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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It may look very similar to the Xperia X10 Mini, but the Xperia X10 Mini pro has one key trump card up its sleeve: a slide-out, full QWERTY keyboard.

Sure, at smaller than the phone's 2.55 inch screen it isn't the biggest keyboard we've seen, but it will likely come in handy when Tweeting and texting.

Other than that it's very similar to its X10 siblings; you've got a 5 megapxiel camrea, GPS, Geo-tagging, the UX interface, 3.5 mm headphone jack and the TimeScape feed organiser.

Rikko Sakaguchi, EVP and Chief Creation Officer, Sony Ericsson. "With the X10 mini and X10 mini pro we have pushed the boundaries of what is possible with smaller devices and are giving consumers exactly what they want; two high performance mobile phones with a fully customisable user experience platform and a stunning ultra-compact design."

The Xperia X10 Mini pro will be available from Q2 of this year.

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While Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 could hardly be called chunky, its makers have just announced the release of the Xperia X10 Mini, a credit-card sized smartphone that features almost exactly the same functionality as its bigger brother.

Featuring a re-skinned and fully customisable Android OS, the Mini also features four screen-corner customisable hotspots, which can be used to quickly jump from application to application with just a single press, using just one hand.

As well as the TimeSpace app, which collects together all your email, messaging and social network feeds into one place, there's also a 5 megapixel camera onboard.

"There has been an enormous buzz around Xperia™ X10 so it is really exciting to be already unveiling compact versions of this powerful proposition." Said Rikko Sakaguchi, EVP and Chief Creation Officer, Sony Ericsson.

The Xperia X10 Mini should be hitting shops in Q2 of this year.

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Sony Ericsson have announced a new model in their Vivaz range, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro, which adds a full QWERTY slider into the mix.

Featuring a 3.2 inch 16:9 touchscreen, the Vivaz Pro also features 720p video recording which can be uploaded straight to soial networks and YouTube, but loses the 8 megapixel still camera, instead dropping down to a 5 megapixel offering.

Sony Ericsson are also pushing the Symbian phone's design quite heavily, describing its "human curvature" to be more ergonomic in the hand. Though to be fair, whilst very slick, its 109 x 52 x 15 mm frame doesn't look unlike anything we've seen before.

Twitter, Facebook and Google Maps apps all come pre-loaded, with a range of games and downloads available through the PlayNow portal.

Expect to see the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro in stores by the spring.

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