Posts filed under Events

Nokia’s North American VP Tim Eckersley has a few interesting things to say about the future of mobile trends over at Reuters. In a 5 minute video clip, he shows off the Nokia N770 Internet tablet, which is selling in droves, and talks about the latest trends that Nokia see appearing in the next year or so.  Specifically, he cites convergence and multimedia as the overarching themes, and says that convergence is being driven by music.  Hang on, is this last year’s trend he’s predicting or this?!

He also goes on to say that imaging is starting to take over as the driver of sales, with camera phones ramping up to the 5 megapixel level (which was last year’s entry level model for South Korean models!), and that there will be greater integration with external accessories such as printers for more seamless transport of your images.

So, he doesn’t reveal much, and he certainly doesn’t explain why Nokia’s been so quiet, but you at least get a feel for what it’s like at CES 2006 right now.

[Source: Reuters]

Motorola haven’t finished with their announcements at CES yet, announcing alliances with Kodak and Google.  With Kodak, Motorola have announced a ten year alliance whereby they’ll use Kodak’s CMOS sensors in their camera phones, as well as integrate Motorola mobile phones with Kodak EasyShare accessories, such as printers and retail kiosks.

With Google, Motorola will be releasing mobile phones with a Google icon, enabling users to go directly to the search engine with one click. Not major news, and not enough to make me want to buy a Motorola phone (hell no!), but reasonably interesting.

[Source: Motorola, Engadget]

Sony Ericsson have also announced the MPS-60 portable speakers and the MDS-60 Music Desk Stand (above). The Sony Ericsson MP-60 plug into your Sony Ericsson phone (presumably a Walkman model, like the new W810 Walkman phone), while the MDS-60 is a stand into which you place your Sony Ericsson phone.  The MDS-60 will then blast your tunes out to you while charging your phone.

Great, Sony Ericsson, but not rocking my world!

[Source: Sony Ericsson]

See pics of the Sony Ericsson MPS-60 speakers after the jump.

• Quad band
• 512MB storage, expandable up to 2 GB
• 2 Mega pixel camera with AutoFocus
• 4 x digital zoom
• 176 x 220 pixel, 265K colour, 1.9” TFT display
• Video recording
• Email, SMS and MMS
• Internet browser

[Source: Sony Ericsson]

More details on the Sony Ericsson W810 Walkman phone after the jump.

Nokia have been suspiciously quiet at CES.  The only thing we’ve heard from them are a few Bluetooth headsets, and the addition of Bluetooth to their existing Nokia 6101 and 6102 mobile phones. There was rumour they’d have an amazing new smartphone on display, but I’ve not heard anything yet. 

Back to the slightly refurbished phones they announced at CES yesterday:

Building upon the popularity of the Nokia 6101 and Nokia 6102 phones, Nokia have announced the Nokia 6102i and Nokia 6103 phones, both of which add the convenience of Bluetooth technology to the already strong feature sets found on these compact mid-range fold-style phones. The Nokia 6102i phone carries on the same striking design found on the Nokia 6102 phone, while the new Nokia 6103 phone features an updated modern look but retains the compact size and exceptional ease-of-use that made the Nokia 6101 phone such a hit with customers. The Nokia 6102i and Nokia 6103 phones will be available in a GSM 900/1800/1900 version primarily for markets in Europe, Africa and Asia while a GSM 850/1800/1900 version will be available primarily for markets in the Americas. Both phones are planned to be available during the 1st quarter of 2006 and are expected to retail for approximately €200, before applicable taxes or subsidies.

Hardly sets the world on fire does it?!

[Source: Nokia]

Technorati Tags: Nokia, mobile, CES2006

Samsung have announced more new phones today than I can possibly blog about. So to help you navigate through their maze of product announcements, here’s a brief overview, some links, press release cuttings, and images.

Mobile TV

Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., (Samsung) today affirmed its global leadership in the burgeoning mobile TV category by demonstrating several “world’s firsts” among its line-up of nine handsets crossing multiple mobile broadcasting platforms – Satellite DMB (S-DMB), Terrestrial DMB (T-DMB), Media FLO and DVB-H. These various mobile broadcasting standards will bring large-volume multimedia, television and radio content direct to consumers via their mobile handset.

Samsung also will demonstrate for the first time a handset developed for Qualcomm’s MediaFLO mobile broadcasting platform. Beyond its wireless multimedia content capabilities, the handset’s two megapixel camera with integrated flash allows users to capture still images and video, which can then be viewed on the phone’s 262,000-color TFT display, shared with friends via a high-speed data connection or stored on a microSD card in the phone’s external memory slot. Samsung’s iconic swivel screen design will allow users to view streaming video or multicast packet data in landscape mode, further enhancing the multimedia experience.

Links:

• MobileMentalism’s take on the new Samsung SPH-B4100 mobile TV phone
• Samsung’s press release

Much more news, images, links of Samsung’s CES 2006 announcements after the jump.