Pick up the phones, your boss is on the screen

NEC aims to have a PDA with three-way video-conferencing on the market from 2002, it said on Saturday. The Twin Leaf prototype, exhibited at CeBIT 2000, will be a third-generation mobile phone that folds out to show two LCD screens for three-way phone conversations. It will also have a built-in digital camera, while the company plans to use Bluetooth technology for data communications. According to Andy Press, head of UK marketing at NEC, the company has one of the contracts to supply infrastructure and handsets for third generation mobiles – CDMA - to Japan from next year. Twin Leaf, which will be reliant on CDMA technology, will be in Japanese shops by 2002, and in Europe the following year – depending on how quickly other networks catch up with Asia, the company estimates. NEC also had a Bluetooth demonstration on its CeBIT stand. Two laptops, about one foot apart, were communicating via Bluetooth adapters. Press said it was hoped the technology would be available from next Spring, but it still faced many hurdles. "Bluetooth is not competitive or stable enough yet," Press said. "The problem is partly the technology, but also partly getting the products cheap enough to make it into the marketplace," he added. ® Related Stories Palm plans GSM wireless access in Europe this year Smartphones, Palms to dominate mobile market