Google launches Movie Search Service for Mobile Devices

Google has launched a mobile version of its movie search service that is compatible with Apple's iPhone as well as all mobile devices running Android and the Palm webOS. The new offering promises to make it easier for movie fans to plan their next theater trip while on the go.

Google's movie search results are available now in English on mobile devices in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. To access the new mobile service, users go to Google.Com in the handset's web browser, search for "movies" and then tap on the "more movies" link, wrote Google mobile team member Nick Fey on the Google Mobile Blog.

"From there, you can either browse a list of movies or select the 'Theaters' button to browse a list of theaters near you," Fey wrote.

Mobile Movie Trailers
Google's new movie listings page incorporates buttons that enable web visitors to play the latest movie trailers on their phones. Mobile users also are able to drill down to access more details about a film, such as the movie's rating, Fey noted.

"Just touch the poster or movie title and you'll see our new movie-details page that has a synopsis of the movie, a more detailed list of showtimes, the cast and crew, and pictures," Fey wrote.

The new service also provides users with new ways to explore films by genre. "Sometimes, you might feel like seeing a sci-fi flick or a romance, but you're not sure what's out in theaters,"

Associate Product Manager Dan Stokeley wrote on The Official Google Blog. "With genre filters you can start browsing right away and quickly find the right movie for you."

Alternatively, users browsing by theater will see a map of the venues nearest to them. "Then just tap on the link to any particular theater to see what shows are playing there and what times they're playing," Fey wrote.

This is where Google Maps Navigation can come in handy, at least for users with compatible handsets running Android 1.6 or higher. They will be able to chart a course to the nearest theater in the list by speaking the address, the name of a nearby landmark, "or just about anything into the search box and Google will find it for you," Google Software Engineer Keith Ito wrote on the Google Mobile Blog. "Then press 'Navigate' and you're on your way."

Blending Video With Search
Google movie search is just one among the many things the search giant is trying out that merges search with videos and other multimedia content.

"Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information," Google Vice President Susan Wojcicki wrote on The Official Google Blog. "So over the past few years, we've blended videos, images, maps and more into the search results on Google.Com."

As always, Google is looking to make the search results it delivers more relevant, not only to users but also to the online advertising community. From the film industry's perspective, movie trailers may represent the ultimate advertising tool, but not the only one.

So it will be interesting to see how Google evolves its movie search service to include other types of movie promotions and tie-ins from which the company can derive advertising revenues.

"As we continue to think up innovative ways to give you the information you want, you're likely to see even more ad formats until we pinpoint the most useful, relevant and engaging ones," Wojcicki wrote.

Sony optimistic on 3-D TV display

A third to a half of the Sony Corp. TV sets sold annually will be packed with 3-D features by the year ending March 2013.

But Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka acknowledged that what Sony may really need for its money-losing TV business is its own display technology and the ability to make its own TV displays.

Sony has fallen behind in flat-panel TV technology to rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea.

Yoshioka acknowledged that having to buy panels from Samsung was one reason why his Tokyo-based company lags in flat-panel TVs that use a new kind of backlight called LED - an innovation that can produce super-slim TVs and clearer images.

Samsung has scored success with its LED backlight TVs.

Yoshioka said in hindsight the panel joint venture with Samsung produced difficulties despite some of the benefits.

"They were a competitor," he said of Samsung, while declining to give details on when Sony may have its own displays.

Yoshioka hinted Sony was planning an upgrade of a different kind of technology called organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, which are different from LED TVs, and generate light on the display's surface and don't have to be illuminated from behind.

Sony already sells an 11-inch OLED TV. But Yoshioka said engineers were encountering technological hurdles for making bigger sizes.

The electronics giant will have a unique product if it beats rivals in delivering a bigger TV with that technology.

"The business is tough without our own displays," Yoshioka said in an interview at Sony's headquarters.

For the short term, Sony has been bullish about 3-D TVs, one area where rivals are also just getting started, and Sony is promising products next year.

With 3-D TVs, images appear to have depth and give an illusion of almost jutting out from the screen, although they require special glasses.

Sony is targeting 20 percent global market share in the liquid-crystal display TV market and 1 trillion yen ($11 billion) in sales from 3D-related products by the fiscal year ending March 2013.

Koya Tabata, electronics analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo, was still skeptical 3-D TVs will sell in big numbers.

"Sony has fallen behind because it had been busy focusing on its restructuring," he said. "Sony has watched global market share getting grabbed by Samsung."

Samsung has had the top global market share in sales for the last several years, according to Display Search, which compiles such data.

Sony's Yoshioka said 3-D TVs are especially fun for playing games, where Sony has an edge because of its PlayStation business. Sony also has a movie division, and some 3-D theater releases have proved popular.

Sony is hoping to also expand into the battery business for electric cars. Yoshioka said the company was in talks with several automakers, although he declined to give names or details. He said Sony's lithium-ion batteries were competitive because of breakthroughs after encountering quality problems in its batteries for laptops, which required a massive global recall in 2006.

Sony is expecting its second straight annual loss for the fiscal year through March 2010 - hurt by sliding prices, the global slowdown and its failure to produce blockbusters products like Apple Inc.'s iPod or Nintendo Co.'s Wii.

The maker of the Walkman portable player expects a 95 billion yen ($1 billion) loss for the fiscal year through March 2010 — marginally better than the 98.9 billion yen loss the previous fiscal year, its first annual loss in 14 years.

Dell to launch smart phones in China and Brazil

Dell Inc. is officially jumping into the "smart" phone market this month in a deal with China's biggest wireless carrier, China Mobile Ltd.

The Dell Mini 3, a keyboardless touch-screen phone that runs Google Inc.'s Android operating system, will also be available in Brazil later this year. The computer maker, based in Round Rock, Texas, would not say when the phone would reach the U.S.

Friday's announcement ends more than two years of speculation that Dell, now the world's third-largest PC company by unit shipments, would expand into the phone business.

The economic downturn abruptly halted growth in the computer industry this year as consumers and businesses held off buying new technology. Hewlett-Packard Co., the No. 1 computer maker worldwide, fared better than Dell because its business is more diverse. Acer Inc., a Taiwan-based company, pushed past Dell to the No. 2 spot in the most recent quarter on the popularity of its tiny, inexpensive netbook computers, a category Dell was slow to enter.

Dell, however, was one of the first computer makers to pair up with wireless carriers to sell subsidized netbooks with cellular data plans. One such deal with China Mobile helped lay the groundwork for the Mini 3 launch, which the two companies foreshadowed in August when they showed off a prototype of the Mini 3 at an event in Beijing.

Michael Tatelman, vice president of sales and marketing for Dell's global consumer business, said Dell wants carriers to have some control over the way the phone works. It chose the open-source Android system because it gives Dell many ways to customize the software - but didn't rule out making phones that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile.

In China, the Mini 3 will be part of China Mobile's forthcoming OPhone line, a defensive play against the official arrival of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which is sold exclusively by the smaller China Unicom Ltd.

Dell didn't release technical specifications for the Mini 3, but Tatelman said it sports a three and a half inch high definition screen and "great sound" for listening to music or watching movies without headphones. It uses a touch-screen keyboard instead of a physical one.

Like the first legitimate iPhones in China, the first Mini 3s won't have Wi-Fi because of an earlier government ban on the technology. Tatelman said that over time, China's homegrown wireless technology will be built into the phone.

By the end of the year, the Dell Mini 3 phone will also be available in Brazil through Claro, part of America Movil SA, Latin America's largest mobile phone carrier.

Tatelman characterized the deals as having "limited exclusivity." He would not say whether Dell expects to produce phones for other carriers in the two countries, but indicated that at least in Latin America, expansion would be quick.

Papers filed by Dell with the Federal Communications Commission indicate the company is also laying groundwork to launch the phone in the U.S., where the iPhone remains the hottest gadget two years after its initial release and Android phones made by other hardware companies are starting to gain traction.

About the U.S. version, Tatelman says, "you have to assume that this is a global strategy."