. What they are doing is saying, 'How can we translate what already exists (i.e., music, video, internet) into this new medium?' They're not saying, 'OK, what does this do really well and how then do we create something that works?' "

And don't get her started on the sound quality issue.

"My phone is a Nokia with some ringtones designed by (Japanese artist) Toshio Iwai but, honestly, to hear the amazing things he's done on this little speaker . . . it drives me mad. It's not what it's meant to be. But I'm not certain people are interested in amazing sound any more."

Daniel Segal, from Ericsson Australia's new media division, confirms her suspicions. "Based on the demographic that tends to be taking up digital content, sound quality is not as important as it used to be," he says. "If you're a 14-year-old who has a mobile phone that can receive MP3s . . . that quality, in our research, is certainly sufficient."

Ironically, Mr Segal also has ample experience at the highest level of music production. As a former sound mastering engineer with a resume that includes Pete Townshend and Duran Duran, he admits he struggles with much of what he hears today.

"But Mr and Mrs Joe at home probably only spend $100 on their hi-fi anyway," he says. "It's probably not as good as your iPod plugged into a couple of Bose speakers."

Or your iPhone, or your Sony Ericsson W880i, or your Nokia N95 . . .

None of the kids I speak to outside my shopping mall can afford those kind of gadgets. But they are perfectly satisfied with the few MP3s that fit on their older, cheaper models. Leon, 17, transfers them from CDs or from his friends' phones. Sometimes he plugs it into speakers or headphones at home.

Harry and George, both 14, get songs illegally from the online file-sharing service LimeWire. "Why would you buy music?" Harry asks. "We got phones. We're not stupid." Nor are any of them interested in buying ringtones when they can sideload their own. "Five bucks for 20 seconds?" scoffs Mark. He's 17, and he's not stupid, either.

Most of these kids have iPods or MP3 players as well. Kate and Alessia, both in their early 20s, aren't interested in a phone and music player in one device because they know they'd be left with neither when the battery fails.

But ultimately, as the 14 dealers inside the mall know, they'll all buy whatever is made to look sexiest when the time to upgrade comes. That's the way it works with mobile phones, just as it did with CD players, cassette decks, Betamax video recorders, eight-track cartridge and stereo hi-fi systems.

Speaking of which, I had a drink with Richard the other night at a bar in Swanston Street with Roxy Music album covers on the wall and a DJ spinning Serge Gainsbourg records.

He laughed when I told him I was writing about his Grinderman ringtone. He'd just seen a vinyl copy of the album in the record shop window downstairs. "I'd buy it," he said, "if I had anything to play it on."

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Using Skype On Mobile Phones

eBay's Skype is working with British cell phone service operator 3 to produce a handset that will allow users to make free calls on the internet, a spokesman for the company said.

A spokesman for 3 confirmed that the group was working to make internet calls mobile but would not confirm any further details or who it was working with.

The phone is expected to work in the normal way but to include a Skype function to contact other Skype customers.

Skype uses an internet connection to place a voice call, cutting out the telephony network for which telecoms operators charge by the minute.

Skype calls to other broadband-connected Skype users are free.

The Skype spokesman did not give any further details but said the phone would be out later this year.

3 is the British cell phone business of Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.

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The Giorgio Armani Phone, Co-Develped With Samsung

Louisa Hearn

Haute couture has shifted its gaze from the catwalk to the world of high technology as the world's top fashion houses jostle to stamp their exclusive labels on mobile handsets and other personal devices.

Italian fashion designer, Giorgio Armani, is the latest to direct his talents to mobile phone design, with the joint launch last month of a credit card-sized 3G phone with Samsung.

The shiny 9.9mm-thick touchpad phone is intended to reflect Armani's signature simplicity. Expected to cost somewhere around the $1000 mark, Armani says the phone was designed to cater for "those who aspire to own a technologically advanced and beautifully designed telephone".

Much like the recently launched LG Prada KE850 phone - retailing in Australia for $999 - the Armani phone has followed Apple's lead and done away with the traditional keypad, leaving users with a compact, glossy handset prominently displaying the designer's label.

"The idea was that we wanted to create a phone that felt like a natural part of Armani line-up. To do that it had to echo the general theme that he puts forward in his fashion label," says Kurt Jovais, Samsung's general manager of marketing.

Although cynics might argue that collaborations with the likes of Prada and Armani are little more than a branding exercise for the handset makers, both LG and Samsung are quick to emphasise the input made by their new partners.

LG says Prada's involvement in designing the KE850 extends well beyond simple aesthetics into the phone's touch screen interface, ringtones, content, and accessories.

Armani, who presented his namesake mobile phone at a press briefing in Milan before his Spring/Summer 2008 women's fashion show, is similarly credited.

"While the Armani brand certainly does help, we're not relying on a brand association in order to put this phone forward. This is a beautiful phone in its own right and one of the reasons why it is so is because it was co-designed with Armani," says Mr Jovais.

Samsung's partnership with Armani is not the handset maker's first foray into the fashion world. It has previously collaborated in one-off projects with the likes of Betsy Johnson, Diane von Furstenberg and Anna Sui to create phones that strongly echo their unique design style.

But fashion can be fickle and one high profile fashion partnership that has not stood the test of time is Motorola's collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana last year.

Motorola said the partnership with D&G, which resulted in a line of gold and silver models for its popular Razr phone, served as a vehicle to launch its own luxury handset designs.

Stephen Amiet, national marketing manager for Motorola says: "As a sponsor of Melbourne Fashion Week last year, we thought the D&G model would complement our focus in fashion. The product worked quite well for us but we don't have any plans for another one coming up."

Similar one-off branding exercises are happening in conjunction with the automobile industry, where the likes of Nokia, Vertu and Motorola are incorporating the logos of luxury car models such as Lamborghini, Porsche and Ferrari in order to launch limited edition phones for car enthusiasts.

But Armani's relationship with Samsung is intended to be far more than a one-off collaboration. On the contrary, Samsung says his influence is expected to reach well beyond mobile phones and into the unlikely terrain of televisions and laptops.

No stranger to the world outside fashion, the designer has been actively involved in the design of a chain of Armani-branded hotels and resorts for Dubai property group, Emaar, with his primary input being the creation of interiors and amenities.

"Today, fashion has expanded to encompass our way of life, not just how we dress, but how we design our home, the hotels we stay in, the car we drive and the technology we buy. In fact, we make as much of a personal statement with the mobile phones that we carry or the televisions we have in our living rooms as we do with the shoes and bags we wear or the furnishings we chose to place in our homes," says Mr Armani.

This dovetails with Samsung's own efforts to re-invigorate the look of household products. "This is not just about having a fashion accessory in your pocket but also making a style statement in the kitchen or lounge room," says Mr Jovais.

He says the addition of rounded corners, unusual angles, upside down chevrons and blue colour accents are all evidence that Samsung televisions are breaking out of the rectangular prison that has held them captive since their invention.

Melanie Moss, a professional stylist, believes incorporating fashion experts into the design process of electronic devices is a logical step.

"They understand the emotional needs of a customer, things like: why are their customers brand loyal, how do they want to appear to the outside world, how do they feel about themselves. I believe these things have more to do with purchasing a phone than what it can and can't do technology-wise," she says.

She adds that style is more about being slick and understated than about over-the-top bling, with accessories adding the personal touch consumers crave.

"Everyone wants to be able to personalise their accessories. We see key fobs hanging off bags and manga characters hanging off phones and wallets etc," says Ms Moss.

Research conducted by Motorola this year indicates that more than three quarters of Australians believe the colour of their mobile phone reflects their own personality, while almost half admit to prejudging others based on the colour of their phone.

More than 50 per cent of those polled also say they prefer to be recognised as "one of a kind" and were thus more likely to chose a specific colour if it was part of a limited edition handset.

Specially designed leather carrying cases, bluetooth headsets and headphones, ringtones and even pre-loaded content are all additional areas where designers are hoping to tap into this need to stand out.

"In Australia the phone has become such a fashion accessory, and women in particular want to be seen as fashionable in every sense. They also want it to reflect their personality and to personalise it to suit their style and taste. No one is going to buy an ugly phone," says Mr Amiet.

But Samsung hopes the Armani label will help it transcend gender divisions. "It is a stylish phone and in the true sense of Armani I think it appeals to both genders," says Mr Jovais.

"They both want something that looks good and there will be a certain amount of bragging rights when you put it on the table".

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10 Years Use Of Mobile Phone Exposes You To Brain Cancer

The use of mobile phone for more than 10 years increases the risk of getting brain cancer, according to the most comprehensive study of the risks yet published.

The study - which contradicts official pronouncements that there is no danger of getting the disease - found that people who have had the phones for a decade or more are twice as likely to get a malignant tumour on the side of the brain where they hold the handset.

The scientists who conducted the research say using a mobile for just an hour every working day during that period is enough to increase the risk n and that the international standard used to protect users from the radiation emitted is "not safe" and "needs to be revised".

They conclude that "caution is needed in the use of mobile phones" and believe children, who are especially vulnerable, should be discouraged from using them at all.

The study, published in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal Occupational Environmental Medicine, is important because it pulls together research on people who have used the phones for long enough to contract the disease.

Cancers take at least 10 years - and normally much longer - to develop but, as mobile phones have spread so recently and rapidly, relatively few people have been using them that long.

Official assurances that the phones are safe have been based on research that has, at best, included only a few people who have been exposed to the radiation for long enough to get the disease, and are therefore of little or no value in assessing the real risk.

Last month, Britain's largest investigation into the health risks of the technology, the £8.8m ($NZ23.5m) Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) programme - funded by "government and industry sources" - reported that "mobile phones have not been found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects".

But its chairman, Professor Lawrie Challis, admitted that only a small proportion of the research had covered people who had used the phones for more than a decade.

He warned: "We cannot rule out the possibility at this stage that cancer could appear in a few years' time."He said the investigation had discovered "a very slight hint" of increased numbers of brain tumours among those exposed for more than 10 years, and called for more research.

The new study - headed by two Swedes, Professor Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro and Professor Kjell Hansson Mild of Umea University, who also serves on the MTHR programme's management committee - goes some way to meeting the deficiency.

The scientists pulled together the results of the 11 studies that have so far investigated the occurrence of tumours in people who have used phones for more than a decade, drawing on research in Sweden, Denmark Finland, Japan, Germany, the United States and Britain.

They found almost all had discovered an increased risk, especially on the side of the head where people listened to their handsets.

Five of the six studies of malignant gliomas, cancers of the glial cells that support and protect the nerve cells, found an increased risk.

The only one that did not still found an increase in benign gliomas.

As did four of the five that looked at acoustic neuromas, benign but often disabling tumours on the auditory nerve, which usually cause deafness.

The exception was based on only two cases of the disease, but still found that long-term users had larger tumours than other people.

The scientists assembled the findings of all the studies to analyse them collectively.

This revealed that people who have used their phones for a decade or more are 20 per cent more likely to contract acoustic neuromas, and 30 per cent more likely to get malignant gliomas.

The risk is even greater on the side of the head the handset is used: long-term users were twice as likely to get the gliomas, and two and a half times more likely to get the acoustic neuromas there than other people.

The scientists conclude: "Results from present studies on use of mobile phones for more than 10 years give a consistent pattern of an increased risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma." They add that "an increased risk for other types of brain tumours cannot be ruled out".

Professors Hardell and Mild have also themselves carried out some of the most extensive original work into tumours among long-term mobile phone users and have come up with even more alarming results.

Their research suggests they are more than three times more likely to get malignant gliomas than other people, and nearly five times more likely to get them on the side of the head where they held the phone.

For acoustic neuromas they found a threefold and three-and-a-half-fold increased risk respectively.

They have also carried out the only study into the effects of the long-term use of cordless phones, and found this also increased both kinds of tumours.

Their research suggests that using a mobile or cordless phone for just 2,000 hours - less than an hour every working day for 10 years - is enough to augment the risk.

Professor Mild told The Independent on Sunday: "I find it quite strange to see so many official presentations saying that there is no risk.

There are strong indications that something happens after 10 years." He stressed that brain cancers are rare: they account for less than 2 per cent of primary tumours in Britain, though they are disproportionately deadly, causing 7 per cent of the years of life lost to the disease.

"Every cancer is one too many," he said.

He said he uses a mobile phone as little as possible, and urges others to use hands-free equipment and make only short calls, reserving longer ones for landlines.

He also said that mobiles should not be given to children, whose thinner skulls and developing nervous systems make them particularly vulnerable.

The danger may be even greater than the new study suggests for, as Professor Mild says, 10 years is the "minimum" period needed by cancers to develop.

As they normally take much longer, very many more would be likely to strike long-term users after 15, 20 or 30 years - which leads some to fear that an epidemic of the disease could develop in the coming decades, particularly among today's young people.

On the other hand, the professor points out that the amount of radiation emitted by phones has decreased greatly since the first ones came on the market more than a decade ago, which suggests that exposures and risks should also be falling.

But he still recommended choosing phones that give out as little radiation as possible (see below), and pointed out that people are now also exposed to many other sources of radiation, such as masts and Wi-Fi systems, though these emit much less than mobile handsets.

Britain's official Health Protection Agency - which has taken a cautious view of claims that radiation from mobile phones, their masts and Wi-Fi installations can damage health n admits that the study "may be indicative" of a risk, but says that "such analyses cannot be conclusive".

The Mobile Operators Association said: "This is not new data for the World Health Organisation and the many independent expert scientific committees who state that there are no established health risks from using mobile phones that comply with international guidelines."

Both sides agree that there is need for more research.

Professor Mild said a possible link between mobile phones and Alzheimer's disease should also be examined, since "we have indications that it might be a problem" as well as a possible link with Parkinson's disease, "which can't be ruled out".

In the meantime, the scientists want a revision of the emission standard for mobiles and other sources of radiation, which they describe as "inappropriate" and "not safe".

The international standard is designed merely to prevent harmful heating of living tissue or induced electrical currents in the body n and does not take the risk of getting cancer into account.

Professors Hansen and Mild serve on the international BioInitiative Working Group of leading scientists and public health experts, which this summer produced a report warning that the standard was "thousands of times too lenient".

The BioInitiative report added: "It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that some adverse health effects occur at far lower levels of exposure ... some at several thousand times below the existing safety limits."

It also warned that unless this is corrected there could be "public health problems of a global nature".

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