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Reporting live from Expo

7 replies · 4,201 views · Started 05 October 2004

The AAS team are out and about at the Symbian Expo. Direct from the floor here are Steve Litchfield, Paul Gibson and Jody Armstrong talking about the Expo are some of the early things to catch their eye.

Live from Symbian Expo:
(PG) Walking into the Symbian Expo after collecting the pass at the front desk, the Symbian Expo already had a buzz of activity. The Expo Hall is massive with over 100 exhibitors in attendance. This includes operators, vendors, developers and websites and most are familiar names in the Symbian world.

At the All About Symbian stand, when I arrived, the finishing touches were being added and then the fun started trying to connect to the internet via the wireless lan available at the ExCel Centre.
Within the first hour there were some familiar faces coming to speak to us including a few from our Pub Meet last night.

As this is being written there is a speech from the CEO of Sony Ericsson, Miles Flint. The speech is about Symbian from the perspective of Sony Ericsson. Now there's Vodafone's head guy and bullet point slides galore, followed by someone from Carphone Warehouse.

(SL) To be honest, most people are tuning out of the speeches to some degree and getting on with the business of meeting people, pressing the flesh, and so on. After you've seen one bullet titled 'amplify and analyse converged business opportunities in the mobile data ecosphere', you've seen them all...
Luckily, we've discovered that we can get free refreshments upstairs, with AAS qualifying as 'press', so our hardworking staff can retire every now and then!

The buzz is still quite impressive all round the ExCel, with the free entrance to all bringing in many hundreds, even thousands of people all really interested in what's being talked about. Considering that this is primarily about developers and the mechanics of making smartphones, it's all pretty cool.

(JA)
Bitboys 3D Hardware Acceleration
From a gaming point of view Bitboys had the top crown with their display of their 3D Hardware graphics accelerator chips. A couple of full screen rolling demos were on offer showing the capabilities of the engine and it was very impressive. Images were crisp, smoothed and zipped along at an incredible frame rate. One could only guess at the possibilities of an N-Gage style of device with this chip powering it.

Expect to see it in phones around 2007.

http://www.bitboys.com for more information

Digital Red Mobile Software
Digital Red Mobile Software were on hand to let the rabid gamer try out their new titles. I gave Requiem From Hell a try, a very diabloesque game featuring some pretty impressive isometric graphics. We'll be hearing more from Digital Red in the near future on AAS.

HP
HP were demoing their Photosmart 375 portable photo printer. A compact device that resembles a toaster this device incorporates a multicard reader, colour lcd screen and wireless connectivity via bluetooth. With the provided UIQ or Series 60 application a variety of content, not just photos, can be tagged and printed. Multiple images can be printed on the same page to same media or for presentations.

Hey don't forget I was there as well 😊 I will post later today about some nice novelties I spotted, don't have a lot of time now (including some good news about BT keyboards, multiplayer game and Flash)...

Ok, I have made some time, so here it is

Synergenix
Synergenix showed me their new game "Lock'n Load Combat Arena". It is a 3D- first-person multiplayer shooter. It works over bluetooth (the guy from Synergenix claims with up to 8 players, but I thought bluetooth only supported one connection at a time...) and GPRS/3G. They showed it to me on a Nokia 6600, but they said it will run on every Series 60 device (although some minor modifications might be necessary he said).

They do have a UIQ version as well (not shown at the Expo though). However, they said it won't be available for the P900, since it doesn't have enough hardware buttons. They tested it on Motorola A1000, which they claimed worked well.

Anyway, from what I've seen this looks like a very nice game, and the multiplayer mode is great fun. I hope they'll release it soon!

Wayfinder
Not much news here. I asked if they were thinking about releasing a version with all the maps pre-installed on a memory card, instead of downloading of the web. They claimed they were not thinking about that, since they believe their system is better.
Unfortunately TomTom wasn't present at the Expo, so I couldn't try out that system (or ask them about a UIQ version....)

Yellow Computing
Some good news from Yellow Computing! They showed a "normal" Logitech bluetooth keyboard fully operating a Nokia 6600. From what I saw the system works really well. You can set every key to a specific function (the "mail" key on that keyboard, normally mend for Windows, opened Messages on the 6600 for example!). Although they only had a 6600 showing it, they told me they had a UIQ driver as well!

There is only one downside. They still have some copyright/patent issues, so they couldn't say anything about a release date...

I will add a picture once I get home again

Macromedia
One of the main sponsors of this event, Macromedia, showed their Flash capabilities on Symbian phones. Once again, they used a 6600 to show it to me, although they have about 30 phones that run this system (mostly Japanese). Currently T-Mobile is working with this system, and they are still negotiating with several others, including the European i-mode group. What they showed me looked good and with 3G on the way, opportunities get even bigger!

Although they were thinking about a UIQ version, there was nothing concrete going on there, he said.
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That was it for now!

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I was wondering if there was any sign of the Panasonic X700?

All in all I'm quite glad I decided not to go this year.
There were no major Symbian OS announcements, no new devices announced and no new licensees.

There were one or two X700's, but I couldn't find a separate stand or something.

I disagree with you there langdona! I had a chance to play with the 9300, 9500, 6630, Arima U300, Motorola A1000 etc... It was a lot of fun!

Wayfinder
Not much news here. I asked if they were thinking about releasing a version with all the maps pre-installed on a memory card, instead of downloading of the web. They claimed they were not thinking about that, since they believe their system is better.
Unfortunately TomTom wasn't present at the Expo, so I couldn't try out that system (or ask them about a UIQ version....)
[/QUOTE]

I think I saw somewere on www.wayfinder.com that you can store maps on your phone in someway. 😎

Yes you can catch them so you'll only have to download the same route once. But that is something different than having complete maps pre-installed on your phone...