Samsung 12MP Handset With Optical Zoom Pictures Emerge

It was a little while ago that we got wind of Samsung’s upgrade to the 8 megapixel Pixon, the Pixon12 or M8910 with its 12 megapixel lens. The handset must be still warm off the production line and Samsung has already decided that it’s time for an upgrade. The M8920 is the next 12MP camera phone the company is apparently gearing up to launch according to reports.

While it may seem like it’s just another camera phone with a high megapixel count, Samsung has decided that that was not nearly enough and has upped the specs a bit for the handset’s prime feature. The M8920 is going to be equipped with, wait for it, drum roll please... 3x OPTICAL zoom! A lot of readers have been asking about optical zoom being incorporated and here it is. Aside from that it will also have both LED and Xenon flashes. It makes me wonder what’s going to become of the digicam market.

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According to the same reports, other feature will include - internal GPS and Wi-Fi (with support for DLNA). The handset will be using Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI and come loaded with 8 Gigs of internalmemory. There’s no other information on any of the other features.

Pricing is yet to be talked of as well. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see the device at Communicasia later in the month and we’ll have more information on it then, so stay tuned.

Cellphone Industry to go Greener

Cellphone maker Sony Ericsson unveiled on Thursday two handset models it said are more eco-friendly, and said it expects the new Naite model to be one of its key volume drivers in coming quarters. The world's largest consumer electronics sector by volume, the cellphone industry is looking increasingly at how to tap consumers' increasing interest in more environmentally friendly phones. The new Sony Ericsson models - the more advanced C901 GreenHeart and a mass-market model Naite - will be sold in smaller packages and have user manuals that are electronic. The devices use more recycled materials and consume less energy. The company said it aims to roll out similar features across its portfolio in 2010 and 2011. "We are not aiming at a niche segment. We are taking this to mainstream and to a bigger audience," Mats Pellback-Scharp, head of sustainability at Sony Ericsson told Reuters in an interview. "Naite is the lowest cost 3Gphone in Sony Ericsson's portfolio and we expect it to be one of the biggest volume drivers in end-2009 to early 2010," Pellback-Scharp said.

Money-losing Sony Ericsson, the world's fifth-biggest handset maker, is in need of new models to renew its offering since the appeal of the years-old Sony-branded Cybershot cameraphones and Walkman musicphones has faded. The role of greener products is increasing rapidly in the cellphone industry, with a recent ABI Research survey saying nearly half of U.S. consumers are likely to be influenced by suppliers' green credentials when purchasing devices. Sony Ericsson said on Thursday it targets a cut of 20 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2015.

The handset industry is closely followed by environmental organisations around the world due to its large scale. More than 1 billion phones are sold globally each year, which requires the use of sales boxes, add-ons and tonnes of rare raw materials. Samsung Electronics and ZTE launched phone models in February which use solar power. The world's top cellphone maker, Nokia, started to renew its packaging in 2006, and has said it saved 100 million euros ($142.9 million) in less than a year. Sony Ericsson said its new models will use at least 50 percent recycled plastics - similar to Nokia's 3110 Evolve model, which the Finnish firm introduced last year. Last year Nokia's chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, showed a phone made fully of recycled materials at the Mobile World Congress trade show, but the research project has not made it into production. "It looks three to five years out to see how recycled materials themselves might be used to make devices. We hope that elements from this research project will be things we can take into production and deploy across our product range in the coming years," said a Nokia spokeswoman.

Return Your Junk Phone, Get a Tree Planted

Every time you return a junk mobile phone to a Nokia dealer, the firm will thank you by planting a tree, apart from recycling that phone in an eco-friendly manner.

Announcing the initiative on World Environment Day, Ambrish Bakaya, director of corporate affairs in Nokia India, said the firm had already tied up with two NGOs in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to plant 22,000 trees. The programme would soon be extended to the top 15 cities of the country, he added.

"We already have 1,300 bins at our main dealers' shops around the country where people can throw in their junk phones," Bakaya said. The mobile phone manufacturer with the largest market share in India has been getting a good response. "Now we have tied up with an NGO called Ahimsa in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu to plant 12,000 trees, and with Bangalore's Rotary Midtown to plant 10,000 trees in educational institutions around that city."

Nokia has also been working to strengthen the laws on recycling of e-waste, which threatens to become a major problem in India.Saying that the firm was working with the Manufacturers Association for Information Technology, the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Department of Telecommunications to put together stronger guidelines on the subject, Bakaya added: "We welcome any step which helps strengthen e-waste management and creates awareness about the need to recycle e-waste in an eco-friendly manner".