Jitterbug sells bare-bones handsets and no-contract service plans geared toward seniors and other consumers who don’t make heavy use of cell phones. One of its phones, the Jitterbug OneTouch, has dedicated buttons for the Jitterbug operator, one preset number, and 911 in place of a numeric keypad. Jitterbug has service and roaming agreements with many CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) operators around the country.

That phone, as well as the standard Jitterbug phone with a keypad, have been recalled because they can’t be used to call 911 emergency lines in some areas where they should be able to. Manufacturer Samsung Telecommunications America is recalling about 160,000 of the phones for a free software upgrade that can’t be done over the air, according to Jitterbug Founder and Chairman Arlene Harris. There have been no reported accidents or injuries caused by the phones, according to a notice by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Users would only run into the problem in rare circumstances, according to Harris. In an area where there is a CDMA network but Jitterbug doesn’t have a roaming agreement with the carrier, the phones can’t be used for regular calls and users receive an "out of range, try again later" message on the handset’s screen. While the phones should still be able to reach 911 through the local network, the recalled handsets cannot.

Customers could only encounter this problem in a few small areas of the country, Harris said. Samsung is conducting the recall voluntarily and is helping Jitterbug reach its customers by letter. Phones purchased from Jitterbug today don’t have the flaw, Harris said.

Samsung recalls 160,000 Jitterbug phones

Rubin claims the releases will come from 8 or 9 manufacturers with faster adoption seen in Europe as US carriers try to "create highly distinctive versions of the Android phone to give themselves an edge." Sure, edge, if that’s what you want to call the US cartel of hoops and handcuffs then go right ahead. Interestingly, Rubin also further clarified the three flavors of Android which break down as follows:

• Google-free: Free to download version of Android without Google applications like Gmail or Google Calendar. Access to Android applications is at the whimsical fancy of the manufacturer.
• Strings attached: Same as above but manufacturers sign a distribution agreement with Google and pre-install the Google applications. Of Rubin’s possible 20 phones, 12 to 14 fall into this category
• The Google Experience: Phones featuring the Google logo with all Google apps installed and includes unrestricted access (neither the carrier nor handset maker can block applications they find objectionable) to the Android market. 5 or 6 of the 20, Android phone mentioned by Rubin will deliver the full Google Experience as god and Sergey designed it.

18-20 Android phones Coming soon

Although McAdam would not say what the two companies discussed, two people familiar with the subject said talks covered the new smaller iPhone-like device under development. Representatives of Verizon Wireless and Apple declined to comment. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel says: “We are delighted with the iPhone and our partnership with Apple.” The company declined to make an executive available.

AT&T by the way, has been the only carrier of Apple’s iPhone in the U.S., adding more than 7 million subscribers as a result of the arrangement; the company is reportedly in talks with Apple to extend the partnership, due to end as soon as next year. An agreement to distribute Apple communication devices via Verizon Wireless may cost AT&T some of the business it has gained as the sole Apple carrier. Even if Verizon Wireless and Apple fail to strike a deal, talks between them increase pressure on AT&T to accept partnership terms favorable to Apple.

Now it’s not surprising for Apple to launch a smaller and cheaper version of it’s popular products, The ipod with it’s ipod shuffle, the Mac with Mac mini, Why not iPhone? as competitors trying to get a slice of the market with similar products. launching a cheaper version of it’s product would surely make it harder for the competitors.

A Cheaper iPhone, Why Not?

The device, according to published reports, will be a kind of miniature tablet computer. Like the iPhone, it would be able to access the Internet over cell phone data networks, allowing users to surf the Web just about anywhere. And analysts expect that, like the iconic smart-phone, the retail price would be subsidized by wireless carriers.

Those rumors have heated up amid the growth of the netbook market. Recent reports suggest that Apple will announce at least two new devices, including an updated iPhone, at its June developer conference in San Francisco. It’s unclear whether Apple will also unveil the new, larger touch-screen device.

Netbooks are small, low-cost laptops that are the fastest-growing category of PCs. They’ve become popular replacements for standard notebooks for travelers and families looking for a second or third computer in the house.

Netbooks sell for about $500 retail, but wireless providers offer them for as little as $100 upfront. They market them like cell phones, selling them below cost and making up for it with a monthly subscription fee from consumers.

Apple’s new product for the Netbook Market

It said handsets would have a micro USB interface, already used to transfer pictures from digital cameras to a computer.

The initial group of companies that have signed for the change include Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Operators such as AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, T-Mobile and Vodafone are also part of the initiative.

The GSMA said that eventually it expected mobile phones to ship without a charging plug and cable because everybody would have one.

This should also lead to less waste and could yield energy savings because the agreement calls for chargers to meet efficiency targets, the group said.

Mobiles to have same charging socket by 2012

Yahoo Mobile will launch at the end of March in a form downloadable to any phone with a Web browser and from May in custom versions for hundreds of smartphones.

“There is a growing number of consumers out there who are not Apple iPhone users but want a rich starting experience,” Marco Boerries, the head of Yahoo’s mobile division, told Reuters in an interview.

Yahoo will also launch a version of Yahoo Mobile, designed to be a starting point for users to access the Internet, for the iPhone itself at the end of March. A test version for a limited number of public users is going live this week.

Yahoo Mobile offers a front page with colorful, boxy icons resembling the iPhone’s for launching popular applications such as a Web browser, mail, news, weather and social network sites like Facebook.

Users also have the option to easily add any software or Web sites they choose to download on their phones.

The company plans in coming months to promote Yahoo Mobile via a series of 70 major operator partnerships it has struck to reach 850 million mobile subscribers around the globe.

Fifty of those partnerships already offer Yahoo services and the company expects the rest to adopt Yahoo Mobile in coming months, Boerries said.

Yahoo has developed versions that work on hundreds of mid-range and high-end mobile phones from BlackBerry maker RIM, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, as well as phones running Microsoft Windows.

Boerries defines the universe of phones that can effectively run Yahoo Mobile as “every phone that’s shipped in the last two years that has a decent HTML-capable browser.” He added: “We don’t want to make lowest common denominator stuff.”

A more general version of the service downloadable from the Web will also work on older phones but will not be tailored to those phones’ specifications. Boerries demonstrated it on an old Sony Ericsson model.

Boerries said last year’s on-again off-again talks with would-be buyer Microsoft had not significantly distracted his team, and said he had kept his key staff together for years.

After some prior delays in introducing services such as Yahoo Go, Boerries professed relief that his fuller vision of putting the Web on phones had arrived on time: “It is really, for me, making it all come together.”

“This is like the uber-replacement of Yahoo Go.”

Yahoo offers iPhone-like Web for masses

The graphics chip maker said this new class of devices will provide users with a full high-definition experience that boasts a cheap price and a battery life 10 times that of current Intel Atom-based netbooks. Nvidia will be speaking more on its latest moves in mobile at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

The devices will range from 3-4 inch pocket gadgets similar to the iPod Touch to bigger 12-inch tablets and more traditional-looking computers. They will be able to decode 720p and 1080p video and should be able to run for days. The Internet devices will run Windows CE, will support Wi-Fi and 3G and will be able to provide browsing on Internet Explorer and attachment viewing.

With its latest moves, Nvidia is poised to scramble the nascent netbook market. It just announced Windows Vista certification for its new Ion platform, which pairs an Nvidia graphics processor with an Intel Atom CPU. That should provide the basis for a more expensive laptop experience but with a cheap sub-$499 netbook price. Now, with this new line of HD mobile Internet devices, Nvidia can create a viable class of devices that will provide Web access and computing, but with a much longer life, a cheaper price and better video than a netbook.

“There has never been a better time to bring this functionally to people at a very low price,” said Mike Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia’s mobile business.

Rayfield said he expects carriers will want to subsidize the cost of the devices and sell them direct to consumers, as they do with cell phones today.

He said Nvidia is working with manufacturers who will assemble the new mobile machines. The first of these devices should appear in the second half of this year.

Nvidia’s Tegra ready to power $99 mobile Internet devices

The sleek-looking, touch-controlled ‘Blue Earth,’ the centerpiece of Samsung’s drive to be more environmentally friendly, has solar panels on its back which the company claims are able to charge the battery in 10-14 hours.

This would offer approximately four hours of talk time, a company representative said at industry event Mobile World Congress where the phone is on display for the first time.

The device, expected to be launched in Europe in the second half of 2009, can also be charged normally via a plug, with the solar panels used to top up the battery to extend its power.

Fellow South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics also has put a prototype solar-powered phone on display here but the company has no launch date or name for the device.

Industry watchers say the market for a solar-powered phone would include outdoor types in developed countries such as fishermen or campers who head into the wilderness without access to electricity.

Its recycled materials and built-in pedometer, which shows how far the user has walked, might also appeal to fans of eco-sheek gadgets.

If the price was low enough – Samsung has not revealed details yet – such a phone could also help link up the millions of poor worldwide who live either without or with very limited access to electricity.

Solar-powered mobile phone

With the show officially under way, HTC added two new models to its Touch series of smartphones: the HTC Touch Diamond2 and the HTC Touch Pro2. While the names lack imagination, the handsets get some spiffy makeovers and incorporate new features that bring a “people-centric approach to mobile communication.”

The two smartphones share some features between them, including the new single-view contact integration. This brings your complete conversation history, whether it be text, voice, or e-mail, onto a single contact card and can also be viewed on the in-call screen. In addition, the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 are the first devices to employ HTC’s new Push Internet Technology to help speed up downloads and rendering of Web pages on your smartphone. Finally, both devices use HTC’s latest TouchFlo 3D interface, which brings more relevant information to the forefront and includes enlarged touch focus areas to make them more touch-finger friendly.

Now, the differences. Obviously, form factor is one thing. The Touch Diamond2 is the next evolution of the HTC Touch Diamond, sporting a thinner design (4.25 inches high by 2.09 inches wide by 0.54 inch thick) and larger 3.2-inch, VGA touch screen with a gravity sensor. There’s a new touch-sensitive zoom bar that makes it easier and faster to zoom in on Web pages, e-mails, text messages, photos, and documents.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 device claims to have 50 percent better battery life and also includes a 5-megapixel camera, 512 MB ROM/288 MB RAM with expandable memory, and a 528MHz processor.

Moving onto the HTC Touch Pro2, the HTC Touch Pro is still very much a business-centric smartphone and adds HTC’s Straight Talk technology, which claims to improve the speakerphone quality using asymmetric speakers and advanced noise suppression with full duplex acoustics. The speakerphone will also automatically activate when you the phone over and place it face down on a flat service.

Like the Diamond2, the Touch Pro2 gets a boost in screen size. The smartphone is equipped with a 3.6-inch WVGA (480×800) touch screen with a proximity sensor and the aforementioned zoom bar. It also boasts a sleeker design and keeps the slide-out full QWERTY keyboard for all the messaging nuts.

As far as availability, the HTC Touch Diamond2 is expected to ship in Europe and Asia during Q2 of 2009, while it will reach the rest of the world (read: the United States) later this year. The HTC Touch Pro2 is slated to ship worldwide this summer, but pricing for both phones was not revealed at this time.

HTC debuts Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2

Read on for the full lowdown on Nokia’s newest Navigator.

One of the major goals for the Nokia 6710 Navigator was to make it an effortless satnav companion, for driving and walking, offering quick access to real-time navigation via a dedicated navigator key and an instinctive service via Nokia Maps 3.0. Something Markku Suomi, vice president at Nokia, emphasized today.

“The navigation solution provided by the Nokia 6710 Navigator is second to none and provides everything you would expect from a dedicated GPS device with all the benefits of a converged mobile device… We want to make the experience as simple and effective as possible, which means the navigation licenses are pre-installed and ready to use as soon as you turn on the Navigator”

The new Nokia 6710 Navigator has also been designed to ensure it can cope with the heavy demands of GPS, and is able to deliver up to 12.6 hours of GPS pedestrian navigation and 6.6 hours of car navigation.

Location-based service such as Nokia Maps 3.0, and it’s ability to geo-tag photos via it’s 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, are backed up by some serious data sharing credentials – the Nokia 6710 Navigator supports both high speed uplink (HSDPA) and high speed downlink (HSUPA), meaning you can share photos and videos far faster and more efficiently than before.

The Nokia 6710 Navigator will arrive in the third quarter for around 300 Euros, before taxes and subsidies.

Click through our gallery of photos of the Nokia 6710 Navigator to get a detailed look at this smart S60 satnav handset. Let us know what your reckon to its arrival in the comments section beneath.

Nokia 6710 Navigator launched