Orange has announced the launch of the world’s first 3G unlicensed mobile access (UMA) platform, opening up a new world of multimedia services to its Unik customers.

Launching first with two exclusive Orange handsets from Samsung and Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), UMA and 3G network technology will be combined in one device for the very first time. Orange’s UMA service (Unik) allows customers to use a single handset to make calls by seamlessly switching from fixed WiFi to mobile cellular networks as they leave or enter their home or office.

The first 3G UMA handset to launch will be the Samsung P270. This will be followed by the launch of the Sony Ericsson G705u – the company’s first UMA handset.  By combining the best capabilities of fixed and mobile, Orange’s customers can enjoy continuous access to news, information and rich entertainment applications from a single device.

Hmm, interesting – more Operators and vendors trying out the whole UMA thing, after Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and O2 (NYSE: TEF) gave it a go a while back. UMA and NFC technologies will no doubt find their way in to mainstream acceptance, the question is of course, when….

You can see the full Orange Press Release here.

China’s infrastructure and handset maker, ZTE, is going to start assembling devices in Ethiopia, after signing a $5.2mn with the “Organization for Rehabilitation and Development of Amhara (TIRET)”

This new plant will apparently be able to produce 3000-4500 mobile devices per day – or around 1.5m units per year, for those of you who prefer annual figures. It would seem that there is a real demand for Mobiles in Ethiopia, with recent shortages and planned upgrades pointing to a serious requirement from those that live there.

In a world where every bit of “industrialization” news features development inside China, it’s interesting to see an operation being set up by the Chinese, in another country that is looking to modernise.

[Via: Cellular News]

As Dusan posted up the other day, Moto is busy launching it’s MOTOjewel handset, which you could suggest is one more for the ladies (and probably some lads that I know too!)….

…but quite apart from the design-centric hardware ID, it would appear this bad-boy er .. girl is equipped with some audio goodness….

First of all there is supposed be a simple drag-and-drop interface for getting your choonz on to and off the device – all enabled by our friendly Windows Media Player 11 (I can’t even remember which DRM is in that version, but I suppose if you are moving MP3s about it doesn’t matter, does it?).

Additionally, for audio talkage, there is the CrystalTalk technology for better call clarity, and then finally in the mix is stereo Bluetooth support – or A2DP for fans of random abbreviations

All in all then – risque (but kinda nice) design, and funk-tastic audio. Hello, Moto.

[Via: Mobile Choice UK]

A South Korean businss paper has reported that Samsung is persuing SanDisk, for acquisition purposes. Both companies would not confirm or deny the report, which to me sounds like it’s on baby!

Samsung currently supplies NAND flash memory chips to SanDisk … which is the world’s largest supplier of flash storage card products. Samsung is the world’s largest manufacturer of NAND as well as DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips. NAND flash memory is used in digital devices such as cameras and music players. DRAM chips are used mostly in personal computers.

Samsung is no stranger to acquisitions either – last year it bought an Israeli company called TransChip, and turned it in to one of it’s R&D centres – Israel is a hi-tech leader globally, and that purchase further extended Samsung’s already mammoth scale of operations.

[Via: Cellular News]

The Telegraph.co.uk has an interesting story about a TV developed to sense hand gestures as a means of control, rather than using the traditional remote. Following on from all the hype regarding the combined gesture/hardware remote of the Nintendo Wii, Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF)’s TV trumps that by doing away with the hardware altogether.

The system uses a small camera (currently mounted on the TV), plus some clever software to differentiate (a) the hand and (b) the movement itself, from the background.

Of course, we’ve also seen a ton of developments in recent months around motion/gesture control in mobile devices – from the iPhone, to N95, to LG devices (using accelerometers) – but could we envisage a situation one day (soonish) where you have a “Minority Report”-like interface to multiple consumer devices?

Toshiba believe this tech could be within TVs in five years – who knows where mobile development will have got to then?!!

[Via: Telegraph.co.uk / Image via: MASONS]

3 has announced sales of over 1m USB mobile broadband dongles to customers across the UK, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and Austria. This has been due, in no small part, to the very attractive cost vs data propositions they have come up with:

Also, a new dongle is now available – the Huawei E160G is now available in black and white, and has a built-in Micro-SD mem card slot that can take up to 4GB capacity. It will cost PAYG customers £99.99, and either free or £49.99 (dependent on package) for contract customers.

[Via: Mobile Choice]

Market Research specialist GfK has said that in sales for June 2008, £1m of Mobile speakers have been sold – compared with just £146,000 in May 2007! In a related stat, handsets with MP3 players and/or FM Radios now account for 65% of the market, which has increased from 44% last year.

This research dovetails in nicely with the launch of Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s “Comes with Music” and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD)’s unlimited music service, powered by Omnifone – clearly, if you are going to download the tracks you are going to play them – and that’s either going to be via headphones, or speakers (it’s just a shame that a percentage of the music-dowloading populous choose to blare tracks out of their mobile device internal speaker, typically whilst walking along!)

Obviously device feature-sets have been growing too, with more storage possible on-device (either internally, or on memory card), higher-spec “player” apps, and in some cases, specialised audio circuitry.

The research provided by GfK shows that the average price of speakers was doubling since last year, which could mean a lot of things – I’d like to think it means consumers were/are paying more for higher fidelity and power output. However, bundling speakers with handset is a very cheap and popular way for end-users to get the hardware.

As digi-downloads grow exponentially, expect to see much more of this kind of news – actually scratch that… you won’t see it, you’ll hear about it!

[Via: Mobile Today]

Sony and Samsung have become members of an HD consortium that is working to send HD video signals wirelessly from a single Set-top box (STB) wirelessly to screens placed aroundthe home. The new consortium will consist of Sony, Samsung, Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Sharp, and Hitatchi – and will develop a standard around tech from a company called Amimon – which they are calling WHDI (Wireless Home Digital Interface).

As many of you will know that have tried to stream video, and perhaps HD video around your home, it’s actually reasonably difficult due to the super-high bandwidth requirements – added to the fact that video “data” must be delivered on-time, consistently in order, for the user experience not to suffer. Personally, I’ve reverted to the new revisions of powerline networking, which supports up to 200Mb/s transfer rate (in a newly-wired property), to satisfy the need for transiting video around.

Anyhow, let’s wait and see what this WHDI standard comes up with – you can expect reasonably about 12 months delay before hardware starts appearing – once that’s in, then you gotta buy it, and probably upgrade/tweak the wireless devices in your house!

[Via: news.cn]

As a very quick follow up to the story I wrote on Authentec’s advanced fingerprint reader/navigation sensor, I have now had some nice images through from their PR division – which show the sensor in place, and the device in which it is deployed (the DoCoMo F906i):

Authentec’s product is the AES1710, which:

“….is based on the Company’s patented TruePrint technology, which reads below the surface of the skin to the live layer where a person’s true fingerprint resides. This unique subsurface approach enables AuthenTec sensors to read virtually every fingerprint, every time — a critical requirement in any fingerprint-enabled device. Other device features include TrueNav menu navigation, TrueFinger anti-spoofing security, and TrueMatch pattern matching to ensure the industry’s highest level of security, usability and convenience.”

As I said before, some nice tech here, now we just need it in European and US devices…

I happened to be watching UK Terrestrial channel ‘Channel 5‘ the other day, and came across this neat wireless gadget, which provides a neat way to get your scribbles digitised! It’s name is the Dane-Elec Zpen, and consists of a receiver (the elipse-shaped item in the pic), and the transmitter – which is, surprisingly enough, a pen.

I was sceptical about how well it would perform, but from the test they did on TV (screenshots here), you can see it worked pretty well. Expansys (UK), my fave gadgets/devices website, emailed me to let me know they have it in stock too, so for £80 it can be yours – description from the Expansys site below:

Write with Zpen and Note Search seeks through your notes. Innovative and useful – the Zpen is a flash memory based digital pen that allows you to :-

• Write notes, drawings and tables with Zpen on any type of paper
• Download your notes, direct onto your computer (PC/Mac/Linux) in order to read them on screen
• Find keywords easily in your handwritten notes thanks to Note Search – a cutting edge software, a real search engine
  Convert: in one click your handwritten notes into digital text

Zpen is also a 1GB USB key, useful for carrying files, videos, photos and music.

If you want to check videos, go to Dane-Elec’s website, here.
If you want to buy it (in the UK), go to Expansys’s website, here.
And if you want to go to the homepage of Channel 5’s Gadget Show, go here.