FAITH WEST INC. RINGS MOBILE PHONES WITH MUSIC, ANIMATIONS
Shows Technology Used by Carriers, Chip Makers at IDG's DemoMobile
SAN DIEGO (September 18, 2002) - Your mobile phone rings. And you know it's your phone, and your loved one calling, because it's ringing with their favorite song. The color screen displays a sharp, animated image along with the musical ringtone - and while the image might be a football club logo in Europe or part of a karaoke service in Japan, where the technology is already wildly popular with millions of consumers, the United States is just now seeing and hearing what applications are possible on the new generation of mobile phones arriving here.
Faith West Inc., the US subsidiary of the company that pioneered polyphonic ringtones in Japan, is demonstrating to the wireless industry elite here this week the technology that lets carriers offer their subscribers downloadable versions of popular songs. Users can assign different songs to different callers when their mobile phones ring, and the technology now also allows carriers to add animations and other graphics to accompany them. Faith West will highlight both the applications currently available, and those that will be coming soon.
Faith West recently introduced ModtonesT ringtones, which use multiple synthesized instrument tones stored on a chip in the mobile phone to sound more like real music when the phone rings.
Through CMX - the proprietary multimedia format developed by QUALCOMM, Inc., which incorporates the wavetable synthesizer from Faith West's parent company Faith, Inc. - it is now also possible to synchronize audio with animations, graphics and text. Sprint PCS is the first wireless carrier in the US to offer its subscribers such animated ringtone services.
Faith West is demonstrating these and other applications that CMX makes possible this week at DemoMobile, the annual industry event produced by IDG Executive Forums that showcases the latest in mobile products, services and technologies.
"People want to personalize the phones they carry all the time, and doing so with songs has made polyphonic ringtones a multimillion-dollar business in Japan," said Carolynne Schloeder, Executive Vice President of Faith West Inc. "We're showing here how carriers can offer their subscribers the additional enjoyment of animations that take advantage of the color screens and increased processing power in the new wireless phones just coming to the US market. Now, users can decide how their phones sound AND look when they ring."
Handsets capable of playing animations with polyphonic ringtones, which sound much closer to recognizable songs than the beeps of previous generations of mobile phones, are currently being released in the United States by a number of vendors. Research reports have suggested that such capabilities are among the new features that will cause about a third of US mobile subscribers to change to new handsets within the next 12 months.
"We're excited to count Faith West among our demonstrators this year," said Amy Francetic, Executive Producer of DemoMobile. "Their technology is proven in other markets, and its potential to help carriers in the US offer rich multimedia applications is really exciting."
With its ability to "wrap" and synchronize multiple media formats, CMX may also make possible such applications as sending subscribers promotions for new songs or movies. Such promotions could also be used in connection with specific companies and products; for example, users could download a ringtone with an electronic code that provides a discount for a concert by the song's artist.
Faith's technology is in 80 percent of Japan's mobile phones and in most chips that QUALCOMM ships. Faith recently extended its reach by purchasing Digiplug, a French mobile content and technology company with a strong presence in Europe and the GSM wireless standard. Faith's wavetable synthesizer is embedded in the chips based on these various standards and is used to play MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) versions of popular songs, as well as other audio content.
About Faith West Inc.
Faith West, a wholly owned subsidiary of Faith, Inc., supports the company's software-based sound solutions with manufacturers of communications and electronic devices worldwide. The technology is used in numerous brands of mobile phones, and Faith West also delivers mobile multimedia content to users through carriers in the U.S., just as Faith does with KDDI and NTT DoCoMo in Japan. ModtonesT polyphonic ringtones is Faith West's first consumer content service in the U.S. For more information, please visit: http://www.modtones.com.
Faith West also provides marketing, service and support that includes authoring tools to create mobile content in Compact MIDI as well as the proprietary CMX multimedia format jointly developed by Faith and QUALCOMM.
Modtones is a trademark of Faith, Inc.
All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their legal holders.
|
