2008 10 Best

Car and Driver has just released their 2008 Ten Best List and I must admit I was shocked by a couple of the vehicles they chose, and I have a new favorite luxury sedan. It's not a Beemer! Check out some pictures of the all new 2008 Cadillac CTS below. It's not your Grandma's Caddy!
Some old "standbys" are also included like the BMW 3-Series, Honda Accord, Chevrolet Corvette, and Porsche Boxster/Cayman.

Another new vehicle on the list is the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu. I have not seen one of these up close and personal yet, but they do look very appealing. I hope people will begin to consider the Malibu over the Accord/Camry.

CTS

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MALIBU

Sprint Names New CEO

Those of you familiar with Sprint Nextel will recognize the name of the new CEO. He comes from former Sprint local phone carrier Embarq. Yes it's Dan Hesse. Here's an excerpt from the Sprint press release.

Hesse had been chairman and CEO since Embarq's inception in 2006. Prior to the formation of Embarq, he served as CEO of Sprint's Local Telecommunications Division for one year before the spin-off that created Embarq. Hesse previously has spent 23 years at AT&T, including serving between 1997 and 2000 as the president and CEO of AT&T Wireless Services, which was then the United States' largest wireless operator.

Mr. Hesse you better get busy because there is a lot of work to do. I wonder if you can make the iDEN network work better or speed up the iDEN to CDMA transition by which I mean the implementation of Qchat? As a shareholder I'm looking forward to seeing what the new vision will be and what it will and will not include. Just don't cancel or scale back that Xohm implementation and launch! Good luck!

Palm Treo 755p Coming to Verizon Soon

engadgetmobile has received details about the forgotten Palm Treo 755p for Verizon. Nothing new or really different from the Sprint version. Check out all the pictures and diagrams on the engadget site.

BlackJack II

Latest and greatest Samsung smartphone from AT&T has just hit the street. Check out the great article about this new super phone by Dave Ciccone on mobilityTODAY. This device features Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and Quad-band EDGE/GPRS with 2.4 inch 65K TFT display screen, Integrated GPS, Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 standard, 2.0 megapixel camera and video recorder, and Stereo Bluetooth 2.0. Check out the AT&T product page.

Front of BlackJack II sporting the bigger screen. You'll also see the AT&T Blackberry Curve 8310 for size comparison.

Mitchell Report

I must say that I really wasn't looking forward to reading the REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER OF BASEBALL OF AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE ILLEGAL USE OF STEROIDS AND OTHER PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUBSTANCES BY PLAYERS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL that Senator Mitchell has worked on, but after hearing the press conference I couldn't help but open up the report and start reading and searching for specific players. Please take into context that this report is merely documenting verified incidents that tell the history of the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs. The goal of the report is not to prosecute individuals identified but rather to make the argument that more needs to be done and that the program that the MLB currently has is still not enough. As Senator Mitchell stated this report should be utilized to help focus the goals of the future, and should not focus on what has already happened. In other words don't dwell on the past and instead focus on the future! That said some of the accounts documented in the report are really fascinating especially the section about Roger Clemens. Check out section VIII, subsection B, page 167.

XOHM Roll Out

On December 5 PhoneScoop reported that the first XOHM launch was eminent, but I wanted to wait for something a little more official to be published before I covered this. Todays the day! TelephonyOnline has a story from Monday 12/10 with comments from the great XOHM press relations rep John Polivka. Here are some of the details from Mr. Polivka:

The soft launches will cover the downtown cores of Chicago, Baltimore and Washington but will rapidly expand outward, following existing cellular data traffic patterns throughout their respective cities. Though Sprint has set no date for the broader customer trials, Polivka said, Sprint intends to keep the trial short, using it as an opportunity to optimize the network for a full commercial launch in the second quarter.

Please click on the link to the very well written article from Kevin Fitchard on TelephonyOnline. I have submitted my email address to be a beta tester for the service in Dallas, so if I get the opportunity I'll keep everyone posted about this new mobile highspeed internet service. I'd really like an OQO model 2 with a XOHM card to test it out around town, but I won't push my luck.

Gadgets and TV Part II

What do NASCAR, NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL have in common besides the fact that they are major sport conglomerates? I would like to see the NASCAR NEXTEL FanView™ migrate to the other major sports. Wouldn't it be great to have a video/stat view at your NFL venue of choice. Do you even know what the FanView is?
It's a revolutionary, handheld device designed to enhance your entire race experience — from practice and qualifying to full race-day coverage — and offers these features:

• Live race broadcasts
• In-car views from up to seven drivers
• Live driver, race and track stats
• Comprehensive audio coverage of drivers, teams, race officials and radio broadcasts
• New! Watch SPEED's Trackside Live and ESPN's NASCAR Now live on your device!

I imagine uniquely designed shapes for the different sports, so maybe the NFL version would be the shape of a football and MLB would be the shape of a baseball. Time magazine even labeled the FanView as one of the Best Inventions of 2006. There must be some kind of exclusivity clause with NASCAR for FanView, because I'm sure the other sports would love to have another item that people at the games can pay to use. Parking $20; hotdog $5; beer $8; hat $30; FanView rental $50. Why not? Some supporting venues offer free WiFi so why not just provide a device that is wireless and connects to the internet, and includes event content and advertising? Yet another WiMAX possibility that could also utilize EVDO Rev0.

Another utilization of WiMAX was announced by NEC in Japan recently, from Gizmodo; "Just in Japan for now, the NEC Lui is a system designed around a central server that will stream media to any device around the house using WiMAX and Windows Vista."
So instead of utilizing wifi it utilizes WiMAX. It will interesting to see how use of the WiMAX technology is charged to the consumer? Will there be a subscription service like Tivo? Tivo provides content and WiMAX is just a connection to the internet. I can see where Tivo might want to add WiMAX to their devices and then just charge a little more for utilizing that type of connection. Maybe the satellite providers would like to add it to their boxes as well?

So if the Xohm service from Sprint Nextel still happens the gadget crowd will have even more options to choose from.