Tuesday's program Ken and Andy talk about the changes at T-Mobile, Will MSNBC change their 24 hour news format ,Nokia's new N95 mobile harddrive phone, Is TV making kids fat, Getting a .mobi worth your time, Are you ready for WeeMees everywhere, NBC has a winner with Heros and a new tool to take your telephone to the next level - here comes GrandCentral.
T-Mobile Makes Big Changes
T-Mobile USA is launching a host of new services, including a new generation of Internet phones, to attract customers away from both wireless and land-line phone companies -- and it plans to drop its celebrity pitchwoman, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Subscibers can roam onto wireless Internet connections at home and in T-Mobile's thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots, people familiar with the company's plans say. Other U.S. cellular carriers are considering offering similar products, but T-Mobile is leading the way. And it may become the first U.S. carrier to provide a Vonage-like Internet calling service, these people said. Both services could mean less-expensive monthly phone bills for millions of consumers.

MSNBC may be ready to quit live news
There has been speculation for months about MSNBC’s future as a 24-hour cable news channel—or, maybe more to the point, its lack thereof. But one indication may have come last July, when the 10-year-old network launched a newsmagazine, MSNBC Investigates. Word is that the perennial also-ran in cable news is considering the possibility of virtually dropping out of the live-news business and devoting itself entirely to taped, newsmagazine-style programming —much of it likely repurposed from NBC News. In other words, “The Dateline: NBC.
Nokia unwraps feature-filled N95 smart phone
 Nokia has taken the wraps off its new top-of-the-range N series handset, attempting to wow buyers with the gadget's two-way slider mechanism, five megapixel camera, integrated GPS receiver and support for HSDPA-enabled 3G networks.
Nokia stressed the N95's role as the multi-blade knife of mobile phones. The phone sports a 2.6in 240 x 320, 16m-color display backed by a dedicated 3D graphics chip - presumably one of ATI's, the result of the two firms' collaboration announced earlier this year. The phone has built-in stereo speakers and a standard 3.5mm earphone-jack socket. It can take Micro SD cards for storing music and "DVD-like quality" movies shot on the five megapixel camera, which also boasts a Carl Zeiss lens. UPnP support allows content to be streamed to other devices.
FCC to name media and obesity task force
The FCC is forming a task force to examine any relationship between the media, advertising and youth obesity in America. The task force will be led by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a known media critic, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and commissioner Deborah Tate. One primary reason for the increase in the obesity rate is television. A recent study suggests that children spend an average of 28 hours per week watching, the most prominent activity second only to sleep.
'Pointless' .mobi landrush launched
The registration of .mobi domains has been opened to all-comers, although most of the decent names are likely to have been claimed already.
The new domain, aimed specifically at mobile devices, has been available to trademark holders since May. Over 12,000 names have already been snapped up. The dotMobi registry has reserved over 5,500 so-called 'premium generic terms', such as sex.mobi and sun.mobi, which it claims is designed to avoid domain names falling into the wrong hands.
Get Your WeeMees
Internet users in the US and Canada can now use a personalised online identity called WeeMee. WeeWorld will include its WeeMees on AOL instant messenger - making it available to "several hundred million" users in North America and the UK. The personalised digital identities are available in 39 countries and more than 10 million WeeMees exist. WeeMee users can choose their body shape, skin color, hair style, emotion, clothing, accessories, pets, pastimes, passions, pursuits, sports, backgrounds, moods, emotions and feelings.
Heroes Flies!
It's always risky to declare any new show the "best new series of the season" when all one has to judge is the pilot episode. With that caveat, NBC's "Heroes" is the best pilot of fall 2006. Whether it continues to soar in future episodes remains to be seen. The pilot quickly and easily establishes its characters: normal people from all walks of life in different parts of the world who suddenly discover they have extraordinary powers. Kudos to the cast for making it easy to buy into their characters and care about them from the start. Some of the characters will even use their powers for selfish, evil reasons, rather than for the heroic good. I plead NBC to keep this show going without looking at the ratings - Remember Jerry Steinfeld!
Today's Site To Peek At:
Web based phone management service GrandCentral is launched at DEMO and it’s one of the most interesting uses of VOIP I’ve seen yet. When you sign up for a GrandCentral VOIP number you can do all kinds of useful things with incoming calls and voice mail through the service’s web interface. Here’s a list of some of the features:
* Incoming phone calls ring on different phones according to which group you’ve placed a caller’s phone number in.
* You can play different voice mail greetings for friends, family and work calls.
* Voice mail is stored indefinitely.
* Voice mail can be listened to and replied to with just a few clicks.
* Voice mail messages can be listened to in real time and you can jump in to initiate a conversation in real time with one click.
* Telemarketers or others can be banished to the spam folder so if you’re called by the same number again your phone will simply not ring.
* You can click to have GrandCentral call both the person who left a message and your phone.
* You can record a section of any call with one button on the keypad of your phone.
* You can seamlessly switch from one of your phones to another.
A number of these features will really only be useful with repeat callers, but not all. I think that’s a pretty impressive feature set. Accounts created now are free for 60 days (no credit card required) and will cost $25 for 1000 minutes or $15 per month for unlimited use. There will also be a free, 100 minute per month option indefinitely - though that may only be useful to tell people to call you back on your other number if you decide you don’t like GrandCentral. |