Verizon Wireless today beefed up its line of rugged phones by announcing the cool looking Casio G’zOne Rock. Normally, a rugged phone is super ugly (you could try to view the line-up of Sprint Nextel’s rugged phones and see how ugly there are), but this Casio G’zOne Rock looks quite hot. Designed to resist water, shock, and dust, the Casio G’zOne Rock is perfect for people who love outdoor activities. The phone has advanced G’zGear software that operates in six modes, including Earth Compass, Walking Counter, Thermometer, Astro Calendar, Sunrise Sunset and Tides, with the help of its Triple Sensor technology. Whether your lifestyle has the demands of an avid fisher, hunter, hiker or climber, the Rock is prepared to handle life’s most challenging obstacles while providing directional information.

The G’zOne Rock supports Verizon Wireless’s Push to Talk technology, and 3G connectivity. The selling price is $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.

Casio G’zOne Rock Features and Specifications

Key features:

• Tough Technology design that can withstand water, shock, dust, vibration, humidity, salt fog, solar radiation, altitude, and high and low temperature storage (conforms to MIL-STD-810F)
• 2.0 megapixel camera with still flash, video capture and LED light
• Stereo Bluetooth®
• Touch-sensitive music controls on the sub-display
• One-touch open button
• Clear Talk
• Push to Talk capabilities that leverage Verizon Wireless’ Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network for fast two-way communication

Lifestyle features:

• G’zGear (six outdoor applications)
  • Earth Compass – functions as a standard compass; GPS shows the distance from and directions to over 40 domestic and worldwide locations
  • Walking Counter – measures steps, time, distance, speed and energy consumption Thermometer – shows current temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit
  • Astro Calendar – provides the moon’s age and days until a full or new moon
  • Sunrise Sunset – shows the current time and position of the sun and times for sunrise and sunset for current, past and future dates; allows you to view times for select major cities; shows the ratio of day and night in numbers and graphs
  • Tides – shows the tidal graph for the day; shows the time of ebb and flood tides; shows the time of sunrise and sunset; shows past and future sea tide levels; shows tidal graphs for 100 locations made available by Surfline’s webcams, and GPS will show the nearest location; shows the current tide and the best time for fishing
• Supports Verizon Wireless services, including V CAST Music with Rhapsody, V CAST Video and VZ Navigator(SM)
• microSD™ storage up to 16 GB for high-quality photos, music and more
• Speakerphone with front-facing stereo speaker
• Field Force Manager-capable – a resource management tool that provides businesses with the ability to locate and communicate with their mobile field workers

Pictures of Sony Ericsson Kurara phone are leaked in the Internet. The rumor said that the Kurara is a full touch screen phone that runs on Symbian S60 V5 operating system and a 600 Mhz ARM Cortext A8 processor. It has 3.2-inch TFT touch screen, and an impressive 8-megapixel digital camera, which also could be used as a camcorder to record high-definition 720P video clips with sound.

Other features of the phone include Wi-Fi connectivity, 3G network support (HSDPA and HSUPA), GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, and microSD memory port.

According to the rumore, the Kurara phone will be launched in the first half of 2010. Who knows whether this is true or not.

Google’s Android OS is by far the closest challenger for Apple’s iPhone OS in this crazy mobile OS market right now. Although Android is the strongest challenger, there is still a huge gap between Android and iPhone, as iPhone has thousands of Apps, and Android only has several hundreds apps, which make users don’t like Motorola Droid as much as they would. To increase the market share of Android, ARM today announced the opening of a new resource called “Solutions Center for Android” to help Android developers. You might be wondering why ARM is doing such a good favor for Google. It is because Android is actually built to run on the ARM architecture. So, the more support ARM gives to Android, the more chips they sell to cell phone makers who manufacture Android-powered phones.

So far, there are 35 companies have signed up for the Solutions Center for Android and offer community-based support as well as technical documents. ARM said that they will provide developers access to all the tools they need in order to optimize their applications for the Android platform.

AT&T Wireless today announced that the new LG Shine II phone with stylish and elegant stainless steel body and polished edges will be available at AT&T stores on November 22, right before Thanksgiving. AT&T spokesman said that the phone has a reflective 2.2-inch LCD screen has wide angle viewing, which AT&T called it “Multi-Angle Vision technology”, allowing users can see content from all different angles.

The new LG Shine II supports AT&T’s high speed 3G network, and it has built-in MP3 music player, 2-MP digital camera with image editing software, and GPS navigator (subscription is required for AT&T Navigator for traffic monitoring and turn-by-turn directions).

The expected selling price for this LG phone is $120 with a two-year contract agreement.

Casio today announced the clumsy-looking IT-800 RGC-35, a rugged phone with a big 3.7-inch LCD screen. Believe it or not, this super stupid looking phone is powered by Windows Mobile operating system (possibly Windows 6.5 mobile). As you can see from the picture, the phone doesn’t have QWERTY keyboard. The only piece of information we know is the Casio IT-800 RGC-35 is designed to resist water, dust and shock, which is what a rugged phone is designed for anyhow.

Nokia, the world’s largest cell phone maker, today announced the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition that supports mobile broadcast TV (DVB-H) for watching live high-definition TV channel on the phone’s 2.4-inch QVGA screen. After marketing MP3 phones, and Camera phones for several years, it is the time for cell phone makers to focus on the rising TV phones and the sell-like-hot-cakes touch phones. “With mobile broadcast TV consumption on the rise – by 2012 there will be over 300 million people worldwide watching TV on their mobile phones – this handset offers easy access to anyone wanting to enjoy an exceptional live, on-the-move TV experience.”

Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks work with more than 30 operators worldwide on Mobile TV implementations. Commercial launches with Mobile TV services based on DVB-H and OMA BCAST standards include Austria, Finland, Ghana, Kenya, India, Italy, Namibia, Nigeria, Netherland, Philippines and Switzerland. Additional commercial launches can be expected during the next 12-18 month in more than 20 countries.

Nokia vice president Mark Selby said, “The introduction of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition responds to the arrival of DVB-H broadcast mobile TV networks in new markets and offers an affordable device for new and existing customers alike. Customers are increasingly watching a variety of programmes on their mobiles, such as drama programs, news and sport, for a longer period of time. The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition has the sound and image quality to hold audiences captive.”

Francois Theron, CEO at DStv Mobile comments: “DStv Mobile has rolled out DVB-H networks in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Namibia and we are currently rolling out a number of new networks in other African countries. Our success has been built around offering innovative and premium television content at an affordable price while facilitating access to inexpensive handsets which suit the requirements of consumers in Africa. The introduction of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition is a welcome development as Nokia is a trusted brand in Africa and will further encourage television viewers to access entertainment, sport and news on the DStv Mobile platforms.”

Vincent Grivet, Vice President, Mobile TV TDF, France said “We are very excited by the launch of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition. It is a highly seducing and compelling device and will be the perfect platform for introducing both European mobile users and operators to a high quality and constraint free mobile TV experience. This is exactly what the industry has been waiting for to accelerate the broadcast mobile TV roll out, and we look forward to the successful and fast distribution of this innovative device in our key European markets such as Finland, Austria, Germany and France.

Vincenzo Novari, CEO at Hutch 3G, Italy, said: “As the largest handset producer in the world, Nokia’s announcement is real evidence of their commitment to the development of the broadcast mobile TV market. Networks, content and handsets made for mass consumer consumption are the key ingredients for fuelling the market’s growth”.

Erik Sylvestersson, Vice President Sales & Marketing at DNA Finland said: “Live digital TV broadcasts over DVB-H networks is becoming more accessible to more people. In Finland, we have found that sport and news are the key drivers for broadcast mobile TV consumption among consumers. People want to be able to watch the action as it happens – rather than settle for highlight shows once they get home. Consumers expect an exceptional on-the-move TV experience at an affordable price, something the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition is fully equipped to deliver.”

Other features of the Nokia 5330 include a 3.2-MP camera, Social-networking apps including MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, MP3 player, and 3.5mm headphone.

It looks like Toshiba hired some models from “Victoria Secrets” to help launching the Toshiba TG01 in Taiwan. The sexy models showed off the Toshiba TG01, a full touch screen phone powered by Windows Mobile 6.5 and 1GHz of Qualcomm SnapDragon processor, in the launch event. I am not sure how the attendants could focus on the TG01 phone instead of the upper body of the models.

You could watch the video demo of Toshiba TG01 here.