Hasta La Gadget!

Well, Slacker certainly got our attention with this one: the popular streaming Internet radio service has announced that it is covering the up-front cost of BlackBerry Curves–essentially, making them free–for all four major carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile).

AT&T subscribers will get a BlackBerry Curve 8310, T-Mobile subscribers get the Wi-Fi-enabled Curve 8320, and Verizon and Sprint fans get the CDMA-based, 3G-capable Curve 8330.

What’s the catch? There isn’t any, aside from the usual two-year contract shenanigans. If you were to buy these handsets on your own, they’d all be pretty cheap — averaging $49 up front — but free is better than $49 by a wide margin. To get started, head to www.slacker.com/freephone. Oh, and to be nice in turn, I’d say give the free Slacker for BlackBerry a whirl, since I imagine that’s the point of the giveaway. (It’s good, too.)

Let it be known that the people of Waterloo, Iowa won’t accept defeat–but they will accept emergency text messages. A call center in that city became the first in the country to accept SMSs sent to 911.

“I think there’s a need to get out front and get this technology available,” the county’s police chief Thomas Jennings told the AP.

Other call centers are apparently looking to follow suit. Texting is especially beneficial to the deaf and hard of hearing. For the time being, however, the service is limited to users of the local T-Mobile affiliate i wireless. The center is reportedly looking to expand to service to other carriers in the area.

INQ Mobile has unveiled two cell phones aimed at the social networking crowd. The INQ Chat is a QWERTY slab that looks a lot like a T-Mobile Dash 3G. It features a built-in proprietary e-mail client with push Gmail (!), as well as native Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and IM apps. It also comes with a 2.4-inch QVGA screen, a 3.2-megapixel camera with auto-focus, and a built-in GPS radio.

The INQ Mini, meanwhile, is a slim candy bar that offers many of the same services, but in a smaller device with a numeric keypad. Both devices include 3G radios and can function as modems for laptops. They can also be customized with a choice of seven different back panel colors, and offer seamless media sync with PCs and Macs. A 2.2-inch QVGA screen and 2-megapixel camera round out the design.

Both handsets will be available sometime in the fourth quarter of 2009; no word yet on a carrier or price.

LG has announced the newest addition to its Black Label Series, the Chocolate LG-BL40. The new Chocolate has a 4-inch high-definition LCD and an 800-by-345-pixel resolution; the widescreen LCD features curved, tempered glass with a glossy black finish and red highlights. The phone also features a dual-screen UI, which allows the user to display two different types of content simultaneously. The wide HD LCD “Real VGA” screen makes videos, documents and photos easier to view.

The new LG Chocolate will be available for purchase beginning Q3 in 54 countries (sadly, the U.S. isn’t one of them). For more information on this phone check out the press release.

The stellar Palm Pre gave Sprint a desperately needed sales boost, but it wasn’t enough to stem the tide of customers leaving the troubled carrier. As eWEEK reports, Sprint lost another 300,000 customers in the second quarter, leaving Sprint with 48.8 million–and another $384 million net loss for the same time period.

On the plus side, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told investors that the Palm Pre was the most successful launch in Sprint’s history. He cited the extra training boost to Sprint employees and a possible softened impact from the iPhone 3GS launch on AT&T in June (which hit the market two days after the Pre did), according to the report.

“When there’s a new device launched, say the iPhone in particular, you’ll see a blip for a period of time, in increased churn,” said Hesse in the article.

Hesse also confirmed that Sprint retains an exclusive for the Pre “into 2010,” which of course could mean January 2nd.