AT&T and Pantech have teamed to release a phone developed on the “principles of Universal Design — the practice of designing products and applications that are usable by the most customers possible.” What this essentially means is the two are debuting the Pantech Breeze, a simplified flip-phone priced at around $80 before rebate.

The Pantech Breeze offers as key Universal Design features, according to AT&T, a clean and uncluttered design, simplified menus, an oversized display with large keypad and quick-call keys. This is all part of this GSM quad-band world phone’s design.

The new Mobile TV service from AT&T that we first talked about back in March is now available starting this week for customers in 58 select markets in the United States. The service from AT&T in conjunction with MediaFLO streams live TV with over 150 different programs to mobile phone customers.

The service initial will work with just two specific handsets offered from AT&T - the LG Vu and the Samsung Access. The Vu is an interactive touch screen phone that will display video and web pages, has a music player, a 2MP digital camera and Bluetooth. It goes for $299.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a 2-year contract.

When you say plasma display most of us immediately think of a big flat panel TV. In the home theater realm plasma is losing ground to LCD displays as LCDs improve in contrast and brightness. For years now LCD has been the dominate player in the cell phone industry for displays.

Panasonic and AbleComm announced today that Panasonic would be building a cell phone that uses a small plasma display to operate on the newly announced AT&T Mobile TV service. The small screen will require only 1.5 volts to operate and will require no special wiring or power supplies.

AT&T and Motorola are bringing us a sweet new slider phone which will have a bounty of goodness associated with it, including GPS. It is called the Motorola MOTO Z9 and will cost you around $250 after a two-year agreement.

The MOTO Z9 has a nice slider design which hosts a phone offering GPS functionality through AT&T’s AT&T Navigator for finding your way around town. It supports AT&T’s 3G wireless service around the country as well to let you send live one-way video and audio from one user to another using a similarly compatible AT&T Wireless mobile.

Normally if you want a 3G capable mobile phone with web access, email and other features you are looking at spending a few hundred bucks. Typically Sony Ericsson phones are limited to slower than 3G service and tend to be more expensive devices.

The latest Sony Ericsson mobile phone exclusively for AT&T breaks those traditions and is the first Sony Ericsson phone for the U.S. market that features 3G connectivity. The handset is called the Z750a and it will be available in early April for $49.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

On Thursday AT&T said that it will start offering live mobile TV service from MediaFlo in May. It will be branded simply “AT&T Mobile TV.” The new service will operate on two handsets, the LG Vu and the Samsung Access. Subscribers will have access to eight channels of live TV and get two exclusive channels. Pricing information should be available in May when the service launches.

The LG Vu has a touchscreen and 2 megapixel camera, the Access has a smaller display and a 1.3 megapixel sensor. Both have Bluetooth and 3G data. But the main point is the TV aspect. Productivity is about to go out the window.

AT&T notched a huge feather in its Wi-Fi cap today as it announced a partnership to add its wireless network as an access option at Starbucks locations. This in effect brings over 7,000 new locations into the AT&T network.

Under the terms of the partnership AT&T and Starbucks will offer two hours of free wireless Internet access per day for Starbucks Card holders. This offering, which will kick in beginning this spring, will also be offered to over 12 million AT&T Internet customers in the more broad form of unlimited access. A similar offering will also soon be made to AT&T Wireless customers.

If you’re looking to get your sweetie something shiny and red this Valentine’s Day AT&T and mobile phone developer Pantech Wireless may have a phone for you to check out. The company’s Pantech duo is being made available in a new red color and will price at around $200.

The Pantech Duo in red is a Windows Mobile smartphone which boasts a dual-slide, double-keyboard design. A QWERTY keyboard slides out horizontally, while a numeric keypad is popped out vertically. This phone is UMTS/HSDPA-enabled and measures 4.02 inches tall, 1.97 inches wide and .83 inches thick.

The guys over at HackTheiPhone have come out with another one, with this hack changing the iPhone so that you can use it with your old AT&T/Cingular SIM card from a different phone. This allows you to use the voice services of the iPhone without having to start a new contract.

So, to take advantage of this hack you’ll need an iPhone, another phone with an AT&T SIM card that you can use and enough time to follow the 19 step process to make your …

Jon Johanson has been a fairly well known hacker of consumer electronics gadgets for years, and has now claimed that he has found a way to activate a new Apple iPhone without signing up through AT&T’s service. Using the iPhone without AT&T’s two year plan is not allowed by the agreement made with Apple and AT&T since the company is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone.

According to Johanson’s blog post entitled “iPhone Independence Day”, the hack will activate the phone to enable …

Here’s another release that just made it within its announced time constraints, launching on the last of the month. RIM and AT&T have announced the official release of the BlackBerry Curve, available through AT&T starting tomorrow, May 31st for a price of $199 with a two year contract and a mail in rebate, of course.

The BlackBerry Curve is the latest, smallest and lightest BlackBerry smart phone with a full QWERTY keyboard that RIM has produced. In fact, AT&T (through a predecessor company) was the first carrier to introduce a BlackBerry …