New technology for mobile phones

SanDisk and LG Electronics successfully demonstrated a new technology for mobile phones that enables mobile network operators (MNOs) to offer their customers multimedia-rich services using removable flash memory cards. The demonstration, using the new LG Renoir (LG KC910) mobile phone, ensures that content preloaded in these memory cards can only be used in approved handsets and marks the beginning of a new era in mobile phone service and content distribution.

Preloaded content on memory cards
Network operators can now freely distribute preloaded and downloaded content on removable flash memory cards, while restricting the accessibility of such premium content to only their network subscribers. This valuable content protection service is made possible by enabling memory cards to authenticate user credentials via data on the SIM card.

New mobile phone technology

SanDisk and LG Electronics have worked closely to implement this new technology on the LG KC910 Renoir mobile phone. SanDisk's unique technology brings flexible storage-based services to network operators by allowing IP connectivity to the memory card in the handset. The memory card serves as a network node that is remotely manageable by the operator using industry-standard TCP/IP and OMA Smart Card Web Server.

LG Renoir mobile phone

"With this advanced technology, handset manufacturers and MNOs will be able to meet the increasingly sophisticated demands of consumers who want easy access to premium content on their mobile devices," said Amir Lehr, senior director, business development, SanDisk. "The new LG KC910 Renoir mobile phone highlights SanDisk's storage-based service delivery technology that is designed to enhance an MNO's ability to facilitate content usage in a flexible manner and lets service providers customize their method of content distribution."

 

Smart Card Web Server implementation

LG Electronics' quick adoption of new technologies like the OMA SmartCard Web Server (SCWS) standard, allows the subscriber's SIM card to be used as an authorization server. Frédéric Christophe, director standard and engineering at LG Electronics European R&D center said, "True to our commitment to provide the most advanced mobile handset designs and user experience, LG Electronics is proud to pioneer in the area of Smart Card Web Server implementations and to offer this breakthrough storage-based service from SanDisk to the end-users, based on the MNO secure element (the SIM card) and the mobile handset interface and capabilities at their best."

The Most Important New Technology Since the Smart Phone Arrives December 2012

Even if you've seen the Leap Motion before, this is a demo you've got to watch.

By now, many of us are aware of the Leap Motion, a small, $70 gesture control system that simply plugs into any computer and, apparently, just works. If you've seen the gesture interfaces in Minority Report, you know what it does. More importantly, if you're familiar with the touch modality -- and at this point, most of us are -- the interface is entirely intuitive. It's touch, except it happens in the space in front of the screen, so you don't have to cover your window into your tech with all those unsightly smudges.

To understand how subtly revolutionary Leap will be, watch the video below, shot by the folks at The Verge, where you'll also find more juicy details on the device's specs and inner workings.

Unlike a touchscreen interface, with the Leap, there's no friction. That sounds trivial, but it isn't. It's the difference between attempting to conduct a symphony with a wand and attempting to conduct the same symphony by sketching out what the orchestra should do next via chalk on a blackboard.

Plus, Leap operates in three dimensions rather than two. Forget pinch-to-zoom; imagine "push to scroll," rotating your flattened hand to control the orientation of an object with a full six degrees of freedom, or using both hands at once to control either end of a bezier surface you're casually sculpting as part of an object you'll be sending to your 3D printer.

The fact that the Leap can see almost any combination of objects - a pen, your fingers, all 10 fingers at once, should make every interface designer on the planet giddy with anticipation. If you thought that the touchscreen interface on the iPhone and subsequent tablets opened up a whole new way to interact with your device, imagine something that combines the intuitiveness of that experience with the possibility of such fine-grained control that you could do away with the trackpad or mouse entirely.

The number of emergent properties that are inherent in an interface like Leap is mind-boggling. In their demos, its creators are fairly casual about its potential, preferring to show off its precision rather than imagine radical new applications for it. Judging by Leap Motion's indications that it's going to open an app store just for Leap, it's clear they're aiming these demos at least in part at the developers who will see the technology's potential and, like the thousands of coders who poured countless hours of effort into the iOS App store, create a panoply of applications so desirable that the Leap will become a must-have.