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There’s a nice review of Civilization over at AllAboutSymbian- “I’m not Douglas Adams, but I’m more than happy to paraphrase a really good line from the late, great man… “Civilization is big. Really big. I mean, you may think that Pathway to Glory was involved, but that’s nothing compared to Civilization.” To sum up Civ (to give it its weekday name), you’ve in control of the Earth, rather like a god. You start with massive empty rolling fields, and by building infrastructure, managing resources, and exploring other areas of the world, you can eventually achieve your aim of either landing the first settler on Alpha Centauri, or achieve complete domination in the world by conquering all the other civilizations on Earth.” via clieuk.co.uk.0>

Mio technology has unveiled its plans for the upcoming CeBIT show, which will take place from 9 to 15 of March. The company plans to introduce a series of GPS-devices. The Mio C710 and Mio C510E are specialized GPS-navigators. They are similar in design and main specs. Both of them are powered by Windows CE .Net 4.2, equipped with microphones and support Bluetooth interface. The Mio C710 has more digital maps of Europe TeleAtlas onboard, it supports TMC function to track traffic conditions.

The Mio C210 is positioned as a simple navigator. It doesn’t support either Bluetooth or TMC. It is also powered by Windows CE .Net 4.2. A map of just one European region in installed.

The Mio H610 features extended multimedia functionality. Besides its battery ensures 17 hours of MP3 music playback. There are plenty of of TeleAtlas maps onboard.

The Mio P550 is not just a navigator, but a handheld PC. It is powered by a 400 MHz processor and Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. It has Bluetooth interface and supports Wi-Fi wireless networks, so you can use it for Internet-telephony. There is an expansion slot for SD and MMC cards. Unlike the P550 the P350 handheld doesn’t support Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Besides there will be introduced a long-awaited GPS-smartphone Mio A701. It works on Intel 520 MHz processor and Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. It is equipped with an expansion slot for SD and MMC cards, a 1.3-megapixel camera and Bluetooth interface.

“Main event of the exhibition for communicators and smartphones market was Palm’s announcement of new operating system based on Linux core. Another surprise was large amount of new models based on Windows Mobile and Symbian. We knew about most of new communicators before their official announcement at the congress due to numbers of leaks, but Palm’s new OS became something truly new, especially since it was announced during Day 2, when most people left hope for something new after Day 1.” Check out this great article at mobile-review to learn all about the new models at 3GSM!

Imagine that you are heading out the door one morning. You check for your stuff – keys, wallet, bag or purse, and cell phone. If you’re traveling light, that’s probably about it. The daily essentials. If you have a cell phone you’re sure to bring it along. And, if you have the Nokia N70 you’ll be bringing along a lot more than you might imagine. Watch this Nokia N70 video review here. From slashphone.com via dlmag.com

P901iTV, in black(Click to enlarge)Panasonic is shipping a Linux-based mobile handset capable of receiving digital or analog television. The “P901iTV” features a pivoting 2.5-inch color LCD, and works with NTT DoCoMo’s 3G network in Japan. Digital TV services will launch in Japan this spring, DoCoMo says.Panasonic jointly developed its Linux mobile phone stack with NEC, which also supplies phones for NTT DoCoMo’s 3G networks. Panasonic (Matsushita) and NEC have both invested in MontaVista, and use its Linux OS in a variety of mobile phone designs, such as the new dual-mode 902-series DoCoMo phones. DoCoMo is also a MontaVista investor. The P901iTV runs MontaVista Linux, a MontaVista spokesman confirmed.NTT DoCoMo says the P901iTV is its first mobile handset to receive terrestrial digital broadcasting signals, as well as conventional analog signals. It says the phone was created “in response to the planned launch of mobile digital broadcasting in April 2006.”The P901iTV features a 2.5-inch QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD supporting 262K colors. The display actuates the TV receiver when it is pivoted sideways, and the display can also be twisted and folded open against the rest of the wallet-like phone. Panasonic claims that up to three hours of continuous digital TV viewing is possible, or up to one hour of analog TV viewing. More at linuxdevices.com

“A year ago our readers had a chance to take a closer look at the first handset, featuring a 5 mpix camera – particularly it was Samsung SCH-S250. Today we’re offering you one more review of another device with 5 mpix camera onboard – this time manufactured by LG. This very model has a number of indexes, e.g. LG SV550 – non-operator index, and the mobile operators gave it the name of LG KV5500, LG LP5500 (LG TeleCom). The core difference between the latter two devices is the menu’s appearance and the label itself, but not the functionality. Since the version we are currently reviewing has been released for LG Telecom mobile operator, we will accordingly use LG LP5500 index.” Read this great review at mobile-review.

Some people have said that this is what the iPod Video should have been. Unlike so many other tasty gadgets we hear about being released somewhere in Asia, the Viliv P1 Portable Media Player is actually coming to the United States. It was originally released to the Korean market last summer. Developed by Yukyung Technologies, the Viliv P1 comes with a good-sized 4-inch widescreen TFT display, which can show off everything from Macromedia Flash to MPEG 1/2/4. If the 30 gigabytes of on-board memory isn’t enough for you, you can throw in a compact flash card to keep the “unlimited excitement” (as labelled under the screen) going. Audio support comes in the way of MP3s, WMAs, and even OGGs, as well as FM radio reception.Battery life is pretty good, with 6 hours of video viewing, or 11 hours of audio. This DivX and Xvid playing PMP should be hitting American and Canadian shelves sometime this March. via mobilemag.com

“We strive for order in our personal and professional lives and one of the tools we use is a personal digital assistant or PDA. PDA’s come with a multitude of software applications to help us keep track of mundane yet important information we might otherwise try to store in our heads or on post-it notes. Although I personally never used them, post it notes adorn my monitor and desk as others find it necessary to give them to me as gentle reminders of my inability to remember such things.. In order to appeal to the masses, the software that comes with a PDA (Palm) is designed to be easy. And to a point, limited. The programs are a great way to learn how to use a digital assistant, but in most cases, eventually you’ll need something more. Since starting using a PDA I have become more organized. Or at least I now have a place to put all of this “important” information and can get to it easily and quickly when needed. I have used a lot of programs that claim to be better at organizing my schedule. Most of them (if they are still being developed regularly) are still around in some form or another and, like my kids, are growing larger, and at times, work about as well. One of the newer programs I found is TMP (Time Manager Pad). TMP may not be as well know as some of the other programs, however, it is one of those unique programs you can’t ignore because the developer has taken the key element of the palm software (easiness) and improved it. And I have found what I think is a nice piece of software.” Read this nice review here:

AT&T Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are launching a service that lets people use Cingular mobile phones to get access to their photos, e-mail, instant messaging and address books on their Yahoo accounts, AT&T said on Tuesday.The AT&T Yahoo Go Mobile service is part of the Yahoo Go brand, the Internet media company’s push to make its services available to users on a variety of devices from mobile phones to televisions.”It’s the first kind of baby steps toward this whole concept of an anytime-anywhere device,” said Matt Davis, director of consumer multiplay services at IDC, a market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts. The phone also includes an MP3 music player and a digital voice recorder.Go Mobile, which will be available on the Nokia 6682 mobile phone, will be sold online, in AT&T’s 13-state service area and at some Cingular Wireless stores in Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; and Los Angeles. Cingular, the nation’s largest wireless company, is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth Corp..The phone costs $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate from Nokia with a two-year subscription to a Cingular wireless service plan. AT&T also recommends that customers subscribe to its wireless data service. The unlimited monthly service costs about $19.99 a month, an AT&T spokesman said. via news.yahoo.com

According to market sources, Sony plans to release a version of its PSP (PlayStation Portable) using NAND flash from Samsung Electronics in the second half of this year. The PSP will feature 8GB of NAND flash, the sources stated.Although recent reports stated that Sony would opt not to use NAND flash in the next version of its PSP, and would instead use a microdrive, the sources indicated that Sony was stalling to negotiate better pricing from Samsung.When rumors circulated on February 16 that negotiations had broken down between Sony and Samsung, spot prices for 1Gbit and 2Gbit NAND flash dropped 5.3% and 3% in one day, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).Deutsche Bank was also cited by the report as commenting that the failure of Samsung and Sony to reach a supply agreement will suppress NAND flash prices further and push oversupply to 10% this year.According to data from DRAMeXchange, 8Gbit spot prices have fallen from US$39 to US$34 since Chinese New Year, while prices for 4Gbit parts have fallen from US$23.36 to US$16.60 From digitimes.com via engadget.com