Here's one of the crazier items we've seen come out of Mobile World Congress this week, the Texas Instruments OMAP4 Blaze prototype.

At first glance it looks like an oversized Blackberry, what with its curved shape and bottom set keyboard. But there is way more to it than that. Featuring dual screens, it can run Android on one, whilst streaming TV on the other, all while projecting video at the same time too.

The fun doesn't stop there though, as the OMAP4 Blaze prototype can also record and playback 1080p HD video, process 20 MP images, output stereoscopic 3D and features gesture recognition too.

Sadly, it's unlikely we'll ever see this chunky bit of kit hit shops: the prototype has been put together to show off the potential for Texas Instruments' newly-built OMAP4 system. Lower spec OMAP4 chips will be hitting Android smartphones in the near future, but the prototype does offer an exciting glimpse at what a super-charged dual-screen smartphone could be capable of.

Via: Electric Pig

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Got a spare £100 lying around? If you do, you could soon be able to pick up T-Mobile's budget Android phone, the Pulse Mini, and still get change.

Retailing for just £99.99 on Pay-As-You-Go tariffs, the Pulse Mini is a shrunken T-Mobile Pulse, featuring a 3.2 MP camera with LED flash, a 2.8 inch resistive toucshcreen and throwing in a 3.5mm headphone jack compared to the 2.5mm offering originally found on Mr Pulse Snr.

It's not exactly a jaw-dropping phone in this day and age. Its 106x57x14mm dimensions are a bit on the chubby side, while 300MB of on board memory is hardly anything to write home about.

Still, you'll be hard pressed to find Android 2.1 anywhere else on such a tight budget.

The Pulse Mini will be hitting shops in April.

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Ever worry about letting your credit card go walkies in a restaurant with Chip and Pin devices? All that may be set to change thanks to new technology from ARM who are looking to turn your mobile phone into a payment device.

Users would wave their handsets over a reader which would deduct money accordingly, a concept familiar to any who have used London's Oyster Card transport payment system. ARM insist that the technology would include all the security protocols currently used by Chip and Pin devices, so losing your phone may not necessarily mean your finances are open to abuse.

"One of the greatest concerns with the current system is that you have to trust the device you are using hasn't been compromised," an ARM spokesperson told Pocket-lint. "With this system you'll be using your own device."

The company believe the technology could be widely used in as little as five years time.

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Facebook has announced that it will be releasing a text-only, low bandwidth version of their social network called Facebook Zero, designed specifically with mobile phones in mind.

It should please users and network operators alike; Facebookers get a super-fast version to browse if they're trying to take it easy on their data usage, while bandwidth is freed up for network providers.

Over 100 million people access Facebook from their mobiles, according to Facebook, with the GSM Association noting that 2.2 billion minutes were spent browsing the network in December from mobile handsets alone.

The Facebook Zero site has already gone live (http://zero.facebook.com) though it cannot be used until network providers take it up.

Should help alleviate the pain of stumbling across embarrassing "pictures from the night before" online though.

Via: BBC

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A wave of change is on its way at Google HQ, if their MWC 2010 keynote speech is anything to go by. According to CEO Eric Schmidt, mobile software will be taking precedence over PC software in Google's roadmap.

"The phone is your alter ego," Schmidt said. "It doesn't think as well as we do, but it has a better memory. It has a better notion of where we are, and can take pictures. This really gives us an opportunity. It's time to get behind this. What I would suggest now is that the new rule is 'mobile first'. Mobile first in everything."

As well as demoing new translation tools, Schmidt revealed that the mobile gamble was beginning to pay off, with over 60,000 Android packing smartphones selling every day.

"The job here is to create magic, and put that all together in ways that make people think 'oh my god, how did I live without this before'" he continued.

This shift in focus will see Google software début on mobile platforms before desktop PCs "At Google our programmers are working on things mobile first," Schmidt confirmed. "Of course we'll have a desktop version, a high quality version, because our customers love them, but we'll also have one on mobile phones. The top programmers want to work on those programs; it's more human, more personal, more satisfying to them."

It certainly sounds a risky venture, but the quality of the Android OS means that Google's mad-cap plan may yet prove a success.

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Day two of Barcelona's Mobile World Congress is drawing to a close. Here's the round up of today's biggest stories, including HTC's latest range of smartphones and Orange's plans for crystal-clear mobile calls.

HTC Legend gets UK release date, but US will have to wait
Who'd have thought it? A window of UK exclusivity on a HTC flagship phone

HTC HD2 's little brother, the HTC HD mini launched
Small in size, big on smarts

HTC Bravo becomes the HTC Desire
I prefer the Bravo name, but you cant complain about a phone that looks this good

Puma Phone unleashed
Prepare for a marathon chat with this smartphone

Orange to trial HD voice calls in the UK
No more robot-voice on the blower if Orange have anything to do with it

Samsung reveal world's first LTE Netbook
4G mobile boradband on the way

Symbian^3 to be rolled out before the end of Q1
Symbian's transition to open-source begins to bear fruit

LG Mini GD880 gets officially unveiled
A feature-rich...er...featurephone, with cloud computing capabilities

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It's been knocking around the web for a little while now, but the LG Mini GD880 made its official début at Mobile World Congress today.

For a featurephone, it crams a lot in: there's a 5 MP camera, Wi-Fi, 7.2 Mbps, HSDPA and an FM tuner. It's a tiny little mobile too, weighing in at just 99 grams and measuring just a svelte 106mm in depth.

LG's Air Sync is also really pretty neat sounding; a form of cloud computing so far unique to their smartphones, LG's Air Sync allow a user to access their PC's web history and some basic information stored therein, as well as remotely backing up your phones data should it become lost or stolen. Air Sync seems to keep you constantly connected to your desktop, no matter where you are.

"We live in an information-oriented society with vast amounts of data and content scattered all over the place. Because of this, one of the major battles in the future mobile market is likely to be in the data management technology industry, focusing on seamless access among different devices," said Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. "We have developed the LG Mini, which offers technological integration with its unique LG Air Sync service, in response to this trend."

Though prices are yet to be confirmed, the LG Mini will be rolling out across Europe in March.

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Symbian^3, the first fully open source release for the mobile platform will be "feature complete" by the end of Q1 2010, according to the Symbian Foundation, meaning that phones running the new operating system may be available sooner than first anticipated.

So far the transition to open-source seems to have bared tasty mobile fruit: Symbian will now include radio and music store integration, multi-touch, numerous widget pages and instances as well as 1080p output.

Better system resource management will improve multi-tasking capabilities on handsets running the new version of Symbian, while hardware acceleration will greatly improve the quality of games available.

Lee M. Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, said that "S^3 is another huge milestone in the evolution of our platform. Now that it is fully open source, the door is open to individual contributors, device creators and third-party developer companies".

Symbian's move to an open-source model puts it into direct competition with Google's Android. It'll be interesting to see what fresh developers can bring to the Symbian mix.

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Samsung has unveiled what they claim is the world's first set of LTE netbooks.

LTE technology is the latest step towards super-fast mobile broadband, and is being dubbed as 4G connectivity.

The Kalmia LTE modem chipset will, according to Samsung "deliver high speed, low latency and ubiquitous connectivity to all users who require high-volume data access whenever they want and wherever they are."

Rather than putting them into brand new netbooks straight away, Samsung are instead testing the water with the chips inside the previously launched N150, NB30 and N220 models.

Samsung have also launched an LTE dongle called the GT-B3710.

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While HD displays are usually top of the agenda at tech shows, Orange are focussing on HD sound at this week's MWC 2010. Orange are set to trial HD voice calling in the UK, which they believe will give unparalleled levels of clarity to mobile conversations and "create a much closer feeling of proximity between both parties, almost as if callers are actually in the same room".

Everyone at some point has struggled with a garbled or crackly line, but Orange believe the new tech they are testing will usher in "a new era for mobile communications".

The UK, three-month trials will begin in the spring and trials will spread across Europe, with France, Spain and Luxembourg confirmed as other testing grounds.

It's great news if it proves a success, though I do get a little chuckle every once in a while when a handset makes my pals sound like a Transformer.

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The Puma Phone, designed to encourage an active lifestyle, has been revealed at MWC 2010.

The Sagem-built phone packs a solar panel onto its back for outdoor charging in the sunshine, a 2.8 inch touchscreen, GPS tracker, stopwatch, pedometer and a 3.2 megapixel camera. There's also an FM tuner for marathon runs.

"Just as PUMA is unlike any other sportlifestyle company out there, the PUMA PHONE is unlike any mobile phone on the market," said Jochen Zeitz, CEO of PUMA.  "We want to engage with our community in a way that is consistent with everything PUMA stands for. Blending together the influences of sport, lifestyle and fashion, the PUMA PHONE reflects the joy, spontaneity and individuality that the PUMA brand is known for."

The Puma Phone will hit shops in April.

Here's a list of key specs from the Puma Phone:

- Integrated solar cell, with charge indicator
- Touchscreen 2.8 inch thumbable screen with 240 x 320 QVGA resolution and TFT wide viewing angle
- Camera: 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash and x6 zoom; Bluetooth photo sharing
- Video: VGA video call camera; full screen video playback, with video recording and streaming and progressive video download
- Music:  wide range of music formats with playlist support and FM radio
- Localisation: GPS, compass, geotagging, routing and mapping
- Sports: pedometer, GPS tracker and stopwatch
- Internet: Open internet browsing, with WAP Push
- Messaging: Mobile email client and mobile web mail notification; instant messaging; MMS and SMS
- HSPA and W-CDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM connectivity; Bluetooth; USB 2.0
- Talk time up to 5 hours with 350 hours stand-by time; video call time 140 minutes; music player time 24 hours; video player time 5 hours
- Tablet form factor; 115g weight and dimensions of 102mm x 56mm x 13mm

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The rumoured HTC Bravo handset has been revealed and it's now strutting its stuff under the new HTC Desire name.

The Desire is basically a HTC branded version of Google's Nexus One, which HTC themselves had a hand in designing. In terms of hardware differences there are new tactile buttons near the bottom of the handset, with the trackball replaced by an optical version.

But the main difference lies in the re-skinning of the Android 2.1 OS. In the Desire you have the excellent Sense UI, powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, and new interface tweaks such as the "Helicopter View" homescreens and social network aggregator FriendStream.

It's all displayed on a slick OLED screen, measuring up at 3.7 inches.

This one will be hitting stores in Q2, with a guesstimated price of around £480.

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The HTC HD2 was one of last year's most sought after handsets, with its brilliant display and slick touchscreen interface. With the HTC HD Mini, you get all the same features of the HTC HD2 squeezed down into a more pocket-friendly size.

As with the HTC HD2, the HD Mini has a great screen. A 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen, it's multi-touch enabled with a HVGA resolution.

In a nice touch, the HTC HD Mini can be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing all your wireless devices to share its 3G signal, a HTC/WinMo exclusive feature. There's also a "Manner Mode" which scales back the phones ringing tone when you pick up the handset, which will be welcome if you're partial to a bit of Crazy-Frog silliness.

Finally, there's a 5 megapixel camera on-board, but sadly no room for a flash.

It's looking good, a truly bite-sized version of the HTC HD2. More news on this one as we get it.

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HTC's Legend handset has gotten its official reveal at MWC 2010. It's a beauty, but while Brits only have to wait till April to get their mitts on one, there is no release date set for US buyers.

The Legend is made from a single piece of aluminium, with the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G antennas hidden behind a strip of black plastic. It's a refinement over the HTC Hero design, with a weaker "chin" and a MacBook-like build.

The screen is a super-clear AMOLED affair, and there is also a 5 megapixel camera with flash on the underside.

A decent trackball sits aside four hardware buttons, while the Sense UI has been given quite the once-over. Running the latest Android Eclair 2.1, multi-touch is now on-board. This allows the homescreen to be pinched to reveal a sort of overhead view of each of the Android's six other homescreens. It's more intuitive than the Nexus One's user interface, and is a welcome addition.

The FriendStream widget and app is HTC's attempt at social network aggregation, and it's looking pretty robust. Streams from Flickr, Facebook and Twitter can all be pulled together in one place, and again, it's a welcome, intuitive feature.

It's unusual for no US release date to be set yet for the handset, but it's welcome news to hear that the UK seems to be getting at least a short window of exclusivity for a change.

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Day 1 of Mobile World Congress 2010 has come to a close. Here's the first of our daily round-ups of the event, which today includes the official unveiling of Windows Mobile 7 and a smattering of new Sony Ericsson handsets in the Xperia range.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro gets the full QWERTY treatment
Great for texters and tweeters, with 720p video recording to boot.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini credit-card sized smartphone revealed
Super-slick, and only bested by the X10 Mini pro and Samsung Wave for "wow" factor today

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini pro packs in a tiny QWERTY slider
One of the smallest QWERTY sliders we've ever seen

First bada handset revealed as the Samsung Wave
And mighty impressive it's Super AMOLED screen is too

Nokia and Intel team up for new MeeGo mobile OS
Open source OS is set to replace Maemo and Moblin

Microsoft press conference reveals WinMo 7
A drastic shake up for the PC giants mobile platform, and all the better for it

LG and Dolby bring 5.1 surround to smartphones
Lots of potential for making home cinema a more portable affair

Acer Liquid e smartphone announced
Sadly still running the Snapdragon processor at an underclocked 768MHz

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Acer have been planning on releasing a whole load of new Android phones in 2010 and, true to their word, the Liquid e smartphone has just popped up at MWC 2010.

Basically an update to the Acer Liquid, improvements include the use of Android 2.1 over Android 1.6. There's also a 3.5 inch WVGA display, 5 MP autofocus camera, GPS, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

But why-oh-why run the very capable Snapdragon processor at a mere 768MHz? The Liquid was a very nice phone, but the main bugbear was its underclocked processor. Surely this updated handset should have set using the Snapdragon to its full potential as its number one priority?

No news on pricing or release dates yet, but we'll keep you posted.

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LG and Dolby linked up at MWC 2010 today for the first public demonstration of their new 5.1 multichannel surround sound technology for smartphones.

"As a leader in the mobile industry, LG is devoted to delivering the best new features to our customers for a better user experience. Today's announcement represents the latest milestone in joint efforts to improve the performance of our handsets, including feature phones and smartphones," said Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. "Together with Dolby, we hope to raise the bar for audio quality in mobile devices and the mobile industry as a whole." 

If the technology proves a success, it could further increase the popularity of movies downloaded to smartphones. Imagine a smartphone that could both output HD video and 5.1 surround sound to your flatscreen set-up? You could have a major part of your home cinema kit sitting right inside your pocket.

"We are pleased to be working with LG to showcase the latest Dolby innovations for mobile on an LG Android-based smartphone," said Ramzi Haidamus, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Dolby Laboratories. "Dolby Mobile expands the possibilities of mobile entertainment, allowing people to enjoy richer, more cinema-like audio experiences on the go."
 
According to an LG press release, LG's partnership with Dolby has lead to 20 handsets either made or waiting in the wings with high-end audio tech built in.

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The Microsoft 2010 press conference has revealed the WinMo 7 OS, just as expected. What wasn't perhaps so expected was just how drastically different it was to previous Windows Mobile offerings.

"This really is about the phones and how consumers will react to these devices." said Steve Ballmer.

And so gone from the homescreen is the Start Menu and shortcuts; WinMo 7 instead uses Live Tiles. These tiles can update content from the web automatically on your homescreen, allowing instant access to social networking streams from friends, web photo albums or your email. Windows Live and Facebook integration are in, too.

Multi-touch finally rears its head on Windows phones. Ditch those styluses and start pinch zooming away then with Windows 7. Microsoft's UIs in the past have been pretty dire when it comes to touchscreen devices. Looks like that's all been tidied up nicely.

Each Windows 7 phone built will require a physical button tied to Microsoft's Bing search engine, a pretty bold statement of intent aimed at attracting traffic away from main competitor Google. Qualcomm, Dell, LG, Samsung, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba are all partnered up to produce Windows Mobile 7-enabled hardware.

The Bing search tool will be tied into what it considers the most relevant information for a mobile user. For instance, a Microsoft rep at the conference searched for "sushi", and rather than listing a definition of what sushi is, it instead listed all the local sushi restaurants nearby, with reviews and contact details needed for booking all shown.

Zune will be thrown into the mix too as a dedicated media player/store that will act much the same as iTunes does.

Other new additions are "Hubs". These act as specific homepages for particular groups of content such as photos, music, people, games and video. Content isn't limited to what's stored locally on your phone either, with images and songs from the cloud available too.

Finally making an appearance is Xbox Live integration. You can check gamerscores, profiles, send messages and get key gaming info on your phone. Though they've yet to be announced, you can bet your bottom dollar that mobile games tied to Xbox Live accounts are on the cards.

Windows Mobile 7 will be landing by Christmas of 2010. Let the countdown begin.

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At the centre of Nokia and Intel's joint MWC 2010 press conference this morning was the news that the two companies are to team up to deliver a brand new mobile operating system. Called MeeGo, the new OS replaces Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin systems.

It's not limited just to phones however; the plan is for MeeGo to migrate onto internet tablets, internet connected TVs, sat navs and low-power Intel netbooks too.

Though Maemo will be fairly rapidly phased out, Nokia's developers will be guided through the process of porting their apps to the new OS. Likewise, Intel are making all Moblin apps forward compatible for the new platform.

"Maemo will merge into MeeGo with no delays" Kai Oistamo said, revealing that apps bought on one MeeGo device will be able to migrate onto new Meego gear at no extra cost. "We're not operating in a walled garden," Oistamo said, a certain knock towards Apple's stringent policies.

For more info, visit MeeGo.com.

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The first bada handset has officially been unveiled as the Samsung Wave, and it's looking pretty special indeed.

Most striking is the Wave's 3.3inch Super AMOLED screen, running at WVGA resolution and using an imaging engine more commonly found in Samsung's LCD and LED TV range.

Sporting a 1GHz processor, the Wave uses the TouchWiz 3.0 UI, which now features Social Hub, a social media aggregator that pulls feeds from Yahoo, MSN, Twitter Facebook and Myspace all into one place. The UI is pretty customisable too, so you can tweak this one to your hearts content.

There's also DivX / Xvid support onboard and 720p video recording, as well as access to the soon-to-be-launched Samsung Apps store.

"We're delighted and extremely excited about the launch of Samsung Wave - the first handset to run on the Samsung bada platform and the first to feature a stunning Super AMOLED screen," says Samsung UK's Mark Mitchinson.

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