Both TV manufacturers will be offering sets with Skype software and support for all the stand features that we’ve come to love – voicemail, land-line and mobile calls via Skype-in and Skype-out, free Skype-to-Skype calls, video calling etc. On the hardware front, users will need to purchase and plug in one of the soon-to-be-available 720p web cams that will feature “microphones specifically designed to pick up sound at couch distance”, reports Gizmodo. Now that does sounds cool, although I’m not sure why they can’t come built-in.

Skype is one of those rare web applications that’s mainstream and useful enough that it bridges the generation gap, used by young grandchildren and grandparents alike, therefore getting it into the living room makes a lot of sense. And with “HD support” and decent sound, it’s amazing to think how far consumer video conferencing has come, resembling the multi-thousand dollar set-ups that were until now limited to the corporate world.

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LG Arena KM900 web browser

I’ve had just over a week to test out LG’s latest flagship phone – the LG Arena KM900 – a device that I first set eyes on at last month’s The Gadget Show Live. The touch screen phone has a lot going for it, but like many post-iPhone offerings, doesn’t quite live up to the promise based on technical specs alone and at times has the potential to frustrate. 

The LG Arena offers plenty of connectivity options: HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS, an indication that despite not being a true ’smart phone’ (i.e. third-party apps are limited to Java only) the device isn’t held back in terms of data options. The User Interface also looks the business – it borrows heavily from Apple’s iPhone as well adding its own pseudo 3D rotating home screens – and the use of a finger-friendly capacitive touch screen means that on the whole the phone is just as responsive, with a few notable exceptions (see below). However, in terms of intuitiveness, the UI had me stumped on a few occasions, although not enough that won’t be overcome by a moderate learning curve.

The phone’s music player produces very good sound, obviously helped by the Arena’s use of Dolby Mobile, and the 8GB of built-in storage means that you can carry around a fairly large music collection without inserting a microSD card. Doing so, however, can up the memory to 40GB in total via a 32GB card. Obviously a decent pair of headphones helps; the loan unit I was given didn’t come with the included retail ear buds but we tried out a range of cans, from very cheap to our favorite Sennheiser CX500 noise canceling earphones, and were duly impressed. One area where the music player does disappointment is the lack of a user editable graphic equalizer (presets only).

There is also an FM tuner and transmitter, although we couldn’t get the latter to work properly even when tested in a stationary car. Unlike Nokia’s N85, the signal transmitted by the Arena just didn’t seem powerful enough.

Videos look sharp on the Arena’s 3 inch WVGA (480 x 800) screen, although I failed in my attempts to get a DivX movie to play – DivX support is one of the phone’s flagship features – a problem that other reviewers don’t seem to have encountered. It might be because of the way I transferred my test clips via Bluetooth or their file type (.AVI) but none of the videos were recognized by the phone. I also couldn’t find any documentation on LG’s website explaining the Arena’s specific DivX support.

The phone’s 5 megapixel camera takes very nice pictures – good light permitting – although like many camera phones there can be a long delay before taking a shot while the phone autofocuses etc. The camera can also shoot so-called ‘DVD quality’ (30 fps) video at a resolution of up t0 720 x 480. Again, in good light the video camera performs well (in low light the single LED flash doesn’t help much).

The Arena’s on-screen keyboard operates in two different modes. A number pad / T9 keyboard in portrait mode and a full QWERTY in landscape. Both are responsive, although the QWERTY can be prone to typing errors as, unlike the iPhone, there’s no auto-correction.

The single biggest let down of the LG Arena KM900, however, is the included web browser. It comes so close to being really usable if it wasn’t for being so slow. Web pages – if you’re willing to wait – do render really well (all of the sites that I tested loaded fully aside from Flash content, which isn’t supported) it just doesn’t feel like you’re always in control. There’s a very notable lag between, for example, flicking a page to scroll and the action being performed. The same goes for zooming in an out of a page, which is invoked using a familiar iPhone-esque pinch. It’s like the phone’s browser engine or processor has to constantly catch up. This is one area where handset makers, LG included, need to pay a lot more attention.

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• Nokia’s all-you-can eat music service now “comes with” its own flagship touch screen phone – Nokia X6

This is a product category that has me far from convinced but it’s intriguing nonetheless. I’m talking about mobile phone watches, which are about as Star Trek or Knight Rider as they come. I got to see two such devices up close (to varying degrees) at The Gadget Show Live last week.

First up was the sWaP watch (Smart Watch and Phone), which throws in everything but the kitchen sink: GSM radio (unlocked), media player, stills and video camera, microSD card slot, Bluetooth, and of course a clock! All accessible via a tiny 1.5 inch touch screen designed to operated by the included stylus and fiddly hardware controls down the side (see our blurry video below).

The major takeaway from seeing the sWaP watch in person, however, was not only that miniaturization can, frankly, be taken too far, but also how much this chunky device weighed.

Next up was LG’s recently announced watch phone, which I could look at but not touch. In fact nobody could as the company was “focused on the Arena today“, I was told. Instead we were left watching a powered down device rotating in a carousel inside a glass cabinet (see video below), although even at that distance it looked a lot more appealing than the sWaP.

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Admittedly, the Arena does have some UI ideas of its own, which are potential improvements – my iPhone-touting designer buddy certainly thought so – such as the 3D cube effect when switching application screens, and the ability to view a grid of 32 icons (up from 16) when accessing the launcher in landscape mode. The camera also beats the iPhone – 5 megapixels and 30 frames-per-second video recording – although there’s strangely no flash (Update: there is a single LED flash). The inclusion of Dolby Mobile should also ensure excellent sound quality when listening through ear buds. Again, I hope to source a loan unit soon for a full hands-on review.

Video of the LG Arena from The Gadget Show Live after the jump…

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Just a week after High Tech Computer (HTC) said it was on schedule to deliver Android-powered cell phones by the 4Q of 2008, another report surfaces Thursday that says HTC is “having structural problems to incorporate Google’s demand feature set” and “demanding a guaranteed minimum revenue surety from Google,” according to Barron’s Tech Trader Daily.

Barron’s picked up a research note from Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research saying his “contacts” contend that HTC’s Android handset — the so-called Google phone — will be delayed until the first quarter of 2009.

Additionally, Chowdhry’s “contacts” tell him that another problem Google is having is attracting software developers to the platform. They’re too busy writing code for Windows Mobile, Nokia (Symbian), Research in Motion (BlackBerry), and Apple’s iPhone.

That’s no surprise. These guys actually have phones, real working phones, to develop for and test.

And while we’re on the subject of handset manufacturers, where’s mention of everybody else besides HTC? HTC, the world’s leading maker of smart phones as an ODM, has publicly stated it plans to come out in 2008 with an Android phone. Google swears there will be Android this year.

But what about Samsung? Or Motorola? Or LG? They’re supposedly going to deliver Google phones in 2009, but how’s that going? Sony Ericsson has fallen on hard times lately, so it’s conceivable that it’s worrying about its own problems, not the Gphone.

See also: No surpise, Gphone reportedly delayed and The Gphone is coming; how Google could rewrite the rules

And let’s not forget that, while Apple has received mostly praise for the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 2.0 software update, the grand opening of the Apps Store, and the arrival of third-party applications for the platform, there’s still a lot of complaints about the OS crashing and buggy first-gen apps. It hasn’t been a super-smooth road for Apple, either.

So why do we think that HTC — or anybody else for that matter — is going to introduce an Android-powered phone in the 4Q of 2008? If someone does, chances are it will be a Gphone, loaded with Google apps, because from what we see there’s not even a hint of an Apps Store-like place for users to buy third-party applications written for the platform.

It’s not that I’m against a Google phone. Far from it. The cell phone world, especially in the U.S., needs Google, and Apple. These two can challenge other manufacturers to develop innovative new phones and together (hopefully) they can knock the siloed, we-don’t-really-want-openness-and-change carriers on their keisters.

Google should have developed its own damn phone. And even then, there’s no guarantee it would be ready for 4Q 2008.

Illustration credit: Android wallpaper, samuraispy on flickr

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Available this fall, the LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player, in addition to being able to play high definition Blu-ray discs and upscale standard DVDs, will give Netflix subscribers the option of streaming any of the 12,000 movies and TV episodes available on Watch Now to their TVs at no additional cost.

Similar to the way Netflix integration works on Roku’s Netflix player and the upcoming XBox 360 version, users can browse the Netflix library and add titles to their Watch Now queue via Netflix.com on a PC, and then have their choices show up on the TV, in this case via the LG Blu-ray player. The idea being that a 2 foot UI (the PC) is better suited for content discovery, while a 10 foot UI (the TV) is suited to consumption. Alternatively, users can use the BD300’s accompanying remote control, to browse and make selections right on the TV screen and also have the ability to read synopses and rate movies.

All good so far. Now for the bad news.

Th price of the BD300 will reportedly be “well under $500“, but we suspect not by that much. And here comes the killer: “the LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player will rely on a wired broadband connection”, according to the press release. If that means no built-in WiFi, then please move on, there’s nothing to see here.

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The LiMo Foundation, representing Linux Mobile, is the lesser known of the mobile operating systems. There’s Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, supplying many makers of smart phones; Symbian, supplier mostly to Nokia; Qualcomm, supplier mostly to Verizon; upstart Google, and Apple. Then there’s Linux Mobile, slowly creeping along by adding devices mostly in Europe and Asia.

The LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation is a consortium of companies well vested in the mobile industry: Motorola, Samsung, LG Electronics, Vodaphone, NTT DoCoMo, and many others. Verizon is the first U.S. carrier to join the LiMo initiative, which now has 40 members worldwide.

The idea behind LiMo is to build a standardized, Linux-based mobile platform, which members can customize to meet their needs. For the most part, Linux Mobile is a competitor to Android, which is not yet available on any handsets. Linux Mobile is showing up on phones from Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, and LG.

Kyle Malady, vice president of network for Verizon, said in a conference call today that he expects Verizon to sell both regular devices and smart phones using mobile Linux next year.

“We expect that Linux Mobile will rapidly become our preferred operating system,” Malady said to The Associated Press [via The New York Times] . “As the development community looks at how best to bring new applications to the marketplace, they should check out LiMo and Linux Mobile first.”

Verizon’s move isn’t so much a slap in the face as a poke in the side to Google, which has somewhat of a rocky relationship with Verizon. The two companies were locked in a bidding war for the 700 MHz spectrum recently auction in the U.S.

Once a reserve was met in the auction, an open network clause was triggered, and Google ended its bidding. Verizon was left holding the goods, so to speak. The winner must build a new network open to any device and any application. Verizon has whined publicly that maybe Google didn’t play fair.

Verizon’s involvement with the LiMo Foundation does not preclude it from joining Google’s Open Handset Alliance and supplying Android phones in the future — it most likely will. But Verizon is sending a message that Google’s mobile OS isn’t ready and won’t be until devices start showing up at the end of 2008 and into 2009. Verizon isn’t going to be waiting around, twiddling its thumbs.

Maneuverings like Verizon joining LiMo never register on the consumer mobile radar because, after all, they’ve been buying phones mostly on size and looks for years.

But with the success of the iPhone and BlackBerry products and the coming of the smart information device, mobile operating systems are becoming more important and a hotly contested battleground.

[For more information on LiMo, see GigaOm’s recent coverage.]

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Taiwanese smart phone manufacturer HTC launched the Touch Diamond today and, as expected, it’s small, sleek, sexy, very iPhone-esque, and promising.

Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S. or Latin America, the Diamond will not be available until the second half of 2008. If you’re in European markets, the phone begins shipping in June, followed by Asia and the Middle East.

As you know, much has been said about the iPhone since its launch last June. Ever since then, any phone released by any manufacturer is compared with the iPhone.

But so far, no one has come close to the iPhone’s design, interface, usability, user experience, and overall satisfaction, although Nokia’s offerings are popular. One “phone” promised to take on the iPhone, but the so-called Gphone, running Google’s mobile operating system Android, hasn’t been released by any manufacturer yet, it isn’t expected until the fourth quarter, and is completely untested in the market.

The Touch Diamond certainly has impressive specs — a 2.8-inch, 680×480 VGA display, quad-band, 3G, integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, HSDPA support, a 3.2-megapixel camera, 4GB internal storage, 256MB flash memory, 192MB RAM, and SD external storage. It runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and a full Web browser in Opera. And, as previously stated, its darn attractive.

But without having one to play with, it’s impossible to say how the Touch Diamond stacks up to the iPhone experience. For sake of argument, let’s hope HTC’s new phone is compelling and scares the pants off Apple in the name of competition.

Chances of that happening, however, are slim as Apple is about to move into the next phase of the iPhone’s life — as evidenced by all the rumors of the coming 3G phone, expected to be announced in early June with availability following shortly thereafter.

If Apple has played its hand right, the iPhone is poised to enter 2.0-land far ahead of everybody else, especially with a 3G offering, enterprise support, and third-party applications coming soon. HTC, Nokia, Gphone makers, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and BlackBerry have yet to even hit with successful 1.0 products.

Apple also has a marketing and publicity advantage in the U.S., where Nokia is well known but doesn’t sell as many phones as it does worldwide. HTC has almost no name recognition, although it is slowly gaining in prominence.

While the HTC Touch Diamond appears to be a compelling product worthy of challenging the iPhone, we’ll have to wait and see it in action here in the States. And by then, iPhone 2.0 will be out. Will anybody even remember HTC?

Additional coverage: engadget, gizmodo, Cnet.

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At the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference today in Redwood City, Calif., panelists predicted “radical changes to what customers expect and demand,” according to a Dow Jones report.

T-Mobile reps said its first Google-powered Android phone, due out in the fourth quarter, will be tailored to the consumer, and at the same time the consumer will tell the carriers what they want their mobile devices to do.

This will lead to an “avalanche” of innovation from consumers, panelists said.

As the Dow Jones report notes, “The time is ripe for innovators and start-ups to deliver what consumers want in new, possibly lucrative ways.”

At least four household-name companies are asking customers and third-party developers for input — Google, Apple, Nokia, and LG — and two of them (Apple and Nokia) are believed to have their acts together in the mobile space.

Google recently closed the first round of the Android Developer Challenge, in which Google will reward third-party developers for the best Android-powered applications. Google has set aside $10 million total to be awarded in two rounds. So far it has received 1,788 submissions from 70 countries.

Apple is boasting 200,000 developers have downloaded the iPhone software developers kit (SDK), which will be officially available for third-party application development in June. Additionally, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins has formed the $100 million iFund for the development of iPhone applications.

Nokia, the world’s No. 1 handset manufacturer, has invited users to help the company shape products. To make its move into Internet services such as music and gaming, Nokia plans to use its large customer base as consultants. Not to be outdone, LG has formed the “Innovation Challenge”, asking consumers to design their dream phone and win cash.

So what’s up? Why all the interest in consumers and third-party developers coming up with new applications for wireless devices? Shouldn’t the handset manufacturers, wireless carriers, and even infrastructure providers already know this?

Apparently not, judging by comments made at the wireless conference. Panelists speculated that video distribution, social networking, entertainment, enterprise solutions, and security will be the next “killer app”, just about covering all the possibilities.

It’s clear the handset manufacturers, carriers, and infrastructure providers have no idea what consumers will do with next generation handsets and networks. The iPhone has turned the industry upside down. Google’s Android is a wild card, promising all sorts of new innovation but will manufacturers deliver? And who knows what “open” networks from Verizon and AT&T will look like once they’re built in a few years.

So the mobile industry is asking us and getting applications cheap from third-party developers. It’s an unprecedented opportunity, but will they listen?

What do you think? What do you want to do on the next-generation mobile devices and networks?

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