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On your iPhone browser go to www.google.com/talk, log in and start talking. Google Talk runs entirely in the browser so there’s no need to download or install anything.  There are a few differences from using Google Talk on your computer. For example, in to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser. When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to “unavailable” and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return.

One of our Rogers’ birdies just came through for us with an update on the Canadian GSM carrier’s BlackBerry roadmap

BlackBerry Bold: July 25th is the release date of the BlackBerry Bold on Rogers but that it will actually be the following week (hopefully by the 29th) that customers will be able to walk into store and pick up a BlackBerry Bold in person.

BlackBerry KickStart: No exact date, but the BlackBerry KickStart should be available on Rogers in mid/late September.

BlackBerry Javelin: Just in time for Christmas, the BlackBerry Javelin should be available towards the end of November or early December. The fact that Rogers will carry both the Bold and the Javelin confirms that the Javelin is very much a replacement to the BlackBerry Curve.

Finally the launch and delivery date for the BlackBerry Bold 9000 has been confirmed. T-Mobile Germany will release the device on July 21ST. Without a contract it will cost you 550 Euro (860 USD incl. tax). With a two year contract it will cost you between 90 Euro and 340 Euro depending on the contract details. Less than three weeks and you will finally be able to pick up a BlackBerry Bold in Germany.

Samsung SCH-W510, the first mobile phone to be made out of bio-plastic materials, was recently presented in South Korea. The plastic used in Samsung W510 is obtained from corn, literally. Moreover, the phone doesn’t include hazardous metals like Lead, Cadmium or Mercury. These are the reasons why the Korea Eco-Products Institute has awarded the handset a “green label”, making it the first Korean handset to get this award.

What we have here is a nice-looking slider that comes with the following features: a 3 Megapixel camera with flash and video recording, a QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) display, mobile TV capabilities, CDMA and HSDPA connectivity for data transfer speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, secondary camera for video calls, Music and Video players and Bluetooth. The rest of the features (like internal memory or battery lifetime) are not known yet, but it’s clear that the new Samsung is a mid-end one that can rival with any other non eco-friendly phone from this category.

The W510 is already available in South Korea, in two color versions: a black one and, of course, a full-green one. Unfortunately, Samsung has not said anything regarding the release of the handset in other countries. It’s worth mentioning also that the Samsung W510 was approved by the FCC a few months ago – thus, if the right frequencies are in place, the US might soon be getting the Corn Phone too.

RIM apparently wants its first clamshell smartphone, BlackBerry KickStart, to be a smash-hit in terms of sales, as the Canadian company might be offering the device for only $49.99, with a T-Mobile USA contract agreement for two years. This is no official news yet, but it’s highly probable to be true. RIM’s KickStart will be the first smartphone to have a $50 price tag with a contract agreement for 2-years (the Centro costs $99 with a similar contract), and on top of that KickStart is the ONLY flip smartphone phone inthe US. We’re now waiting for an official announcement regarding the BlackBerry KickStart, which should come either from Research in Motion or from T-Mobile – the first US carrier to offer the new smartphone).

Motorola has revamped (again) its Q9 smartphone and transformed it into “Motorola Napoleon”. This new handset will be soon released by Verzion Wireless in the US, bringing a new design as well as new features.  According to Boy Genius Report, the royally-named device, Motorola Napoleon Q9 features the following:

• CDMA EV-DO Rev. A connectivity in addition to quad-band GSM connectivity with EDGE (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz), which makes the new Q9 operational about anywhere in the world, thus business users who travel a lot will find it quite attractive.
• The Q9 Napoleon comes with chromed margins and a pretty nice dark-blue QWERTY keyboard – both worthy of a king’s name.
• Fingerprint scanner for security reasons
• A 320 × 240 pixel display, Wi-Fi
• A 2 Megapixel camera with flash (but no auto focus)
• A 1500 mAh battery
• Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.

There are already rumors about a Motorola Alexander, which should bring a wide touchscreen display and a killer-camera of 8 Megapixels but there is to fact abot it yet. There are no details on when Verizon will release the new Q9, but Uyou should expect it to be available in the next few months, coming with a price tag probably slightly higher than the one of the current Q9h $99 with a 2-year contract agreement.

Spotted on the Czech website iDNES, the B2700 is a candybar that won’t win any beauty contest, but this new Samsung GT-B2700 is dust and splash resistant, hence you won’t have to take too much care of it when going, let’s say, on a wild vacation. Resistance aside, the B2700 is packed with the following features:

• Quad-band GSM connectivity with EDGE
• A 1.9 TFT inch display with 176 x 220 pixels
• GPS
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Music player
• FM radio with RDS
• A 2 Megapixel camera with video recording
• USB 2.0
• 30 MB of internal memory, expandable with up to another 4GB. There’s neither 3G connectivity nor a video-call camera, although the front case of the phone shows that one could be included.
• Measures 115 x 52 x 18 millimeters
• Comes with a 1300 mAh battery of unknown performances.

The price of the new candybar Samsung B2700 is not known yet, but it’s rumored to be of around 330 USD (210 Euros). The handset is said to hit the European market sometime at the end of the summer.

After the Canadian announcement of Samsung Instinct, which will be available starting August from both Bell and Telus, another touchscreen handset is presented now as “coming soon” in Canada: HTC Touch Diamond. Unlike the Instinct, though, the Diamond will apparently be released exclusively via Telus.  The third largest Canadian operator, Telus already features the new HTC Pocket PC on its website and it has also announced its prices, which we listed below:

• $149.99 with a contract agreement for three years and a voice/data plan of at least $45 per month;
• $349.99 with a 2-year contract;
• $399.99 with a contract for one year;
• $449.99 with no contract at all.

The free-of-contract price is quite low if compared to the one that the Diamond is sold for in Europe (about $750), so there might be a catch to it. But since Telus doesn’t mention more about this, we don’t know anything for sure. The exact release date of HTC Touch Diamond has not been announced by Telus, but the handset will probably be available in August the latest.

Wireless communications group MetroPCS Communications Inc.said Thursday that net subscriber additions in the second quarter rose 19% to 183,530 from 154,713 a year earlier. The group said it now has around 4.6 million subscribers in total. Customer churn increased 0.5 percentage points to 4.5% compared to the first quarter, which the group said was consistent with seasonal patterns.

BCE Inc. said Friday it reached a final agreement with a group of investors to amend a buyout deal with a higher breakup fee, but the price will remain at $42.75 a share. Shares of BCE closed at $34.75 a share on Thursday. An executed credit agreement for the parent company of Bell Canada and other key financing documents have been finalized; a reverse break fee payable by the purchaser has been increased to $1.2 billion and closing will take place on or before Dec. 11. Prior to closing, the company will not pay dividends on its common shares but will continue to pay dividends on its preferred shares.

After the high-end Omnia i900 Pocket PC, unveiled by Samsung less than one month ago, the largest South Korean handset manufacturer has come up with yet another Windows Mobile 6.1 handset, named Samsung i740. Although it’s not presented in an official way, the i740 has made an appearance, today, on the Czech website iDNES. The available images with the new Samsung show it to be far from having the elegance of Omnia, although it’s also far from being what you’d call an ugly device. Looks aside, Samsung i740 brings the following features: a 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display with 240 x 320 pixels, built-in GPS, a 3 Megapixel camera with auto focus, flash and video recording, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, Music and Video players, FM radio, Web browser, mobile email, USB 2.0 and a 624 MHz processor. The new Samsung measures 107 x 59 x 13.8 millimeters and, as I’ve already said, it runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. Samsung i740 should be released by the end of this summer – we’ll see then what its target is as well as for what retail price it is being offered.

MetroPCS Communications, Inc. today announced the launch of its low cost, flat-rate unlimited wireless services in the Greater Philadelphia Region, providing residents the freedom to enjoy more flexible wireless options. Upon launch of service in Philadelphia, MetroPCS will have 6 company owned stores and 132 authorized in the Philadelphia area. MetroPCS intends to add additional locations by the end of the year. In addition to bringing a new affordable, flexible, predictable low cost, flat-rate wireless service, MetroPCS’ entry into the market will provide a positive stimulus for the local economy by creating an estimated 800 jobs by the end of 2008.

BlackBerry mobile devices don’t pose a security threat and no permission is needed from the Indian government to make the service available, an official said Wednesday, according to media reports. Indian security agencies have previously expressed worries that militants may use the popular devices to communicate and that intercepting and tracing emails from them was difficult. The Indian government has previously held talks with Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of the device, over security concerns. Industry estimates say there are 400,000 BlackBerry users in India’s mobile market, the fastest-growing in the world.

RIM’s first full-touch smartphone, the BlackBerry Thunder 9500, will apparently be a serious competitor for Apple’s new iPhone 3G, as well as for all the other touchscreen mobile devices that might want to become popular this year. According to BlackBerry News, the new Thunder will come under the official name of BlackBerry 9500. It will feature a BlackBerry 4.7.0 OS and a display supporting a bigger resolution than the one of iPhone 3G: 360 x 480 pixels, as opposed to only 320 x 480. Now, if the display of RIM’s new smartphone is of at least 3.2 inches and supports 16 million colors, then it’s highly probable that it will offer a better visual experience than the display of iPhone 3G. Anyway, since there’s nothing fully confirmed regarding the Thunder, we can’t know for sure if its display can indeed compete with iPhone 3G’s.

Although we’ve already seen a picture of what’s believed to be the new BlackBerry Thunder 9500, there’s no official image to represent the smartphone – that’s why we’ve included an image with the Bold 9000 in this article. There’s no word yet whether the Thunder will have a slide-out keyboard or if it’s touchscreen-only. Word on the street is that Research in Motion should unveil the BlackBerry Thunder 9500 sometime during this quarter, and we’ll see then what exactly the device can offer.

The FCC has recently approved two new Motorola phones, a candybar and a clamshell. The name of the candybar is not known for the moment, as FCC keeps this detail secret, but the clamshell is a W-series handset, namely Motorola W265.

The design of this candybar phone is simple. The User Manual of the device unveils the following features: GPS, Bluetooth, email, Web browser, Voicemail, MMS and SMS capabilities, Music and Video players, Photo viewer, a 2 Megapixel camera with digital zoom and video recording, secondary camera for video calls, USB, expandable memory (up to 2GB, via a microSD card), T9 predictive text input, voice memo, calendar, stop watch, alarm clock, unit converter and so on. The display of the phone seems to be a QVGA one, thus featuring a 240 x 320 pixel resolution.

The candybar also brings tri-band GSM and 3G/WCDMA connectivity, but it doesn’t seem to be heading towards a US release, since the FCC approved its use only for the 1900 GSM frequencies. This clamshell is only a basic device, its most notable features being represented by its FM radio, miniUSB and embedded games. It doesn’t have a photo camera and it also seems to lack an external display. As for the internal display, this is a low-resolution one, probably of 128 x 128 pixels.

No word yet about the possible release dates for the new Moto handsets but we’ll probable see them by the end of this summer on one or more markets around the globe.

Telecom giant AT&T Inc. will end its current contract to sell a product bundle that includes satellite broadcaster Dish Network Corp.’s television packages, the satellite TV company announced Tuesday. The contract, originally signed in 2003, is set to expire Dec. 31.

Englewood, Colo.-based Dish has been the bundle partner of AT&T in some parts of AT&T territory but not in others. AT&T previously had offered competitor DirecTV’s programming in its bundle in the southeastern United States, a holdover arrangement from when it was Bell South territory prior to AT&T’s acquisition of Bell South. But AT&T switched to Dish Network there in April.

AT&T has let it be known it plans to pick one bundle partner — either Dish Network or DirecTV — nationally before the start of next year. On June 12, AT&T told Dish Network to pay back $500 million plus interest in debt notes held by an AT&T subsidiary. It’s not clear if that decision was connected to AT&T’s negotiations about the terms of a new satellite TV partnership.

AT&T said Tuesday that the latest version of Apple’s iPhone will go on sale July 11 and that the company will eventually let customers buy the handset without signing an annual contract. New or current AT&T customers who are eligible for an upgrade would be able to buy an iPhone for $199 to $299 with a two-year contract, as the company previously announced. An activation fee ranging from $18 to $36 would apply. AT&T did not specify when that option would become available.

Monthly plans have been priced at $70 at the low end and $130 at the high end, not including text messaging. That service would cost an additional $5 a month, for up to 200 messages, to $20 a month, for an unlimited number of messages. AT&T and Apple unveiled the updated iPhone earlier this month. The second-edition handset will work on AT&T’s faster wireless network, unlike the slower original model, which went on sale last summer and ran on its Edge network.

Yet a slowdown in the U.S. economy appears to have spurred consumers to delay purchases of new phones, especially high-end models. It remains to be seen whether the newer iPhone can buck that trend.

The Blaze was recently spotted at Boy Genius Report, coming in a clamshell form factor. The Motorola Blaze will be available in the US, via Verizon Wireless. There’s no official info yet to sustain this, but since the new Moto comes with Verizon’s logo and a Verizon user interface (we can see these in the available images).

Motorola Blaze looks pretty weird, if you ask me. When closed, the Blaze appears simplistic, while when flipped it unveils a pretty large touchscreen display (its exact size, resolution and number of colors are not known for the moment). The features of Blaze include: built-in GPS, EV-DO Rev A. connectivity for fast data transfer speeds, a 2 Megapixel camera with video recording, mobile TV capabilities and Bluetooth. Plus, the clamshell will almost surely feature Verizon applications like V CAST Music and V CAST Video.

Overall, Motorola Blaze will bring out a new style of handset in the US. Ans surely it will be interesting to watch how the US consumers accept it.

Vodafone Group PLC is teaming up with social networking site MySpace to create an interactive music platform. Vodafone said Monday the service will make available footage from Vodafone-sponsored music events to MySpace users in Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain. Financial details were not disclosed.

Lets help you out here, IF you are Canadian AND uou want an iPhone AND hate the with Rogers’ pricing for the iPhone data plan THEN there’s something you can do. Yes, you can file an Web Petetion now joining with other 13,000 (as of this posting time ) friends of your. On July 11th 2008, the organizer will send a printed copy of all these messages to Rogers HQ to demonstrate your indignation toward them. Good luck to all of you Canadian friends of ours.