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Several mobile phone makers have won a W300-billion (US$1=W947) lawsuit against the Korea Customs Service for import duties levied on multi-chip package memory products, a key component in mobile phones. The Seoul Administrative Court sided with LG Electronics in its request to cancel W22.4 billion in tariffs imposed by the customs service on MCP imports. The court also ordered taxes be canceled for Toshiba (W42 billion) and Pantech (W3.7 billion).Samsung Electronics is also expected to win a similar W150-billion suit which is scheduled to be ruled on soon.

The customs service has slapped over W300 billion in tariffs on 140 MCP importers. Combining flash memory chips and S-RAM, MCPs are used for data storage in cell phones. Manufacturers have imported them as integrated circuits which are not subject to tariffs since 1998.But the KCS categorized MCPs as devices subject to an 8 percent tariff in 2004 and demanded back duties on products imported before Jan. 2006, which brought about the lawsuit. The court denied taxation on MCPs, citing their non-independent functionality.

Slider cell phones are definitely rising in popularity, especially those made by LG and Samsung, so it only makes sense that the sliding mechanism gets implemented in related technology as well. I’d imagine that the i.Tech i.Slider Bluetooth Headset isn’t the first to headset to feature a sliding mechanism, but it is pretty cool that you can use that to answer and end calls. It’s an active slider, much like what you’d find on the LG Chocolate or the Samsung U700. When a call comes in, you simply extend the microphone boom and start yakking. When you’re done explaining where you were last night, you retract the boom and continue on with your day.

For those you who don’t like the slider, there is also a multifunction button like most other Bluetooth headsets. Then again, if you don’t like the slider, you probably wouldn’t buy this device anyways. Other notable specs include the ability to connect to two phones simultaneously, a weight of 9.5 grams, Bluetooth v2.0 Class 2, up to 4 hours of talk time, up to 80 hours of standby, and your choice of silver or purple-black.

Mobile phones are getting more advanced by the day and manufacturers are trying to shove as much functionality as they can into the tiniest of packages. Cost in the mix are folks that just want a simple handset that does nothing more than make voice calls. There is push toward simplicity and it doesn’t get much more basic than the Freedom Phone concept designed by Vadim Kibardin. The primary application for this handset would be for travelers who do not want to (or cannot) bring their regular cell phone with them on the road. Say that you’ve got the Verizon Voyager and you’re heading over to Tokyo for a couple of weeks; it just wouldn’t be a good idea to pay for all that roaming and that’s assuming that your phone works at all!

The Freedom Phone is supposed to make things a lot easier for international users, because there’s no SIM card to install and no roaming charges to worry about. Instead, the handset serves as a basic prepaid cell phone, getting loaded with a certain number of minutes. Important information is listed on the back and you’ve got fundamental controls on the front.

It has introduced the service after a tie-up with SMSGupShup, a free group messaging service provided by Mumbai-based Webaroo Technology India Pvt Ltd. The portal already introduced last month a premium local breaking news service for mobile subscribers. It has now said it would also provide the news for free. The free news would contain advertisements. To unsubscribe, a subscriber has to send an SMS saying “LEAVE Odisha” to the same number. While odisha.com will provide the content, SMSGupShup will provide the free group SMS technology and platform.

The two signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday. While the premium service will continue to run without advertisement, and SMSGupShup aim to recover the cost of content and free SMS service by inserting targeted and contextual ads at the end of every SMS message. A person in remote Kandhamal or Koraput district is not interested to know what the governmet announcin Bhubaneswar,” a company official said.

Sony Ericsson has launched the 8 GB touch screen W960i Walkman phone. With room for up to 8,000 songs and finger-touch navigation around playlists, the phone also has a 2.6″ display and a 3.2 megapixel camera. It can be hooked up to the Web using the 3G network or via a Wi-Fi access point. The W960i Walkman phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus within its 16mm frame, and allows picture messaging, email or picture blogging.

It incorporates Sony Ericsson’s TrackID music recognition software, that lets users record a clip of a song on their phone and find out instantly the name of the artist, track and album. The W960i Walkman phone comes bundled with a stereo portable handsfree, is UMTS 2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 and will be available in Vinyl Black for Rs. 28995

Most Bluetooth headsets are perfectly capable of the voice dial thing, assuming that the connected mobile phone can do it, but the BlueAnt V1 takes voice control to a new high. The incredibly compact Bluetooth headset is being marketed as the first ever with a true voice-based user interface. Instead of clicking a physical button to answer your calls, you simply speak into the microphone and say “accept call”. Other basic voice commands could include “volume up”, “reject call”, or “do the laundry”.

Okay, maybe it won’t do that last thing, but you can see how a completely handsfree experience like that offered by the BlueAnt V1 can be excellent for drivers and other people who need their hands. That is why you’re using a Bluetooth headset in the first place. The downside is that the voice control can be “wonky” and it can be quite frustrating when you accidentally give it a command that you don’t want it to do. What happens if you’re in a call with someone and you happens to say “end call”?

Skyfire unveiled a new mobile browser that makes browsing on a smartphone just like browsing on a PC. For the first time ever, smartphone users can experience the “real Web” to access and interact with any Web site built with any Web technology, including dynamic Flash, advanced Ajax, Java and more – at the same speeds they are accustomed to on their PC.With this free downloadable browser, users can finally watch videos from the real YouTube, stay connected with their friends on the full-feature PC versions of Facebook and MySpace, and listen to any Web music service like Last.fm.

Before Skyfire, users painfully waited for these Flash and Ajax-heavy sites to render – often resulting in error messages or crashes.“For too long consumers have been promised the ‘real Web’ on their phone, only to be disappointed by slow rendering, error messages, no Flash support, watered down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite site,” said Skyfire CEO Nitin Bhandari. “Skyfire has remedied those ills at a speed not seen before on the mobile platform. By extending the PC Web experience to smartphones, we fully expect Skyfire to fundamentally change the way people use their phones.”Users will not have to change their Web behavior on their smartphones because Skyfire allows them to access the same Web content, and interact with that content, exactly as they do on their PC. When users load their favorite sites, they will not encounter unrecognizable content, unfamiliar page layouts, or missing content, like they have with other mobile browsers.

To date, Skyfire is the fastest loading mobile browser on the market.“Many sophisticated technologies are launched at DEMO, and in my many years of hosting the event, it’s the simple and elegant products like Skyfire which seem to have the most staying power,” said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences. “Mobile browsing has not advanced at the same rate as other mobile technologies, so I am delighted to see Skyfire bring a new product to market which directly addresses one of the biggest pain points in the mobile experience today.”Skyfire has broken down the two primary barriers for Internet adoption on smartphones – speed and user experience. Recent studies point to the demand for mobile content, but the browsing experience has hindered the potential growth. As prices continue to drop, more users will adopt the full functionality offered by smartphones. According to ABI Research, 115 million smartphones were to be shipped in 2007, and that number will rise to 410 million by 2012.

It would seem more and more mobiles are being designed for the common man with little luxuries such as color screens and integrated FM radios. Intex made an appearance in the mobile scene in a big way only recently, with devices that range from simple to loaded. The Flair is one of their base-model FM radio mobiles, and here’s what I found when I reviewed the device. This candybar mobile is simple in design and has a certain feel-good factor. The keys are really large and easy to use. The only problem I had was with the two top keys for the Menu and Phone Book – they seemed unusually hard and unresponsive at times. Then again, it could be a problem with just this particular handset.

The 1.5 inch CSTN display, which sports a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels and 65K colors, is decently clear and easy to read. The navigation joystick is not ergonomic – it’s a bit too embedded into the phone. Ideally I would have preferred a navigation pad. The 2.5mm earphone socket is located on one side, just above the volume control keys. On the other side is a key that appears to be a camera key – but the I-1107 has no camera! So it activates an LED bulb located at the rear of the handset, and acts as a torch. I can’t say the light is too bright, but in pitch darkness it’s definitely handy. I have to admit that having a dedicated key to activate the torch is a great idea. The charging port is located at the bottom.

At music business fair Midem, mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson has announced partnerships with music labels for its PlayNow mobile download platform. According to a press release, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, EMI, The Orchard, IODA, The PocketGroup, Hungama, X5 Music, Bonnier Amigo and VidZone will together contribute a pool of around 5 million songs. PlayNow was launched in February 2004 as a platform for ringtone downloads. It has since been expanded and aims to launch as a comprehensive mobile music download station, PlayNow Arena, in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland in May of this year.

Further European countries are to follow later in the year. By the end of 2008, Sony Ericsson hopes to have the new service available in around 30 countries. Finnish competitor Nokia already has a mobile music download platform, currently available in the UK only. It is currently looking for further partners from the music industry and hopes to extend its services to other European countries in the coming months.

The latest craze with iPhone lovers is the that’s making techies’ brain cells pop with the kind of features it’s brought to the device. Of course, hackers would no doubt make it their life’s ambition to crack this version too… and what do you know, they have! Hackers such as Jonathan Zdziarski (who brought the NES emulator to the iPhone) managed to jailbreak the iPhone without having to mess around with the hardware. Before Zdziarski came along, there was a hack that unfortunately required hardware manipulation. If you’re an iPhone noob, ‘Jailbreaking’ involves cracking the iPhone so that it will allows users to install third party applications that are not official.

It allows full read/write access to the file system of the iPhone, which opens it up to manipulation for various purposes (and not just running third party apps). You can take a look at the hacking via the these guys have so graciously put up. Most of the other iPhone sites seem to have lost the video altogether.