Samsung is now the world's second-largest mobile phone maker, behind Nokia. According to market watcher Gartner, the South Korean company has finally knocked Motorola into third place. The researcher's figures cover Q3, so there's a chance Motorola may pull ahead again during the current quarter. During the third quarter, some 167m handsets shipped worldwide, Gartner said, up 26 per cent on Q3 2003. Those numbers closely follow similar figures issued by fellow researcher Strategy Analytics (SA) in October. Indeed, another researcher, In-Stat/MDR, reported broadly more...

Fraunhofer Institute eggheads have invented a projector small enough to fit into a cell phone. The project uses a laser to zap your PowerPoint presentation one line at a time (but at very high speed). They're working on a version that's built on a chip the size of a sugar cube. more...

German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung think so, yesterday reporting on allegations from unnamed company sources that Siemens is pushing through the sale of its mobile phone business. It has already lined up Chinese phone company Ningbo Bird, which distributes Siemens handsets in China, as a potential buyer, the paper claimed. Siemens' mobile phone operation lost €141m ($187m) in the three months to 30 September 2004, the fourth quarter of the company's 2004 fiscal year. Phone sales totalled €1.25bn ($1.65bn), the same as the year-ago quarter, more...

Camera phones will soon have lenses made from nothing more substantial that a couple of drops of oil and water, but will still be capable of auto focusing, and even zooming in on subjects. So says Etienne Paillard, CEO of French start-up Varioptic. The company was founded two years ago to exploit two core technology patents covering lenses based on the principles of electro-wetting. This is the tendency of liquid to spread on a substrate, Paillard explains. "It means we can tune the shape of the drop to create a lens. Think about a tunable lens, like in the human eye," more...

Nokia plans to start shipments of the top-end model Nokia 6680 equipped with two digital cameras for the 2Q 2005. New model Nokia 6680 will be more functional from Nokia 6630 but the phone look rather like 6670 than Nokia 6630. Besides the new slider 3G phone powered by Series 60 will be equipped with two integrated digital cameras – one on the front panel for video calls, the other on the back panel for hi-resolution pictures. The handset supports the transfer of live video during phone talks and displays 3D graphics, it might enable GUI control and menu more...

Alcatel and Sony Network Services Europe announced that PacketVideo Network Solutions, a subsidiary of Alcatel, has been selected to provide the server and media player technology for Sony's StreamMan, the world's first personal mobile music service. The StreamMan offers a wide range of music from major and independent record labels. It includes a unique smart personalization system that learns and stores your tastes, so that StreamMan can provide a group of individually personalized music stations that know what you like to listen to. StreamMan is based on the high-quality more...

Nokia and STMicroelectronics are releasing a comprehensive specification for camera modules, aimed at standardization of this increasingly important component in mobile devices. The specification, named Standard Mobile Imaging Architecture, or SMIA, is offered for free and will cover all aspects of the modules, including their electrical, mechanical, and functional interfaces, as well as other key areas like characterization, optical performance, and reliability. SMIA's target is to specify functional and optical behavior of camera modules and enable cost-efficient multiple more...

Verizon Wireless is launching Mobile Web 2.0, an improved service which will make it easier for users to navigate and access premium content, the carrier says. Initially, only customers who own the LG VX7000 camera phone and the LG VX4500 will be able to take advantage of what Mobile Web 2.0 has to offer. Mobile Web 2.0 subscribers will be greeted with a "VZW Today" screen as its home screen and will receive the latest news and features. The VZW Today offers also a toolbar that houses a search tool, favorites and bookmarks. VZW Today is broken down into content more...