Hasta La Gadget!

The WSJ has confirmed that Mic will introduce their newest mobile phone OS on Monday at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona. WinMo 6.5 is dead; long live Windows Phone 7.

The announcement will almost certainly come during Steve Ballmer’s Windows Phone press conference, scheduled for 3pm local time. According to the WSJ, Windows Phone 7 will have an entirely new user interface that closely resembles that of Zune. This backs up what we’d heard from a tipster last month.

Apparently, Windows Phone 7 will look to fix the mistakes of WinMos past by working more closely with OEMs:

With Windows Mobile 7, similarly, Microsoft has gotten more involved in hardware design by creating detailed plans for a small number of handset “chassis” on top of which hardware manufactures can build their devices, people familiar with the effort said. The idea behind the plan, these people said, is to limit the wild variation in quality of Windows phones and to make it easier for independent application developers to write software that runs well on them.

One of those devices to run off of Windows Phone 7 is expected to be Microsoft’s Project Pink/Zune phone, although that handset’s considered unlikely to be part of next week’s announcement.

It’s still going to be some time before we see any Windows Phone 7 devices on the market, but it’s good to see Microsoft getting in gear to replace the inexcusable WinMo 6.5. [WSJ]

It’s been a long, long while since we’ve seen any life from the OMAP4 labs at Texas Instruments, but with the sudden resurgence of the tablet, now seems just about right for the company to start showcasing the platform’s prowess once more. TI is expected to have a mind-bending showcase at Mobile World Congress later this month, but Slashgear was able to get a sneak peek at what’s to come at the outfit’s Dallas office. The device you’re peering at above definitely piqued our interest, as it’s some sort of twin-screened handheld that can actually support a third independent display courtesy of an integrated pico projector module. We’re told that OMAP4 will bring along dual 1GHz ARM A9 cores, patently ridiculous battery life figures (145 hours of MP3 playback with a 1,000mAh battery) and support for 1080p output via HDMI. Naturally, TI has no intention of ever bringing this piece of hardware to market, but it’d certainly love if some other firm stepped in and did so. Here’s hoping we’re overrun by potential suitors in Barcelona — given that the show kicks off on Valentine’s Day, we’d say the timing would be just about perfect.

TI’s OMAP4 prototype drives three independent displays without breaking a sweat originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Slashgear  | Email this | Comments

Spanish blog MuyComputer claims that Microsoft will present the “Zune Phone” this February, at the MWC in Barcelona. According to them, it’s 100% confirmed. Since the phone will use Tegra, Nvidia will team with Microsoft for the anti-JesusPhone debut.

Talking to the blog editorial director Javier Pérez Cortijo, he told me that “the Zune Phone presentation at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress 2010 is 100% confirmed.” I’ve been a close friend of Javier for a couple of decades—he was my first editor—and I completely trust his sources and his judgement, so this is a good one.

As we’ve heard before, this isn’t actually going to be a “Zune Phone” in that it’s Zune, with a phone attached. It’s going to be Windows Mobile 7 with Zune software, just like how the iPhone has iPod software on it. The presentation of the Windows Mobile 7 at MWC 2010, which we’ve been hearing about for a few months now, seems to be inline with the mention of three phones in the Zune software last week, and previous rumors about its introduction.

MuyComputer says that the phone will have a 480 x 272 screen, HDMI video out, and weigh around 2.45 ounces (70 grams). [MuyComputer – In Spanish]

The image is a mockup, not the real thing

Every indication we’ve had out of Microsoft is that Windows Mobile 7 is on track for a grand unveiling at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month, and indeed, Fox Business has none other than CFO Peter Klein on record saying as much — the closest thing we’ve had to a confirmation outside of Robbie Bach’s analyst remarks a few weeks back. At the 4:07 mark of the video, Klein says that the company is “heads down” on WinMo 7 and expects to have “much more to say” about the product out in Spain, which would mark the one-year anniversary since the announcement of 6.5 at the same venue. Considering the brutal response that last version endured over the better part of 2009, let’s hope they’re coming to the table with something much, much more delicious this time around.

Microsoft CFO says ‘we’ll have much more to say’ about WinMo 7 in February originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPoweruser  |  Fox Business  | Email this | Comments