Back in 2004, AT&T Wireless introduced the Ogo, which was essentially supposed to be a cheaper Sidekick or Blackberry -- a wireless e-mail gadget for the wallet-impaired. The Ogo had a whole bunch'o problems, including a headache of a screen and a very weird interface. After Cingular ate AT&T, they lost the Ogo in their couch cushions.

Well, the Ogo's back (in black), with a more serious attitude and over-the-air syncing with Exchange servers, thanks to Synchronica's SyncML gateway. Like with the Blackberry Intenet Service, this doesn't require any IT-department involvement or even knowledge -- Synchronica uses WebDAV, the protocol used by Outlook Web Access, to sneak in and grab e-mail, calendar and contact information.

The new Ogo also surfs the Web (albeit at dog-slow GPRS speeds) and works as a phone through a Bluetooth headset, both features that were missing on the original model. It's on sale in Germany right now for around $60, with a $12/month service fee.

That price is what makes the Ogo compelling. Blackberry monthly service fees can be $40 or more. If the Ogo lets you get into your corporate e-mail, calendar and contacts for $12/month, that could appeal to a lot of more poorly-paid white-collar workers. IXI, the makers of the Ogo, told me they're working on getting the new model into Americans' hands, but don't have a timetable or a carrier.

Synchronica stopped by the PC Magazine offices today with a new Ogo, and I got some shots of the interface. Click here to see them.

Could the new IXI Ogo become the poor man's Blackberry? Let's take a little tour.

The old Ogo was a dull silver. The new model is a much more professional black. It's still small enough to slip into a pocket.

Open up the Ogo to find a pretty usable keyboard. You still have to get used to a weird interface - there's no touch screen, and you navigate using two sets of cursor keys that operate different parts of the interface. But it felt less confusing to me than the original Ogo, which was a real puzzler.

The Ogo's home screen is now ... well, a Home Screen, looking very Outlook-y. Icons along the bottom let you activate various applications including the phone mode, Web browsing, calendar, address book, and games.

The calendar app syncs over the air with Outlook now, thanks to Synchronica's SyncML client. And you don't have to say a word to your IT department, provided you have Outlook Web Access turned on.

The gadget also comes with an RSS reader.

There's a long history of connections between the US and Lebanon; consumer advocate Ralph Nader, former U.S. energy secretary Spencer Abraham, U.S. Senator John Sununu, pioneering journalist Helen Thomas and Emmy-winning actor Tony Shalhoub are all at least part Lebanese-American.

So as Lebanon goes through yet another miserable time, cell phone company T-Mobile is stepping up and offering free calls and text messages for any of its subscribers trapped in Lebanon or evacuated to Cyprus or Turkey. The free calls started on July 12 for Lebanon and Cyprus and July 21 for Turkey, and continue through the end of the month.

Calls from Lebanon on T-Mobile phones usually cost $2.99/minute. The map at left is of Lebanese cell phone coverage -- the gray areas are supposedly good coverage, which is pretty comprehensive.  That is, if the towers and electricity aren't down. Wireless blogger Paul Munford says in his email newsletter today that Jordanian cell-phone company Fastlink, which is owned by the same parent company as Lebanese cellular carrier MTC-Touch, is providing free service in Beirut for now. 

I've emailed Cingular to ask them if they're doing the same thing. I'll update this post if I get a response. Sprint and Verizon only have a tiny number of customers able to roam to the countries in question.

I consider myself to be a very patient person. However, if I constantly have to follow-up on an issue that is not solved, or I'm bugged to death, that's when I tend to lose my cool.

For a couple of months now, I have been receiving a phone call weekly from an 888 phone number to my cell phone. I know that this is probably someone trying to sell me something, so I usually don't pick up and let that company leave a message if it's such a big deal that they call me. I continued to ignore this phone number because I never received any voice mail message after the missed calls. Yesterday, I decided what the hell--I'll pick up and hopefully get this company off my back.

I answer and there's dead silence. I say, "Hello!!!" three times and decide to hang up. Today, just an hour ago, that same number called me AGAIN. This time, I had enough. I typed the phone number into Google and found the site WhoCalled.us. There, I was pointed to the page with that phone number and a list of 50 complaints!! All of these people had the same experience as me. They'd received the call weekly and no one was there on the other line. What's interesting is that many found the number to be coming from Sprint, which is my cell phone carrier.

A light when on in my head. Since there is no way to block an incoming call on my phone, I decided to call up Sprint and ask them if there was indeed some sort of feature like that. I spoke with a really nice woman who told me that Sprint does not let you block incoming calls. I then told her that from what I gathered on a Web site, that this 888 number was indeed coming from Sprint. I gave her the number and she gladly looked it up for me in the company's records. Sure enough, it belonged to Sprint's automated messaging system that calls customers for special offers!!

Surprisingly, she offered to block Sprint from calling me in regards to promotional offers. I was most grateful to get my quiet cell phone back to normal (I don't get many calls)! Besides, if I wanted a special offer, I'd look into it myself. I never understood why companies feel the need to waste our minutes. I receive special automated offers almost every month from Cablevision on my cell phone, and it's really rather annoying. I was fooled once to pick up; now I just let it go to voice mail.

Ah, the beauty of voice mail. At least that's not going to bug me if I don't have any messages!

So, if you ever have trouble with a phone number, check out WhoCalled to file a complaint. I did!

Sony announced a spat of new high-definition camcorders this week, but those won't be shipping for a few months. Right now, the company is still selling last year's HDR-HC1 and the new HC3, which has been selling out at photo stores across the country. PC Mag's photo analyst, Terry Sullivan, just finished testing the Sony HDR-HC3 ($1,500) and he was very impressed:

I loved how in the footage of my kids playing around and jumping in a pool on a bright, sunny summer day, the camcorder accurately rendered all the vibrant colors on my daughter's bathing suit, the thinnest strands of my son's spiky hair, and the tiniest droplets of water splashing up after a dive.

There is also a reference to the works of Leonardo da Vinci, but for that you will have to read his full review. The image quality is just head-and-shoulders above standard def. I stopped by while Terry was A/B-ing the HD video next to SD video and I can say the quality is really extraordinary. To be sure, working with HD video is wicked pain in the butt, but this is how you will want to capture your memories for the future. Now if only the prices could come down a bit.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile division released their earnings report today, and amongst the dull financial statistics is a startling product trend: the number of Windows Mobile powered phones grew by 90% in the past year. There are now more than 100 Windows Mobile phones shipping, from 47 device makers, in 55 countries. Popular Windows Mobile phones here in the USA include the Motorola Q (shown at left), the T-Mobile SDA and MDA, the Palm Treo 700w, the Cingular 2125 and 8125, and the Sprint/Verizon VX-6700/XV-6700. (You can find reviews of all of them and a Windows Mobile buyers' guide here.)

The boom in Windows Mobile devices here in North America has impressed me, too. While a lot of them are made by the same Taiwanese company, HTC, they appear under all sorts of different brand names and on different carriers. Windows Mobile is clearly shaping up to be the dominant smartphone OS in North America in 2007, as Palm OS seems to be restricted to one Treo at a time and Symbian remains an exotic European import that US consumers and businesses never seem to know quite what to do with.

The biggest competitor to Windows Mobile may come from Blackberry, of all things; Blackberry maker RIM has been churning out an extensive line of new handhelds catering to individual consumers and RIM execs have been talking about putting cameras and multimedia features into the 2007 Blackberry line.

Microsoft's triumph stands in sharp relief to the fate of Palm OS, which seems to be lost wandering in the wilderness. Palm OS has a lot of appeal because it's quick, responsive, easy to use and has a ton of third-party applications. But there hasn't been a new version of the OS seen on a device in years, and Palm told me point-blank a few months ago that Palm OS 5 can't handle the UMTS networks run by Cingular and many European operators, because it can't multitask voice and data conversations at the same time. Access, the new owner of Palm OS, promises an ambitious Linux-based new version ... uh ... sometime in the future. Hope it's before everyone switches to Windows, guys.