I guess this gives “Mobile Warrior” a whole new depth, now doesn’t it?  Not to be a little too sardonic, or, well, high school, but relating to the title of this post…Duh.

Why, I ask you, would Irish prisoners, or prisoners of ANY nation be allowed mobile phones at all anyway?!  Maybe I need to brush back up on my criminal justice law, but I am failing to see why prisoners would ever be allowed this technology.  Nevertheless, I digress…the point is, I just found out that Irish law has officially now banned mobile phone use after 3 prisoners were sentenced to unlawful use of a mobile phone while incarcerated.

According to the article:

“Prisoners lose certain civil rights while incarcerated, one of which is an expectation of privacy. Mobile phones make it difficult for prison officials to monitor an inmate’s outside communications. Phone privacy allows prisoners to conduct criminal activity while still behind bars. I don’t know if an extra month is enough time to deter this activity, but the basic idea is a good one.”

Wow, bummer, and to think of all those poor prisoners that won’t really reap the benefits of the new MoGo Headset.  Sigh…

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The last few weeks as Newton Peripherals has been prepping for sale, I’ve had many emails like this:

When will the X54 & X54Pro launch for purchase?

Well, Great news!!!!   The major online retailer, TigerDirect, has started taking orders as of August 13th. Here are the links for the X54’s:

MoGo Mouse X54 Pro (Mouse and Presenter with Laser Pointer)

MoGo Mouse X54 (Mouse and Media Remote)

We will be updating website this week.

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You know, it was bound to happen, wasn’t it?  Just like people figure out ways to spam Bluetooth, send annoying ads to your mobile phone and break HD-DVD copy protection, it was bound to happen that someone, somewhere would copy the iPhone somehow.

That somehow has been done, in China.  I guess it’s being called the iClone, but some people are going as far as to say the Chinese pirated MiniOne is even better than the iPhone it’s pretending to be.  Wow.   According to the article I just read:

“The miniOne looked just like Apple’s iPhone, down to the slick no-button interface. But it was more. It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn’t. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers.” 

The question raised, that I must say I want answered as well, is this:  Does this signal the start of something bigger in China?  I am truly curious what other products they can copy/improve upon/relaunch out into the world.  Are we going to be stuck in an “anything you can do I can do better,” world?  If so, how will that affect products and their availability to us?  Interesting, very interesting.

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In the past week, 4 of you have sent variations of the same question:

Q. Will the new X54 work with my Laptop? I have a regular PC Card slot, not one of the new ones thanks.

A. Here’s the word from MoGo:

No, the X54 family is intended for the new ExpressCard/54 slot available on newer laptops.

According to the FAQ: The BT, X54 and X54 PRO mice are not compatible. An ExpressCard/54 slot is needed to charge the MoGo Mouse X54 and X54 PRO and a PC Card (PCMCIA) slot is needed to charge the Mogo Mouse BT.

A quick way to check which slot you have is by taking a credit card, holding it flat, and sliding it into the card slot. If the card slides all the way into the slot you have a PCMCIA slot. If the card only slides about half way into the slot you have an Express/54 slot.

There is a guide available to help you choose the right MoGo mouse for your system here: MoGo Platforms.

Q. According to the Sales Guy at (the place I bought my laptop) - my new laptop has Bluetooth 2.1 and I should check if your equipment will be compatible with that version of Bluetooth.

A. I’m glad he calls himself Sales Guy and not a technical expert.

All Bluetooth releases have been backward compatible. That means that if your new laptop (and congratulations, by the way, on the purchase) was bundled with the recently released Bluetooth 2.1 standard then it should work with all Bluetooth devices.

Rest assured, the MoGo products can be used with either a Bluetooth 1.2 or a Bluetooth 2.1-enabled laptop.

If you’d lke to read more on the topic, C|Net did a great chart outlining Bluetooth compatibility.

Elizabeth is a professional writer & geek with most of the last decade spent in senior management at a leading global IT provider. Thousands have attended her seminars in the US & Canada on subjects ranging from basic TCP/IP networking to high-end data storage solutions.

Got a question? Ask Elizabeth.

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According to their press release, Motorola and  Microvision signed a deal this week to implement projectors in the next generation of Motorola’s SmartPhones.

The technology will  project pictures and video on the wall.  On the road, this will mean a new tool for giving presentations and at home and in personal life - a way to share video and pictures without doing the ‘pass the phone’ dance.

Check out Microvision’s “Pico Projector Display” for details of their projector technology. Very slick.

The site quotes Rob Shaddock, CTO of Motorola Mobile; “Working together with Microvision, we are pursuing ways that projection technology can redefine how mobile consumers view and interact with the media they take with them.”

Already, seniors are pointing out that this technology will allow them a larger viewscreen for things like text and pix messages.

Microvisiondemonstrated its Pico projector in a mobile device  for the first time last May during the Society of Information Display conference in Long Beach, Calif.

Next up is a working model of the projector embedded in a Motorola phone. The partnership has not yet revealed the estimated time to arrival.

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Here at MoGo, we know a cool product when we see it. BlueAnt, just so happens to fall under that category, “cool product that we saw” or something of the sort. That said, I just found a pretty sweet video review, from a very enthusiastic Ken from KenRadio.com.

Nevertheless, check out this video review, and be sure to hit up Ken’s site for a lot of other great tips and tidbits. It looks like it could be a very helpful little device that goes leaps and bounds beyond your phone’s puny speakerphone.

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Words can not truly express how deeply I love the show The Office on NBC.  They really can’t, I’ve tried before, and everything I utter falls well short of how much I really love it.  That said, my day perked up, a lot up, today with the news that now, I can stream that show, as well as some other NBC gems on my cell phone.

You heard me right folks, NBC has officially gone mobile on Verizon Wireless.  According to reports:

“Customers will be able to view short videos from NBCU’s entire suite of video channels, including NBC News, entertainment news from “Access Hollywood,” NBC Sports, NBC Comedy with “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” BravoToGo, NBC Entertainment, Telemundo, mun2, and iVillage.”

Very, very cool.  Pair this with, oh, a MoGo Headset that’s coming soon, and friends call it bliss.  The ability to wirelessly watch Steve Carell and the gang moping around Dunder Mifflin without any cords, cables or wires hooked into me, or out of my phone is just plain brilliant.  Dwight K. Schrute has never been so accessible, a fact I am sure he is not altogether pleased with.

Check out the article on the news, then head back over to MoGo to find out how you can make your NBC Wireless viewing even more pleasurable.

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We’ve had a lot of questions about the MoGo mouse in the past few weeks as we close in on product release.

Previewed at the Consumer Electronics show earlier this year, the mouse has some cool new features:

• Built-in center scrolling capability through an integrated scroll pad;
• No software drivers required;
• More user-intuitive feel, with deeper finger depressions for more natural operation; and
• “Auto-on” functionality when the mouse is removed from the laptop’s ExpressCard/54 slot.

The ExpressCard/54 slot is rapidly becoming the new standard, and can be found in Acer, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, NEC and Toshiba laptops.

Feel free to ask us if you have any questions!

Or, if you don’t want to wait? Or prefer the standard  PC-card BT version? Then be sure to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the FREE DAPTER now offered with the purchase of your MoGo BT mouse right now through select resellers.

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Attention everyone sitting inside a Starbucks/Library/Gas Station/Motel Lobby/Airport…If you’re on Wi-Fi, you’re taking a much bigger risk than before, and your data might not be as safe as you once believed.

You heard me right, but before you get all up in a panic, chill out and let me explain a few things first.   According to the article I just read, this new security risk was highlighted quite effectively at the Black Hat hacker conference.  Basically, the attacks use cookies, which are generally less protected, and that, in turn,  “gives attackers access to mail messages or the page someone maintains on sites such as MySpace or Facebook.  While this sounds terrible, which it is, there IS some good news.

The good news is, webmail clients like GMail let you, if you so desire, encrypt your data that is sent back and forth, thereby rendering a cookie theft (man that feels funny saying that) useless.   More good news is that really great hackers are onto this, and have now alerted makers of various computer software programs of the vulnerability.  Hopefully, with enough warning some major attack, or new style of data-theft can be successfully thwarted.

Cross your fingers, and keep those passwords fresh friends!

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Q. Hi, I was wondering if there is a 3 button version of the mogo mouse due for release ? Will it have some kind of scroll wheel too ? Can you give me some idea of the release time for this product? - Paul

A. Hi Paul. MoGo hasn’t released news of a 3-button mouse (yet) but the X54 mouse that is rolling out DOES have a scroll wheel as well as some other mighty fine new features Please, take a look and let me know what you think!

Q. My laptop didn’t come with BlueTooth in it but I think that the MoGo mouse would be really usefull for me. I just got a new Kodak Camera that uses BlueTooth, too and I would prefer that to the cables. Do I have to buy a new laptop with Bluetooth in it? Or is there a way to put Bluetooth in an older laptop?

A. Excellent news. If Bluetooth didn’t come bundled with your laptop, then you can buy an adapter.

MoGo is rolling one out in a few months that will make your laptop compatible with their mouse and your camera, too. Some of the currently available adapters are bulky and stick out from the profile of your laptop. This was the problem MoGo wanted to solve with their own version (being the slim, slick gadget compan). Their “Dapter” is the size of a fingernail and will connect into the USB port.

Good luck!

Elizabeth is a professional writer & geek with most of the last decade spent in senior management at a leading global IT provider. Thousands have attended her seminars in the US & Canada on subjects ranging from basic TCP/IP networking to high-end data storage solutions.

Got a question? Ask Elizabeth.

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