Word is spreading that Helio store managers have received notification this week that the axe is finally falling. At least some of the nationwide chain of retail stores will be closed during Virgin’s takeover of Helio. It looks like there is going to be a big corporate reshuffling coming up. There is also no news if the fabled Ocean 2 will survive this, or if Virgin will even let Helio customers keep their phones.

Users who are sick and tired of seeing their co-workers show off their Blackberry push email and all can rejoice. Sprint is about to resolve those issues with its new Mobile Mail Work, a push mail solution for non-PDA handsets.

This new service will be launched on the Samsung Instinct, and will allow users to receive their Exchange mail, works both online and offline, and even has searchable contacts. Pricing isn’t too shabby either, as it’s free for users on Everything, Talk / Message / Data share and Vision Pro packages, and others can get on the bandwagon for $9.99 a month. This software can be downloaded via Sprint’s mobile web downloads and should support 11 more handsets in the coming weeks.

Most people have seen or at least heard of a dual-SIM phone. They’re certainly handy, but how about a dual-band dual-SIM phone? Coolpad has reported created a really unique phone. Aside from accepting 2 SIM cards, it includes GSM and CDMA radios, and the unit can supposedly switch between GSM and CDMA accounts easily.

Apparently this phone is going somewhere between $100 and $1000, depending on the model and whether users have any “insiders”, and even then, they’ll have to go to Indonesia, China or Africa to pick one up.

Sprint has revised their pricing structure to a more “simplified” version, and they probably hope that user's wont be too unhappy about them doing away with free incoming calls.

With the new plan, individuals and families can just pick the amount of minutes that they need and whether why want unlimited messaging or unlimited messaging and data. Less choice means easier decisions. Now all they have to do is await response from their users.

Mercedes-Benz's latest iPhone cradle should make iPhone's enjoy their rides in the luxury car as much as their owners. This new cradle will finally integrate iPod controls with the main nav screen and COMAND controller, instead of relying only on the instrument display and steering wheel. Other benefits include charging the iPhone while it's docked, and allow users to make calls and obviously listen to music.

One of the neater features is the fact that plugging the phone in will increase the reception, mainly by using the vehicle's antennas as well as the iPhone's. The cradle itself is now available in Germany for $385.

Information has surfaced online revealing the suppliers of various components of the upcoming iPhone 3G. It doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that Infineon supposedly has been confirmed as the component supplier of the iPhone's cellular chipset – digital baseband controller, power management unit (PMU), as well as radio frequency (RF) module. The GPS part will be handled by Broadcom.

In terms of the fun multi-touch panel, it seems that Apple was impressed enough with Sharp's new multi-touch panel to ditch Balda and look to Sharp for their new baby. Hopefully this switch will ensure that users don't encounter the dead-strips that were reported on some first-generation iPhones.

Cut and pasting things have been wired into our brains for so long, that a lot of iPhone users must have screamed really loudly when they found out that even the upcoming iPhone 2.0 update didn't give them the ability to cut and paste.

Preston Monroe has recently come to save the day, by announcing the availability of iCopy 1.2 for the iPhone. While it's not a true replacement for a system wide clipboard, it does give users the basic copy and paste functionality for Mail and Safari, which is better than nothing. What's even more amazing is that is was written as a bookmarklet.

iCopy is is free and available from their official site.

The Official Palm Blog has mentioned that Windows has released a beta version of their SideShow for Treo devices running Windows Mobile 5 or 6 under the hood.

SideShow is a cool application that allows users to use their smartphone as another display device to their computer and control its applications such as Windows Media Player, PowerPoint and others via bluetooth. Other interesting functions would include controlling a PowerPoint presentation while viewing the speaker notes, or using it as a remote control for Windows Media Player.

There are reports of a new version of Yahoo! oneSearch for mobile phones coming up, and this new version is supposed to have integrated voice search functions, which means that instead of users having to type out their search query, they can just speak their query into the phone's microphone.

There were 2 new dialect versions launched during CommunicAsia '08, for India and Singapore. Aside from that, oneSearch has also added the latest BlackBerry devices including the Pearl, the 8800 series and the Curve, to its compatibility list.

YouTube has begun removing their current 10-minute video length limit for select publishing partners. The official memo that has been sent out states that they will be offering a new whooping 2 hour / 1GB file limit for anyone with a sanctioned presence on the site.

YouTube will be able to explore embedded advertising methods by partnering with corporate publishers which should help them generate more cash. This is probably a defensive move to counter offerings from competitors such as Hulu, and try and move away from their stigma of a low-budget short-format powerhouse.

Verizon’s G’zOne devices from Casio have been popular amongst certain parties, so the news that the next G’zOne will be supporting Verizon’s next EV-DO Rev.A-based push-to-talk (PTT) infrastructure out of the box should be welcome news. It’s supposedly called the Boulder.

A diagram describing the buttons around the G’zOne has surfaced on the internet, and also show its screw-lock battery cover. This Boulder has some differences from its Casio brethren, as it’s apparently significantly slimmer.

Eager Blackberry users can now rejoice, for Palringo has finally released their Blackberry IM client available to the general public. Palringo is an IM client that provides text, voice and images IM services for free, and is already fairly popular on Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. Aside from its own IM service, it also supports probably every popular IM platform out there including Google Talk, AIM, MSN, Yahoo and more.

Palringo also includes interesting features such as group chat with image and voice support, which allows users to send text, voice or image IM that will be received simultaneously by any number of users in the group. Blackberry users can just browse to palringo.mobi from their browser.