Samsung launches movies to mobiles service

LONDON (Reuters) - Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd launched a service allowing its customers to buy or rent movies and TV series to download to their mobile phones.

The breadth of Samsung's offering, which includes over 500 blockbusters from top studios Warner Bros MTWX.N, Paramount and Universal, makes it competitive with other mobile media offerings from Apple Inc and Nokia.

Samsung Movies, a dedicated virtual store for Samsung customers, launches initially in Britain and Germany and will extend to other key European markets later in the year, Samsung said in a statement.

The service, which features films such as "The Dark Knight" and TV series including "E.R." and "Friends," will be compatible only with video-enabled Samsung phones such as its new Tocco Ultra Edition.

Samsung plans to expand the service to notebooks, MP3 and MP4 portable music players and Samsung TVs.

Samsung Movies will use technology from privately owned digital movie retailer Acetrax, which holds agreements with film studios and music labels.

Prices start at 2.49 pounds ($3.55) for a 24-hour rental or 4.99 pounds to buy a movie.

Samsung said it would double its titles to 1,000 by the end of the first quarter and again to 2,000 movies and TV shows by the end of June.

UK-based research firm CCS Insight said in a note: "The move is tangible progress in (Samsung's) convergence strategy and a first step in delivering consumer services to rival those from the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by David Holmes)

Nokia N96 smart Mobile Entertainment

Smartphone terbaru Nokia dari keluarga N-Series baru-baru ini diluncurkan di Indonesia, yaitu Nokia N96 yang mengandalkan fitur mobile entertainment seperti Video dan TV. Nokia N96 merupakan evolusi dan penyempurnaan dari N95.
Ponsel multimedia komputer berlayar besar 2,8 inch ini diklaim cocok untuk mereka yang suka dengan video klip atau video streaming karena dilengkapi memori internal 16GB. Jika kurang puas bisa diperbesar lagi kapasitasnya.

"N96 merupakan ponsel mobile entertainment. Salah satu kelebihan N96 adalah kapasitas memorinya yang sangat besar yang bisa ditingkatkan hingga 24GB," kata Goh Doh Hau, Head Go To Market Nokia Indonesia.

Aneka pilihan hiburan hadir dalam ponsel ini, mencakup TV digital live, GPS, kamera 5 megapiksel dengan optikal Carl Zeiss, navigasi suara langkah demi langkah, suara dan musik yang superior dan game-game dari koleksi N-Gage.

Ponsel ini mampu menyimpan hingga 40 jam konten video baik hasil transfer dari komputer maupun dari internet di Nokia Video Center melalui koneksi USB 2.0 dengan dukungan WLAN dan HSDPA.

Nokia Video Center menawarkan aneka ragam konten video mulai dari movie trailer, komedi hingga berita-berita dari penyedia konten dunia seperti YouTube, metacafe, Reuters dan Sony Pictures.

Nokia N96 mendukung format video MPEG-4, Windows Media Video dan Flash Video, untuk mempermudah pengguna ponsel menampilkan video. juga terdapat 1000 lagu dan video klip musik yang sebagian besar merupakan konten lokal yg bisa di download. Layanan ini diberikan Nokia Indonesia bekerja sama dengan Master Music hingga Desember 2008.