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 Here’s an interesting piece of news concerning the much-rumoured PSP Phone, the supposed amalgamation of mobile phone and Sony’s PlayStation Portable. The Daily Telegraph reports that Sony themselves have squashed plans submitted by Sony Ericsson for such a device, by refusing to license the PlayStation brand name to them.  This all took place last year and with the recent Nokia’s N-gage improvements and the iPhone’s plentiful supply of App Store games, it must have been quite a blow for them!

Seeing as Sony already license their CyberShot and (more…)

Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.

If you missed the premiere of T-Mobile’s ‘Dance’ advert during Celebrity Big Brother, then you should fo check it out on YouTube. T-Mobile have created a special channel for everyone to enjoy not only the excellent feel-good ad itself, but other related material in their ‘Life’s for Sharing’ campaign.

Filmed inside London’s Liverpool Street Station on the 15th January 2009, it took 350 dancers and plenty of hidden cameras to create and capture the complex dance routine itself plus the (more…)

Post from Dial-a-Phone, UK's no. 1 for Mobile Phones.

Chess fans have a lot of choices on the iPhone. Do a quick search on the AppStore and you'll find at least 30 games to choose from. According to the Top 100 lists, the top chess application is iChess at #56 on the top free apps list. (None of the premium chess games are on the top 100 paid apps list).

I am an awful Chess player but I have a goal to improve. I've been playing the preloaded version on my MacBook Pro and was curious to check out Chess on the iPhone.

While I was recently reviewing WordsWorth by 99Games, I discovered their two Chess games - Chess Pro and Chess Lite.

Chess Lite ($.99 in the AppStore) is designed for casual players of Chess while the Pro version ($3.99 in the AppStore) is designed for advanced players who are looking for a bigger challenge.

The game loads quickly and even if you are a beginner in Chess you can pick up and play quickly. One of my favorite parts of the game is that when you select a Chess piece it shows you all the legal moves you can make with that piece. You can play Black or White, you can play by yourself against the computer or you can play in a multi-player mode. (The board rotates between players turns.) You can even play a demo of a Chess game to see how the game works.

I played a few games against the computer on the Lite version and was able to win once which made me happy. I didn't spend a lot of time with the Pro version but there are a lot of features in that version which would make it well worth the extra $3, including multiple levels of complexity and three variants such as Regular, Suicide and Losers.

Both editions make use of a professional strength Chess engine with playing strength over 2750 ELO. I had no idea what 2750 ELO meant so I looked it up on Wikipedia and here's what I learned:

The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. Basically, it means that the engine used to develop the game is strong so players of varying skill levels will be challenged and have fun.

I've now played 3 games developed by 99Games and they are all good. I would highly recommend downloading Chess Pro and Chess Lite - whether you go for the Lite version or Pro is up to you. For me, right now, the Lite version is plenty of game but hopefully as my Chess skills improve, I can graduate to the Pro version.

So many people these days don't even talk on their phones - they use them to keep in touch via Email, SMS, IM, and social media. Noah pits the iPhone 3G vs BlackBerry Storm in a battle of facebook connectivity - apps and Websites.

Apparently, according to Rim co-CEO, Jim Ballsillie, BlackBerry is all over the mobile music game...who knew? Yes - I have called fellow BlackBerry users only to be greeted with lovely answer rings, have heard special ringtones set for special people and have heard the occasional seasonal jingle set as a ringtone, but I don't think I ever realized BlackBerry thought of themselves as a direct competitor with the iPhone in the music category.

However, Boy Genius reports on Ballsillie saying:  "We've moved to [music] 2.0, where music is undergoing a radical transformation and it creates a remarkable new opportunity for content owners to monetize their content... [BlackBerry is] already very music centric, what were talking about now is our platform", said Balisille referring to the BlackBerry Application Centre. "We're ingesting apps now and it goes online in March... [It has] a billing engine and is a channel for developers - you'll see dozens of music apps." But it gets better. "We are the overwhelming market leaders and we've been in the smartphone business for years... The Storm is a BlackBerry with different packaging, not a competitor of iPhone."

While I am very excited to see more music apps (I LOVE Virgin Mobile's Song ID app that lets you hold up your phone and ID music that you hear; that;s right, they have it too and were one of the first companies to come out with it), I am not so sure that BlackBerry will be the multimedia leader it thinks it will be. The Bold's QVGA screen is lovely (and long overdue), but for me, the Storm is huge disappointment compared to the iPhone - it's clunky and not nearly as smooth at the other. But, those are fightin' words, Jim. Let's see what you make happen.

It's done! OBAMAnia has officially cut a swath of hope right into the White House.

The 44th President of the United States was sworn in just minutes after 12 p.m. noon in front of millions of freezing cold Americans, gathered in huddled masses on the mall in D.C. That kind of devotion deserves reward, and mobile app makers Gx5 and Efiko Software have just the thing. (No, it's not a new game with Obama throwing shoes at the departing Dubya at the White House door — though that would be pretty funny.)

To mark the historic occasion, they've created free Obama wallpapers designed specifically to fit the iPhone and iPod Touch. (Funny, you'd think BlackBerry would be all over this, considering the new commander-in-chief's CrackBerry tendencies.) The graphics come from BarackObama.com and are available in a range of choices.

Download the wallpapers here, unzip into iPhoto (or an image library that syncs to your phone), and then sync with iTunes.

Not an Obama fan? You can use your own custom images as iPhone wallpaper using the same technique. (Yes, even that "Palin 2012" logo on your home desktop. But don't blame us if you get into fist fights over it. There's a lot of love right now for the new prez.)

All hail the chief.

The old iPhone was tough as nails. iPhone 3G? Too fragile. Noah checks out the Speck Candyshell iPhone 3G case - mainly b/c it reminds him of some sneakers he likes.