Monday, January 8. 2007
- We already talked last week about Samsung's new mobile TV initiative. Interestingly, the IT blogging community has not really picked up on it. Maybe because they did not fully understand the impact that this could have. (GigaOm e.g. obviously did not get it, simply thinking it would be yet another mobile TV standard, next to DMB, DVB-H,...). Samsung brings this technology - together with the German RF specialist Rhode&Schwarz - into the ATSC as a standard proposal. If approved we might see mobile phones not only include radio station receivers but also become mobile TV handsets. This without the hundred of millions of US dollars of infrastructure investment required by all the other technologies. Samsung's CES press release.
- A Swiss company - or their exclusive marketing partner Novint - also had prime time before the exhibition floor even openend. Force Dimension's force feedback haptics technology has been included in a device marketed by Novint of the US for a more realistic gaming user experience. Heise Online was reporting about it last night. They picked out - as an example of how this device works in a game - that it is possible to feel from which direction a bullet hits you. This triggered lots of negative comments of course on Heise Online. On the other hand, there's no news like bad news. So maybe "good" publicity at least for them. No OEM partner agreements with a gaming or accessory vendor have been announced though, which would probably be required to make it a big success at the end.
- Nokia will present its first RAZR-like slim clamshell phone which will put further pressure on Motorola (Nokia N76). Also, Nokia will showcase an improved version of its Internet Wifi phone pre-installed with both Skype, along with the new Google VoIP client software.
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