Peanut Butter News

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CNET) — Dell said Friday that it’s ready to enter the smartphone business with the Android-based Mini 3.

Long rumored to have such a device in the works, Dell said that the first two carriers to sell the Mini 3 will be China Mobile and Brazil’s Claro.

The Mini 3 will apparently use OPhone, China Mobile’s customized version of Google’s Android operating system. “We are excited for Dell to be among the first manufacturers to introduce new technology based on the OPhone platform,” an unnamed China Mobile representative said in Dell’s press release.

We’ve got a call out to Dell to seek clarification on the operating system software.

Full Story at CNN.com

(Wired) — Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.Seriously.
Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.
Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5’s founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.

It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop.

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNET) — It’s getting to be that time of year again: The leaves change, the temperature drops, and we redecorate our living rooms, desks, cars, and backpacks with shiny new electronics.

A recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association found that respondents plan to spend, on average, $222 each on gadgets this holiday, an 8 percent increase over last year. And among teens and adults, computers and video games are the most wished-for items this year after clothing.

One of the grand traditions that goes along with buying electronics is being asked at the register, “Would you like to purchase the extended warranty?”

Full Story at msnbc.com

NEW YORK – Verizon Wireless’ answer to the iPhone — the Droid — will go on sale for $200 next week as the company taps into the growing appetite for smart phones that go far beyond making calls.

The Droid could help Verizon retain its status as the nation’s largest wireless carrier and contribute to a turnaround of its manufacturer, Motorola Inc., which hasn’t produced a hit since the wildly popular Razr phone in 2005.

The new device also could give a boost to Google Inc., which used the Droid to unveil new mapping software that could challenge standalone navigational devices, sending GPS gadget maker Garmin Ltd.’s stock plunging after Wednesday’s announcement.

Full Story at CNN.com

His latest concept — to launch a camera into near-space using a weather balloon, a cell phone, hand warmers and a drink cooler — fell flat when he sent out an e-mail message to dozens of his classmates, asking for help.

Unfazed, Yeh managed to find one friend willing to chip in. And on September 2, the go-it-alone pair floated a balloon-camera high enough into the atmosphere to photograph the curvature of the Earth and the deep black of space, all on a lunch-money budget of $148.

Full Story at CNN.com

The software maker said that the first phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 will launch worldwide on October 6 and will include phones running on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless.

The new crop of phones will also be the first that Microsoft will sell under the “Windows Phone” brand, an effort to tap into the marketing power of its flagship desktop operating system.

With Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft is hoping to convince users that its phones are not just good for doing work. Much of Microsoft’s phone focus in recent times has been on improving the operating system’s consumer features in an effort to regain ground lost to rivals.

Full Story at msnbc.com

CLEVELAND – An Ohio bus driver who had been fired and reinstated after an earlier accident was on her cell phone when her bus struck and killed a pedestrian in March, according to investigators.

Angela Williams, 49, of Cleveland, was indicted Thursday on a felony charge of aggravated vehicular homicide. If convicted, she could get up to five years in prison in the death of Patrick Merrill, 59, of suburban Berea.

He was struck in a crosswalk while the bus was making a left turn. It was the second fatal bus accident involving a pedestrian in a crosswalk in seven months in Cleveland.

Full Story at BrainstormTech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

Apple passed an important milestone last quarter that nobody on Wall Street seems to have noticed: the iPod, once Apple’s (AAPL) No. 1 source of revenue, fell into third place after the Mac (No. 1) and the iPhone (No. 2).

Think of Apple’s business model — as Steve Jobs often does — as a three-legged stool: Mac, iPod, iPhone. As recently as 2006, the iPod leg accounted for 55.5% of Apple’s revenue. By last quarter, its share had shrunk to less than 18%.

But this is a good thing, argues Bullish Cross‘ Andy Zaky, a day trader and occasional blogger whose estimates of Apple’s earnings regularly beat — by a long shot — the estimates published by professional analysts

Full Story at CNN.com

On Monday the company announced that customers subscribed to its Verizon Fios Internet service with 20Mbps per second downstream and 15Mbps upstream or faster and customers who subscribe to its 3Mbps/768 Kbps or higher DSL service will be able to connect to Verizon Wi-Fi hot spots, at no additional charge as part of their broadband service.

Verizon has partnered with the Wi-Fi service Boingo to offer access in thousands of locations throughout the U.S. including hotels, airports, restaurants, coffee shops, retailers, convention centers and public locations across the U.S.

The company has a Web page where customers can locate these Verizon hot spots. For example, in New York City, the service is available at many Barnes & Noble bookstores, as well as at JFK airport, and in some Starbucks locations.

Full Story at msnbc.com

While heroic politicians all over America are mandating bicycle helmets, it’s still legal to drive 4,000 pounds of steel 60 miles an hour while your brain is turned to the moron setting.

Oh you know exactly who and what I’m talking about. You know because you are that one guy in all the world who is perfectly capable of operating your automobile and cellular device simultaneously without endangering yourself or those driving around you … all of whom are also operating their automobiles and cellular devices simultaneously, because they too are quite certain that they are that one guy … but of course they’re wrong because it’s you who is that one guy, not any of them … morons.

Full Story at msnbc.com

Donnie and Sharon Leutjen and their 15-year-old granddaughter, Taron Leutjen, were found June 9. They had been shot to death, and their bodies had lain in their home in Cole Camp, Mo., for about two days.

Authorities know approximately when the Leutjens were shot because they got a 911 call on the night of June 7.

On the tape of the call — which investigators examined after the worried inquiries of someone who knew the family led to the bodies’ discovery — “one of the male voices was directing Sharon Leutjen to sit down (and) put her arms behind her,” the sheriff’s office in Benton County, in central Missouri, said in court documents.

Full Story At Tech.yahoo.com

CHICAGO -

Get lost in the woods and a cell phone in your pocket can help camping buddies find you. Drive into a ditch and GPS in your car lets emergency crews pinpoint the crash site. But when a transcontinental flight is above the middle of the ocean, no one on the ground can see exactly where it is — in the air, or worse, in the water.

The disappearance of Air France Flight 477 and its 228 passengers over the Atlantic Ocean this week has critics of radar-based air traffic control calling on the U.S. and other countries to hasten the move to GPS-based networks that promise to precisely track all planes. Current radars are obsolete more than 200 miles from land.