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Cellular related stories

E60; E61; E70: Nokia Launches Eseries Phones For Business Bods
Nokia has announced the Eseries phones, a new range of devices designed for swivel action execs and be-suited business bods.
With the range initially comprising of three new phones aimed at money-rich, time-poor office types, all the Eseries will run on the Symbian Series 60 platform 3rd Edition, sport QVGA or better displays and incorporate push email including BlackBerry and attachment editing.
The Nokia E60, Nokia E61 and Nokia E70 claim superior voice functionality and quality, with the devices supporting advanced voice services like Internet (Voice over IP) phone calls, Push to talk and SIP-based services, backed by a range of local connectivity options including WLAN, Bluetooth and Infrared and USB.
The devices are the first in the industry to support remote device management based on OMA DM*, letting IT managers remotely control and protect corporate data on the device and fiddle about with phone configurations. Or just have a good nose about.
“When we carefully considered the requirements of our customers when developing these devices, two clear new trends emerged: the need for IT departments’ to have a secure and manageable platform, and the need for devices to support a variety of employee preferences and different working styles,” said Niklas Savander, senior vice president of Nokia’s business device unit.
Nokia E60 (above)
Starting off the new range is the E60, an attractive, traditionally styled 3G phone with VoIP, speakerphone, a 24-bit 352 x 416-pixel display, and a low-voltage RS-MMC slot.
Offering useful business features like integrated speakerphone, conference calling and voice-aided applications like Push to talk, and IP-based telephony, the phone supports GSM/EDGE 900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100.
Nokia E61 (right)
Next up is the E61, which looks to be shoving its slimline oar (0.55 inches) into Treo/Motorola Q/Blackberry territory, with the device supporting multiple mobile email clients like BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink, Nokia Business Center, Seven Mobile Mail, Seven Always-On Mail, and Visto Mobile.
Looking like an E60 after an encounter with an elephant, the wide and flat E61 sports a full QWERTY keyboard, landscape 24-bit QVGA display (352 x 416-pixel display), miniSD slot and quad-band GSM/EDGE and WCDMA 2100 connectivity.
Full attachment handling (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF viewer and ZIP manager) is built in with an editing function for documents, spreadsheets and presentations included.
Nokia E70 (left)
Finally, the E70 features the same, slightly strange, flip-open QWERTY keyboard phone seen on Nokia’s 6800 series.
The phone comes with a full party box of gizmos and gadgets, including a 352×416-pixel display, 2 megapixel camera with CIF-resolution video capture, USB 2.0, miniSD slot, and Wi-Fi 802.11g/e/i.
The phone will be available in a GSM/EDGE 850/1800/1900 version for the Americas, plus a 3G version for Europe and Asia.
All three Eseries phones are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2006 worldwide.
Nokia
12 October, 2005
Samsung GSM Handsets Offer MP3 Wireless Streaming
Just like the Smash aliens falling over laughing at the sight of humans mashing potatoes, one day people may look back in amazement that people used to walk around the streets with bits of wire hanging from their lug’oles.
Although Bluetooth headsets are OK for taking calls, what people really want is to be able to wirelessly listen to their sounds as they strut about the streets as well – something that Samsung reckon will be possible with their new SGH-E750 and SGH-E760 handsets.
Both tri-band handsets follow Samsung’s well-established clamshell design, with a 1.3 Megapixel camera onboard as well as new functions like a digital compass and gesture recognition for mobile gaming.
The SGH-E750 camera also comes with an integrated flash, with the SGH-E760 including a “digital power amp” and twin speakers for enhanced audio.
Using CSR’s BlueCore3-ROM (BC3-ROM) and proprietary BlueCore Host Software (BCHS) – whatever they are – Samsung’s phones can wirelessly stream MP3 music via Bluetooth to the latest Bluetooth stereo headsets, like their very own SBH100.
Apparently, the BlueCore3-ROM thingy is currently the only Bluetooth technology offering native MP3 support, thanks to its internal CODEC, software and DSP.
Samsung say that MP3 music streams offer better audio quality and require lower data transfer rates than the Sub Band Coding (SBC) format used by other Bluetooth silicon vendors.
Just in case you haven’t had enough acronyms yet, we can tell you that the handsets employ A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and AVRCP (Audio Visual Remote Control Profile) to support music streaming and hands-free call handling from Bluetooth stereo headsets.
The integrated BlueCore Host Software helps reduce the power consumption of the Bluetooth device by implementing all of the Bluetooth lower power modes such as deep sleep, letting uses take full advantage of all handset features without draining battery life.
Matthew Phillips, VP Asia commented, “GSM accounts for more than 2/3 of the world’s mobile telecommunications industry and consumers are increasingly demanding access to the latest developments in technology.”
“Listening to music with a wireless headset has always been popular with consumers using proprietary technologies for home cinema. As phones now support MP3 music playback, we have brought that flexibility to the mobile phone industry using the universal Bluetooth standard,” he added.
The SGH-E750 and SGH-E760 handsets are expected to be available on GSM networks worldwide in Q4 2005.
Samsung
12 October, 2005
P990: Sony Ericsson Offers 3G and Wi-Fi
Sony Ericsson has beefed up its flagship P-series smartphone range with the new 3G P990 phone.
The new phone builds on the huge popularity of the P-series – the single most popular smartphone design on the planet – and bolts on 3G, 802.11b Wi-Fi connectivity, adding BlackBerry Connect and VoIP support into the package.
The phone offers all the benefits of UMTS including video calling, high-bandwidth multi-media downloads and the ability to surf the Internet using the new Opera 8 browser which can work in landscape mode.
Naturally, Sony are keen to shove their oar into Blackberry’s waters, with the P990 prepared for all major push e-mail clients enabling full e-mail access with attachments.
As usual, the phone sports a removable numerical keyboard which can be flipped out to reveal a 35-key QWERTY button pad on the camera’s body.
Hardcore texters with fingers the size of prime beef sausages may have trouble using the teensy weensy keys, but as any Treo/Blueberry-owner will tell you, a hardware keyboard is a lot more fun than poking around a screen.
There’s also an improved autofocus camera onboard, offering 2 megapixel resolution, digital zoom and a photo light.
Although the P990’s touch screen display is physically smaller than its predecessors, Sony’s boffins have managed to squeeze in more pixels, upping the resolution to 320×240 with 262k colours.
The P990 will be the first commercially available smartphone to use the enhanced Symbian OS version 9.1 and the UIQ 3.0 user interface, which has been optimised for one handed use.
Boasting 80MB of RAM with support for Memory Stick Duo Pro cards up to 4GB, delivery is expected in Q2 of 2006, with variants of the phones including P990i Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) – GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and P990c Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) – GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland China
Sony Ericsson P990
11 October, 2005
T-Mobile Web’n’Walk – Is Google Behind It?
Anybody who really thinks that T-Mobile is behind the new “Web’n’Walk” offering it trotted out last week, has really not being paying attention. It’s Google Talk, a VoIP service normally available for PC users, now sneakily able to go out over 3G data services.
The question to ask is: if Web’n’Walk is all T-Mobile’s doing, why is Google the Home Page of the new service?
Answer: the system is seen, inside Google, as a Trojan Horse to hook the mobile phone companies on VoIP and other Google Web services – and it is really part of the fierce rivalry building up between Skype (eBay) Yahoo (France Telecom) and Google (T-Mobile) to control the nascent “presence” business, with Instant Messenger and voice as the lever.
Exactly why all these people want to be in the presence business is another story – but anybody who knows what is really happening in the advertising business won’t need an explanation. The question, as far as the mobile phone operators is concerned, is whether they will actually end up with the slightest profit.
Officially, the new service gives you the Web in your pocket. This is not new; the Opera press release went out announcing Web’n’Walk back in June! it would only have been in any sense new last month, if we were discussing the “3” Internet service was being leaked, since Hutchison had previously been resolutely adamant that its users would have access only to the “3” web in a walled garden. That news was known to NewsWireless readers back in broke in early September: Hutchison will be opening up its 3G phones to full Internet browsing shortly.
Indeed, the only real surprise in today’s announcement is the discovery that the Danger-designed HipTop phone, which achieved such fame as the Sidekick in the North American market, will be one of the 3G announcements from T-Mobile later this year (according to Silicon.com).
But 3G phones that can access the Internet are not a T-Mobile invention. There’s no sudden change in the way people use the Internet, and 40 megabytes of data per month isn’t worth £30 of anybody’s money, even with 100 minutes of talk time. As Tim Richardson reported on The Register, it’s hype: “Hyping up the launch of its new service T-Mobile said it believes Web’n’Walk will lead to a considerable growth in total internet usage and, ultimately, more internet traffic being carried by mobile than by fixed line.”
It will do no such thing. What it does, is open up the mobile companies to a cuckoo’s egg; Google Talk, Yahoo! Messengerwith Voice, or even MSN Messenger – not to mention Skype- all on an IP backbone.
The idea that UMTS is a suitable IP backbone will be exposed in due course. Some of the gilt will flake off as soon as next week, when the first nationwide Flash-OFDM technology network will be rolled out by Flarion in a major European capital.
UMTS will work – sort of – but it adds latency to voice which rival systems won’t suffer from – rivals like IP Wireless, like Flash-OFDM, like WiMAX-WiFi mesh networks. Effectively, it turns the expensive mobile data networks into bit pipes, fit for carrying Internet Protocol traffic – at several times the price of rival systems.
Can UMTS really compete?
T-Mobile group CEO Rene Oberman [right] either knows nothing about home broadband, or this is an attempt to bamboozle the market. “T-Mobile will turn on a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network next year that will provide download rates of up to 1.8Mbps” he told Iain Thomson, who reported that T-Mobile appears to believe that the average download speed for home fixed line broadband ranges from under 264KB to 1MB.
In fact, by the time T-Mobile gets HSDPA working for a minority of its 3G users (a tiny fraction of its market) typical cable modem speeds will be ten megabits in the UK, and ADSL2 will be matching that.
Costs of home broadband, however, will continue to be flat rate, not £30 and upwards for no more data than will allow you to transmit a couple of dozen five megapixel photos. And you will only ever get 1.8 megabits out of a 3G HSDPA wireless mast if you are right next to it, and nobody else is trying to use the same cell for mobile data. Let’s not even mention the fact that the upload speed will remain below 64 kilobits per second – slow modem speeds.
What T-Mobile gets out of this deal, is some breathing space. It is making forward-looking pronouncements, and allowing investors to imagine that this will mean “jam tomorrow” after all.
NewsWireless
10 October, 2005
SPH-V8400: “Flying Mode” Offered By Samsung Phone
Samsung Electronics have announced a new slim-line phone with an automatic “flying mode” function.
According to what we’ve picked up off the Web, the new “shirt pocket” sized SPH-V8400 comes with a “flying mode” option, which (supposedly) “automatically” turns itself off when a punter gets on board an airplane.
‘Flying Mode’ functionality is already built into many smartphones/PDA phones and simply turns off the phone functions of a device.
This lets passengers play around with the other gizmos on their phones in-flight, without fear of getting a slap from an air hostess for breaking the laws about using mobiles in the air.
We’ve no idea how Samsung could get the phone to automatically turn off its calling functions as soon as a Torremenilos-bound punter gets on board, so we’ll be looking closely at the full specs when they become available.
It’s quite an attractive looking phone, with the pocket-untroubling 15.9 mm case coming in a natty black and silver finish with a large-ish LCD and a small sliding keyboard.
The phone is a fairly traditional affair, with a circular controller dominating the front display and large start call/end call buttons exactly where you expect to find them.
The camera comes stuffed with all the usual technology widgets, with an MP3 player onboard and a 1.3-megapixel digital camera and basic photo editing functions.
Unusually, the phone ships with an “electronic dictionary” and offers USB disk, file viewer, and voice dialing functionality.
Samsung will be showcasing the SPH-V8400 at the 2005 Korea Electronics Show that starts Tuesday.
Samsung
Korea Electronics Show 2005
10 October, 2005
3 Announce Mobile Music Video Deal with EMI
3G network operators 3 have announced a partnership with EMI Music UK to supply full-length music videos directly to the company’s 3 million customers.
The deal will let music fans delve into EMI’s extensive back catalogue of music videos as well as download new releases from big sellers like Kylie Minogue, Coldplay, Jamelia, Joss Stone, Norah Jones and Gorillaz.
Material from all of EMIs other labels – including Parlophone, Relentless and Virgin – will also be made available.
The tie-up with EMI means that 3 subscribers can access a veritable cornucopia of audio/visual delights on their phones, with the new video material adding to the wireless operator’s bulging music catalogue, which includes full-length video and audio titles from Sony BMG and indie music videos supplied by VidZone.
3 has proved a trail-blazer in the UK for music video on mobile, being the first mobile network to launch full-length music videos over mobile over a year ago and world-premiering a Robbie Williams’ single on their network.
The service has proved a hit too, with over 10 million full-length music videos being downloaded in the 6 months following the launch of 3’s Video Jukebox in August 2004.
Graeme Oxby, Marketing Director 3 UK, was chuffed: “3’s mobile music service is growing every day. Music is one of our most popular services and with this deal our customers can enjoy the latest music videos from top artists like Kylie, Robbie and Coldplay. 3’s expertise in 3G means major record labels like EMI Music UK recognise the strength of a partnership with the UK’s leading video mobile company.”
Next up on the back-slap promenade was Dave Gould, Commercial Manager, Digital Media for EMI Music UK: “We’re delighted to bring videos from EMI Music UK’s labels to 3. 3 is a leading network in bringing mobile music to its customers and we’re really excited about working with them to allow fans to catch up with their favourite artists anywhere and at anytime.”
Wrapping up the music industry love-in, Peter Jamieson, chairman of UK record companies trade association the BPI, purred: “The UK recording industry is committed to making music available wherever and whenever the music fan wants it. We welcome the increasing range of repertoire now available on 3.”
3 network
EMI
7 October, 2005
Free Mobiles; Technology Terror?; RIAA Boycott – Teenage Tech News Review
Handy… Literally!
Engadget has a story on how Montclair State University in New Jersey is handing out free phones to it’s students to enable them to easier communicate with each other. The handsets feature software which allows them to receive “channels” of information, which users sign up for. These channels include things like the dinner menu and the location of the university’s shuttle buses, as well as channels students have set up of their own.
I can admit I am actually kind of jealous of this: I would love the ability to be able to do this at school, checking up on when holidays are, what’s on the menu, and what my time-table’s like. Sadly, I think my school would have some difficulty in preventing the chavs from selling them on eBay, which of course is an entirely different issue.
This is the problem with technology like this: Those most likely to adopt it are, by default, young people, who therefore can’t afford it. Give it to them instead then, and a select few will take advantage of that. Technology like this, for now, is only for older people I think. This isn’t to say it isn’t exciting though: I still find socio-technological implementations, usually referred to as MoSoSo (Mobile Social Software), fascinating, as although there isn’t yet much of a market for these sorts of services, there will inevitably be, and when there is, it could well change the way we communicate with each other forever.
Sounds nasty!
Everyone over here in Europe likes to text, or “txt” for short. I’m not entirely sure how popular the practice is over in the US, but in the UK it’s used mainly by teenagers, although others use it too, because of it’s extremely low cost in comparison to making voice calls.
The New York Times is reporting that apparently, using SPAMming techniques, it should be possible to flood a cities GSM infrastructure by sending as little as 165 text messages a second into the network. This is made possible because text messages use the same communications infrastructure and network that voice calls are made to as well. Imagine what could happen if someone flooded a network, so that no calls could be made, and then at the same time a co-ordinated terrorist attack occurred. People would be unable to call the emergency services, and wide-spread carnage and destruction would occur.
This is particularly scary for me, as I would be at a loss in an emergency without my phone: It’s central to how I find people and communicate with them, and when I really need to get in touch with them, I wouldn’t be able to. This reliance and taking for granted of technology is something that most of my generation are likely guilty of, and when everything does kick off and there’s no electricity, phones or water, I would have severe doubts that a lot of them would be able to cope with it.
It was only really recent events (London bombings) that brought this to my attention, but it has made me realise that reliance on technology could be very turned around and be used against us.
That lot again
Yes, that’s right, the RIAA are at it again: A short time ago, a case against a mother on her daughter’s behalf of file sharing was dismissed in court. Now, the RIAA are back, but this time, they’re not suing the mother but her 14-year old daughter.
People like the RIAA make me so, so angry: At 14, no-one really knows what they’re doing. So a little girl downloaded some of her favourite songs from the Internet. That little girl was probably a paying customer as well, but her pocket money just wasn’t enough, and she just wanted to hear one more song by her favourite artist, but couldn’t afford it. Her friend said “you can get it for free from here”, and so that’s what the girl did. Next thing she knew, the very company she was a customer of, was sending threatening letters to her, demanding thousands of dollars in compensation.
Is this the right way of treating your customers? I know for sure it is one great way of driving them away. If you are in my position at the moment, of having a good few thousand songs you enjoy, then stop buying music unless it is from your local bands or from an independent label. It might sound an unrealistic expectation, but I have found so many great bands on the Internet and locally at pubs and other music venues, that I am quite confident I will never be giving another penny to those greedy folks over at the RIAA.
You can do something about it though, by going to www.boycott-riaa.com. Every little helps!
That would be my rant for the day, have a nice weekend :-)
7 October, 2005
Bible Converted Into Text For SMS Generation
Aussie God squadders looking to get down with Da Yoot have translated all 31,173 verses of the Bible into SMS text-speak.
Although other services have offered daily SMS Bible scriptures in the past, the Bible Society in Australia is claiming to be the first to translate all 31,173 verses of the Bible into text.
Looking, we suspect, like an old uncle in a backwards baseball cap, Bible Society spokesman Michael Chant enthused, “The old days when the Bible was only available within a sombre black cover with a cross on it are long gone.”.
“We want to open it up for people of all ages, backgrounds and interests, and the SMS version is a logical extension of that,” he added.
Salvation-seeking, Bible-bashing SMS fans can access the translated text over the Internet for free and send individual verses to family or friends via text messaging.
The entire new and old testaments were converted to text in just four weeks by one, clearly obsessively dedicated, individual.
The translations were based on the Contemporary English Version and remained faithful to the grammar, with just the spellings being altered.
Here’s some examples:
U, Lord, r my shepherd. I will neva be in need. U let me rest in fields of green grass. U lead me 2 streams of peaceful water. (Psalm 23, verses 1-2).
Wrk hard at wateva u do. U will soon go 2 da wrld of da dead, where no 1 wrks or thinks or reasons or knws NEting. (Ecclesiastes, chapter nine, verse 10).
Respect ur father & ur mother, & u will live a long time in da l& I am givin u. (Exodus, chapter 20, verse 12).
Mr Chant felt confident that the text version would appeal to young people, suggesting that it could also be used to encourage, motivate and reassure people in all sorts of situations, with verses sent out daily ‘read like a horoscope.’
“People might want to send a verse to a friend in need, instructors might want to add verses to SMS bulletins to youth club members, or other people might just want to send a daily Bible recording to themselves to meditate on while they’re on the bus or having lunch,” he said.
An article in The Sydney Morning Herald calculated that sending the entire Bible by SMS would take more than 30,000 messages and cost almost £3,440 ($6.080, €5,050) at 10p for each message. You could buy around 1,500 pints of beer for that. We know what we’d prefer.
Trabsl8it text translation
Sydney Morning Herald
other Bible SMS services
6 October, 2005
“Web’n’Walk” Mobile Internet Service Launched By T-Mobile
T-Mobile have launched ‘Web’n’walk’, their mass-market mobile Internet service, and are confidently predicting that it expects to lure hundreds of thousands of customers onto the service over the next couple of years.
Cocking a snoot at the punter-displeasing “walled garden” restrictions of rival operators like Vodafone and 3, T-Mobile’s new service allows users to browse the full Internet on their phones.
UK Managing Director Brian McBride was clearly enthusiastic about the idea: “We’re all about the full Internet, not quasi Internet…not a walled garden. We kick off with (search engine) Google on your front page, click one button and you’re away,” he told a conference call with journalists.
Conceding that Internet services on mobile devices to date had so far been, well, rubbish, McBride bigged up T-Mobile’s approach for fast, simple and affordable services and products, saying that mobile networks will eventually carry more Internet traffic than fixed-line computers or phones.
Unlike most network providers who target mobile Internet devices at the swivel-action executive mob, T-Mobile are one of the few focusing on regular punters who are keen to take advantage of all the fancy gizmos on their Internet-enabled handsets. The three tariffs offer 100, 200 or 400 inclusive call minutes with an Internet bundle covering 40 megabits of data usage (this works out to something like 2,500 ‘average’ emails or 500 ‘average’ Web pages, whatever they are.)
“Web’n’walk redefines internet on mobile,” insisted T-Mobile chief executive Rene Obermann in a statement. “The comparison is no longer with other mobile internet services. It is with fixed line Internet.”
T-Mobile’s Web service will be available in the UK on products including the MDA range, the new Nokia N70 and N6630 handsets and Sidekick II.
T-Mobile UK
5 October, 2005
Japan’s Ceatec Show Opens Today
Japan’s largest annual IT show, Ceatec (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies), opens today and will feature around 700 companies, according to the organisers.
Last year, the show – the largest international exhibition in Asia for the technology and electronics sectors – attracted 182,000 people with greater numbers anticipated this year.
Naturally, Simon Perry – the Digi-Lifestyles big cheese – is at the show, so you can expect hot news and updates from the floor over the next couple of days.
Running from Tuesday until Saturday at the Makuhari Messe convention centre, Chiba, just outside Tokyo, the show is designed to provide a platform for Japan’s technology vendors to display their latest gear and showcase prototype products.
The anticipated unveiling of rival HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc players could prove to be a show highlight, and there’s great interest in the eagerly awaited new high-definition TVs.
Sharp is expected to show off a hard-disk drive-based digital recorder that is capable of recording two HDTV programs at once, with the machine ready to roll just one second after being switched on.
Toshiba has promised to display a super-slim 12.7 millimetre high drive designed for laptops which can read HD-DVD discs and read and write DVDs and CDs.
Naturally, there’s loads of activity on the mobile phone front, with new products and technology on offer, including portable fuel cells from network operator KDDI.
The company has been working with Hitachi and Toshiba to develop fuel cell-based chargers for cell phones, with the first commercial products expected on sale before the end of March 2006.
As well as shiny new consumer boxes, Ceatec also showcases the products of component makers, with Matsushita showing off a flexible optical circuit board and Seiko Epson displaying a flexible memory chip for use in flat-panel displays.
Born out of a merger between Japan Electronics Show and Com Japan, Ceatec attracted 172,053 visitors in its debut year in 2000, rising to 182,490 visitors last year.
Ceatec
4 October, 2005