During the 3GSM World Congress, Boingo Wireless Inc. announced that it has joined the Symbian Platinum Program and has demonstrated its port of Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit to Symbian OS. The Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit offers Symbian OS licensees the opportunity to integrate seamless Wi-Fi roaming connectivity into their dual-mode handsets.

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Envivio Inc. and GlobeCast announced that they have reached a deal with Orange to deliver high-quality MPEG-4 television broadcasts to its mobile TV subscribers in France.

The new solution, based at GlobeCast’s Paris technical operations center, features the Envivio mobile TV headend – comprised of the 4Caster M2 encoders and the 4Manager network management system. By deploying the H.263/H.264 Envivio mobile TV headend, GlobeCast will be able to provide Orange with the highest quality live television and radio services to any mobile device, from GPRS to HSDPA, in its subscriber network. Read the full article »

The DVB Steering Board has approved the DVB-SH (Satellite services to Handhelds) specification. Two documents were approved: a waveform specification and a description of the system. The specification was developed by the DVB Technical Module’s TM-SSP working group.

DVB-SH is defined as a system which is able to deliver IP based media content and data to handheld terminals like mobile phones and PDAs via satellite. Whenever a line of sight between terminal and satellite does not exist terrestrial gap fillers are employed to provide the missing coverage. The DVB-SH system has been designed for frequencies below 3 GHz, typically in the S-band. It complements the existing DVB-H physical layer standard and like its sister specification (DVB-H) uses the DVB IP Datacast (IPDC) set of content delivery, electronic service guide and service purchase and protection standards. Read the full article »

INFONXX, the world’s premier provider of directory enquiry and enhanced information services, and VoiceSignal, the global leader in mobile voice technology solutions, announced today “VSearch”, the world’s first embedded handset-server application that offers to carriers the choice of automated voice enabled directory enquiries and local search by either specific listing or category keywords. VoiceSignal will provide the speech recognition and application software and INFONXX will provide content and search support.

The product will deliver to consumers a wide range of innovative information services including access to traffic, weather information, cinema times, stock quotes, horoscopes and sports scores. These information services and the delivery of mapping technology are an attractive play for advertisers targeting mobile delivery, enabling the opportunity for free delivery of VSearch to consumers. Read the full article »

During the 3GSM, I’ve had a chance to visit the booth of GestureTek Mobile (division of GestureTek), the world leader in camera-enabled, gesture-based control for information and entertainment systems.

GestureTek’s technology (EyeMobile Engine) enables applications to use the handset’s built-in camera for determining the position of the device. That’s something we could describe as a software-based accelometer. Just a reminder, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 5500 Sport has a built-in accelometer, as well as recently announced Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s iPhone.

GestureTek’s people demonstrated the usage of their technology in games (Darts) and in mapping software. You don’t have to be a genius to imagine browsing the map with this thing implemented – just move your phone and you automatically browse the map. In their demo application, they’ve even added function for zooming in and out by moving phone forward and backward. Very nice!

At the 3GSM World Congress, Adobe announced that support for video will be integrated in the next generation of Adobe Flash Lite software. Flash Lite 3, expected to be available in the first half of 2007, will bring the Adobe Flash Player video format from the desktop to mobile phones and devices, enabling operators, handset manufacturers and developers alike to deliver more compelling and engaging experiences to mobile users.

The release will be a landmark addition to Adobe’s family of video technologies that includes Adobe Production Studio for professional video editing, Macromedia Flash 8 from Adobe for video encoding, and Adobe Flash Media Server for video distribution. Read the full article »

Discretix, the leading provider of embedded security and DRM solutions for mobile devices and flash memory, and Opera Software announced that Opera has partnered with the industry-leading Discretix Multi-Scheme Digital Rights Management (DRM) security client for integration with the Opera Mobile browser. Using Discretix’ premium DRM solution, Opera will provide mobile phone manufacturers with support for the broadest range of major DRM schemes, including OMA DRM v2.0, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) WM-DRM 10 and CPRM. Read the full article »

ShoZu Inc. today announced a broad agreement for download and pre-installation of its mobile media services on the new generation of Motorola (NYSE: MOT) handsets that is being launched with the just-unveiled MOTORIZR Z8 hi-def. The contract is a cornerstone in ShoZu’s strategy to bring its Share-It one-click image uploading and ZuCast direct-to-handset media delivery services to the mass market through alliances with handset manufacturers.

Initially, the client software that powers ShoZu’s services will be available for free download to the MOTORIZR Z8 hi-def at www.hellomoto.com when the phone is rolled out in Europe in March. Beginning later this year, the ShoZu software will come pre-installed on selected Motorola devices as they are released worldwide.

The ShoZu services will help Motorola deliver on its vision of providing a rich ecosystem of applications.

One thing I missed. Symbian and Tele Atlas launched AmiGO, a friendly smartphone application designed to make evenings at the 3GSM as stress-free and fun as possible.

Powered by Symbian OS and digital map data by Tele Atlas, AmiGO provides the perfect guide to get around Barcelona and connect with associates. Users can find out where their colleagues are, track down a local bar or locate the nearest points of interest in seconds. AmiGO will even help them order a coffee or beer in Spanish.

The application is available for download online exclusively from Handango and Symbian.

FotoNation, a world leading embedded imaging and connectivity solutions company for the digital photography industry, announced three very interesting news at 3GSM in Barcelona. To summarize (you can click on the links for more information):

• MTP-IP for mobile phones – The technology which installs on top of WLAN enabled devices that lets users send & receive large photos, music & videos much faster
• Red-eye for camera phones – FotoNation already embeds this technology to the digital camera industry, with licensees including Kodak, Nikon, Pentax, Sanyo (OTCPK: SANYY), Samsung, Nikon, and and other popular brands. Now, it’s time to push it mobile.
• Face detection – Previously only available in digital still cameras, FotoNation Face Tracker is a highly portable software implementation that scales in performance according to the power of the processor used in the device.