MobileNest

Nokia is in the forefront of a new initiative to turn mobile phones into wallets. The goal of the mobile wallet plan is to create technology, which will allow users to wave their phone as a wallet or access card over a wireless reader with capability to enter an identification PIN into the phone.

“After several fragmented initiatives, the mobile phone industry is now uniting around a single approach to enabling the mobile phone to be used, instead of cash or plastic credit card, at point of sale,” said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association, the global trade association for mobile phone operators.

In Japan, where the technology was already available for a while, 12.6 million users already use electronic wallets.

To make this technology available a new wireless chip needs to be embedded into the phone. Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Nokia are going to start embedding the chip into their phones.

MasterCard is the first credit card company that is involved in the initiative. The mobile wallet solution is more attractive than other wireless solutions (SMS text messages, etc.), because it is cheaper and faster.

Motorola reported a loss of $181 million during its first quarter. According to company’s report, the price wars in emerging markets and Europe where the major factor in the loss.

The net loss of $181 contrasts the last Q1 profit of 686 million dollars.

Handset sales were reduced by 31 percent, to 45.4 million handsets, compared with 65.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Motorola’s share of the overall market dropped to 17.5 percent, from 23.3 percent.

“The performance at our mobile device business in the first quarter was unacceptable, and we are committed to restoring it to profitability and positive cash flow” said Motorola’s chairman and chief executive, Edward J. Zander.

To fuel its profits Motorola needs to launch a new model similar to its high-value product similar to the all-metal Razr phone, its top seller.

Handset sales dropped 31 percent in the quarter, to 45.4 million handsets, compared with 65.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Its share of the overall market dropped to 17.5 percent, from 23.3 percent.

Mr. Zander said the company focus is reduction of operating expenses and jobs. The job cuts are expected to fall in the neighborhood of 3,500 jobs by the end of this quarter, which equates to $400 million a year cost reduction.

Verizon Wireless has launched its second MediaFLO mobile TV handset, the LG VX9400.

There is a major buzz about mobile TV at the CTIA conference.

The LG VX9400 is designed to work with V Cast TV avaialble only in selected markets, but market exposure is expected to increase swifly. Users will definetly enjoy watching mobile TV on the landscape orientation of the swiveled screen, the latest breakthrough in mobile entertainment technology.

“The LG VX9400 is yet another benchmark in a long line of firsts for LG Mobile Phones,” said Juno Cho, president of LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc. “V CAST Mobile TV is truly groundbreaking in mobile phone technology, and we are proud to be among the first manufacturers to support this service that will change the way we use mobile devices forever.”

Other features of the LG VX9400:

• QVGA screen with 262k colors
• Resolution: 1280 x 960, 640 x 480 (default), 320 x 240, 176 x 144, 160 x 120 pixels
• Video Resolution: 320 x 240, 176 x 144 (default) pixels
• EV-DO 3G data
• Bluetooth with A2DP stereo support
• 1.3 megapixel camera with flash and camcorder
• microSD card slot

The LG VX9400 is available for $199.99 with a 2-year contract.

Microsoft Corp. late Wednesday announced a mobile Web browser aimed at making surfing the Internet on wireless devices as convenient and feature-rich as browsing on a PC.

Code-named Deepfish, is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Microsoft will close access to Deepfish once downloads reach a “magic” number.

Microsoft unveiled Deepfish at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego. Live Labs is Microsoft’s research division aimed at developing new Web-based services to help the company compete with Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

According to Microsoft, most available mobile browsers use a single-column format that reformats existing pages by repositioning content to fit the limited screen size. As a result, the initial page layout is distorted and the user is forced to scroll a lot to get all of the content.

Deepfish uses a zoom in and out feature to view parts of the page interested to the user. This approach preserves the original design allowing the user to view only the part of the page the user is interested in.

LG Electronics and Google announced a global collaboration to pre-install Google’s services on millions of LG mobile phones. The new partnership will make searching for information, finding locations, updating blogs, and managing email available to the users on the move.

“Building on our efforts to set new standards for wireless handsets, we are excited to partner with Google to offer extra value to consumers with enhanced mobile Internet experiences,” said Mr. Paul Bae, Vice President of the Product Planning Team at LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “LG’s mobile devices, combined with Google, will provide consumers with easy access to their favorite Internet services even without a PC and make it easy for them to stay connected while in motion.”

“We’re pleased to work with LG to make it easier than ever for mobile internet users to have powerful applications and personalized information at their fingertips,” said Deep Nishar, director of product management, Google. “Users around the world now have more options for accessing information while on-the-go through search and Gmail. With applications like Blogger, users are now free to express themselves from wherever they are in the world.”

Through this new partnership, LG and Google will jointly market LG-Google handsets, with further expectation to build the means to extend their collaboration to develop digitalized home in the future.

LG plans to begin global shipping of the pre-installed handsets in the second quarter of 2007 to North America, Europe and Asia.

LG announced a new handset, the LG CU500v. The new unit has a cool clamshell design and has the following multimedia features:

• rotating 1.3 megapixel camera
• 3D stereo sound
• wireless video-conferencing

Users can send pre-recorded and live video to their friends while talking on the CU500v phone. The LG CU500v will be available on AT&T.