Mobile World Congress 2010: Part 1

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) is an annual event held in Barcelona.  It started way back in 1987 and has subsequently become THE BIGGEST mobile event in the world.  Handset manufacturers and application developers all wait for this occasion to announce their next big innovation to the world.  In 2010, MWC was as exciting as ever.

Here are the blonde’s take outs on this year’s highlights:

Microsoft:

After many months (if not years, yawn!) of slipping in the mobile space, Microsoft finally announced that they are releasing a new version of their mobile application called Windows Mobile 7.  (You have got to hand it to these guys for creativity when it comes to naming conventions!)

Good points: they could show what hardware it would run on (by demonstrating a pretty looking HTC) but couldn’t REALLY show the software – we wonder how that helps.  However, the Internet has images a plenty and here are some looky-loo’s at what they anticipate launching.  (Speaking of launch, well – that’s tricky because there is no actual launch date but they say it’s coming in 2010….)

According to Endgadget Mobile, this is what is could look like…

Nokia and Intel:

In South Africa, we’re still waiting for the Nokia N900 (due any day now) which boasts the NEW Nokia operating system called Maemo 5.  This Linux based operating system is supposed to be every geek’s dream (well, to be honest it has me salivating – I want one!). But get this, Nokia and Intel announced a partnership where Intel’s mobile operating system Moblin (short for mobile-linux; as I say engineers are BRILLIANT at naming things – NOT!) will be merging with Nokia’s operating system Maemo 5 to form a whole NEW open source operating system called – now this is really going to blow your mind – MeeGo! Bet you just fell off your seat there. Nah, nor did I.   More information can be found here: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/mobileworld2010/intel-nokia/index.htm

DoCoMo:

DoCoMo demonstrated a concept for making mobile phone from scrap wood that they get from trees cut down to protect Japan’s forests.  Here are some mock ups of what they could look like. (Blonde says no!)

DoCoMo also demonstrated eye-controlled headphones.  I kid you not; you can change tracks, increase or decrease volume by simply looking up or down, left or right.