TI: Technology Could Cut Cell Phone Prices
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Texas Instruments Inc., which makes computer chips for more than half the world's cellular phones, said Monday it is testing a new technology that could drive down the price of high-end features.
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If using your cell phone in your house is an exercise in frustration, one of these three growing technologies could fix the problem.
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By Anna Marie Kukec Daily Herald Business Writer  Goodbye, analog.  Or shall we say, good riddance? At least that could be what executives at the mobile phone service providers are thinking.
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Company also will slash value of its assets by $11.4 billion. Moves are prompted by plan to retreat from traditional consumer telephone business.
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Maybe smartphones are the Next Big Thing.
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Analysts predict growth in mobile phone sales will drop below 10 percent this year.
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(InfoWorld) - Handset makers continue to drive down the cost of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) handsets, making them more affordable to customers in developing markets, such as India and China. Leading the charge to cheaper CDMA 2000-1X handsets is South Korea's Rose Telecom Co.Â "Rose Telecom has been shipping to Reliance [Communications] in India right at $30 with a color screen," said James Person, the chief operating officer of the CDMA Development Group (CDG), an industry group that promotes CDMA technology. That price represents a drop from last year, when the cheapest CDMA handsets went for about $40, he said. In addition to Rose, other handset makers are also offering low-cost CDMA 2000-1X handsets. For example, LG Electronics, Huawei Technologies Co., and ZTE now offer handsets that are priced under $40, Person said, noting these handsets generally offer the most basic features and do not include built-in cameras, music players, or external memory. These handsets are designed for customers in developing markets, including Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, Person said. Prices for CDMA2000 EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) handsets, which offer faster data transmission speeds, remain higher than CDMA2000-1X handsets, at around $100 for the cheapest models, Person said. "It's a very different market segment," he said, noting most EV-DO subscribers are in developed countries, such as South Korea and the U.S. Most of the growth potential, in terms of new subscribers, lies in the developing markets, where penetration levels are far lower than developed countries. "There's a lot of room for growth," Person said. CDG is not the only industry group that hopes cheaper handsets can help spur subscriber growth in emerging countries. The GSM Alliance (GSMA), an industry group that backs the rival GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) family of mobile technologies, has launched programs to produce low-cost handsets for both GSM and W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, a 3G technology.
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Depending where you're roaming T-Mobile has cut by more than half charges for business customers who transmit data over its mobile networks in countries where it operates its own network.â¦
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A barrier to 3G adoption has long been the price of the phone itself. However, LG has been selected as a winner of a contest to produce a low-cost handset that would retail for about $100 and operate on GSM Networks.
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In a blink of mere months, the mobile "smart" phone has been transformed from pricey corporate gadget to an affordable alternative for ordinary folk.
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The U.S.Âs biggest cellular providers look ready to expand their reach, reducing the chance that a new entrant might bring down prices.
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The price of Apple Inc.'s iPhone and the cost of switching to AT&amp;T Inc.'s wireless service may suppress demand for the device, according to a survey by the research firm IDC.
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HTC's Touch, to be released in November, will undercut Apple's price.
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Although it may be five or more years behind similar capabilities in Europe, the US is finally getting technology that would allow consumers to use their cell phones as a way to pay for consumer goods.
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but winds up costing consumers tens of millions of dollars a year -- is being scaled back by two of the nation&#39;s biggest cell phone carriers.
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Like more than a few iPhone users, Paul Forrester couldn&#8217;t believe his ears last Wednesday when Steve Jobs ended an Apple press event by announcing a $200 price cut to the iPhone. The price cut came a little more than two months after Forrester and other iPhone early adopters started plunking down as much as $599 for the newly released mobile device.
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What might your mobile future look like? Sitting at the airport, you pull out a laptop or personal digital assistant and watch TV, delivered through Wi-Fi. Perhaps you'll grab an MP3 player instead, but rather than listen to downloaded tunes, you check out Internet radio. Or maybe you'll just make a call but thanks to the headset into which you are speaking, the person at the other end can make out your voice and not the blur of jet engines taking off at the same time.Each scenario is already possible, as evidenced last week in La Jolla, Calif., during the sixth annual DemoMobile conference. The gathering is a showcase for promising wireless technologies targeted at people on the go. Three dozen companies participated, many start-ups, representing more than &#36;142 million in cumulative venture funding.Consider the scope: Luxembourg's Skype Technologies demonstrated free software that lets consumers make voice calls over a Wi-Fi-capable Pocket PC.Handmark of Kansas City, Mo., showed off Pocket Express, a wireless information service for smart phones. If a phone has "location-based" capabilities, Handmark can provide listings of nearby restaurants or theaters, and map the fastest route to that spot.Xora in Mountain View, Calif., lets companies track the whereabouts of mobile employees via its GPS TimeTrack offering. And EverNote in Sunnyvale, Calif., has software that lets someone organize notes on a PC, then synchronize them with portable devices.OurPictures unveiled the OurPictures Mobile service. With a single click, consumers can send photos taken with a camera phone to designated PCs, TVs, printers or a local photo processor. And games publisher Sorrent showed off a new way to punch in your vote: its Bush vs. Kerry Boxing cell phone game. The results of every Bush/Kerry rumble on every portable phone are scored on a pugilist poll posted at Sorrent's site; as of Wednesday, Kerry was out-pointing Bush by about 2,350 votes. Other would-be knockouts:&#8226;Couch computing. The &#36;800, 2.3-pound wireless Pepper Pad 2 from Pepper Computer in Lexington, Mass., lets you browse the Web, do e-mail, play videos and games and more. Due in January, it has an 8.4-inch display, Bluetooth, an SD card slot and 20 GB hard drive. It also has a directional game pad and small lighted qwerty keypad that is split so that half flanks the left side of the screen and half, the right.&#8226;Making a motion. Synaptics is behind the track-wheel on Apple's iPods and the touchpads on several notebook PCs. The new MobileTouch platform is Synaptics' foray into cell phones. You'll be able to scribble on the screen or scroll by using your fingers to lightly make small gestures across a keypad (or other interface), just as you do with a touchpad. I was wowed even more by technology out of Oulu, Finland, where F-Origin originated a "motion control solution" called Iris. Consumers using a phone or computer with F-Origin's software will be able to control the orientation of the screen by merely tilting and moving the device. What you see on the display corresponds to the angle in which you rotate the gizmo. F-Origin takes advantage of gravity sensors.&#8226;That's (mobile) entertainment. ViewSonic's new Wireless Media Gateway and Wireless Media Adapter (&#36;799 packaged together, and coming later in the year) represent the company's move into wireless networking. The product line is designed to deliver digital videos, music and pictures to any monitor or TV in the house, at better-than-DVD quality. The company says it can stream video to a single TV at up to 10 megabits per second or two different streams at 5 megabits. You can also print from the gateway devices and take advantage of 80 or 120 GB storage capacities.Watching TV on a handheld is the idea behind WiFi-TV from OnAir Entertainment in Sunnyvale, Calif. OnAir is working with hot-spot providers to deliver TV or video-on-demand at public places. Consumers can access an interactive programming guide and pause live TV. OnAir is conducting a free trial at the Austin airport, though the company expects people to eventually pay about &#36;5 for a day pass.Meanwhile, another Silicon Valley start-up, AudioFeast, is focusing on Internet radio for portable music players. Its virtual broadcasting network delivers refreshed content from A &amp; E, BBC Radio, NPR and Sporting News Radio, among others. You download software onto your computer, then choose the channels you want to sync with a compatible MP3 player. A one-year AudioFeast subscription costs &#36;50. Contact my phone. Is there anything more tedious than entering hundreds of phone numbers into a phone? Palo Alto, Calif.-based Vazu has come up with a suite of services that lets you automatically transmit selected contacts, as well as such Web data as driving directions or movie schedules, to a phone. Vazu's Internet Explorer plug-in places a small "V" icon next to a phone number on a Web page. When you click on the icon, the contact name and number are sent to your phone. What's more, users of Outlook, Outlook Express, Apple Mail and Linux Evolution can dispatch contacts via Vazu to their phone's address book. Lose a phone? Vazu can serve as a backup to your data. &#8226;Now hear this. Logitech, Plantronics and Aliph submitted headsets for a Sound Off challenge voted on by conference attendees. The winner was Aliph's Jawbone, based on military-grade technology. To prove that this funky-looking &#36;150 "adaptive" headset can suppress background noises while keeping a caller's voice audible, Aliph conducted a crowd-pleasing experiment. First a caller had a noisy blender behind him. When Jawbone's technology was applied, the person could be heard clearly, not the blender. Aliph successfully repeated the exercise with a boombox. The coup de gr&#226;ce: The caller could be heard over a weed whacker. It is made possible by a sensor that feels vibrations on your cheek. Jawbone works with phones from Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.&#8226;Mobile marketing. Intrigued by the Armani, Gap or Toyota ads in the September issue of Jane? Snap a picture and e-mail images to the magazine. You'll get back text messages with tailored promotional offers. It's part of a promotion based on technology from conference demonstrator Mobot.The Waltham, Mass., company was but one demonstrator to give a hint where mobile marketing is heading. MediaTile of Scotts Valley, Calif., delivers point-of-sale digital signs. Digimarc in Tualatin, Ore., places invisible digital watermarks into banner ads. When a consumer takes a picture of, say, a movie ad, they might see a trailer on the phone or directions to the nearest theater. Another demonstrator, DRM Labs of Dallas, uses text messages to send digital coupons called Voupons. For these schemes to pan out, consumers must "opt-in; privacy must be respected."This is just the tip of the iceberg for many of the companies exhibiting at DemoMobile. Indeed, I expect to explore some of these technologies in future coverage. After all, what could be more mobile than the pace of change?E-mail ebaig@usatoday.com