Adobe issued an statement earlier today stating that the Flash plugin, which has been available for the current version of Windows Mobile (6.5.3) , won’t be available at launch for the new Windows Phone 7 OS. This actually allows us to speculate on a couple of things:

1. According to rumors, Microsoft might be including Silverlight support out of the box with Windows Phone 7. Silverlight is Microsoft’s answer to Adobe’s flash, and this might have dampened Adobe’s relationship with Microsoft, even if their press statement says otherwise.

2. Windows Mobile 6.5 had Flash built-in. If Windows Phone 7 was using the same kernel and code base as 6.5, porting flash over would have been an easy copy and paste job.  This gives us hope that Windows Phone 7 will be the Game Changer Microsoft have been promising us.

Check our site tomorrow at around 9am Eastern for extensive coverage of Microsoft’s press event at Mobile World Congress.

Check it out:

[ Via GigaOM ]

Sony Ericsson just announced at Mobile World Congress their latest update on the Vivaz line, The Vivaz pro. It now features a physical QWERTY slide-out keypad, a seriously awesome 720Mhz ARM9 processor, 720p recording, to name a few.  We still don’t get why manufacturers are still slapping screens smaller than 3.5 inches in their phones, but hey, I guess some people don’t mind it.

[ Via InfoSync World ]

Earlier today, Samsung held a press conference a day before the official start of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain to show off their latest wave of phones. They did not, however, announce any new phones running Android or Windows Mobile, choosing to instead focus on Bada OS.

Browsing around on Samsung’s Press Kit website, though, reveals a previously unannounced phone named  I8520 “Halo”. It boasts Android 2.1 with a custom (and hideous) UI, a 3.7-inch Super AMOLED screen, 8 megapixel camera with 720p /30fps video support,  Bluetooth 2.1, standard 3.5mm headphone jack, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, A-GPS, 16GB of internal storage and microSD expansion, stereo speakers , DLNA support and a questionably useful projector. Seriously, a projector on a phone sounds great on paper, but I’ve played with many prototypes, and I think it’s all just a huge gimmick.

The phone will be announced officially tomorrow.

Update: Upon closer look, it seems that Samsung has ported the Bada OS interface to Android. Which is disappointing since Samsung is no HTC when it comes to building great UI replacements.  Yay for rooting!

Samsung has just announced the Wave, their new Flagship dumbphone running their new proprietary Bada OS.  The specs are good: The  screen boasts an insane 800 x 480 resolution, but sadly it’s only 3.3 inches.  Samsung has not released any CPU details, just stating “The Wave’s high-speed CPU ensures swift, smooth application experiences and multi-tasking, making the device an always-on mobile multimedia companion”. Update: Samsung has told us the Wave is packing a Samsung 1Ghz ARM9-based processor. Not bad at all!

Specs:

[ Mobile World Congress 2010 ]

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Samsung is holding a press event right now in Barcelona, Spain at Mobile World Congress, and they’re about to unveil new phones using their new Bada “Dumbphone” OS.

We’re not exactly excited about Bada OS as we believe it’s simply a waste of R&D resources meant to confuse customers. Samsung could have easily used the money to develop a new interface on top of Android, which is free to use and more capable.

We will be updating the site as the phones are announced.

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The WSJ is reporting that Windows Mobile 7 will make its debut at Mobile World Congress next week. Wait, Isn’t that what Steve Ballmer said at CES exactly a month ago?

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

Now let’s just hope  it’s a worthy contender. If Microsoft fails to deliver this time, I think Windows Mobile is done.

[Source:  Wall Street Journal ]