From a cellphone with just six brightly coloured buttons to one that lets users dictate text messages to a handset that delivers the results of a breathalyser test, manufacturers put their most eye-catching gadgets on display at last week’s wireless industry conference.
Dozens of new handsets were unveiled at the 3GSM wireless conference, many sporting radical new designs and tonnes of new abilities.
The main theme of this year’s show, attended by more than 60 000 people, was the integration of programs such as instant messaging, blogs and mapping to blur the line between the capabilities of desktops, laptops and cellphones.
Others have gone decidedly less flashy. Spain’s Imaginarium showed off a small cellphone with just six buttons, all of them in bright green, red, blue and orange. Why? Its Mo1 is aimed at children — it has no numerical keypad because its incoming and outgoing calls are restricted to numbers programmed by parents.
Plus, it cannot send an SMS. It can only receive them from pre-approved contacts. It also has a key that sends a simple SMS to a parent, or guardian, telling them where the child and the phone are.
United States-based Nuance Communications displayed its mobile speech solutions that lets users of some phones press a single button and use voice commands to get news, sports or weather information downloaded for them.
One tier of the service lets a person dictate an SMS and send it on its way but read the reply as it comes in. Using technology from Dragon’s Naturally Speaking, a person can do hands-free dialling by just saying the number, give directions for a navigation program, or tell the phone’s MP3 player what song to play.
”With more than 2,5-billion cellphones in use, and about 5% using speech recognition, we see an enormous untapped market,” said the company’s president, Steve Chambers.
Breathalyser
The most unusual device came from Japan’s NTT DoCoMo. Simply put, it is a phone that provides real-time video and delivers the results of a breathalyser test, said company spokesperson Shinya Yokota.
The actual breathalyser is not made by the Japanese wireless provider and phone maker, but it links up to a handset that not only shows a video image of the person taking the test, but also sends it immediately to a bus or car company’s office to ensure there is no drunken driving.
”This is for companies to make sure their drivers aren’t drinking on the job,” Yokota said.
For those tired of simple alphanumeric input, an Israeli company, Zlango, has offered up an entirely new language based on icons.
”It’s made up of more than 200 icons that each means a word or concept,” explained Raz Tsafrir of the company, which has the service running in the Caribbean, Poland and Israel.
The application runs on almost any cellphone and the user decides what to say by picking the various icons and sends it. Replies can be done back in Zlango and the software comes with a sort of Rosetta stone to help translate it.
Many of the industry’s top companies showed off ways to integrate familiar programs such as Yahoo! and Microsoft’s instant messaging, as well as websites such as MySpace, Flickr and Google Maps.
”There are lots of possibilities for mobility now,” said Lars Vestegaard, the research director at IDC, adding that a major breakthrough was the development of phone-based navigation that doesn’t need a GPS connection.
Navigation
Finland’s Nokia tapped that service with its new 6110, which features real-time, turn-by-turn navigation built into the slim phone. It uses the inherent GPS positioning in the phone to provide directions for users. It’s expected to retail for about $300 in Europe and be available by June in Europe with a roll-out to follow.
Other navigation devices were plentiful, with familiar brands such as TomTom and Garmin showing off new devices, but with phone makers touting their own versions, too.
Motorola’s Stephen Moore said the company’s latest line of phones is aimed at appealing to consumers’ sense of style, coupled with demand for the latest in technology.
The company’s MotoRIZR Z8 blends both. Using HSDPA technology for fast downloads and a 16-million-colour 35,5mm screen display, it can show video at up to 30 frames per second.
Moore said Motorola’s partnership with BSkyB means users can access Sky’s mobile content services along with an on-demand library of updated news, sports and entertainment.
The Z8 also features a ”kick slider” that makes it appear like a banana when opened because it curves to match the contour of a user’s face.
Other handset makers decided to go for features, combining the elements of an entire laptop in scaled-down versions of ultra-mobile computing devices that also offer traditional cell service.
HTC’s X7500 is a flip-style phone with a five-inch colour screen that runs on Windows Mobile. It comes standard with TomTom’s Navigator 6, a built-in three-megapixel camera and an eight-gigabyte hard drive and 128 megabytes of RAM with connections that let users plug it into a computer monitor or television for more data.
While its keyboard is manageable for touch-typing, it has a USB port to plug in a larger one for easier use.
At about €1 100 and coming in the next few months, it’s for those who take their mobility seriously. — Sapa-AP