Wireless

Wireless connections

Xdrive Launches Wireless Access To Online Storage
Xdrive has announced an expansion to their service that gives roaming consumers wireless access to their files through any Internet-connected cell phone, smart phone or handheld device.
With a turn of phrase worthy of the cheesiest made-for-TV pilot, Xdrive implores users to “cut the cord and roam freely with your files” and skip gaily into a new digital dawn “liberated from the confines of a wired world” – possibly while “sipping Mai Tai’s on the sands of Bora Bora”.
Eh, what?!
Back in the real world, we can tell you that Xdrive’s new wireless service allows mobile subscribers to access their files and folders, send faxes, email documents, listen to music and view slide shows while on the move.
Users must first upload their files to their Xdrive account, and using WAP (wireless application protocol) technology they can access their files on the company’s secure server.
The service allows people access to a wide range of stored files – Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, digital photos and videos, QuickBooks files, and MP3s etc – through any Web-enabled hand-held device.
“As the Digital Lifestyle continues to become more and more engrained into our everyday life, people are beginning to break away from the concept of one stationary computer,” states Xdrive CEO Brett O’Brien, “People strive for mobility, yet yearn for connectedness. Xdrive’s new wireless features give people just that.”
Xdrive costs US$9.95 (£5.20, €7.6) or US$99.50 (£50.20, €70.6) annually, with subscribers having 5 Gigabytes of online storage space and access to all of the Xdrive applications and services.
The company offers new subscribers a 15-day free trial period at http://www.xdrive.com
Xdrive
23 March, 2005
3G Real-Time Multiplayer Gaming From 3 In UK
With a long parp on their PR trumpets, 3 notched up another first with the launch of “over-the-air” real-time multiplayer games over their network.
The service will go live in April and allows up to four gamer dudes to frag the feck out of each other in real-time over the 3 network.
The first real-time multiplayer games to be made available will be No Refuge, an explosion-tastic, tank battle war game supplied by Mobile Interaction.
Next up will be Synergenix’s Lock ‘n Load, a shoot’em up game with even more explosions, followed by the turn-based multiplayer game, Cannons Tournament, a shoot and fire cannon game supplied by Macrospace. With explosions, naturally.
The real-time multiplayer gaming environment is supported on Terramove, a gaming solution from TerraPlay, allowing publishers to develop multiplayer games for the 3 network.
3 also announced advanced games boasting “near console quality”, which will, apparently, “bring the real gaming experience to UK mobile for the first time”.
The “near console quality” games will be made available to customers through the ‘Today on 3’ service and will include Rally Pro Contest and Lock ‘n Load, both 3D games.
These console-esque games are being supported on the 3 network by the Mophun gaming engine that is being supplied to 3 by Synergenix.
Gareth Jones COO of 3 was on hand to big up the offering: “3 has consistently been the first to deliver the very best on 3G. As the fastest growing UK operator, this is an exciting new development in our service offering. Combined with our great value and market-leading handset portfolio, 3 continues to set the benchmark for the other operators to follow.”
Graeme Oxby, Marketing Director of 3 was quick to join the quote action: “As the success of our music service demonstrates with over 10 million downloads in 6 months, 3 has learnt how to package and deliver compelling products over 3G. In Gaming, we are doing the same thing – picking the right games for 3G and delivering services that are immediate, fun and accessible at affordable prices.”
3 is currently the only UK operator to offer customers the choice of buying and renting games. Game-junkies can either pay 25p for a one game fix or double their money for up to three days of play on a game – this lets them see if they like the gear on offer before buying it.
With the ‘buy’ option customers make a one off payment, of between £3 (US$5.7, €4.3) and £7.50 (US$14.25, €10.8) and then have continuous use of the game on their video mobile till their fingers are reduced to stubs.
The ‘near console’ quality games will initially only be available on certain models and cost £7.50.
The announcement of these advanced handheld games would suggest that 3 is pro-actively targeting the lucrative console market, and looking to lure potential Gizmodo, DS and PSP customers.
We suspect that their success will depend greatly on how the games match up to the ‘near console’ quality claims.
After all, the Sinclair C5 was nearly a great idea….
Synergenix
3
Mobile Interaction
22 March, 2005
SPH-M4300 LAN: WiFi Music Phone From Samsung
Samsung’s R&D team’s crack-like addiction to creating new products continues apace with the announcement of a new Wireless LAN Music Phone.
Their all-singing, all-dancing SPH-M4300 LAN music phone allows users to watch a variety of television broadcast and Internet contents on the handset, and comes with a built-in ‘powerful sound system’, featuring dual speakers.
Now, when someone says ‘powerful sound system’, we think of an all-night squat party rave with bass bins the size of small continents, but Samsung are talking about how their adoption of SRS technology (a 3D sound technology usually used in MP3 players) will give the SPH-M4300 a sonic edge over their rivals.
Despite boasting more multimedia widgets than an interactive James Bond robot, the handset is a slim (114×59×25mm) slider-style phone, featuring a 2.8-inch LCD, a nippy 520MHz CPU and a 1.3 megapixel camera.
Running on Microsoft’s mobile operating system Pocket PC 2003 Phone Edition, users will be able to run applications like Outlook, Word and Excel, with the latest Windows Media Player on hand for playback of multimedia content like movies and music.
Sadly, there’s no QWERTY keyboard on the handset.
There’s been no announcement about internal storage capacity or expansion card slots, or if the unit supports Bluetooth as yet.
We like the look of this one, and (if it ever makes it out of Korea) the inclusion of wi-fi streaming could give it an edge over the hugely-selling PalmOne Treo 600/650 range.
Samsung
22 March, 2005
Nokia 6680 Camera Smartphone Starts Shipping
Incorporating not one, but two digital cameras (VGA on the front 1.3 megapixels to the rear), the handset was showcased a month ago at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes.
The stylish new smartphone features two-way video-calling and sharing, push email, a crisp 262,144-color display (176 x 208 pixels), MMC card slot, plus a 1.3-megapixel snapper with flash and 2x digital zoom.
Whereas many 3G handsets prompt the question, “Is that a 3G phone in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”, the 6680 is a bit of a miniature marvel, measuring up at a Y-front unruffling 10.8 x 5.5 x 2.1cm – one of the smallest 3G handsets around (although not quite as teensy-tiny as Sony Ericsson’s upcoming K600i).
Running on the Symbian Series 60 OS, the smartphone comes with a personal organiser, video streaming and Internet browser, with a range of funky 3G-enabled features such as two-way video calls, video sharing and push email.
Using XpressPrint or PictBridge, Nokia phone snappers can print pictures, emails or contacts directly from the 6680 using a range of compatible printers or photo kiosks via USB and Bluetooth – or by simply whipping out the MMC card and slapping it in a card reader.
Joe Coles, director of imaging product marketing at Nokia, was at hand to get suitably enthused: “The Nokia 6680 enables the full benefit of high-speed 3G networks to be enjoyed with a wide range of multimedia services, including video, email, music downloads and internet browsing.”
“We are very pleased with the fantastic demand for the Nokia 6680, and expect it to be widely available in all the major 3G markets around the world.”
Mindful of the fact that trying to write long emails on a handset’s tiny buttons is as much fun as counting ants, Nokia have also announced their new SU-8W Wireless Keyboard.
This small, lightweight add-on folds out to provide a near full-size keyboard, which connects to the phone via Bluetooth.
It must be said that while these fold out keyboards are really handy things to have, they look about as cool as a comb-over in a gale. So use yours discretely!
Nokia
21 March, 2005
Tango.TV: TELE2 Launches Free 3G TV For Phones
European telco AB has announced that it’s launched the first worldwide free TV station available on 3G mobile phones, via its own TV channel Tango.TV (TTV).
Describing themselves as the “leading alternative pan-European telecommunications company” (have they got, like, cray-zee hairstyles and listen to The White Stripes all day?), the TV station is a product of their development centre located in Luxembourg.
The centre is in charge of applying the company’s convergence strategy and has also created an Internet radio, the painfully cheesy-sounding Sunshine Radio, also available on 3G phones.
The streams are available to any customer looking for some full-on AOR action from the new wap portal T.TVMobile.
We gave the channel a listen via the Web and weren’t impressed. The Dad-friendly soft rock was bad enough, but the dire tunes were rendered even more unlistenable by the stream jumping around like a hyperactive flea on amyl nitrate.
We couldn’t work out if this was supposed to be the 3G TV station or not, but after five minutes of looking at a blank screen on our desktop media player, we gave up waiting.
Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, CEO of Tele2 said; “With the launch of this TV over 3G service, Tele2 is showing that it is at the leading edge of mobile technological developments. We look forward to monitoring the development of this service in Luxembourg to learn about customer behaviour, which we can apply later to our other mobile markets”.
There’s no doubt that mobile TV and radio has a strong future, but this venture strikes me as being more of a publicity stunt than anything. And seeing as I’m writing about it, I guess it’s worked too. Doh! Outwitted again!
Tele2
Sunshine Radio
TTV Online
21 March, 2005
Wireless Internet Soars Nearly 30% – Ipsos Insight Report
The number of wireless Internet users grew by 29% in 2004 according to a recent research study by Ipsos Insight.
The study estimates that 171 million people, or 44% of Internet users in the measured markets, have accessed the Internet wirelessly.
The wireless population growth was largely driven by the two biggest Internet markets, the US and Japan, fuelling 69% of user increase and adding an estimated 15 million and 11.6 million new wireless Internet users, respectively.
Wireless Internet also gained some popularity in Western Europe, South Korea, and Urban China.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the growth in Wi-Fi enabled laptops leading the charge, but consumers accessing the Internet through their mobile phones.
In Japan, for instance, where wireless Internet, laptop, and mobile phone prevalence is highest, twice as many adults (59%) have accessed the Internet through a mobile device such as a mobile phone than have used a wireless laptop connection (28%).
Similarly, outside of North America, Germany, and Urban Mexico, mobile devices like mobile phones are propelling wireless Internet use.
This reflects the belief that mobile phones have reached a turning point, evolving from primarily a voice communication device to a popular multimedia tool encompassing data and Internet applications.
Although SMS may have been the growth vehicle for non-voice applications on a mobile phone in recent years, the survey predicts Internet-based applications are the ‘wave of the future’.
The survey discovered that one in three mobile phone households (estimated 175 million) have exchanged email via mobile phone, with one in four (estimated 124 million) using their handsets to browse the Internet.
A similar percentage of users have exchanged digital image and videos over their mobiles.
With the exception of SMS and ring tone download activity, 2004 saw a year-over-year increase in wireless activities across the board, with email usage growing by 21% and the nascent market of mobile commerce growing by 60%.
Said Brian Cruikshank, Senior VP of Ipsos-Insight and co-author of the study: “These developments are indicative of an early adoption of multimedia and transaction-based activity through a mobile device. As smart-card technology handsets are introduced in many markets, transaction-based activity will be yet another frontier driving data connectivity and ARPU in the next three-to-five years.”
Ipsos predicts that 2005 will be a ‘spring board year’ for wireless Internet via a mobile phone, with uptake encouraged by cheaper 3G coverage offering more mass market services.
“The mobile phone is the most prevalent global device. The continued adoption of the Internet and the recent launch of advanced mobile networks will no doubt lead to a greater number of people connecting to the Internet through a mobile phone.
In fact, we feel that wireless Internet connection via a mobile phone may indeed become the predominant and, perhaps, only point of connection for many in the developing parts of the world, akin to the technology jump from wired to wireless voice communication,” said Cruikshank.
Ipos Insight
18 March, 2005
IP Over Satellite Standard Gets ETSI Approval
Satellite broadband services should become a lot easier to implement with the adoption of the first broadband satellite standard on both sides of the Atlantic.
The transatlantic agreement sees both the US-based Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) adopting the Internet Protocol over Satellite (IPOS) standard.
Satellite data links are an important alternative to wired links in poorly connected rural areas or for business operations that like to regularly shuffle about to new locations.
IPOS-based equipment and software used to build satellite broadband will now be available from a variety of companies who support the standard, including Hughes Network Systems, Microelectronics Technology, Texas Instruments, TriQuint Semiconductor, Wind River Software, Intelsat and Telefonica.
“Now ratified and approved by the two major standards bodies, IPoS opens the door for greater optimisation and economies of scale throughout the satellite industry,” said Pradman Kaul, chief executive officer of Hughes Network Systems.
“IPoS is the only air interface specifically designed for the efficient delivery of broadband satellite services and offers the best means to expand satellite’s addressable markets worldwide.”
“The IPoS standard is extensively field proven, highly scalable and supports low-cost terminals. Now approved by both governing bodies, widespread adoption of the IPoS will further reduce equipment costs and make broadband available and affordable to many more users worldwide,” said Enrique Salvatierra, director of Satellite and Submarine Cables Department, Telefonica de Espana.
IPoS works by specifying a Satellite Independent Service Access Point, which creates an interface between the satellite-dependent functions and the application layers, thereby enabling an open service delivery platform.
To date, the standard has been implemented in over 500,000 sites worldwide.
“Intelsat meets the connectivity requirements of some of the largest telecommunications service providers worldwide,” said Frederick Morris, vice president of Intelsat.
“These companies frequently turn to us for unbiased assessment of satellite broadband technologies available to their end-customers, and having standards like IPoS makes this process easier. We heartily endorse any effort to spread standardisation throughout the satellite broadband service industry.”
IPOS will be competing against the likes of WiMAX in the fixed broadband wireless market. WiMAX trials have already been started by AT&T at companies in the US and Europe is expected to experience the first WiMAX services from providers next year.
Telecommunications Industry Association
European Telecommunications Standards Institute
16 March, 2005
Crown Castle DVB-H Delivery With Samsung
Crown Castle International announced today that it has formed a new subsidiary, Crown Castle Mobile Media, tasked with delivering live mobile television services to handheld devices including cell phones.
Crown Castle Mobile Media intends to build and operate a dedicated digital network for broadcasting digital television content to PDAs, cell phones and other suitable devices.
The technology being used, Digital Video Broadcasting- Handheld (DVB-H), is currently expected to become the global standard for mobile television and has been formally adopted by both the DVB Organization and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
Crown Castle and Nokia recently completed successful demonstration trials of this open-standard technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with Crown Castle Mobile Media expecting to roll out a commercial deployment of this service in selected major US markets during 2005.
“Crown Castle owns over 10,000 wireless towers and holds a nationwide spectrum license,” commented John P. Kelly, President and Chief Executive Officer of Crown Castle. “These valuable assets, combined with our proven expertise in digital broadcasting in the UK, provide a unique opportunity to take a leading position in the emerging mobile television market. We look forward to partnering with content providers and wireless services providers to introduce commercial services.”
Richard Sharp, vice president of Nokia’s Rich Media business unit added, “Nokia and Crown Castle broadcast mobile television for the first time in the US during live market trials that began in Pittsburgh last October and are working together to bring mobile television and radio to the hands of wireless users across the United States.
Crown Castle’s support of DVB-H is further evidence that DVB-H is a robust, open standard that will not only bring high- quality television and radio to the market, but will ensure a vibrant marketplace for infrastructure equipment, innovative devices, and compelling services.”
Earlier this week, Crown Castle Mobile Media also announced that it will work together with Samsung Electronics to accelerate the provision of digital television services to handset devices in the US market.
Samsung will be the world’s first wireless phone manufacturer to launch DVB-H handsets supporting both WCDMA/EVDO and GSM/GPRS networks, providing entertainment-hungry consumers with quality, built-in television screens receiving real DVB-H streaming television and Radio channels.
Crown Castle Mobile Media enjoys an unencumbered nationwide US spectrum license and anticipates building a DVB-H network across the US to transmit high-quality, multi-channel live and streaming digital television for reception on suitably-equipped cell phones.
Samsung is developing premium handsets to work on the Crown Castle Mobile Media network, and have already showcased wireless phones with 2″ QVGA screens supporting 226k colors, up to 30 frames per second, and 300 kbit/s per channel speeds.
The phones have MPE-FEC error correction implemented and use the latest H.264 and AAC+ video/audio decoding technologies.
“Samsung is recognized as a global leader bringing to market multimedia technologies that enhance the way consumers are able to use and interact with their wireless phones,” said Dale Sohn, VP of Samsung’s Overseas Investment Group.
“We understand the value of working with companies like Crown Castle Mobile Media to develop cutting-edge solutions like DVB-H.”
Mr. Michael Schueppert, President of Crown Castle Mobile Media, was suitably chuffed, “We are very excited to have a world-class leader in multimedia mobile phones like Samsung to assist in driving these new services. This collaboration will put Samsung in a position to become a key handset supplier to Crown Castle Mobile Media’s anticipated Pittsburgh DVB-H customer trial.”
Crown Castle
Samsung
16 March, 2005
A780/ MPx220, Motorola Phones Bundle GPS Navigation App
Motorola is to bundle GPS navigation software and hardware with the European versions of its A780 and MPx220 smart phones.
The handsets will include ALK Technologies’ CoPilot Live navigation software and Navteq ‘street and places-of-interest’ maps for European countries, installed on a memory card.
The Linux-based A780 has a built in GPS receiver hardware, while the Windows Mobile-based MPx220 will require a separate Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver.
CoPilot Live uses maps and GPS location data to calculate multi-stage routes, displaying turn-by-turn directions on screen and speaking them out loud to avoid drivers crashing into hedges while looking at the groovy 3D map display.
The software also plugs into ALK’s GPRS-based tracking system, which allows third-parties to find out precisely where they are and how long it will take for them to arrive at their destination (we fancy there’s a few in this office who could benefit from such a feature after a night in the pub).
The product can also quickly plot alternative courses in response to updated traffic news and traffic jams.
GPS navigation has proved a bit of a hit in Europe, with sales bolstering up an otherwise declining PDA market.
A variety of vendors have busied themselves bundling together low-cost handhelds, GPS receivers and navigation software packages that together cost far less than a dedicated GPS systems.
David Quin, ALK’s UK marketing chief, said the Motorola deal was “an important step on the road to mass-market adoption of GPS navigation”.
The Motorola deal follows a similar agreement with T-Mobile, which recently announced that it will bundle CoPilot Live with its SDA and MDA Compact smart phones (and offer CoPilot Live separately to existing SDA and MDA users.)
Both handsets use Bluetooth to communicate with a separate GPS receiver.
Motorola’s handsets and GPS bundles will be available from “select” mobile operators throughout Europe, with pricing and availability determined by the carriers themselves.
Motorola
ALK Co Pilot
15 March, 2005
ATI IMAGEON: Full Multimedia Phone Chips
ATI Technologies have introduced two new media processors, IMAGEON 2282 and IMAGEON 2182, offering a shovel load of ‘groundbreaking’ multimedia capabilities for mobile phones.
The company boasts that their mighty new chip can turn the ‘umble mobile phone into a high-resolution megapixel digital camera, a high-fidelity digital audio player and a digital camcorder with streaming video and video conferencing capabilities (tea-making features extra).
The IMAGEON processors are fully compliant with the 3GPP mobile media standards and capable of delivering high-levels of performance and quality independent of the host processor.
Ravi Gananathan, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Handheld Products Group, ATI Technologies Inc invites us to stick on our “visioneer” glasses:
“Just imagine the freedom of taking the functionality of your camcorder, MP3 player and digital still camera with you in a package that only weighs a few ounces.”
“The new IMAGEON processors from ATI combine advanced audio and video processing capabilities to turn mobile phones into mobile entertainment centers.”
The audio engine in the chip is a flexible and programmable beast, enabling CD-quality, 3D ring-tones along with high-quality stereo recording and playback in industry standard formats, including AMR, AAC, MP3, Real Audio, WMA and MIDI.
Meanwhile, the video engine enables a mobile digital video recorder/player and a 3 mega-pixel digital still camera, with the IMAGEON 2282 providing video streaming and video conferencing functionality with picture-in-picture support.
“The best camera is the one you have on hand to capture a memorable moment. That applies to all media devices,” enthused Gananathan. “Digital camcorders are the next killer application that carriers and consumers are looking for on mobile phones. The next generation IMAGEON powered mobile phones will allow users to be ready when they need to be – to snap a picture, record a movie or listen to music with no compromise on quality.”
ATI is promising ‘unparalleled visual quality and display features’ for the new chips with its ‘ATI’s PowerPlay’ power management technology claimed to offer the lowest power consumption at all levels of functionality.
The higher performance IMAGEON 2282 is targeted at the high mid-tier mobile phone segment while the IMAGEON 2182 targets the mainstream, low mid-tier segment.
Phones powered by the new IMAGEON processors are expected to ship later this year from leading handset manufacturers.
ATI IMAGEON
15 March, 2005