Being a Star Wars die-hard from back in the day, everything I’ve seen or heard about the new Clone Wars series and film has made me throw up in my mouth a tiny bit. I guess this Clone Trooper “laptop” is no exception—sweet case, QWERTY keyboard, but all junior will be doing is playing educational games on its monochrome calculator-LCD screen, which looks like it could have been around for the release of A New Hope. Decent framework for an Eee Computer casemod, though. [Product Page via Shiny Shiny]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Students will be heading off to college before you know it. Here are some of the products and trends that will be the hot items on campus this fall

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Verizon Wireless customers who have a BlackBerry Curve 8330, Pearl 8130 or 8830 World Edition can now access their financial information with Verizon Wireless’ Mobile Banking application. Users get the following services: account balance information and transaction history; the capability to transfer funds between accounts at the same financial institution; the convenience of viewing and paying bills when enrolled in their financial institution’s Bill Pay service and the capability to view the last five transactions successfully completed on their mobile device.

Verizon Wireless customers must be account holders of a financial institution that offers Mobile Banking to enroll in the application. Currently Wachovia, Regions, SunTrust, USAA, Synovus, America First Credit Union (AFCU), Arvest, Bancorp South, FirstBank, South Financial and BECU offer the service.

The Mobile Banking application has the following security features: multi-factor authentication including initialization codes and six-digit PIN requirements; lock out after three invalid PIN entries; use of account nicknames instead of account numbers; encrypted transactions; time out of application after two minutes on Select PIN screen and 10 minutes on other screens; and lost device functionality, which disables the application. In addition, funds can only be transferred between accounts that are set up with on the web access, and Bill Pay payees cannot be set up or edited on the phone.

To get Mobile Banking, Verizon Wireless customers with the BlackBerry Curve 8330, BlackBerry Pearl 8130 and the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition can go to the Home screen on their handsets and choose the BlackBerry(R) Browser icon to go to the VZ Start home page. Once there, click on the Mobile Banking link to download the application. VZ Begin home page can also be accessed by going to mobile.vzw.com from the browser. There’s no monthly charge for the application, even though data charges may apply.

Via Mobilecrunch

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Zumobi’s mobile widgets application launches on BlackBerry devices this day. As the profile of Smartphone users expands to include more than just business users, Zumobi has developed its BlackBerry product to enhance the user experience by providing easy access to small “bites” of customized Web content via mobile device.

Zumobi has a huge library of widgets. Users can access news, sports, weather, entertainment and games. New widgets include NPR, AP Olympics report Major League Baseball and social media sites Facebook and Twitter. Zumobi is banking on the idea that BlackBerry users want more than a business oriented mobile device. The Tile Creation Wizard allows users to create their own mobile widgets from just about any Web content. The personal touch never hurts.

“By adding BlackBerry as our second major mobile platform, Zumobi significantly expands our reach for brand and content partners. We’re thrilled to introduce Zumobi to Blackberry’s data-savvy users, and look forward to providing them with a highly-engaging mobile experience,” said Ken Willner, vice president of Market Development.

Zumobi

Via Mobilecrunch

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It looks like not everyone in AT&T land cares about the iPhone. When reader Dennis’ mom went to the AT&T stand in the Moorestown Mall in New Jersey to ask about iPhone insurance, they laughed in her face. They then handed her a bunch of articles written arguing for the BlackBerry over the iPhone, printed from places like Crackberry.com and Pocket PC Magazine. At the end, there was the name and number of an AT&T regional manager.

Nice. I called the manager whose name is listed at the bottom of the documents, and he told me that he had emailed the articles to his employees but in no way intended for them to duplicate them and hand them out to customers. Instead, they were meant to be used as speaking points for getting sales in stores where the iPhone wasn’t available.

It’s understandable for a retail operation to try to get sales when what the customer came in for isn’t available. What’s less understandable is laughing at customers and handing this kind of thing out to try to discourage them from buying their carrier’s flagship phone.

If there’s anything that we have the ability to learn from this, it’s this: AT&T won’t ever have the unified face that Apple store employees do if they’re going to have third celebration stands with third party phone lineups. Also, don’t buy phones from stands in malls in New Jersey.

Via [Gizmodo]

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