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It's been long speculated that devices such as the Sprint Diamond and Touch Pro have build in FM radios that are disabled. The question is are they disabled at the hardware level (bad) or software level (good)?

Well the news is at least for Sprint Touch Diamond users it is at the software level and you can now enable that ancient technology and get FM jamming through your touchy device.

Thanks to No2Chem, famous for his custom ROMs on various HTC devices, you can go ahead and grab his latest project right here.

Bad news? Don't expect any such FM goodness on the Sprint Touch Pro (see gallery):

HOWEVER, the Touch PRO is a different

For those who may not know, my day job is with the local Sheriff

A few months ago, we reviewed GPSToday and called it one of Windows Mobile's killer apps. We also hinted back then that some more features were to come in future revisions, specifically relating to social networking and communications.

Welp, that time has come. This week, GeoTerrestrial updated their program with a bunch of lil' fixes and improvements and few big ones, including GeoMail. GeoMail is simply a method to send your current coordinates or street address via email/sms to friends and colleagues.

The other major update is a new standalone version. With the popularity of HTC's TouchFlow interface, running 3rd party Today Plugins is a bit of hassle. Now you can download a separate non-plugin version of GPSToday. Sweet.

Read on for my quick overview/review of GPSToday's GeoMail feature.

First, some other minor updates that come with 0.9.9.3:

• Weather updating mechanism is tightened up
• Today screen flicker is removed
• Now you can change the temperature display color on the today screen to suit your needs

GeoMail

This is now probably one of the best features of GPSToday. Ever been meeting up with someone in the city and you want to send them your location? Not very easy if you use Google Maps or Live Search as (1) You can't send people your blue dot (2) Just because you see yourself on the map, doesn't mean you know the actual street address.

GPSToday and GeoMail solve this by simply looking up your GPS location, converting to a street address and with just a few clicks, being able to send that info via email or SMS.

But what's really cool here is how GeoMail handles this feature. When you send the info via email, the recipient gets 3 options via links

• A link to a map for desktop users
• A link to a map for mobile phone users
• Option for GPSToday users to open the info in GPSToday (via menu)

In other words, the program does not need your recipients to have GPSToday installed or some special software on their end. That non-proprietary feel is very nice and GT seem to have covered all possible scenarios of real users.

If sent via SMS, the recipient will get your geolocation & street address. And the super cool part: if you have GPSToday installed and receive somebody's geolocation info via their GPSToday...it automagically opens up your GPSToday to display their location with a little message. They then show up on your map as a little pin, with their name and even their message.

Hands off, no fiddling, no copy n pasting, no looking up. It just does it for your. Plus you can respond back to the person with your location and a message. You can even send to multiple recipients.

A+ GeoTerrestrial.

Registration for GeoMail

One quibble some may have is that you need to register an account to use GeoMail. Like the program itself, it's free and there are no gimmicks here. Though you may wonder why you have to register (we did) and this is what GeoTerrerstrial had to say:

The reason is that next version onwards geomail will allow sending/receiving locations by choosing recipient usernames, via the geoterrestrial network (a third way over sms and email). That method will be a bit slower than sms (but free unlike sms), and much faster than email. Even better than that, it will also allow us to de-couple sending/receiving methods based upon user preferences. For example, a user will be able to send a message via email, but the recipient will receive it instantly via sms, and so on. We think that will be really neat.

And as a teaser, GeoTerrestrial lets us know of another new feature they are working on, cryptically called GeoGroups which will also take advantage of the "geoterrestrial network". You heard it here first :-)

Plus, as far as signing up goes, this is pretty painless as you can do it all on the device and they require no personal information (just a username and password). Still, we suppose one could argue about security risks, so if you have a fear (or a reason to fear) someone spying on you...well, you should probably not even have a phone with GPS.

Final Thoughts

What can we say? We're smitten with this program. It's free, it looks cool and it's probably one of the most useful applications to take advantage of your device's on-board GPS.

With GeoWeather (weather based on your current location), GeoTagging (automatically tag your photos with your geolocation info), GeoLogger (log your movements, hikes, etc.),the future GeoGroups (?!) and now GeoMail, GPSToday is packed full of features that are just (geek alert!)...really awesome.

If we had any gripe it would be this: somehow add a GeoMail icon to the Today Plugin, or give us an option for an expanded Today Plugin. We think it'd be really cool to just one-click (via icon) launch GeoMail without having to launch the map and go into some sub-menu. But that's a minor criticism.

Two bigger issues are still no-compatibility with non-Touch Screen devices (we feel for you Moto Q9 users) and street address lookup is still U.S. based only.

But hey, if you're in the U.S., have a touchscreen WM device and GPS...this seems like a no brainer.

Post your thoughts and comments below!

See that phone there? That's the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1.

And that's still as close as you can get to it.

Word on the street is that the third-party vendors who supply components of the device — think processor, GPS, radio and who knows what else that's packed into this thing — can't keep up with demand, and thus we still have seen neither hide nor hair of the X1 on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

From the Dutch-language Tweakers.net (translation):

Xperia handsets are currently only in dribs and drabs, said the spokesman Harold Abstract opposite Tweakers.net. The problem in all countries where Sony Ericsson phone last month on the market. "We have a problem with the supply of components by third parties. That does not make enough parts on time, leaving too few copies of the device can be made."

Oh. That could just mean all kinds of good (read bad) news for AT&T, which, as we just learned, is still trying to get the HTC Fuze out the door.

Via Inxperia

Meanwhile, you can hold yourself over with our own review from way back in April or this more recent one from Mobile Tech Addicts.

A couple of days ago we asked "Where be the Fuze?" Apparently the boys and girls over at the Boy Genius Report were reading and have been kind enough to track down the answer.

The date: Nov. 11 — that'd be next Tuesday, just a week after what we initially thought would be the launch.

The price: $299.99 with the standard 2-year contract/rebates/data plan.

The cost goes up from there. If you want it off-contract, you're gonna have to shell out $499.99.

What else do we learn? There should be a camera-less version for the worrisome enterprise types. Expect a national advertising campaign starting next month.

Hit up the BGR link here for the rest of the dirty details.

Verizon-Alltel? Done -- the FCC joined the DOJ and said “OMG U can has buyout.” As BGR reports, they added a few more markets that Verizon will need to pull out of for anti-competitive reasons. So $28 billion dollars gets Verizon bragging rights as the US's largest carrier, bypassing AT&T.

The FCC didn't stop there, though. They also approved that whole Sprint-Clearwire deal we told you about in May. It's a little complicated, but the gist is that Clearwire is now an independent company, 51% owned by Sprint, the rest by Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Brighthouse. Clearwire will provide WiMAX service to all of the above, who will the presumably bend that sweet sweet data to their own services. Although AT&T didn't like this deal either (they really lost out today), the FCC was pretty effusive about the potential for WiMAX.

The thing we're most excited about, though is that the FCC has approved the contentious bands known as “White Space” for broadband use. “White Space” in this context refers to bands within the broadcast television spectrum that aren't used by regular TV channels. Both Microsoft and Google were pushing hard for the FCC to allow these unused 'in-between' parts of the spectrum for data and for awhile it wasn't looking very likely. This should get broadband to rural areas right quick, at the very least, and it could potentially really shake up the wireless industry. It's complicated, here's a quick blog roundup to get you started.

Our friends over at Mobile Phillipines are reporting that Sony Ericsson has launched a

This week's Around SPE is sponsored by the Android Central Store, where you can find a full complement of accessories for the T-Mobile G1 including headset adapters, body skins, and screen protectors.

What's the big news in the Smartphone world this week? It's a mix, really. Android's looking like a viable platform to more and more people, there are a ton of Windows Mobile devices on the way, and both CrackBerry.com and the iPhone Blog are running contests that ought to spark your interest. Read on!

Android Central

Android Central is still enamored with the G1, so we followed up our full review of Android with a look at the Android Market App Store. We're excited to see that said App Store should soon be populated with quality games from EA, not to mention complete Exchange support for push email and PIM info.

Of course, like the rest of the Android-watching-web-world, we noticed that some folks were touting that they'd successfully unlocked a T-Mobile G1. Yeah, we did that a week earlier than anybody else did and we got AT&T's data working just peachily as well, thanks. We'd be more bitter, but the fact that you can grab a G1 at Walmart has our head spinning so fast we ain't got time to mope.

CrackBerry.com

CrackBerry Nation is abuzz with new BlackBerry releases. After months and months and months and months of waiting, the BlackBerry Bold will finally be available from AT&T this Tuesday! Storm fever is still going strong, with launch parties taking place and release dates getting near. You can now pre-order a Storm from Vodafone, and things are still looking on track for the Storm to be out on Verizon by Black Friday. The Pearl Flip is making its rounds too: T-Mobile is now offering it in Red (in addition to the Black model they launched with) and it's starting to pop up in Rogers stores (in both black and pink) with November 4th availability everywhere.

Phase 1 of the The What Would You Do for a BlackBerry Storm? Contest was a huge success, with over 3,000 crazy CrackBerry addicts entering their What Would You Dos. Judging for that is going on as we speak (should be complete by Monday night).. with the top ten soon-to-be Storm winners to be contacted on Tuesday. Next step - they'll have to carry out their To Dos on video!

And the long-waited CrackBerry Book is nearing it's eBook launch date (print copy to follow in a couple weeks)... Featuring real life tales of BlackBerry Addiction gone too far and effective strategies to help get your use under control, this will be a must read for the BlackBerry Addict (expect your signifcant other to pick you up a copy!). Keep your eyes peeled for it to surface later this week!

The iPhone Blog

iPhone Live! -- our new podcast which will alternate with Phone Different and make us all nice and weekly -- is now archived and available in the iPhone blog's usual feed. Join Dieter, Brian, Chad, and Rene, for a discussion of iPhone 2.2, GPS, Turn-by-Turn Navigation, and a Q&A from our live chat audience.

...You'll also be interested in the beginning of our Ultimate Accessory Pack Give Away Contest!

Big week for Apps as well, as TiPb interviews PCalc's James Thomson for a look behind the marketing and money of the App Store. New release Google Earth also goes App vs. App against veteran Earthscape, and we take a look at why Apple may have denied browser rival Opera Mini a place on the iPhone.

TreoCentral

Over at TreoCentral, we found via WMExperts about another clue telling us that the Treo Pro is on its way to Sprint. And we found out that the Treo 750 has disappeared from AT&T's website, and you can only get it from Palm in the unlocked variety.

We read that John Hartnett, Palm's SVP of Global Markets, is leaving the company in November for undisclosed reasons. This comes on the heels of Palm hiring Simon Lloyd as Senior Director, EMEA Marketing, to try and win some ground in the European market as Palm wants to make a comeback against the BlackBerry and iPhone in brand stakes. And speaking of markets, how about the stock market, in which Palm's stock teetered at low records (hitting $2.70) on Tuesday.

Brian has written a review of the Celio Redfly, which makes a great mobile companion for the Palm Treo Pro. If you haven't bought the Redfly as of this writing, you still have a chance to grab it for $199.95 in the TreoCentral Store.

WMExperts

WMExperts is buckling down for a deluge of new Windows Mobile releases in the coming weeks, although we did manage to get out of the gate early with first review of the Touch Pro on Sprint. We're expecting the AT&T version of that device, AKA the Fuze, to arrive on Monday and for the Verizon version to be pretty much identical Sprint's.

Mostly, though, we focused on the wider launch of Microsoft's Live Mesh service, which is a great cloud-sync application that works on Windows, Mac, and of course, Windows Mobile. Be sure to check out our early walkthrough.

Not enough for you? Well, we did confirm the rumor that we also were the first to report, namely that the Treo Pro will hit Sprint. WM devices on Sprint also finally joined the MMS crowd and, well, there's a mystery version of Windows Mobile that we're waiting on as well.