Smaller, smarter mobile phones see more

While most makers of mobile devices are keeping a tight lip about new products ahead of the Cebit trade show next week, a few are letting the cat out of the bag.

If these announcements are any indication of what the industry has in store, visitors journeying to the annual IT exhibition in Hanover, Germany, should expect to find phones that pack even more features, like mega-pixel digital cameras and multimode connections, into ever-smaller devices with ever-longer battery lives.

Mind you, most of the new handsets to be launched at Cebit will target existing GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) networks. Handsets designed for new 3G (third generation) networks are, well, another story altogether. Although a few are already available on the market and more are coming, they're not enough, carriers complain.

Imaging will play big in many of the new mobile phone launches at the show, which officially opens March 18 and closes March 24.

The German subsidiary of Vodafone Group PLC will introduce one of the industry's first mobile phones with an integrated mega pixel CCD (charge-coupled device) camera. The camera, Sharp Corp.'s GX30, offers a resolution of 858 x 1.1 mega pixels.

Additional new features include an internal, 18-bit color display capable of showing up to 262K colors -- four times the quality of the GX20 -- and support for both Bluetooth and infrared. The phone measures 95 by 49 by 26 millimeters and weighs 100 grams, with a battery that gives users up to 200 minutes of talk time and 220 hours of standby time.

Not to be outdone on the pixel front, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB will unveil its new S700 phone -- with an integrated 1.3 mega pixel CCD digital camera and a 2.3 inch 262K TFT (thin film transistor) color screen. The triband GSM-GPRS phone also features a new swivel-opening design to support all types of functions -- whether it's making a call, writing a text message, browsing the Net or taking a picture. The handset, which measures 108 by 49 by 25 millimeters, will be available in the fourth quarter of this year

In addition to the S700, Sony Ericsson is also launching the K700 camera phone with a lower resolution camera. In addition to these new camera phones, Sony Ericsson will also launch a new connector device that allows users to send images and audio from their mobile phones to TV sets and digital projectors. The MMV-100, which plugs directly into the TV set or projector, connects to mobile phones via wireless Bluetooth technology. Users can transfer content from their phones to these larger screens by simply pressing a button.

Hoping to capitalize on the trend toward mobile devices with integrated high-end digital cameras, Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV will demonstrate a variable-focus lens system capable of focusing on objects and creating sharp pictures in ways similar to the human eye. The new lens doesn't require mechanical moving parts -- which are still used even in high-end digital cameras -- but works instead by manipulating two fluids in a tiny transparent tube.

Here's how it works: When the sides of the tube are charged with a small electric current, one of the two fluids is drawn to the edges while the other fluid fills up the remaining space in the tube. The place where the two fluids meet functions like a lens. By changing the current, the fluid lens can be shaped hollow, curvex or anything in between, allowing it to focus on objects that are far away or within centimeters.