Published by Steve Litchfield at 10:23 UTC, October 17th 2007
Symbian has announced two key technologies for the next generation of Symbian OS-powered smartphones, ensuring that superfast mobile broadband and complex interface, video and gaming requirements won't be a problem for the smartphones of 2008 and beyond. Read on for the full press release about the new ScreenPlay and FreeWay and for official reaction from Symbian licensees. And we'll have a video podcast up shortly with a full interview.
The Symbian Smartphone Show, London, United Kingdom - October 16 2007 - Symbian Limited, developer and licensor of Symbian OS™, the market-leading operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones known as smartphones, today announced two ground-breaking technologies, ScreenPlay and FreeWay, to power the future of mobile computing. The newly announced technologies offer dramatic enhancements in the vital areas of graphics and connectivity, which are essential in driving the growth and reach of smartphones.
Symbian
During his keynote at the Smartphone Show in London, Symbian Chief Executive Officer Nigel Clifford articulated the trends behind convergence. "Smartphones are increasingly becoming interpersonal computers with similar specifications to desktop computers but offering a more personal connected experience. People want more from their favourite device: they want a fully interactive Internet experience, the best graphics possible, seamless access to the quickest and cheapest connection available and the ability to download, watch, create and upload high definition video content with high quality sound."
Responding to the increased demands of convergence, Symbian has introduced new visionary technologies that give the industry the power to create devices that can handle and store large amounts of data, provide a responsive, emotionally engaging user experience, and deliver super-fast networking within today's power constraints.
ScreenPlay is the new graphics architecture in Symbian OS. Designed to power the richest visual experience available on a mobile phone to date, it gives users big screen effects in their pockets while ensuring long battery life. ScreenPlay is designed for mobile devices with user interfaces which integrate high definition video content, life-like games and animations. It significantly enhances content presentation in versatile, yet simple new ways - by using transparency and overlays, for example. ScreenPlay offers high performance in a scalable fashion - working purely in software on mid-range devices and taking advantage of hardware acceleration when present on high-end devices. These enhancements are delivered without compromising the device's battery power efficiency.
FreeWay is the new and unrivalled IP networking architecture in Symbian OS, providing broadband speeds in your pocket. On mobile broadband networks, FreeWay delivers the capability for super fast download speeds, high quality audio/video streaming and crystal-clear VoIP calls. FreeWay supplies high bandwidth that is suitable for Super3G/LTE, WiMax and beyond - ensuring performance high enough to allow users to download an MP3 file in seconds. FreeWay also guarantees users smooth switching between connection types and networks so that they can remain mobile at all times. A key feature of FreeWay is its compatibility with existing applications such as web browsers, allowing these to take advantage of the benefits of FreeWay without any additional development.
These two new technologies are further enhanced with Symbian's recently announced support for Symmetric Multi Processing (SMP) on Symbian OS, offering 'performance on demand' to maximize battery life and multimedia user experience on future converged mobile devices with multi-processor chipsets.
Fujitsu Limited
"Fujitsu welcomes the announcement of these two revolutionary technologies, FreeWay and ScreenPlay. With Freeway, we feel certain of improving network capabilities. We will enhance our partnership with Symbian aiming at developing the most advanced handsets." said Hideyuki Saso, Corporate Vice President, President Mobile Phones Unit, Fujitsu Limited.
Nokia
"Nokia's announcement today of the S60 UI Acceleration Toolkit on Symbian OS complements ScreenPlay's offering by enabling the creation of impressive applications and graphical effects to deliver an attractive and compelling user experience," said Lee Williams, Senior Vice President, Nokia, in his keynote address at the Smartphone Show in London. "Symbian and Nokia continue to collaborate closely in developing S60 and Symbian OS, the market leading software platform for smartphones."
Khronos Group
"Consumers are expecting more intuitive, more informative and more entertaining graphics experiences on their phones. Symbian is heavily involved with Khronos to help create and promote open standards for mobile graphics and media. By supporting open standard APIs, Symbian has ensured that ScreenPlay will receive strong industry support," said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group.
Sharp Corporation
"Sharp is excited about Symbian's new ScreenPlay and FreeWay technologies which will pave the way for an attractive user experience on high speed networks such as Super3G" said Yuji Arai, Vice President, Group Deputy General Manager & Division General Manager, Sharp Corporation. "Sharp is collaborating closely with Symbian to bring ScreenPlay and FreeWay to devices for the Japanese market."
"ST Microelectronics welcomes Symbian's new ScreenPlay architecture and will combine it with its embedded graphic accelerator of the Nomadik application processor family to provide exciting new graphics experience to mobile users," said Jyrki Hannikainen, Vice President, Mobile Multimedia and Communications Group.
UIQ Technology
"UIQ believes Symbian's ScreenPlay - enabling rich graphics and powerful content presentation - and FreeWay - a high speed application download enabler - are key to the future of mobile computing," said Johan Sandberg, CEO, UIQ Technology. "UIQ strongly supports Symbian's two new technologies which will further support our continuous work in enhancing the user experience and commitment to helping our customers differentiate their products. Both FreeWay and ScreenPlay will be adapted into future releases of UIQ."
Nigel Clifford continued, "After years of speculation within the industry, we can now see the effect of convergence playing out before us - it is changing the way we work, play, interact and live. Symbian's ScreenPlay, FreeWay, and Symmetric Multi Processing support have been designed to facilitate this lifestyle and power the future of mobile computing. When you see these new technologies in action, you'll realize they are in a league of their own."
Symbian has already started to deliver ScreenPlay and FreeWay to its customers and will further evolve the technologies in future releases of Symbian OS.
Categories: Hardware, Developer, Industry, Events
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition, UIQ 3, MOAP