Daily Marauder

WIRELESS

New applications designed to help smartphone users shop could save consumers money and offset some of the costs of the expensive devices. The G1, or “Google phone,” includes an application that transforms the phone’s camera into a bar-code scanner that connects to the Internet to compare prices on the Web and at local retailers. The New York Times (11/5)

The iPhone is twice as reliable as the Blackberry after one year of ownership, a new study by SquareTrade finds. SquareTrade, which sells extra warranties for cell phones and other devices, looked at the failure rates of 15,000 phones covered under its plans. The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the Blackberry and 16.2 percent for the Treo. (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2008/11/07/study-iphones-twice-as-reliable-as-blackberries 11/7)

Sony Ericsson on Thursday debuted its W705 Walkman phone, which will allow users to download music and popular YouTube videos, as well as stream songs to the accompanying MBS-900 wireless speakers via Bluetooth when it hits shelves in the U.K. early next year. Like Nokia’s “Comes With Music” service, Sony Ericsson will limit users to downloading through Wi-Fi networks as phone makers try to carve out a business model of sending content directly to their customers. I4U News (11/6) , mocoNews.net (11/6)

Fresh out of Nokia Beta Labs comes Friend View, an experimental location and micro-blogging service which works both on mobile phones as well as on the web.  To show your location, the Friend View application is using the built-in GPS or the network if there is no signal available (you can also set your location manually). When you turn on Friend View, it locates you as an avatar on a map and shows you all your friends as well.  (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/07/nokia-debuts-friend-view-beta-a-location-aware-microblogging-application 11/7)

As new research suggests drivers are turning to smartphones equipped with GPS technology for navigational advice, Nokia will launch a project in San Francisco next week in which GPS data culled from handsets will help point drivers armed with smartphones away from traffic jams. Nokia is working with the University of California on the project, dubbed Mobile Millennium, in which devices loaded with Java software will transmit a car’s location and movement to servers that will use algorithms to plot the flow of traffic on a map. PCWorld (11/6) , Network World/IDG News Service (11/6)