Nokia today announced the latest addition to its family of "Active" phones with the introduction of the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition. Adding to the well-received concept of the Nokia 5500 Sport, the Music Edition is enhanced with a 512 MB microSD card for enjoying up to 375 songs, as well as a fitness carrying strap, bicycle holder and sports headset packed in a new energetic color.

"Music is a great source of energy and inspiration for many - during a workout, a fitness routine, or just relaxing," says Antti Koivula, Director of Lifestyle Products at Nokia. "To complement its sporty and fitness-inspired design, the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition offers an expanded range of music features and bears the Nokia XpressMusic feature brand which guarantees an outstanding mobile music experience."

The innovative carrying strap of the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition allows it to be worn around the waist or strapped around an arm to ensure that the handset stays in place, even during vigorous exercise. The sports headset also offers handsfree convenience for music and conversation with an anatomically engineered, over-the-ear design. For a complete music experience, the Nokia Music Manager application makes music transfer in multitude of different digital music formats from your PC easy and convenient.

As a sports companion, the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition packs a lot more than just music.
Featuring an integrated pedometer, this "smartphone with a six-pack" lets users know the distance travelled and calories burned during a run. Other activities, such as a bicycle tour or cross-country skiing can also monitor distance and calories with an optional GPS module. Results of workout routines can then be transferred from the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition to a PC to follow individual progress.

When it comes to messaging features, the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition is as versatile as a decathlete. With the press of a single button to activate three dedicated "modes", the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition can switch from a phone mode to stay in touch, a music mode to relax or energize, and a sports mode to help users go the extra mile. With a high-powered smartphone at heart, the handset can even support text-to-speech technology. With two taps, the Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition reads an SMS aloud. A 2 megapixel camera completes the well-rounded feature set of the Nokia 5500 Music Edition.

The triband Nokia 5500 Sport Music Edition (GSM 900/1800/1900) is now available in select shops around Europe. The expected retail price before taxes and subsidies is approximately 350 EUR.

Nokia today introduced Wibree technology as an open industry initiative extending local connectivity to small devices. This new radio technology developed by Nokia Research Center complements other local connectivity technologies, consuming only a fraction of the power compared to other such radio technologies, enabling smaller and less costly implementations and being easy to integrate with Bluetooth solutions. Wibree is the first open technology offering connectivity between mobile devices or Personal Computers, and small, button cell battery power devices such as watches, wireless keyboards, toys and sports sensors. By extending the role mobile devices can play in consumers' lives, this technology increases the growth potential in these market segments.

The goal being to have the new technology available to the market as fast as possible, Nokia is defining the Wibree interoperability specification together with a group of leading companies representing semiconductor manufacturers, device vendors and qualification service providers. The technology will be made broadly available to the industry through an open and preferably existing forum enabling wide adoption of the technology. The forum solution is under evaluation and will be defined by the time the specification is finalized. According to the current estimate the first commercial version of the interoperability specification will be available during second quarter of 2007.

The current members of the group defining the specification are: Broadcom Corporation, CSR, Epson and Nordic Semiconductor having licensed the Wibree technology for commercial chip implementation and Suunto and Taiyo Yuden, contributing to the interoperability specification in their respective areas of expertise.

"Wibree technology is an important development that opens up new market opportunities and a whole new range of possibilities for mobile users," says Dr. Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia Research Center. "Our aim is to establish an industry standard faster than ever before by offering an interoperable solution that can be commercialized and incorporated into products quickly."

Technical details:
Wibree technology complements close range communication with Bluetooth like performance within 0-10 m range and data rate of 1 Mbps. Wibree is optimized for applications requiring extremely low power consumption, small size and low cost. Wibree is implemented either as stand-alone chip or as Bluetooth-Wibree dual-mode chip. The small devices like watches and sports sensors will be based on stand-alone chip whereas Bluetooth devices will take benefit of the dual-mode solution, extending Bluetooth device connectivity to new range of smallest devices.

For more information on Wibree see the website www.wibree.com