FORD UNVEILS ELECTRIC FOCUS AT CES

Just revealed today at CES, the Focus Electric is Ford's first fuel-free, rechargeable passenger car. More importantly, it will supposedly offer a mile-per-gallon equivalent fuel economy that's better than the Chevrolet Volt and competitive with other battery electric vehicles. How?

Ford Motor Company unveiled today its all-new Focus Electric -– the company's first-ever all-electric passenger car launching later this year. The zero-CO2-emissions, gasoline-free version of Ford's all-new small car is the new flagship of the company's coming fleet of hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles coming to North America and Europe by 2013.

Power for the stylish (oh, yes, it's absolutely better looking than its competitors — unless you've got a thing for eggs) Focus comes by way of a permanent magnetic electric traction motor that provides 123 HP and 181 lb/ft of torque that sucks its will to live from an LG Chem-supplied Lithium-ion battery cell pack. Although we've no idea what the fuel economy / drive range will look like as Ford's still awaiting EPA estimates, we're told the "Focus Electric will offer a mile-per-gallon equivalent better than Chevrolet Volt and competitive with other battery electric vehicles." So, basically, they're claiming it'll kick its ass.

Owners of the Focus Electric will likely recharge the car's Ford-engineered (who's LG Chem anyway?) lithium-ion battery pack at home on a daily basis, using the recommended 240-volt wall-mounted charge station that will be sold separately (for $1499 and installed by Best Buy — probably not including any additional electrical work you might need to install a 240-volt line to your garage) or the 120-volt convenience cord that comes with the vehicle. Using the 240-volt wall-mounted charger, the Focus is capable of fully recharging in three to four hours -– that's half the time of the Nissan Leaf. The Focus Electric offers something called "value charging," powered by Microsoft, to help owners in the U.S. charge their vehicles at the cheapest utility rates and thereby helping to lower the cost of ownership. [Jalopnik]

AT&T AND MICROSOFT OFFER BLACK FRIDAY BOGO - NOT TOO GOOD OF AN OFFER THOUGH

AT&T and Microsoft want to brighten your holidays while simultaneously lightening your pockets, but wise shoppers will likely look elsewhere. AT&T is offering up a free Samsung Focus, HTC Surround or LG Quantum on Black Friday when one of the aforementioned Windows Phones is purchased at full retail, or $199.99. Of course they’re all great phones, but online retailers like Amazon already have that deal beat. AmazonWireless is offering the Focus, Surround and Quantum for $49.99 each and you don’t even have to wait until Friday to order. The retailer also throws free shipping and waived activation fees into the mix. So really, the only reason to go for AT&T’s deal at twice the price of Amazon’s is if the Focus strikes your fancy — Samsung’s WP7 handset is backordered at Amazon and likely won’t start shipping again for a couple of weeks. [Engadget]

TETHERING FOUND IN SAMSUNG WINDOWS PHONE 7

A couple of sites have come upon a quick and relatively easy hack to enable using your Samsung Focus or Omnia 7 as a 3G modem on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 platform. You'll need to dial up ##634# to get into a diagnostics menu, switch over to a "Modem, Tethered Call" mode and deal with a few more prompts along the way, but the end result is that you'll have a pretty much automated USB tether setup on your hands. [Engadget]

SAMSUNG FOCUS HAVING microSD CARD ISSUES

The Samsung Focus has just been released and already problems have been reported. The Focus's microSD slot has always been an odd little blip on the spec sheet, since it's only kinda-sorta supported by Windows Phone 7, and now it looks like it's causing more trouble than it's worth: Paul Thurrot says AT&T's telling employees not to install anything in the slot because of reliability issues, and that Microsoft is working on the problem. Now, we've had mixed experiences using the microSD slot ourselves, and we've been told by numerous sources that AT&T and Samsung added the feature without too much encouragement from Microsoft, which told us at MIX that expansion wouldn't be supported by WP7 at all. We've also been told by reliable sources that the problem is primarily to do with microSD speed and reliability -- apparently only the fastest cards will work well, and current microSD class ratings aren't accurate or meaningful enough to be useful. We'd bet Microsoft and Samsung get together and put out a line of Focus-specific cards before this is all over -- but wouldn't it have been easier to just build in 32GB of storage from the start?

Update: Tipster Jon points out that Microsoft's own WP7 support docs specifically call out SD class ratings as not being accurate determinants of whether or not a card will work -- and further say that only OEMs or carriers should swap out cards. Here are the relevant passages:

The SD card slot in your phone is intended to be used only by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) that built your phone and your Mobile Operator (MO). These partners can add an SD card to this slot to expand the amount of storage on your phone.

[...]

Determining whether an SD card is Windows Phone 7 compliant is not a simple matter of judging its speed class. Several other factors, such as the number of random read/write operations per second, play a role in determining how well an SD card performs with Windows Phone 7 devices.


Sounds complicated -- and it also sounds like Microsoft needs to call Samsung or SanDisk and kick out a line of WP7-certified cards, like, now. [Engadget]

WINDOWS PHONE 7 LAUNCHES IN US TODAY

The long anticipation is now over. Microsoft is releasing its newest mobile OS, Windows Phone 7 (WP7), in the US today. Microsoft has chosen AT&T as their launch partner and AT&T hasn't disappointed with 5 new phones. The list includes the HTC Surround, Samsung Focus and HTC HD7 are already available for purchase and the Dell Venue Pro is rumored to drop later today. The LG Quantum is also available for pre-order from AT&T starting today. Expect to pay $199.99 for any of the aforementioned Windows Phones, though better deals are available through the likes of Amazon.com, as is often the case. [BGR]