Another busy morning at MWC. Here are some of the key annnouncements…

Handset maker HTC revealed that it had selected ALK Technologies CoPilot Live navigation software to provide turn-by-turn voice guidance on the new GPS-enabled Touch Cruise Smartphone in selected territories.
In addition to navigation-based services, such as live local search and weather information, the Touch Cruise also sports HTCs FootPrints photo navigation application, which enables users to permanently chronicle their special moments by capturing and storing a digital postcard on their phone.

Another handset-maker, LG, unveiled the LG ARENA (LG-KM900), which boasts a 3D user interface, and is the first handset in the world to incorporate Dolby Mobile surround sound.
LG Electronics also found time to demo the worlds first market-ready Touch Watch Phone, the LG-GD910, with 3G video telephony capabilities. Tomorrow, it will demo the first data card based on 3G PP LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology.

ABBYY, which provides document recognition, data capture and linguistic software, demoed a preview version of its FotoTranslate mobile application, which has to be one of the shows wackier ones. FotoTranslate combines ABBYYs optical character recognition (OCR) technology and mobile dictionary software, enabling users to translate words by photographing them with their phone. In a few seconds, the program automatically recognizes the photographed word, looks it up in the dictionary database and shows the translation on the phone screen.

The GSM Association (GSMA) held a Leadership Summit, bringing together 400 CEOs, government ministers and officials, who stressed the unique role that broadband, specifically mobile broadband, can play as an economic stimulus. The Summit called on governments to support the rollout of mobile broadband services to drive economic growth.
The Summit also noted that the switchover to digital television will present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make low-frequency spectrum, in which radio waves travel long distances and better penetrate the walls of buildings, available for mobile broadband services. Of the 400MHz of low-frequency spectrum freed up by the switch-off of analogue television, the GSMA believes 100MHz should be used to enable the roll out of cost-effective mobile broadband networks.
In the same vein, the GSMA awarded its annual Government Leadership Award to France, which it said has taken several key policy decisions that will ensure the vast majority of its people will be able to benefit from cost-effective, high-performance mobile broadband services.
 

Openwave announced the launch of Openwave Email Mx 8.0, an extensible, carrier-scale email solution that supports mobile email using the IMAP IDLE standard, and high capacity mailboxes. The IMAP IDLE feature enables service providers to offer mobile email directly to their subscribers with any compatible handset, while high capacity mailboxes offer almost limitless storage to handle the increasing amount of rich content.

Nokia became the latest firm to open an App Store. The Nokia store will distribute applications, of course, but also, user-generated content and widgets.

Cisco announced support for the LTE (Long Term Evolution) gateway on the Cisco 7600 Series Router. Cisco also launched the Cisco Wireless Security Gateway as part of its offering to support the security needs of various in-home licensed and unlicensed wireless broadband technologies, such as UMA and Femto, which enable service providers to scale their service offerings. The Cisco Gateway solution is based on the Cisco 7600 Series Router and can support up to 900,000 IPSec sessions.
 

Mobile games publisher Gameloft used the show to announce that it has sold over 200 million mobile games since launching in 2003. The Gameloft catalogue now contains close to 300 entries in all existing categories. Gameloft games are available in more than 80 countries, and are generally adaptable to all phones and platforms.

Bridgewater Systems unveiled the Subscriber Data Broker, a subscriber data management solution that brings together dynamic subscriber data with the tools needed to broker the data to multiple systems and applications. Bridgewater says the Subscriber Data Broker will enable operators to reduce operating costs, and create and deliver personalized services more quickly.
Separately, Bridgewater announced that it has received a multi-million dollar order from a large, North American mobile service provider for the Bridgewater  Policy Controller, to manage its successful streaming video, music and content service. It is also being used to authorize and authenticate subscribers for third-party applications.  

Advanced Receiver Technologies (ART) unveiled its interference cancellation technology, which is designed to improve voice call connectivity and offer uninterrupted high speed broadband to 3G mobile users without changes to the network.  It addresses the problem of inter- and intra-cell interference which reduces 3G network capacity by 50% and restricts the data transfer rate at cell edge by 70%, degrading data transfer performance for 3G mobile users.

ACCESS CO., which provides advanced software technologies to the mobile and beyond-PC markets, revealed that it has reinforced the capabilities of its NetFront Widgets solution by adding support for the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) BONDI standard, by increasing the number of supported platforms and by expanding available services. NetFront Widgets provides operators and handset manufacturers with a comprehensive solution comprising client (device), server, community site and content. By adopting NetFront Widgets, the company says, operators and handset manufacturers can accelerate development and delivery of high value-added widget services.

Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm and LG, announced an agreement to begin the development of mirasol-enabled handsets.
mirasol displays consume significantly less power than other display technologies, extending handset battery life.

VASCO Data Security unveiled DIGIPASS for Mobile 3.0, an authentication solution for mobile phones offering time- and event-based two-factor authentication and digital signature capability. This latest version of DIGIPASS for Mobile focuses on an improved user experience. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been revamped. Menus, messages, logos, colours, font can be fully adapted to the banks branding, supporting the brand recognition for the end-user. It also supports multiple languages including Asian Character sets amongst others Mandarin and Japanese. Menus have been extended and include links to services like ATM locator and WAP information.

Bharti Telesoft, which provides integrated VAS solutions for mobile operators in emerging markets, launched an aggregation system that it says will transform operators' ability to launch innovative new voice applications quickly and cost effectively. Bharti says its AVAN (Aggregated Voice Applications Network) enables operators to deliver an unlimited portfolio of voice-activated rich applications instantly, and at the same time optimize the existing network to realize major efficiencies in terms of network utilization and operational resource. This is achieved without any upfront investment, creating a sustainable competitive advantage for operators in rapidly expanding markets where subscribers demand voice-enabled access to content.

SpinVox announced its intention to release SpinVox Create, an open API (Application Programming Interface) to VMCS, the worlds largest commercial speech platform.
SpinVox says that SpinVox Create is a response to an increasing demand for voice conversion services from technology developers who recognise that a speech interface enables the most natural form of communication and who want to build Speech 2.0 applications and are looking for best-in-class open products.
The company intends to deliver SpinVox Create as a simple, straightforward API to leverage its commercial speech platform, to enable any developer with web access to quickly build commercial speech applications. It will also enable SpinVox to collaborate with third parties to foster further innovations in voice and expand the Speech 2.0 market.
SpinVox also announced the launch of Portuguese and Italian as the fifth and sixth languages in its multi-lingual service offering, as it targets the expanding Brazilian, Portuguese and Italian telecoms markets. The company also revealed that it has converted more than 100 million voice-to-text messages in the two years since its service started to be rolled out with carriers around the world.

Stantum Technologies, which develops multi-touch sensing technology, announced a multi-touch framework including gesture recognition, context-dependent cursor management, and a virtual physics processor. Called TouchPark, the new framework will run on leading operating systems (Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Android) and semiconductor platforms, including Texas Instruments Zoom, Freescale i.MX, and ST Nomadic.
TouchParks gesture recognition module interprets such user gestures as pinch (zoom), twist, close, and rotate. The virtual physics processor provides a natural look and feel of actions shown on the display, based on the type and speed of gestures used on the multi-touch panel; for example, it can slow down the speed during the final phase of a scrolling on lists or graphical objects and can bound when reaching an edge or a limit defined by a window or the screen size.

Sony Music announced an agreement with MATERNA Communications to create a retail offering on its labels artist sites across Europe, enabling the sale of digital downloads direct to consumers. The service will support a variety of localised payment methods pursuant to a co-operation with payment service provider, GlobalCollect. Relevant launch dates and applicable territories are expected to be revealed in the next few weeks.  

APT Licensing, the developer and licensor of apt-X audio compression technology, announced a partnership with CSR, which provides wireless semiconductors for Bluetooth connectivity, to provide a seamless ecosystem for delivering high quality stereo audio wireless connectivity between Bluetooth A2D- enabled devices, such as music mobiles, Smartphones, portable media players and netbooks. The technology collaboration further advances the existing business-to-business relationship between the two companies established through the CSR eXtension Partner Program. This is an open program for developers of DSPs (digital signal processors), helping CSRs electronics OEM customers differentiate their products, using a range of third-party audio and DSP enhancements.