Bluetooth-over-UWB delayed

Reports coming out of the London open house for Bluetooth technology say the specification for a Bluetooth-over-UWB technology that was set to launch in Q1 of next year will be delayed until October 2007. Mike Foley, chairman of the SIG, said that products are now due by the end of 2008. Foley called the standard “high-speed Bluetooth,” and it will be marketed under the Bluetooth name. Despite referring to Bluetooth as an umbrella that includes many technologies, Foley did not refer to Nokia’s recently announced “Wibree” technology by name in his presentation. Reportedly, he said SIG had not yet decided whether it would adopt the technology, or develop its own low-power Bluetooth spec, which counters some emails Fierce has received after calling Wibree a possible competitor to Bluetooth. The jury is still out, apparently.

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Amp’d, Obopay launch as planned

After announcing their partnership back in July, Amp’d and Obopay are now rolling out their mobile payments service, which will enable the MVNO’s subscribers to send money from their handset to any other handset and receive money from any Obopay user. The service also comes with a prepaid debit MasterCard that lets users conduct retail transactions at most stores and ATMs in the U.S. using their Obopay account funds. Users will also be able to refer friends, check balances, get money owed from other mobile users and view transaction histories. No word yet on whether parents need to sign up for a hip, teen-targeted Amp’d Mobile service contract to be able to top off their kids’ Obopay accounts.

Sling Media teams up with Symbian

Looks like Engadget had it right a few weeks ago, and Sling was just being conservative: Sling Media has partnered with Symbian to add Sling’s place-shifting technology to Symbian OS-powered smartphones for select European countries and Asian countries during Q4 with the U.S. to follow thereafter. Expect Palm to announce a similar deal soon.

Currently SlingPlayer Mobile software is only available in the U.S. and Canada, however, working with an OS developer to fully integrate the software will go a long way toward driving adoption of Sling’s revolutionary product. Sling will enable Symbian OS users to remotely control their PVRs and stream their home television service to their smartphone as long as it has a connection to a 3G cellular or WiFi network. Terrestrial TV, Freeview, cable and satellite TV services can all be ported via Sling’s setup.

Interestingly, the biggest Symbian user, Nokia, teamed with Orb Networks last week to integrate Orb MyCasting into the Nokia N80 Internet Edition to enable users to remotely access the same type of applications.

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Japan’s DoCoMo unveils 14 mobile phones

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo on Thursday unveiled 14 cell phones, following new-model launches by its rivals KDDI and Softbank last month. DoCoMo, the country’s No. 1 wireless operator, will launch the new models gradually from mid-October, said Takeshi Natsuno, director of DoCoMo’s multimedia services.

DoCoMo’s new phones, made by top Japanese manufacturers such as NEC, Matsushita Electric Industrial and Sharp, are equipped with a range of functions such as GPS (Global Positioning System) and high-speed connectivity. Three of the models offer digital-TV services, and two are compatible with DoCoMo’s new HSDPA high-speed network. Five of the phones can also play music downloaded from Napster Japan’s music distribution service that began this month.

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Mobile search fever continues: Nokia, Ask.com

Ask.com is launching an ad-free, search box-free mobile search service powered by Skweezer technology, which streamlines the Internet and adapts it for the mobile phone–sort of like dotMobi but without all the hassle. Ask.com’s service is a departure from rivals like Google and Yahoo which depend on the ad revenue as a prime source of revenue generation. The elimination of the search box is questionable, but Ask.com claims that using navigation shortcuts like directions, business listings, maps and weather reduce the frustration for mobile users. I’m guessing that typing is the primary concern.

In a separate announcement, Nokia said it has added three more local directory partners for its mobile search service: De Gule Sider in Denmark, Suchen.de and DasOertliche in Germany and Yellow Pages Group in Canada. Nokia also confirmed that it had acquired gate5, a provider of mapping, routing and navigation. Most expect the deal to bring GPS tie-ins to the mobile search service moving forward. The Nokia mobile search application is available on Nokia N-Series devices and also offered as a free download for select Nokia S60 devices.

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Palm unveils ‘friendly’ Treo 680

NEW YORK–Palm is hoping that its new Treo 680 will be embraced by a far bigger crowd than the Wall Street and IT set.

Unveiling the latest addition to the Treo family at the DigitalLife trade show here, Palm CEO Ed Colligan spoke about the company’s aim to reach beyond buyers who are typically associated with personal digital assistants (PDAs) like the Treo and RIM’s BlackBerry.

Colligan described the new 680, a GSM quad-band device, as “a friendly and approachable product” that he hopes will expand Palm’s scope into new demographics as well as new geographic regions throughout the world. And while the 680 has all of its earlier Treo brethren’s aptitudes with business software, the new model is clearly marketed toward a consumer market.

It’s packed with new features and tie-ins to appeal to the more entertainment-oriented, media-savvy customer–an increasingly important target buyer for many gadget manufacturers these days. The Treo 680 comes with new picture and video software, and a camera with video recording capabilities. For music lovers, there’s Pocket Tunes software for listening to MP3s, and the handset facilitates streaming audio, Internet radio, and podcasts.

Palm has partnered with several familiar media companies, like Yahoo and blogging company Six Apart, maker of TypePad. The audience at the DigitalLife press conference seemed to be most impressed by the tie-in with Google Maps’ traffic mashups.

The new Treo is physically simpler than its bulkier predecessors. The external antenna has been eliminated, and the skinny handset–just over 2 centimeters thick–has a simpler button interface. It’s got a smaller battery, but Colligan assured naysayers that it will have the same battery life as earlier Treo models: 2 to 4 hours of talk time and 100 hours on standby. The location of the SIM card is different, too; it’s now underneath the battery.

Style mavens will be interested to know that the Treo 680 will come in four colors: crimson, copper, arctic, and graphite, or to the less artsy, red, orange, white, and silver.

Colligan declined to provide specific pricing information, but insisted that the Treo 680 will be priced competitively for a handheld of its functionality and capability.

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Mobiles in hospitals debate coming to a close?

One of the many ongoing debates in the wireless industry is whether mobile phones belong in the hospital, since some claim the wireless signals could cause interference with some hospital equipment. After a lull in the debate, a lack of hard evidence in support of the interference claims recently convinced the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to change its advice to lawmakers, but others say new concerns like patients’ privacy in the midst of all those cameraphones may be the next battle for hospitals and the anti-mobile crowd.

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Mobile viruses aren’t on rise.

Last week I asked whether the recent report from Kaspersky Labs about the rise of Symbian OS-based mobile viruses was all hype or not. A few readers wrote in to take sides, here were two of the more provocative perspectives:

The fact that Symantec and other AV companies are the only ones that do PRs every 6 months or so about mobile viruses, while you never hear about it from the user end makes you suspect that this is a non-existent problem being puffed up by AV companies to hopefully prime a new market and may be even in hope of attracting the attention of hackers to divert some of their energies to mobile phones so that they can sell some more AV software. -Anonymous

Actually Brian, this is true–I have witnessed it first hand in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait where most people carry two cell phones and using Bluetooth for file (photo/trivia) exchange is very common.  Viruses, specifically for Symbian-based phones are rampant.  Our Sales Executive there had to get his phone back to the workshop to get it fixed after a Bluetooth virus got to his phone.  And recently, I have noticed that phone stores are starting to get laptops to re-flash phones in the event of such happenings… -Husam Kinawi, President, WirelessEdge Canada

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Cingular expands voice-enabled mobile search.

Cingular inked a deal with Tellme Networks for its voice recognition software, which the carrier will use to power an enhanced 411 service to offer Internet-style searches in addition to traditional telephone directory information. The new service will enable Cingular subscribers to ask questions regarding local movie times as well as driving directions. Tellme can deliver the service as either text-to-speech or as an SMS. “Speaking is faster than typing and looking is faster than listening,” said Jeff Kunins, VP for product management at Tellme.

Tellme is a major provider for automated directory services for carriers, but the rise of mobile content has generated a parallel demand for mobile search services. Tellme claims to handle 2 billion directory calls a year. Tellme powered AT&T Wireless’ information services beginning in 2001–Cingular bought AT&T Wireless last year.

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