The Helio Ocean was a dual slider

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

-enabled

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

wireless

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

sold by mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) wireless carrier Helio, and manufactured by

Pantech Curitel Pantech Inc. ( ko, 주식회사 팬택) is a South Korean company that manufactures mobile phones. Established in 1991, its market is mainly domestic with partners in the United States, Japan, China, Europe and finally Vietnam. In 2012 Pantech ...

. A distinctive design feature of the Ocean was its dual sliding mechanism — when slid down in the vertical position, it revealed a

telephone keypad A telephone keypad is a keypad installed on a push-button telephone or similar telecommunication device for dialing a telephone number. It was standardized when the dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) system was developed in the Bell Syste ...

. When slid down in the horizontal position, it revealed a 35-key

QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created f ...

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

. Since their acquisition by

Sprint Nextel Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before it merged with T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The co ...

Virgin Mobile USA Virgin Mobile USA was a no-contract Mobile Virtual Network Operator. It used Sprint's network for coverage. It licensed the Virgin Mobile brand from United Kingdom-based Virgin Group. Virgin Mobile USA was headquartered in Kansas City, Missou ...

terminated the wireless voice and data services of those customers who had an Helio Ocean or other Helio branded devices on May 25, 2010. Customers had until this date to transfer their wireless phone number to another wireless carrier without loss of service. A deactivated Helio Ocean can still be used as a digital camera, allowing images and video files to be downloaded via the included USB interface cable directly to a computer.

Release

The device became first known to the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

on November 24, 2006 from an

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

filing. Photos released on December 9, 2006 showed the Ocean in test apparatus documentation, and later on February 21, 2007 a full gallery depicting the Helio Ocean was available through the FCC website. When publicly released on Friday, May 11, 2007, the Ocean was billed as "the ultimate

messaging A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. A ...

and talking machine" and "the definitive mobile

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

ing experience." The Ocean is seen as a breakthrough device for Helio, appealing to a more mainstream audience and not just the "ultra-cool hipsters" the company had previously targeted. Dr. Wonhee Sull, President & CEO of Helio, said that work on the Ocean device started "before Helio was officially a

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

Features

The Ocean was a prime example of a converged device. In addition, to

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

functions, the Ocean's functions included those of a

camera phone A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color cam ...

and a

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

. The Ocean device had several advanced features, such as

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

, a 2

megapixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...

camera A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), ...

with

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid ...

, an

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related tec ...

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...

, 3G speed

EV-DO Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO, EVDO, etc.) is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access. EV-DO is an evolution of the CDMA2000 (IS-2000) standard which su ...

network support, built-in

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

MMS MMS may refer to: Science and technology Network communication protocols * Multimedia Messaging Service for mobile phones * Microsoft Media Server, a content-streaming protocol (mms://) * Manufacturing Message Specification for real time proces ...

support, and a removable

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

. The Helio Ocean had a considerable number of features at the time of its release. Standard programs included a

Web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

, a

calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...

, an

alarm clock An alarm clock (or sometimes just an alarm) is a clock that is designed to alert an individual or group of individuals at a specified time. The primary function of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they ar ...

and a

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

. For communication, the device included

caller ID Caller identification (Caller ID) is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call is ...

(with support for photo caller ID), a speaker phone, a

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

memo

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

, a record call feature,

address book An address book or a name and address book is a book, or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields (for example: first name, last name, company name, address, telephone num ...

(with multiple online syncing abilities), T9 Text, and Korean character set support.

GPS

The device was location aware with its internal

. The Ocean was loaded with a version of

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

, which displayed turn-by-turn directions; however, the application warned users that it should not be used while driving. Additionally, th
Buddy Beacon
application allowed friends with Buddy Beacon-enabled phones (as of Dec 2008, only Helio phones) to broadcast their current location to each other, visible via

MapQuest MapQuest (stylized as mapquest) is an American free online web mapping service. It was launched in 1996 as the first commercial web mapping service. MapQuest vies for market share with competitors such as Google Maps and Here. History MapQuest's ...

Multimedia

The integrated music and video player supported multiple

file format A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file formats ...

s (including

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distri ...

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Cleveland, ...

, and WMA) and allowed for over-the-air (OTA)

downloads In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote s ...

. The music player ran on a separate

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

, with improved efficiency that allowed for an estimated 15 hours of music listening on a battery charge. On November 29, 2007 Helio released a file viewer

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

for Ocean users, allowing the device to read a variety of popular

s, among them

DOC DOC, Doc, doc or DoC may refer to: In film and television * ''Doc'' (2001 TV series), a 2001–2004 PAX series * ''Doc'' (1975 TV series), a 1975–1976 CBS sitcom * "D.O.C." (''Lost''), a television episode * ''Doc'' (film), a 1971 Wester ...

, XLS, PPT,

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

, TXT, as well as several image types in both landscape and portrait modes.

Ultimate Inbox

The Helio Ocean also included several choices of

E-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

communication with support for Helio Mail,

Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo (2017–present), Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously av ...

Windows Live Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...

AOL Mail AOL Mail (stylized as Aol Mail.) is a free web-based email service provided by AOL, a division of Yahoo. Features AOL Mail has the following features available: * Email attachment limit: 25 MB * Max mailbox size: Unlimited * Supported protoc ...

Gmail Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. As of 2019, it had 1.5 billion active users worldwide. A user typically accesses Gmail in a web browser or the official mobile app. Google also supports the use of email clients via the POP an ...

EarthLink EarthLink is an American Internet service provider. It went public on NASDAQ in January 1997. Much of the company's growth was via acquisition; by 2000, ''The New York Times'' described Earthlink as the "second largest Internet service provider ...

, and two additional user-defined POP or

IMAP In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by . IMAP was designed with the goal of per ...

accounts. Helio began adding support for

push e-mail Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which new email is actively transferred ( pushed) as it arrives by the mail delivery agent (MDA) (commonly called mail server) to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the ema ...

to the Helio Ocean in July 2007 with Push support for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, and AOL Mail. On April 23, 2008 push support was added for Gmail, along with automatic notifications for POP/IMAP accounts. For a nominal fee per month, connectivity to Microsoft Exchange was available on the Ocean since July 25, 2007. There is also

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

support for

AOL Instant Messenger AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. AIM w ...

Yahoo! Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client (computing), client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used wit ...

, and

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

Opera Mini

On August 2, 2007, those in the Helio community had figured out how to build custom applications (the device is Java-based), including Opera Mini.Opera Mini for everybody! Custom apps! Yay!
- heliocity.net Several months later, on March 19, 2008, the Ocean got ''official'' software support for the

Opera Mini Opera Mini is a mobile web browser made by Opera. It was primarily designed for the Java ME platform, as a low-end sibling for Opera Mobile, but it is now developed exclusively for Android. It was previously developed for iOS, Windows 10 Mobile, ...

browser when Helio became the first

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

carrier to sign a deal with Opera. It was speculated that Helio had followed the "incredible community response to Opera Mini."

MySpace Mobile

MySpace Mobile was available for the Helio Ocean, leading some to refer to the Ocean as a "MySpace phone". Helio was the first cellular provider to take the MySpace experience mobile. On July 19, 2007 Helio announced the launch of an improved version of Myspace Mobile that operated nearly five times faster than Helio's original self-developed application.

YouTube

On December 12, 2007 Helio announced a more enriched

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

experience, at the time the "most complete" on a mobile device.Helio brightens its YouTube offering
- crave.cnet.com The Ocean was able to perform

video capture Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera, DVD player, or television tuner—to digital video and sending it to local storage or to external circuitry. The resulting digital data ar ...

and

upload Uploading refers to ''transmitting'' data from one computer system to another through means of a network. Common methods of uploading include: uploading via web browsers, FTP clients], and computer terminal, terminals (SCP/ SFTP). Uploading c ...

to YouTube, as well as

Tag (metadata), tagging of videos. Users could log into YouTube to personalize, rate videos and use other community features.

Popular culture

In early episodes of the reality television show

Keeping Up With The Kardashians ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians'' (often abbreviated ''KUWTK'') is an American reality television series which focused on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian family, Kardashian–Jenner Stepfamily, blended family, airing b ...

Kris Jenner Kristen Mary Jenner ( Houghton , formerly Kardashian; born November 5, 1955) is an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She rose to fame starring in the reality television series ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians'' (2007� ...

is seen using the device.

References

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