LG and Samsung team-up against Qualcomm in fight for US mobile TV standard
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008by Thomas Ricker, posted May 14th 2008 at 2:37AM
In a case of oh shiznit, LG and Samsung are combining forces to protect their mobile TV interests in the US. With Qualcomm’s proprietary MediaFLO digital broadcast technology rapidly gaining a mobile TV foothold in the US (thanks to AT&T and Verizon) and Europe standardizing on DVB-H, it seems that LG and Samsung (the once proud and gloating parents of the DMB standard) have little choice but to support the ATSC’s attempt to create the ATSC-M/H standard in the US… about three years too late. Of course, the ultimate victor will have very little to do with what’s best for the consumer and everything to do with who is most successful at lobbying the government. Oh, did that sound bitter? Good.
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Filed under: cellphones, Portable Video
Despite issuing an early statement of objection, the EC has come around to see the merits of a TomTom / Tele Atlas deal. In fact, the two companies have received “unconditional clearance” from the European Commission for the proposed acquisition. The US already approved the deal in October. Thing is, shareholders better get a move on since the bidding-war-boosted $4.2 billion offer (plus another $300 million thanks to the weakass dollar) made in November is set to expire on May 30th. Although it could be extended. Of course, Garmin made a move for Tele Atlas early on with a $3.3 billion bid of its own. Nevertheless, with TomTom profits heading downward and Garmin’s own, hotly anticipated Nuvifone on the horizon, maybe Garmin will be laughing last after all.
It looks like your future digital camera could have considerably more wireless options than built-in WiFi or an Eye-Fi card, at least if Sony Ericsson has its way. As Unwired View reports, the company has filed a number patent applications that detail its plans to add various wireless connectivity options to digital cameras, including GSM, CDMA, and WiMAX, in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. That would apparently come both in the form of wireless cards built into the cameras themselves, and in the form of wireless adapters or docks that would attach to the camera, with some dedicated flash memory also thrown in for storing settings for Flickr and the like. Of course, there’s no indication as to when we can expect to see such cameras and, as Unwired View points out, the idea itself may not be the most patentable, but you can sign us up for any connectivity option that doesn’t involve a tangled mess of cords in our gadget bag.
For those of you waiting with bated breath for Dell’s gargantuan 3008WFP 30-inch LCD to return from technical-issue-town, your prayers have been answered. The monster display is back on the company’s virtual shelves, presumably with that “small technical issue” wiped out of existence. So go for it people; that larger-than-life game of Crysis won’t wait forever.
When it comes to drives, it’s all about space and speed. That’s why we were happy to see that Greenhouse is boasting that the DH-SSDGS series is the “industry’s fastest” — sure, we can’t verify that claim, but at least they’re trying to get our attention. Regardless, the new drives read at up to 130MB/s with write speeds of 67MB/s, with capacities that range from 16GB up to 128GB. Drive size is a standard 2.5-inches, with a 9.5mm height. Greenhouse says the SATA-compatible boxes will be available in late May (in Japan at least), no word on pricing.
