CeBIT: Sendo Smart Phone Records 30 Minutes of Video

Weighing 129g and with a 176 x 220 pixel TFT display, the new Sendo X is yet another entry into the highly competitive smartphone market.

The phone features all the usual applications and gadgets that have come to define smartphones: digital camera, GPRS, PDA functionality – however, there are a couple of features that set it apart.

Video playback is enhanced though Sendo’s GraphiX engine – a coprocessor that ensures smoother playback of Real and MPEG4 video streams. With 32mb of RAM free to users, the phone can store 30 mins of video, or 1000 photographs from the 4 x zoom camera. Memory expansion is through SD cards.

Another new feature is it’s Voice Signal Technologies (VST) voice-activation function: Sendo claim that their VST advanced speech recognition allows users to access the phone’s functions and address book without having to train the phone to recognize their voice.

The phone runs Symbian’s OS and Nokia Series 60 applications, and is J2ME compatible.

Sendo on the X and its GraphiX engine

EU/Microsoft Talks Collapse

It has not been possible for the European Commission to reach an agreement with Micorsoft over the bundling of Windows Media Player in versions of its desktop operating system.

Commissioner Mario Monti said in his statement a few minutes ago: “I would like to stress the constructive and co-operative spirit displayed by Microsoft in the last few weeks. I also want to acknowledge the high degree of professionalism of the members of the Microsoft team at all levels.”

The Commission is expected to meet next Wednesday to discuss next steps – it looks for certain that there’s a heft fine on the way to Microsoft’s European headquarters.

Commissioner Monti’s statement

Discussion over at Slashdot

CeBit

CeBIT really needs no introduction. It is the world’s largest computer show and the definitive European event for everything related to the IT industry. Not only does it provide a complete overview of the global ITC market but also a potential for sales which is unparalleled throughout the world. Hannover http://www.cebit.de/

CeBIT 2004: 18th – 24th March 2004, Hannover

Digital Lifestyles will be covering CeBIT 2004, and we’ll publish the relevant key stories and news throughout each day.

ICT World Forum 2004

This year the forum will feature 32 speakers from 9 countries, and the theme across the three days is achieving business profitability through technology.

Highlights for us include Brian Kardon (CSO, Forrester Research Inc.), Andy Green (CEO, BT Global Services), Pekka Ala-Pietilä (President, Nokia Corporation) and Justin Lindsey (CTO, US Department of Justice).

With an emphasis on the technology trends of 2004 and CRM, there’s going to be a lot of discussion of the future of the mobile market place – for the consumer, the devices and for the service providers themselves.

Key Events at CeBIT

There will be 260 corporate lectures at CeBIT this year, we like the look of:

  • Mobile processes, services and mobile content – efficient design and security, mobile CRM
  • e-Government with Web Services
  • Mobile applications: navigation, tracking, RFID and mobile payment
  • Digital photography and IP-video security

Exhibitors

Amongst the 6400 companies exhibiting, look out for important announcements from Sony, Nokia, Micorsoft and all the usual suspects.

New Facilities at CeBIT

With over 200 802.11b access points installed all around the venue, delegates will have access to Wireless LAN in every area at the exhibition centre.

For the first time, the fair organisers are providing an SMS guide to the fair. If you get lost (perhaps on the way back from the bar, or you’ve left your fair catalogue under a heavy pile of carrier bags and promotional mouse mats), just text +3777-4-CEBIT with the name of the exhibiting company (your own, for example) and the location and stand number will be sent directly to your phone (so you can stagger back to check what happened whilst you were away, without too much embarrassment).

CeBIT Homepage

CeBIT: Sony’s European Music Launch

Sony have announced at CeBIT that they’re launching a new music service in Europe in June. The initial countries on the list will be UK, Germany and France. The service will comprise of some 300,000 tracks form Sony’s catalogue, and they will be available for the usual €0.99 per track.

Now for the bad news. The tracks won’t be MP3s, they won’t be AAC and they won’t be Windows Media Format. They’ll be ATRAC3 (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding 3) – and customers will have to use Sony’s Sonic Stage 2.0 software.

We’ve used Sonic Stage in the past, and it’s a bit of a pig: getting tracks onto devices is relatively simple, but getting them off again can be a nightmare – we hope that some changes will be made to the platform to make the whole process considerably less painful.

This is also a bold move for Sony – by providing Sonic Stage as the engine and selling ATRAC3 music, the service will only work with Sony devices, considerably narrowing their market reach at the expense of copy protection. With Napster and iTunes launching in Europe later this year, it won’t take long to see if this was a good decision or not. We’ll keep you posted.

US Service “Coming Soon”

CeBIT: Nokia’s Mega Pixel Camera Phone and Image Album

The new Nokia phone announced today at CeBIT takes the camera part of “camera phone” very seriously. The 7610 contains a 4x zoom, 1152 x 864 resolution camera – and its Movie Director application lets users edit video and add music on the move.

The phone comes with Nokia’s new Lifeblog software allowing owners to record their every thought and detail about their life and then upload it to the internet. I know someone here who’ll be very excited about that.

Also unveiled today was the Image Album – a 20gb hard drive that will download images and video from compatible Nokia phones. To show them on a TV screen or other display, Nokia will be launching the Image Viewer SU-5, which handily has a remote control. Juha Putkiranta, president of Nokia’s Imaging Business Unit, said: “Mobile imaging is on an explosive growth path.” It’s obvious from these new devices that Nokia are taking imaging very seriously indeed and don’t just regard it as a gimic.
PC World has a bit more from Putkiranta

Slashdot gets excited

BBC on Lifeblog

OD2 Allows Users to Pay for Music Through Mobile Bills

Companies offering digital music downloads have long had a problem with getting revenue from their core market – as many music buyers are under 18, they won’t have a credit card. However, a quick glance at the top deck of any bus, or inside a chip shop, will clearly demonstrate that most of them have mobile phones.

On Demand Distribution (OD2) the company that supplies the music service behind sites like Virgin and Freeserve, has come up with a scheme that will allow purchasers to charge the cost of music downloads to their mobile phones. The system, developed by MChex and launched on March 22, is simple: purchasers send an SMS with a code to a premium number and the cost of the message is then charged to their bill.

Paul Smith, OD2’s UK marketing manager, said: “This payment option opens up our services to a much wider demographic. It will allow younger fans to control their own music spend, without having to hijack their parents’ credit card.”

Of course, this wheeze is just moving the payment stage one step further down the ladder and may cause problems for parents who pay their children’s mobile bills, if they’re not on a pay-as-you go plan.

On Demand Distribution

USDTV Launch USA’s First Over-the-Air Digital TV Service

It’s a broadcast model that’s been available in the UK for a while, but US Digital Television (USDTV) have introduced a digital TV service employing unused digital spectrum leased from its broadcast partners.

The subscription to the service is US$19.95 and includes channels from Fox, Disney and ABC. The set-top box to receive the broadcasts are made by Chinese manufacturer Hisense, and will set viewers back a reasonable US$99.

USDTV promise better picture and sound over analogue cable – and many of the broadcasts will be in HDTV too.

The service is currently available in Las Vegas, Albuquerque and the Salt Lake City Metro Area but is set to expand into an additional 30 areas by the end of 2004.

USDTV recently arranged US$8.5 million in private equity funding from NexGen Investments and Stonebridge Capital – and if they deliver on a number of prerequisites investors say they’re in line for an additional $12 million in funding.

USDTV

Hisense tap into digital TV market

BMG License Tracks to P2P Network

Wippit has added to its repertoire with 10,000 tracks licensed from BMG. Interestingly, the tracks will only be available to subscribers in the UK and Ireland for the time being. This could be seen as a stop gap until iTunes launches in the UK and Europe.

Wippit charge US$54 (UK£30) for unlimited downloads, and subscribers are allowed to swap tracks and burn them to CD. With the EMI deal we reported on earlier, Wippit now offer music from over 200 record labels.

Paul Myers, CEO and Founder of Wippit says, “We offer music from 200 great labels already and having BMG join us is fantastic for Wippit and music lovers alike. BMG have made available a wealth of world beating talent for Wippit subscribers to download, with an emphasis on quality.”

Wippit

CeBIT: PSX Will Make its European Debut at CEBIT 2004

The specifications are expected to have changed from the version launched in Japan a few months ago, but Sony are expected to unveil the European version of its exciting PSX media centre.

The Japanese PSX shipped with a few of the key features missing (namely MP3 playback and the ability to play some image formats), but they were later addressed in a firmware upgrade and it is hoped that the European PSX will hit the market with all of the proposed features enabled. We’ll have to wait and see if the box that Sony show at CeBIT is the proper European version, of if they will simply demo a Japanese unit – the later would be deeply disappointing.

The Register