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The XOOM runs on Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb – the Android OS for tablets – and is unofficially the Google tablet (in the same way that the Samsung Nexus was its Gingerbread phone).

Let's get the specs out of the way: widescreen HD display with 1280x800 resolution to support HD video and with HDMI out; 5-megapixel rear-facing camera for 720p video capture; 2-megapixel front-facing camera; gyroscope; barometer; e-compass; accelerometer and adaptive lighting.

Its being launched in a 3G/WiFi-enabled version as well as WiFi-only.

LocationPoint delivers ads to smartphone users when they’re near to signed-up merchants.

Navteq trialled the service in 2010 and reports a seven per cent click through on McDonald’s ads.

Nokia is already a partner, as are location-based app providers including Appello, CoPilot Live, Navigon, NDrive, Poynt, and Telmap. 

Now RIM and Samsung are on board, though it's not clear from the release exactly how the relationship works.

We'll try to find out.

But this is clearly very significant for Navteq, which has made lots of money from licensing its maps but now sees a huge commercial opportunity in linking these assets to contextual marketing.

Out There Media has grown its business hugely over the last two years, securing partnership agreements with 40 carriers across Europe and Asia.

These deals are built around its Mobucks cross-carrier, cross-advertiser platform, which delivers message-based ads to opted in customers.

Out There got its start in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, but has steadily expanded into Asia and Western Europe.

So this deal is a major coup. 

Its highlight will be “SpecialOffers”, which will be free for customers that sign up to receive news, promotions, special discounts and opportunities to enter competitions.

Prizes including a Mini, tablet PCs, phones and more will help entice people into signing up.

Kerstin Trikalitis, CEO of Out There Media, said: “Bringing our Mobile Advertising expertise to a market of such strategic importance like Germany is an achievement that makes us extremely proud.

"The fact that this milestone is undertaken in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom not only maximizes its importance, but is also a guarantee of its success.”

The new spec is the flagship for Qualcomm's Snapdragon family, and it's full name is the APQ8064.

It's the first in a new family of Snapdragon chips based on the codename 'Krait', but it's still based on the same basic ARM design as the recently launched dual-core APQ8060.

However, the speed is ramped up to 2.5GHz and doubles the number of processing cores to four.

Yeah, four.

Qualcomm says the new chip can deliver 12 times the overall performance of the APQ8060 yet requires 75 per cent less power than the original Snapdragon SoC platform.

ME’s news coverage of MWC is supported by NewBay, the leader in cloud-based digital content services. NewBay’s LifeCache white label platform enables operators and device makers to deliver a lifetime of content experiences across mobiles, PCs, tablets and TVs. Customers include T-Mobile, Telefónica O2, France Telecom Orange, AT&T, Telstra, LG and more.

The newest additions to the Xperia smartphones range, follow after the launch of the arc earlier this year, and are based on Android Gingerbread.

The neo is all about the screen. Its 'Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine' plus Exmor R mobile sensor enables the capture of quality pictures and HD videos even in low light. All this can be shared on an HD TV via the built in HDMI-connector.

Meanwhile the pro is messaging focused and combines a slide-out keyboard with Type & Send functionality eliminating the need to open a dedicated app for each type of message.

Its Smart Keyboard function triggers predictive messaging actions automatically when the user slides out the keyboard.

And it comes pre-loaded with Office Suite Pro to let consumers view and edit office documents directly on the phone.

The Play also got its official unveiling today. That's the PlayStation phone, and it's all been covered before. Clickhere.

ME’s news coverage of MWC is supported by NewBay, the leader in cloud-based digital content services. NewBay’s LifeCache white label platform enables operators and device makers to deliver a lifetime of content experiences across mobiles, PCs, tablets and TVs. Customers include T-Mobile, Telefónica O2, France Telecom Orange, AT&T, Telstra, LG and more.

Another interesting move from Samsung, which is stealthily evolving from a pure device maker to one with its fingers in many services pies.

It's already launched the Samsung App Store and its own bada OS on lower-end smartphones.

Now Samsung Hubs.

It's broken into four parts:

• Social Hub Premium: Contact list, IM status, and updates from social networking sites in one place.
• Readers Hub: 2.2 million books and novels, 2,000 global and local newspapers in 49 languages and 2,300 magazines in 22 languages.
• Game Hub: Free and premum titles from Gameloft, plus social games including ngmoco’s We Rule and We City.
• Music Hub: Over 12 million tracks from 7digital.

ME’s news coverage of MWC is supported by NewBay,

The home for these new services is the Galaxy S II, which Samsung says is the “world’s thinnest smartphone”

It's 8.49mm thick, and looks a lot like iPhone 4, which is 9.3mm.

This follow-up to one of the darlings of the Android world was widely expected.

However, the specs remain very impressive. The Gingerbread (Android 2.3)-powered phone has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen and Dual-Core processor.

Samsung says this dual core capability speeds up web browsing, and brings multi-tasking comparable to a PC-like environment.

There's also an eight megapixel camera and a camcorder with 1080p full HD recording and playback.

Another new innovation on the device is the Live Panel, a kind of content bar that aggregates live web and apps on a single customisable home-screen.

ME’s news coverage of MWC is supported by NewBay, the leader in cloud-based digital content services.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab  has been the only serious rival to the Apple iPad, and now the vendor has got in first with a 'sequel'.

The firm says the new machine is intended to be a 'multimedia hub for afficionados of games, electronic books and social media, with a 10.1 inch (25.7 centimeter) screen, dual surround-sound speakers, and front- and rear-facing cameras.

It's based on the new Android tablet platform, Honeycomb.

Vodafone has got a limited time exclusive in more than 20 countries.

Google's mobile advertising team has teamed up with ad agency Jung von Matt Stockholm for a social location app focused on this week's Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

Called Heat MWC, the free app is available for Android and iPhone, and shows a heat map of which areas in the Fira - and out in Barcelona itself - are 'hottest' at any point in time.

Suggested uses are stands, keynotes, events and bars. Users can filter their map to only show activity from a specific nationality of attendee, if they're feeling particularly xenophobic.

The app also uses the Bump API to help two users exchange contact details by bumping their handsets together. It joins an existing official MWC 2011 app from the GSMA, which is available for various smartphones.

LG has confirmed that it will be unveiling two new products at Mobile World Congress this week: the LG Optimus 3D smartphone and the LG Optimus Pad tablet.

Both had been teased in recent weeks with photos and brief video footage, but LG has made them official today, likely to steal a march on Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson - who all hold their MWC press conferences tonight.

"I`m confident that this year, LG will emerge as a leader in the next generation of smartphone and tablet devices," says LG's mobile boss Dr Jong-seok Park.

The Optimus 3D smartphone includes a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 4.3-inch WVGA touchscreen, and runs the latest Android software. However, as its name implies, 3D is the big selling point: the device has a glasses-free 3D display, and also a 3D camera to shoot videos.

Meanwhile, the Optimus Pad is an 8.9-inch tablet running Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb software, with a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor inside. It also has a 3D camera built in.

2010 saw LG's fierce rival Samsung steal a march in the smartphones and tablets sector with its Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab. LG is clearly hoping 3D will lead its fightback in 2011.

Research In Motion is working on software that will allow its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to run Android apps, according to a report on Bloomberg citing 'three people familiar with the matter'.

The move would make more than 130,000 apps available for the PlayBook, although the report suggests that the software may not be ready until the second half of this year, a few months after the PlayBook goes on sale this spring.

"It will be a shrewd move to let Android apps run RIM without any performance or user interface hiccups," analyst Chetan Sharma says in response. "It will make the RIM platform attractive to consumers as it lacks the strength of the rivals from an apps perspective."

However, the move could also backfire if it makes developers more likely to make Android apps rather than native BlackBerry and/or PlayBook applications.