The recent buzz from the Transformers movie may have died down, but all of the various products, hacks and mods that it inspired will be with us for a long time to come. In fact, future archaeologists will dig some of this stuff up a thousand years from now and swear up and down that we worshiped Optimus Prime. One example of coolness inspired by this craze is this case mod of the Motorola MOTOROKR E6. Now, this is what cellphones should aspire to.

The down side is that it renders the phone completely unusable. Then again, when you have something this cool, you won’t care. Pay attention cellphone manufacturers. This is what we want. Robots in our ears. You can market them as “The Transformer Phone: More Then Meets The Ear…”

UTStarcom is pushing a new cell phone today targeted towards older users which is supposedly not complicated to use. The CDM8630, already available through Verizon as the Coupe, will be coming soon to other CDMA carriers in North America.

The UTStarcom CDM8630 will offer a variety of features which are thought to be senior citizen friendly. This include “large, easy-to-read on screen type; a distinct, clearly labeled keypad; ten one-touch speed dialing entries; and a special “In Case of Emergency” directory of emergency contacts.” The phone has earned a Good Housekeeping Seal for its design and features.

Virgin Mobile USA is upping its mobile phone ante today with the introduction of its first handset with streaming music capability. The new Kyocera Wild Card is priced at around $100.

The Kyocera Wild Card is a multi-function handset phone with a full QWERTY keyboard and Bluetooth support. It weighs around four ounces, sporting a clamshell design. Two color displays exist on the phone – one for voice calls and the larger one for texting, Web browsing and accessing streaming music.

AU Optronics must be following in the footsteps of the fashion industry. Their displays keep getting thinner and thinner as they improve on the design. Back in June, they developed a screen with a sub-one-millimeter border and now they are at it again, claiming that they have the “world’s thinnest 1.9-inch mobile device panel” at 0.69-millimeters. To give you a visual frame of reference, they describe it as being “13-percent slimmer than a credit card.”

When they say thin, they mean it. Apparently that measurement does not include a protective covering. It only weighs 2.2-grams and has a brightness of 400 nits. The display is also said to have superior anti-glare properties and retain proper image color saturation and can be easily seen under sunlight.

Alltel Wireless and Motorola today announced the beginning of sales of a new music phone with an exclusive feature. The Motorola MOTOROKR Z6m is priced at around $130 after a new contract and rebate.

The Motorola MOTOROKR Z6m, making use of Alltel “Celltop” technology to access and organize information available on the phone, is loaded with an exclusive XM Radio Mobile cell. It delivers 20 channels of XM and costs around $8 a month. The Z6m is designed as well to be a music playing mobile, allowing up to 2GB of optional removable memory and support for audio formats like MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA.

Verizon Wireless and Samsung today introduced a fun, cool-looking music phone available in three colors as one of four new phones coming out this fall. The new Verizon Wireless Juke is priced at around $100 after a mail-in rebate and two-year contract.

The Verizon Juke takes the form of a slim swivel mobile phone designed to be music focused. With its swivel ability it can open 180 degrees to reveal a keypad. A navigation thumb wheel lets you move through on-screen information like your MP3/WMA/AAC music files. Bluetooth support is also offered for hands-free driving and wireless music enjoyment.

Nokia has announced a new CDMA mobile phone called the Nokia 2135. The new gabber is expected to be introduced into the North American marketplace later this fall and features a nice array of features for an introductory model. This new model will target those just looking to stay in touch with others and aren’t concerned about any of the bells or the whistles.

The handset does have a speakerphone for hands-free talks, user-assignable ringtones to identify different callers, a built-in calendar and voice recorder good for up to 60 seconds of note taking and a phonebook holding up to 400 different entries. Battery life is also decent for 3 and a half hours of talk or 11 days of standby. The phone will come in two color models, one with a black keypad and the other in silver to complement the unit’s silver finish. No price was provided but Nokia did use the word “affordable” more than once.

Nokia has announced that today the larger capacity 8GB N95 will start shipping worldwide, going for about $764. The release has been enhanced for some geographical areas with a little help from Sony and the new N95 will come loaded with a feature-length version of Spider-Man 3, a Siper-Man ringtone and games. Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S. this is only going to consumers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Motorola recently unveiled a stylish new music focused mobile phone which offers upwards of 4GB of optional microSD memory card support. The new Motorola MOTO U9 should be available in select markets by the end of the year.

The Motorola MOTO U9 offers up functionality as a digital music playing device with external touch sensitive music controls and one touch access to the stored music library. Support is offered for WMA (including DRM), MP3 and AAC music formats. The phone works with Windows Media Player 11 and lets one load music onto it through a USB 2.0 connection.

The day is rapidly approaching when the phone watch will be here. Well, it actually came a little while ago but we’re talking about the practical phone watch day that’s soon to come. Hyundai may be the leader of the pack with its W-100, a GSM phone that you wear on your wrist. The phone watch comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth connectivity, microSD card slot, plays MP3 and video files and has a touch screen interface. It supports both the English and Chinese language so there’s that going for it too. Most of all we dig the design which doesn’t look too clumsy nor too calculator watch-ish. Loads of more photos after the leap.

The secret to competing with the iPhone may just be a low price/low tech approach. Last week, Google acquired and got all social with the Finnish start-up Jaiku, holder of key Short Message Service patents. And though Google isn’t talking, we know they want advertisers to sponsor Google search results on mobile devices just like on Internet-connected PCs.

Jaiku is of course, key to their strategy. In addition, they also acquired the mobile social network Zingku and expanded “Google SMS,” which is a free service that sends answers to texters with questions.

If you seriously have some money burning a hole in your pocket and want to own a mobile phone which will impress others, or provoke them to mug you, you should check out the new Motorola RAZR2 V8 Luxury Edition. This limited edition bling phone is expected to be available later this year.

The Motorola RAZR2 V8 Luxury Edition is finished with 18K gold-plated accents and a soft touch back with features a “snake skin texture.” The phone is quite thin and offers up to 2GB of on-board storage for music files. It also sports a large, color external display with touch-sensitive music controls, picture caller ID and self-portrait camera display.

Sony Ericsson is busting out a stylish new mobile phone which is preloaded with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. The Sony Ericsson K630 should be available sometime shortly, depending upon what market you live in.

The Sony Ericsson K630, preloaded as it is with Exchange, tries to make it easier to mirror your email program’s inbox. This phone is available in two body colors, gold and black, and is pretty lightweight. It also has a two-megapixel digital camera which can record digital or moving images.

According to a report from the NY Times, Google says that despite extensive rumors of a Google Phone the company does not have plans to make any mobile hardware that would compete with Apple’s iPhone or any other mobile device for that matter. Google does confirm however that they have been secretly working on a mobile phone project over the past couple years but targeting advertising and software, not hardware. They also admit to making some mobile phone prototypes, but only for testing and examples to manufacturers.

Google’s goal with their mobile phone project is to further extend their reach of online advertising into the mobile internet through mobile phone software. This software would be a Linux based version that would have multiple mobile applications beyond just maps and search, and would compete directly with mobile operating systems such as Windows Mobile from Microsoft.

AT&T is set to make available to wireless subscribers a new 3G smart device packed with features. The new AT&T Tilt, developed for the telephone company by HTC, will be priced at around $300 with a rebate and two-year agreement.

The AT&T Tilt is powered by Windows Mobile 6 and sports an angled screen with slide-out QWERTY keypad design. It has a built-in 3-megapixel digital camera, integrated Bluetooth 2.0, 3G data connectivity support, GPS-enabled turn-by-turn directions and global accessibility. There’s also built-in WiFi.