Mobile

Things that aren’t static

Mobile Devices To Dominate: EIEF06
Desktop computing will be dead by the end of the decade and laptops will be following shortly after. That was the view of Graham Brown-Martin of Handheld Learning in an entertaining presentation at day two of the EIEF.
Brown-Martin’s vision is that computing will migrate to a new breed of portable, hand held devices that make use of cheap, high-bandwidth Internet connections to access data stored remotely on Net-based servers.
The drivers behind this change include the impracticality of desktop-based computers for our changing lifestyles and the rise of home entertainment technology, which will include many of the functions now present in computers.
The coming of HDTV coupled with the rapid uptake of digital TV and the growth of alternative modes of accessing TV (there are on average, 4-5 screens capable of accessing TV in every UK home) mean that the uptake of high-bandwidth broadband services could be extremely quick bringing access to an userbase well beyond just computer users.
The other side of the proposition is high capacity storage. We all create gigabytes of digital stuff with our collections of MP3’s, pictures and games but not everyone is at the cutting edge of data backups and archiving. Enter online data warehousing services such as streamload.com, who are providing gigabytes of cheap (and in some cases free) online storage where you can dump your data and access it from any Internet device.
Brown-Martin’s position is that we are no longer 20th century factory workers. We are mobile. All our stuff can be accessed in one location in cyberspace, assuming the media is scalable and interoperable. This model is the backbone of successful Web 2.0 companies such as Mp3 tunes, Skype, MySpace and YouTube.
As an illustration of this, and of his extremely cool mobile phone, Brown-Martin demonstrated a home made remix of the Snakes on a Plane teaser, edited with a mobile and a Macbook. The result was uploaded directly to YouTube from the phone then downloaded again (wirelessly) using a Nokia Internet tablet.
Readers of Digital-Lifestyles are no strangers to this kind of digital dabbling but there are issues to be overcome. As Brown-Martin conceded, there are privacy issues, what happens when the government comes along and demands to access all Streamload’s stored data?
Fast connections are only half the communications issue. For these to be effective enough to allow true access from anywhere, they have to be ubiquitous. We already have a plethora of mobile devices but most of our fast connections are fixed. Meaning that we are all still fighting over desk space, wall sockets and power points (as the general lack of power sockets at the EIEF venue amply illustrated). True mobile computing will require blanket wireless access in major towns and cities and on public transport, services that are still in their infancy just now.
On a more mundane level, what happens if we decide to shift our data from one provider to another, the digital equivalent of moving house? Even with a fast connection, downloading gigabytes of data and uploading to another provider is just too painful a process to contemplate.
Brown-Martin proposed that there must be some way to allow linking from one online provider to another so that we can allow access to our own content repositories without having to physically copy data. This kind of slick, server-based functionality is the kind of service that will be the killer app for Brown-Martin’s vision of mobile computing. With that, all your data shelved in secured and permanently accessible online storage and a permanent high-speed broadband link you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with all that grey box malarkey!
Handheld Learning
24 August, 2006
Egrips For Smartphones, iPods, PDAs And More
Are you the owner of a pair of super slippery hands that seem unable to keep a firm grip on your mobile or PDA?
Or are you one of those people who like to multitask when you’re running around the office but have found the shiny surface of your phone a little too slippery on occasion – sometimes with disastrous results? (we know of at least two people who have managed to drop their phones down toilets).
If this sounds like you, then you may be interested in investing in some Egrips Appliques.
We’re not sure what the Frenchy-sounding name is all about, but the company offers a range of protective stick-on covers for a wide selection of electronic devices such as cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, iPods, MP3 players, gaming devices etc.
Like many of the best ideas, it’s a simple one: simply stick on a pre-cut set of protective silicone grips on to your device and the thing should become much more ‘sticky’ and less likely to end up on the floor, under your brake pedal or floating in your karsey.
Made from a super thin material, the makers claim that the “specially formulated adhesive” won’t damage your precious gadget while the super-grippy material will prevent it from, “sliding around on dry surfaces, like car seats, centre consoles, counter tops, desktops, laptops and more.”
The grips are reasonably priced around the $10-$12 mark and are available from the egrips website.
21 August, 2006
More PE Takeover Talk At NTL
The much heralded NTL/Telewest merger, expected to be the saviour of the UK cable industry, has become the subject of another Private Equity takeover rumour and the likely winner, if it goes ahead, is Richard Branson.
A quick recap
Branson did a deal with NTL that saw Virgin mobile become part of a four-play (geddit?) proposition, allowing the operation to use the Virgin brand and in return received 10.6% of the company. The merger of the three companies has not yet bedded in, and customers across the country are still waiting for the promised improvements in the notoriously poor levels of customer support.
Flextech the programming arm of the company, which was up for sale at the time of the earlier merger (I hope you’re paying attention), is likely to again be offered up for acquisition to media companies. A great way for potential new investors to make a chuck of their cash back.
Market reaction
The market has viewed the possible takeover positively, as it considered the cable company is still under valued following its 20% share price drop in the last three months. More recently shares in the company, quoted in the US, gained around 8% last week, on the possible fresh takeover.
What would the impact be?
If a takeover goes ahead, then the focus will be on installing a strong management team to leverage the offering against well established competition from BT and the newer entrants to the market, like Tiscali whose purchase of Homechoice has put them in the triple-play space, and Sky who are rolling out a broadband proposition under their own well known brand.
21 August, 2006
Greenphone Announced by Trolltech
Trolltech may not be well known, but they make a software product called Qt (pronounced “cutie”) which is used by many. It’s a package that allows developers to write code that works across several platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS X) so only one set of API’s (Applications Programming Interfaces) need to be learnt.
Qt is used both commercially and in the open source community (it’s the basis for the Linux KDE windowing environment). Commercially there are several well known programs using it, including Skype and various packages from Google and Adobe.
Qt has been around for quite a while and more recently introduced Qtopia a complete Linux development environment, using Qt as a basis for its user interface.
Qtopia comes in several editions including a phone edition which is used by several vendors including Motorola. It uses Embedded Linux (version 2.4) and then Qtopia sits on top, offering various standard interfaces (including the user interface and standard Qtopia applications like calendaring, contacts, etc).
Qt and Qtopia are designed to make writing applications easy, however it’s still a relatively complicated task. Supporting lots of flavours of hardware further complicates things.
Trolltech Greenphone
In addition to Qt and Qtopia, Trolltech have come out with a mobile development device, known as the Greephone. Unsuprisingly it has a green casing, just so you don’t forget. The phone only supports GSM/GPRS.
The Greenphone comes with Qtopia Phone Edition 4.1.4 and the Linux kernel 2.4.19.
The hardware consists of a touch-screen and keypad UI QVGA LCD colour screen, Intel XScale 312 MHz PXA270, 64MB RAM & 128MB Flash, Mini-SD card slot, Broadcom BCM2121 GSM/GPRS baseband processor, Bluetooth and Mini-USB port.
Though it’s not designed to be used in production, it is designed to allow developers to rapidly prototype applications that can then be moved on to a real phone before expensive prototypes are made.
Applications, new kernels and versions of Qt and Qtopia can be loaded on to the Greenphone through the mini USB connection.
The Greenphone comes with a complete Qtopia SDK (software development kit) which provides a complete environment for developing and modifying application software for Qtopia Phone Edition. It can produce packages that run on the Greenphone itself or run through the virtual phone included with the SDK.
There are already over 4 million Linux phones utilising Trolltech’s software, this just allows manufacturers to develop Linux applications and get them to market more rapidly.
The mobile phone market is already a crowded space with Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and Symbian dominating the market. Maybe this will give Linux the mobile boost it needs to push it into the mainstream.
17 August, 2006
BoxWave Dual Handsfree Stereo Adapter For Palm Treo Review (80%)
If you’re fed up with having to use the rubbish headphones that came with your Treo, you may want to consider investing in BoxWave’s Dual Handsfree Stereo Adapter.
Like many other mobile manufacturers, Palm elected to use the non-standard 2.5mm headphone socket, meaning that you can’t use your favourite headphones with the device.
Although many electronics stores like Maplins carry simple 2.5mm (male) to 3.5mm (female) stereo adapters, your listening pleasure is going to be interrupted every time you take a call as you’ll have to unplug your headphones every time. Not cool.
So here’s where the BoxWave’s Dual Handsfree Stereo Adapter comes in.
The unit features a simple (gold plated) 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter which connects up to a small control unit which includes an integrated microphone, single-touch answer call button, volume control, and a switch for toggling between music and handsfree phone mode.
The adapter also comes with a removable lapel clip so that you can clip the microphone to your jacket, and to avoid the usual spaghetti tangle of wires, there’s a clever cable retract/recoil design that winds in any excess cabling.
Giving it some welly
We tested the adapter with a Palm Treo 650 and a pair of Grado SR60 cans.
Giving it a bit of welly with some MP3s played back on Pocket Tunes, everything worked as advertised, with the music mode automatically pausing the tunes whenever a call came in on the Treo.
As soon as the call was finished, the music would kick back in again, so there was no need to go rummaging about in bags or pockets. Sweet.
We also liked the retractable cable, although there’s no denying that the combination of adapter, cable coiler and control unit added a bit of bulk.
Although we initially had a problem with a noisy potentiometer (that’s a volume control to most people, but we’re trying hard to impress you here), Boxwave were quick to send out a replacement, so it looks like their customer service is on the case.
Overall, we found the BoxWave to be well worth the outlay (currently on offer from their site at $20.95) and a great investment if you want to be able to get the best music performance out of your Palm Treo 650/700p/700w.
If you haven’t got a Palm, you might be interested to note that Boxwave also do a Dual Handsfree Stereo Headset which replicates most of the functionality of the Palm version, but has non-removable headphones – check out their page for compatible models.
Features: 80%
Build: 80%
Value For Money: 85%
Overall: 80%
BoxWave Dual Handsfree Stereo Adapter
17 August, 2006
Samsung SCH-B470 Offers Picture In Picture DMB
Yet more proof that Koreans are spoilt rotten when it comes to having the very latest must-have mobile gadgets comes in the form of Samsung’s brand new phone – displayed, as ever, by scantily clad models.
OK, the Samsung looks a bit weird with its ET-like swivelling head, but – check out this out – not only does it boast Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), but it’s got Picture in Picture too!
Perfect for those with an attention span that can only be measured in milliseconds, the SCH-B470 lets TV-mad users view two channels at the same time via a split screen, just like your big TV at home.
The chunky black clamshell phone also lets users switch between having a small Picture in Picture (PiP) display showing the secondary channel or splitting the display in half, with the two selected channels sharing the total viewing area.
Naturally, users can also elect to fill the screen with just the one channel for fuddy-duddy, old-school types who are satisfied with just one channel playing simultaneously.
It’s not all endless fun for tech-savvy Koreans though, as there’s only twelve S-DMB channels currently available.
More features
As well as the way cool PiP TV modes, the SCH-B470 comes with a swivelling 2 megapixel camera, an MP3 player, a flip out and rotate 2.2-inch LCD screen and some sort of ‘pet’ game to entertain users when there’s nowt on the telly.
With all that cutting edge technology stuffed inside, it’s no surprise that the phone comes with a hefty price tag, expected to hover around the 700,000 KRW ($728, £384) mark.
Samsung Korea
What’s DMB?
16 August, 2006
Mobile Internet Population Hits 34.6 Million In US
With more Internet-enabled handsets on the market, it’s not surprising that more punters are getting a bit of Web action on the move, with email and weather sites being the top two most visited mobile sites.
According to mobile data spods Telephia, the population of the “mobile Internet” clicked up to 34.6 million users in June 2006, up 6 percent from the 32.7 million users recorded by the company in January.
Their figures also revealed that once punters are hooked up to the mobile Internet, their addiction grows, with users notching up an average 34.3 sessions in June, compared to 31.4 user sessions in January.
Bernard Brenner, director of mobile content for Telephia commented, “Even as the subscriber rate grows, the number of people using the mobile Web is also increasing. It’s an increasing number in an increasing market.”
Top US Mobile Websites (June 2006)
The top ten of the most popular mobile Websites contains the expected big names, with Yahoo Mail being the most viewed, registering a unique audience of 6.51 million mobile users, accounting for 3 percent of subscribers.
This is followed by the Weather Channel with 5.9 million users and a 2.7 percent share, with ESPN.com in third place with 5.3 million users /2.5 percent.
In fourth place is Google Search (4,356/2.0 per cent) and then MSN Hotmail (3,441, 1.6 per cent), MapQuest (3,067/1.4 per cent), AOL Mail (2,907/1.4 per cent), CNN (2,799/1.3 per cent), Yahoo! Weather (2,740/1.3 per cent) and, finally, Yahoo! Search (2,531/1.2 per cent).
When it comes to mobile browsers, Openwave, Motorola and Nokia browsers have the highest adoption rates, with Openwave registering more than a quarter of all mobile Web users.
Telephia
16 August, 2006
N93 Short Shot By Gary Oldman Released
Hollywood hot shot Gary Oldman is today releasing his new short film, shot on the Nokia N93 we’re told.
He’s taking the short label pretty literally, as the puppy is two minutes long, featuring what is described as “a round reflection in rippling water set to a haunting soundtrack.” Sounds lovely.
We’d imagine that this has cost Nokia a pretty penny, but it all goes towards burning into your brains that Nokia is about film. Creating it as we’ve seen here and watching it on their handsets too.
To that end, completely unprompted (we’re certain), Gazzer said, “Mobile video devices like the Nokia N93 allow us to capture the extraordinary moments in our ordinary days and share them with the world. The image in Donut is one such fleeting moment I happened upon that inspired me to grab my mobile video device out of my pocket and record it to share with others. I hope my film encourages people to do the same and I look forward to seeing the results on the Nokia Nseries Studio.”
Mr Oldman’s short will be premiering online on the neatly mentioned Nokia Nseries Studio, where from today (another coincidence?) anyone can upload short films to share with the world.
Happy Slapping
Camera phones have been used by some on the streets to make their own films, sadly many with violent overtones. Unfortunately the Hollywood violence that these youth had been subjected to for the whole of their lives (in the name of entertainment) wasn’t staged as it is in films, but real. Happy Slapping video’s stormed around school playgrounds about 18 months and featured members of the public getting assaulted, while those with the camera phones recording it laughed.
DVD quality or not?
Nokia appear to be back tracking a little on their definition of the quality of the onboard camera. When the N93 was first mooted, it was DVD-quality, it’s now being labelled DVD-like.
Nokia aren’t calling the N93 a phone with a camera on it, but a multimedia computer. You may mock, but this isn’t too far from the truth – it’s got a ton of processing power on board and a 3.2 megapixel lens with Carl Zeiss optics, DVD-like video capture and 3x optical zoom.
DV camcorders beware
Discussion of DVD-quality or DVD-like aside, the N93 shows the direction that camera-phones are taking, despite this early example being pretty bulky. The quality of these is approaching that of a standard DV (Digital Video) camera putting pressure on the DV manufacturers. The response to this from them is the introduction of HiDef camcorders. Expect this to become the standard.
Nokia Nseries Studio
14 August, 2006
Visual Radio Finally Launches with O2 and Virgin Radio
We’ve been keeping our eyes on Background on how it all works).
Today it’s been announced that two radio stations in the UK, Virgin Radio in London, and GWR FM in Bristol will be launching support for the service, with Virgin Radio leading this week.
There are three partners involved, HP supplying the backend, O2 carrying the data, and the radio stations providing the content.
James Parton, Head of Music, TV and Radio products at O2 comments, “The in-built radios in many of our handsets have always been popular with people who are always on the move, but now visual radio lets you really interact whether that is with the actual DJ themselves or downloading ringtones of your favourite songs over the O2 network.”
In covering the main reason that Virgin Radio are interested in it, James Cridland, Director of Digital Media at Virgin Radio, said “It can also give advertisers a more dynamic platform to communicate their messages.”
As we’ve covered many times before, one of the sticking points is whether the already-burdened mobile subscriber will be prepared to pay extra money to use these services.
O2 have announced the usage charges of Visual Radio. At O2’s standard data rates of £3.00 per Mb dependent on tariff or O2 Browse and Download bolt-ons from £3 for 2mb and £5 for 4mb.
Although the amount of data that will be transferred won’t be that considerable, with small graphics being the most hefty, it will still cost people money to listen to the radio – something they’re not used to.
People may also legitimately ask why they should pay to help enhance people advertising to them.
Earlier this week Nokia bought Loudeye, the company that they partnered with to process their music.
Visual Radio
11 August, 2006
446m Mobile Phones TV User By 2011? We Consider
Will you be one of the near-half billion (446m to be exact) people that IMS Research estimate will be watching TV on their cellular handsets around the globe by 2011?
Their latest research project a 50% year-on-year growth all of the way until 2010.
In a frankly over-optomistic tone, one of the report’s authors, Stephen Froehlich exclaimed, “Given the right conditions, mobile TV has the potential to spread from one customer to the next like few technologies before it.” We assume he either lives in the US, where text messaging didn’t grow at the speed it did in Europe, or he’s got a short memory. SMS was the ultimate viral application on mobile.
There’s been a lot of buzz about DVB-H, built up by a combination of the TV and mobile phone companies. It’s not far off the truth that the content industry are obsessed with video content on mobile phones.
Our take – All of these estimates are a pipe-dream if the mobile operators think that their subscribers are going to pay to watch TV, at the data rates that are charged by many companies, certainly those in the UK. People’s mobile bills are pretty huge already and they have a lot of other things to be spending their money on.
IMS Research
10 August, 2006