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Who needs to pay $100/month for a Blackberry? If you can get e-mail functionality and calendar functionality without spending the big bucks... well, any schlub can pay retail... Just visit calendar.google.com from your phone and see your agenda of upcoming events, complete with details like date, time, location and guest list. See the GoogleBlogPost on the subject.
The trick seems to be to have a compatible phone with the right service plan so that you can take advantage of the free services offered by Google, Yahoo, Teleflip and others. Becoming untethered from our desks gives us the chance of having fun, even though gas prices are going up. Hiking instead of motorcycles, kayaking instead of waterskiing.

Posted by Anet Dunne at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you have a Cingular Blackberry 8800 (okay, I mean AT&T, the current name of the company formerly known as Cingular), when you download Google Maps for mobile and fire it up, not only do you get the map when you search for info, you get a blinking blue dot that shows you exactly where on the map you are! Why is this cool? Since Google maps knows where you are, you only have to enter "pizza" or "hospital" and they automatically show the closest ones. No more adding the zip code or city name. More more, see the GoogleBlogPost.

Posted by Anet Dunne at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

David Pogue, columnist for the New York Times, gives us the latest details on services available to provide e-mail delivery to many ordinary cellphones. Three new services -- from Google, Yahoo and Teleflip -- can deliver your e-mail messages directly to ordinary nonsmart cellphones. Because I have a Blackberry, and I have a Gmail account, I have an application that downloads my Gmail when requested, but it is slow. David Pogue says that the new service "Gmail for Mobile" is five times faster than m.gmail.com, which is what I use in my Verizon Blackberry's Web browser, but that the new service only works on about 300 phones from AT&T (formerly known as Cingular), Sprint and T-Mobile. The Yahoo and Teleflip services are very interesting, too. Teleflip works on any phone by converting e-mail to text messages, and only sending the ones you specify. Click here for the whole article.

Posted by Anet Dunne at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google said, “The biggest growth areas are clearly going to be in the mobile space,” at a conference in San Francisco on April 19. The New York Times said that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have trained their sights on cellphones as the next great battleground in the Internet search wars. Click here to read the whole article.

Posted by Anet Dunne at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Bill Gates said that society is set for a dramatic shift to digital media. He predicted that within five years, almost everyone younger than 50 will stop using the printed Yellow Pages. He also said, "Reading is going to go completely online. We believe that as we get the smaller form factor, the screen has gotten good enough. Why is reading online better? It's up to date, you can navigate, you can follow links." Click the link to read the whole article. There is also buzz that Microsoft is thinking of buying Yahoo which is continuing to struggle to with profitability. Today Yahoo announced that they are ending their online auction service for North America.

Google's advertising revenue of $10.5 billion last year dwarfed Microsoft's advertising of about $1.5 billion for its 2006 fiscal year. But Microsoft makes most of its revenue from licensing Vista software, not from advertising.

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