Yahoo! Go brings the Internet to you. Unlike prior applications that attempt to force-feed a PC experience to your phone, Yahoo! Go has taken the Internet services you love and optimized them for the mobile experience.

“People want easy access to the Internet on their mobile phones (and) we believe that Yahoo! Go will be a catalyst for broader adoption of the mobile Internet,” said Marco Boerries, executive vice president of Yahoo’s Connected Life Division.

The beta versions, now in such countries as France, Canada, United Kingdom and India, include the same functionality as the U.S. version.

By the end of July, Yahoo! Go will be supported by more than 200 different mobile phones. Yahoo! expects to expand that to 400 before the end of 2007.

For more information visit Yahoo! Go

Add another to the list… USA Today, the nation’s top-selling newspaper, is combining print news, text messaging, mobile advertising and mobile search.

Users signing up to USA Today’s text alerts for news, sports, gossip, etc. will receive real-time updates and a sponsored interactive ad. Short codes appear daily in the print edition of the paper. Matt Jones, director of mobile strategy and operations at Gannett Digital (Gannett owns USA Today), said the service “allows us to take a non-interactive platform, a newspaper, and make the print product interactive.”

Look and feel: There’s no question that the Ocean’s a big phone: at 4.3 by 2.2 by 0.9 inches and about 5.6 ounces, the Ocean is nearly as big and heavy as my Treo (although it’s noticeably smaller than the bulky Sidekick). But while it makes for a tight fit in a jeans pocket, the Ocean’s nice curves and rubberized shell felt good in my hands. As for its twin keypads, I’m a bigger fan of the full-QWERTY keypad than of the numeric one. Don’t get me wrong—I love the two-way slider concept, which keeps you from having to guess which QWERTY keys are for dialing and which aren’t—but the thin, curved rows of numeric keys were tricky to press. The roomy QWERTY keypad was a pleasure, however, and I especially appreciated the dedicated “@” key for composing e-mail messages.

In the box: The Ocean comes with a solid set of accessories, including a wired stereo headset, a USB cable, and an adapter for earphones with standard 3.5mm minijacks—a nice change from the carriers who ship their phones with no accessories at all. There’s no included microSD card for memory expansion, but the Ocean’s generous 200MB of internal memory (good for a few dozen songs) will tide you over until you get one.

Interface: I’ve been a fan of Helio’s user interfaces in the past, and I’m pleased to report that the Ocean’s menu system looks even better now; previously tough-to-use features (like conference calling) are much easier to use now, and I never lost my way through the myriad options. I just wish the whole experience was a bit more unified; there’s nothing like the Sidekick’s “Jump” button that takes you back to the main menu. Also, a jog dial or trackball would be a welcome addition (my thumb kept reaching for a trackball that wasn’t there).

Messaging: Outstanding—I especially liked the Ocean’s unified messaging screen, which shows you at a glance the status of your e-mail and instant messaging accounts. You get out-of-the-box support for Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Windows Live Mail and Gmail, along with all their respective IM services (save Google’s), and Helio is promising Exchange ActiveSync support for corporate servers later this year. A couple of things are missing, though: the Ocean won’t automatically fetch your POP/IMAP messages (you have to collect them manually), and HTML-formatted e-mail messages are stripped of their formatting—then again, my pricey Treo 700p (and the Sidekick 3, for that matter) has the same problem.

Web browsing: The Ocean’s mobile Web browser earns high marks, but it falls just shy of the bar set by Nokia. Web surfing was quite speedy, faster even than on my 3G Treo, and the cool zoom feature instantly zooms text and images up to 200 percent (or down to 50 percent). The browser borrows Nokia’s mini-map so you can see your position relative to the rest of the page, which is a nice touch. The Ocean’s browser puts HTML pages through Google’s mobile optimizer by default; you can scroll to the bottom of a page and click a link to see the full HTML version, but you can’t turn the option off altogether, which was a bit annoying. Also, the browser struggled to render full HTML pages correctly; it couldn’t display the Yahoo! front page at all, and the IMDB front page looked jumbled (Nokia’s Web browser breezed through those tests). Still, I’ll take the Ocean’s browser over almost any other mobile browser out there, including the Sidekick’s.

More info can be found: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/1442

French multimedia giant Vivendi could soon be launching a multimedia Web site for the third screen, reports Les Echos. The company has set up a new unit, Vivendi Mobile Entertainment with the goal of developing this new portal, which is being compared to Myspace or YouTube, and will offer music, video, film and game content from Vivendi and other partners. The service will be a paid site, and the story reports that it will likely launch in France this fall with a roll out to other European countries to follow.

For more information visit:
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/05/25/afx3757597.html

Features include:

• call forwading
• screen calls live
• record your calls
• manage your voice mail
• spam and block calls
• personalized caller greetings
• ringshare
• call switching
• and more…

GrandCentral mobile, now lets you do that on the go.

The new version is not a downloaded application, but works through your WAP browser. From within the mobile optimized site, you can manage your call notifications, call forwarding, contact list, place a call, and visually manage your voice mail (a really useful feature coming out on the iPhone and supported by GotVoice). You will also be able to set your cell phone’s voice mail to forward calls to your GrandCentral phone number.

GrandCentral was founded by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet.

Yahoo has been getting good press of late (often at Google’s expense) for its wide release of oneSearch, a mix of structured and unstructured data in search results intended to deliver “answers” rather than links. Last night Yahoo made several more mobile announcements.

Google, appearing to respond to oneSearch and other competitive challenges, has upgraded its WAP-based search to incorporate more data and information into results. There also appear to be some interesting personalization features. Here’s the Google Blog describing the changes. You can test it out online here.

This small percent is significant considering that wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs have limited bandwidth and small displays that make viewing a standard web site difficult or impossible.

Most industries have a few brands with mobile web versions, however the ones with the highest adoption rates fall into five main categories:

• Internet & ISPs (23%)
• travel (18%)
• insurance companies (17%)
• entertainment (17%)
• electronics/home appliances (16%)
• pharmaceutical, retail, and educational segments have mobile web site adoption rates of 1% or less.

Brands were placed into 1 of 15 categories then processed using inSitesEngine, RarePlay’s platform for distilling web intelligence, to determine Mobile Web Presence, which was measured by identifying the utilization of at least one of nine known mobile domain formats by the brand.

“Brands like BMW, RedBull and T.G.I. Friday’s have adopted mobile web versions despite low implementation rates in their respective categories. As industry leaders, more brands will follow suit,” said Ron Knowlton, RarePlay CTO. “Today people have mobile lifestyles and they expect to have access to information from anywhere — mobile web capabilities provide just that.”

“An 8% mobile web adoption rate is small when you consider 42% of Alexa’s top 100 websites have mobile web versions,” said Bob Rattivarakorn, RarePlay Research Analyst. “Recent surveys suggest roughly 20% of the U.S. online population over the age of 15 accesses the Internet over their mobile phones — close to 30 million potential mobile site visitors being overlooked,” he added.

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• Japan - 95%
• South Korea - 94%
• China 93%
• France - 85%
• Germany - 83%
• UK - 79%

Mobile Internet Usage
As of April 2006, an estimated 28% of mobile users had accessed the Internet from their mobile phones, up from 25% in late 2004.

Whilst this number signals growth, the fact that makes it more interesting is that the chief growth came from the sector comprising 35-54 year old males. This demographic is not known to invest in technology fads, and their adaption to this technology signals viable growth prospects.

Mobile Internet usage has grown worldwide, with Japan leading the pack. The percentages of mobile users accessing the Internet per country are:

• Japan - 40%
• UK - 29%
• USA - 26%
• South Korea - 26%
• Canada 19%
• Germany 18%
• France - 18%
• Mexico - 16%
• China - 10%

Mobile Data Uses
The use of mobile phones for data related services varies from downloading ringtones and music to accessing adult services. The percentage breakdown of the services accessed from mobile phones is:

• Music (including ringtones) - 32%
• Adult - 22%
• Pictures - 15%
• Games - 14%
• Information services - 10%
• Video - 7%

YouTube announced that its leading video entertainment service will be available to people on Verizon’s Wireless V CAST.

YouTube plans to deliver a sampling of the most popular videos to Verizon Wireless’ V CAST subscribers in the United States. With the largest community for online video entertainment, YouTube’s move into the mobile space will enable a new audience of mobile users to enjoy entertaining videos virtually whenever and now wherever they want.

“We are excited to launch our new mobile service and to partner with Verizon Wireless to bring YouTube videos to a new audience,” said Steve Chen, chief technology officer and co-founder of YouTube. “People want to be entertained in a way that fits their individual lifestyle. This service offers our community and Verizon Wireless subscribers a new opportunity to connect and engage with their favorite videos. We will continue to roll out more exciting partnerships and features for the mobile user over the coming year.”

“Delivering YouTube content gives V CAST customers a mobile connection to video content that has revolutionized how people are being entertained today,” said John Harrobin, vice president of digital media for Verizon Wireless. “Today’s announcement is groundbreaking for mobile video, and we’re proud to be working with the leader in online video entertainment. This relationship signals Verizon Wireless’ commitment to bring the very best entertainment to V CAST customers.”

YouTube will provide Verizon Wireless’ V CAST customers with a variety of videos, enabling users to access video clips on any one of the Verizon Wireless V CAST-enabled handsets, including the Chocolate (LG VX8500) and MOTOKRZR K1m. Video enthusiasts also will be able to record and share their favorite moments with their mobile phones — whether it’s an unbelievable skateboard trick or memorable moments, such as their child’s first steps.

To get V CAST, Verizon Wireless customers can purchase a V CAST VPak subscription for $15.00 monthly access, or $3.00 daily access, added to their Verizon Wireless calling plan. The subscription includes unlimited basic video, but application download fees apply for 3D games and premium video. There are no airtime charges to stream or watch V CAST content.

Get more information here.

The Nokia HSPA is made up of two key technologies, HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), enabling true mobile broadband with breakthrough data speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps in the downlink and up to 5.8 Mbps in the uplink. It runs approximately 10 times faster than the previous 3G network.

Polkometel is one of three mobile telephony operators in Poland and has been working with Nokia since 1996. They were the first company to offer UMTS service (September 2004), MMS messaging and voice-based access to SMS messages to its customers.

The phone comes with an instant discount that drops the price from $199 to $99, and I’m sure there’ll be added deals when new contracts are factored in.

More: Phone Details - T-Mobile Website

The Casio G’zOne, while having a ridiculous name, is an interesting idea for a phone. Instead of being as slim and trendy as possible, the G’zOne is rugged. It’s military spec water and shock resistant and it comes with a 2 megapixel camera with video and speakerphone.

You kind of have to wonder why they can’t make all cell phones water resistant, but I guess that’d make too much sense. Or cost too much, one or the other.

The G’zOne will also support VZ Navigator, Get It Now, and Vcast Video. It’s probably going to retail for $420 full price, $350 with a year contract, and $300 for a two year deal, so start saving. Nice to see a unique phone though.

The new Samsung E428 seems to be focusing entirely on the young female. The new phone features a white case with lace designs on the front, a 3.0 megapixel camera, and an OLED 1.8 inch screen. Engadget Mobile points out the lack of Bluetooth, which is an odd decision by Samsung, but maybe it’ll be corrected if they eventually launch the phone to a worldwide audience. For now the phone will be limited to a Taiwan release later this month.

It’s crazy that ringtones are going platinum now, but what’s even crazier is that Jibbs has sold one million ringtones of his new song “Chain Hang Low” before his record has even been released. He’s only the second artist ever to sell a million ringtones before their album’s released.

Ringtonia points to this article that says that “10 percent of music industry revenues worldwide now come from ringtones”.

The prepaid market fascinates me for a variety of reasons, perhaps because I’m a sociology buff, and these phones are obviously meant for an underclass (regardless of how they’re marketed - which is usually to teens). And that’s not even bringing up the use of prepaid cells in organized crime, which might be the sole reason they’re profitable.

But anyway, this is a longwinded way of saying that when it comes to mobile, I find the prepaid market to be the most interesting, and I probably watch it a little closer than I do other areas.

Virgin Mobile is what I’d probably label the trendiest of the prepaid providers, and they’re launching a new phone they’ve dubbed “Slice”. It’s a thin phone (10mm), with 32mb of storage, an FM radio transmitter, a 128×128 display, and a speakerphone, but when it comes to frills that’s about it. The phone is priced at a pretty disposable $50, which ought to make it pretty popular when it comes to Virgin users.

Not sure if this is officially available yet, but Engadget Mobile says that Circuit City is selling them as of now.

LG keeps rolling out interesting phones, and the latest is one they’ve dubbed Shine.

Shine is a 13mm wide slider phone that’ll only be available in Korea to start, but will surely roll out to a worldwide audience before too long (this is the same way Chocolate was released).

Shine’s features include a 2 megapixel camera with flash and 1 GB of memory. It also comes with something called ‘MUVEE’, a feature that allows users to create movies with background music and user photos.

The best looking part of the phone looks to me to be the 2.2-inch QVGA display which looks like a mirror when turned off. Definitely a good looking phone.

(Via)

This seems like an odd combination, but textually is reporting that Levi’s is going to start producing mobile phones and accessories.

Engadget is saying that this’ll just be in Europe, but either way it seems like an odd move for a jean’s company. Levi’s says that “drawing its inspiration from the iconic roots of the Levi’s brand, the collection will be a youthful and sexy take on the brand heritage: denim, rivets and the arcuate.”

My first instinct is that this doesn’t have a chance in hell of being profitable, but you never know. I’m a big believer that companies should stick with their strengths, and I think it’ll be tough for Levi’s to make headway in the electronics industry.

Something that gets me genuinely excited is Apple’s entrance into the mobile phone market. A part of me thinks cell phones have become stagnant and overloaded with useless features in recent years, and I’m trusting in Apple to revolutionize the industry, just like they did with the portable music industry.

Apple Insider reports that Apple has been trademarking the term “IPhone” in various countries, while Red Herring says that “one of the phones would be a smart phone featuring an integrated keyboard, video, and music capabilities. The other will be a slimmer phone with music capabilities. Also, at least one of them will feature Wi-Fi, he wrote.”

Sounds very cool. I know I’ll be all over one of these whenever Apple gets their act together and gets their phone to market.

(Via)

Engadget Mobile is reporting that Verizon’s Chocolate line might be adding two new colors soon. It already comes in white and black, and we might have the option soon of red and green if Engadget Mobile is correct.

I’m a bit skeptical, if only because Endgadet’s photo (the photo above) makes the red and green Chocolate phones look pretty hideous. Red and green don’t really fit into the Chocolate theme either, if that matters at this point. But I suppose we’ll see!