Cell phones: They do voice calling too?

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the first music service that operators can use to sell full-track song downloads to both phones and personal computers.

Sprint added a music video channel onto its cell phone TV service. The videos can be purchased for $6 a month.

For businesses and upper-tier consumers, Cingular on Monday unveiled a new $100-a-month service that provides unlimited access to a high-speed cell phone network and about 4,300 Wi-Fi hot spots nationwide. For the mainstream, it's got a new assortment of ring tones, wallpaper and other wireless baubles based on the upcoming "Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith."

"The trend for wireless in 2005 will be complete integration of advanced multimedia features," Peter Skarzynski, senior vice president of wireless terminals, said in a statement.

How this picture developed
Kodak's presence at CTIA isn't actually all that strange when taking into account the multimedia madness that?s going on.

Needing to jump-start a cellular industry that was showing signs of slowing down two years ago, U.S. cell phone operators, led by Sprint, started selling handsets that doubled as cameras. In a stroke of either marketing genius or dumb luck, sales of the hybrid handsets soared, and related services like picture or video mail took off. Now Kodak, hard at work on a digital transition, is trying to capitalize on the picture craze.

Kodak is already in the wireless space, to some degree. It has introduced EasyShare One, which could be the world's first camera enabled with Wi-Fi, a popular wireless standard that could shuttle photos wirelessly to printers or PCs for storage or sharing with others. It's also planning to showcase its Kodak Mobile Service, through which someone can store their photos in one location on the Internet.

Carriers are also interested in partnering with Kodak, said a company spokesman, and it has already partnered with Cingular, the largest U.S. wireless operator, and T-Mobile USA. In Europe, it works with O2 and T-Mobile, among others.

"Kodak is best prepared to help customers and wireless partners meet the changing needs of the imaging market," said a Kodak spokeswoman.

Which, judging from consumer and industry interest, appears to be a good business to be in.

[Michael Grogan]

Orwell missed the boat...

...big brother's video and audio monitors should have been in peoples pockets, not hanging on their walls!