Motorola Inc, the world’s third biggest mobile phone maker, on Sunday unveiled two new phones and a plan to buy Asian digital music service Soundbuzz as it looks to stem recent market share losses. Motorola unveiled the Rokr E8 music phone which, when switched on, is controlled by virtual buttons that vibrate when touched. When switched off, it has no visible control keys. The device also highlights and enables different buttons depending on whether the music player, phone or camera is being used. The company also announced the Moto Z10, a videophone with editing capability and enough storage space for 24 hours of footage in an effort to appeal to young consumers who like to share videos with their friends. Motorola has been under pressure to come up with new phone designs as it has been losing mobile phone market share to rivals such as Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in the past year.

And it has come under criticism for failing to come up with a strong successor to its Razr phone. It also faces competition from Apple Inc, which entered the cell phone market with its iPhone in June. Stu Reed, the head of Motorola’s cell phone unit, said the latest phones were part of the company’s plan to come out with new products frequently to build a broad phone range. “We want to sell a broad portfolio. We don’t want to be dependent on one phone ever again. We’re not about one phone,” Reed said in an interview at Motorola’s product launch event on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Evidence that mobile phones can interfere with vital intensive care equipment has been strengthened.More than half the hospital ventilators tested by Dutch researchers stopped working properly when a mobile was switched on nearby.

The government has said current bans on the use of mobile phones in hospitals can be relaxed. But the Critical Care journal study suggests it would be folly to do this in high dependency areas. A total of 61 different medical devices were tested, and the majority could be affected by the presence of a mobile.

In particular, nine intensive care ventilators were checked, and seven of these could be “influenced” by mobiles. Of these, six were described by the researchers as “hazardous”, involving a direct physical influence on the patient. Critical care monitors were also vulnerable, with seven out of 13 disrupted by mobile signals, while three out of seven syringe pumps were affected. Other devices which suffered problems were dialysis machines, external pacemaker machines, feeding pumps and even air humidifiers.

Close range threat “3G” mobiles were less likely to cause problems compared with second generation mobiles, and while, on average, the mobile had to be only a few centimetres away to interfere with the device, one “hazardous” incident happened at a distance of three metres. The researchers wrote: “The policy to keep mobile phones one metre from the critical care bedside seems warranted.”

T-Mobile USA has gobbled up SunCom Wireless, looking to expand the country’s fourth-leading cell phone network into Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the heart of the Southeastern United States. You know, the former confederacy.T-Mobile, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, will pay $1.6bn in cash for the regional wireless carrier and assume $800m in company debt.Spanning North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia as well as parts of the Caribbean, SunCom’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE network has provided roaming service for T-Mobile users since 2004, but T-Mobile now wants to merge the network with its own.

“The strategic fit of the SunCom operations will make this a near-perfect acquisition,” said Robert Dotson, T-Mobile president and chief executive officer, as you’d expect him to say. “It will round out our domestic footprint, allowing us to serve 98 of the top 100 markets, and will significantly benefit our financial position by reducing roaming expense. But our favorite quote comes from René Obermann, chairman of the Board of Management at Deutsche Telekom: “With the acquisition of SunCom, we will continue to implement our strategy to ‘grow abroad with mobile’, which is part of our overall group strategy,” he said. “At the same time we can realize significant synergies on the cost side and improve our market presence.

As a result, this acquisition will fit very well with our strategy to grow abroad with mobile primarily within our current footprint within the context of market consolidation.”

With a sleek stainless steel design, the Nokia 6301 phone launched today is not only stylish, but offers consumers seamless voice and data mobility across GSM cellular and WLAN networks via Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology. The Nokia 6301 phone uses UMA technology to integrate the benefits of landline and a mobile phone, including seamless indoor coverage, sound quality and affordability.”The convergence of mobile and fixed/land-line technologies means consumers are looking for products that can help make their lives easier,” said Peter Ropke, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia. “With the Nokia 6301 utilizing UMA technology, worldwide triband GSM coverage is combined with superior indoor WLAN coverage to create a device that people can use in virtually any situation. With UMA technology, the consumer can use the GSM network or a broadband Internet-connected WLAN network for mobile services.

This can ensure excellent indoor coverage both at office and home. The consumer can have one multi-mode handset that works everywhere with enhanced and easy-to-use voice services. And, WLAN/UMA provides excellent coverage and sound quality, even in areas where mobile phone reception has previously been poor. With UMA technology, the Nokia 6301 benefits operators as well, allowing them to deliver voice and data services to subscribers over WLAN, substantially increasing mobile service availability while decreasing the costs related to network deployment.

Orange will be one of the first operators to offer the Nokia 6301, as part of its Unik/Unique portfolio.Yves Maitre, Senior Vice President, Devices, Orange said “The Nokia 6301 is a stylish new addition to our Unik range of converged fixed and mobile phones. Orange’s Unik offer brings together the convenience of a single phone and tariff at home and on the move and the widest range of UMA handsets. The Nokia 6301, with its sleek candy bar design and attractive stainless steel exterior adds to the appeal of Unik for Orange customers.”The Nokia 6301 is an evolution of the modern monoblock design. Weighing a mere 93 grams and measuring less than 13.1mm thin, the Nokia 6301 is constructed of quality materials.

To accompany the UMA technology, the Nokia 6301 also offers consumers a modern suite of features, including a 2 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom and full screen viewfinder. Ideal for home and office, the Nokia 6301 comes with an attractive desk stand, the Nokia Desk Stand DT-23, to hold the phone and keep its battery charged while connected to WLAN. The clean lines and recessed buttons of the Nokia 6301 are highlighted by a stainless steel frame with hand-hugging curves. In addition, the Nokia 6301 includes:
- 2-inch QVGA screen
- USB/PC Synchronization
- Internal user memory of 30MB and 128MB in-box microSD card, with support for up to 4GB microSD cards
- Voice dialing, voice commands and voice recording
- MP3 player, FM radio
- Integrated hands-free speaker

The Nokia 6301 has a talk-time of up to 3.5 hours and a standby time of up to 14 days. The Nokia 6301 is expected to begin shipping to select markets in Europe during the fourth quarter of 2007 with an estimated retail price of 230 euros before subsidies or taxes.

Nokia and Gameloft today announced Asphalt: Urban GT for the N-Gage platform. Asphalt: Urban GTTM brings the thrill of high-speed racing in locations from around the world with licensed dream cars that players can customize for performance and looks. With its amazing 3D graphics and fast frame rate, Asphalt: Urban GT offers a true high-speed experience with the possibility to race against others via Bluetooth wireless technology. “Asphalt: Urban GT is the first dream car racing game for the N-Gage platform and it delivers fantastic graphics and high-powered performance,” says Pasi Pölönen, Director of Games Publishing, Nokia. “Asphalt: Urban GT lets you race your customized Lamborghini down the Champs-Elysée in Paris - a thrilling experience!”
“We think this is an excellent fit to the N-Gage platform,” says Julien Fournials, VP Production of Gameloft..

” In addition to the very rich and crisp 3D graphics, the platforms allows a fast frame rate to enhance the sports cars driving experience”Players compete to earn money so that they can buy their favorite dream cars and unlock racing tracks from around the world. With the possibility to customize car through visual and performance tuning, players can create their own racing dream car. Asphalt: Urban GT offers wireless local multiplayer gaming for up to four players with several different racing modes.

A new CDMA 2000 1X network from ZTE has gone live in Indonesia. The network offers voice, high-speed data and value added services, as well as a smooth evolution to 3G network.The new network already covers a 500,000-line first phase development for the country’s largest city, Jakarta, and other developed areas. It is the latest success with this technology for ZTE, which has supplied more than 15 million lines of CDMA across more than 30 countries.“Indonesia has a large population and a communications-hungry society and we are very proud to have been chosen to meet this need,” said Mr. Ding Ming Feng, Vice President of ZTE Corporation.“The network gives our customer the very latest mobile capabilities: the comfort of an easy move to 3G and the ability to reduce operation expenditure, add new subscribers and increase benefits.”ZTE, China’s largest listed telecommunications equipment provider, has a full package of proprietary CDMA products, and is capable of delivering solutions for various commercial applications.

As the top Chinese CDMA brand, ZTE’s CDMA communication system can operate at various frequency bands: 450M, 800M, 1.9G and 2.1G. ZTE has recently launched new products and value-added services, including CDMA products on an all-IP platform for 3G, a CDMA-based radio digital trunking communication system (GOTA), an encryption communication system, the CDMA 1X system, the GSM 1X system, and a CDMA 2000 1X EV-DO system. ZTE’s CDMA products on an all-IP platform for 3G are characterised by industry-leading performance, with the highest integration, the largest capacity and the most flexible networking configurations. Earlier this year, ZTE launched the first GSM 1X technology based gateway solution product: ZXC10-FLR/AUC, which allows mobile communication subscribers to roam between the GSM and CDMA networks.

The product has already been put into commercial applications by a number of carriers in the construction of the GSM and CDMA commercial office gateways. ZTE has been awarded CDMA projects by carriers from around the world, including India, Indonesia, Russia and Egypt. This recognizes ZTE’s experience in network construction, unique tailored solutions, outstanding equipment performance and excellent services.This is ZTE’s latest success in Indonesia. Only last month it announced that it was to provide one of the worlds most advanced access network systems in a contract with the national carrier Telkom. Under the contract, ZTE will provide a ZXA10 system to help build the NGN-DLC (Digital Loop Carrier) network in Jakarta and neighbouring areas. The finished network will offer users broadband and narrowband integrated services such as POTS, ISDN, ADSL, SHDSL and HDSL, thus improving the country’s access service capability.