Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is planning a cellular telephone that can receive multimedia programming broadcasts via satellite, the company said Thursday. The new phone, which is still in the development stage, is expected to be compatible with a new satellite broadcasting service that is planned to launch in South Korea and Japan later this year.
The planned handset will be based around a new chip developed by Samsung which was announced this week. The chip includes an Arm Ltd. processor core and can decode the satellite broadcasts as well as functions such as billing for pay-per-view services, the company said. The broadcasting service, planned by Mobile Broadcasting Corp. in Japan and TU Media Corp. in South Korea, will offer a number of audio and video channels and is designed to be received by portable terminals. Programming line-ups have not yet been announced but Japanese subscribers are expected to be able to access around 70 channels of entertainment while those in South Korea should get access to around 40 channels.
News source: InfoWorld
