PDAs, Phones Targeted for Video

Apple Computer, L.M. Ericsson, and Sun Microsystems have partnered to create a technology platform for delivering multimedia content such as movie clips and news programs to wireless devices, the companies announced Tuesday.

The companies plan to each focus on a certain area of the project, which is called the Ericsson Content Delivery Solution. Apple will be using its QuickTime software for content creation and encoding. Ericsson is focusing on wireless infrastructure, and Sun will be providing hardware and software for content delivery, the companies said.

"We would be the bridge between the content generated by Apple and the edge of the (wireless) infrastructure that Ericsson builds," said Videhi Mallela, a product marketing manager with Sun.

Cell Phone Service

The three companies plan to offer the hardware and software package to mobile phone network operators by the second half of this year, said Anette Jorgensen, a product marketing manager with Ericsson.

The companies are not yet disclosing which network operators will use the equipment to offer services to consumers, she said. The companies demonstrated the technology Tuesday at the QuickTime Live conference in Los Angeles, said Brian Croll product marketing manager with Apple. The companies encoded an MPEG-4 video, streamed it through a Sun server and showed it on a television with a set-top box, a PC, and a wireless gadget from Ericsson.

"This is create once, stream anywhere," Croll said.

Because the video content will be created using the MPEG-4 standard, the platform would let developers send the content to a wide range of devices as well as increasing the overall market for content, Apple's Croll said. Developers can already create content using existing software from Apple, including iMovie and DVD StudioPro, he said.

"This is about bridging the media industry and the mobile community," Ericsson's Jorgensen said.

Other Interest

Mobile phone vendors have been eyeing higher quality video technology. Toshiba recently previewed a new MPEG-4 videophone chip, scheduled for release later this year.

The device contains the electronics to receive and decode a digital video stream encoded in the MPEG-4 standard, according to Toshiba. Because the chip includes an encoder, it can create an MPEG-4 stream from a video image, which could open the possibility of two-way videoconferencing.

Devices such as this chip are expected to play a major part in future cellular telephones. Third-generation mobile networks have sufficient capacity to support two-way video communication, with appropriate support in mobile devices.