In Brief: Mobile World via the Blogs

Engadget was blogging live from Sunday night’s Sony Ericsson Press Conference. “Very rave-y in here. Champagne flowing, DJs spinning,” wrote Chris Ziegler, before Sony Ericsson’s Steve Walker and Leonard Hoornik took to the stage. “We make people smile,” said Walker, adding “Sony Ericsson is THE communication entertainment brand.” Cue the W995 8 megapixel slider phone, and a PlayNow movie service. This is followed by a sneak peek at a release for the second half of 2009, which is still unnamed (yet has the code-name ‘Idou‘), but boasts a 12.1 megapixel camera… so is that a phone with a camera, or a camera with a phone?.

But as Winkelhage adds on Twitter, there are no announcements of an Android phone from Sony Ericsson. The Idou will definitely run on Symbian…

Meanwhile, TelecomTV’s Leila Makki visited the ShowStoppers event, where a number of technology companies were demonstrating their products and services to the media. Her report will can be seen in today’s “NewsDesk show on our website.

One of the most useful aspects of mobile phones is their ability to identify the position of the user, either via cell site triangulation or GPS. Incredibly, the Global Positioning System is twenty years old — only a year younger than GSM itself. O2’s VP of R&D, and former chairman of the GSM Association, Mike Short, unearthed the anniversary on his blog for the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

“Thinking about the more innovative deployments of GPS over the past 20 years, I’ve been wondering about where the engineering and technology community could take GPS in the next 20 years,” pondered Mike. “How soon will it reach further into the four billion mobile phones in use worldwide announced this month by the GSM Association? What would you most like to track or find with GPS, and why?”

Mobile Crunch is reporting on this morning’s Nokia press conference, where the Finnish company announced the E55 and E75 handsets.

“Nokia’s “Dean of Devices” Kai Öistämö announced the Nokia E55, their slimmest QWERTY device yet,” wrote Greg Kumparak. “It will be available in Europe this summer for roughly $340 USD. Amongst the details currently announced is an incredibly impressive one month stand-by time.”