Sony Ericsson phone quiets when waved at
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Sony Ericsson, the world's No. 4  mobile phone maker, on Sunday unveiled a cell phone that can be  silenced by a wave of hand.
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(InfoWorld) - So much for Apple Inc. raising the bar in the mobile phone industry. Since Apple announced it would soon start selling a combined music player and mobile device called the iPhone, industry experts have predicted that competing cell phone makers would rise to the challenge and start producing equally exciting phones. They may yet do that, but so far they haven't. I took a quick stroll around the show floor of the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona checking out the music phones from some of the biggest handset makers out there to see if anything might compare to the hype aroundÂ expectations for the iPhone. Apple is known for great hardware designs and simple, intuitive user interfaces. While I saw a dizzying array of form factors and a multitude of user interface styles, I was unimpressed with the hardware I saw and downright confounded by the complexity of all the user interfaces. My examinations were quick -- the show floor is incredibly crowded and hot, so sometimes it took some sharp elbows to even get to touch a phone. I took a brief look at the overall form factor of the phones and then did some navigating around the music player. I started out at the Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB booth, perhaps because I know the company has been pushing its Walkman handsets. The W880 is a really nice looking phone. It's incredibly thin and has unusual raised keys that work nicely. Sony Ericsson gets high marks for the hardware form factor on this one, but the software user interface was a different story. I never did manage to find the music player from the home screen. Ultimately, I just moved along to another phone in the display area that was already running the music player. I had a similar navigation problem on Nokia Corp.'s 5200 music phone. From the home screen, I clicked on an icon with a music note in it, which seemed a logical place to launch the music player. But that took me to a music-related game. I scrolled and scrolled through a horizontal bar of icons but didn't find a music player there. Then I noticed that floating in the middle of the screen were two long bars: one for the music player and one for the calendar. That threw me -- of all phone functions, why were the music player and calendar the only two to be presented that way? At least Nokia had loaded the demonstration phones with music. Some of the other handsets I tried out, such as the Sony Ericsson one, had just one song on them. That makes it difficult to get a feel for navigating around the music player. I don't love the form factor of the 5200 but I think some people might. It's sporty, in white and bright red, and a shape reminiscent of Motorola Inc.'s PEBL phones. It slides open. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s SG HF300 "Ultramusic" was next up. I couldn't help but be struck by the cool design. One side of the phone is nearly all screen; the flip side has a keypad for dialing the phone. I never managed to figure out how to use the control panel on the music player side of the phone. It looks like the iPod's but square. I don't have an iPod so maybe iPod users can easily figure it out. If you're not an iPod user -- and you may not be if you're in the market for a music phone -- the SG HF300 might require a steep learning curve. Motorola was next in line. I'm probably least impressed with the Z8 than any of the others. I think the design is clunky and looks and feels like a slider phone from a couple of years ago. For the innovator of the thin phone, Motorola should have done better with the Z8's size. I found it difficult to figure out which buttons corresponded with the words at the bottom of the screen so even hitting "back" proved difficult initially. Then, when looking for the music player application, I suddenly found an error message on the screen and the phone froze. Not a great sign. My final stop was Neonode AB, a Swedish company that has been touting its music phone, particularly its touch screen. The device is in a category of its own and is very un-phone like. About the size of a business card, though not as thin, its touch screen definitely requires training to use. I would have never been able to figure it out without instruction. Users sweep up along the home screen within three columns. The first opens a navigation page with icons for functions such as the music player, calendar and calculator. The middle column opens a touch pad for dialing calls. And the final column opens a tools menu. Sweeping left along the screen goes back a page and sweeping right opens a function that is highlighted. When presented with a list such as albums, you touch the item to highlight it and then touch the middle of the screen to open. Sound confusing? It was. Still, I'm not panning it. It may require a bit of direction and practice but I think it'd be pretty easy to get the hang of how it works. While the small size was attractive, it also meant that it felt a bit designed for a child. Most adults have fingertips that are bigger than the icons on the screen. Overall, I was largely underwhelmed with my experiences. But there's time -- Apple only just announced the iPhone and its competitors haven't really had time to respond. Also, my search was by no means exhaustive. For example, I didn't make it to LG Electronics Inc., which recently unveiled a phone, the KE850, that is being compared to the iPhone. Even at the booths I visited, I chose to look at the phone that appeared to me to be the most focused on music but that may not be the one the manufacturer would direct me to and other models may compare more directly with the iPhone. And finally, I'm the first to admit my exercise was a bit silly given that I've never even seen an iPhone. But such is the power of the Apple marketing machine.
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Cell phone can respond to motion by dialing numbers or ending a call.
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Among a plethora of revamped handsets announced by Sony Ericsson this morning is one very thin Walkman phone that peeked out from behind the curtains at CES last month, and whose official announcement enthusiasts werenât expecting for maybe another three months. The handsome W880 is expected to replace the already successful W850 and W810, while reducing its profile to a mere 9.4 mm.
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Personal bio sensor connects to game on a mobile phone that is won by relaxing.
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Handsets pulled to apply audio glitch fix, reports suggest
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Don't tap the PM's phone... Ericsson has been hit with a â¬7.36m ($10m) fine for its role in tapping mobile phones belonging to the Greek prime minister and members of his Cabinet.â¦
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If a user shakes the phone twice, it will end a call or delete a message, the company says.
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Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications A.B. is setting up a research and development (R&D) unit for mobile phones in Chennai in south India.
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Sick of screaming to be heard over your cell phone in noisy places? A software firm claims its new headset, based on noise-reduction research it conducted for the U.S. military, will virtually eliminate background-noise disruptions. By Elisa Batista.
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Ok, so itâs one thing for a cellphone to have a bug in it, it happens, but thereâsa defect in Siemensâ 65 series of cellphones (including the C65, M65, S65, SL65, CV65, CT65, CXV65, and CXT65) that could potentially result in hearing loss.
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Mobile phone tune may play too loudly, Siemens says.
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Under the deal with Microsoft, Sony Ericsson will produce the âX1,â a slider phone with a typewriter-style qwerty keyboard and touch screen.
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America calling Mobile World Congress Why has Sony Ericsson succumbed to Microsoft?â¦
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Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson is  set to report a drop in fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday as  its focus on lower-priced phones puts pressure on margins,  analysts say.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications A.B. is setting up a research and development (R&D) unit for mobile phones in Chennai in south India. The handset maker announced earlier this year that it was outsourcing its manufacturing to the Chennai operations of Flextronics Corp. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., which uses the brand name Foxconn. By having R&D teams in India, the company will be better able to tap into consumer behavior in local markets, Sony Ericsson said Wednesday. A number of mobile phone vendors are setting up manufacturing, R&D centers, and network operating centers in India, both to take advantage of Indiaâs low-cost labor, and also to target Indiaâs booming mobile phone market. India added 6.57 million mobile telephony subscribers in May this year, taking the total number of subscribers to 178 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in Delhi. This mobile telephony boom has translated into heavy demand for mobile phones. Over 62 million handsets have been sold in India in the last 12 months, according to internal estimates by Sony Ericsson. The company is targeting production of 10 million phones from India by 2009. The new facility will become part of Sony Ericssonâs global network of R&D units, currently comprised of sites in China, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, the U.S. and the U.K. The company did not, however, provide details of staffing or the nature of the work to be done at the new R&D facility.
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Sony Ericsson has primarily used the Symbian operating system to power its smart phones. Its Windows Mobile phone will have a touch screen with a slide-out keyboard and a camera.