Over the next several months, 12 mobile operators will run trials of contactless mobile payment services in Australia, France, Ireland, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey and the U.S. as a precursor to commercial launches. The trials form part of the GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative, which is designed to provide a single global approach to enable contactless payments using a mobile phone. Consumers will be able to use their handsets to pay for goods and services in shops, restaurants and train stations. The Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative supports the use of the Single Wire Protocol, which was adopted by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) as a standard in October 2007, to link the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) contained within the mobile handset with the phone’s embedded Near Field Communications (NFC) chip.

The NFC chip can communicate with existing contactless payment systems to deliver a wide range of secure, interoperable and transparent services, such as credit and debit payments. There are 35 mobile operators with 1.3 billion customers participating in the initiative. Executives from Korean operator KTF have paid for goods by passing their NFC-equipped handsets by contactless readers in retail outlets in Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. in a trial involving real transactions facilitated by MasterCard. For this trial, MasterCard’s Paypass application and Shinhan Bank’s credit card application were downloaded to a KTF UICC embedded in the mobile handsets, which were provided by LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics. The retail outlets at the respective locations were equipped with readers that support the NFC interface and accept MasterCard’s Paypass applications, enabling real transactions in three different countries.

In Silicon Valley, tech company owner Mohammed Khan buys his bagels with a wave of his specially equipped cell phone. In Los Angeles, aspiring filmmaker Mike Hodgkinson uses his cell phone to shoot DVD-quality video, one of them for Rob Dickinson, former songwriter for indie band Catherine Wheel. And in Italy, IT professional Robert Bernocco thumb-typed an entire 384-page sci-fi novel on his standard 12-button Nokia 6630 keypad during his daily train commute. These days the gadget formerly known only for voice calls has mastered multitasking. Smarter phones lead an onslaught of wireless technologies creating the third revolution of modern electronics, following transformations wrought by the personal computer and the Internet.

The cell phone’s worldwide conversion from voice device to high-tech Swiss Army knife includes contributions from engineers in San Diego at Qualcomm, Kyocera, LG Electronics and other telecom companies. In the five years since manufacturers added high-speed data connections to mobile phones, they’ve offered music downloads, text messaging, cameras, keyboards and other gadgetry as potential “killer applications” – must-have features that would compel consumers to buy new phones.

LG Electronics has partnered with Paramount Pictures to showcase the Korean company’s high-tech mobile phones in the upcoming Hollywood movie “Iron Man.”Set to open before June, the action film based on a comic book tells the story of a weapons designer who builds a robotic suit of armor to battle evil.

In the movie, actor Robert Downey Jr. who plays Iron Man will use an LG mobile TV phone while his co-star Gwyneth Paltrow will use a touchscreen smartphone that was released in Europe last October.”The futuristic film coupled with the phones’ high-tech, innovative image will likely produce immense brand promotion effects,” a senior official at LG’s North American cell phone unit said.

Until a month ago, Russ Becker’s wireless phone had never done anything but make calls. If he knew his wife was in a meeting and he needed to get her some information, he borrowed a cell phone from someone else to send her a text message. “I was afraid of the technology. I didn’t want to be embarrassed that I didn’t know how to do the things that other people did intuitively,” Becker says. The 45-year-old Shelby Township, Mich., resident sees plenty of new tech as manager of an outdoor recreation goods store. He just wasn’t ready to jump in. But then he started reading more about what all the new phones could do; his wife, Pam, started leaning on him; his phone battery started dying in minutes because of heavy usage when he visited relatives, and he knew it was time. Having spent nine years doing nothing but making calls, he switched to a new LG Voyager phone - and ended up buying and using every bell and whistle available.

Becker is one of millions diving into more advanced phone service nationwide. They are using data services every day, watching and listening to almost every type of entertainment available. Becker has had his new touch-screen, multimedia phone for a month or so. In that time, he’s gotten turn-by-turn directions, watched live TV, pulled up satellite weather reports, looked up phone numbers for customers online, sent a photo of the family dog curled up on the couch to his wife, listened to a Christmas song his wife liked, using the nifty song ID feature that will identify most any tune by sound. (It turned out to be “Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord” from Boney M.), and browsed the Web.

Yesterday, we told you about an issue wherein the LG Rumor would miraculously delete portions of its firmware on you, effectively making the handset impossible to use and forcing you to send it back to the factory to get fixed. After approaching the suits at Sprint over the issue, it turns out there is nothing wrong with the LG Rumor at all and the only reason why you don’t find it in stores is because sales expectations have been exceeded.

Sprint just didn’t think that the little sliding QWERTY candybar would be as popular as it has been, so they’re running out of stock. This denial comes in stark contrast to earlier reports that Sprint pulled the phone from shelves. That said, the cellular provider is admitting that there is a small technical error that “impacts a very low percentage of potential customers.” I don’t know about you, but it sounds like Sprint is hiding something from us. The firmware issue could very well be consider a “small technical error” and it would impact “a very low percentage of potential customers”, because not that many would start randomly pressing buttons during startup.

The Apple iPhone, featuring touchscreen controls, was revealed a year ago and released six months later. This was declared by analysts, critics and users as “revolutionary.” Yes, it’s a bit cliche, but there’s nothing wrong with a little revolution now and then. Touchscreen phones, often found in the “smartphone” category for multiple abilities, are now hitting the market from a variety of companies. The question is, will they have the same “wow” factor .LG is providing just that with two new phones that use touchscreens for navigation, the Venus and the Voyager. Both of these phones are made to use with the Verizon wireless network. Both smartphones also set out to “wow” as they work. The Venus is the smaller of the two phones. It has a screen that slides upward to reveal the keypad and power key. The “send” and “clear” keys are here as well. The phone includes a 2-megapixel camera, a headphone jack and a MicroSD memory card slot to expand the phone’s memory. The phone can play music files downloaded from a computer via the included USB cable.

It’s capable of downloading and playing television shows and videos using the V-Cast wireless system (free samples are available, but fee applies for full videos).The Venus does have a touchscreen, but it’s only the bottom third of the screen. It’s also very limited on the touch controls. Basically, you have a few buttons and some directional arrows. The top part of the screen shows the applications and options, but you can’t touch them to launch them. Instead, you have to scroll through them with the touch- screen directional arrows. The arrows can be slow to react at times. I couldn’t pop through quickly or scroll smoothly with these controls.

The buzz after CES about mobile phones proves “What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.” The Consumer Electronic Show 2008 estimates that 130,000 attendees viewed the latest technology along over 4,000 journalists. Motorola, Nokia, LG, Samsung, Sony and Neonode all showed their wares with Motorola getting a lot of attention sneaking past most reviewers except Wireless and Mobile News.

The most lauded launch which won CNET’s people choice award was the with a morphing touch screen keyboard that changes for phone and music player use.  The however had a lot more capabilities than most reports, a demonstrator at the MOTO booth showed us how film clips could be edited and cross faded all on the phone which was very impressive.

The most overlooked phone which was the most interesting and practical for a writer/editor to use was the When we asked at the LG booth what we should try we were directed towards the phone. The camera with stabilization was lovely but the real hocus pocus on this phone is the handwriting recognition.  With the top of pen cap the phone recognized letters quickly and effectively. Nokia’s N95 is slightly thicker than previous version and was popular the booth.  The price tag of close to $700 makes it a tougher sell. Which uses a touch screen with finger swiping capabilities was launched for the U.S. market at CES, although it looks like the iPhone is much smaller and been called “cute.”

LG said yesterday that, later this year, it plans to launch U.S. trials of a mobile digital TV system that will be capable of delivering a high-quality signal to vehicles traveling as fast as 225 kilometers per hour. The system, called Mobile Pedestrian Handheld (MPH), will offer users the ability to watch their favorite shows, sporting events and local news, weather and traffic reports anywhere the system is offered, said LG.”MPH sends one or more mobile TV channels by using a small portion of the 19.4Mbit/sec. ATSC signal so the existing TV towers can transmit the mobile TV signals along with the existing HDTV channel,” Woo Paik, president and chief technology officer of LG Electronics, said at a Consumer Electronics Show (CES) news conference Sunday. The LG system is one of several vying to become the de facto standard for mobile TV in the U.S., and it has several advantages over competing technologies like VCast service, according to LG. With the LG offering, TV stations piggy-back on the existing HDTV channel, so they don’t need to invest in extra frequency spectrum to launch a direct-to-mobile service.

And that could potentially be a big selling point for the technology. But the same is true of some other systems, including one from Samsung. In contrast, systems like Verizon’s VCast and those based on the European DVB-H technology require extra frequency space, and that can be an expensive investment for TV or mobile phone networks.

Verizon Wireless announced the newest flavor of Chocolate by LG – Blue Ice. The newest addition to the Chocolate line-up, the silky-smooth slim slider design comes coated with a frosty blue finish and includes the must-have multimedia capabilities for the music and entertainment lover on your holiday list.

The Chocolate in Blue Ice includes the same features chocoholics have come to love, such as vibration feedback on the touch-sensitive keypad, navigation wheel with classic red trace motion lighting, and a microSD™ memory card slot that supports up to 4 GB of memory. Customers who purchase the Chocolate will love the quick and easy access to V CAST Music, the Verizon Wireless service that offers more than 2.4 million songs for download over-the-air, and V CAST Video, which offers news, sports and entertainment video clips, 3D games and more. VZ NavigatorSM, a popular tool available on the Chocolate, includes mapping, audible turn-by-turn navigation and access to information on more than 14 million points of interest. A 1.3 megapixel camera, speakerphone and Bluetooth® headset capabilities round out the features wrapped in frosty blue.

Chocolate by LG in Blue Ice is available today for $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and new two-year customer agreement at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores within Circuit City. It will be available at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com on Friday, Dec.7.

LG Electronics announced Thursday that it is ready to debut LG 410 Series Mobile phones which are designed to look like a sports car. 410 Series is a sequel to LG-M4300 that LG showcased at CEBIT held in Germany last month. The design of the handset is just like that of sports cars in detail, the handset maker said. 410 Series will be supplied to domestic mobile carriers such as SKT(SD410), KTF(KP4100) and LGT(LP4100) within the first six months of this year and then shipped to North America and Europe. The phones support 1.3megapixel camera, ergonomic compact folder, 260,000 color TFT-LCD, video recording, MMS, MP3 and mobile banking functions. If users want more sports car like feeling from the phones, they can set car starting sound played when opening or closing the folder or put images of luxury sports cars on front screen thanks to “Fun” menu.