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Mobile Computing News, Reviews, & Tips

VoIP News: New Skype Phones

Philips and Netgear have both announced new phones that let Skype users make calls without a computer. The new phones plug into a broadband connection and a standard home phone jack. Both can send and receive Skype calls as well as calls from a landline phone number. The Philips phone will be available in December; no pricing was announced. Availability of and pricing for the Netgear phone weren't available as of this writing.

Cell Phone News: Nokia's Multimedia Phone With VoIP

Nokia's new version of its N80 wireless phone, the N80 Internet Edition, features integrated VoIP, along with Yahoo's Mobile Search application and Go for Mobile, a program that syncs your Yahoo e-mail and contacts with the mobile device. The enhanced N80 also features Amazon's MobiPocket Reader, an application for reading e-books, and the ability to upload photos to Flickr.com. Pricing wasn't available as of this writing.

Storage News: Shock-Resistant Fujitsu Drives

In October Fujitsu will launch two new laptop hard drives worldwide that use perpendicular magnetic recording technology. With PMR, the north and south poles of the magnetic particles used to represent the data on the disk are arranged perpendicular to the surface rather than parallel to it. PMR allows more bits to be packed onto a disk and also reduces problems with magnetic interference. The 80GB and 160GB drives, both in the 2.5-inch form factor, also promise a high resistance to shocks.

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