This week I'm playing catch up with all the announcements that came out of CTIA IT 2005 last week in San Francisco. (I'm also still recovering from FierceWireless' wildly successful party on Wednesday -- about 1,000 people showed up!)
One hot topic at CTIA was MediaFLO, QUALCOMM's high-speed media network. The network was first announced last year, but now things really seem to be taking off. There are rumors that both Sprint Nextel and Korea's KTF are looking into the network for future offerings. Take a look at the phone in action. MediaFLO is expected to be commercially available by mid-2006.
Another cool--and unexpected--new device was Medis' prototype disposable fuel cell. They say the little black box can power a mobile phone for six to eight weeks, can be used on an airplane and will cost under $20. The company plans to launch in the first half of 2006, and a refillable version is in the works. I wonder how it compares to LG's fuel cell.
Stay tuned next week for more updates from the show and a retrospective on CTIA and the direction of the wireless industry. -Eli