360 DEGREES Weblog

Apple?s iPhone grabbed the no.-1 spot in a recent customer-satisfaction survey rating smartphones, beating rivals LG and RIM BlackBerry.

Conducted by JD Power, the survey polled customers worldwide on satisfaction with their smartphones between January and June 2009. Customers rated their smartphones based on factors including ease of operation, operating system, features, physical design and battery life. 3,221 smartphone owners, who have used their current smartphone for less than two years, participated in the survey.

In the smartphone survey?s point totals, Apple scored 811. LG scored 776 for second place, and RIM BlackBerry scored 759 for third.

In separate surveys, JD Power also polled customers on satisfaction with smartphones in business as well as satisfaction with traditional cellphones (i.e. non-smartphones).

Apple nabbed the no.-1 spot for smartphones in business, with a score of 803, followed by RIM BlackBerry with a score of 724. This portion of the survey polled 1,148 enterprise smartphone users.

For overall satisfaction with traditional cellphones, LG ranked highest with a score of 723, based on responses from 12,595 cellphone owners.

Most interesting are the results for customer satisfaction with smartphones in business: The iPhone beat the BlackBerry. In the past, critics have said the iPhone was inadequate for business use, citing its lack of security features and a physical keyboard. And for a while, the RIM BlackBerry has been hailed as the smartphone of choice for professionals. Perhaps iPhone OS 3.0, which introduced copy and paste, combined with the slew of business-related iPhone apps available in the App Store, are winning over enterprise smartphone users.

The new Sound ID 400 Bluetooth Headset offers some features that no other headset current offers:

PersonalSound ? offers users 3 listening modes, tuned to the most common hearing preferences, to choose from in order to further enhance speech clarity without raising the volume.

Environmental Mode ? enables users to hear equally out of both ears in-between calls. When this mode is activated, the hearing ability is enhanced and soft sounds can be heard while wearing the headset ? allowing clear conversations ?On? and ?Off? the phone. This is a great feature as most of us like to leave our headset on in-between calls.

Compatibility with the Sound ID CompanionLink Remote Microphone ? The CompanionLink is a small clip-on device that syncs with 400 and can be worn by a conversation partner or placed near a sound source to pick up audio at its origin for a richer sound experience. Clip the CompanionLink on the person sitting or at the back of the mini-van to clearly hear them over any wind noise, place it near the TV to better hear your favorite sitcom or place it at opposite end of the conference table to clearly hear what colleagues are saying.

It will be available at the end of this month for $129.99.

During CES 2009 they showed the PowerMat.? This was the first time for wireless charging done simple.? Now Duracell is entering the market with a similar product called the myGrid SmartPower and it looks to be a little easier than that PowerMat.? What we saw of the PowerMat was that you needed to attach a sleeve to your gadget in order for the wireless charging to initiate.? From the looks of this picture it seems that the connection between your gadget and the mat is a much smaller attachment that isn?t going weigh things down as much.? I like that schematic better but I am not so sure I want anything attached to my phone or gadget during the course of my day.? No word yet on price but it will ship sometime in October.

A project codenamed “Square” is the brand new iPhone-base payment processing system that’s currently being alpha tested at the also brand new Self Edge NYC. In addition to keeping the process paperless, Square makes check-out clean and easy. The innovation is in a small, plastic card reader that fits in to the headphone jack of an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and transfers the credit card’s swipe data to the app (pictured, right). After the employee enters the amount to charge the customer confirms by scrawling their signature with their finger and then either one enters the customer’s email address to send the receipt to. The payment is processed by Square for a small percentage plus a fixed fee; the funds are transferred directly to the store’s bank account, cutting both time and complexity on the processing side. The customer’s receipt includes a map showing the location of the transaction which is handy for those who record, sort and file such things (pictured below).

While allowing anyone from a hot dog vendor to a bike messenger to process credit cards on-the-go, all we can say at the moment is that consumer to business transactions are just the beginning.

As a Steve McQueen fan you can just dream away on the wonderful 60′s tunes from the soundtrack of Bullit (’68) by famous

The chances of me being genuinely amazed at something I see a Belgian tech company achieve are rather slim. But occasionally, it happens. Last week Robin Wauters from TechCrunch went to a local entrepreneur meetup BetaGroup and saw five startups pitch their stuff to the 200-person audience.

The last one to get its five minutes of fame was Cherry, a new mobile operator that promised to

The new line of THINERGY Micro-Energy Cells from Infinite Power Solutions Inc (IPS) could soon be powering small devices such as autonomous wireless sensors, powered smart cards, active RFID applications, and implantable medical devices. The manufacturer says these tiny, rechargeable, thin-film batteries combine the energy density of traditional batteries with the high discharge current of supercapacitors. With some models measuring just 0.5 inches square (12.7mm) and less than 0.01 inches thick (0.17mm), IPS claims these are the most powerful batteries for their size.

While the free-market works pretty well when, uh, left alone to be free, sometimes it needs a push from a visible hand. Case in point, phone chargers; at the moment some 30 different types of chargers are used with handsets throughout Europe. Today, the European Commission received industry backing of its phone charger standard that relies on a micro-USB socket. The standard is now backed by all the majors (representing 90% of the European mobile market) including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Apple, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments with compatible devices starting to appear in Europe next year. Or course, the micro-USB charger standard already has the blessings of CTIA, OMTP, and GSM Association which implies a broader adoption beyond Europe, someday

From version to version, it always gets rewarded as the most functional, the best of its segment, but Aliph, the creators, always find new edges and concerns to further enhance the most acclaimed headset, the Jawbone. The successor is proudly and firmly dubbed Prime and appears on the scene in a variety of colors such as black, platinum, green or orange with the task to add a smile to your gear. Prime’s improved Noise Assassin technology is ready to sneak through 10mph fast walls of wind, a readjusted fit and sensitized voice activity conception ensures a fail-safe and merciless function, and the subtle textured surface further refines the minimalistic styling. Further features are composed of added Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and offers a talk time of 4 hours and up to 8 days standby.

$130

Alberto, who was vacationing in Mexico must have expected nothing but a good relaxing time away from all the hassles of the world. During this holiday, I think he assumed he could finally catch one of the best animated flicks, Wall-E. He must have thought the fastest way is to download it over his wireless carrier’s network. Little did he know that this would result in a sky high bill of $62,000. Even Wall-E and Eva’s love isn’t worth that much money! Obviously, he complained to the carrier about this and they decided to bring down the cost. They only charged him bandwidth costs which still amount to a whopping $17,000. Hmm I like Wall-E but just the DVD for me!