AcroDesign Technologies has released the AudioBay Podcasting application for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs. AudioBay provides everything needed to publish a podcast from a Pocket PC. Within a few minutes, users can record a podcast episode using the Pocket PC’s built-in recorder and upload it to the Web over a wireless Internet connection for immediate access by the public.

Consumer research specialist J.D. Power and Associates reported that the overall quality of wireless calling in the United States has improved for a second straight year. The customer satisfaction expert released its 2006 Wireless Call Quality Performance Study, which polls mobile subscribers regarding the frequency with which they experience a range of potential problems with their services.

Airplane crews still tell passengers that cell phones will disrupt navigation and hospitals post signs that phoning home will wreak havoc with X-Rays. Both are lies. In most hospitals today, signs are posted banning cell phones because they could interfere with hospital equipment. Many years ago, that was actually true. But improvements in cell phones in the last decade have made the interference non-existent today, unless someone is using a very old first-generation cell phone. So why are these bans still plentiful today?

On Tuesday, the state of California sued Data Trace USA, an online cell phone record provider, for $10 million. Florida-based Data Trace USA offers a 24-hour cell phone number retrieval service for $79.99, and it requires the cell holder’s Social Security number, address and full name, according to Reuters. The San Diego Superior Court suit claims Data Trace USA representatives illegally procured phone records by misrepresenting their intentions to phone companies to trick them into disclosing sensitive information, Reuters reports. The lawsuit seeks to halt this practice, commonly known as “pretexting,” according to Reuters.

Digital Foci has introduced the Memory Card Travel Case, which organizes and protects all important digital flash memory cards in one place. The Digital Foci Memory Card Travel Case is the only case you will ever need on vacation or for business travel to protect your important cards. Elegant as well as durable, the case features a sturdy silver brushed aluminum shell with hard rubberized lining providing maximum protection and accessibility for those tiny easy-to-lose memory cards.

Although long expected and actually mentioned during the Panasonic DMC-L1 DSLR launch at PMA last month, Panasonic has issued official confirmation of the development of a second-generation SD High Capacity, or SDHC card that breaks the current 2GB SD card capacity limit. The bad news is that few existing SD card slot equipped products will be SDHC compatible.

Despite recent criticism of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, including sharp words from Research In Motion, a co-founder of Visto says the patent office has been a great success. RIM placed an advertisement in several newspapers this week saying the patent system is in need of change. While he contends that there’s always room for improvement, Daniel Mendez, Visto co-founder and chief strategy officer, defends the patent office. “At any point in time people look at [the patent office] and say it’s broken, it’s a disaster, it needs to be revamped, but if you judge by the results, they’re fantastic,” he said. The U.S. patent office for around 200 years has presided over more innovation than any other country within the same time frame, he said.

Movie theater owners faced with falling attendance are considering asking federal authorities for permission to jam cell phone reception in an attempt to stop annoying conversations during films. Theaters are trying a number of ways to silence cell phones, from sweeps by ushers to funny fake movie trailers urging viewers to shut off phones. Fithian said owners were considering other steps if that does not work.

Motorola said it had solved a technical glitch in its hot-selling Razr cell phone that had stopped shipments for three to four days. The problem came from a second-source firm that had only recently started to supply Motorola with components for the ultra slim Razr. The problem was in phones shipped to just two carriers in the United States — Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile USA — and most of the problem phones had been caught in the inventory of those two firms.

Bill Gates sketched out a vision for the future Wednesday in which a cell phone will become a “digital wallet,” able to receive e-mail and even scan business cards, while computers and TVs will merge. Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, also wants to “redefine the way that citizens think about how they work with government and how efficient communication takes place,” Gates told about 300 political, business and academic leaders from Canada, Latin America and the United States at the company’s Government Leaders Forum.