Mobile World Congress
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New CEO offers scathing Nokia assessment | Deep Tech
Stephen Elop, Nokia's new chief executive , has seemingly begun bracing the company for radical change with a no-holds-barred memo saying the once dominant mobile phone company is now "years behind" its competitors. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop (Credit: Nokia) The memo, published at The Wall Street Journal and Endgadget , arrives on the eve of a public strategy briefing at the end of this week and the massive Mobile World Congress trade show next week. Nokia, which reported a 21 percent decline in profits for the fourth quarter of 2010, declined to comment on the memo.
Microsoft set to detail second Windows Phone update at Mobile World Congress in February
Windows Phone 7 developer device Microsoft is planning to unveil and detail a second Windows Phone 7 update in February. The software giant has chosen the Mobile World Congress venue according to sources familiar with the plans. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is due to hold a keynote at the event and Microsoft’s press event will mark a year from when the company first unveiled Windows Phone 7 to the world. According to a source who spoke to WinRumors, Microsoft’s second update will be a significant one.
Coming this February, at a Mobile World Congress near you, from the company that popularized the Service Pack : a second major update to Windows Phone 7 . The observant among you will already be leaping out of their seats to point out that the first WP7 update hasn't even been delivered yet, but it seems like Microsoft's calendar stretches beyond the next month and the company's already churning away on enhancing and improving its rebooted mobile OS. Such is the scuttlebutt coming out of WinRumors , and it's kind of hard to argue with the postulation that Steve Ballmer wouldn't be keynoting MWC in 2011 without something significant to announce.
Microsoft said to be planning second Windows Phone 7 update for MWC in February
Nvidia to Reveal Tegra 2 3D Chip at Mobile World Congress? | GADG
Things are starting to heat up as Nvidia might catapult the mobile and tablet device market into the third dimension. Reports have leaked a snapshot from Nvidia’s presentation for the Mobile World Congress or MWC. And if the rumors and the picture is for real, then it seems Nvidia will be launching Tegra 2 3D processor later this year for future mobile gadgets that will be having, you guessed it, a 3D screen.
Texas Instruments today announced its new OMAP 5 mobile platform, a super-advanced mobile chipset that will enable Kinect-like gesture-based interfaces and potentially support Microsoft's new, ARM-based version of Windows. OMAP 5 is the first chipset based on the brand-new ARM Cortex-A15 processor, which offers support for more than 4GB of memory and multiple operating systems virtualized in hardware, said TI OMAP product line manager Brian Carlson. The dual-core A15 (at up to 2-GHz per core) will be accompanied by a multi-core Imagination PowerVR SGX544 GPU, which supports Microsoft's DirectX 9 and delivers five times the graphics performance of the current SGX540, he said. "Cortex-A15 is to Cortex-A9 what Cortex-A8 was to the good old ARM11 platform," said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president of TI's OMAP platform business unit. Cortex-A8 is the chip that enabled the first real generation of super-phones, including the Motorola Droid and Apple iPhone 3GS.
TI's OMAP 5 Chips Target Windows
Samsung Catches Up in Smartphone Race
By SHAYNDI RAICE And SPENCER E. ANTE Samsung Electronics Co. got a late start in the smartphone race, but has quickly taken market share and become a more potent threat to smaller rivals like Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. MSI +0.74% and HTC Corp. 2498.TW +0.20%
Sony just dropped a bomb on the Japanese stage -- not a single PlayStation Phone , but a PlayStation Phone experience for everybody. The company unveiled a cross-platform software framework called PlayStation Suite, which sounds rather boring in those words, but what it amounts to is an official PlayStation Store filled with games for your Android tablets and cellphone s. Sound familiar ? Sony's starting with an emulator for existing PSOne titles and is promising an Android game store later this year, but soon it might be much, much more: the company's calling PlayStation Suite a "hardware-neutral" development framework to make games portable for all sorts of handhelds, and says that "new and exciting content" is also on the way. Sony will sponsor a first-party licensing and quality-assurance scheme called PlayStation Certified, and provide the marketplace as well, likely hoping to attract major game developers to build top-tier titles for mobile and get a piece of the action too.
Sony reveals PlayStation Suite framework, store for Android gaming
Facebook denies branded smartphone partnership with HTC
Yesterday we brought you news that Facebook were reportedly working with smartphone manufacturer HTC to release two branded smartphones, today those rumours have been quashed by Dan Rose, Head of Business Development at Facebook. Reuters reports that when asked about the potential existence of a Facebook phone, Rose replied: “This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programing interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way”. “The rumors around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.” <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>
HTC is reportedly set to launch two new Facebook-branded smartphones at Mobile World Congress next month, running modified versions of Android and supporting Facebook voice calls and IMs. According to CityAM ‘s unspecified sources, the HTC Facebook phones will use the social network’s color scheme and branding, and push the Facebook news feed – complete with messages – to the smartphones’ homescreen. According to the sources, Facebook team members Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos are primarily responsible for the phone project. However, CTO Bret Taylor has recently insisted that Facebook’s primary focus for 2011 will be mobile, though he did not confirm any specific handset plans. The news contradicts previous reports which suggested Facebook was working with INQ to turn the Cloud Touch into the official Facebook phone.
HTC Facebook Phones tipped for MWC 2011
Aava Mobile Medfield MeeGo/Android phone confirmed
Intel has been showing off Medfield-based MeeGo prototypes in the past weeks , and soon Aava Mobile will be getting into the act with its second-generation Aava Core design which the company has confirmed to SlashGear is ready to be rolled out at MWC 2011 this month. According to Aava, the 8.9mm-thick touchscreen smartphone in fact runs either Android or MeeGo . While the company has working units, they won’t be selling the Aava Core direct to consumers. Instead, like the first model – which we played with all the way back at MWC 2010 , when Aava had both Android and Moblin versions on show – it will be used as a developer device, as well as to promote the company’s integrated ACPU and modem platform to OEM/ODMs.
Speculation over Nokia’s potential adoption of an OS other than Symbian and MeeGo continues, with the company’s share price buoyed amid rumors of a surprise announcement at the Finnish company’s pre- MWC investors event and after a European analyst publicly called for the adoption of Windows Phone 7 . Triggered by CEO Stephen Elop’s recent comments that Nokia “ must build, catalyse or join a competitive ecosystem ,” interpreted by many as a sign that the company might be reconsidering its dedication to current platform strategy, rumors of a WP7 or Android announcement have been little quelled by Nokia’s tight-lipped secrecy ahead of the event next Friday. Usually, the NYTimes suggests, analysts are briefed well in advance of announcements, but Nokia has reportedly been unusually reluctant to give out any details of the February 11 meeting.
Nokia commits to “embrace change” as WP7 rumors bump shares
Rumor has Nokia N9 using 1.2GHz Atom chip
Nokia N9 to get 1.2GHz Atom CPU, says rumor The Nokia N9 will sport a 1.2GHz Intel Atom processor when it launches, according to Finnish tech magazine Prosessori . The flagship will thus represent a number of firsts for the handset maker, including being the first with the MeeGo OS and the first mainstream, shipping handset anywhere to use an Atom chip.Nokia N9 dropped because of a larger tablet?
A recent sighting of what could possibly be a Nokia MeeGo tablet is most probably true – especially after hearing from famous Nokia leaker Eldar Murtazin that the flagship N9 device has been dropped said, in favor of an unidentified “other phone.” There is no word on what the new model or other phone is, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it was the leaked MeeGo tablet. Of course, the leaked tablet could actually make a splash at Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona if it has been well prepared by Nokia, although the Finnish cell phone manufacturer has remained mum all this while without letting out a single beep.I was on a panel at Intel's sales conference this week where Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas was named director of creative innovation , with analysts from Forrester and IDC. We all agreed about a number of things having to do with the world in 2015. But one of the things we agree about today is that Wintel , the near-mythical partnership between Intel and Microsoft, died some time ago and we still haven't seen the changes that will result.