NTT DOCOMO is going green with the announcement of a cellphone prototype manufactured using surplus wood from trees that are culled during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests. The Touch Wood has a name that is ripe for jokes and happens to be shaped like a bean.

The prototype was developed in a partnership between Sharp, Olympus and “more trees,” a reforestation project that was founded by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. The body is cypress wood and is said to be very durable and resistant to water, insects and mildew, thanks to 3D compression molding. Each handset is unique, with it’s own grain patterns and natural color.

Gizmodo has the skinny on the Pink.Project Pink is Microsoft’s new phone for regular joes. We heard rumors about the software months ago, but the hardware, as well as who’s making it has been a mystery. Anyhow, check out the first pictures of these Pink phones, the Turtle and Pure.

The phones will be made by Sharp and Pink will be aimed at the same market that uses the Sidekick. The Turtle kind of looks like a toy Palm Pre, while the Pure seems like your typical standard slider. Both are very…round-ish, with soft angles. Obviously plastic.

Getting ready for its global launch, China’s In Technology Group (ITG) just launched a redesigned English website and is now accepting unpriced preorders for the xpPhone. Touted as the “world’s first mobile phone that runs Windows XP,” the AMD-powered slider hasn’t undergone any noticeable changes since we last saw it.

According to ITG the device supports both SSD and HDD drives at the same time (the SSD to “help save power” and the HDD for the “full internet experience”). They can also be used as a portable hard disk when the system shuts down.

If you keep track of lots of receipts for your job or for the IRS at the end of the year, it can be hard to keep up with them all and get them organized into reports. A new app from Mitek for the iPhone makes keeping up with receipts and turning the receipts into usable reports an easy task.

The app is called Mobile Receipt for iPhone and is currently the top paid financial app on the App Store. The app allows the user to snap a picture of a receipt with their iPhone camera. The app automatically crops, rotates, and adds the receipt to a report.

We’ve seen our share of Apple clones and rip-offs, but on this one, they’ve taken the Apple name way too literally. I mean, it’s shaped like an apple, has buttons in the shape of apples, flips open like a sliced apple and so on and so on.

It’s from Apple, we get it. Only it’s not. Some of the craptastic specs include: quadband GSM support, a 2″ display, dual SIM, integrated FM radio, TXT file reader, a digital camera and support for a maximum of 10 languages.

Mivvy, the Czech company just dropped the Mivvy one smartphone, powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. The full touchscreen handset won’t blow you away with killer features though as it’s a mid-range handset with the following specs.

You can expect Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), 3.2″ TFT display at 240 x 400 resolution, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, Integrated FM radio, 3-megapixel camera, 624MHz Marvell PXA300 processor, 128MB RAM, 256 MB ROM and a microSD memory card slot

Most of the news we hear and much of the focus in the mobile phone industry is placed on the smartphone segment. Despite the focus, the vast majority of mobile phone sold in the U.S. are not smartphones.

The NPD Group has issued a report that shows a full 72% of all handsets sold in America are feature phones. Smartphones hold 28% of the mobile phone market. NPD reports that as smartphones are growing, the feature phone segment is shrinking with a decline of 5% compared to Q1.

Safaricom out of Kenya has rolled out its latest solar-powered cellphone dubbed the Simu ya Solar. The handset was constructed using recycled materials, while an integrated solar panel makes sure that your phone always have some spare juice.

This one is great for users who are in rural areas where electricity is hard to find and sunlight is plentiful. Another benefit for those users is that even if they do have access to electricity, they will save money by letting the sun do it’s thing rather than charging it and wasting resources.

Sony Ericsson has teamed up with Dolce & Gabbana to launch the Jalou handset for those who are style conscious. It features a 3 Megapixel camera, FM radio, pedometer and A-GPS. The rose color and gold plating should attract a lot of women and that’s the idea.

The two-inch display doubles as a mirror after pressing a dedicated key. The handset ships with three satin bags to protect the phone or hold various accessories, and a Dolce & Gabbana branded headset with gold accents. No word on price or availability yet.

The Samsung Honey Bubble 3G Phone sports a retro look and a name that drips with flavor. It also goes by model number SPH-W8700. The handset will be equipped with a 2-megapixel camera with panorama mode and video recording capability, video call support, and a DMB Digital TV tuner.

Some other features include Bluetooth connectivity, MP3 playback, a Subway Map, M-Commerce support, GPS navigation, a pre-loaded dictionary and a SOS Siren Alarm. Looks like this one is going to be Korea-only. Sorry rest of the world. Maybe next time.

Apparently the FCC has more information on the upcoming Alcatel Crystal A from TCT Mobile Limited. The Alcatel Crystal A has a somewhat different artistic design on the outside with several crystals thrown in for good measure.

We aren’t sure if they are real precious stones or just faux jobs. The features are pretty basic though. This oddball sports an integrated camera(unknown megapixel count), an integrated FM tuner, audio and video playback, a microSD memory card slot, Bluetooth connectivity and Java support.

Sprint and Samsung are friends of the Earth with their latest offering. The two companies have just unveiled the Reclaim, an eco cellphone that’s made from 80 percent recycled materials. It’s a sliding, QWERTY message-friendly phone made from “bio-plastic” materials that are made from corn, is PVC free, and for the most part free of BFR (brominated flame retardants).

It also sports a 2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, microSD slot, and has Sprint Navigation. Even the packaging is eco-friendly, made from 70 percent recycled materials and printed with soy-based ink. They really aren’t kidding around here.

Pantech’s latest offering to the cellphone gods is the doublEye IM-U490S, available under the Sky brand. This slider boasts an interesting Picture-in-Picture feature, which lets you take photos while recording videos at the same time.

Some other features include an animated Flash menu, widgets support, HSPDA connectivity, integrated DMB-TV tuner, 3-megapixel camera, a microSD memory card slot, 2.6″ QVGA display and 130MB of internal memory.

A few months back, Modu was showing off a cutesy little phone at Mobile World Congress and creating quite a stir. And here it is now available on the market. Mobo, an Israeli website has already done a hands-on. Here’s the basic low-down.

It sports 2.5G, no WIFI. The phone consists of two pieces: the “module” that houses the actual phone and the “jacket”, which is a physical shell/case. You can switch “jackets” as often as you like. The available jackets are a little basic at the moment, but should get better.

Bad teeth and Monty Python aside, nothing says British like a red phone box. The phone itself is fully functional and comes with a 65K color TFT screen, a camera, SMS, MMS and GPRS/WAP 2.0. Sure, those specs aren’t great, but it’s a red British phone box. What did you expect?

We really would have preferred a blue version. At least that way, it would be very Doctor Who. They really missed out on that idea. It could have all of the geeky sounds and everything. Oh well. You will get some early 00’s polyphonic style ringtones. 20 to be exact. Stuff like God Save the Queen and other British tunes.