Looks like Amazon may soon be getting some competition for the hearts of the Kindle-loving literati over at the Algonquin. In a pre-CES interview with Reuters, Verizon's Tony Lewis -- the man in charge of their Open Development program -- doesn't see the current state of the economy as halting production of e-readers or other nonessential consumer electronics. "Competitors to the Kindle are out there and ready," the man said. "In 2009 I'd expect them to come to the market." To date, the company's certified 29 third party devices to run on the carrier, a new attitude that seems to have come about when they realized the bucketfuls of cash they could be raking in if they were a little more... well, open to these sorts of things. If you're a vendor, feel free to peep their booth this week at CES. We're sure you'll be more than welcome.

[Via Moco News]

Sure, it's not as thin as the Bluetrek Metal or as eye-catching as the Swarovski crystal-infused Shimmer Kit, but iVoice's Diamond-X Bluetooth headset is sporting some very nice features, including noise-canceling dual microphones and the ability to report the callers' name from a phonebook. As for the other stats, we've got 5.5 hours of talk time and 200 standby. The Jury's still out on how convincingly it can tell us when our friend Slartibartfast gives us a ring, but for one Benjamin Franklin, you can find out for yourself later this month.

Yeah, sure, name any IR-equipped phone in existence and odds good to excellent that you can find a universal remote app for it, but you probably can't think of many for the iPhone, now, can you? They exist, yes, but they tend to carry a home-automation slant since the lack of an infrared port leaves the thing relegated to WiFi duty. Enter UiRemote, an ambitious little project undertaken by a handful of scrappy University of Toronto students that uses a fingertip-sized IR blaster connected to the headphone jack paired with a totally customizable app to get the job done. Novel? Not necessarily, but when you consider that a dedicated remote with these specs would probably run half a grand, it's an interesting way to save money and still end up with the coolest AV controller on the block. The devs are still tweaking both the module and the app, but hopes are high that they'll be available to all interested parties in the next couple months.

We all yearn for a life lived sans wires, yet many of us still find our media players dangling from the things. Mono Bluetooth headsets are already everywhere, but this could be the year that those of the stereo variety take off, and Altec Lansing's hoping its new BackBeat series will be a contender. They're made in partnership with earpiece-guru Plantronics, so callers will find integrated voice dialing, omnidirectional microphones, 7 hours of talk time, and AudioIQ to boost volume when you're in a noisy situation. For the music listener the sets include tune-channeling, canal-sealing buds, a behind-the-head band, and support for A2DP, AVRCP, HSP v1.1 and HFPv1.5. For those devices that list doesn't cover (we're looking at you, iPhone), the $130 BackBeat 906 includes a small transmitter. Everyone else can opt for the otherwise identical but transmitter-less BackBeat 903, which is $30 cheaper. We look forward to getting our ears on these at CES -- hopefully after they've had a thorough cleaning.

[Via iPodNN]

Now that the holiday season is officially over (CES notwithstanding), there's officially no better time to get inebriated and wash away the sorrows of not having another government-recognized holiday for like, ever. After you've drug that dead tree out to the roadside and filled a few buckets with tears, why not try constructing your very Serv O'Beer in order to bring just a sliver of that joy back into your heart? Put simply, the project pictured above utilized Construx as the mechanical platform, a servo driving the action and ioBridge controlling the system; a so-called "perfect pour" was executed by linking an iPhone accelerometer to the system and turning it up. Have a look at the demonstration vid just past the break -- dollars to donuts it'll make you smile.

[Thanks, Hans]

Ready for a little AWS 3G action via USB stick? Oh, yeah? Then have a look at what just landed in the FCC's database: Huawei's UMG181. The USB mobile broadband modem should operate just fine on T-Mobile's US network, pulling down gigabyte after gigabyte onto your laptop and / or desktop. Outside of that, details are remarkably scant, but we reckon it won't be long before it's up for sale on the carrier's own site.

If you're American, don't even pretend you care about this. 'Cause you don't care about mobile TV at all, and we've got the facts to prove it. For those parked in Japan, though, you have every right to get jazzed. Softbank's 1seg TV tuner / battery charger has finally been loosed on the carrier's home turf, and the lucky cats over at DVICE were able to acquire one and give it a whirl. Setup was said to be a breeze, the 1seg pickup was crystal clear and the device itself was satisfactorily lightweight. As for downsides, the entire app is in Japanese, and even with the extra juice, watching TV on the go zapped the life out in around an hour with brightness maxed. Check the full writeup and unboxing gallery in the read link below.

[Via OhGizmo]

While we feel that some objects shouldn't be solar powered for the sake of being solar powered, we can't help but dig Nextar's approach here. The NXBT-001 / NXBT-002 seem to primarily differ only in the amount of charge they can hold, with the former offering 250 hours of standby time / 10 hours of talk time and the latter boasting 150 hours of standby time and 6 hours of yappin'. As for functionality, both devices are designed to enable handsfree calling in the car with any Bluetooth-enabled mobile, and of course, they each soak up the sun while you're out cruising about. The best part? The fact that you no longer have to run yet another power cable to that 8-port cigarette adapter hub sitting in your center console. The pair will ship this Spring for $59.99 / $69.99 (thanks to a bundled caller ID display), respectively. Full release is after the break.

Not that we haven't seen patently absurd lens attachments for mobiles before, but we've yet to come across any that were this universal (and be to honest, this useful). Sure, one could argue that a detachable wide-angle, fisheye or 2x telephoto lens made for a cellphone camera is more likely to do nothing than something, but we prefer to look on the sunny side of things. In other words, it's totally worth $16.99 just to be able to make your subjects pause as you whip out the correct lens for the occasion... which you're photographing on your C905.

[Via OhGizmo]

Come to think of it, this mod wouldn't even be necessary (though, we suppose it would still be useful) had HTC bothered to put a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack on the T-Mobile G1, but alas, we're stuck with some random ExtUSB port. In order to make that output jack compatible with the litany of iPod peripherals (namely sound systems), the modders over at WebNetta figured out what pins linked to what in order to connect the G1 to Made for iPod gear. Best of all, the secrets of the connections are all spilled out in the read link should you care to try this yourself, but please, tidy things up a bit if you do.

The iPhone's camera may be thoroughly eclipsed by several of its competitors, but the insane popularity of Apple's baby means that we've seen tons of accessories aimed at making that 2.1 megapixel sensor somewhat more useful -- like the Snapture Flash here, which tucks a xenon flash with red-eye reduction into a sleeve-type case. Although it's powered by the phone, it's apparently quite low-power -- SnaptureLabs estimates that you'll take 1000 shots before going dry -- and there's some sort of "speaker amplification" built in as well, just in case you're super into enhancing mediocre parts of the iPhone experience. Bad news? You'll have to jailbreak your phone to get the Snapture app working -- hopefully that'll be remedied by the time this thing ships. Check out some sample shots at the read link.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Nokia's been pushing its exercise logging solution, Sports Tracker, for a while now -- but compared to dedicated fitness computers from companies like Suunto, Garmin, and Polar, it's not quite as useful since you can't automatically record your heart rate. For serious health nuts, that's a deal-breaker right there, but rumor has it that Nokia has now teamed up with Polar (another Finnish company, coincidentally) to deliver everything the average runner needs to start sending vital stats straight to their phones. It gets better: besides Bluetooth chest straps, we're hearing there'll be compatible cadence sensors (for bikers) and barometer / altimeters, too. The whole initiative is apparently in the final stages of development, so we wouldn't be surprised to see it officially announced either at CES or MWC. Ugh, this means we no longer have an excuse not to get off our lazy asses and jog, doesn't it?

Until Apple pumps out the next-gen iPhone with integrated solar cells, we suppose Solar Arcadia's solar-powered cases are your next best option. Available in both SideFlip and Leather Flip models, the cases not only offer relatively stout protection for your handset, but they also include a solar panel in order to give your mobile a few more minutes of life while you're out and about in the sun. Each one is constructed from ABS sheepskin and is available in either red, white or black (Leather Flip is black only) motifs; not too shabby for $45.95 -- just don't expect this thing to dramatically increase your time of use.

[Via TUAW]

As you can probably tell from the naming convention used on Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic, this here phone was designed with music playback in mind. Shocking, we know. That being the case, we're not surprised to see this here Nokia / Shure bundle surface in Hong Kong, and honestly, we're a little surprised it took this long. The special edition kit will come packaged with one handset and one set of Shure SE210 earphones, and it's expected to go on sale today for around $620. Too bad you'll have to jet to Hong Kong and drop by the currency conversion joint to actually snag one.

[Via The Nokia 5800 Blog]