Cingular on Monday introduced two mobile applications that users will be able to download to their phones in order to access their e-mail and instant messaging accounts. The effort is designed to provide standard phones with features normally found on high-end handsets. Both applications will be a free download.

Mobile e-mail will work on the following devices: Motorola's V180, V220, V400, V551 and RAZR V3. Cingular expects to add more phones soon. Mobile IM will work on Nokia (6230, 6620), Motorola (V180, V220, V400, V551, RAZR V3) and Sony Ericsson (Z500 and S710a) handsets. The IM client will have the capability of connecting to the AOL, Yahoo and MSN Messenger networks. Service charges are based on usage.

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If you heard a loud thud over the weekend, it may have been Tiger Telematic's Gizmondo finally launching in the United States. The device, whose sales in the UK -- where it has been available since March -- have been somewhat disappointing, has received a cool response from US reviewers as well.

The handheld Gizmondo retails for $229 USD, and includes a 400MHz processor, a VGA camera, GPS, GPRS, and a 2.2-inch color LCD screen. It has a half-circle shape and comes in a black and silver casing. The operating system is a customized version of Windows CE, the company said.

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Oscar time isn't only a boon for the movie industry as hot Academy Award candidates pack the cinemas - it's also beneficial to pirates looking for DVD-quality copies of new flicks. But this year, Disney is looking to change all that.

In the past, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members who vote on the Oscars received VHS tapes of nominees, which posed little risk of piracy. Now, however, movies are distributed on DVDs that can be digitally copied onto computers and uploaded to the Internet in mere hours.

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Confirming speculation that record labels were not content with the $4.99 pricing of Yahoo! Music Unlimited, the company on Nov. 1 will raise its music subscription fee by $5 to $9.99 USD when purchased annually. Monthly fees will jump from $6.99 to $11.99 USD, bringing the service closer in cost to Napster and Real's Rhapsody.

Current monthly subscribers can opt to keep their $6.99 pricing, which is still advertised by Yahoo, but will lose the ability to transfer downloaded songs to a portable device. Those who have purchased an annual subscription, however, will receive the "To Go" feature for the duration of that year.

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Bertelsmann AG, the company that owned the original Napster, is preparing to launch a legal peer-to-peer download service in Germany for music and movies. Called GNAB, the service will debut first in the company's home country and then expand to others throughout 2006.

A company spokesman told the Associated Press Friday that most of the service is complete, and could offer access to 1 million songs at launch. Bertelsmann says the premise behind the P2P-like structure of the service is to prevent overloading of the servers.

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In a message sent to members of the media, Microsoft said it has scheduled a press conference on Monday to discuss "new Microsoft Office system technologies designed to help information workers access and work with business information." Jeff Raikes, Microsoft Business Division president, may finally offer more details on Office 12.

Microsoft gave developers at PDC 2005 an initial peek at the new Office 12 user interface, which does away with the suite's standard toolbars and adds task-oriented "ribbons." But the company has thus far said little about new features or slated improvements, aside from changes in SharePoint. Office 12 Beta 1 is expected to ship next month.

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Wikimedia announced on Thursday that it had reached a deal with Answers.com to offer users answers to queries from content included in the Wikipedia. Called "1-Click Answers, Wikpedia Edition," the site is expected to go live in early 2006, after a 60-day trial period in beta. The service will be promoted on the "tools" section of the Wikipedia website.

"We are pleased to partner with Answers.com, encouraging software that improves access to Wikipedia," said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder and Wikimedia Foundation President. "Bob Rosenschein and his team have created an innovative technology which helps users click on any word in any application to look it up in Wikipedia. We expect that our users will appreciate the extra convenience."

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Level 3 Communications experienced what it called "widespread network instability" early Friday, causing problems for numerous ISPs and hosts that depend on Level 3 to serve traffic. According to posts on the NANOG mailing list, the issue may have centered on faulty maintenance in one of the Internet backbone's service centers.

The outage began at roughly 2AM ET, and lasted for several hours. Some reported problems with their connections up to seven hours after the initial failure. Level 3, which is one of the largest providers of Internet service in the country, offers dial-up and broadband at wholesale prices to its customers. Level 3 was most recently in the news for its spat with competitor Cogent over network traffic.

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Microsoft considered forcing its partners to stop bundling rival music software under new marketing plans that would only allow Windows Media Player to be shipped with portable MP3 players, but scrapped the plan after one manufacturer complained, several media sources reported Friday.

Legal analysts were shocked at the news, saying the tactic would have violated the Microsoft's antitrust settlement, and likely flew in the face of the required antitrust training employees are expected to complete.

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Hewlett-Packard may be wavering on its Blu-ray support, but Warner Bros. and its Warner Home Video division said on Thursday they will release movies in Sony's high-definition DVD format. Warner will also continue to support HD DVD as previously announced.

Warner Home Video will prepare titles, including DVDs from HBO and New Line, for the launch of Blu-ray in North America, Japan and Europe next year. In a statement, Toshiba said it was "more than confident" that Warner's support of Blu-ray will not affect its HD DVD release schedule.

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Unhappy iPod Nano customers are taking Apple to court over scratching issues they have experienced with their players. The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, alleges the screens scratch even during normal usage, "causing Plaintiff class members to incur loss of use and monetary damages."

The plaintiffs have asked for class action status in the suit.

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Call it procrastination on steroids. AOL this week unveiled a new way to waste time on the Web that builds upon the obsession to view AIM profiles and away messages. The beta service, called AIM Buddy Info, allows users to leave comments on each other's away messages and IM profiles.

Comments can be viewed on the Buddy Info Web page, or by people on the user's buddy list through the AIM profile. According to an upcoming IM trends survey, more than half of all teens change their away message once a day, and a fifth change it every time they step away from the computer. AOL did not specify when it plans to take the service live.

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Netflix on Wednesday said that its planned movie download service is on hold indefinitely due to licensing problems with Hollywood studios. Word of a possible download service first leaked out in July when a glitch in the Netflix system revealed that the company was planning to offer online movies.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made the announcement during a conference call with analysts. "When the content climate begins to thaw," the service will be launched, Hastings said. Work is continuing on the necessary infrastructure in order to make a launch possible, but Hastings did not specify how movies would be delivered.

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The world famous Wembley Stadium in London will soon have a new sponsor: Microsoft. The Redmond company announced Thursday that it had reached a deal with Wembley's owners worth $8.8 million, according to media reports.

The stadium is scheduled to reopen in mid-2006 after a five-year project to demolish and rebuild a new state-of-the-art venue in its place. Microsoft will receive premiere placement of its logo at the entrance, as well as on 100 advertising plaques around the stadium.

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Opera Software isn't wasting any time in the development of its flagship Web browser after version 8.5 heralded Opera's conversion to freeware. The company on Thursday released a Technology Preview of Opera 9.0, which introduces a new storage format for e-mail and a multitude of page rendering tweaks.

Most notable on a long list of changes are an enhanced pop-up blocker and initial support for CSS3 selectors and attributes. Version 9 also now identifies itself through the UserAgent string as "Opera." Developers note the preview release should not be loaded on a primary system or over previous Opera installations. Users are asked to report problems accessing sites that worked previously.

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