During the event, Ericsson and Polycom are previewing integration between the Ericsson IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) network and Polycom infrastructure and telepresence endpoints, in the first collaborative step between the companies.

The collaboration between Polycom and Ericsson – driven by dispersed work forces, globalization, travel restrictions, and green workplaces – responds to the rising adoption rates and increasing customer demand across enterprises of all size, and will extend visual communications as a truly global mass market service. The new solutions are based on the standardized IMS technology, the same underlying technology used by telecom operators today.

‘Availability of visual communications as an affordable, reliable and high-quality service through telecom operators will help usher in global, mainstream adoption,’ says Joe Burton, chief technology and strategy officer, Polycom. ‘Furthering our UC Everywhere and cloud strategies, Polycom is excited to collaborate with Ericsson around standards-based solutions with the open interoperability needed to easily connect people across devices and networks.’ ‘Ericsson believes in visual communications,’ says Magnus Furustam, Vice President and Head of Core and IMS at Ericsson. ‘The preview at the Mobile World Congress is a first significant proof point of Ericsson and Polycom cooperation to create an interoperable end-to-end solution for mass market deployment, enabling telecom operators to offer network-based video services to business users and consumers.’ Notes to editors: Business Communication Suite – Ericsson’s solution for Unified Communication www.ericsson.com/ourportfolio/telecom-operators/business-communication-suite?nav=marketcategory005%7Csubarea002 Related article in Ericsson Business Review www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/ericsson_ business_review/index.shtml Promotional movies: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mggZbNG8GEw www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUSpc2vnnro www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnAvVJ-6xlA Our multimedia content is available at the broadcast room: www.ericsson.com/broadcast_room Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company’s portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices.

Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the ‘prime driver in an all-communicating world’ through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 90,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 203.3 billion (USD 28.2 billion) in 2010. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.

Each year, AT&T Pioneers collect cell phones benefitting Cell Phones for Soldiers and also prepare and send thousands of care packages to troops serving overseas, greet soldiers at airports and host various events to recognize the sacrifice of military members and their families.

“I have watched our charity grow and flourish as new partners come on board, and I have to give credit to our earliest supporters like AT&T Pioneers,” said co-founder of Cell Phones for Soldiers, Brittany Bergquist. “They have made supporting our military overseas with free phone calls home possible. Because of their continued commitment, we are able to provide troops with a growing number of minutes each year.”

“AT&T Pioneers is proud to join with Cell Phones for Soldiers to connect the brave men and women serving our country and their families during this special time of the year,” said Debbie Pyle, vice-president, AT&T Pioneers. “We applaud our troops for their sacrifice and hope that a call home will make a small difference to them and their loved ones.”

To learn how to support free calls home to military overseas or to request a calling card for a military member, visit www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com. AT&T customers can text “CP4S” to 704 to make a $5 contribution to Cell Phones for Soldiers. AT&T is waiving all messaging charges and taxes for the text donations. The donations will appear as a line-item on the customer’s bill or be debited from a prepaid account.

About AT&T Pioneers

Founded in 1911 as the Telephone Pioneers of America with Alexander Graham Bell as one of the first members, the AT&T Pioneers continue to build on the millions of hours dedicated to helping others. More than 300,000 AT&T employees and retirees are involved in the AT&T Pioneers volunteer organization. In 2009, AT&T employees and retirees, donated more than 8.5 million hours of time, worth more than $176 million, to community outreach activities— much of it led by the AT&T Pioneers.

About Cell Phones for Soldiers Inc.

Cell Phones for Soldiers Inc. (CPFS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing deployed and returning troops cost-free methods to communicate with family while serving in the United States military. Based in Norwell, Mass., CPFS was founded in 2004 by Robbie and Brittany Bergquist, then 12 and 13 years old. From the recycling of used mobile phones and cash donations, the organization has raised more than $7 million, collected more than 7.5 million cell phones and provided troops overseas with more than 90 million minutes of free talk time.

That’s a fast-growing technology that turns a phone into a virtual wallet, and many cell phone makers, broadband providers and technologists are rolling out the capability.

Here’s the rundown on efforts by Apple, Google, Visa, LG, O2 and others to let mobile phones do even more. Could the laundry be next? That would be so nice.

As technology becomes cheaper and new devices constantly enter the market, we find ourselves quickly replacing our electronics and unsure about what to do with the old ones. The answer to that question is easy – recycle them!

“Recycling electronics helps reduce technology’s carbon footprint and extracts much-needed parts and metals that are reused everyday,” said Douglas Lane, President, Digital Products Group, Haier America. “Haier is committed to safely recycling electronic products and product materials through Electronic Recyclers International (ERI), which specializes in professionally managed separation and disposal systems.”

Electronic waste (or e-waste) is one of the fastest growing sectors of our waste stream. Recycling our old, unwanted televisions and electronics serves two purposes: to keep hazardous materials out of the waste stream, and to recover the valuable materials found in electronic devices. Electronics contain hazardous substances such as mercury, lead, and hexavalent chromium. By recycling our electronics, we help reduce the amount of hazardous materials being sent to our landfills, as well as the potential exposure for us and our families from improper handling of such materials.

Recycling old electronics also sends valuable materials such as glass, plastic, steel, and precious metals like gold and copper back into the manufacturing process. Recycling electronics thus becomes the new Urban Mining. Visit http://www.urbanmining.org for more information. The recovery of these materials during the recycling process reduces the need for virgin materials in the manufacturing of new products. By not mining for virgin materials and incorporating more recyclable materials into our manufacturing processes, we are reducing the negative environmental impact that the mining of virgin materials can have on the quality of our air, land, and water.

Unsure where to start? Here are some tips for recycling your old electronics:

• Start digging. Begin by pulling out those old electronics and accepting that it is okay to let go. Do you really need to hang on to that five-year old cell phone when you’ve had two new cell phones in that same time period? What about those three-year old computer towers in the closet? Would they even be able to meet your computing needs today?
• Prepare your electronics. When recycling your electronics, it is important to remove any personal information from the device. There are a variety of programs out there to remove personal information from your devices. If you aren’t as tech-savvy as others, it may be easier to ensure your electronics are being recycled by a company that provides data destruction certification by wiping your hard drive clean or completely destroying it. Your local collection or drop-off programs will be able to tell you the type of data destruction services their electronics recyclers provide.

• Find a collection program. Identify your nearest local collection or drop-off program. Websites such as http://www.1800recycling.com can assist you with searching for the nearest location to properly dispose of your e-waste for recycling. It also helps that twenty four states currently have e-waste programs designed to make it easier for the public to recycle their old electronics.
• Come prepared. Be sure to ask about possible fees, hours of operation, or other restrictions when recycling your e-waste through a local collection program. In order to off-set the costs of recycling e-waste, collection programs may charge a small fee. Other programs may charge but provide a coupon or credit for the purchase of a new electronic device. It’s important to know what to expect when your drop off your electronics.

• Recycle! Drop off your old electronics for recycling and rest easy knowing that you’ve done the right thing!

If you live in the Los Angeles area, come down to the NBA All-Star E-waste Recycling Day presented by Haier at the Los Angeles Convention Center on February 12 to drop off old electronics and receive tickets to Family Day (Monday, Feb. 21) at NBA All-Star Jam Session presented by Adidas, which takes place at the Convention Center Feb. 18-21. Tickets are limited so get there early!

Haier America
Haier America is a Division of the multinational Haier Group, the world’s leading major appliance brand and a global leader in consumer electronics. Haier is an Official Marketing Partner and the Official High Definition Television of the NBA and sponsor of the Haier Shooting Stars competition which tips off NBA All-Star Saturday Night. Check out the Haier Play of Day on NBA.com for the best of the previous night’s NBA action.

Smart phone addicts will enjoy the benefits of solar charging afforded by this Android phone, since such phones are notorious for battery power brevity.   Specs include those of most smart phones: 3.2″ 320×480 display, 1GB of storage, a MicroSD card slot, FM radio, Bluetooth 2.1, 3 megapixel camera, and 3.5mm audio jack.

To get the charge up to 100%, users will need to have solar access for more hours than the sun is usually available in most places – 17 hours for a complete charge.  However, if you just want a little boost, those solar juices will definitely do the trick in about 2.5 hours for daily use.

Unfortunately, the verdict is still out about just when Apollo will be available in the U.S.  It appears there are two different models being released, one for the US (MTK6573) and one for Europe and most of Asia (MTK6516).  The US model will support 850/1900Mhz bands.  Get ready AT&T customers, here comes Apollo.

Apple is trying to speed up the new line to deal with growing smart phone competition, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The new phones would get software service overhauls and would be about half the size of the iPhone 4, the model that’s now on the market, the newspaper said.

Messages were left Sunday by The Associated Press for an Apple spokeswoman.

The new phones would be sold to cellular carriers for far less than the current iPhone lineup, so the carriers could subsidize most or all of their customers’ costs, bringing the iPhone into the price range of competitors’ products, the newspaper said. Apple now sells iPhones to carriers for an average of $625 each. Carriers then subsidize the price so customers can buy them for as low as $199 if they sign up for two years of cell phone service, the newspaper said.

The new lineup would be sold alongside Apple’s existing line of iPhones, the paper said, citing people it did not identify.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is closely following the company’s decisions and product plans, even though he’s three weeks into his medical leave for an undisclosed reason, the paper said.

The iPhone is a critical product for the Cupertino, Cal.-based company. It generated 39 percent of the company’s $26.7 billion in revenue last quarter.

A person who viewed an early version of the new iPhone told the newspaper that it’s lighter than the current version and has an edge-to-edge touch screen and virtual keyboard. Apple also plans to upgrade the iPhone 4, the newspaper said.

Apple also may redo its MobileMe online storage service, which lets customers store data so calendars and contacts are available to multiple computers and other devices, the paper said.

The service now has a $99 annual fee, but could be made a free service that also would store photos, music and videos, the paper said.

cell phones

Taking Advantage of Technology

One thing you must remember is not all camera phones are created with similar designs. Many camera phones are just a few megapixels shy from those found on your standard point and shoot device. The greater the amount of megapixels, the more options you have to work with on your photos. Usually, the camera located on the phone is used to take photos that will be used for networking and to send through email. If you don’t plan on using the photos or videos taken on your cellular device for more than this, the lower resolution is no big deal.

Many cellular phones contain an LED flash. An LED flash will work fine in most cases, but it will still leave photos a little dark in low-light situations. Here are a couple quick tricks for taking better pictures in low-light situations. First, you can increase the exposure time to allow more light to be absorbed in an image. This option can be hit or miss as the longer exposure time gives the subject more time to move and ruin your desired image. It will take some practice to hone your technique when you increase your exposure time. The second option is simply to increase the amount of light that’s projected onto a subject. If you can’t increase the lighting, and if longer exposure doesn’t do the trick, we suggest using a standard point and shoot camera or an image capturing device with more advanced flash technology.

Reaping the Benefits

Using the camera on your multimedia cell phone makes taking pictures more convenient than ever. As long as you aren’t looking to take professional-grade, extremely high-quality images, your camera phone makes it possible for you to leave the large camera at home and use your cellular device. A multimedia cell phone is more compact and lightweight than a separate image capturing device and is something that you probably take with you everywhere you go anyway. This added convenience of having a high-quality camera phone with you gives you the ability to take pictures whenever there’s a spontaneous photo op.

Smartphones and multimedia cell phones have access to a vast selection of applications to enhance the device’s camera and make it feel more like a point and shoot device. Some features include face detection technology, geotagging and adding graphics or illustrations to your image or video.

Having touchscreen capabilities is also a benefit when using the camera on your cellular device. The touchscreen gives you more freedom and offers several options for manual control on the device. Using your fingers directly on the screen makes navigation through menus and settings much quicker and allows you to quickly and easily focus the camera on a subject, edit your photo or zoom in and out.

Capturing History

Camera phones found on multimedia cell phones and smartphones have changed the way our culture socializes and have changed the way we capture history. For example, these phones have captured footage from historic events such as the 2005 London bombings and the 2009 Iranian election protests. Even though these devices may be small, they provide enough technology to conveniently capture the images and video you want.