e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Danl]

Hai or doni:

How then does MICROS or MICROCAM differ from Symbian? I am of the belief that Symbian is a competitor.


Friday May 4, 10:00 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Texas Instruments Incorporated
TI Unveils OMAP(TM)-Based Multimedia Extensions for Symbian-Based Wireless Devices
New Plug-Ins to Symbian Software Development Kits Offer Seamless Access To Real-Time DSP Performance
DALLAS, May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Driving the development of emerging 2.5 and 3G wireless applications, Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN - news; TI) today announced the availability of a new TI OMAP(TM)-based multimedia extension that can be used with Symbian's software development kits. The new plug-ins enable developers designing real-time applications such as multimedia messaging, video and Internet audio to take advantage of the multimedia capability in the Symbian software platform enhanced by TI's fully-open, digital signal processor (DSP)-based OMAP platform.

``TI's new extensions with the industry-proven Symbian SDKs will accelerate the introduction of multimedia capabilities for 2.5 and 3G applications,'' said Jouko Hayrynen, Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, Nokia Mobile Phones. ``Symbian and TI have created a robust value proposition for developers who are creating multimedia applications that require the real-time performance of TI's DSP-based OMAP platform.''

Developers Gain Seamless Access to Optimized DSP Algorithms

Building on Symbian's platform offering for next generation mobile phones, the new OMAP-based plug-ins further enables Symbian's licensees and independent software vendors to easily enrich their applications with multimedia-rich features for Symbian / TI based devices. With these extensions, developers can also leverage the best-in-class performance and power efficiency of TI's DSPs, by utilizing high-level application program interfaces (APIs) that provide seamless access to optimized DSP algorithms.

The TI extensions to be released will include multimedia service APIs for applications such as video, speech and audio services. Addressing the demand for video services, TI today offers an MPEG4 decoding API extension for the Symbian C++ SDK and is scheduled to follow with speech and audio API extensions such as MP3 and speech recognition in the third quarter of 2001.

``Having delivered our open, software platform to licensees, Symbian is working closely with partners to drive the creation of thousands of innovative software solutions for Symbian based devices,'' said Mark Edwards, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Symbian. ``TI's plug-ins for our software developer kits will further drive the creation of compelling multimedia applications and services targeted for Symbian / TI based devices.''

The Symbian platform is an open, mobile operating system designed for wireless information devices that combine voice communications with data capabilities. Licensed by the world's leading handset manufacturers, devices based on the combination of Symbian's technology and TI's DSP-based OMAP architecture are due to ship in the second half of 2001.

Introduced in May 1999, TI's DSP-based OMAP architecture is a fully open platform capable of supporting all wireless industry standards. Delivering the required performance and low power to enable real-time communications- based applications, the OMAP platform is quickly becoming a defacto standard for 2.5 and 3G wireless devices as with manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson and Sony. TI's OMAP platform is also supported by a broad network of developers who design popular applications including multimedia, security, m-commerce, gaming and location based services.

``Today's announcement is an extension of our strategy to enable the development of 2.5 and 3G next-generation wireless applications,'' said Alain Mutricy, OMAP platform general manager for TI. ``Moving ahead, TI will continue to work with its customers and partners to facilitate software development efforts for new applications for a variety of end equipments.''

Availability

Software Developer Kits for the Symbian platform can be downloaded from http://www.symbiandevnet.com/.

TI's OMAP extensions to Symbian's Quartz SDK can be downloaded from www.ti.com/sc/omapforepoc.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated is the world leader in digital signal processing and analog technologies, the semiconductor engines of the Internet age. The company's businesses also include sensors and controls, and educational and productivity solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing or sales operations in more than 25 countries.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ti.com.


Trademarks:
OMAP is a trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated.