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Category: smartphone

  • Mobile Navigation Users Increased 57% in H1-2010 to 44 million

    According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of mobile subscribers using a turn-by-turn navigation service or application on their handset grew 57 percent from H1-2009 to H1-2010 and reached 44 million worldwide.

    The subscriber base is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.1 percent to reach 195 million users worldwide in 2015.

    Broad availability of GPS handsets and attractive pricing are key factors for widespread adoption of mobile navigation services. In the US, where GPS handset penetration is above 70 percent, navigation services for mobile phones has already reached about 8 percent of the total mobile subscriber base. A large share of these users gets navigation as part of a service bundle together with a voice and data plan from their mobile operator.

    As a response to the launch of free navigation applications for smartphones by Nokia and Google, more and more operators worldwide are now introducing bundled navigation services to offset the cost for end users. Navigation service providers and mobile operators are also trying to monetise services by introducing various feature and content up-sells that allow users to customise navigation applications to suit their personal needs.

    “Mobile operators and service providers are now accelerating their efforts to create differentiated navigation experiences with unique local content to compete against free services”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight.

    He added that integration of navigation services with other applications to stimulate usage will become increasingly important for mobile operators that seek additional revenues from location-based advertising. Since relatively few subscribers need turn-by-turn guidance on a daily basis, complementary features such as social networking, restaurant and event guides improve stickiness.

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  • Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Global Portfolio

    Microsoft announced nine new Windows Phone 7 handsets that will be available this October and November from over 60 mobile operators in 30 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

    Windows Phone 7 will be available in a variety of form factors from device-makers such as Dell, HTC Corp., LG and Samsung, and from mobile operators including América Móvil, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Movistar, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, Telstra, TELUS, T-Mobile USA and Vodafone.

    All Windows Phone 7 phones will include the Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm. A broad selection of phones will begin shipping in October 2010 with more arriving in 2011, including phones from Sprint and Verizon Wireless.

    The following devices will come to North America, Europe and Asia Pacific in the holiday 2010 timeframe.

    In North America:

    AT&T
    • HTC Surround, United States
    • Samsung Focus, United States
    • LG Quantum, United States

    T-Mobile USA
    • HTC HD7, United States
    • Dell Venue Pro, United States

    TELUS
    • HTC 7 Surround, Canada
    • LG Optimus 7, Canada

    América Móvil
    • LG Optimus 7, Mexico

    In Europe:

    O2
    • HTC HD7, United Kingdom, Germany

    Orange
    • HTC 7 Mozart, including France, United Kingdom
    • Samsung OMNIA 7, including France, United Kingdom

    SFR
    • HTC 7 Trophy, France
    • Samsung OMNIA 7, France

    Movistar
    • LG Optimus 7, Spain
    • HTC HD7, Spain
    • Samsung OMNIA 7, Spain

    Deutsche Telekom AG
    • HTC 7 Mozart, Germany
    • Samsung OMNIA 7, Germany

    Vodafone
    • HTC 7 Trophy, including Germany, Spain, United Kingdom
    • LG Optimus 7, including Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom

    In Asia Pacific:

    SingTel
    • HTC HD 7, Singapore
    • LG Optimus 7, Singapore

    Telstra
    • HTC 7 Mozart, Australia
    • LG Optimus 7Q, Australia

    Vodafone
    • HTC 7 Trophy, including Australia

    “We have a beautiful lineup in this first wave of Windows Phone 7 handsets,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Microsoft and its partners are delivering a different kind of mobile phone and experience — one that makes everyday tasks faster by getting more done in fewer steps and providing timely information in a ‘glance and go’ format.”

  • Sony Commercializes World's First 16MP CMOS Sensors for Mobile Phones

    Sony announced the commercialization of two new "Exmor R" back-illuminated CMOS image sensors with improved photographic performance including high sensitivity and low noise.

    In addition, Sony will launch two new lens modules equipped with these image sensors, which also include the smallest and thinnest model for mobile phones. This is also the first time that "Exmor R" is commercialized for the use in mobile phones.

    "IMX081PQ" is world’s first type 1/2.8 back-illuminated CMOS image sensor which realizes 16.41 effective megapixel resolution, and adopts the industry’s smallest unit pixel size of 1.12μm achieved by the fine pixel fabrication process technology. In theory, when a unit pixel size is made smaller, there are also some issues such as color mixture among smaller unit pixels. Sony said they solved this problem by implementing a “unique” formation of photo diodes optimally designed for fine pixel structure to realize a CMOS image sensor with high resolution, high sensitivity and low noise.

    "IMX105PQ" is a type 1/3.2 back-illuminated CMOS image sensor which realizes 8.13 effective megapixel resolutions for higher sensitivity and adopts a unit pixel size of 1.4μm. By embedding these highly sensitive sensors into mobile phones, including those without camera flash, users can capture high quality photos and videos even in low light settings.

    Furthermore, Sony will commercialize "IU081F" and "IU105F2" compact auto-focus lens modules which include the two new "Exmor R" back-illuminated CMOS image sensors. According to Sony, these down-sized modules are “suitable and efficient for mobile phones with relatively limited space and are equipped with high performance lens which maximize the image sensors’ respective performances.”

    "IU081F" is the industry’s smallest and thinnest auto-focus lens module (W10.5 X D10.5 X H7.9mm) and is equipped with the 16.41 megapixel CMOS image sensor. "IU105F2" adopts the 8.13 effective megapixel CMOS image sensor, and belongs in the industry’s smallest and thinnest size class (W8.5 X D8.5 X H5.67mm).

    Sony first announced the development of "Exmor R" on Jun, 2008. "Exmor R" has been incorporated in Sony’s digital imaging products since 2009, and its use in other products has continued to expand.

    In this back-illuminated CMOS image sensor, light is directed onto the silicon substrate from behind, allowing light to be used with a level of efficiency not possible with conventional front-illuminated structures.

    Since 2009, Sony has been mass producing "Exmor R" for Digital Still Cameras and Digital Video Camcorders on wafer lines (with diameter of 200mm). At the end of 2010, the company plans to start the mass production of "Exmor R," including those for mobile phones announced today, on cutting-edge wafer lines (with diameter of 300mm).

  • Motorola and Verizon Introduce Droid Pro

    Verizon Wireless and Motorola today unveiled Droid Pro, an Android 2.2-based smartphone optimized for business use.

    According to the companies, Droid Pro meets employers’ and employees’ needs by addressing the productivity tools businesses require, including corporate connectivity and security; full push corporate e-mail with corporate level security; unified calendar with additional work features and pre-loaded Quickoffice Mobile Suite, a 1 GHz processor; 4 GB of memory (2 GB internal; and 2 GB removable) and a QWERTY keyboard.

    Among other features are:
    – multi-touch 3.1-inch display;
    – 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with dual LED flash;
    – Adobe Flash Player 10.1 support;
    – 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities (allows customers to connect up to five other Wi-Fi-enabled devices and laptops);
    – dual-mode CDMA/GSM chip for worldwide roaming;
    – Wi-Fi-enabled DNLA connectivity;
    – 3G diversity antennae;
    – global roaming support in more than 220 countries and data coverage in more than 200 countries.

    Droid Pro also has built-in security features, including AuthenTec IPSec multi-headed VPN integration, remote wipe of device and SD card, and complex password support. The company informed that device and SD card encryption will be available in early 2011.

    The new Motorola’s handset will be available in the first week of November.

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  • Gartner: The Use of Mobile Fraud Detection in Mobile Commerce Environments is Imperative

    By year-end 2013, location information or profile information from mobile phones will be used to validate 90 percent of mobile transactions, according to Gartner.

    The research firm says that the rapid adoption of smartphones is forcing banks, social networks and other e-commerce providers to implement the kinds of fraud detection capabilities that have become mainstream with fixed-line computing.

    "Because of the improving browser experiences on smartphones, mobile commerce and transaction execution are set to increase rapidly," said William Clark, research vice president at Gartner. "We estimate that by the end of 2013, 12.5 percent of all e-commerce transactions will be mobile."

    "Enterprise applications must detect fraud in these mobile environments, but fraud detection tools available today that work in fixed-line computing environments don’t work well or at all in the mobile world," Clark said.

    "There are a number of methods that can be implemented to help enterprises detect fraud in the mobile space, but they are still in their early stages of development, and it will take until at least 2012 for them to transform from embryonic applications to technically mature systems that work easily and transparently across disparate mobile networks," he added.

    According to Gartner, fraud prevention methods available today to mobile applications include:

    Mobile device identification — This is enabled through a JavaScript on the server that the user logs in to, which captures whatever information it can get from the user’s browser and phone, depending on whether the user is using a browser or native application. If the application is browser-based, then the JavaScript application captures whatever information it can get from the user’s browser to uniquely identify that particular user’s browser and mobile device. If the mobile application is native and residing on the mobile handset, native applications can additionally gather the phone’s serial number and network card number. This will require opt-in by the user.

    Location of device — This is based on the phone’s location information independent of the browser (IP address), so the user does not have to have his or her mobile browser application open for this to work; the phone only needs to be turned on. Enterprises may want to check and correlate the location of the device relative to anything else they know about the user’s location through other systems they may interact with at the enterprise. For mobile phones, there are two architectures that are used to obtain location information: One relies on device information (e.g., using the GPS-API applications that the user must opt into); the other employs APIs provided through mobile network operators that don’t require the users to opt in to releasing this information.

    Some online fraud detection vendors are starting to tune their risk scoring and/or rule-based models specifically for mobile applications — For example, some vendors are looking at the mobile device itself, the location of the phone, and the behavior of the user inside the host application while transacting from the phone. This area is very new to the fraud detection vendors, as there is little mobile transaction experience to draw on in order to build effective risk models and scores that significantly improve on risk models that have already been built for fixed-line computing. It tries to combine some of the methods listed above, including mobile device identification and examining the location of the mobile phone in relation to other information known about the user and his/her location.

    Gartner estimates that 70 percent of the largest 20 global card issuers (who authorize more than 50 percent of all payment card transactions) will gradually adopt mobile context information to help detect fraud on fixed-line transactions, and that by year-end 2015, more than 15 percent of all payment card transactions will be validated using context-aware profile information.

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  • Microsoft Files Patent Infringement Action Against Motorola

    Microsoft today filed a patent infringement action against Motorola for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola’s Android-based smartphones.

    The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are “essentiall” to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.

    ”We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market. Motorola needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its Android smartphones," said Horacio Gutierrez, Motorola’s corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing.

  • Marvell Unveils 1.5 GHz Tri-Core Processor Capable of 1080p 3D Video for Smartphones

    Marvell has introduced the world’s first 1.5 GHz tri-core application processor, the Marvell ARMADA 628. It incorporates a full System-on-a-Chip design (SoC) with three Marvell-designed, ARM-compliant CPU cores operating as the world’s first commercially available heterogeneous, multi-core, applications processor.

    The tri-core design of new ARMADA integrates two symmetric multiprocessing cores and a third core optimized for ultra low-power. The third core is designed to support routine user tasks and acts as a system management processor to monitor and dynamically scale power and performance.

    According to Marvell, the tri-core architecture provides superior performance and lower power over dual-core designs “while maintaining industry compatibility and leadership – ensuring a richer, faster and smoother experience than any other ARM-based processor available today.”

    The architecture is analogous to a hybrid muscle car. The ARMADA 628 is intended to perform like a race car engine on demand, while still delivering the frugal gas-mileage of a hybrid automobile. In real world terms, this enables the ARMADA 628 to play more than 10 hours of full 1080p HD video or 140 hours of music on a single charge while still providing 3 GHz of raw computational horsepower.

    The new Marvell’s processor comprises a complete SoC design – a first for the industry. In addition to the tri-core CPU, there are six additional processing engines to support 3D graphics, 1080p video encode/decode, ultra high fidelity audio, advanced cryptography, and digital photo data processing – for a total of nine dedicated core functions.

    The company said that the ARMADA 628 is also designed to be the first mobile CPU to provide high-speed USB 3.0 connectivity, which offers 10x faster performance than USB 2.0.

    "Marvell’s groundbreaking tri-core architecture is a unique solution to a long-time problem-how to achieve enterprise performance without breaking the limited power budget of smartphones, tablets and other mobile consumer devices," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group.

    The ARMADA 628 is based on a Marvell-designed ARM v7 MP compatible CPU offering 1.5 GHz performance. It offers support to use LP-DDR2 or DDR3 memory up to 533 MHz, a highly flexible display controller capable of driving four simultaneous displays at up t o 2K x 2K resolution, and a highly robust security subsystem that includes a secure execution processor.

    An integrated 3D engine renders 200 million triangles per second for an immersive game play experience and a multi-format video engine supports dual stream 1080p video for a true 3D visual experience. In addition, the ARMADA 628 supports DirectX, Open GL ES 2.0, and Open VG 1.1 – ensuring complete compatibility with the most hotly anticipated mobile game titles.

    ARMADA 628 supports RIM OS, Android™, Linux, Windows Mobile, and full Adobe Flash.

  • Samsung Launches World's First Commercially Available 4G LTE Handset: the Samsung Craft

    Samsung Mobile and MetroPCS have just announced the commercial launch of the world’s first 4G LTE-enabled, multi-mode, CDMA handset, the Samsung Craft (SCH-r900). Samsung Mobile also supplied the LTE infrastructure for MetroPCS’ commercial launch of 4G LTE service in Las Vegas, the first in the United States.

    Samsung Craft is available at MetroPCS stores and online in the Las Vegas metropolitan area for $299, after a $50 instant rebate. It has 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen display and sliding QWERTY keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and camcorder with auto-focus and Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface. Additionally, the Craft includes a 2GB microSD card (preloaded with "Star Trek").

    Along with the Craft, Samsung Mobile supplied LTE infrastructure for MetroPCS’ Las Vegas LTE network. MetroPCS became the first mobile operator to launch commercial 4G LTE services in the United States, offering talk, text and 4G Web access starting at $55 per month.

    According to the company, service will initially be available in Las Vegas and will cover the majority of MetroPCS’ existing CDMA network footprint in the city. 4G LTE network rollouts in the remaining MetroPCS markets are planned for later this year and early 2011, along with the launch of additional devices.

    “We continue to see our customers use mobile data services, and the majority of them rely on their handset as their primary access to the Web,” said Tom Keys, chief operating officer of MetroPCS.

    “Our 4G service, the Samsung Craft and applications like MetroSTUDIO deliver exactly what our customers demand: more of the entertainment they love, a desktop-like Web experience and the ability to do more and share more of their content such as text, photos and videos with friends and family,” he added.

  • Smartphone and Tablet Sales Ignite Advanced LCD Market in 2010

    Rapidly rising sales of smartphones and tablet PCs in 2010 will cause the global market for small- and medium-sized TFT LCD panels to expand at its fastest pace in three years, according to iSuppli.

    In its latest report, the market research firm finds that global shipments of small/medium TFT LCD panels, which are advanced types of displays used in sophisticated mobile devices like smartphones and tablet PCs, are set to rise by 28.1 percent in 2010 to reach 2.3 billion units, up 28.1 percent from 1.8 billion in 2009. This will represent the highest level of growth for the market since 2007, when shipments rose by 49.8 percent.

    “Sales of smartphones and tablets are booming in 2010 courtesy of the iPhone, the iPad and a range of competing products. Because such devices focus on delivering a high-quality user experience, many are employing TFT-LCD displays that offer bright, sharp images—a move that represents a boon for the suppliers of these displays,” said Vinita Jakhanwal, director of small and medium-sized displays at iSuppli.

    Global smartphone shipments are set to rise by 35.5 percent in 2010, according to iSuppli. Meanwhile, tablet PC shipments will grow by a stunning 787.3 percent, driven almost entirely by Apple’s iPad.

    Inspired by the iPhone 4, smartphone makers are adopting TFT LCDs using In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology. IPS supports a wider viewing angle and better picture quality in terms of presentation of color than a conventional LCD. It also consumes less electricity.

    Jakhanval said that all TFT-LCD suppliers now are making alliances or developing their own technology so that they can offer IPS displays to their smart phone and tablet customers.

    Meanwhile, a competing advanced display technology known as the Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) also is experiencing rapid growth in the small/medium display market, iSuppli’s electronic display research indicates. AMOLEDs are expanding because of the rise of the Android smart phone market.

    Growth in TFT LCD shipments will slow in 2011 and beyond as the expansion of the smart phone and tablet markets cools to more normal levels.

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  • picoChip Develops First Public Access Femtocell Solution

    picoChip today unveiled the PC333, the first chip specifically designed to extend the femtocell into the realm of public access infrastructure such as metro femto, rural femto and strand-mounted systems.

    According to the company, the PC333 System-on-Chip (SoC) device is the first femtocell chip to support 32 channels (scalable to 64) for simultaneous voice and HSPA+ data, the first to support MIMO, the first to support soft-handover and the first to conform to the Local Area Basestation (LABS) standard.

    picoChip says that the PC333 enables small basestations for urban hot-spots, city-centers or public access to be made and deployed at a cost far lower than traditional approaches, “radically changing the economics of network infrastructure.”

    The PC333 is the highest-specification femtocell available, and represents a significant step in bringing a complete 3GPP Release 8 Local Area 42Mbps HSPA+ basestation onto a single-chip.

    LABS is the 3GPP definition for systems with higher performance than home-basestations, allowing higher capacity, 120km/h mobility and +24dBm output power for greater than 2km range.

    The PC333 supports 32 channels, each with both voice and HSPA+ data and, with picoChip’s smartSignaling technology, in excess of 400 simultaneous smartphone users. Two of the devices can also be cascaded to support 64 active channels. The product runs on a 700MHz ARM chip with TrustZone and variety of specialized hardware features for security. As well as LABS conformance and release 8 HSPA+ (42Mbps downlink, 11 Mpbps uplink), the PC333 supports soft handover, receive diversity and MIMO.

    “Someday, all basestations will be made like this,” asserted Doug Pulley, CTO of picoChip. “With the PC333 we have extended the parameters of femtocell performance to levels that would traditionally have been considered as ‘picocell’ or even ‘microcell’. This high performance coupled with zero-touch provisioning means carriers can routinely deploy femtocells as part of their wide-area network rollouts. We are already seeing the emergence of femtocells into rural and metropolitan-area basestations,” he added.

    “As data traffic rises inexorably, it is evident that conventional macrocell architectures cannot cope both from a cost and capability point of view. Service providers are going to be deploying different, innovative basestation architectures to address this challenge effectively,” stated Simon Saunders, Chairman of The Femto Forum.

    The PC333 will be sampled in 4Q2010 to “lead customers.”