AT&T raised the stakes in the fight for the world’s toughest phone Wednesday when it announced the new A25is from Airo Wireless. Billed as the word’s first “intrinsically safe” smartphone, the A25is won’t produce a spark so it’s built for people working in potentially explosive environments like process and chemical manufacturing, petrochemicals, the military, utilities, …

Nicole is waiting for her flight home from Austin, so Maggie Reardon joins Kent and Bonnie to talk CTIA. The fun starts next Tuesday in Las Vegas, thus we spend this episode of Dialed In dishing on what we’ll see at America’s favorite wireless trade show. 4G is the expected name of the game, but we should also see new …

Are you thinking of new ways to go green this spring? Try getting a new AT&T Zero Charger for your cell phone, which will stop drawing an electrical charge if your charger is plugged into the wall, but the phone isn’t attached. Conventional chargers continue to draw power when devices are plugged into a wall, even when the battery has …

Yesterday, my colleague David Carnoy posted a list of the 20 cell phones in the United States with the highest SAR, or specific absorption rates. And now, as promised, I offer the 20 handsets at the opposite end of the scale. Currently, these models have the lowest SAR levels. Some are sold by carriers, and others are unlocked, but all …

If the back of teen music magazines are to be trusted then we can safely assume that mobile phone ringtones are big business, and, if you were the new kid on the block selling mobile phones, like Apple, you’d be crazy not to charge a motza for these audio snippets. This doesn’t mean we should have to pay for them. …

This post was last updated on March 18 at 3:44 p.m. PT with a statement from Verizon Wireless. Hang tight, Motorola Droid owners; it looks like you’re one step closer to getting that Android 2.1 update. On Wednesday, Verizon Wireless posted details (PDF) about the software upgrade and its lists of enhancements and improvements, which include: Pinch-to-zoom support in the …

Junecloud If you ship a lot of packages or find yourself sitting in your front window waiting on the delivery truck–or perhaps if you’re obsessively calendar-watching for the day (April 3) to come when some new gadget (iPad) will be delivered–you should consider a tracking app for your iPhone. Junecloud’s Delivery Status Touch does the trick, sells for $2.99 (iTunes …

Dry those tears, dear Sprint user, because you’ve finally received your invite to the Nexus One party. The carrier announced on Wednesday the upcoming availability of Google’s Android “superphone” and promised to release an exact release date and pricing soon. Like the other models, the Sprint N1 will be sold directly from Google, but Fared Adib, Sprint’s vice president of …

Worldwide demand for mobile applications is set to explode in the next three years as the total value of the market could grow to $17.5 billion, according to a new report released Wednesday. A study commissioned by GetJar, the second largest mobile app store in the world, predicts that mobile downloads will climb to 50 billion in 2012 up from …

You might soon have to wear stupid-looking glasses to watch the footie down the pub. With its first dedicated 3D TV channel, Sky 3D, launching this April, the satellite broadcaster is desperate to get 3D-capable TVs into bars around the country. To meet this goal Sky has reached into its Tardis-like pockets and bought a job lot of LG 3D …

Now playing: Watch this: HTC HD2 (T-mobile) 1:12 Well, it’s about time. T-Mobile made it official on Tuesday evening and finally revealed that the much-awaited HTC HD2 will be available starting March 24 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and qualifying data plan. Alternatively, you can purchase the smartphone with an Even More Plus Plan, which doesn’t require an annual …

Do the bump! Just knock iPhones (gently) to swap cash with someone. PayPal PayPal has come full circle. What started as a PalmPilot app that let users wirelessly exchange money has evolved into an iPhone app that lets users wirelessly exchange money. However, whereas Palm users relied on IR “beaming” to shoot funds back and forth, iPhone owners can simply …

One of the great features of Android is that it offers its users choice. Whether you’re downloading apps from outside of the Android Market, swapping out the user experience with a new desktop replacement, or simply choosing a different phone-dialing application, you’ll appreciate the platform’s flexibility. Though I might consider the standard Android client to be a better-than-average browser, there …

Nexus One was the moniker Google chose to grace its first own-brand phone, but a refused trademark application in the US might force the company to look a little further down its list of names. Google filed the Nexus One trademark on 10 December last year for use in connection to mobile phones, and despite there not being another Nexus …

Though sales of the Nexus One aren’t exactly booming, perhaps the addition of the AT&T and Rogers Wireless models of the Android smartphone might give Google a boost. That’s right: available immediately, you can now get a version of the Nexus One that is compatible with AT&T’s and Rogers’ 3G networks (850/1900/2100MHz). Aside from the different 3G bands, the handset …