Asking price with two-year contract is an astounding $US1,270 because tired, overdone Dick Tracy fantasies and allusions by gadget bloggers are anything but cheap. The presser says this is the “starting price” so the one-year contract might actually be more (that’s admittedly a guess on my part, as additional contract subsidising details are not given).

As we reported in July, the phone will be exclusive to Orange in France for the time being. Global distribution, hinted at before, is still unclear. [France Telecom OhGizmo]

Rounding out the feature list are a few watchphone necessities, like voice recognition and speakerphone, all in a package that measures in at about 12mm thick—bulkier than your average Swatch, but well within acceptable wristwear territory. The first wave of releases will be scattered throughout Europe, starting in France, where the S9110 will retail for around $US650.

The most striking thing about this—as well as the LG GD910—is that unlike pretty much every watchphone we’ve seen before, these might be usable on a day to day basis, granted you’re willing to accept the inherent awkwardness of the watchphone form factor. No word on a stateside release yet, but import costs aren’t likely to stop the kinds of dapper jetsetting gentleman and/or independently wealthy James Bond superfan who’ll be buying this thing anyway. [SamsungHub via Mobilecrunch]

No idea. We’re surprised that Apple is getting in on this agreement, though, and we’re wondering if the microUSB port will supplement or replace the standard Apple 30-pin iPod port. We’re guessing supplement.

As a refresher, you should go and look back at our cable explainer to see what other kinds of cables are out there now. [Reuters via Slashdot]

Aside from the large EU flag flying on its front page, AMD also includes an extensive amount of information on the ruling with a page entitled “Break Free.” That page includes anti-Intel sentiment from various respectable news organisations. All we can say to that is, where’s the love? Here, AMD, I’ve got a quote all packaged up for you from our own John Herrman:

Ok, that [Intel's suspected antitrust violation] does sound pretty bad.

Bam! [via CNET]

From June 1st, customers of Vodafone, the world’s second largest wireless carrier, will be able to text and call from over 35 countries at no extra charge. Attention American carriers: Be more like this.

The service, called “Passport”, will be available as a three-month summer trial for UK subscribers, and can be activated for free. Customers will be able to travel to just about any country that Vodafone operates in and tap into the minute and text allocations from their regular plan, or in the case of pay-as-you-go customers, call and text at their usual domestic rate. Data roaming still applies, but come July it’ll be capped at about $1.40 per megabyte as per new EU regulations.

As someone who’s stuck in concurrent T-Mobile contracts in two separate countries, I take this news kind of personally. Steep roaming charges make some sense when you’re jumping between carriers, but they’re stupidly frustrating when you’re paying way more for services from a different arm of the same company.

This obviously doesn’t mean much for Americans (although Voda does own a 45% stake in Verizon), but it does represent a precedent we should all push for. Aside from steep taxes (as in the UK), it’s mainly plain old price gouging—of carriers by other carriers, or of customers by their carriers—that keeps prices so high.

Although this announcement means that British Vodafone customers in Australia will get cheap phone calls, it doesn’t work the other way around for Australian Vda customers travelling abroad. Yet. Hopefully Vodafone will roll it out across their global network soon though.

[Telegraph]

EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said Intel had pursued a strategy aimed mainly at excluding A.M.D. by paying computer makers and retailers to postpone, cancel or avoid A.M.D. products entirely.

Ok, that does sound pretty bad. [NYT—Thanks, Mikael!]

It looks like Europe is just as taken with the Pirate Party as we at Giz are, because a recent electoral poll shows them with enough votes to secure a seat in the E.U. Parliament.

The guilty verdict handed down to the Pirate Bay leaders resulted in a huge amount of publicity and popularity for the Pirate Party, regardless of the fact that the two are not officially related. Membership has shot up to a record 42,000+, and a recent poll to check out the frontrunners in the E.U. election showed even rosier numbers.

The Pirate Party is now the second-most popular party for voters 18-30, and Swedish newspaper DN.se predicts a vote of 5.1% in the election, which will be enough for a seat in Parliament. Sure, it’s a minority vote (and that’s being generous), but a pirate can surely stand his ground. [DN.se (warning: Swedish) via TorrentFreak]

In a rather excited post on Vodafone Spain’s blog, the company has announced that the HTC Magic, set for a May 5th release across Europe, will be “available” today. ¿Por qué? No sé.

Of course, given the ambiguous language of the post (or my poor Spanish comprehension), they could be jerking everyone around a little bit, promoting the opening of pre-orders as actual availability. That they explicitly tout their release as earlier than the previous May 5th date, though, seems to indicate that they’ll actually start shipping today. Happy crazy Android surprise day, Spain!

Update: Our resident Spaniard has confirmed that the post implies it’ll ship today from the online store, but that brick-and-mortar stores will have to wait until next week. [Phandroid —Thanks, Rob!]

A proposal has already been drafted, challenging carriers who disallow VoIP traffic over their 3G networks. Deconstructed, this kind of selective connection seems fundamentally wrong: these carriers are choosing to block certain data not for traffic management reasons, but to sabotage competing services. But the sheer magnitude of the competitive threat—the possibility that VoIP over mobile data could completely destroy conventional voice services—at least explains why companies do this, and why regulatory bodies have been so reluctant to touch the issue.

At this stage, it’s a distant issue for US carriers, much less mobile users. But an EU/Trade Commission intervention into the European wireless industry could at least remind US regulators that, yes, filtering wireless data for anticompetitive purposes is actually kind of a dick move. [Handelsblatt via TGDaily]