Mobile

Things that aren’t static

T-Mobile HotSpot Phone Merges WiFi/Cellular Services
Cellular phone provider T-Mobile US is offering a service, HotSpot @Home, giving unlimited calls to US phones via WiFi. This in itself isn’t big news, but what is significant is that callers leaving the range of the WiFi will automatically switch to their cellular service. Initial roll-out is limited to Seattle.
This type of service has been long-discussed, but several technical barriers stood in its way, primarily handing the call from the WiFi-connected call over to the cellular network, without losing the conversation, or a break in the speaking. It’s pretty complex.
Beyond the mechanics of the call hand-over, the riddle of when and how the subscriber would be billed when transferring to the cellular network – and stopping that billing when they reconnect to WiFi has also caused great confusion for a long time.
Cellular reception within peoples home is often pretty ropey, so using their WiFi service will give considerably better reception – making them happy bunnies.
To use the service, three items are required – two pieces of hardware and a service plan. Once the special cellular/WiFi handset has been selected (which look surprisingly decent) and the Wireless hotspot router is installed on the home network, all that is required is the add-on ($19.95/month) on top of the normal $39.95.
The two handsets currently available are the Samsung T709 slider or the Nokia 6136 flip.
BT has been offering a similar service in the UK for a while under the product name BT Fusion. The difference with BT Fusion is it uses Bluetooth to handle the wireless calls at home rather than WiFi.
T-Mobile is the mobile communications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, the German telco incumbent.
They have spent considerable effort over the recent years not only building and owning their cellular service, but doing the same with their WiFi network, clearly understanding early on that WiFi would be a significant threat to cellular services.
T-Mobile HotSpot Phone
25 October, 2006
Mobile Phone Sales Set To Hit One Billion For 2006
Global mobile shipments are set to hit one billion this year for the first time.
According to researchers IDC, a total of 254.9 million units were shipped in the third quarter of 2006, up 7.9 per cent from the previous quarter and a hefty leap of 21 per cent from the same quarter in 2005.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker saw record performances from all top five top industry vendors during the first three quarters of 2006.
“Shipping nearly a billion units in a single year is a significant milestone, but just as important is the journey it takes to get there,” mused Ramon Llamas, research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.
“Emerging markets have presented tremendous opportunity for vendors to provide users with their first handsets, and some users may already be looking to upgrade to another phone. Similarly, replacement handsets are a popular option for those in mature markets, especially as new features such as music have gained momentum,” he added.
Ryan Reith, research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker noted that, “the strong growth in the third quarter was very comparable to the growth we saw in 3Q05, as the trend of vendors and carriers working to prep for the holiday season begins.”
“Handsets that provide music functionality are now very visible in the industry. Mature markets are at a point where it is worthwhile for the carriers to launch these devices with strong marketing campaigns behind them, knowing that consumers are willing and ready to use their device as a music player as well as a phone,” Reith added.
The big boys break records
Nokia turned in another superlative performance, exceeding expectations and setting a new industry record by shipping 88.5 million units in the third quarter, cruising past its previous record by 4.8 million units, with the telecoms giant reporting double digit growth in the Far East, Europe, US and Chinese markets.
Records were also broken at second-placed Motorola, who enjoyed their sixth straight quarter notching up growth of around 40 per cent or better, helped on by the success of their RAZR phone.
Samsung managed to shift thirty million units in a quarter for the first time, while the number four vendor, Sony Ericsson notched up a healthy twenty million units.
IDC
25 October, 2006
European Mobile Users *Heart* The Web, US Not So Keen
European mobile phone users are far more likely to use their handsets to access the web than their US counterparts, according to a new comScore Networks study.
The comScore Mobile Tracking Study revealed significant differences between Europeans and Americans, with 29 percent of Europeans regularly getting online with their mobile phones compared to just 19 percent in the U.S
Breaking the European figures down, over a third (34 per cent) of Germans and Italians use their phones to access the web, followed by France with 28 percent, Spain with 26 percent and the UK with 24 percent, compared to just 19 percent for the USA.
The comScore Mobile Tracking Study also showed that geezers are more likely to access the Web from their mobile phones than women (probably looking for football scores, pubs and pr0n).
Nokia proved to be the most popular phone in Europe for accessing the web, bagging a market share ranging from 50 percent in Italy to 22 percent in France.
In the States, Motorola pushed ahead with 26 percent of the market compared to second-placed Nokia’s 17 percent share.
Portal sites were the most popular destinations for mobile surfers, with Google, Yahoo! and MSN leading the way, with branded Web sites set up by the phone operators, such as Vodafone, o2 and T-Mobile also proving a hit.
“Three-quarters of American mobile Web surfers access content from the leading online portals such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN compared to only thirty percent of Europeans,” observed Bob Ivins, the big cheese of comScore Europe.
“In Europe, the mobile Internet appears to mirror the dynamics of the fixed Internet,” said Ivins.
“Google remains strong but the other U.S.-based portals achieve much lower penetration, facing stiff competition from local competitors – in this case the mobile providers – who have the structural advantage of a degree of control over the access point and interface from the mobile phone,” he added.
comScore
23 October, 2006
Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million
As the smartphone market continues to explode, Microsoft has revealed its bullish ambitions to keep on doubling sales, year on year.
Last year’s total of six million mobile phones running Microsoft Windows software represented a 100 per cent increase on the previous year, and according to the head of Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices division, the company are hell bent on shifting even more.
“We want to make 100 percent again this year and to grow further at this rate in coming years,” he told the German Euro am Sonntag newspaper.
According to research firm Canalys, worldwide shipments of smart mobile devices rose by 55 percent year-on-year in Q2 2006, with the Symbian operating system remaining the most popular with a 67 per cent market share.
Although Microsoft is in second place, it lags a considerable distance behind with just 15 per cent of the market, followed by Research In Motion (Blackberry) on 6 per cent.
It looks like the smartphone market is going to heat up in coming months too, with Research In Motion’s new Pearl smartphone offering a camera and music functions.
RIM’s co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis were also hoping to double their users ever year, adding that the market for mobile emails was, “huge, and we’re just at the beginning.”
Elsewhere, Palm’s eagerly awaited new Treo 680 looks set to be hitting the UK by the end of November, after computer retailer Expansys announced that they expected unlocked models to be in stock by the end of November.
We’re not sure if they’ll be getting the full range of funky colours, but we’ll be pwning that natty Orange Treo as soon as we can get our hands on it.
23 October, 2006
EW-700 WiFiFone Announced By Samsung
Currently causing something of a stir on the floor of the Korea Electronics Show is the WiFiFone EW-700, a Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP smartphone running Windows Mobile.
The all-black phone is a collaboration between Samsung and Korean, big-name cordless phone maker Eidicom, and sports a slightly unusual keypad layout, with navigation controls sat in the left hand corner of the handset and the phone keys shunted to the right.
This leaves the ‘call’ and ‘answer’ buttons in the bottom left hand corner of the handset which seems far from ideal to us.
The EW-700, looks a fairly plain, clunky beast too – in fact the photos we’ve seen have something of a pre-production air to them – but it’s not short of features.
The phone offers Samsung’s latest “Post-PC mobile multimedia processor”, an “embedded OS/Device driver,” web browser, Instant Messaging and an MP3 and video player keeping customers entertained. We figure there must be some kind of memory card expansion available, but seeing as all the pics released so far only show the front of the camera, we can’t be sure.
We’re yet to get full specs either, but the screen looks like a 320 x 240 pixels jobbie to us, and there’s also a 2-megapixel camera with camcorder function onboard, a voice recorder, hardware MPEG engine offering full frame video and Wi-Fi and infrared connectivity.
As for pricing and availability, we haven’t the foggiest right now.
[From Aving USA]
23 October, 2006
Mobile Clubbing Flashmob Takes Over Liverpool Street
We all remember the flash-mobs of yesteryear, way back in …. 2003, when the first one happened in the UK.
Well, last Wednesday saw the Mobile Clubbing flashmob descend Liverpool Street Station on the East side of London, as flagged by Helen Keegan (Technokitten).
From the photos and the videos, it looks like it was pretty well attended, with what was estimated as a thousand people.
The instructions?
1. Bring your favorite dance music and walkman/mp3/ipod/phone with you
2. Arrive at the station at around 19:15
3. No dancing before 19:24
4. Spread out throughout the whole station concourse
5. When the clock strikes 19:24 DANCE LIKE CRAZY!!
6. Try not to dance in one place
7. Dance like you’ve never danced before
8. Dance for as long as you can
9. Enjoy :)
Come 19:24 they started dancing to their own music, leading to the individual, random gyrations that you can make out on the video – with the added strangeness that there’s no music playing, as everyone has headphones on. James A White goes into more detail.
Thanks to Monkeys & Kiwis and The City Gentleman for use of the photos.
Mobile clubbing
17 October, 2006
Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge Winners Announced
Nokia has announced the winning entries in the Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge global developer competition, dishing out a cool €100,000 in prizes to winning mobile applications developers.
Co-sponsored by Forum Nokia and software monoliths Adobe, the winners in four categories were selected from 117 entries after a 10-month selection process.
The categories were enterprise, music, Macromedia Flash Lite and location-aware applications, with each winner pocketing a €25,000 top prize and a one-year free membership in Forum Nokia PRO developer support program, which is apparently worth €4,000.
Selected by a jury made up of Macromedia and Nokia Business unit reps, the winners were selected from the 20 finalists announced in September this year.
Quickoffice Premier 4 scooped up Best Enterprise Application, with the product allowing users to open, view and edit Microsoft Office documents on the move.
www.quickoffice.com
The best Macromedia Flash application was Foreca – Flash Weather, a natty program that can not only advise you whether that brolly is really necessary, but can offer comprehensive weather forecasts, weather radar, temperature and precipitation forecasts.
www.foreca.com.
InfoTalk Corporation’s Music Finder grabbed the honours for Best Mobile Music Application. The program provides a speedy way to use search for music files using voice commands, with users able to speak a song title, artist’s name or playlist in response to an audio prompt instead of scrolling through zillions of MP3s.
www.infotalkcorp.com.
Finally, the Best Location-Aware Service/Application prize went to Augmentra, whose smarty-pants ViewRanger application offers a unique mapping, navigation and information tool for mobile phones, providing information about immediate surroundings through an intuitive display.
www.viewranger.com.
Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge
16 October, 2006
Carphone Warehouse Shares Drop On Vodafone News
The Herald is reporting that the shares in Carphone Warehouse took a bashing on the news that Vodafone is switching away from them, to sell their mobile phone contracts through Phones 4U instead.
The shares dropped 13.9%
Vodafone cited that Phones 4U charging Vodafone a lower commission was the reason for the change. We suspect that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
Carphone (as those in the industry call it) is becoming a major threat to Vodafone as they both move into other areas of communication – in the big communications convergence rush.
Carphone has been building up its bought AOL UK two days ago.
Vodafone themselves have recently moved into broadband, in a deal with BT. With Carphone effectively becoming a competitor, we assume that Vodafone don’t want to carry on giving them money.
If Vodafone’s choice to dump Carphone hurts them more will be revealed in the future. As Roger Taylor, FD for Carphone points out, “Every Vodafone customer that walks into our stores now will not walk out on a Vodafone contract.”
13 October, 2006
Palm Treo 680 Affordable Smartphones Announced
Palm has introduced a new range of quad-band Palm Treo 680 smartphones, running the tried and trusted Palm OS.
Backed by a $25 million marketing campaign – their biggest marketing campaign in half a decade – Palm is hoping that the lower priced Treos will attract customers beyond their traditional business base.
The GSM/GPRS/EDGE phones will be offered in a range of attractive colours (Graphite, Copper, Crimson and Arctic), weighing 23g lighter than the last PalmOS Treo, the 700p, and measuring up at 6mm longer and 3mm thinner.
Like the Windows-powered Treo 750w released earlier this year, the Treo 680 comes without the pocket-bulging, iconic chunky antennae, something which Palm thinks will have a positive impact on the European market.
The Treo comes with a large and bright 320×320 screen and the well regarded full QWERTY keyboard, with a raft of multimedia functions including an integrated digital camera, Bluetooth 1.2 , MP3 player, video recorder and player.
Onboard, there’s 64MB of user-available storage – nearly three times the capacity of the original Treo 650 smartphone – with expansion card support up to 2GB.
Although the Treo 680 is still lagging behind with the latest technology – there’s still no W-CDMA or Wi-Fi support – its superb user-friendly interface still puts it streets ahead of some higher spec’d phones.
Software
Like its Palm OS predecessors, the 680 displays text-messaging conversations as IM-like “threaded chats,” a fabulous feature that should be introduced by law on all phones.
The phone also lets users respond to calls by firing off a preset text message (“bog off weird stalker person”), and there’s support for three-way calling.
Along with the usual bundled applications for e-mail, Web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar and contacts, there’s a special version of Google Map for the Treo.
Billed by Google as,”the fastest, slickest version yet,” the application offers real-time traffic reports, detailed directions, integrated search results (search for cafes/bars etc, get addresses and call them with one click), satellite imagery and fast-downloading detailed, draggable maps with translucent pop-up balloons.
Sadly, us in Britland will have to wait for a while as the program currently only offers maps for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the US.
Palm has also announced that it will be partnering with several media companies, including Yahoo, Google and blogging firm Six Apart, to make their products available on the new device – these will join the enormous back catalogue of commercial and free software that’s already available for the OS.
Availability
Palm head honcho Ed Colligan said he expects the new smartphone to be available around the world by the end of June, 2007, “competitively priced with comparable smartphones in the marketplace,” with the price rumoured to be around the $200 mark.
Palm 680
13 October, 2006
Orb MyCasting on Nokia N80 In US
Orb MyCasting has been grabbed by Nokia to be bundled in with the Nokia N80 Internet Edition, in the US only.
When US N80 owners are swanning around, they’ll be able to watch live TV, videos, listen to music and podcasts and video images on their PC. Not just that, but they can set programs to record on their PC from their mobiles.
The TV and media companies have not, to say the very least, been particularly keen on letting people do this. We’ll see if they come out against Nokia.
Back in August this year, Orb MyCasting were keen to “share”, that 19 months after the service was launched, they’ve had over 1.5m hours of digital media transfered over their service – equivalent to 125 years of media-idge. Interestingly up to 45 minutes per user per day, on average.
Orb has similar deals with companies such as AMD, Vodafone, Hauppauge, Intel and Creative Labs.
Programming video recordings is not unique – Sky TV has been offering this since July this year through their Mobile Sky+ Programming
Orb Networks
12 October, 2006