“Today’s announcement that SK Telecom will be bringing its first LiMo compliant handset to market is a significant milestone in the ongoing global growth and adoption of LiMo technologies,” said Morgan Gillis, Executive Director of LiMo Foundation. “LiMo’s global operators are committed to providing highly compelling and customized LiMo devices to their mobile subscribers – this initial handset from Samsung and SKT demonstrates the rapid maturation and opportunity within the LiMo ecosystem.”

The Samsung SCH-M510 is a rich media device with support for various audio and video media types and features a 3.5” WVGA AMOLED screen and a 5 megapixel autofocus camera. This handset also features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and also includes support for proximity, accelerometer and ambient light sensors.

LiMo Foundation was launched in January 2007 by mobile industry leaders to provide the mobile industry with an open, consistent Mobile Linux-based handset OS, enabling the development of immersive, next-generation mobile consumer experiences. LiMo’s membership includes mobile industry leaders from around the world, including OEMs, technology developers, and 13 global network operators that collectively represent nearly a billion mobile subscribers.

Samsung H1 / Samsung M1

The Vodafone 360 service is automatically backed up and synchronised, regularly and wirelessly, between the mobile and PC or Mac. All contacts updates, emails, photos and conversation history or settings changes made either at home or when on the move are saved, keeping all the content up-to-date.

“Vodafone 360 is the first service of its kind to offer customers the benefits of a truly integrated mobile internet experience that gathers all their contacts and content, all around them, in one place,” said Pieter Knook, Director of Internet Services at Vodafone Group.

At launch four Nokia Symbian smartphones will come pre-loaded with Vodafone 360 and part or all of the service will be downloadable to over one hundred popular phones. In the coming months Vodafone will be making the service available through as wide a selection of handsets and operating systems from multiple manufacturers as possible.

The 2009 launch in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK will be followed by launches in a number of other countries in 2010, including India, Turkey, South Africa, New Zealand and Romania and in France through SFR. through MTS in Russia, and through Vodafone Hutchison Australia.

[via slashgear]

a Moorestown prototype

“Moorestown” is the codename for Intel’s second-generation MID platform, which consists of a System on Chip (codenamed “Lincroft”) that integrates a 45nm Intel Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller. The platform also includes an input/output (I/O) hub, codenamed “Langwell,” that includes a range of I/O blocks and supports wireless solutions.

Intel’s “Moorestown”-based MIDs are expected to reduce idle power consumption by a factor of greater than 10 versus today’s Intel Atom processor-based MIDs. Additionally, the Moorestown platform will be accompanied by a newer Moblin software version, Moblin v2.0, that is based on the Linux operating system. This software is designed specifically to deliver a great PC-like Internet experience while also supporting cell phone voice capabilities. The “Moorestown” platform is expected to come to market by 2010.

In order to offer a variety of network connections and Internet access, LG is also working with Ericsson to bring 3G network capability to its planned MID. This is an extension of the existing collaboration between the companies. LG has been supplying notebooks and netbooks with mobile broadband modules from Ericsson since the third quarter of 2008.

ABI Research vice president Stuart Carlaw notes that, “Clever choice of public license support, along with software engineering that isolates proprietary items from open source items, allows operating system vendors to generate revenue from a very cost-effective OS solution.” He goes on to add that, “Linux OS solutions will be far more cost-effective than incumbent solutions, even when silicon requirements are taken into account, given that a fuller application layer will be included in the standard package and that the burden of customization falls mostly on the independent software vendor.”

A new ABI Research study has found that Linux solutions will be at the center of the drive to bring more content-rich environments to users who currently utilize mid-tier devices. More importantly, it looks increasingly likely that mobile Linux solutions will be an important building block in enabling an application domain that embraces Web-based applications and blended Web/native applications.

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