Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, has announced the sale of its enterprise mobile TV unit to Wipro, an India-based corporation that operates in the areas of information technology, consumer care, lighting, engineering and healthcare.
The Mobile Broadcast Solutions unit employed around 40 professionals who developed software and hardware to enable mobile TV technology to locate and access data from a broadcasting network.
“We wanted to focus on the consumer side of things, the mobile TV client in the devices, rather than on the business-to-business side,” said a Nokia spokesman. While a few years ago it seemed that mobile television and on-demand video would be the holy grail for mobile phones, the technology has since arrived with very little interest from the public.
Result for: mobile tv
European Union commissioners have decided on a mobile TV broadcast standard and has now asked that its member governments ask their respective Cell phone carries to favor it.
The standard, DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, was chosen over rivals MediaFLO and DMB which were favored by South Korean and Chinese manufacturers. DVB-H is the most widely used standard in Europe currently.
Nokia,,Motorola, Philips, Sagem, Sony, Ericsson, Samsung,Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile all support DVB-H, but MediaFLO is supported by the largest carriers in the US, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
“They can do that by labeling, they can do that by promoting it in attributing licenses and so on,” said EU spokesman Martin Selmayr.
Despite the choice, the impact is Limited. EU nations are under no obligation to choose a standard based on the decision of the commission.
Result for: mobile tv
Panasonic has announced that it plans to incorporate brand new, miniature plasma displays in cellphones and other small media devices.
The low-voltage plasma technology will be used in phones using AT&T’s “Mobile TV” service which will “provide full-length television content and sporting events from major US channels, due to launch in May.”
At a press event in the States, Mark Balsama, national marketing manager for Panasonic said: “I have a very exciting announcement to make…”
“For nearly a decade, Panasonic’s engineers have been secretly working on a thin, lightweight low-voltage compact Plasma display … We will be able to incorporate miniature plasma displays into both consumer and business telephone products starting this fall. They will rival OLED displays for brightness, contrast and thinness, and can be manufactured for much less money.”
“We’ll be able to put plasma in Cell phones, business phones, consumer phones, corded phones, cordless phones, and even door intercom monitors and fax machines. We will revolutionise the consumer electronics business, as Panasonic has done many times before.”
Additionally, Robert A. Perry, the new senior VP of Panasonic added: “Our plasma expertise and our large-scale, efficient manufacturing will allow these new small Panasonic plasma screens to replace LCDs in many applications - gasoline pumps, automated teller machines, camera viewfinders, MP3 players, vending machines, automotive displays, digital photo frames, appliance touch screens and even the little pop-up screens on printers”.
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