Posts filed under Technology

Motorola haven’t finished with the announcements at CES 2006.  This is the Motorola TXTR D7, a curious gadget that’s a full QWERTY wireless keyboard that connects over-the-air to a compatible Motorola Bluetooth-enabled phone.  Apparently, the point of the device is so you can type messages with convenience and ease. Whether in-transit or in an all-day meeting, the large screen enables easy viewing of incoming and outgoing texts, making this quick and efficient device a must have for professionals and frequent texters.

Right, but the whole point of text is its convenience. With only 160 characters, you can’t go writing theses anyway, so why have a dedicated and cumbersome QWERTY keyboard for the job? Not sure of the point of this one.

Technorati Tags: Motorola, text, SMS, mobile, CES2006

Motorola have announced the Motorola H5 MiniBlue Headset, which comprises an in-ear speaker and microphone that actually picks up your voice through your ear canal. The design greatly reduces ambient noise and enables crystal-clear communications in noisy environments. Weighing only 0.26 ounces and measuring 33 x 41 millimeters in diameter, the H5 Miniblue headset is small enough to ensure a comfortable in-ear fit. The MiniBlue also comes equipped with a portable charging base to re-charge on the fly and provide protection when the headset is not in use.

As well as the MiniBlue, Motorola also announced the following headsets:

Motorola Bluetooth Headset H605
Basic Bluetooth slug

Motorola Bluetooth DJ Headphones S805
High-end stereo headphones that also accept calls from your mobile phone.

JBL On Tourâ„¢ Mobile
Optimized to work with Motorola music-enabled phones, JBL On Tour Mobile portable music box
and speakerphone connects with your mobile phone and fills your room
with music while you stay connected to your calls. 

Technorati Tags: Motorola, Bluetooth, mobile, CES2006

Technorati Tags: Motorola, Bluetooth, mobile, CES2006

Motorola’s new iRadio service, also announced at CES 2006 (where else?!) sounds intriguing. You use a compatible mobile phone, such as the new Motorola ROKR E2, to store up to 6 radio ‘channels’, which you can then listen to either via a set of headphones, or your car or home stereo. Theoretically, this sounds like a great idea. Using just your mobile phone, you can control your music and pipe it through whichever hi-fi quality technology you happen to be near. Sounds cool, but look beyond the hype, and you find the reality of the service not quite as good as it sounds…

Read more about the Motorola iRadio Service after the jump.

[Source: Motorola, Engadget, Gizmodo]

More news from Motorola at CES 2006, this time in the form of the SVG2500 Wireless VoIP Cable Modem Gateway, an all-in-one home communications hub that integrates digital phone service and a wireless access point with a reliable Motorola cable modem. Motorola intend for the SVG family to support the fixed-mobile convergence features of the RSG service, offering service providers an integrated product for delivering ‘quadruple play’ offering of voice, video, data, and wireless services to customers.

The Motorola SVG2500 enables the simultaneous use of digital phone and high-speed data services, and also supports a variety of popular phone services including caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, and more. The product’s advanced routing features allow for multiple PCs to be connected without the need for a stand-alone hub or router – reducing both cost and clutter.

The SVG2500 is easy to set-up and use, featuring plug-and-play installation and an intuitive Web-based diagnostic function for quick troubleshooting. The product is expected to be available in Spring 2006.

Sounds great, but I wonder whether the complexity of the device will deter its widespread adoption? Think about it: try explaining its benefits to great your gran. Better still, try explaining exactly what it does to her – or for that matter, try explaining what it does to yourself without looking at this post. Great tech, but must be more hidden!

[Source: Motorola]

From glorious Vegas, Motorola have announced the Motorola Residential Seamles Mobility Gateway (RSG) at CES 2006.  The RSG lets you use one mobile phone and one number to make and receive calls from a landline when you’re in your home, or through a mobile phone network when you’re away from home.  The product includes an 802.11b/g wireless access point, a four-port router, and a built-in Voice-over-IP adapter. This technology allows the RSG to run your home network, power standard telephones, and act as a hotspot for your mobile phone.

Better still, the Motorola RSG can seamlessly transfer voice calls between the home wireless network (WLAN) and the cellular network without interrupting the call, when paired with a dual-mode handset (DMH) and connected to a network and service that supports this feature. Dual-mode handsets are mobile devices that can access both cellular and in-home wireless networks.

Read more about the Motorola RSG after the jump.

[Source: Motorola]

CES 2006 hasn’t even begun and already the major mobile phone manufacturers are busy. First up is Motorola with a plethora of announcements, including:

The Motorola Residential Mobility Gateway (RSG)
Lets you use the same mobile device and number as you roam in and out of your home.

The Motorola iRadio Service
A subscription music service that seamlessly moves from home, to car
stereo, to wireless headphones, all powered from your mobile phone.  The service will run from a number of devices including the new ROKR E2 mobile phone (huh?!), and can integrate with home and car stereos using Bluetooth accessories. iRadio lets you choose a radio channel (there are 435 available) from your mobile phone, and pipe it through your hi-fi of choice via Bluetooth.  All for only $7 a month. Even though it’s Motorola, this seems genuinely innovative, and actually rather cool!

Motorola ROKR E2 – Return of the infamous music phone
Yes that’s right, fanboys, music returns to Motorola with the ROKR E2, but this time without iTunes. Instead, Motorola have added their own iRadio service to the device, and added 2GB of storage, which should squeeze in a few more tunes than the original ROKR’s paltry limit of 100. Still only comes with 1.3 megapixel camera, though.

Motorola and Oakley O-ROKR
Or, more likely, the O-DEAR! Motorola team up with Oakley once more to try and squeeze a mobile phone into a pair of sunglasses. Hopefully they’ll have more success than they did with the RAZRWIRE, but the concept seems too naff to really take off.

Motorola monstrous Bluetooth announcements
Too many to list here – more details in a later post.

Ths is the joy of CES – too much to blog about in one post from one company, and the show hasn’t even begun yet! Glorious!

Not to be outdone by LG’s new mobile TV phones, Samsung have announced that they too have developed a mobile TV phone supporting Media FLO, giving them a range of handsets that support all the major mobile TV standards, just like LG. Let’s think about this: three extremely complex competing mobile TV standards; two huge electronics companies, each with devices that together support all three standards. That’s some investment in the technologies, and shows real commitment behind the concept of mobile TV. I guess mobile TV’s going to be big this year then!

[Source: EETimes]

In a sneak preview of forthcoming CES 2006 news, LG have given us a taste of some of the things they’re going to be showcasing by announcing their new mobile phones for the Nokia DVB-H and Qualcomm Media FLO mobile broadcasting standards.  LG claim that these phones are the first in the world to support these standards, and give LG a real competitive edge in the mobile TV arena, as they already have handsets that support the rival DMB standard.

Mobile TV will be the mobile phone gizmo of the year, but there are a bewildering array of conflicting standards.  Nokia’s DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) supports GSM, GPRS and WCDMA, thus enabling it to be used by 70% of the world’s mobile market. Qualcomm’s Media FLO (Media Forward Link Only) is a rival technology that will be used by Verizon in September 2006. Meanwhile, DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) is widely used across Asia, with South Korea in particular heavily supporting it.  LG has positioned itself favourably by now having handsets that support all three standards.

More news as soon as it comes in from CES, which should be any minute now!

[Source: Digital Chosunilbo]

Happy New Year! And it will be for mobile phone lovers, because despite the long winter nights and the miserableness of January and February (I live in the UK – trust me “miserable” is the perfect word for January and February over here!), CES 2006 is just around the corner. CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is the annual gizmo trade fest where all the key players make huge announcements on forthcoming products.

Not only will we see some amazing new products, we should also get an idea of what the major device manufacturers are cooking up for the coming year. My guess: expect to see a lot of fuss on Mobile TV, some buzz about VoIP and cellphones, and WiFi everywhere.  But I’m not the only one guessing. The show runs from January 5 – 8 2006, but there are already many rumours doing the rounds at the moment, so read on if you want a sneak preview of CES 2006.