Hints of Motorola's new MOTOZINE series of devices have gone back as far as last year, but today marks the first time that Moto's officially spilled any beans on the goods. The headlining feature on the first model, the ZN5 candybar, lies on the backside: a 5-megapixel sensor courtesy of a partnership with Kodak, featuring autofocus, a xenon flash, image stitching, and on-device integration with Kodak Gallery. Otherwise, you get WiFi (score), Motorola's so-called "ModeShift" technology for morphing the keypad depending on device mode (a la the E8), and a run-of-the-mill quadband GSM radio with EDGE. China's the first country to get the hookup starting next month, but Moto expects to take the ZN5 on a world tour over the course of the remainder of the year.

So this is where the Kodak teaser shot is leading, eh? A clear full-body shot of Motorola's upcoming ZN5 candybar has finally hit the web, appearing to borrow a number of fresh design elements from recently-spied models (take the keypad font, for example, which we've seen on Verizon's unannounced Moto clamshells, and morph tech from the E8). Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how great that 5 megapixel Kodak sensor really is -- the lack of 3G is pretty unforgivable in the year 2008, even if Motorola intends to restrict this model to Asia, which in itself doesn't make terribly much sense for a company that should be concentrating on a global turnaround.

[Via Unwired View]

Two modern, must-have features of high end featurephones are locked in an eternal struggle to the death: camera and compactness. Slapping a large, high-quality sensor and lens on a phone tends to make it chubbier, and that's a huge problem (pun totally intended) as 3.2 and 5 megapixel autofocus cams become more of the rule than the exception. Kodak looks to be making life at least marginally easier on manufacturers, though, with some new sensor tech unveiled at MWC this week. The colorfully named KAC-05020 claims to be the world's first 5 megapixel CMOS device to sport pixels just 1.4 microns in diameter, down from the 1.75 microns typically seen on today's units. Perhaps even more importantly, though, Kodak claims that the new sensor has some bangin' light sensitivity -- somewhere on the order of two to four times the usual -- thanks to the use of its TRUESENSE technology that adds panchromatic pixels in with the RGB mix. Samples of the new sensors should be available to manufacturers in the second quarter of the year, meaning that if the Motorola-Kodak partnership is real, we're probably not going to see this sucker getting used the first time around.

[Thanks, Terry F.]

Like blurry future product shots do ya? Well, these rank with the best. These four new Motorolas were accidentally on purpose shown to Mobile Phone Helpdesk today in Amsterdam during a discussion with Motorola. Kicking things off is the device code-named "SKARVEN;" a ZOOM-series kick-slider which might feature an 8 megapixel camera and 2.8-inch screen. The TEXEL is another ROKR musicphone due in February or March of 2008. It features a morphing keypad like that found on the ROKR E8 which allows the keypad icons and functions to change in support of music or cellphone modes. The X PIXL is a Kodak-Motorola mashup which should bring a 5 megapixel camera to market under a Motorola Z12 product name. Rounding things out is the entry-level GENGHIS QWERTY device for non-business types. While there's not much to call home about, at least none of these future looking devices looks like another played-out RAZR.

[Via Unwired View]

During the same 24 hours that BenQ called it quits on the digital camera market, Kodak has reportedly had similar thoughts when eying its low-end camera lineup. According to CNET, Kodak President Antonio Perez shared that the firm would be "abandoning the low-end of the digital camera business" at the JPMorgan Technology Conference in Boston. He also added that while the company "wasn't making much money" in that segment, it was developing its own five-megapixel CMOS sensor to be used in a (presumably mid-range) Kodak-branded digicam. More interesting, however, was the addition that this very sensor would also make its way into "several Motorola cell phones by the end of the year." Unsurprisingly, Mr. Perez was fairly tight-lipped about any further details on the deal, but it's about time we saw something more advanced than a grainy 1.3-megapixel shooter built into mainstream handsets.

Although there are more and more embedded cameras in cellphones these days with PictBridge compatibility for local printing at your friendly CVS or Kmart, Kodak wants you to send them that nicer digital picture from that 2 megapixel shooter for processing and printing. Kodak is one of the first to say that the increasing image quality of digicams in cellphones is opening up a new market, although we've been waiting for a while, you know. Kodak's partnership with Exclaim will allow its "Mobile Link" service -- which Kodak describes as very near to its Easyshare system -- to find its way to CDMA handsets with Brew compatibility. In the U.S., you'll most likely be stuck with Verizon Wireless, the largest CDMA carrier with that combination. For all others, you're out of luck for now. We do find it strange that both Verizon and Sprint are referenced in the announcement when Sprint's phones use Java and not Brew. The price for Kodak's service will be $4 per month.