LIVEdigitally

Spent a few days out in Barcelona catching up on the latest in mobile technologies, ranging from watching live TV to interactive pornchat on your cell phone (just what we’ve all been waiting for).  I took a look at some of the latest and greatest phones, most of which seem to be fairly Moto-inspired, and rest assured, there are a decent amount of cool new cell phones that will never, ever see the light of day in the US!

The show was held at the Fira de Barcelona, a much better-looking place than the Vegas Convention Center, and divided into several different halls.  Hall 1 had Microsoft, Intel, Docomo, as well as your typical host of smaller companies.  In Hall 2 I found some providers, such as Telefonica Spain (branded Movistar), and a lot of content and services companies.  Hall 3 did not exist, and Halls 4 and 5 were for corporate/internal use.  Couldn’t find Halls 6 or 7 anywhere, but Hall 8 had Moto, Nortel, and all the other manufacturers.  Despite missing three halls, the show was large enough to occupy several days worth of wandering.

This was my first time attending the show, which used to be held in Cannes, France, but Barcelona “won” it starting this year.  Moving a tradeshow is a fairly big deal, apparently big enough to warrant a welcome by the King and Queen of Spain (I couldn’t help walking around humming “I’ve stood here before inside the pouring rain, with the world turning circles running ’round my brain…”

3GSM also featured your typical share of booth babes, but the ones that drew the most attention were at a company called Cboss.  Every 60 minutes a quick explanation of the company was given (no idea what they do still) then these 6 hypo-anorexic girls did a little dance. 

All-in-all, it was an interesting show, although I have to say I was a little disappointed at the lack of significantly interesting new phones.  I’ll post some seperate entries with specific devices or services I saw in the next couple of days.

Our old friend Jonas did something I am always nervous about doing – he installed a beta Web browser on his PC.  Quite adventurous in my opinion!  Anyhow, he took a look (or should I say listen) to Songbird, which is basically a rich media Web browser that incorporates audio files with Web sites. 

I know there is a lot of push toward convergence, and podcasting has certainly gained a ton of interest from people, but in my opinion this is the kind of idea that never really needed to come.  If I want to listen to something while surfing, why wouldn’t I just leave Windows Media Player (or something else) running?  Why can’t I just do this exact thing with a simple plug-in, or even frames on my Web site?

I don’t get it.  And from the sounds of things, neither did Jonas – although he’s a bit nicer about it than I am!