About Electronics

Camera Core: Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer, Tero Ojanpera, has told Reuters news agency that he expects video recording on cellphones to reach high definition (HD) quality in just a couple of years time.Nokia’s recently launched N95 cellphone is the first in its range to have the ability to record television quality video.

HD quality video could drive sales of multimedia phones at the expense of camcorder manufacturers such as Panasonic, Samsung and JVC.

A number of technical challenges will have to be overcome before HD video comes to the cellphone market.

Video is power-intensive and significantly shortens battery life. Increasing the video quality also affects the quality of the phone’s still camera.

The small screen size of a cell phone would not be suitable for viewing HD images, although the phone could be connected to an HDTV.

read more

I4U: Nokia announced at the Nokia World Conference the Nokia Stereo Headset WH-600 and Nokia Stereo Headset WH-700.

The Nokia Stereo Headset WH-700 fits in the ear with the option of three different ear cups. The WH-700 features lightweight design and easy call management and volume control.

The Nokia Stereo Headset WH-600 is a headband style headset. All excess noise is drown-out with this on-the-ear headset. The Nokia Stereo Headset WH-600 has a wide range of compatibility with its adapter for standard 3.5mm connectors and features easy call management and volume control.

read more

International Herald Tribune: Nokia said Tuesday it expects the global market for mobile devices to grow 10 percent in 2008 to more than 1.2 billion units, and that its share of the industry would increase as well.

The world’s largest mobile phone maker also predicted that the worldwide market for Internet services would reach €100 billion by 2010, and announced the acquisition of Avvenu, a U.S.-based company that specializes in online services and access to PCs and handsets.

The highest growth in the global mobile market next year — of more than 15 percent — will be in the Asia-Pacific region, China, the Middle East and Africa, Nokia said. The lowest growth — of less than 10 percent — will be in North America, Europe and Latin America, it added.

Nokia predicted that globally there will be 4 billion mobile subscribers by 2009, bringing forward its earlier prediction that the figure would be reached in 2010.

read more

Electronista: The number of global cellular subscriptions is now equivalent to half the planet’s total population, says the research company Informa. A new analysis claims that subcriptions have surpassed the 3.3 billion mark, a staggering achievement for any electronics product.

Growth is so fast, cellphones are already ingrained with otherwise impoverished countries such as China and India, with some tentative steps being made into Africa. National economies have in some cases benefitted greatly: much of Finland’s financial health is dependent on Nokia, and among South Korea’s corporate giants are Samsung and LG.

read more

ZDnet: According to The Guardian on Monday, trials will involve phone manufacturer Nokia, mobile operator O2 and Transport for London (TfL), the agency that runs London’s public transport network. The report in The Guardian claims that a specific handset is being developed which can be swiped across the Oyster card readers used at the ticket gates of London Underground stations.

As with the Oyster card itself, the handset will probably use a variant of RFID technology called near-field communications (NFC). The same technology has recently been incorporated into some new banking cards so that they can be used in shops for contactless payment of small amounts.

Visa even has a “payWave” credit card that features the capability to make small, contactless payments in shops, as well as functioning as an Oyster card.

read more

Camera Core: Nokia has been awarded a patent, by US Patent and Trademark Office, for a clamshell handset with an innovative ‘crank’ mechanism.The device has a Qwerty keyboard, hidden underneath a touchscreen. A crank mechanism with a 180° pivotal axis allows the screen to hinge upwards to reveal the keyboard, providing access to normal phone functions.

The crank clicks into two positions. The first position reveals the keyboard and allows the phone’s video camera to be activated, while another click activates the phone’s camera.

The phone also features wireless communication, games and computer functions.

read more

Electronista: GPS device maker Garmin yesterday withdrew its bid to buy map supplier Tele Atlas, opening the door for its primary rival TomTom to make its own deal. The latter firm made its own bid first in July but has since been outbid by Garmin, which claims it has been determined to prevent its competitors from acquiring all the map suppliers themselves and leaving Garmin with no choice but to license GPS maps from a rival. Finland’s cellphone manufacturer Nokia recently bought out another major map provider, Navteq, to supply navigation for its smartphones.

No explanation has been given for the sudden withdrawal, though Garmin’s truce in the bidding war is very likely to be connected to a recent patent dispute settlement between Garmin and TomTom that saw both companies halt lawsuits against each other in exchange for unknown compensation that may include allowing TomTom to buy Tele Atlas. Garmin does not use Tele Atlas maps for most of its GPS navigators and today renewed an agreement with Navteq.

read more

All About Symbian: The latest Nseries, the Nokia N82, has been formally announced. The N82 features a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a Xenon flash, and assisted-GPS. The N82 boasts and impressive ray of connectivity options: quad-band GSM, WCDMA with HSDPA at 2100 MHz, WiFi and Bluetooth. The N82 is available immediately in key markets and sells for an approximate, pre-tax, unsubsidised price of 450 Euros.

The N82 features a 5 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. This is the same camera module as that found in the N95. Instead of an LED based flash the N82 has a Xenon based flash. This is more powerful and should give better picture in low light situations. The camera is also reportedly much faster to start and to capture pictures.

Nokia describes it as the ‘best cameraphone on the market’ and a ‘creditable alternative to stand alone cameras’. The camera also supports shooting video (at VGA resolution at up to 30 fps). There is an on device editor for both still images and video (video editing more basic than N95).

The N82 will ship with Share Online pre-installed. This allows for one click upload to Flickr and other web services. There’s also the usual XpressPrint support which allows you to print photos via Bluetooth (to supported printers) or via USB (PictBridge compatible printers). You can also order prints online directly from your phone.

There’s an on board accelerometer to enable automatic rotation of the user interface. When you turn the phone from portrait to landscape orientation the UI will automatically change (user configurable). This is also used to automatically rotate photos to the correct orientation when you capture them.

The screen is a 2.4 inch QVGA screen with support for 16 million colours.

read more

eNews 2.0: The Nokia Corporation has launched a new Internet music store under its new Ovi brand this week, with more than 2 million songs from all the major record labels, besides Warner Music Group Corp, due to a dispute about illegal downloads, casting a shadow on the launch, according to media.

Warner, who is home well known bands such as Greenday, Linkin Park and Red Hot Chili Peppers, refused to sell its music through the Nokia Music Store Web site, being more interested of protecting the author rights and fighting against illegal downloading.

Nokia was accused of allowing the distribution of copyright material through another of its Web site called Mosh, a site designed for the mobile usage in the first place, although it can be accessed from a PC, too.

Officials from the two corporations were not immediately available for comments.

However, Kari Tuutti, Nokia spokesman, has confirmed for Forbes newspaper that Warner Music Group withholds its music content from the new Web store launched by Nokia, but added that they are still in talks with Warner representatives on the matter and still hope that they will reach an agreement in the near future.

He added that Nokia was doing everything in its power to prevent copyright infringement on Mosh.

read more

VNUNet: Digital map provider Tele Atlas wants TomTom to match Wednesday’s takeover offer by Garmin.

Garmin and TomTom are the world largest and second largest developers of personal navigation devices. TomTom launched a €2bn bid in July to acquire Tele Atlas, but was outbid on 31 October by a €2.3bn offer from Garmin.

Contractually, Tele Atlas is allowed to cancel the July agreement if it receives a better offer, but only after allowing TomTom to match the offer.

If TomTom does match the offer, Tele Atlas intends to recommend its share holders to accept the bid over Garmin’s.

TomTom did not respond to a request for comment. The Dutch firm has until 8 November to raise its offer.

TomTom and Garmin consider Tele Atlas a crucial asset. Tele Atlas is the world’s second largest provider of digital maps after Navteq, which was acquired by Nokia in October for €5.4bn.

read more

Just Another Mobile Phone Blog: Nokia yesterday announced that it has completed its acquisition of Enpocket, a global leader in mobile advertising providing technology and services that allow brands to plan, create, execute, measure and optimize mobile advertising campaigns around the world.

“The Enpocket acquisition is a logical step in establishing Nokia as a leader in Internet services. With the close of this transaction, we will create an exciting business focusing on advertising, offering a strong suite of services and solutions to enable brands, publishers, telecom operators and others to run targeted advertising and marketing campaigns for mobile audiences,” said Tero Ojanperä, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia.

The Nokia vision for mobile advertising is to build the largest, high-quality advertising marketplace; offering advertisers global, targeted reach; offering mobile operators and publishers a simple way to monetize their mobile assets; and offering consumers access to rich, interactive, and valuable content which is available via relevant, interesting and appropriate advertising.

read more

MarketWatch: Navigation device company TomTom NV will have to increase the price it is willing to pay for Tele Atlas NV, the Belgian-Dutch producer of digital roadmaps, following Nokia Corp’s bid for Navteq Corp earlier this week, according to analysts.

“The current share price of Tele Atlas implies that TomTom will have to put a higher bid on the table,” said Marcel Achterberg, an analyst at ING. He has his rating on TomTom under review.

TomTom said on July 23 that it wanted to buy Tele Atlas. The current bid of EUR21.25 a share values Tele Atlas at approximately EUR2 billion.

On the day that the bid was publicly announced by TomTom and Tele Atlas, Tele Atlas’s shares rose by 31% to EUR 21.69, but after that the share price dropped.

Until Oct. 1 Tele Atlas’s share price was lower than the EUR 21.25 TomTom said it was willing to pay for the Dutch maker of digital roadmaps.

On that day, however, Nokia announced that it was planning to buy Navteq, Tele Atlas’ U.S. rival, for EUR5.7 billion. Espoo, Finland-based Nokia is the world’s largest supplier of mobile phone handsets, but is seeking to diversify its product portfolio into added-value and growth areas, such as music downloads and mobile gaming. It sees the increased availability of digital mapping on its phones as a key plank of this effort as it faces off with new rivals such as Google Inc and Apple Inc.

read more