Orange Plans To Launch HD Mobile Phone Service

France Telecom-owned Orange is planning to make high definition telephone calls available to British customers sometime this year. The HD voice service will require customers to buy new handsets. In return for upgrading to HD voice service, customers will enjoy clearer mobile phone calls that are said to make you feel as if you're in the same room with the person on the other end of the call.

Orange is the first mobile phone company to announce a British HD voice service. The company hopes the service will help encourage a new standard throughout the industry. “HD Voice really does inject a level of innovation into mobile phone calls, making it sound as if callers are actually in the same room. Once people have tried it, they won't want to go back,” said Tom Alexander, Orange UK chief executive.

Orange is planning HD voice trials yet this year and a nationwide introduction later in 2010. The telecom is working with handset manufacturers to develop devices that will support the new service. HD voice uses a wider speech bandwidth, enabling better audio quality that transmits all of the nuances of the human voice. It also provides a clearer conversation by fading the background noise. The technology is said to improve the quality of the call even if only one of the two parties involved is HD-enabled.

Pricing for HD calls has not been set. Orange launched the world's first high definition voice service for mobile phones in Moldova in September. In Moldova, the cost of calls did not increase when HD service was launched.

Google Launches The 'Nexus One' Mobile Phone: What You Need To Know

Google has announced that their next entry into the mobile phone space will be the Nexus One. Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One will utilize Google's Android operating system, which should be familiar to any recent Motorola Droid purchasers. For HTC this will be the seventh Android-powered mobile phone.

In terms of technical specs, the Nexus One will feature the following:
- A 3.7-inch AMOLED display
- A Snapdragon Processor
- Multi-colored trackball which lights up when different events occur
- Light/proximity sensors, as well as compass and accelerometer support
- GPS
- 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, which can also shoot MPEG4 video (plus one-click uploads to YouTube, natch)
- Stereo Bluetooth with active noise cancellation
- Case is thinner than a #2 pencil

The Nexus One will come packed with Android 2.1, which means it should have equal functionality with the Motorola Droid's feature-set.

For pricing, you can purchase a Nexus One for $530 without a service plan (basically letting you choose your own provider or migrate your current service, assuming the SIM card is compatible). If you buy one through T-Mobile it'll cost $180, but you'll have to sign up for a service plan.

While T-Mobile will have launch exclusivity in terms of retail partners, Verizon and Vodaphone will start selling service plans (with a discount on the phone) in Spring 2010.

Gamers didn't get anything from Google in terms of considering the Nexus One as a gaming platform (as the iPhone and iPod Touch have become), but you can expect that any games (and other apps) currently available on the Android Market will be compatible with the Nexus One.