World Mobile Congress in Spain

World Mobile Congress in Spain We have a team at the Mobile World Congress in Spain this week bringing you all the mobile news. Google makes some much needed privacy tweaks to buzz and how your recycled electronics are being used in this year’s Winter Olympics. It’s Tuesday, February 16th, I'm Natali Del Conte and it’s time to get loaded. Steve Ballmer announced the redesign of Windows phone at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. It is called Windows Phone 7 Series and the biggest news is that it will integrate with Zune and Xbox to play media in a way that has not been easy before. The interface looks very nice as well. They’re calling it Hubs. Hubs integrate content from web, applications and services into a single view. There are six hub themes built around people, pictures, games, music and video, office and an application store called Market Place. These do appear to be the nicest line of Windows phones yet. But unfortunately, we won't’ see them until around the holidays unless you watch all our reviews here on CNet which we all have all week from Barcelona in which case you get a first look sooner. HTC also launched an impressive line up of phones in Spain. The HTC Legend and HTC Desire are both Android Phones that will use the HTC sense feature that merges social networks and contact book updates. The Legend has a 3.3 inch AM OLED HVGA touch screen and the Desire has a 3.7 inch and OLED WVGA touch screen with a snap drag in processor and a Adobe Flash 10.1 which we will talk about later on the show. These are pretty sweet phones but they’re only supposed to launch in Europe and Asia in the next few months—no US launch date on the horizon. There’s also a new Windows phone from HTC but it runs Windows Mobile 6.5 and also does not have a US launch date so that’s a bit less exciting. Google vices change a bit based on privacy issues. This is Google’s twitter/facebook status update and sharing service that launched last week. Many, many users were upset about the auto follow feature that automatically connected you with the people that you write or instant message with. This made your contacts public in a way that a lot of people do not want, myself included. Google has now taken the auto follow feature off. Now it auto suggest that you follow the people that you communicate with but you have to approve those relationships. Also buzz will no longer auto connect to your photo albums and your reader. I have to admit these things really bothered me. I trust Google with my health records and my finances in Google checkout. This means that no part of my Google identity should ever be publiced by default. That’s just not okay. I am okay with these changes but I think they really have to think about how they handle making their buzz accounts public when they also keep so much personal information behind the same Google name. No, TS teamed up with Intel to merge their Smart Phones with Intel’s Moblin Operating System. Nokia’s Linux space Mimo Software will now merge with Moblin which will compete with open source operating systems like Android. Acer also has an Android phone on the loose and it’s called the Liquid E. This is Acer’s first entry in to the smart phone market and it will run Android Éclair 2.1 with a speedy snap drag end processor. It also has a high definition screen and social media integration with your contact list. There will also be an updated browser that supports HTML five and double tap zooming. It looks beautiful but the name, it should be noted is also the name of a date rape drug so be careful about that when you’re Googling it. Samsung also has a new phone on the loose and it’s using – of the company’s own open operating system. The phone is called The Wave. It has a 3.3-inch AM OLED screen, 5.1 megapixel camera and support for 720 PHD video. It looks lovely although I'm slightly unsure why Samsung wants to promote its own operating system while also embracing Android. But, it is supposed to have a wide array of application support and social networking integration. Look for our first review of course here on CNet. Adobe’s launching AIR Phone mobile on Google Android phones. This will work with the new Adobe Flash player 10.1 from Mobile. This will let developers use air to create applications for Android. It may sound confusing as to why developer would develop through air for Android when they can just directly develop for Android but Adobe does want to bring this to Blackberry Simean, Palm’s webOS and Windows phone so that would mean that developers would be able to develop across mobile operating systems through air without developing phone by phone. Sony is pulling out of the OLED TV market in Japan after reporting sluggish demand. Sony was the first manufacturer to bring OLED to market two years ago; I guess it was a no go. I can't feel life of me why this TV’s are not getting priced drops and more manufacturer support while 3D is, it’s odd don’t you think? Feel free to write me about this load it at CNet.com. If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you may like this little known fact. The medals that are handed out to winning athletes are partially made from recycled electronics. So of course they are gold, silver and bronze but there are also 1.5 percent harvested metals from cathode raid to blast, computer parts, circuit boards and other e-waste. This is the first time that Olympic medals have not been purely mined mineral deposits which I think is very cool fact. Those are all your headlines for today I will see you tomorrow. Thank you for watching. I'm Natali Del Conte with CNet TV and you’ve just been loaded.