Category: Platforms

New Nokia Phone Converges Too Many Features To List

Nokia have released phones with radios incorporated in them for some time — but the 7700 is somewhat different as it incorporates a service that Nokia has termed “Visual Radio”. Listeners to participating stations can interact through their phones – polls, artist information, ringtones are all displayed in 7700’s browser whilst they listen a radio show. Helsinki’s Kiss FM will be the first station to offer the interactive services.

Adding interactivity to a radio programme through a browser (rather than streaming the programme to the phone) allows Nokia to avoid rights issues and save bandwidth. To us this seems like a good stopgap, but streaming directly to the phone offers so much more functionality that it won’t be too long before someone sorts out the rights nightmare and produces a proper internet audio/video phone.

Nokia will no doubt be analysing what users do with the new interactive features from radio stations – cookies and server logs will show them which features are popular. If successful, charging for ringtones and extras from stations will be a nice revenue channel for Nokia and its radio partners.

The look of the phone could best be described as “funky” — Nokia seem to be getting further and further away from traditional mobile phone design with every new iteration of their products.

Nokia on the 7700

Kiss FM

Nokia to Buy Psion Out of Symbian

Nokia has announced its intention to try and nearly double its shareholding in Symbian by buying Psion shares in the venture, taking them to a 63.3% holding. Symbian, created arguably the most successful rich media Operating System (OS) which is primarily used on mobile phones and portable devices. Almost 2.7m units were shipped with their OS in the first six months of 2003 and it is currently owned by seven partners; Ericsson, Panasonic, Nokia, Psion, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.

Nokia propose to pay Psion in two ways; £93.5 million (~$173.8m, ~€137.1m) as a fixed payment, plus £0.84 (~$1.56, ~€1.23) for every Symbian OS equipped phone Nokia sells during 2004 and 2005. Psion are currently estimating the deal will be worth around £135.7m (~$252.1m, ~€198.4m).

This is not the first time there has been a significant shift in the Symbian ownership. Back in August 2003, co-incidentally Symbian’s fifth anniversary, Motorola announced it would exit Symbian, selling its 19% holding. The two partners picking it the holding were Psion who increased its holding from 25.3% to 31.1% and Nokia bought the rest of the Motorola shares, increasing its holding from 19% to 32.2%. Psion paid Motorola £17m (~$31.5m, ~€24.8m) cash, valuing Symbian at that time at £300m (~$557.4m, ~€438.4m). The current Nokia/Psion deal values Symbian at £430m (~$798.9m, ~€628.4m).

At that time David Potter, Chairman of Psion gave hints at their possible exit from Symbian, “Psion will continue to play its role in driving Symbian towards the successful exploitation of its market. At the same time, realising the value of out investment in Symbian for the optimal benefit of Psion shareholders is a key strategic goal”

This leaves two questions hanging in the air. What will happen to Symbian’s other minority shareholders now Nokia is far and away the largest shareholder? Where are Psion going now?

The other owners, lead by Ericsson, the next largest owner (17.5%), may feel shouldered out of Symbian or indeed be uneasy providing income to their largest competitor. Currently the only other option they would have is to go the Microsoft route with their less than perfect offering.

A few years ago Psion got out of the consumer hardware business and they also sold Psion Software to Visto in February for an undisclosed amount. They are now placing their bets on wireless applications in the enterprise. Initially growing Teklogix, which manufactures rugged, wireless devices to help companies streamline their logistics. They also plan to move into providing support to mobile workers in the field, such as medical staff who are visiting patients in their home.

Teklogix is an area they feel they have a strong footing in this business already, making it is a defendable area with potential for great expansion. The CEO, Alistair Crawford says they plan to focus on RFID and Voice. The benefits of RFID in the warehousing business are well known. Psion also feel there is benefits in using voice input there, as the operators quite often need to have both hands free, or their not able to use their hands, for example in a refrigerator unit.

Psion is a company that has changed considerably over its 25 years from its start writing software, in particular Chess for Sinclair computers, through single handedly pioneered the handheld computer market back in the 1980’s., to defending themselves against the onslaught from Microsoft. We’ll watch this space with interest.

Nokia to purchase Psion shareholding in Symbian – Press release

Interviews with Chair and CEO of Psion

Visto Corporation Purchases Psion Software – Press release

Smallest GPS Locator Phone Announced

Wherify Wireless, based in Redwood Shores California, have announced what they claim is the smallest device to contain a GPS receiver and CDMA mobile phone. It has been specifically designed to help locate people carrying it. It is very compact (48mm x 12mm), light (45 grams) and simple to use, with only two buttons to operate. One button directly alerts the emergency services, 911, giving them the location within a few feet and ability to have a conversation with owner. The second button carries out the same function but to a user programmable phone number.

Authorised parties can find out the location of the device either using a Web browser, which will show the location of the device within a number of feet, or over a phone with an operator. Both methods take around a minute.

The rather grandly named GPS Universal Locator is rechargeable and power should last around 70 hours or 40 locates. To conserve battery, the GPS is not enabled until a location query is activated.

Wherify expect it to be available to consumers late second quarter 2004 and it is expected to retail for less than $150 with month subscription to the service at $19-$44 a month.

A similar service, mapAmobile, was launched in the UK in August 2003, but mapAmobile worked with a standard mobile phone, rather than needing a separate device.

Wherify Wireless, GPS Universal Locator, spec sheet

Wherify Wireless

First WiFi Portable Music Player

Ever since the rise of the portable digital music player people have been discussing the possibilities of connecting them wirelessly rather than via a cable, either for loading content, or playing it back. After two years development SoniqCast has now released the Element Aireo, the first product to come to market that includes 802.11b (WiFi) support.

The WiFi connection enables the synchronisation of music-file contents with those on the PC’s hard drive, using their SoniqSync software. Synchronisation is either on demand or based on a user-defined schedule. Looking to the future SoniqCast are expecting to enable content download directly from the Internet via Hotspots and peer-to-peer content download from one Aireo™ player to another.

The built in FM transmitter (FM TX) can be used for wireless playback of music in cars or at home. While not a unique idea, this is achievable with an iPod by adding a third party extra to it, it is the first time it has been included.

This initial release has a 1.5Gb hard drive capacity built in, which while it hold a considerable amount of music, may appear to consumers to be dwarfed by the 40Gb storage offered on some other devices. The physical size of drive, could in a later product, be replaced by a 4Gb drive. Additional storage can be enhanced by up to another 1Gb by inserting an SD memory card.

The device won the “Best of CES Portable Audio” at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

While we welcome this type of device, we feel the wireless features will not remain unique for very long and our concern would be the devices battery life – using WiFi consumes a far amount of power, potentially leading to short periods between charging, eliminating the benefits of it being wireless.

It is expect to go on sale for $300 within the next month.

SoniqCast

HP’s iPod – Microsoft Protest

Following the HP announcement at CES that it would be working with Apple and selling a rebranded version of the iPod (possibly called HPod, or more officially ‘HP Digital Music Player’) and bundling the Apple iTunes software on to HP PC’s, the general manager of Microsoft’s digital media division, David Fester has gone on record suggesting that HP going with Apple is a mistake as it would restrict consumer choice, “Windows is about choice – you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.” Clearly the printed text alone cannot detect any irony that might have been in Mr Festers voice when talking about Windows and choice. What is also clear is that Microsoft must be seriously concerned about the perceived threat from Apple and their iPod.

There is a long, and previously frosty history between HP and Apple, starting way back when Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, who was working at HP, asking them if they would be interested in marketing the personal computer. When they turned him down, he went off with Jobs to form Apple in 1976.

This is all now water under the bridge and as part of the deal HP gets “instant access to Apple’s technology and music rights and the opportunity to offer a full range of popular digital products to consumers”. Benefits for Apple include exploding the number of shops selling products based on their technology, leveraging HP current relationships with their 11,000 retailers around the world and widening the install base of Apple iTunes.

Further development of the HP Digital Music Player continues and it is thought that HP are working on integrating Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to play back on the iPod for the first time and plan for the device to go on sale in June.

We find the Apple/HP deal interesting for a number of reasons, including that it is the first Jobs has done with an external hardware company since his return to Apple in 1997, when he cancelled all of the disastrous OEM deals that had been previously signed.

HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina keynote at CES

Sony Announce Location Free TV

Among the many announcements at CES was an interesting portable 12″ LCD TV screen from Sony, that can be carried around a house and have various content delivered to it from its base station, enabling the showing of video from many different sources, as well as playing music, viewing photos and browsing the Internet. Sony calls it LocationFree™.

It is based on a similar device released just in Japan called AirTact and a few TVs. Kunitake Ando, president and group COO at Sony Corp has realised the potential to freeing the screen. At Sony “Dream World” held in Paris, Sept. 2003 was quoted that transforming traditional TVs to “location-free” TV or displays could take the 125 million TV sets sold worldwide and “easily increased to four or five times that number.”

The basestation can have many different sources plugged in to it, including; video, be that TV ariel/cable, DVD, VCR, DV video camera; audio sources; other media files stored on computers via Ethernet. There is a wide selection for possible connections to the network, wirelessly (802.11a, 802.11b (WiFi), or 802.11g) or an Ethernet cable. The content is delivered to the remote, battery-powered 12.1″ LCD touch screen, which can also run from a main source. There are also plans for a pocket sized 5.8″ version. The viewer is free to move around the house while continuing to access the different media sources, selecting them by touching the screen. As yet, Sony has not discussed battery life.

For the first time Sony have brought technology from their high-end TV sets to the LCD display including 3D Y/C separation circuitry for clear, vivid picture and colour blur reduction; angled line correction circuitry for smoothing out jagged lines; motion adaptive I/P conversion circuitry for improving fast moving action scenes; and digital audio amplifier circuitry for crisp sound and minimized distortion.

It looks like Sony have carried out considerable research to find what function user may want. The five pounds screen itself has a lot of connectors includes an Ethernet port, a USB port, Memory Stick media slot, headphone jack, keyboard port and an AV input for connecting to a camcorder. Useful features include viewers being able to “freeze” and save a TV scene by using the “capture” button on the remote screen – saving a mad scrabble for pen and paper where information appears on the TV.  Prints of the images or homepage data, e-mail attachments and digital photos can also be made to USB printers connected to the base-station.

While using the screen to browse the Internet, the viewer will be able to watch their choice of TV/video source displayed in a Picture in Picture (PiP) window, but given the screen is 800×600, we imaging this might not be used much beyond demos to friends.

Sony has omitted to give any precise dates for the shipping of Location Free, preferring to say it would be “Later in the year”.

Sony say one of the benefits of the screen being an IP device is that access your media does not need to be restricted just to your own home network. By taking the screen with you on your travels, you can access the self same content through any IP connection, which are increasingly found around the world in offices and hotel rooms. One example cited gives an interesting twist to the product – a person on the road, unable to attend their child’s birthday, has an opportunity to tune in, watching the live video being shot on a camcorder plugged in to the basestation at home. We believe application such as this, which can be used to bring together families distributed over great distances, will be a major driver in purchasing products.

We are excited about this step of remote access to your home media, firewall configuration allowing of course. It could be an interesting early step into a future where your home media server becomes the focal point of your media ownership, with your various remote IP devices having access, via your home server.

At this point it is worth highlighting that hard facts about which protocols are used to transfer content back and forth between base-station and screen. It would be a great shame if the protocols were proprietary. We think there is real potential in this device, and by using open standards; there could be a real potential for a product like this to become a standard for interfacing analog media to an IP device. There is a real need for a device like it and it appears that Mr Ando at Sony Corp is trying to fill it.

Review – Gateway FMC-901X

Extreme Tech have reviewed Gateway Computers latest media PC that runs Windows Media edition, the FMC-901X, and they like it.

The Gateway FMC-901X is a far cry from the original Gateway Destination (anyone remember those?) It’s sleek looks and high degree of usability makes it an appealing choice. TV image quality is excellent, and so is TV recording. Burning your favorite shows to DVD with a few button clicks is incredibly easy.

Apple Launch iPod Mini

The rumours of the mini-iPod have been proven as true with Steve Jobs announcing a small version of the iPod, the iPod mini at Macworld yesterday.

The smaller-than-current-iPod device will have an anodised aluminium body available in five colours; silver, gold, pink, blue or green and be capable of holding 1,000 128-Kbps AAC encoding, CD-quality songs on its tiny hard drive. It will also only weigh 3.6 ounces (102 mg).

The iPod mini runs the same software as current iPods, so no functionality is lost, despite its slight smaller backlight LCD screen (1.67 inch vs 2-inch and 138-by-110-pixel resolution, 0.22-mm dot pitch vs 160-by-128-pixel resolution, 0.24-mm dot pitch). In a further refinement to the design, the four buttons have been integrated into the touch wheel – Apple labels it Click Wheel.

Recharging times will be the same as the current model, but the mini will be able to pull its power from either the FireWire or USB 2.0 cable.

It will be available in the US in February and worldwide in April with a suggested selling price of $249 in the US and a UK price of £199 (inc VAT).

Apple also announced they have sold two million iPods and by way of a celebration they also announced that they will be upgrading the smallest capacity from 10Gb to 15Gb without increasing the price.

Apple iPod & iPod mini specs

Philips and Samsung Announce Universal CE API

Consumer electronics (CE) companies, Philips and Samsung have today announced the Universal Home Application Programming Interface (UH-API). Aimed at simplifying the development of software, be that applications or middleware that uses their semiconductor-based systems, thus reducing the time to market for home consumer devices. This is a reaction to, and acceptance of, the need for increasingly complex software to operate and combine digital consumer electronics. Drafts of UH-API are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2004.

The UH-API consists of a set of software interfaces for configuring and controlling the audio and video-related components of a semiconductor platform targeting the consumer market, and it is complementary with the leading operating systems across the industry. It is designed for target devices including analog and digital televisions, Set Top Boxes, DVD players and recorders, personal video recorders, home servers and other consumer audio-video devices.

Leon Husson, executive vice president of Consumer Businesses, Philips Semiconductors said, “This is a fundamental change from developing standalone consumer electronics products that fit proprietary schemes to a universal choice of hardware systems that can support the multiple features of the diverse consumer electronic brands.”

Both companies have said they will “realign their internal resources” to develop UH-API-compliant semiconductor chipsets and solutions. They will also invite other CE companies to participate in enhancing and deploying the UH-API specification.

Philips plans to make their Nexperia Home semiconductors range UH-API compliant. Samsung will start by making its HD TV chipset compliant and plan to expand its coverage from there.

Philips Nexperia IC’s