Bang & Olufsen drops mobile phones

Danish hi-fi manufacturer Bang & Olufsen says it's going to focus on developing and manufacturing audio and video products - which means it'll stop developing mobile phones, co-branded products an stand-alone audiovisual devices. It's previously produced the Serene and Serenata phones in partnersip with Samsung. As a result of the reorganisation, 165 staff are being made redundant. [Press release 1; Press release 2]

Over half a billion music mobiles shipped in 2007

Researchers at MultiMedia Intelligence say almost 300 million more music phones were sold last year than stand-alone personal music players. Worldwide music phone shipments exceeded 500 million units in 2007. They also report that the global mobile music content market of ringtones, ringback tones, streaming audio and full-track downloads) will hit $6 billion this year. By 2011, they estimate that half of all mobile phones will be music phones, which they define as having a memory expansion slot and the ability to play music. [Sources: News.com, Cellular-News.com]

Dolby goes mobile

Dolby Laboratories, the company that's been improving audio equipment for the last 40 years, has just announced Dolby Mobile. It's a new audio-processing technology that brings rich, vibrant surround sound to films, music and TV shows on mobile phones and portable media players. The first products with Dolby Mobile technology are the Sharp SH905i and SH905iTV, which are now available to customers on the NTT DoCoMo network in Japan. [Press release]