I've been meaning to do this for some time, but just never got around to it. MobileBurn.com is finally offering a few different versions of our RSS feed - for those that don't need to see every last story we write. I imagine that there must be only one or two of that particular type of disinterested person in the world, but we want to make everybody happy. So, without further delay, I have added separate feeds for reviews, news, and new devices. The main feed, which you are seeing here, still exists (obviously). But if you are interested in subscribing to one of the new filtered feeds, you can find the links here:

I've been busy. It may not appear to be the case from your perspective, but I have been working quite a bit on the new site layout and a number of new features for the past couple of weeks. The new templates for the site are all complete, and I have been busy hacking them up and getting the server to spit them out with live data in them. I must admit to enjoying this a bit. But the mobile world continues to move on, even if I am not paying great attention to it for a bit. Luckily, we have other people to pick up the slack. I will, however, be taking a few days off from my coding to get you folks a review of the new HTC Touch Diamond, which I expect to receive this week. That should be interesting. TouchFLO 3D interface, VGA display....mmmmmm. Keep an eye peeled for that review.

A while back I decided it was time to update the look of the website. It's looking a bit dated, and there are a number of new things that we want to do with it that the current design just won't allow for. One of the ideas that we had for the new site was what we are calling the BrowserBar, that new strip across the top of the main section of the home page that let's you quickly see all of the latest phones. In preparation for the new templates for the site, we coded that up and I decided I might as well toss it in now, rather than waiting. So if you are having any trouble with the top of the home page, try doing a refresh/reload of the page (optionally while holding down the shift key). That should fix things up.

Well, CTIA 2008 has come and gone, and overall we were pleased with the results. There wasn't a flood of new handset announcements, but we didn't really expect one, either. Truth be told, the industry seems to be moving away from its past tendancy to save up new devices so that they can all be unleashed at one time at a big trade show. Seems it just doesn't make sense for them to do that these days. Manufacturers would rather announce devices when they are ready, and not have their news lost in the sea of press releases that surrounds shows like CES and CeBIT. But even with that change, CTIA still provided a number of interesting stories. We were very pleasantly surprised by AT&T's announcement that it will be installing kiosks powered by Microsoft's Surface technology at 12 of its retail stores. There were a number of good handset announcements, too, like Motorola's Z9 and Samsung's touchy-feely M800 Instinct for Sprint .

While we have been working the cell phone angle on MobileBurn.com for over 6 years, we have decided that it is time to open up another website, this one a true blog, that deals with gadgets and tech in general, not just phones. We are looking for somebody to be our point person and lead blogger for this new startup site, and have posted some information on the job . Please take a look at it and apply if you think you might be a fit. If you aren't the right person for the job, then maybe you could forward the link to somebody you know that might be. I'd really appreciate it.

After a lack-luster Consumer Electronics Show in January, we were really pleased with how the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona turned out. Pretty much all of the majors, save Motorola, had plenty of new handsets on hand for us to drool over, not the least of which being the surprising new Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Not only does the X1 mark the launch of Sony Ericsson's new Xperia line, it is also the first handset from Sony Ericsson to run the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. That was for us, to say the least, quite a good way to start off the show. So now we have pretty much recovered from the hustle and bustle of what was formerly the 3GSM show, and now we're going to focus on more reviews for a while. At least until we have to pack our bags, once again, and head out to Las Vegas for the 2008 CTIA Wireless show. From what we've heard from the manufacturers, CTIA should be much bigger in terms of new handsets than it was last year, which is sure to please everybody.

The show formerly known as 3GSM is now called the Mobile World Congress. Apart from the name change, however, little else appears to be changing. The event is still in Barcelona, and as was the case with past 3GSM shows, we still expect to see a lot of new handsets being launched. The show technically starts on Monday the 11th of February, but the show's new device onslaught will kick off the night before at the Sony Ericsson press party. We don't know exactly what to expect this year, but we are convinced that the show will be much bigger than CES was when it comes to new devices. LG has already shown one of its planned releases for next week, and Motorola has also been hinting at a new multimedia device (likely another UIQ based Symbian handset). That Motorola device could well tie into the new Kodak 5 megapixel sensor we wrote about recently, too. Samsung is rumored to be launching a new high-end cameraphone, and we expect some news from Nokia as well.

We're back from Las Vegas after having been at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. CES this year was pretty slow as far as cell phones were concerned. We did see Motorola's very slick E8 "morphing" phone , along with the company's new Z10 , W270, and W230 . Sony Ericsson showed off 3 new phones, including the slick looking W760 and W350 Walkman phones, but that was pretty much everything as far as handsets go. There were a few new handset sightings of note, like LG's Vu, and we got to see some cool current models that aren't normally available in the U.S., but overall there wasn't much to talk about.

The holidays are here, and we in the mobile industry are well aware of what that means. No, not a stocking full of gadgets by the fireplace, but rather Las Vegas and the chaos that is the Consumer Electronics Show, which starts on January 7th. CES, as it is more commonly known, has traditionally been a big time in the U.S. for new cell phone launches. This year, however, it appears that CES might be a bit slower. A few industry players will have no official presence at the show, and we haven't picked up a lot of noise on the rumor mill that would suggest we'll be seeing a lot of handset launches.

Well, we're on the road again. After having had a busy couple of weeks getting a lot of reviews and videos posted, we are off once again to lands far away. This time we are heading to Amsterdam to participate in Microsoft's annual Mobius meeting. We'll talk about phones, Windows Mobile powered and otherwise, and get to meet with some industry players who will, typically, show us some cool stuff that isn't public yet. It's a good time, even if it is a lot of travel for only 2 days. Coincidentally, Ricky and our forums admin Jay will be in Amsterdam a few days later to spend some time at the Nokia World event that takes place next week. We should have some live reports of the goings on there to show you, which, we hope, will include a new device or two. We'll see.