So it seems that it’s not just EA and PNY that are able to come up with a memory ard + content proposition. In fact it seems that mPortico and Dane-Elec have gone one step further…

mPortico, a developer of cutting-edge mobile content distribution solutions, has announced it has formed a strategic partnership agreement with Dane-Elec Memory to produce the first entertainment and media emporium – a shopping and entertainment venue, installed with the simplicity of inserting a mobile memory card into your phone. The cards will be preloaded with the mPortico mobile platform that enables convenient access to media-rich entertainment and direct access to up-to-the-minute mobile content and shopping.

The memory cards in question are microSD, and are preloaded with games, video clips, ringtones, and wallpaper from award winning mobile content studios as well as leading entertainment brands. The emporium provides immediate access to online content through the mPortico application interface as well as a WAP-based interface offering universal access to new content.

Once the microSD card is installed, the handset can access an application that provides a browsing environment for the catalogue of preloaded content, and a means to buy it – all with reduced number of clicks. On first inspection this looks like a very neat solution – we’ll have to see what content and distribution the mem cards get going forwards.

Picstop.co.uk - a good website for memory cards

I like it when I get nice emails. Emails that tell me something interesting and/or amusing, and leave me with a nice warm gadgety feeling inside. That’s kinda what happened when I got an email from Picstop today, telling me they are doing some really good offers on Memory cards.

Now you can never have enough memory, so I say (certainly for UK readers), it’s worth a trip over to the Picstop site to see if you can boost the storage for your device – I know I’ll be getting some solid state storage goodness!

You can find the Picstop site here.

T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) has invested in another Femtocell company, this time putting cash in to Israeli semiconductor startup Percello Ltd. The deal follows T-Mobile’s venture arm investment in another company called Ubiquisys Ltd.

Percello makes baseband processor chips for 3G and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) femtocells. Its first chip for 3G femtos, the PRC6000, complies with 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 7 and can deliver 21.6 Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.76 Mbit/s on the uplink. (See Percello Uses CEVA.) The PRC6000 will be available to customers for integration in the first quarter next year. It will be commercially available at the beginning of 2010. Percello targets femtocell access point vendors and residential gateway manufacturers, but the company has not announced any customers.

Hmmm – another space to watch is going to be what happens with Femtocells – Operators are currently having to look at all ways and means of spinning out network infrastructure, without them necessarily having to foot the bill directly. Femtocells are another link in that chain that may end up providing the LTE-like speeds that most of us are expecting from the next generation of devices.

[Via: Unstrung.com]

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]