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Mobile World Congress Day 2: Phones!

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Asus-Garmin, which launched two new phones at Mobile World Congress, had a symbolic display in its booth - one that focuses on the driving navigation aspect that has become part of most smart phones today.

Asus-Garmin, which launched two new phones at Mobile World Congress, had a symbolic display in its booth - one that focuses on the driving navigation aspect that has become part of most smart phones today.  Asus-Garmin's Nuvifone A50 is a new Android 1.6 phone, with customization, namely multi-touch, ActiveSync for Exchange, Garmin and Google Maps, geotagging of photos. The company says it will be upgradeable to the new version of Android. It will be available in Europe during the first half of 2010.  The Asus-Garmin Nuvifone A50 runs the Garmin mapping software.  Asus-Garmin's Nuvifone M10 is its Windows Mobile (6.5.3) phone, introduced at Mobile World Congress. It shares many of the features of the A50.  Samsung introduced the Wave at Mobile World Congress. This handset runs Samsung's own Bada operating system, and its 3.3-inch Super AMOLED display is state-of-the-art: truly spectacular. US availability is unknown.  Many of the big handset makers have huge stands at Mobile World Congress. It's like a party within a trade show booth.  Sony-Ericsson always has a flashy booth somewhere in Hall 8 of Mobile World Congress. And it's always packed.  The Sony-Ericsson Vivaz was primarily a camera, with smart phone capabilities. The company has amped it up with the newest version, running on the Symbian S60 OS, and sporting an 8.1 megapixel camera (the Pro version, which adds a slide-out QWERTY keyboard comes in with a 5.1 megapixel camera) with autofocus, and shoots video in 720p (high definition).  Sony-Ericsson's Vivaz now uses Micro SD cards.  Sony-Ericsson introduced the Xperia Mini (it also comes in a Pro edition, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard). This sports a user interface with customized quick-app access from the four corners of the screen, and several other nifty UI enhancements. It has a 5 megapixel camera, shoots video and has a 2.6-inch screen. It will be available in some markets in early Summer, but US deployment is unknown.  The Sony-Ericsson Xperia Mini and Mini Pro are smaller than a credit card.  Acer's Android and Windows Mobile phones are fairly plain and simple. One innovation on the E400 is the Acer Lighting Behavior, which shows a phone button green if there's a message, for example. Acer introduced two Android consumer phones, the E400 and the E110, and also the P300 which is a   Acer's Liquid is the company's slickest new phone. It runs Android 1.6 (upgradeable when 2.1 arrives) and has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera.  Acer teamed up with Ferrari on this NetBook device. I guess it's for those who want to make a statement about ... Something.  NTT Docomo showed off concept headphones. They look like ordinary headphones, but these can detect ocular movements, which can, in turn, control the the music device they are attached to.  An NTT Docomo researcher shows headphones that can make music play, skip to the next song, increase or decrease the volume ... All completely hands free.  NTT Docomo's eye-controlled headphones -- note the chart at left which depicts some of the eye movement locations that the headphones can detect.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt made his first ever visit to Mobile World Congress. He said that Android phones were now shipping at about a 60,000 per month clip. Schmidt mostly talked from hand-held notes, and spoke about Google's   Although CEO Eric Schmidt's keynote at Mobile World Congress had no big news, his team showed demos of language translations for voice-based search and Google Goggles (its mobile visual search tool). Google also showed off Flash on Android 2.1, depicting The New York Times home page with Flash elements in full view (many observers noted that Apple's iPad demo of The New York Times was missing that home page's Flash elements). 


Asus-Garmin, which launched two new phones at Mobile World Congress, had a symbolic display in its booth - one that focuses on the driving navigation aspect that has become part of most smart phones today.