Posts filed under News

Nokia have gone all conceptual on us, showing off a variety of new prototype form factors designed to show us how imaginative the company’s designers are. Think of them as the mobile equivalent of car prototypes.

The Acibo is a ‘buddy device’, one of those market-speak terms designed to inspire nothing but horror in the average human. Apparently, “the coveted Nokia Acibo concept has taken surpassed conventional wisdom and created a new buddy device that not only understands and delivers on your communication needs, but offers a unique level of personalization.” Which means it’s a mobile phone in the shape of a ball (wow, I’m getting cynical these days!).

The Aki wristphone is a bracelet phone (or according to Nokia-speak, a ‘wrist-wrap device’!). Apparently, it’s designed to respond to a user’s wrist actions. You move in a particular way, and it’ll perform some function that you’ve programmed into it. So, call your boss by making an interesting but vigorous shake of the wrist – nice one, Nokia!

Nokia have provided an irritating flash site to show off these designs, but to be honest, the navigation is so poor and the usability of the site so irritating, I gave up, and simply read the PhoneMag’s coverage of it! See and be amused!

Samsung has released pictures of its new phone developed in collaboration with Bang and Olufsen. Called the ‘Serene’ (yes, ‘cos that’s exactly how mobile phones make you feel!), it’s designed to compete with Nokia’s Vertue: that is, very expensive, style heavy, feature light. Apparently it does have ‘perhaps the best sound quality in the mobile phone market’ which you can try out for yourself at serenemobile.com, but to be honest, you can’t really tell all that much from the chime of a single bell (though it did annoy the hell out of my cat – not sure if that’s a feature though!)

The phone will be out in November, but there’s already a comprehensive review at mobile-review.com. They conclude much as I suspected:

“This device is extremely uninteresting for people using other functions besides calls. Principally Java support is absent….Some times the phone looks extremely archaic – the manufacturer cut everything they could. In the end we have a device that will be interesting to people who got used to showing their status with such devices not bothering about their functionality and any application to real use.”

In other words: avoid!

Motorola has finally gotten around to updating the RAZR. The original RAZR, remember, had a glorious form factor, looking seriously cool as one of (if not the) thinnest mobile handsets around, but it was always let down by its poor features – in particular, a measly 0.3 megapixel camera. Now, Motorola have put that right. The new RAZR V3X offers not one, but two cameras: the original VGA camera for 2-way video calling, and a new 2 megapixel camera for taking actual pictures with. At last, a RAZR that can finally be used for more than just phone calls! The rest of the features are pretty standard fare now, and are listed over the link.

• Stores up to 1 Gigabyte (750 songs) of high quality music and offers 10 hours of music play.
• Two-megapixel camera and smartphone capabilities.
• Triband GSM 900/1800/1900

Told you you were going to be hearing a lot more about Mobile TV.  According to Nokia:

In a UK first, EastEnders, Coronation Street, CSI and Lost are just some of the TV programmes up to 400 O2 customers, living and working in Oxford, will be able to watch live on an advanced mobile phone from next week.
 
O2 and Arqiva (previously known as NTL Broadcast) have teamed up with Nokia as well as the leading terrestrial and satellite broadcasters to kick-off the UK’s first trial of full multi-channel mobile TV. 16 channels are being offered to O2 customers, including BBC ONE, BBC TWO, BBC News 24, ITV 1, ITV 2, Channel 4 and Five, which will provide a core of mainstream channels coupled with programmes from British Eurosport, Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery Channel, MTV, ShortsTV, Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Travel.
 
Customers will be able to select their favourite programme from an on-screen service guide, search for specific items as well as set their handset to alert them when a show starts. The trial will run for up to six months and is designed to test and showcase the televisual capabilities of the next generation mobile services. It will look at how people choose to catch up on their favourite TV shows, how they watch the latest music videos and keep up to date with the news and sport when on the move, and provide an understanding of how much customers are willing to pay for the service.