LG Prada look-alike handset is considered to give a tough competition to Samsung INNOV8 and Sony Ericsson C905 as these phones also feature a 8 megapixel camera.

The phone claims to be the all-in-one multimedia device and comes with features like Dolby sound, DivX and XviD for video playback, an integrated GPS, a geotagging function for photos and multiple codec support. It supports Wi-Fi and 3G. It is also compatible with up to 7.2 Mbps HSDPA.

The basic features of the LG KC910 camera phone include Bluetooth 2.0, a microSD card slot expandable up to 8GB, support for quad-band GSM, LCD touchscreen and a TV-out support.

Expected to release in October in North American, the LG KC910 phone’s price is still under wraps.

Quite possibly for the first time, Opera Software will receive real pressure in the mobile-browser space from Firefox Mobile and Skyfire.

Like Opera’s cell phone browser, Opera Mini (video), both newcomers are free. However, Opera Mobile, which serves Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones, is a commercial product that smartphone users may not want to pay for when handed alternatives gratis.

How does Opera plan to keep current customers and attract new ones when consumers face a choice between paying $24 and $0? I asked the Opera folks if they would consider making Opera Mobile free in anticipation of or in response to oncoming competition.

“The mobile Web is blossoming, and we are strongly positioned to take advantage of its growth,” Tatsuki Tomita, Opera’s senior vice president of consumer products, responded. “While we watch the industry closely, we have not yet determined the end-user model for Opera Mobile.”

What a nicely toned, safely vague statement! It’s one any company would be expected to make when challenged on two fronts by a competitive freeware surge. Yet with actual working, marketable products for a range of devices and a business plan that reaches into corporate pockets, Opera is well-positioned. For now.

At a mobile-focused meeting this week, representatives of Opera, Mozilla (Firefox’s maker), and the newly announced Skyfire gathered in a University of California at Berkeley auditorium over greasy pizza and lukewarm soda for a demo and Q&A of the three soon-to-be competing mobile browsers. I should note that Mozilla’s open-source philosophy leaches its competitive urge; it says it’s content to be one browsing solution among many. The other two, however, are happy to lock horns.

While Opera used the forum mainly to defend its position as the mobile browser to beat, Mozilla and Skyfire are in heavy development of their propositions for better browsing–on precisely those handsets supported by Opera Mobile.

According to Jay Sullivan, senior director of Mozilla Labs, Firefox Mobile is actively developing for Windows Mobile and Linux phones. After scrapping Minimo, an earlier mobile browser based on the Mozilla engine, Sullivan and team turned to Firefox Mobile, which will represent a more faithful experience to the popular desktop browser.

Last week, Mozilla community members posted prototypes of two possible user interface designs, which could well end up looking only distantly related to the mobile browser projected to hatch toward the end of 2008.

Neither Sullivan nor product manager Doug Turner is certain what Firefox Mobile will look like; however, they assure us that it will inherit support for extensions, widgets, and Flash video.

Based on the cross-platform development language XUL (XML user interface language,) we should expect to see a mobile version of Firefox that integrates smoothly with the phone’s hardware and software, and that will interact with phone contacts, the camera, and GPS navigation. With that, extra media-uploading goodies could make up for, in one example, the phone’s downgraded video quality.

Skyfire, which made a splash debut at Demo this year is also a direct threat to Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.

Like Opera, Skyfire’s browser uses a proxy to replicate a PC’s Web site rendering, and its close relationship to Firefox Mobile is none other than a shared Mozilla platform, which Skyfire uses as a middleware layer. The contender is a closed-beta start-up in Series A funding, but it has already impressed users (and CNET editor Rafe Needleman) with its smart zooming functions, smoothness, speed, and high fidelity with multimedia and text. Touch-screen phones will get an extra finger-friendly toolbar.

Where does that leave Opera? Similar to Skyfire, Opera Mini already has object-zooming on full Web page views in addition to traditional small-screen rendering. It also has a digital mouse, scroll keys, and Opera Link, an open Web channel that automatically remembers bookmarks from any Opera browser, Mini, Mobile, or Wii.

You can link up from other browsers, too, from your Opera Link account. The more robust Opera Mobile offers advanced features such as image saving, text copying, and full Flash support (for Pocket PC.)

Although Tomita boasts more than 30 million unique users for Opera Mini alone, it would seem an understatement that he and his team are merely “watching” the industry to forecast Opera Mobile’s rank. Hardly the passive observer, Opera appears to have hunkered down in a defensive stance, trying to redirect excitement for the new to what can already be done in the now, albeit for a fee.

Like it or not, Skyfire and Firefox Mobile are on their way, offering to smartphone users for free some of the same technology Opera uses to deliver full and familiar Web pages at a cost. This is undoubtedly good for consumers, as competition almost always is.

Opera will have to decide if it can hang on to users paying for the richer smartphone application, or if it will have to backpedal, offering it for free and ramping up instead on enterprise and carrier deals.

If the adult entertainment industry has its way, Americans will soon get a choice of free porn on cell phones — or at least some photographs of good-looking girls in bikinis.

Unlike in Europe, mobile porn has yet to take off in North America as carriers have been afraid of offending political and religious groups and parents concerned about children being exposed to adult content. That may change this year as phone companies plan to loosen control on their networks to allow a wider variety of gadgets and services, while introducing new tools to shield minors.

More advanced phones with better web-browsers like Apple Inc’s iPhone also offer higher quality pictures and video.

“It will be impossible to stop the adult business exploitation of mobile entertainment,” said Gregory Piccionelli, a lawyer specialising in adult entertainment at law firm Piccionelli & Sarno. He predicted that US consumers may soon be offered free porn on mobile phones alongside paid services like live video or “adult dates,” a term for prearranged sex with strangers.

A conference being held in Miami, Florida, this week is devoted to discussing mobile opportunities as the porn industry seeks to find a new driver of growth.

A surfeit of free online porn sites has cut into profits that have so far come mainly from DVDs, videotapes and pay-per-view or subscription-based websites.

To survive, adult entertainers need to be on top of phone trends, said Jay Grdina, president of adult entertainment provider ClubJenna Inc, which he co-founded with his wife, world-famous porn star Jenna Jameson.

“If you don’t evolve you’re going to die. We need to make sure we’re ready,” Grdina said in an interview before his keynote speech at this week’s Mobile Adult Content Congress, where adult entertainment and technology companies are brainstorming over how to make mobile porn a viable business.

Popular video-sharing site YouTube.com’s plan to expand to about 100 million advanced cell phones may help the cause, even if it means some ClubJenna content — which includes everything from glamour photographs of scantily clad models to hardcore videos — is seen for free on phones. ClubJenna was sold to Playboy Enterprises Inc in 2006.

“It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s giving away content. On the other hand, it’s expanding the brand,” said Grdina, adding that ClubJenna needs a boost in the US market, where it generates “pretty much zero” mobile revenue compared with “very healthy” revenue in Europe.

While he has had trouble winning deals with U.S. phone operators so far, Grdina hopes for a deal within 18 months to sell photographs of bikini-clad models without nudity.

Pornography has made inroads on cell phones in Europe, where it was a $775 million industry in 2007 that will grow to $1.5 billion by 2012, with the global market reaching $3.5 billion in 2010, according to Britain-based Juniper Research.

In comparison, North America generated just $26 million last year as carriers shied away from porn sales.

Canada’s second-largest phone company Telus Corp, for example, withdrew a mobile porn service last year after complaints from hundreds of customers and criticism from the Catholic Church.

Gartner Telecoms analyst Michael King said he expects mobile porn to be more prevalent around 2009, when there will be more phones that can show high-quality graphics.

Porn is “one of the bigger pieces of web revenue. You would assume the natural extension would be on mobile,” King said.

Piccionelli said the iPhone — which Apple has forecast to sell 10 million units by the end of 2008 — is ideal for viewing porn due to its graphics and web-browser that mimics computer browsers.

Most phones have stripped-down browsers.

A new phone system being built by Google Inc may also boost consumer choice as the Internet company has pledged to support any type of mobile software. But the key to development of mobile porn may be willingness by carriers to open their networks to more content.

Even if they don’t sell porn they would benefit from additional fees paid by consumers if mobile web-surfing increases.

Verizon Wireless, the second-largest US mobile service, has promised to let customers use any device or software that can work on its network this year. Similarly, Sprint Nextel Corp said it will support a wide array of gadgets for a fast wireless Web service it kicks off in 2008.

Spokesman John Polivka said customers of the service would be able to view anything they like.

Sprint will also provide Web filters to help keep minors from adult sites. NeuStar sells an age-verification system for which it aims to have both a U.S. carrier client and a content customer within six months.

“2008 is when the first people are going to be sticking their toes in the water,” said John Ticer, a NeuStar marketing executive.

Piccionelli said mobile porn will always face uncertainties, such as a possible privacy backlash against age-verification systems as consumers need to give personal details.

“However, that does not mean that uncertainty will prohibit enormous profits from being made in this business,” he said.