With the Consumer Electronics Show getting started on Thursday, and the MacWorld already underway, there’s a lot of little bits of news floating around. Here’s a recap of what’s happened so far in the first week of 2009.
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A new vulnerability is hitting certain Nokia phones: the “Curse of Silence” affects Nokia S60 devices running 2.6, 2.8, 3.0, or 3.1, and blocks your phone from receiving SMS and MMS messages. Unfortunately, you can’t solve the problem with a simple power cycle - according to the advisory, you need to perform a factory reset to fix it. The good news is that it’s more annoying than dangerous, since the attack requires the phone number of the recipient/victim.
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A refurbished Plantronics 640E for $14.99. Deal?

So this Plantronics Discovery 630E Bluetooth headset used to be a cool $119.95. Now it’s refurbished and marked down to $14.99. Deal?

Even though it’s pretty cheap (even for a refurb), it’s got some decent features: 15 hours of talk time, a carrying case that can also charge the headset with an included AAA battery (also comes with an AC charger), and a weight of 9 grams. You also get a case and some extra ear tips. Not too shabby.
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Nokia 6208c: Stylus Smartphone.

In what is starting to become a yearly tradition, Nokia recently announced its latest stylus-driven smartphone, the 6208c. Heading to, you guessed it - China. Read the whole preview for a look at the 6208c’s fun features like a 3.2 megapixel camera and bamboo slip detachable stylus.
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The LG GD910: Watch + Touch-Screen Phone

Watch phones are just one of those cool, futuristic ideas that usually end up being completely unpractical in the real world. So of course I drooled all over LG’s latest creation, the GD910.
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Nokia 8800 Gold Arte: 18 Carats of Pure Bling

Following in the footsteps of the Sapphire Arte and Carbon Arte, the Gold Arte brings 18 carats of the stuff along with “premium quality leather.” No pleather here!

Unfortunately, everything else - OLED screen, 3G, “tap for time”, 3.2 megapixel camera - is exactly the same as the previous iterations, and continues Nokia’s philosophy of “less is more” for the 8800 series.

It looks like Nokia also decided that the 8800 Gold Arte was above a mere press release, and dropped the phone onto Nokia web sites to be discovered by Random Bloggers. So price and availability are pretty much nonexistent. But keep in mind that the Carbon Arte retailed for 1100 Euro/$1623 USD and the Sapphire Arte went for 1150 Euro.

Nokia 6650: Not your average flip phone.

I recently received a Nokia 6650 as part of Nokia 6650 Chronicles, a cool little project documenting the daily lives of twenty bloggers, yours truly included.

The 6650 is what I’d call an enigma. It looks like your typical S40 AT&T budget phone, but in reality it’s a Symbian OS-powered, quad-band/3G connected smartphone with an integrated GPS.
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TheStreet.com just released a list of its top five smartphone picks for 2008. Among the winners:

1. Apple iPhone 3G
2. LG Incite
3. Nokia E71
4. Blackberry Storm
5. Blackberry Pearl Flip
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DC-9 and DC-10: Now Retractable

Car chargers aren’t anything to write home about, but the latest Nokia DC-9 and DC-10 car chargers have at least one new ooh-aah feature: retractable cables. They also don’t look as boring as your typical 1990s-era Nokia car charger or as strange as some “other” car accessories (HF-35W Inner Tube).
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A new law being considered in the European Union would turn certain smartphones into “multi-functional devices,” which on the surface just sounds like a pointless name change. But the change comes with some stiff penalties. Aka taxes.

Phones that feature a built-in mobile TV receiver would be taxed a whopping 14%, while devices with integrated GPS chips would be hit with a cool 3.7% tax.
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