Update: Orange gives mobile phones access to PC content
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(InfoWorld) - France TÃ©lÃ©com, the parent company of mobile phone operator Orange, is offering a service that lets mobile phone users access videos, music and other content from their PCs. Called "Mon PC Ã  distance," it marks the second launch of the remote mobile access technology from Orb Networks in Europe. The service requires users to download a free software client onto their PCs. They can then use any mobile device with standard browsing and multimedia capabilities to view photos or videos and listen to music stored on their PCs. No special client software is needed on the mobile device. Mon PC Ã  distance, announced Thursday, was actually introduced last month. The service may roll out in France TÃ©lÃ©com's other mobile markets, which include Switzerland, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and the U.K. Orb introduced the mobile component of its offering in early November. Previously, Orb enabled remote PC access from other computers. Orb is one of the services offered with 3 Group's X-Series mobile data offering, although it can be accessed by any mobile phone with a browser and media player. 3 is charging customers Â£10 ($19) per month to use Orb and another service that lets them watch TV on their mobile phones. Orange customers pay â¬10 ($13) per month for unlimited use of Mon PC Ã  distance.
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New service sends color maps and directions to cell phone users.
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One reason that mobile users don&#39;t access more content from a mobile phone, like video clips, is because finding content is cumbersome -- but that should change in the future with intelligent network services, said one expert speaking on a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show.Currently, smartphone users may not be accessing as much content or online services as they&#39;d like because it&#39;s difficult to do so. &quot;If to discover content you have to type in a URL, it&#39;s never going to happen,&quot; said Muzibul Khan, vice president of product management and engineering at Samsung Telecommunications America.He suggests that using voice commands is the best way to look for content from a mobile phone. &quot;Voice is the most natural medium,&quot; he said.But Intrinsyc&#39;s CEO thinks that even voice command technology is rooted in the past. &quot;We&#39;re talking about a paradigm for Web searching that was built for the PC,&quot; said Glenda Dorchak, who is also chairman of Intrinsyc.While there may be a transitional period in the near future when voice or other improved search techniques are used for content discovery on mobile handsets, ultimately a more intelligent system will prevail, she said. In the future, a context-aware, server-driven system will emerge, where the network will forward relevant and useful content to users. The type of content that users will get will depend on their location and other preferences that they&#39;ve set.Key to that vision will be multiple radios in mobile devices working together. She imagines a time when a phone might have Wi-Fi, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPS (Global Positioning System), Bluetooth, satellite and WiMax, each finding and delivering information to end-users, possibly simultaneously. The phones will be smart enough to pick the most appropriate network for delivering the content, she said.But running that many radios in a single device consumes power and requires sophisticated algorithms, so she suggests a few years will pass before it happens. However, the technology already exists to support part of that vision, such as converged cellular and Wi-Fi offerings that roam between the networks without dropping voice calls.In the meantime, operators and content providers are working to figure out exactly how to deliver video to users now. The Tivo generation wants to be able to choose what they want to watch and when, said Jeff Finkelstein, multimedia product manager for Palm. &quot;They don&#39;t want to wait for the headline news to start on the hour,&quot; he said.However, companies building mobile broadcast TV networks around the world like DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) would likely disagree.Easier sharing capabilities could boost mobile video use too. For about the past year and a half, statistics about how much video people watch online from their PCs haven&#39;t changed much, said Frank Barbieri, CEO of Transpera, a company that provides technology behind mobile video services. &quot;Maybe in five years the phone could surpass the Web in terms of video snacking,&quot; he said.
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Users can now access search engine from their cell phones.
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Orange data users spend a day disconnected The Orange mobile phone network lost its data connectivity yesterday over most of the country.â¦
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Researchers in the United Kingdom have developed software that loads camera phones with mouse capabilities, allowing users to swivel a camera phone to scroll or move items on a PC screen.While the software is in its infancy, the technology could enable people to use camera phones to scroll public displays to get further information on products or to&#160;purchase items&#160;such as&#160;plane tickets.Communicating with a PC via Bluetooth wireless technology, users can either move the cell phone or use a stylus on the cell phone&#39;s screen to also scroll through a computer screen, said Patrick Olivier, an associate professor at Newcastle University. Olivier is working on developing the technology with researchers Nick Pears of York University and Dan Jackson of Newcastle University.One of the original goals was to interact with larger public displays to, for example, buy movie and train tickets and interact with advertising displays, although the applications of this technology are limitless, the researchers said.For example, users will be able to scroll through large display screens in a real-estate agency, even though there could be glass window in between, Pears said.After communicating a cell phone&#39;s field of view through a live camera feed to a computer via Bluetooth, the PC establishes the coordinates of its monitor, which&#160;are then&#160;sent to a camera phone. Once the camera phone registers the image on the cell phone and recognizes the display coordinates set by the PC through image processing technology, the computer knows exactly what the phone can see, which sets the stage to scroll a PC.Users can then move the phone or use a stylus on a touch screen to scroll a PC or move items. The PC and camera phone work together to continuously reposition a PC monitor&#39;s coordinates as the phone moves, allowing the cell phone to scroll a PC from any position in a room.The researchers have developed the software for the Symbian and Windows Mobile OSes for PDAs and camera phones, the researchers said.While the technology holds promise, it is still under development and multiple issues are being addressed, Pears said.&quot;The image capture and image processing rate on the cell phone is quite slow, and so you can not move the cell phone as quickly as you would like to. This is what we would like to address in our next prototype,&quot; Pears said.
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Music fans have been slow to buy music  on their mobile phones. So several companies have responded  with services that let users access from their phones music  that is stored on their computers.
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Orange, Access join the LiMo Foundation to collaborate on its upcoming mobile Linux platform, which promises more applications for users.
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Battle lines drawn in the fight for mobile screen Mobile World Congress Orange upped the ante in the battle for control of the mobile phone screen by today announcing its "Accelerated Signature Program", which sees a host of applications and unifying interfaces pre-installed on a range of handsets, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.â¦
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Telecoms group Orange has unveiled its third-generation (3G) mobile phones in the UK after a long-delayed commercial launch.
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JUST HOW MANY times can you &#39;soft launch&#39; a product? Well, Orange has already launched Talk Now - its Push-to-Talk (PTT) service â-wice this year.
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Mobile technology firm Nokia   NOK1V.HE has sealed a deal with operator Orange on   customizing mobile phones for the France Telecom FTE.PA unit,   Nokia said on Wednesday.
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And good luck with the portal, guys... Orange UK disclosed the details of its Christmas range of handsets last week - giving the bum's rush to two of the biggest phone manufacturers.â¦
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At 3GSM conference, company unveils system that allows sharing of protected content between mobile phones, PCs and other devices.
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European carrier Orange is rolling out its own Push To Talk service ahead of efforts to create a standardized PTT system. European mobile carrier Orange has announced
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Phone maker debuts software that gives parents more control over content that children access on cellular devices.
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The move will allow customers to have access to video and other advanced services on their cellphones.