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By the end of this year, some cell-phone users will be able to print documents wirelessly from their handsets, Nokia announced on Tuesday.
The cell-phone maker said it's working with Hewlett-Packard to develop a way owners of Nokia's series 60 phones such as the 7650 and 3650 can print documents, e-mail messages, pictures and other material from their cell phones using Bluetooth. Nokia controls 39 percent of the cell-phone market.
Bluetooth is a radio that lets devices within 30 feet of each other interact without any cables or wires. Nokia hopes to give its customers the ability to send documents wirelessly to HP's Bluetooth-enabled printers by pushing a button.
HP is also working with PalmSource, maker of the Palm operating system, to develop ways for owners of Palm-powered devices to print documents using Bluetooth.
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Fighting for telcos' lives: One group that may benefit from a U.S. invasion in Iraq is the struggling telecommunications sector.
According to a piece that appeared in The New York Times on Monday, companies like Lucent Technologies and Motorola could gain contracts to rebuild telephone infrastructure in Iraq if the United States installs a government there that is friendly to American companies and interests.
Telecom analysts pointed out in the article that telephone infrastructure in Iraq was heavily damaged in the 1991 Gulf War and is in dire need of repair. Because the phone system there is so decrepit, people with telephones are often restricted to using them just 14 hours a day, the article stated.
Iraq is also one of the few countries in the world without a commercial cellular phone system – another lucrative business opportunity for American telephone companies.
One analyst estimated that Iraq needed to invest at least $1 billion over the next few years to improve its fixed-line phone service and invest more to build out a cell-phone network.
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Bienvenidos i-mode: Japanese wireless phone company, NTT DoCoMo, has been getting a bad rap lately for glitches in its high-speed, next-generation wireless phones, but another of its products, i-mode, is quietly winning over converts.
DoCoMo's "i-mode" mobile Internet service, which lets users pull up quotes, news, sports and other information on their cell-phones, has been hailed in Japan as one of the greatest inventions since the Walkman. The service is already available in the Netherlands, France and the United States. Now it's coming to Spain.
Telefonica Moviles – the cell-phone company in Spain – and cell-phone maker and software provider NEC Corporation have agreed to bring multimedia services, including i-mode, to Spanish cell-phone users the first half of this year.
The service would enable users to send and receive pictures with text – otherwise known as multimedia messaging.
Also in the news: NEC unveiled a new i-mode cell-phone for customers of Bouygues Telecom in France. The phone, dubbed the n22i, is slim and stylish with a 4,096-color display for browsing the Internet, checking e-mail and setting up picture-caller ID.
The phone was unveiled this week at 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, a major cell-phone trade show that continues until this Friday.
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Talking with style: In a move to stimulate the cell-phone market, cell-phone maker Siemens unveiled a slew of high-end fashionable phones.
"Why do you have several shoes or handbags? We want to drive multiple phone ownership and create additional demand. Our aim is to make people view mobile phones as they view sunglasses, bags or watches," said Rudi Lamprecht, who runs Siemens' mobile phone unit, at a news conference in 3GSM.
Lamprecht showed the A55, one of a series of slim and small fashionable phones to be marketed under the Xelibri brand name.
Lamprecht also showed off the SXI, Siemens' first mobile phone with a built-in video camera, to let users take pictures and run movie clips.
Lamprecht did not disclose pricing or any additional details on the phones. But he did mention that all of the handsets run on the Symbian operating system, which competes with PalmSource and Microsoft Windows for smartphones.
"We think Symbian is by far going to have the bigger market share," he said.
Reinforcing that claim, Samsung joined Nokia, Motorola, Siemens and Sony Ericsson this week as a shareholder of Symbian. Samsung, which provides cell-phones to Sprint PCS and Verizon wireless customers, became a 5 percent shareholder of Symbian, Symbian told reporters at 3GSM.
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Reuters contributed to this report.
