From Bollywood and Hollywood to iPhone lovers and haters
Another week of mobile phone gizmos and services on Pocket Picks
In the week that brought us both card manufacturer's day Valentine's Day and the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, it's fitting that it's been an emotionally charged time of new unions and disagreements in the world of mobile phones.
There have been alliances formed between Sky and Motorola , LG and Yahoo and Nokia and YouTube. Not only that, but it seems that the movie industry has also been enjoying a blossoming relationship with mobile phones. Hungama Mobile made its intentions to bring Bollywood hits to mobile phones apparent at 3GSM, where the 'Sundance Film Festival Global Short Film Project' also enjoyed some welcome publicity. The short films from the festival are available for download now.
The iPhone has also enjoyed its share of affections lately, evidenced by some indiscrete comments from EA, some gushing comments from Vodafone's Arun Sarin, and some weighty rumours about a possible paring between BMW and the iPhone. In other iPhone news there has been a sustained stream of handset manufacturers moaning about the as-yet-unreleased device, with LG throwing a half-hearted 'they copied us' accusation, and Samsung chiming in with a chorus of 'we can do touch screen too' for good measure.
Those not jumping on the touchscreen iPhone baiting wagon have been shouting about Mobile TV, with fresh offerings from Nokia, Samsung and Sagem, while on the software side a slew of new programs were announced, including the Star Trek-esque Ichi Navi person locator, a new child internet filter from Yahoo, internet radio from Nikkei for Japanese 3G users, a SpinVox text to speech programme for Vodafone users and the Vista Drivers for Windows Mobile.
Besides all of that there was news that ringtones ruin romance (duh), though concerned Romeo's and fretful Juliet's can take solace in the health benefits provided by mobile phones. To top it all off there has been evidence of some terrific advances in the 'getting rid of that cumbersome and unsightly mobile charger' field. Moxia has released the USB battery and an Apple patent details some space age 'induction charging'.
So there you have it, that's what is know as 'an extremely busy mobile week' in the Pocket Gamer offices (if only because there is barely any jargon left in the pot these days).