May 7 - 11:05am EDT   BT on Wednesday formally rolled out Total Broadband Anywhere, its own approach to merging Internet and phone service. The plan gives users both an 8Mbps DSL connection from the British carrier but also two phone offerings that promise to avoid the need for traditional cellphone or landline service. A home router known as the BT Home Hub provides the basic connection and creates a Wi-Fi connection in addition to including a cordless voice-over-Internet phone for making calls when at home; the feature allows much less expensive calling, particularly over long distances. [full story]

March 14 - 2:20pm EDT   HTC has developed a technology for slider phones that could make them both more useful and more elegant, according to a new US patent filing. Rather than rely on either dual sliders (as with the Helio Ocean) or other complicated designs, the prototype would include a unique keyboard plate and slider track that would allow users to shift the LCD from calling to text modes without significantly impacting the size of the phone. [full story]

January 8 - 3:40pm EST   Verizon has used CES to introduce the SMT5800, its own adaptation of the HTC Vox smartphone. Like its reference model, the device attempts to merge the best of candybar phones with full-keyboard phones by including a conventional number pad on the front but hiding a slide-out QWERTY keyboard on the side. Windows Mobile 6 and its accompanying Office Mobile are preloaded and help check 'push' mail and contacts through Outlook as well as provide basic Excel, PowerPoint, and Word editing away from work. [full story]