Besides a smattering of handsets, Motorola’s Home & Networks Mobility division will be showcasing some of its wares at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas later this week.
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Motorola’s 9100 version of a femtocell
is actually a digital picture frame.
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The company announced that its KeepMeConnected Femtocells – CDMA 9100 Series was selected as an honoree of the CES Innovations 2009 Design and Engineering Awards. The touch-screen digital picture frame with a built-in femtocell is recognized in the furniture product category.
The 9100 takes a fairly technical device and turns it into something that can be presented as a picture frame in the home, explained Rob Malnati, senior manager in Broadband Home Gateways and Software at Motorola. “We’re trying to create a compelling form factor,” he said. He didn’t cite a price range, saying it’s up to carriers to decide how much they want to subsidize it. Consumers can incorporate their own pictures into the device.
Motorola also will be showing off the Motorola wi4 WiMAX CPEi 775, an all-in-one access device that combines a WiMAX 802.16e modem with an integrated Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g router, VoIP ATA ports for voice calling and an Ethernet port. It’s designed so that consumers can position it anywhere in a home or office and still get adequate reception. For service providers, it means their customer support people can eliminate the step where they try to figure out if the end-user has the device correctly oriented when they get called, said Tom Gruba, senior director of wireless broadband marketing,
Motorola has not publicly announced customers for the Wi-Fi/WiMAX access device, but two outside the United States are lined up. At some point, the company may design a unit for the U.S. market, but the current version is for the 3.5 GHz band, with support for 5 MHz, 7 MHz and 10 MHz bandwidths.
In the handset arena, Motorola will be featuring three new models. The Moto W233 Renew is described as the world’s first carbon neutral mobile phone. Renew is made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles. The phone’s reduced packing size and in-box materials are printed using vegetable-based inks on 100% post-consumer recycled paper.
The Motosurf A3100 is a 3G Windows Mobile touch tablet phone with a customizable home screen. The touch tablet can be accessed by using a finger, stylus or trackball. It connects via HSDPA, HSUPA and Wi-Fi The new Tundra VA76r boasts a rugged design with push-to-talk (PTT) for AT&T customers. It has TeleNav Track and Xora Mobile Workforce Management tools.
Motorola also will launch a new update of its Communications Convergence Engine (CCE), the software behind next-generation TV that combines the convenience of classic TV with the control and personalization of the Internet. The Storefront 1.0 update results in consumers being able to browse personalized catalogs of content via TV, Web and mobile devices.
Last week, Motorola revealed it would lay off 400 more workers in the fourth quarter than it had earlier announced. Fourth-quarter layoffs totaled 1,900.