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LG Electronics unveiled some new products and future technologies at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It officially launched the LG-KF700, a new handset with an optimized user interface that makes use of touch technology. Other handsets from LG featuring touch technology included the convenience oriented LG-KF600, the slim and stylish interactive touch-lighting LG-KF510, and the professional level camera phone-equipped LG Viewty.

Combining three separate input methods, the LG-KF700 provides easy access to multimedia features, which includes a full web browser, digital audio and video players, and handy widgets. The high-res 3-inch full touchscreen LCD provides an optimized interface for watching video content. A shortcut dial on the rear of this 3G, HSDPA-enabled handset offers an easy and intuitive way to switch among applications. There’s a sliding alphanumeric keypad for calls. Other features include a 3 megapixel auto-focus camera, support for microSD cards, Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

Sony Ericsson has launched the 8 GB touch screen W960i Walkman phone. With room for up to 8,000 songs and finger-touch navigation around playlists, the phone also has a 2.6″ display and a 3.2 megapixel camera. It can be hooked up to the Web using the 3G network or via a Wi-Fi access point. The W960i Walkman phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus within its 16mm frame, and allows picture messaging, email or picture blogging.

It incorporates Sony Ericsson’s TrackID music recognition software, that lets users record a clip of a song on their phone and find out instantly the name of the artist, track and album. The W960i Walkman phone comes bundled with a stereo portable handsfree, is UMTS 2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 and will be available in Vinyl Black for Rs. 28995

Cell phone/PDAs or other iterations of what you want to call the convergence of handheld devices are featured prominently at the Consumer Electronics Show, no doubt. Whether these devices from Motorola or Samsung overtly claim to be iPhone killers is beside the point. The point is that most devices feature cleaner user interfaces and better bundles of applications that access more and more content. Nearly all of these gadgets are touch-based. Nearly all the devices, though, still don’t come close in terms of usability and elegance to the iPhone’s user interface. You can check out all the performance reviews of the upcoming phones, but more interesting is the convergence of high-end couture brands with traditionally utilitarian brands like Samsung on display at CES.As for the devices themselves, has partnered with Georgio Armani to release a Samsung-made phone only available in Europe.

Meanwhile, Bang & Olufsen collaborated with Samsung and has released an updated phone that is GSM-based (AT&T and T-Mobile only). I’m reminded of T-Mobile’s attempt to sell a D&G phone or Prada’s foray into the cell phone market. Using the B&O phone, however, was not easy. An actual metal click wheel got dirty quick (the clerk at the booth kept wiping it down) and I would question how the sound quality is to be superior given that you’re often victim to your network provider.

Samsung’s mobile phone division spent CES resting on their laurels and preparing for the two big cell phone shows coming up: the global 3GSM show in Barcelona next month and the US-based CTIA show in Las Vegas in late March. Still, though, the second-ranked mobile handset company in the U.S. and worldwide wanted to show off something fresh. So the company brought a bunch of phones which have been out for a little while in other countries, but which U.S. consumers haven’t been able to buy: a 5-megapixel camera phone with 3X optical zoom; a music phone with a large, slide-out speaker; and a luxury phone with Giorgio Armani branding. The only available U.S.-centric phone with a five megapixel camera phone is the Nokia N95.

A few phones with optical zoom have shipped, though they’ve generally taken awful pictures. But the Samsung SGH-G800 looks like it might be better, in part because it looks a heck of a lot like a digital camera. The $549 G800 has a 3X optical zoom, but also face detection and image stabilization, and it displays your pics on a 2.4″ 320×240 LCD screen. That’s a cameraphone with the emphasis on “camera,” not “phone”. So why not just take a digital camera along? Because your digital camera can’t automatically upload your pictures to your blog – and the G800 can.

For companies in the CDMA market without expertise or experience in GSM, the Wavecom product affords the opportunity to slap this module into a handset, complete with IP indemnification licensing, carrier approval on the GSM network, and the necessary chips and other licensing, and offer up a GSM phone just like that. These companies would otherwise have to approach a dozen or more organizations for licensing of essential IP for GSM and get those licenses within the typical two-year time frame. Wavecom offers a CDMA module as well. Everything is included in the price of the modules.

Wavecom’s approach circumvents individual license negotiations for OEMs like Gateway, HP, and Handspring that are entering the wireless space without these relationships. With Wavecom’s MUSE Platform Open MMI (Man Machine Interface), customers can develop unique user interfaces. “Developing MMI used to take a huge team of resources, 20-30 people working on MMI development. We now offer that as part of our module package,” says David McCartney, vice president of marketing and business development, Wavecom. Wavecom brings its own GPRS protocol stack, the Wavecom stack. “You don’t have to have half a million dollars up front and a dollar a unit included in the price [to get a GPRS stack or licensing],” says McCartney. Wavecom has a license from Sun to include J2ME in its WISMO chipset module’s software packaging. Wavecom has developed its own baseband to control new baseband features like AMR technology (Adaptive Multi-Rate) for U.S.-based GSM networks and EDGE phones.

A team of Japanese engineers have come up with a way of blocking mobile phone signals using wood panels containing magnetic material.The panels would be useful in cinemas, theatres, or anywhere where ringing mobile phones cause exasperation.They work by sandwiching a layer of nickel-zinc ferrite between thin slices of wood, New Scientist magazine reports.The magnetic ferrite absorbs much of the energy of the radio signal, cutting the phone dead in most cases.Hideo Oka and his colleagues at Iwata University in Morioka, Japan, tested the composite panels by placing them over antennas used to transmit radio signals at frequencies typical for GSM mobiles, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi computer networks. He chose wood as a natural material which could be used for furnishing. Tests showed a four-millimetre sandwich of wood and ferrite stopped 97% of the power of a test microwave signal.Mr Oka hopes the shielding panels will eventually be sold in hardware stores. They could be used to build doors, walls and rooms in which it would be impossible to carry out a mobile phone conversation. They might also be useful to shield wireless computer networks from each other.