AllThingsD » Mobile World Congress

Interview: CTIA Boss Steve Largent Aims To Keep Conference From Being Lost in the Shuffle

Ina Fried — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:45:53 +0000

While the U.S. mobile industry is thriving, its annual trade show has struggled to stand out.

Coming on the heels of both January’s Consumer Electronics Show and February’s Mobile World Congress, the CTIA event in March had become something of a rehash of products announced at those earlier events.

In response, the show’s producers have pushed this year’s event back to May, a move aimed at creating some separation from the other conferences.

“We were told by a lot of people ‘I’m out of breath,’” CTIA chief Steve Largent told AllThingsD. “We heard that. We listened.”

This year’s event takes place next week in New Orleans, at the end of that city’s popular jazz festival.

By changing the timing, CTIA is also hoping that some companies may be ready to announce products due to ship by the back-to-school shopping season.

“I would say the verdict is not in yet but all the indications are it is a good move,” Largent said.

It seems some companies aren’t waiting for CTIA to make announcements.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, for example, is announcing news at its own developer conference this week, while Samsung is using a May 3 event in London to announce its next flagship Galaxy device.

Some device makers and carriers have said to expect noteworthy announcements at the show, while others are planning just meetings and social gatherings at the event.

As for formal events, the highlight is likely to be a panel on Tuesday afternoon featuring top executives from the four major U.S. carriers. CNBC’s Jim Cramer is set to moderate that. The conference wraps up on Thursday with a speech from former President Bill Clinton.

Last year’s show, in Orlando, was dominated by the news announced on the eve of the event that AT&T was planning to buy T-Mobile in a blockbuster $39 billion deal.

Companies Let Workers Bring Their Own Devices, but at What Cost? (Video)

Ina Fried — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:30:24 +0000

The trend of workers being able to use their own phones and computers for business-related tasks is undeniable.

And it brings with it a lot of benefits.

“Organizations that have embraced (bring-your-own-device programs) have reported improved productivity and employee retention, enhanced mobility, a more flexible work environment and improved IT value to the business,” PricewaterhouseCoopers notes in a recent paper.

Plus, of course, it can save companies a boatload of money.

The question, then, is if and how businesses try to secure the corporate data that is inevitably finding its way onto these devices.

That was the topic of a panel I moderated at the Bubble Over Barcelona event held last week, just outside the grounds of Mobile World Congress. Folks from Lookout Mobile Security, Box, Enterproid and Appcelerator debated the pros and cons associated with this new era of mobility.

Most of the panel and audience felt that added security was a small price to pay for the added productivity that companies get with us strapped to our smartphones.

Extra thanks to Enterproid’s Alexander Trewby for being a good sport as the audience and I grilled him on some of his less-than-popular opinions, such as the notion that businesses shouldn’t have to pay for personal phone calls or home broadband.

It was a lively discussion. And, while I can’t promise you cava or tapas, there is a YouTube video of the panel:

Tablets That Have a Certain Feel to Them

Ina Fried — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:13:48 +0000

Given that most Android tablets look the same, a couple of companies are showing technologies in Barcelona that make sure they don’t feel the same.

One of those companies is a Finnish start-up called Senseg. Its technology, which it says is just now ready to go into products, lets you rub your hand over a flat glass tablet screen and feel texture that is eerily like a real world object. Touch a picture of kitchen tiles, for example and it feels smooth until the bump where the grout is.

A different approach is offered up by Immersion, a longtime player in this field, which is showing off a new generation of electronics that open the door to far more realistic sensations than the current vibrations or simple touch feedback from a virtual keyboard.

Haptics — or the technology that enables adding a sense of feel to electronics — has been around for a while. Immersion, for example, demoed how a phone or tablet could gain a better sense of feel back at our D7 conference in 2009.

Early devices just rumbled or vibrated at certain times. Touch feedback has already made its way in more limited uses, with the most common being virtual keyboards that offer a physical sensation when a key is pressed.

But the field has continued to evolve. Some of the technology just on the horizon reproduces the way things feel much more authentically.

At its booth this year, Immersion was showing a phone with digital maracas that feel like you’re actually rattling rice. Then there’s the roller coaster video that gives you both the click-click-click as you climb and the “whoosh” as the descent begins. Yet another demo app adds to any music playback a bass track you can feel.

Both Immersion and Senseg also demonstrated haptics used another way — as a physical cue to something in a long list of data. Imagine, for example, scrolling though email and feeling a physical bump when you get to a message from your spouse or boss.

Similarly, varying amounts of touch feedback can be used to indicate the popularity or rank of something. Immersion had a demo app, for example, where users could flip through a set of images and feel increased touch sensation when they scrolled to a photo with lots of comments.

The technologies from Immersion and Senseg have some similarities, but work in different ways. Immersion’s technology uses a rectangular bar-like component called a piezo module, that physically vibrates the device in varying locations and frequencies. Senseg, meanwhile, uses the combination of a custom chip and a special screen coating to create an electric field on the front of the display.

Senseg’s approach requires developers to explicitly write their software to use the technology, meaning it could be most attractive to device makers that want to add a feel to their user interface skin. Immersion, meanwhile, has programming interfaces that developers can use, but also has a mechanism to add haptic feedback even to apps that were not designed for it.

The two technologies are also at different stages. Senseg is just now looking to sign its first customers, while Immersion says its newer technology is already in a tablet from Pantech and will come soon to other tablets. Phones should also get the new touch tech, once the piezo modules are reduced a bit in size.

[ See post to watch video ]

A Lytro in Hand Helps Bring Mobile World Congress Into Focus

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:00:49 +0000

While the first Lytro cameras are just now making their way to customers, AllThingsD has spent the past two weeks putting the device to work.

The light field camera has been our quiet companion at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and, before that, on a reporting trip to Finland. We’ve been writing about the camera since the technology was first unveiled last fall and even managed to take a few pictures at CES.

But having the Lytro and its living pictures full-time has provided a unique way to tell the story of the world’s biggest cellphone conference.

For those who need a quick primer, Lytro’s camera uses a new type of imaging that offers a number of advantages, including the ability to refocus pictures after they are taken, to shoot without focusing first and to take images in very low-light conditions without the need for a flash. (For more, check out Walt Mossberg’s review of Lytro’s camera.)

We’ve been stealthily trying to capture as many scenes from Barcelona as possible, all while being surrounded by a million tech enthusiasts, bloggers and journalists.

We managed to pull it out briefly at Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch as well as at a number of other press conferences and booths. Only a few times did we get caught by people who actually knew what we were carrying.

Anyway, below are some of the highlights. I also had the camera in hand during last week’s visit to Finland, including shots at Nokia and Rovio. But I’ll save those for tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some of the shots from Barcelona. Remember to click around the Lytro pictures to change the focus. All of these have some fun variability.

The first shot is one of Sony’s new Xperias. Click on the phone screen to bring that into focus.

The HTC One (click on different parts of the screen)

Intel’s mobile coming-out party

Ericsson’s booth

The scene at Wednesday’s Windows 8 preview event

The view from Hotel Miramar, site of the Windows 8 event (try clicking on the wine glass)

Coming Soon: Phones That Learn to Rest When You Do

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:50:52 +0000

Even though many of us feel as though we are on our phones 24 hours a day, the fact is we aren’t.

Yet, in many cases, our phones keep working even when they’re sitting in a pocket, stuffed in a bag or resting on a table.

With battery life increasingly precious, phone and device makers are taking a number of steps to reduce the waste.

Qualcomm has an initiative, dubbed Consia, that monitors a user’s activities and learns when and where Wi-Fi is available, when the busy times are and when it’s bedtime. After a couple of weeks, the phone can decide when to connect and disconnect and when to fetch information in the background.

“People’s patterns are very different, but individually our behaviors are very predictable,” Qualcomm’s Rob Chandhok said in an interview at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday.

To protect privacy, the information is stored securely on the device and all the calculations are done locally.

Qualcomm is not alone in looking to find ways to help smartphone owners go longer between charges.

Chip companies such as Nvidia and ARM are switching from multiple fast cores to fewer or lower-power engines. Motorola’s phones suggest “smart actions” to reduce battery use, and more power-saving techniques are on their way.

ARM has an initiative called “Big, Little” that encourages its chipmaker licensees to pair a low-power A7 core with a high-power A15 engine, allowing the mobile operating system to shuttle between them as needed.

“The concept really is getting the right size processor to do the right job,” ARM’s Jeff Chu told AllThingsD. “Most of the time you are doing things that don’t need all that performance.”

Switching to the “little” core can reduce energy use as much as 70 percent, Chu said.

Phones with ARM’s new design, though, aren’t expected to start showing up until next year at the earliest.

Nvidia is taking a somewhat similar approach with its quad-core Tegra 3 processor. The chip actually has five cores — the four main ones and a fifth that can be used in place of the other four when less horsepower is needed.

Here’s Qualcomm’s video about Consia:

View More Qualcomm Videos

Microsoft Won't Support Some Business Features on ARM, but Will Offer "Windows to Go"

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:22:53 +0000

While Windows for ARM-based processors will offer many of the same features as the version for traditional PC chips, the list of differences is growing.

Microsoft disclosed on Wednesday that Windows on ARM won’t offer the same manageability features that businesses have come to rely on for overseeing their legions of computers.

“Although the ARM-based version of Windows does not include the same manageability features that are in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, businesses can use these power-saving devices in unmanaged environments,” Microsoft said in a document released ahead of its Windows 8 event in Barcelona.

A lack of manageability isn’t the only reason many big businesses probably won’t want to go Windows on ARM. It also won’t work with any traditional desktop apps other than Office.

Microsoft also outlined a “Windows To Go” feature that allows businesses to offer workers access to Windows 8 and corporate apps on a thumb drive.

“Growing mobility and consumerization trends pressure IT professionals to provide users with secure access to a corporate operating system and apps in situations when a device or network is out of the IT department’s control,” Microsoft said. “Windows 8 includes the ability to provide users with a full corporate copy of Windows (along with user’s business apps, data, and settings) on a USB storage device.”

The feature works with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines.

“When users insert their device into any Windows 7 or Windows 8 compatible PC and restart the PC, they get their entire personal environment, and operate as a fully managed device,” Microsoft said. “When they sign out, they can remove the USB device, and it is ready to use on another PC.”

Microsoft Says Hola to Windows 8 Beta in Barcelona

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:52:36 +0000

Aiming to show its mobile chops, Microsoft is using the world’s largest cellphone show to debut a new test version of Windows 8.

The “consumer preview” version will feature a number of advancements over the early developer version released last fall. Perhaps most notably, this version will include the built-in app store that will be part of the next Windows. (Only free apps will be available, Microsoft has said.)

Windows 8 is one of the biggest bets in the company’s history. Aiming to respond to competition from both Macs and iPads, among other factors, Microsoft is making some big changes to its flagship operating system.

In particular, Windows 8 will be available (albeit with some different capabilities and compatibilities) on both ARM and traditional PC processors.

Microsoft has brought over the tiled Metro interface first introduced on Windows Phone (a look first shown at our D9 conference last year) and is introducing an entirely different type of application. In most cases, new-style apps will be distributed only through the Windows app store.

Earlier this month, Microsoft confirmed that Windows on ARM — complete with the next version of Office — should show up on new PCs around the same time as the operating system comes for PCs with chips from Intel and AMD.

However, Office and Windows 8 itself will be the only traditional desktop apps that run in Windows on ARM.

We’ll have live coverage of Microsoft’s Windows 8 event starting around 6 am PT. If you can’t wait to get some Windows 8 news, Microsoft has posted a guide for businesses on some of the corporate-oriented features contained in the new test build.

Earlier:

3:12 pm: Things haven’t kicked off. You haven’t missed anything. Just got situated.

3:12 pm: The event is at a swank venue overlooking Barcelona. Microsoft covered over a swimming pool to build this temporary facility.

Here’s the view from outside the event:

3:18 pm: “Please take your seats,” booms the invisible voice. “The show will begin shortly.”

The show?

3:20 pm: If you haven’t already, check out this story, which reviews some new business details about Windows 8, including a “Windows to Go” feature that lets Windows run on a thumb drive.

3:21 pm: Windows exec Tami Reller kicking things off, noting to half the crowd that they are on top of the pool.

It’s not my half, so we should be safe.

3:22 pm: Cue Windows President Steven Sinofsky. “We are really excited to be here,” Sinofsky said, before correcting himself to use Microsoft-preferred parlance of “super-excited.”

3:23 pm: Hits key points for Microsoft about Windows 8: Bold reimagining, from chipset to interface and application model.

Today, there are too many trade-offs, Sinofsky said.

We’re choosing between performance or battery life, consumption or content creation, touch or keyboard-and-mouse.

Win 8, I’m sure he’s about to say, is no-compromises.

Yep. Just said it.

3:26 pm: Okay. Here we go, changes in Windows 8 since the developer preview.

“Lots of the product” wasn’t done with developer release, Sinofsky said.

3:28 pm: Since developer preview, 100,000 code changes to Windows 8.

“It’s much more polished, much more refined,” he said.

“Windows 8 is a generational change in the operating system,” Sinofsky said. “Things are different than the last time we made a generational change with Windows 95.”

3:31 pm: Uh-oh. Sinofsky says one plus one, when it comes to apps in Windows 8, equals three.

I’ll tell you this, if that’s the case, I don’t want to use the calculator app.

3:32 pm: Demo time. It’s Julie Larson-Green, who heads design and vision for Windows 8, and Antoine Leblond, the VP who has headed up the Windows Store that is built into Windows 8.

3:34 pm: Larson-Green demoing, starting with login screen, including photo-based password that they have shown. Boots to start screen with a bunch of apps, including Kobo, some Xbox live games, as well as tiles for friends and Web sites.

“I can have as many as I want,” she said.

3:37 pm: The goal, she said, is that everything should be “fast and fluid,” and she said all features and tweaks were judged to make sure they lived up to that.

3:38 pm: Among the preinstalled apps in preview is Xbox Live Games, although that demo generated two error messages (but fast and fluid ones).

3:39 pm: Now demoing Cut the Rope, which its developer has taken from an HTML5 app to Windows 8.

3:40 pm: Windows 8 has a video and music store built-in, with rent and purchase options.

3:41 pm: Switching apps is easier than hitting alt-tab, as in traditional Windows. That was fast, but not so fluid. Now, choosing among open apps is a swipe away.

3:42 pm: There’s a people app that connects to Facebook, Windows Live, Twitter, Google and Exchange. This seems to work very similarly to the way they work on Windows Phone, which is to say nicely.

3:45 pm: Systemwide sharing allows apps to share with one another and share to services.

“That is a quick peek at Windows 8 running on this tablet PC,” she said, handing off to Leblond to show it on a laptop.

“Windows 8 isn’t just about tablets and touch devices,” Leblond said.

He’s showing things on a Lenovo Ultrabook.

Logs in with a four-digit PIN code, another of Windows 8’s login options.

3:49 pm: If you are taking a drink every time you hear “fast and fluid,” you are already too drunk to read this.

3:55 pm: Now he’s demoing the familiar desktop in Windows 8. He shows Office. (For you Windows nerds out there, it’s labeled “Build 8250.”)

3:57 pm: Desktop is just another app, Leblond says, showing how a Metro-style app can run next to the desktop.

All of the things you know and love in Windows 7 are still there, Leblond said.

Larson-Green is back to show an Acer all-in-one with touch and keyboard.

And she logs in with a password this time.

Cool thing is all the stuff from her other machine is there on this machine, just by signing in to that machine with the same Windows Live account. (Not instantly, I don’t think, but still.)

SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage, is integrated too.

Here’s the desktop app, by the way:

The consumer preview is now available, Microsoft says on its Web site.

4:04 pm: We’re getting a tour of the store from Leblond. I’m multitasking and reading the just-issued press release, too.

4:05 pm: Not much in the press release that looks new to me. New preview version of Internet Explorer 10; test ARM hardware being made available only to select partners, as they said earlier this month.

There’s also a mention of sharing across Windows 8 and Windows Phone, but they haven’t talked about that onstage yet.

Okay, back to the event. Leblond reminds audience that during beta — err — consumer preview, only free apps will be in the store.

4:07 pm: Leblond notes that the company had an apps contest to allow a few small app developers to join the big names in the Windows Store. There are eight winners, but they flipped by too fast for me.

SigFig and Air Soccer are a couple of them.

4:10 pm: Not surprisingly, some folks are telling me on Twitter that Microsoft’s servers are getting hammered, and downloads are going slow.

Patience, people, patience. (I know, I’m not patient, either.)

By the way, everything Microsoft has shown today could have been done on ARM, I believe. The only desktop app shown was Office 2010. (Slight difference: Office 15 will be built into Windows on ARM.)

4:11 pm: While OS is pretty ready, Sinofsky said, the add-on apps are at an earlier stage. Probably going to be updated, look may change and others may be added.

4:13 pm: Charms feature that allows for sharing among apps that don’t know about one another is kind of like a modern, cloud-connected clipboard.

One of the demos, for example, was a USA Today article being shared to WordPress.com.

4:14 pm: Talk shifts to hardware, with Sinofsky previewing some of the stuff partners have been working on.

Coming on stage is Mike Angiulo, who heads up some of the work with hardware makers.

Angiulo shows a Windows 8 ARM tablet.

4:19 pm: The “fast and fluid” thing has reached epidemic proportions.

4:21 pm: Angiulo showed a very brief glimpse of Office 15 on Windows on ARM.

I have a feeling people will be going back in the replay a lot to see that part.

I’ll spare you my blurrycam shot. I looked at it. Even I can’t tell which app it was.

Angiulo holds up a next-generation Intel Ultrabook, as well. It’s silver, and says “Ultrabook” on the hinge.

Inside, Angiulo said, is mobile broadband, touchscreen and Ivy Bridge chip.

4:25 pm: Demo of fast start-up, which Angiulo says can be done in as little as eight seconds from “cold boot.”

4:26 pm: Cool laptop with motorized door that flips down to reveal ports.

For road warriors, Sinofsky said, “ports aren’t an option. You really, really need them.”

4:27 pm: Second-generation Samsung Series 9 is the latest in the hardware wheel-of-Windows 8-fortune.

Next up, carbon fiber Dell XPS 13, a 13-inch laptop in a 12-inch design.

Not just fast boot and resume, Angiulo said. Network connectivity can happen in under a second.

Other wireless networking features — cost-aware network switching to auto-switch from mobile broadband to known Wi-Fi or your carrier’s Wi-Fi.

4:31 pm: In many cases, Sinofsky promises, your PC will be able to log back into a known network before a user types in their password (for those who need a password to resume).

4:32 pm: Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga, an interesting device from CES, makes an appearance. It can fold into a tablet, laptop, as well as a presentation-style mode.

Trivia time: Microsoft Mouse turns 30 this year, Sinofsky said.

Giant 82-inch Gorilla Glass screen in the back isn’t a monitor, but a Windows 8 PC from Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixel. He’s the guy who builds that high-end CNN touchscreen.

They also demo NFC-pairing of a wireless speaker.

4:41 pm: Windows 8 can treat a bunch of hard drives like one big physical drive, as part of “Storage Spaces.”

4:43 pm: Last demo was actually done on a Windows 7 PC that was running Windows 8 off a flash drive using the “Windows to Go” feature that leaked out earlier today, thanks to a business guide posted to Microsoft’s Web site a wee bit early.

More Windows 8 enterprise talk at CeBit in a few days, Sinofsky promises.

4:46 pm: 4:46 pm: “Touch PCs are on the way, in all shapes and sizes,” Sinofsky promises.

Notes that it won’t have to be a trade-off of touch or mouse-and-keyboard. Can have both, or keyboard and mouse only, when you want it.

4:48 pm: Sinofsky starting to wrap up, it seems.

4:48 pm: Consumer preview in five languages — English, German, French, Japanese and simplifed Chinese.

Sinofsky is his trademark vague on timing, noting that the next milestone is the release candidate.

“We delivered the consumer preview just as we promised,” he said, noting that it was being downloaded almost immediately in more than 70 countries.

Coming up on the blog: System requirements and other details not offered up today.

And … that’s it.

Google's Schmidt Insists Android Is "A Real Operating System"

Ina Fried — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:54:38 +0000

We’ve been avoiding keynotes like day-old ham here in Barcelona. But Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt often says something provocative. So we braved the crowds for this one.

The keynote is due to start any minute. We’ll be back once there is something to say.

5:58 pm: Music — or Muzak, perhaps — playing. The hall is filling up. Thankfully, they have a better queueing system than last year, when I nearly got trampled waiting to get in to hear Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer.

6:00 pm: Okay. Here we go. Here’s the link to last year’s speech, by the way. We’ll see if he has more or less to say this time around.

6:02 pm: Schmidt starts by bringing out Hugo Barra to talk about Chrome and Android. Google brought out Chrome for Android in beta a few weeks back.

6:03 pm: “I hope everyone here is using Chrome,” Schmidt said. If you care about security or speed, you should use Chrome, Schmidt said. If you don’t, it’s free, he notes.

Not sure if he was talking desktop or mobile. But if you don’t have the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, you can’t run Chrome for Android. And very, very few Android devices can yet run Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0).

6:05 pm: Schmidt on Android’s performance. It’s better than other mobile phones because, he says, “It’s a real operating system.”

6:09 pm: Still demoing Chrome for Android. I’ll spare you the play-by-play, but here’s our write-up on that from earlier this month.

6:10 pm: Barra notes that it’s the first time the Chrome and Android teams have worked together. (Isn’t that the problem?)

6:12 pm: Schmidt notes that there are billions of people who haven’t even gotten to have the iPhone versus Android debate.

“The World Wide Web has yet to live up to its name,” he said, noting that for every person online, there are still two who have yet to experience the joy of Angry Birds and Google searches.

6:15 pm: Much of what was imagined in “Star Trek” or “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” has come true, Schmidt said.

“These were the stuff of science fiction until very recently,” he said. Holograms and self-driving cars are coming.

You’ll be able to send a robot in your place to see your favorite rock concert. Hmm …

6:17 pm: “Driverless cars are a lot closer than you think,” Schmidt said, noting that 93 percent of car accidents are the result of human error.

6:18 pm: Schmidt pays tribute to Steve Jobs in describing this vision of the future: “People will spend less time getting technology to work,” he said.

“The future is indeed a very bright place,” Schmidt said, referring specifically to the rich and uber-connected.

New technology will still open doors for the middle class, he said.

6:22 pm: Meanwhile, Apple has just sent out invites for a March 7 event in San Francisco — Apple’s way of saying hi to Google.

6:24 pm: Back in Barcelona, Schmidt has made his way to the barely connected. “For many people, the Web is still a scarce resource …”

6:26 pm: If you want to know more about the Apple event, here’s John Paczkowski’s piece with the details.

6:27 pm: Having a smartphone isn’t enough — you need a data connection. But Schmidt says they don’t need to connect to a central network; can get value by connecting to one another in mesh networks.

6:30 pm: Schmidt talking a lot about tech’s broader impact.

“In times of war, it will be impossible to ignore the voices that cry out for help,” Schmidt said. “There will be far fewer places for dictators.”

There will still be elites, he said, and the gap between the top and bottom may well grow. Online censorship, he notes, is on the rise. Google products are blocked in 25 of 125 countries it operates in.

“We will see more of these efforts, but I think they are going to fail.”

Even in the U.S., some legislation exists that would limit things.

6:35 pm: On to Q&A.

6:35 pm: Will Google go after Chinese companies for going after Motorola IP?

“Google has been willing to take on China pretty well,” Schmidt notes, but adds that the deal hasn’t closed. “I’m well aware of the issues, and we’re certainly considering your question.”

6:37 pm: Pitched by some guy with a peer-to-peer money technology. There are some issues with peer-to-peer money. It’s illegal, Schmidt said. Otherwise, it’s great.

Issues with money laundering, etc.

6:42 pm: Asked about Facebook’s announcements yesterday, Schmidt said anything that gets more people on the Internet is a good thing. Also praises Facebook for Facebook Zero program which allows people in emerging markets to get Facebook even without a data plan.

6:43 pm: Asked when we will see Android on feature phones, Schmidt replies: “Why don’t you just buy a smartphone?” A better question, he says, is when will smartphones cost the same as a feature phone. The answer to that, he said, is “next year.”

6:44 pm: Asked about regulations he doesn’t like, he says there are a lot of them. He notes that is what regulators do. “They are not de-regulators.”

His suggestion is, if you are going to regulate issues, regulate an outcome, not a specific technology.

Asked about tech and overconnectedness.

“By the way, these devices have an ‘off’ button,” he said, noting people have choice. For himself, he said, “I think you should always have your Android phone on.”

6:59 pm: Asked where advertising fits into the future he was talking about, Schmidt said he was trying to avoid a commercial for Google, but — since he was given a chance …

As part of his answer to the question, Schmidt notes that on search, Google is moving beyond 10 blue links to give you an answer when it can. (Bing much?)

We are improving our advertising targeting, he said. Noting in mobile; mobile can be even more targeted ad. “We believe in ROI-based targeting,” he said, meaning return on investment.

7:02 pm: Schmidt on Android: 850,000 Android activations per day, with 300 million devices so far.

You do the compounding, and it will eventually be a trillion, he said. We need more people, he jokes.

Vis-a-vis forking, it is completely allowed. Schmidt said Google hopes device makers see the benefit in the Android market, but says they’re under no obligation to use it.

“It is their choice,” he said “We don’t sue them. Another activity we don’t do, if you get my drift.” A not at all subtle dig at Apple.

7:07 pm: Asked about whether they are riding on the backs of mobile operators, Schmidt notes their software uses mobile data, the only growing area in the cellular business.

And it’s a wrap.

Samsung's Not Doing Well in the Tablet Market? You Don't Say …

John Paczkowski — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:17:38 +0000

Here’s something you don’t see every day: An executive at a consumer electronics company admitting that one of its businesses isn’t doing so well.

That’s exactly what Samsung product strategy executive Hankil Yoon did earlier today when he offered this candid assessment of the company’s efforts to field a successful tablet to reporters attending a media event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona: “Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market.”

Which is, of course, true. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab line of tablets hasn’t really found traction in the market, which continues to be defined by Apple’s iPad.

An unusually frank admission for a Samsung exec, though Yoon did follow it by talking up the prospects for the Galaxy Note “phablet.” The company clearly has high expectations for the device, despite criticism of its stylus and 5-inch form factor (Walt Mossberg likened using it as a phone to “talking into a piece of toast”). Yoon says Samsung expects to ship 10 million Notes this year. That’s an aggressive target, but evidently the company feels it will be a big draw for the mass market.

Interview: Clearwire CEO Sees 4G Opportunities Where Rival LightSquared Stumbled

Ina Fried — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:56:12 +0000

With rival LightSquared running into interference, Clearwire sees an even bigger opportunity for itself to offer a 4G network to others.

“Our spectrum is clean, it’s contiguous, it’s deep and it doesn’t suffer from interference issues,” CEO Erik Prusch said in an interview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

It’s been a rough go for Clearwire, however. In addition to shifting its focus from one wireless technology to another, Clearwire has also cut costs, pared its workforce and outsourced some network operations to Ericsson.

And that’s not to mention the turmoil on its board and in its executive ranks.

But Clearwire has something that its rivals are running out of: The wireless spectrum needed to operate their networks.

“It’s a valuable asset,” Prusch said. “We expect it will continue to appreciate. This is really the fuel for the business model.”

So far, Clearwire’s main wholesale partner is Sprint, which owns about half of the company. Clearwire also has deals with Best Buy and NetZero, among others. But Prusch said that there is a reasonable chance one of the other major operators will want to strike a deal with Clearwire, given the company’s amount of spectrum and capacity.

“I think it is quite conceivable we can continue to sign up customers,” he said.

One potential partner would be Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA. T-Mobile isn’t seen as having enough spectrum on its own to launch LTE, but said last week that it plans to start offering such service next year. Prusch wouldn’t say if the two firms are in talks.

“I won’t want to comment on who we are having conversations with,” he said.

For its part, Clearwire is in the midst of a major transformation. The company initially built its 4G network around WiMax. That let it beat other rivals to market with next-generation technology, but proved thorny as LTE showed itself to be both more popular and efficient for the long term.

Clearwire is now working to build its own LTE network, with hopes of having 5,000 sites by the middle of next year. While Clearwire is using a different version of LTE than the one adopted by AT&T and Verizon, Prusch said its so-called TDD LTE will be the more common one globally.

Although the company could always sell off part or all of its valuable spectrum holdings, Prusch said the main goal is building out its 4G LTE-based network.

“We believe with the absence of spectrum available in the U.S. in the foreseeable future, ultimately we will be best served by serving a lot of wholesale partners,” Prusch said.

Indeed, the lack of spectrum has left many rivals beating down the doors in Washington to quickly auction off additional airwaves.

“We’re not asking anything of regulators,” Prusch said, adding that he doesn’t really think that there is enough spectrum to be auctioned to truly be a game changer.

In addition to selling space to carriers, Clearwire also markets its service to consumers. However, in the past year it has switched from a contract business, in which it bore upfront costs to subsidize devices, to a less cash-intensive prepaid model.

Operating its own network, Prusch said, allows Clearwire to see how customers use the network, what problems they encounter and, more importantly, what services they like and use. And by offering an unlimited service, Prusch said he hopes Clearwire’s customers will push the industry toward needing the kind of high-capacity, high-speed service it can offer.

Despite its changes, a renewed deal with Sprint and a massive infusion of cash last year, Prusch acknowledges the company could yet need more capital to fully build its network.

“We feel like we have enough money to start this build and get well down this path,” Prusch said. “Networks cost money to build. We don’t expect to stop here, which may require additional capital.”

Update: I originally had my LTE standards reversed. Clearwire uses TDD-LTE, not FDD.

RIM Exec: Developers Like Us Just Fine, Thanks

Ina Fried — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:51:14 +0000

Alec Saunders, the head of developer relations for Research In Motion, denied on Tuesday that the company’s execution stumbles over the past 18 months have led to a trust gap with mobile app creators.

“I don’t know that I’d characterize it in that fashion,” Saunders told AllThingsD at a briefing with reporters at Mobile World Congress. While not announcing much in the way of new devices in Barcelona, RIM held a panel with a handful of developers to talk about its work getting new applications for its PlayBook tablet and its forthcoming QNX-based BlackBerry operating system.

Saunders said that with any new operating system, there are developers who are willing to jump on board early, while others take a wait-and-see approach.

As far as the company’s own prior statements about how quickly it could release the PlayBook and next-generation BlackBerry, Saunders said: “I think we set some expectations that we probably shouldn’t have, but that’s ancient history.”

The company said it now has well over 10,000 programs running on PlayBook, including several thousand Android applications that have been approved to run on the device.

RIM is in the midst of moving from its historical BlackBerry operating system to a new one that is based on QNX, the operating system that powers the PlayBook. At the same time, RIM has seen its smartphone market share plummet in recent years, amid increased competition from Apple and Android, among others.

Among the questions hovering over RIM is just when it will move its phones to the new operating system, and how quickly it will move the bulk of its lineup to the software.

“We haven’t given a whole lot of specifics on long-term projections and road maps, but those conversations do happen in confidence,” Saunders said.

Intel Announces More Phone Customers, Plans for Speedier Chips

Ina Fried — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:23:01 +0000

Intel, which is looking to crack the phone market, announced a few new partners on Monday, as well as plans to speed up its chips.

France Telecom’s Orange unit and Indian cellphone maker Lava International both plan to sell devices based on the reference phone design Intel created. China’s ZTE will also use Intel chips as part of a multiyear partnership, with its first Intel-based device slated to ship in the second half of this year.

“This is the first step,” ZTE Executive VP He Shiyou said at an Intel press event in Barcelona.

The Orange phone will go on sale first in France and the U.K. this summer.

At January’s Consumer Electronics Show, Intel announced that Motorola and Lenovo would use its processors. Intel had promised it would have more to say in Barcelona.

The announcements with Orange and Lava, in particular, show that Intel is having some success with its strategy of not only offering chips, but also a ready-to-go phone design that customers can use to get quickly into the Android smartphone business.

The company also offered up a look at where it is headed on the chip side.

“It wouldn’t be an Intel presentation if we didn’t show a road map,” Intel CEO Paul Otellini quipped at the briefing with reporters.

Intel said its Z2460, formerly code-named “Medfield,” will run at up to 2GHz. Meanwhile, the company announced a successor chip, which will sample in the second half of the year and ship in products next year. That chip, the Z2580, is designed to double Medfield’s performance. The company also announced plans for a lower-end chip aimed at “value” smartphones that can sell for less than $150 unsubsidized.

Otellini promised that his company will bring its legacy of performance, but won’t sacrifice on battery life, promising 14 days of standby time.

“We take battery life seriously,” he said.

Intel has also inked a deal with Visa to ensure that its phones are ready for mobile commerce, and Visa has certified Intel’s reference design as working with its payWave effort.

Intel faces steep competition in the mobile chip business from current leaders Nvidia, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, in addition to others looking to crack the market, such as Broadcom. The company has been trying to get into the business for some time, but last year began showing a slim Android design it said would, at long last, get it into the game.

Asked what might prompt more bigger-name cellphone makers to adopt Intel chips, Otellini said that the initial products from some of these smaller partners should “light a fire” under the likes of Samsung.

“We have ambitions to not be a minor player here,” he said.

Mobile Wallet Venture Isis Beefs Up With More Bank Cards

Lauren Goode — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:18:35 +0000

Isis, the mobile payments joint venture between Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today that it is adding Chase, Barclaycard and Capital One cards to the Isis Mobile Wallet. Last July, Isis announced relationships with Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express to allow account holders to pay using wireless phones with NFC “one-tap” payment capabilities. The Isis Mobile Wallet app, which will go head to head with other mobile payment solutions like Google Wallet, will first launch in Salt Lake City and Austin midyear.

Mum on Own Phone Plans, Facebook Aims to Make Mobile Web App-Friendly

Ina Fried — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:41:25 +0000

Facebook initially thought if it offered to send mobile developers lots of traffic, they would bring their apps to the mobile Web.

It turns out, it was more complicated. Even with Facebook, mobile developers still need a consistent Web platform, as well as a simple means to get paid.

And, since that is a problem Facebook can’t solve alone, the company is asking for help. At Mobile World Congress on Monday, the social networking giant announced plans for separate coalitions aimed at unifying mobile Web standards and enabling simpler carrier billing for Web apps.

“Our interests are really aligned with a lot of our partners,” CTO Bret Taylor said in an interview.

What Taylor wouldn’t talk about were the company’s plans to build its own phone, an effort code-named Buffy that was the subject of a series of articles last year.

Mobile is critically important for Facebook, as it is a growing source of the company’s traffic, but not yet a major source of revenue.

As for what Facebook hopes to be in mobile, Taylor said he would be happy if the company were seen as a major place to discover mobile apps.

“If we can accomplish that, Facebook is really the mobile company we want it to be,” he said.

It’s unclear, though, whether that would be enough to allow the company to replicate the huge financial success it has had on the desktop.

Sony Insists It's Not Just Playing Around When It Comes to Phones

Ina Fried — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:16:09 +0000

Sony has successfully managed to reacquire its phone business.

Now for the hard part: Reacquiring the customers.

It’s been 10 days since Sony officially took over the business once run as a joint venture with Sweden’s Ericsson, so it’s a little early to judge. But it is fair to say that Sony has a tough road ahead.

“We’re not disappointed with our market share,” Sony Mobile marketing chief Steve Walker said in an interview, noting that the company is second or third among Android players in many countries. “At the same time, what we see is, to really win consumers’ hearts, you can’t just offer smartphones.”

Sony is touting its strengths in gaming, entertainment and imaging, but the company focused on similar areas when it was Sony Ericsson, with only mixed results.

Walker said that there were some limits to how much of the company’s know-how and intellectual property could be shared with the joint venture, and he promised bigger and better collaborations ahead.

“There were still some limitations,” he said. “All of those barriers are gone.”

Walker said the company is not closed to using other operating systems, but for the time being, he believes that Android is still its best bet. Since many of the phones offer similar specifications, Walker said one of the main things it needs to do is reestablish Sony as a strong brand in phones.

“A smartphone purchase choice is as much about brand affinity as [an] individual product,” Walker said.

Sony has thus far introduced four phones under its own brand, including the Xperia U and P models announced in Barcelona on Sunday.

In the U.S. market, where Sony has struggled to win support from carriers, Sony is focusing on the LTE-equipped Xperia Ion for AT&T.

“There are other things we are doing with U.S. carriers,” he said, adding that he “can’t be too specific.”

The company also plans to bring out its other devices in July, albeit in an unsubsidized fashion.

Walker said the company knows it needs a bigger presence in North America.

“It’s 100 percent core to our strategy,” he said. “We recognize it is the biggest smartphone market. You can’t consider yourself to be a successful smartphone player without a sustainable presence in the U.S.”

The Inside Story of Nokia's 41-Megapixel Camera Phone: Five Years in the Making

Ina Fried — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:25:22 +0000

If it were easy to put a decent zoom lens in a camera phone, Nokia might never have come up with its biggest breakthrough in imaging in years.

The technology in the 808 PureView phone introduced on Monday was the result of Nokia engineers struggling over the fact that optically zoomed lenses just don’t work well in tiny spaces like phones.

“We had been working for a long time [on] optical zooms and had learned the hard way how difficult it is to achieve good performance in smartphones,” Nokia head of imaging technologies Juha Alakarhu said in an interview last week. “Their structure is very complex and hard to manufacture.”

Plus, Alakarhu says, when zoomed in, such lenses let very little light in, meaning they don’t do well at night and suffer from a lack of sharpness.

Quite late one night, Alakarhu, Eero Salmelin and other colleagues were struck by another method. If a big enough sensor could be fitted into the phone, the camera could just zoom digitally and throw away the unneeded pixels.

“We were aware that it is possible to do zooming by very high resolution image sensor, but the idea of putting such a large and high resolution image sensor into a smartphone felt completely crazy,” Alakarhu said. “That was five years ago, and I guess it still feels like that.”

That said, Nokia has done it with the 808 PureView — or Hyperion, as it was code-named during development.

As Alakarhu and colleagues showed AllThingsD the camera technology last week, they were practically bursting at the seams. After all, they had been working on the technology in secret for the last five years.

Part of the challenge now will be explaining to the consumer why anyone needs that many megapixels.

One of the key advantages is it lets you zoom in three or four times in either photos or video and still have a sharp image. The picture of the camera, here, for example, is taken from the same wide shot of the camera and its sensors. In videos, the technology allows one to zoom in close while still maintaining an HD resolution.

Another plus is that the camera uses so-called “oversampling” to shrink the image while still making use of the information in the large number of pixels. Nokia said it can create a better five-megapixel image by using the data in the seven extra pixels to inform which single pixel it uses.

To illustrate the imaging quality, Nokia’s development team has quietly been traveling the globe and taking pictures at the full resolution of the camera. From the shots, the team has created massive prints rivaling those from professional cameras.

Alakarhu was in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and wanted to get a few shots. But he was in a city filled with reporters and competitors.

To provide some cover, Alakarhu wrapped the phone in a thick rubber case to mask its design. Meanwhile, he tried to keep the phone literally close to his vest, lest anyone look too closely at the screen and notice things like a 41-megapixel resolution.

“I guess I felt a little bit like James Bond with a very special new gadget in a secret mission,” Alakarhu said. “It was fun, of course, even though I had to be very careful.”

One of the areas where Nokia is bound to be criticized — especially in North America — is the fact that it is bringing the camera technology first to its bound-for-extinction Symbian platform rather than to Windows Phone, which is its future. Nokia doesn’t even sell Symbian phones in the United States any more.

Developing the 808 for Symbian was necessary for a few reasons. First, as mentioned, Nokia has been working on this technology for five years and only gotten to know Windows Phone over the past year. Also, because it controls Symbian, it can craft the camera app and operating system fully to its liking.

That said, Nokia is promising the technology will eventually make its way to Windows Phone as well. It is not, however, giving a time frame.

In an interview, Nokia smartphone unit head Jo Harlow declined to say if the PureView technology would show up in Windows Phones this year, but said she is not worried about any technical hurdles involved in making the move.

“I’m not at all concerned about work that needs to be done to bring it to Windows Phone,” Harlow said.

For his part, Windows Phone head Terry Myerson said he is looking forward to the day when his wife stops carrying a high-end digital camera and uses a PureView-equipped Windows Phone instead.

Here’s a picture of part of the 808 team, also taken with the 808.

With Lumia 610, Nokia Aims to Take Windows Phone to a New Low (Price)

Ina Fried — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:20:51 +0000

As hard as Nokia has been working to improve upon Windows Phone, it has been working perhaps even harder to find ways to bring the phone further downmarket.

That’s because it badly needs models that can fill the spots occupied by its waning Symbian platform to sell in strongholds like China and Indonesia.

With the Lumia 610, introduced on Monday, Nokia is not only hitting the lowest price for a Windows Phone but also going into new languages.

“The expansion of the portfolio downwards in price points is obviously quite important,” Nokia VP Ilari Nurmi said in an interview last week at Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland.

The 610 is made possible in part by a new version of Windows Phone that has lower memory requirements, but also through lower-cost display and processor technology.

As a result, Nokia says it can sell the Lumia 610 for 189 euros unsubsidized ($252), roughly $100 less than it charges for the Lumia 710, and less than half the price of the Lumia 800.

Despite the cost-cutting moves, Nurmi insists that the core of the Windows Phone experience is preserved, something he said is not always the case with low-end Android phones.

It is true that its lower amount of memory means that not all Windows Phone apps will run, but Nurmi insisted that “a supermajority” of programs will run.

Nokia is also announcing global availability for the Lumia 900, announced for the U.S. with AT&T at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The global version of the device, however, will feature an HSPA+ modem, as opposed to the LTE one being used for the U.S.

Nokia's Strategy Comes Into Focus in Barcelona

Ina Fried — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 07:36:22 +0000

Nokia, which one year ago announced its plans to move to Windows Phones, is now looking to put more devices behind the strategy.

The company released its first Windows Phones — the mid-range Lumia 710 and upper mid-range Lumia 800 — last fall. At January’s Consumer Electronics Show it added the Lumia 900, a device bound for AT&T with a wider screen and support for high-speed LTE networks.

But the company has said it plans an even broader lineup, joining Microsoft in taking Windows Phone to new prices and new markets.

Nokia isn’t just doing Windows Phones, though, especially since the Microsoft-based devices still make up just a fraction of the overall units the company ships. Nokia sells millions and millions of its lower-end Series 40 devices, now sold under the Asha brand.
It also hasn’t given up on Symbian, the homegrown smartphone operating system it is moving away from.

8:37 am: Nokia CEO Steven Elop takes the stage, recapping what has happened in the last year.

“One year, what an incredible amount of things can happen in one year,” Elop said. “One year later it is very clear we have changed the clock speed of Nokia.”

8:41 am: Nokia is starting its introductions at the low end with its Asha feature phones. On stage is the head of that business, Mary McDowell, who promises three new devices.

Though not the sexiest part of Nokia, perhaps, it’s a huge business. Nokia has sold 1.5 billion Series 40 devices.

The new devices build on last year’s Asha phones and are a mix of touchscreen and non-touch devices as well as keyboard and non-keyboard.

8:47 am: The Asha 202 and 203 will come with 75 Euros worth of EA games (more than the cost of the phones).

The games won’t come preloaded, but can be downloaded any time in the first six months, with the goal being to get people in the habit of going to Nokia’s store and consuming data.

The keyboard-equipped Asha 302 has a 1GHz processor and can connect to Microsoft Exchange servers.

McDowell noted that until now she hadn’t been able to use one of her team’s own devices as a primary phone because it couldn’t sync with work email, contacts and calendars.

8:53 am: Elop is back talking Lumia, announcing that the Lumia 900 will be expanded beyond the U.S. In April, it will be available in Canada (Elop’s native country) on Rogers running on LTE.

And it will be sold globally in a non-LTE flavor, as well.

8:55 am: On the software side, Nokia is adding book-reading software as well as an updated release of Nokia’s Drive software, which adds offline features and an ability to set speed limits.

8:58 am: Microsoft Windows Phone unit head Terry Myerson is onstage announcing beta of Skype for Windows Phone now available for download.

There are now 65,000 apps for Windows Phone, Myerson added.

9:00 am: Myerson also announced Windows Phone has been made compatible with operator requirements in China, and Harlow says the company is bringing a range of Lumia phones to China in both CDMA and wideband-CDMA technologies.

Myerson also announced Windows Phone now works with phones with less memory and a less expensive Qualcomm chip.

Microsoft’s moves will allow it to reach 60 percent more people but maintain a great experience, Myerson said.

“With other platforms, lower prices have meant lower quality,” Myerson said.

9:02 am: Harlow announces the Lumia 610, a lower-end phone.

She also presented him with a custom Lumia 610 emblazoned with the Duke logo (Harlow and Myerson are both Blue Devil alums.)

“Go Duke,” Myerson said.

The 610 has a lower-end screen than the 800 but features sleek design and metallic edges aimed at a more youthful audience.

9:05 am: Nokia is also adding public transit info for 500 cities in 46 countries.

9:06 am: As for timing and pricing: The Lumia 610 is expected to arrive in Q2 and sell for 189 euros (unsubsidized) and come in white, cyan, magenta and black. The 900 will sell for 480 Euros unsubsidized and is also due next quarter.

9:07 am: Now she introduces Nokia 808 PureView, a Symbian phone with a remarkable new camera.

“You haven’t seen nothing yet,” Harlow said, announcing its 41-megapixel resolution.

Although Nokia is starting with a Symbian phone, Nokia plans to introduce the technology behind the PureView into several other products.

“This is only the beginning,” she said.

9:12 am: The 808 PureView also features a new “rich recording” capability designed to avoid the tinny distorted sound that often exists in cellphone videos, particularly in noisy settings.

“With this device we are setting new standards by whatever standard you use,” Harlow said.

The phone is due to go on sale in May for about 450 Euros unsubsidized.

“I’m looking forward to bringing you even more in the next year,” Harlow said.

9:16 am: Elop promises the company is investing in new technologies like augmented reality, commute-planning tools and indoor mapping.

Nokia is partnering with Groupon to bring details to consumers with its mapping service.

“It has been a very challenging year for Nokia and yet it has also been an amazing year for Nokia,” Elop said, but insists the company will continue to ramp up its clock speed.

With that, Elop wraps up.

9:23 am: There’s going to be a brief Q and A.

9:23 am: A natural first question: Why is Nokia bringing the PureView to Symbian rather than Windows Phone?

“It was important to us to be able to mature and commercialize the technology,” Harlow said. For more on how the PureView came to be, AllThingsD has an exclusive behind-the-scenes story that just went live. Harlow reiterates the technology will come to other devices, but offers no further details.

HTC Introduces the One Phone It Hopes Will Help It Regain Footing (Well, the Several Phones)

Ina Fried — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:21:08 +0000

Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC on Sunday announced the phone it is counting on to help it regain the rapid growth that has stalled out in recent quarters.

“You want a phone that is sleek and eyecatching, so that when you pull it out, your friends go, ‘Wow, what is that?’” CEO Peter Chou said, at an event in Barcelona. “Today, I am proud to introduce just such a phone — the HTC One.”

Chou noted that taking photos is the No. 2 thing people do with their phones (after making calls), and promised that the HTC One will be good enough to replace the standard camera.

“It is the one phone you will need,” Chou said. “It is the one camera you will need.”

The flagship HTC One X device will pack a 4.7-inch screen along with a quad-core Nvidia chip in most models, and a Qualcomm chip in its LTE variant.

“HTC One is a speed and performance beast,” Chou said.

Despite its name, the HTC One will come in different shapes and sizes, including a thinner HTC One S model with a 4.3-inch screen and the HTC One V, a model aimed at a broader mass-market audience.

AT&T will carry the HTC One X “in the coming months”; while T-Mobile said in a statement that it will be the U.S. launch partner for HTC One S this spring. Prices were not announced.

The phones will begin shipping globally around April, Chou said, with 150 carriers across the globe committed to carrying the device.

Chou said that the new phone boasts improved software and optics, and a custom image-processing chip. Among its camera bona fides, the HTC One X can take video and shoot pictures at the same time. Other features include improved low-light shooting, thanks to an f/2.0 lens and other abilities.

Among its features are the ability to take a picture within 0.7 seconds — the time it takes people to react to something they see. The camera can autofocus in 0.2 seconds, and can keep taking pictures as long as you hold down the shutter.

“You will not miss another shot,” Chou said. “You can keep them all, or pick a favorite.”

“It is literally faster than the blink of an eye,” he said.

HTC is also integrating Dropbox into its HTC Sense software, with 25 gigabytes of storage included for two years — enough to store 10,000 images, Chou said. He promised improved sound and music management, as well.

“Getting music on a phone is still hard for people,” he said. “HTC One makes it easy.”

Chou said that one only has to sync with their PC once; music will sync over Wi-Fi from then on.

Chou also drew a contrast between HTC and other companies like Samsung and Sony, noting that its Media Link software works with any brand, as opposed to rivals whose strategy focuses on direct ties with their own TVs.

Sony Aims to Remake Name for Itself in Phones

Ina Fried — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:08:44 +0000

Sony on Sunday tried to make the case that it has a place in the crowded market for Android phones.

The announcement event is the first major product introduction for Sony since it took full control of the cellphone business that it had run jointly with Sweden’s Ericsson. That deal officially closed 10 days ago.

Appearing at the event, newly minted Sony CEO Kaz Hirai said that revitalizing the mobile business is a key part of his effort to turn around the company.

“We will revitalize our product portfolio,” Hirai said, adding that the company is hard at work to make its mobile products and user interface compelling, in addition to leveraging the company’s strengths in digital imaging and games.

Many of the company’s new phones will be able to play PlayStation games, following in the footsteps of the initial Xperia Play device, according to Sony Mobile Communications CEO Bert Nordberg.

Nordberg announced two new phones, the unibody aluminum Xperia P and the compact Xperia U. The two devices join the Xperia S, which has just started shipping. The Xperia P is also the first phone with a new WhiteMagic display technology, designed for better viewing in direct sunlight.

The Xperia P also features near field communications technology. Both the Xperia P and Xperia U will start shipping next quarter, Sony said.

The company also plans to bring its first Sony-branded phone, the Xperia Ion, to markets beyond the U.S.; Sony had already announced the device for AT&T at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Sony promised it will significantly up its marketing budget this year, including its largest ad campaign in some time.

LG Shows Its Hand in Barcelona (After Already Tipping It)

Ina Fried — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 13:57:32 +0000

After announcing a ton of devices last week, there wasn’t much room for surprise by the time LG made it to Barcelona.

The company introduced four devices last week, as well as plans for a new design theme. However, the company is using the show to display the just-introduced devices, plus three other phones that are part of a new-look design for the company.

Those devices — L3, L5 and L7 — are similar in design, but with different screen sizes and going after different parts of the market, from low-end to midrange. The L3 will sbhip this quarter and runs on the Gingerbread version of Android; the L5 and L7 run Ice Cream Sandwich and are due out next quarter.

Along with those devices, LG has a range of high-end models, including a new 3-D phone with a wider viewing angle; a quad-core phone; and the LG Optimus Vu, with its ginormous screen. Or, as LG likes to put it, a device that is “four times smaller than an ordinary tablet.”

The moves come as LG is trying to deal with increasingly tough competition in the mobile space, particularly among Android makers.

Here’s a picture of the Optimus Vu, by the way, held next to a Nokia Lumia 800:

With Latest Galaxy, Samsung Looks to Project Its Android Lead

Ina Fried — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:36:06 +0000

Taking away yet another potential niche for competitors, Samsung on Sunday offered up a beefed-up version of its projector-packing Galaxy Beam device.

The Android phone uses the built-in projector to turn a blank wall into a giant display — up to 50 inches. It’s an update to a product of the same name introduced back in 2010.

It’s one of the signs we see from Samsung and rivals like LG. Amid an increasingly competitive Android market, device makers are offering smartphones in every conceivable shape and size in an attempt to stand out. It will be interesting to watch how this strategy plays out this year.

In addition to the new Galaxy Beam, Samsung also introduced an updated version of its 7-inch and 10-inch Galaxy Tabs. The company also updated two existing phones last week, the Galaxy Mini 2 and Galaxy Ace 2.

Unlike past years, Samsung isn’t having a big press conference of its own, but it has unveiled several phones over the last couple of weeks. The company had already said it won’t use Mobile World Congress to show off the successor to its flagship Galaxy S II, though it is expected to debut later in the first half of the year.

As for the Galaxy Beam, Samsung says it has a chance to succeed where past projector phones have failed to catch on, because it is thinner and doesn’t make compromises on phone quality.

“We wanted to stress the fact it’s a projector, but we wanted to stress the fact it is a phone first,” said Will Bin, Samsung’s manager of smartphone product strategy, in a briefing with reporters.

The device is due to ship in the second quarter, though no pricing was announced. The company did pare back the memory a bit and use a lower-end ST Ericsson processor, likely to help compensate for the cost of the projector.

Update: Meanwhile, judging by the giant posters at the Fira Palace hotel, I’m thinking that the rumored 10-inch Galaxy Note is also real.

Barcelona Subway Strike Averted on Eve of Mobile World Congress

Ina Fried — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 15:25:59 +0000

It looks like a logistical nightmare at the world’s largest cellphone event has been avoided.

The GSMA, which puts on Mobile World Congress, announced on Saturday that its worst fear has been avoided — a threatened subway strike has been averted. The move comes just hours before the start of the Barcelona event, which runs Monday through Thursday.

“The metro workers from TMB have announced that they have reached agreement with the government and have voted overwhelmingly not to strike,” the association said in a statement. “The metro system will operate as normal during the GSMA Mobile World Congress.”

There is still the possibility of a bus strike, the GSMA noted, and unfortunately, the city’s many pickpockets are unlikely to be on strike. However, now the attendees can all focus on the main point of the show — complaining about cell signals and Wi-Fi.

AllThingsD is on the ground and set to have tons of coverage, starting with the many press conferences on Sunday.

LG Keeps the Pre-Barcelona Announcements Coming, This Time With Quad-Core Phone

Ina Fried — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:26:41 +0000

Clearly looking to beat the Mobile World Congress onslaught, LG Mobile announced its fourth phone of the week, this time the quad-core LG Optimus 4X HD.

In addition to the 1.5GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 chip, the Optimus 4X boasts a 4.7-inch screen, an 8 megapixel camera and the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android. Pricing and availability were not announced.

The Optimus 4X is the latest pre-Barcelona announcement from LG, which has also announced a new 3-D phone, an NFC-equipped device, and a 5-inch device that fits into the emerging “phablet” category. LG has also promised a new look for its phones, which have been struggling amid fierce competition in the Android business.

LG is having a press conference at Mobile World Congress, but it’s not clear if there will be any new devices left to announce.

From the Land of Angry Birds, Nokia and Linus Torvalds

Ina Fried — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:14:21 +0000

Once again, AllThingsD is taking a roundabout path to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Last year, we made a stop in London to hear Nokia announce its big tie-up with Microsoft.

This year, we’ve traveled to Nokia’s home country, Finland, to see how that partnership is going and to get a closer look at a company that remains one of the biggest players in mobile, despite its recent struggles.

Also on the itinerary, another notable mobile company: Angry Birds maker Rovio. Like Nokia, Rovio is based just outside Helsinki, in Espoo. Unlike Nokia, Rovio has been on a rapid growth track, thanks to those unflappable birds.

We’ll have plenty in the coming days from our visits to both companies.

But it hasn’t been all work and no play. In just the first two days, we have also managed to visit the site of the 1952 Olympics, sip coffee at a cafe whose tables and chairs are controlled remotely over the Internet, and take a ferry through icy waters to see a fortress that was originally designed to protect the Swedish from the Russians.