With the increasing reliability, performance, and excellence of portable devices like cell-phones and PDAs, more and more people are finding it easier to leave home without missing important calls or emails. Skype has also improved communications by essentially allowing people to talk to others for free over the internet and even make calls to landlines and cellphones.

Recently, last100 held a poll that asked users whether they believe that Skype can or will replace today’s landlines. As always, I abstained from the poll, since all that data is sold to marketing companies and provides funding for global strike initiatives (Do you really want to help Kane?). In my opinion, Skype will never take over landlines. Cell-phones, on the other hand, have already started to replace landlines, as everyone that I know around my age can’t find a reason to get a landline, since their cellphone is always with them.

Personally, landlines are as outdated as Hilary Clinton’s views on video games, and they will probably remain that way. I don’t plan on ever getting a landline, since I use my cell-phone for all of my calls and Skype, Trillian, and Facebook to keep in touch with everybody that I know. Within a few years, landlines may even be extinct.

Sony’s mobile division is smart, probably one of the smarter Sony sectors. The M600 was an awesome smartphone but obviously jealous of the W580’s clean interface, camera and dedicated music/video controls. However, the jealousy was a two-way street since the W580 was equally envious of the M600’s unique QWERTY keyboard. So what is Sony doing to appease both camps? They’ve squished the best of both phones into a new one dubbed W999i.

Purported specs are 12.5mm thick, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, 2 megapixel auto focus camera with flash, 2.4″ 320 x 240 screen and the M600’s QWERTY keyboard all in a slider form factor. Not exactly a Nokia N95 killer but definitely a contender.

Let us hope and pray this is real.

Seems the buyer of a small mobile OS developer called SavaJe was revealed to be Sun Microsystems itself. SavaJe is a Java based mobile platform aimed at manufacturers who want the flexibility of open source software combined with the power of Java. The buy out could mean Sun will take on Microsoft, Symbian, Palm and now Apple in the mobile OS market.

Things could get interesting since Sun has been looking for something new to invest in. Many games and 3rd party applications already use Java. That ubiquity could potentially give Sun a huge step-up in matching the bevy of apps available for Symbian and WinMo based phones.

Japanese voice data giant WillCOM knows a thing or two about mobile phones that do everything. Purveyors of fingerprint scanners, touch screens, biometric sensors, GPS and of course their proprietary W-SIM card just to name a few. Question is does everybody need all those features? WillCOM says no and so they came up with the WP004, the world’s first modular phone.

Each module consists of a component, be it a keypad, QWERTY keyboard, camera, GPS, memory slots, etc. You purchase each module separately and essentially build your dream phone. WillCOM can then keep releasing modules as new technologies become available.

Of course knowing some people, they gotta have ‘em all and will undoubtedly buy them all. Unfortunately it’s Japan only.

[Via Slashphone]

Ooh it’s free push email for everyone brought to you by Consilient. For those not in the know, push email is an online server side solution that instantaneously sends (pushes) email from any POP or IMAP account directly to your phone. That way, your phone doesn’t spend precious battery juice periodically checking mail.

So what’s the catch? For now, Consilient’s push service only works with a hand full of phones. You can only configure 5 email accounts which is more than enough and their online configuration tools are a little haphazard. But hey, it’s free and it works.

[Via Lifehacker]

Designer Pei-Hua Huang has the right idea with his WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) concept phone. He envisages transparent screens that work as viewfinders, giving you a truer view of what it is you’re about to snap.

Of course the concept isn’t all fancy schmancy screen. It comes in an array of colors and patterns befitting of a fashionista picture hound. Who says you can’t geek out while looking good?

[Via Yanko Design]

And why wouldn’t they? The new Helio Ocean is everything the Sidekick 3 should have been. You’ve got a 2.4″ QVGA screen, unrestricted bluetooth 2.0, music, video, POP and IMAP with push-email support, 2 megapixel camera and GPS all running on a real 3G network. However the most impressive feature is the dual-sliding keypad revealing a QWERTY keyboard in one direction and a full numeric keypad in the other.

Just like other phones in Helio’s lineup, you’ve also got GPS enabled Google Maps with Buddy Beacon to locate all your friends, fast HTML web browsing, tight MySpace integration and stereo speakers.

So Sidekick users, I know you want it but you’ll have to wait a bit. This wave hits this spring for $295.

Okay file this under “why didn’t I think of that?” Show of hands, how many of you have fallen asleep yappin’ on the phone late at night? That’s what I thought. Wouldn’t it be awesome if your pillow had a bluetooth headset built in?

Presenting the perCushion by mobile lifestyle purveyors, Urban Tool. It’s a 66 cm long foam core cushion wrapped in yummy cotton velvet. This high-tech pillow pairs up with your bluetooth enabled phone allowing you yap to away with your family, friends, loved ones and/or 1-900 “hot” girl. All controls are integrated into the fabric with answer/standby and bluetooth pairing buttons. There are also LEDs to indicate status and a built-in microphone/speaker for real handsfree action. The whole thing is powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery.

Drooling yet? Grab a napkin, for now it’s concept only but lets hope some manufacturer sees the novelty in a device like this and puts it into mass production.

A whole mess of images after the jump.

[via Ubergizmo]

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What happens when an international brand like Disney gets together with another international brand like BMW to create a luxury phone? We present to you the Mickey Kuso.

The slim (10mm) candy-bar style phone is Asia only, sold by their version of Vertu called Omnipotence, purveyor of super-lux phones. It comes with mediocre specs though; 1.3 megapixel camera, bluetooth and micro SD, but wins in the design and packaging department. BMW penned this baby, everything from its carbon fiber and metal finish right down to its perforated leather box. In keeping with Mouse House branding, the entire UI is iconic, bright and colorful with a well integrated audio player designed to work with dedicated feather-touch controls.

Before you go and start writing checks, only 130 of these will be produced and you just know the final asking price will make the iPhone seem affordable. For those of us swimming in money, good luck trying to import one and for those planning to fish on eBay, check for the certificate of authenticity from Disney and BMW.

[Via Phone Daily]

UPDATE: Upon further digging, we’ve come across some evidence in regards to the phone’s authenticity. Just who is Omnipotence and why would a co-branded Disney/BWM phone misspell “Micky”? Although this isn’t the first Disney collectable phone (see Dmobo M900), it is quite telling if they can’t even spell Mickey’s name correctly. So I guess just because it comes with a certificate of authenticity, doesn’t mean it’s authentic, eek!
More pictures after the jump.

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Nokia L’Amour is a web site dedicated to creating, discovering and sending emotions. Each day, a new emotion tree grows with each bulb representing a person’s feeling. The bulbs are color coded to represent one type of emotion, everything from love to sadness. Clicking on a bulb sends it exploding upwards, revealing its owner’s emotion.

The web site slyly keeps track of your click-thrus and rewards you with hidden wallpapers. OH JOY! If nothing else than a viral marketing scheme to promote their line of fashion phones, at least Nokia L’Amour is pretty to look at.

Check out the wallpapers we found after the jump.

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