At 3GSM this year, Microsoft launched PlayReady, its new ‘content access’ technology for mobile content, including music, video, games, ringtones and wallpapers. In essence, it’s extending Microsoft’s existing Windows Media DRM system to mobile, and expanding it beyond music and video.

I sat down with Microsoft’s Jim Alkove at 3GSM last week to find out more, starting with the basic overview.

What’s PlayReady about, in a nutshell?

Basically it’s a content access technology that supports different business models, like subscriptions, rentals, purchases, pay-per-view and preview, for a wide variety of content types well beyond music and video.

The technology will support an array of operator partners, including Bouygues Telecom, Telefonica, O2, Cingular and Verizon. And it’s available on a platform-agnostic basis, meaning it can be put in a wide range of devices, including operating systems other than Windows Mobile 6.

It will be available in the first half of this year for device implementations, and we expect we’ll start to see volumes of handsets coming through sometime in 2008. So that’s the high-level framing of what we’re announcing.

Phew. As ever, 3GSM was tiring both physically and mentally, with a barrage of new products and companies, plus an enormous venue to walk around. Honestly, if we believed in wearing pedometers, they'd have exploded by Tuesday.

So now the Shiny team is back in Blighty, what did we learn from this year's 3GSM? It's a chance to spot the hottest new mobile phones and technology, as well as suss out the most important mobile trends for the next 12 months. Here's our main thoughts.

1. There was no big theme this year

3GSM 2006 saw immense hype around mobile TV, with companies queuing up to proclaim it the Next Big Thing in mobile entertainment. The fact that it's since disappointed means that the lack of a single big hype this year isn't necessarily a bad thing. There was lots of buzz, but spread around a bunch of subjects, which is a healthier state of affairs.

Us Brits will soon be able to access MySpace on our phones – well, we will if we're on Vodafone, anyway, as the two companies have signed an exclusive deal. But is it that important that MySpace launches a mobile version?

Apparently so. Alex Kummermann of mobile social networking firm Clicmobile reckons that it's essential to MySpace's continued survival. "Big social networks are like mushrooms: they grow very fast, but they die very fast too," he tells Techspace.

There are plenty of people out there geotagging their photos (uploading info on the location they were taking) already, but it takes a bit of knowledge. However, mobile application ShoZu has just added a feature that automatically geotags your photos and videos before uploading them to Flickr, YouTube and various other Web 2.0 services.

You need a GPS-enabled phone like the Nokia N95 to use it, mind, to get an accurate latitude and longitude for where you captured the photo or video clip. For Flickr users, the application will also automatically add your geotagged photos to your Flickr map.

(via Techscape)

So much for the mobile industry's attempts to persuade everyone to download music to their phones. According to Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr, it's not working very well.

"It's expensive, it's complicated and it's slow," he told a panel audience at 3GSM this week. "It's amazing we've generated as much revenue as we have given how cumbersome the experience can be." He also pointed out that even buying a ringtone from your operator can often require up to 20 key-presses. The solution? iPhone. Well, kind of.

"Before it's even hit the market it has raised the bar in terms of what users expect with a user interface and what music phones should do," he said. "Now it's up to other mobile phone makers to meet users' expectations. "For those who invent with a similarly inspiring vision, the opportunity is immense."

(via Yahoo News)

One of the hot stories in mobile games at 3GSM was the public unveiling of Transformers, the official game of the upcoming movie.

If you're yet to be convinced by the joys of playing games on your phone, how about one where you control Optimus Prime himself, switching between robot and truck modes at will?

The game is due out in late June or early July, just before the film hits the big screen.

(via Pocket Gamer)

Few of the mobile social networking companies at 3GSM are offering users prizes for being attractive. One who is, though, is FunkySexyCool, an Australian mobile community with over 200,000 users posting profiles and voting on one another's purdyness. The company just signed a deal with a company called Hands-On Mobile to bring it to the UK.

Hands-On has also announced its own YouTube-beater, a mobile service called Phame TV that lets users upload video clips from their mobile, and then get a cut when other users download them for 20p a pop. Find out more about both FunkySexyCool and Phame TV over on Techscape's interview with Hands-On's Eric Hobson.

The big handset manufacturers aren't just focused on music, TV and signing deals with trendy fashion houses to get some free Prada gear, y'know. Really.

On its stand at 3GSM, Motorola was showing off its new mobile blogging application. It'll sit on a range of Moto phones from later this year, allowing you to automatically upload photos and video to various blogging/photo-sharing/video sites.

In that sense, it's similar to the ShoZu application that's been around for a while now. But at least Motorola is making its application work with a range of different services, which contrasts with Nokia and Sony Ericsson's strategy of signing individual deals with, say, Flickr, Blogger and Vox.

Read more over on Techscape.

Can YouTube be a big hit on mobile phones? The company signed a deal with Vodafone last week, but some industry rivals aren't so sure.

One is Yospace CTO David Springall. The company runs the See Me TV and Look At Me mobile video-sharing services for 3 and O2 respectively, and recently got bought by Emap to bring its skills to that company's magazines and radio/TV channels. Will YouTube face a challenge in making itself mobile?

"The trouble with the big internet players is they don't understand mobile very well," he says. "It’s considered simply as a technical issue of getting content onto the phone, but it’s far more than that. Also, these big guys have a different view on what the business model is for mobile, as opposed to the operators. Potentially, what's in YouTube's interests is very different to what's in Vodafone's interest."

Read more about Springall's views on mobile user-generated content at Techscape's interview from 3GSM.

To see some of the properly futuristic stuff at 3GSM, you have to seek out the technology companies. On its stand, NVIDIA was running a bunch of demos, including one showing a next-generation mobile interface, powered by its GoForce 5500 chipset.

The demo shows a mobile screen switching between video, photos and gaming with all manner of spangly visual effects. How soon will this sort of UI make its way into handsets you can actually buy? That's down to the mobile makers to sort out.

The mobile phone industry has gathered in Barcelona to show off the best of their wares, and Shiny Media is right in the heart of the action. Not only are we blogging about new phones as and when we learn of them, but we're also using our mobiles to audioblog - we speak, and the nifty converter types, so you can hear the uncensored thoughts of the Shiny Media Massive. Represent.

Top Stories

The top five phones of 3GSM
Samsung's phone line up - Ultra Edition II, card phones and more
Microsoft and Vodafone to launch Instant Messaging service for mobiles and PC
Polymer Vision’s Readius rollable e-book display
HTC launches Advantage (X7500) and P3350 mobile devices
Toshiba launches G900 and E01 smartphones
HTC launches Vox/S710 - smartphone with full QWERTY keyboard
Vodafone first to launch BlackBerry 8800
Garmin unveils GPS add-on for BlackBerry devices
Motorola unveils MOTOSLVR L9 multimedia handset
Nokia launches three new Eseries models - E90 Communicator, Nokia E65, and Nokia E61i
Motorola's MOTORIZR Z8 - "fit-to-face" entertainment slider phone
Nokia N77 mobile TV phone
Nokia 3110 classic 'dad phone'

Video

Samsung's F500 multimedia phone
Samsung's D840
BlackBerry's 8800
Samsung's U100 Size 0 mobile phone
Samsung F300 music phone
Samsung's F700 Smartphone
Samsung WiMAX Ultra Mobile PC
Motorola KRZR K3
LG Prada phone (part one)
Motorola SLVR L9
Motorola RIZR Z8
A first look at the LG Prada phone

3GSM Live on Spin-My-Blog

3GSM Morning roundup
Nokia at 3GSM: E61i
New Motorolas at 3GSM
Samsung WiMAX at 3GSM
Samsung steal the show at 3GSM
BlackBerry 8800, live from 3GSM
UK mobile TV a lost dream?

All the Tech Digest 3GSM coverage. Shiny Media do 3GSM Live.

I've just been working my way through the Tech Digest mobile phone archives and realised that the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot K800 camera phone was unveiled on 28th February 2006. And with mobile handsets coming and going so fast, it's surprising to see the K800 voted Best 3GSM Handset at the GSM Association's Global Mobile Awards 2007.

Launched last year, the K800 was the first Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot camera phone, featuring a 3.2 megapixel camera on a 3G mobile handset. See our preview of the handset for the full specifications. Since launch, it's shifted 4.5 million units, as well as being used by James Bond in the Casino Royale movie.

Our new friends at Polymer Vision should be in fine spirits this morning since they just picked up a Best in Show award at 3GSM 2007. The futuristic rollable Readius display saw off stiff competition to win ‘The most innovative in Technology Development’ category.

Check out our interview with Polymer Vision’s Edzer Huitema here and our hands-on preview with the Readius here.

Bendy screens – they are the future according to Polymer Vision. And they could potentially spell an end all that papery nonsense. Imagine a world where you can pull full sized screens out of your mobile phone like you’re unravelling an ancient scroll. Shiny Susi explains:

Susi takes a look at two consumer orientated handsets from HTC. First up is the P3350 sporting an FM radio, microSD slot, MP3 player and BlackBerry Pearl-a-like trackwheel. Then there’s the S710 which sneakily disguises a slide-out QWERTY keyboard beneath its innocent candybar exterior. Both are due out in Q2.

This is the extremely smart, ultra-mobile, HTC Advantage – not to be mistaken with a UMPC because, y’know, it actually has a keyboard. It also has Wi-Fi and HSPDA connectivity and will be selling for around a thousand Euros when it launches in Q2. Susi tells us all about it:

Well, there's another hour or so of the majority of the Shiny Massive's (Susi, Ashley and Stu) time here at 3GSM (although Hard Core Stu is staying on for more mobile fun); just time enough for a quick reflection on our own personal Top Five Best Things What We've Seen. There's a noteable absence of certain big players, but we've looked deep into our souls and decided that's just the way it is.

1. LG Prada
Susi was very over-excited to get herhands on the LG Prada phone yesterday, and was not only not disappointed, but positively surprised at just how luxurious it was. The touch screen is a sleek black and white, and navigating it is a doddle. In actual life, I'll be interested to see how easy it is to text, but as an aspirational handset, it's a winner. Check out the video here.

One of the best, although some cynical bloggers would also say one of the worst, things about Samsung is they always launch so many phones. 3GSM has been no different with around a dozen or so new handsets taking their bow. The downside of this is that some times some phones get lost in the rush.

So to keep things simple here's a quick trawl through the best of the new Samsung breed, along with our comments and, when appropriate, links to videos.

Samsung F700 - In our books this the one to watch for. Samsung has delivered a large touch screen phone (it has a 2.78 inch display) with its own pull out QWERTY keypad for when you need to do some proper work. Other than its screen it has very impressive looking five mega pixel camera, complete with auto focus, a decent looking web browser and the souped up version of HSDPA which in theory can run up to seven Mbps. The only downside is that you'll have to wait until Q3 before you can get your mitts on one.

Watch video here

More news from the 3GSM, this time from Microsoft and Vodafone, who have announced they are working together on an enhanced and co-branded Instant Messaging service.

The idea is to make the service seamless - accessed from both the PC and mobile phone. It will be based on the Windows Live Messenger platform and should allow you to access your address book and contacts on whatever platform you are using, with an indication of whether your friends are online on their PC or phone. According to the joint statement, it will be launched in "select European markets" later this year.

HTC have announced that they have signed a deal to provide Windows Mobile 6 devices for their BT Fusion service. The VoIP service allows you to make calls over WiFi when you're in the range of your house, switching to a mobile signal when you fall outside the range, with no break in service.

The first handset to come as a result of this agreement will be the S650, which was introduced in the second half of last year. Windows Mobile 6 enables users to take advantage of Windows Live as well as full HTML emails. It's also significantly faster than previous versions. The full product will be available through BT in the second quarter of the year.