Anyone that has their life on the go has at one point felt frustrated  searching for an unsecured WiFi connection while traveling . If like me, and have experienced this more often than not, at one point you must have dabbled with the thought of using your mobile phone as a “modem” through which can can connect  your laptop to the internet for ultimate internet mobility. The bad news is you’re not an original genius. The good news it is possible and infact widely used,  a process known as Tethering .
When done correctly this works like clock work, however the key point is getting it done correctly, which invovles technicalities that most just find cumbersome.

Solution for the masses : Turn your WiFi enabled phone into a wireless router !

This has to be one of the niftyiest things i’ve seen done with a mobile phone in a long time .
Basically if you have a WiFi enabled phone,  running this application you can turn your phone into a WiFi router that your laptop can connect to just like the regular wireless router you have at Home or Office, except in this case you laptop connects to your mobile phone , which then connects to the internet using your 3G/Edge connection.

Absolute Sheer Brilliance !

We all know how disgustingly cluttered Mac user interfaces tend to be , after all isn’t that the reason why so many people are leaving Mac and taking the leap of faith into the wonderful world of clean Windows designed interfaces ?

(Serious pun intended)

If you’re one of the few that took the above with an ounce of seriousness, fear not, you are not an estranged lonely creature (well not lonely at least), there are others like you that are in fact so believing in the cause they’ve decided to take the iPhone and make it look like Vista !
Not only does it look like Vista , it quacks like Vista: with Start Menu action and occasional blue screens of death (not really)

For the other 99% of people that may ask Why would you do such a thing ?

The answer: Attention

PCOnline in China gave what we believe was the first hands on test run of Samsung’s latest beast : i900

What’s so special about it ? Check it :

• 3.5 touchscren display
• 16 GB (yes, that is GIGA bytes) of onboard memory with microSD expansion.
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera.
• 3.5G HSDPA connectivity, Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro OS,  Wifi
• The standard features (Bluetooh, ADP, FM radio…)

Reports are suggesting Samsung is doing an extensive polish on the user interface to make it very touch me friendly….oh behave !

A Red version of the Sidekick Slide is now available for purchase through T-Mobile. Expected retail price is 199$ with two-year agreement.

The Sidekick Slide Crimson is identical in specs to it’s previous counter parts, except well the obvious Crimson paint job.

Sexy non the less…

Sony Ericsson’s latest P5 model seems to have gone from artist rendered concepts into actual prototypes as indicated by the latest images leaked on the net (see below)

Rumored specs are as follow:

• 5 megapixel camera
• Integrated GPS
• 2.6-inch touch-screen display
• Just like the K850i, there is row of touch-sensitive keys located at the very bottom of the screen
• UIQ 3.3 User Interface

Knowing SE’s constant bad luck and delays with P-Series phones, let’s hope this one makes it out of the production line this century..

GPS (Global Positioning System) is really going main stream . Previously limited to military and governmental use, GPS chips can now be found in an endless array of devices ranging from dedicated GPS-talking-tablet type gadgets, to your laptop and If big brother has his way: Your arm.

While GPS chip’s usually output Latitude and Longitude coordinates, this in it’s RAW format proves to be of very little help to us average Joe’s . Instead the true power of GPS lies in extrapolating the data and producing useful , usually visual, information from the above data.
One of the most compelling and widely used Application of GPS data is mapping software, where your location is super imposed on a map . This allows you to see where you are relative to your location, search for objects of interest and even get real time (sometimes spoken) driving directions.

While commercial mapping software for cell phones does exist and does a great job at all the above, believe it or not you can get free GPS mapping software on your cell phone that is nowadays as reliable and robust as any other paid for commercial solution.

Since the best things in life are free, staying true to Sinatra’s mantra, we list the top 3 free GPS mapping solutions below, additions to the list are more than welcome:

Free GPS compatible Maps Software List:

1. Google Maps Mobile
   Advantages: Global , Up-to-date, Huge index of points of interests , Cross platform compatible, Multiple views of area (Terrain, Map or Hybrid)
   Disadvantages: Data is not locally saved, Data intensive internet connection always required, No speech guided directions.
2. Smart-2-Go
   Advantages: Maps saved locally, Internet connection not needed, Speech guided directions.
   Disadvantage: Not as comprehensive as Google maps, Maps can be rather large to download initially.
3. Map Quest Mobile
   Advantages: Same as Smart-2-Go + Cross platform compatibility
   Disadvantages: Not as comprehensive as other methods.
4. Leaf
   Advantages: Free, Smart Search, 2D-3D Views
   Disadvantages: Windows Mobile Only

More to be added as discovered …

Virgin Mobile USA has designed an application, that  allows Virgin Mobile USA’s customers to get their friends on Facebook to  pay for their wireless minutes !

The “Fund My Phone” application can be installed just like any other Facebook application and placed on the user’s profile.

Now there’s way to separate your real friends from acquaintances …

I’m personally a big fan of widget applications (Widgets are light weight applications). Be them Vista, Mac or Web widgets, sometimes a widget does it best.

Plusmo is a new service that brings widgets to mobile phones. With over 20,000 cross platform widgets, now you can get a cool calculator, the latest teams scores, news, stock quotes and tons of more stuff, all in a nicely formated widget .

Singapore Airlines has announced it’s plans to offer iPod and iPhone connectivity on select business class flights.

Just like them hi-tech treadmills, the system will allow passengers to enjoy content from their iPod or iPhone through the aircraft’s in-flight entertainment system, which is displayed on the private 15.4-inch widescreen monitor available on every seat, while simultaneously charging your iP(hone/od).
To make your experience whole some , active noise-cancellation headphones are provided as an extra cherry.

If you’re one of those people that enjoy the captian coming on every once in a while and informing you of what’s to your left and right (clouds and some more sea), then fear not , announcements and instructions made by the crew will be mixed into your playing media, in true iPhone fade-in/out fashion…

First we had The Bold and Beautiful blackberry 9000 and now Blackberry is sweetening up it’s line up with the new Blackberry 9500 code named : Thunder

The BlackBerry Thunder is, of course, a touch based cell phone that is supposedly 4G ready with LTE and GSM HSPA. It will be exclusive for Verizon ….

Blackberry really seems to be getting it claws out when it comes to defending it’s territory against Apple , eh ?