Year: <span>2005</span>
Year: 2005

Year: 2005

FreeVerse Partners and Nihon Enterprise Release BREW Mobile Video SDK

Nihon Enterprise Co., Ltd., a mobile applications and content provider, and FreeVerse Partners, a technology incubation and development company, announce the release of their joint development effort; “MobileMovie Showdo”. Showdo provides BREW application developers a powerful toolkit to integrate video and audio into new and existing BREW applications. Showdo is based on TruVideotm, a high performance video CODEC, and includes a rich API that allows game and application developers flexibility in integrating video and audio into BREW applications. Performance of up to 15fps is noted on common ARM9 based handsets breathing new life and adding a new dimension of excitement to mobile games and video applications.

TIVR H.264 Video Decoder Software for Mobile Devices is Available for Licensing

TIVR Communications, a technology startup involved in development of high-performance, low–power multimedia software solutions for next-generation wireless handsets, today announced the release of H.264 Baseline Profile video software decoder optimized for Mobile/Handhelds. TIVR’s H.264/AVC decoder benchmark results show that Real-time (25 fps) decoding of QVGA (320×240) resolution H.264 Baseline Profile streams coded at 256 kbps is achievable on ARM9 based devices running at 220 MHz. Till now industry is struggling to provide 25 fps decode of QVGA resolution H.264 content on Mobile devices. TIVR’s AVC decoder makes it a reality thereby enhancing the experience of mobile users.

Maxis, Sony Ericsson and RIM announce BlackBerry Connect for P910i

BlackBerry Connect from Research In Motion enables BlackBerry wireless email services to be used on the P910i, while maintaining the existing P910i experience and functionality. The P910i is a high-quality communications tool for voice calls, text and picture messaging and email, as well as providing full PDA/organizer functions. In addition, it is a camera-phone capable of recording video and still images and also provides a good gaming experience on the 262K color touch-screen. The wide range of applications available for download enables the P910i to do much more than make voice calls, thereby increasing its value for both consumers and operators. The P910i is based on the open Symbian OS v7.0 and the established UIQ user interface.

Motorola and Ericsson Join Alliance

Motorola and Ericsson have joined South Asia’s mobile alliance, a move that may help position their growth in the region. The alliance serves 69 million customers in eight countries. The size of their investment has not been determined and the joint venture is also in talks with telecom firms in Japan, South Korea and Thailand to broaden its reach. China’s second-largest telecom equipment maker, ZTE Corp., also participated in the joint venture.

When 3G Becomes 4G

HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) is an enhancement to W-CDMA, a technology that is also referred to as UMTS, the 3G path chosen by most GSM operators around the world. Today, there are already some 75 UMTS networks in operation around the world. Globally, many UMTS operators are planning on the HSDPA upgrade, and operators that have not deployed UMTS yet are likely to go directly to HSDPA. (Ed’s Note: We’ve been following the evolution to next-gen high-speed mobile for at least 18 months now. Google WWJ for more on this topic.)

Symbian Boasts Leap in Shipments

Smart-phone operating system developer Symbian released figures that indicate a big jump in demand for devices based on its software. Some 7.8m Symbian-based handsets shipped in Q2 FY2005, the three months to 30 June 2005, Symbian said – three times the figure for Q2 FY2004, 2.6m. As a privately held company Symbian did not publish financial performance figures.