Mobile

Things that aren’t static

TI Announce Single-Chip Mobile Phones
Texas Instruments (TI) has announced they will bring a integrated single-chip solution for mobile phones.
Based on TI’s Digital RF Processor (DRP), it integrates two basic chips, one that controls sending and receiving radio frequencies, and one that controls basic computing functions.
It will bring the advantages of lowering the cost, size and power requirements, while raising performance. All of these are vital in producing high-volume, entry-level cellular phones, particularly when selling into high-growth regions such as India and China.
Currently half of TI wireless business is not that it’s news to them. Back in 2002 TI announced its intention to integrate the bulk of handset electronics on a single chip, for delivery in 2004. It squeezed in to 2004 by providing samples in December 2004.
The NY Times is reporting that Qualcomm announced (reg. reqd) it had developed integrated technology back in November, but it is unlikely to reach the mass market before TI’s. Clearly TI is excited about it, Bill Krenik, manager of wireless advanced architectures for Texas Instruments said to the NY Times, “This isn’t an incremental step, it’s a big leap forward.”
Juha Pinomaa, Vice President, Entry Business Line, Nokia is equally sprightly. “By incorporating TI’s DRP technology into a single chip, future Nokia mobile phones will provide the ideal mix of cool features and cost-effectiveness, making them more attractive to the mass marketplace.”
Not resting on its laurels, TI’s integrated wireless technology roadmap also includes a single chip solution for digital TV for mobile phones, as well as future single chip solutions for GPS, wireless LAN and UMTS.
TI Nokia

Image source – The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

24 January, 2005
Ubiquitous Viewer – Phone Access to PC from Toshiba
Toshiba has announced software to remotely execute programs on a PC, via a mobile phone. They call it Ubiquitous Viewer.
Software that gives remote access to your computer from another has been available for years, with a particular favourite within the Digital Lifestyles offices being the open source VNC (Virtual Network Computing).
The way these packages used to work, was by an application running on the host (remote) computer and another on the client (local). Keystrokes and mouse movements are read from the client, sent over a communication line (dialup/IP) and executed on the host. Graphical changes to the screen on the host machine are collected, compressed, sent down the line and replicated on the client.
While this approach is basic, it has the advantage that any software application could be run.
The details of Toshiba’s Ubiquitous Viewer are still sketchy, but what we do know is it’ll allow users to open productivity software, such as the MS Office suite, and to read and modify files. It also supports access to PC-based e-mail, Internet browser and other PC applications.
Internet browsing through a phone to your PC? This is the only one we find a little bizarre, it’s a bit like reading a book through a telescope.
Given the support for “other PC applications” and the photograph, the Ubiquitous Viewer looks like it works on the same principles as the old-school solutions.
To access the remote machine, a password must be entered once. The transfer of data is over a secure connection, as it uses the Web standard secure socket layer (SSL) encryption
The service will initially be released at the end of March 2005 in Japan on KDDI’s service using CDMA1X mobile phones. Following this, they intend to take it other countries.
Quite what the experience will be like on a mobile screen is unclear and frankly this type of solution will only be used in desperation when you must have access to some information that you’ve forgotten.
It is a good example in our view of the future – no matter what the restrictions of the device, any that provides access will be acceptable, until you can move to a location or device that is superior.
Toshiba
19 January, 2005
The Sun launch Page 3 Soft Porn to Mobile Phones
News International, the publisher of well known UK tabloid ‘newspaper’, The Sun, has opened the doors on its own mobile content service that it calls Sun Mobile.
It will feature ringtones, java games and … you guessed it … Page 3 wallpapers and screen savers. For our non-UK readers, Page 3 of the Sun is dominated by a photo of a topless (at least) woman.
The service won’t be short of promotion. The Sun website, Sun Online, has around 3m users, with half of its traffic coming from the US and Canada. The printed paper has a circulation of 9 million.
Despite The Sun having a presence on the Vodafone live! and Orange World portals, News International (NI) has set up their own mobile site, developed by Blue Start Mobile. It will be accessible in over 130 countries around the world, thanks to NI’s deal with Bango.
Many mobile content providers are discontented with what they see as unbalanced, operator-biased revenue splits that the mobile phone company are currently offering in the UK. It sounds to us like NI has recognised this, as Simon Ashley the commercial manager dealing with the launch points out, “Sun Mobile gives us direct, interactive relationship with our customers on mobile.”
Sun Mobile (contains nudity)
13 January, 2005
Children’s Cellular phone withdrawn following UK health report
Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), today published a report of the emissions of mobile phones. He said he believed that mobiles may pose a health risk, although this was not yet proven. He said “If there are risks – and we think there may be risks – then the people who are going to be most affected are children, and the younger the child, the greater the danger.”
Following this, Communic8 the company who sells MyMo, a mobile phone specifically for use of children between 4 and 8, announced that they were to stop selling it immediately.
We spoke to Adam Stephenson of MyMo and he said “After listening to the the tone and content of Sir William Stewart on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, we have decided to stop selling MyMo.” He went on explain that they had read between the lines to see a considerable risk. “The idea behind MyMo was to protect children. We have no intention of exposing children to any danger.” While pointing out that no one in his company were medical experts, he went on to say “We feel it would be foolish to challenge their findings.”
The MyMo offered a simple ‘cut down’ mobile phone with three buttons on it that enable pre-set phone number to be called easily. It was licensed from a company in Germany and is still for sale in Italy and in the Netherlands, through KPN.
This is the second piece of research within a month, flagging the possible dangers of mobile phone emissions. The last study, majority-funded by the European Union, has found in December that in laboratory conditions, radio waves from mobile phones harm body cells and damage DNA.
MyMo
Sir William Stewart on BBC Radio 4 (Real player req.)
Health warning on children with mobile phones – The Scotsman
Cellular Phone Emissions Damage DNA, Study Finds – Digital-Lifestyles.info
11 January, 2005
Gizmondo beef up with Disney and Sega
Since we first brought news of the Gizmondo gaming console to you in June 2004 it has been coming on leaps and bounds.
Not only is the Gizmondo a handheld games platform, but it’s also able to play music and video; has GPRS, Bluetooth and GPS built-in to it; works as a wireless email and SMS client; and has a digital camera built in. All for an expected $399 in the US or £229 in the UK.
While this is all very lovely, it’s common knowledge that what keeps a gaming machine alive beyond the spec sheet is the games it runs. Tiger Telematics, who have developed and sell the Gizmondo, are developing their own original software, having bought two software developers Indie Studios and latterly Warthog Games in October 2004, but they are also wisely doing deals with other companies.
The fruit of these now-combined studios, renamed Gizmondo Studios, will be nine titles; City; Colors; Johnny Whatever; Sticky Balls; Fallen Kingdoms; Momma, can I mow the lawn?; Milo and the Rainbow Nasties; Furious Phil; and Future Tactics.
A three year deal with Disney should bring their games to the Gizmondo platform. The initial fruits of the deal will be Tron 2.0. Developed in-house by Gizmondo, the contract also “envisions for four additional titles to be determined by mutual agreement”. The agreement has the Gizmondo paying a minimum guarantee totalling $100,000 for the Tron 2.0 property over three years. Four other titles could also be developed under the deal.
Tiger Telematics have also signed a letter of intent with Taiwan-base Digital Media Cartridge Ltd, hoping to bring many of the classic Sega video games to the platform. Currently this deal looks a little less certain that the Disney deal, but the games being discussed include Sonic the Hedgehog, Outrun, Golden Axe, Altered Beast and Shinobi.
As an icing on the cake, our friends at CNET declared the Gizmondo a finalist in the Next Big Thing awards.
The Gizmondo soft launched by taking pre-orders in the UK in October 2004, and should be in UK shops in February 2005 priced at £229. The online capabilities will be provided using a Gizmondo-branded Pay As You Go (PAYG) service.
Gizmondo
10 January, 2005
iBod from PlayBoy = iPorn
It’s not that we’re surprised by this news, but it did send a ripple of laughter around the Digital Lifestyles offices today.
In this world of new words being made up on what feels like an hourly basis, PlayBoy brings us iBod.
Not surprisingly, their newly launched service entails delivering photos of scantily clad women to Apple’s Photo iPod. It’s nothing more than that really.
For years, many have been enthusing about the huge revenues that will come from delivering p0rn to portable devices, based on the one-to-one relationship that people have with them. A few years back, when 3G operators the world over worried about how to make up the huge fees they had paid for the licences, some joked that 3G stood for Girls, Goals and Games.
Playboy already sells to major wireless markets such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil. They recently announced that they will now offer the same in the US.
The fantastically-named Randy Nicolau, president of distribution for the Playboy Entertainment Group said “Given the extraordinary success we’ve had with our wireless offerings around the world, we felt the time was right to expand our wireless content to the millions of U.S. subscribers.”
To the best of our knowledge the Photo iPod isn’t waterproof, but the Click Wheel is well known for its single hand operation.
PlayBoy iBod
4 January, 2005
BlackBerry Patent Case Swings Away from RIM to NTP
There will be furrowed brows over at Research in Motion Ltd (RIM), the Canadian company behind the ever-popular wireless email device, BlackBerry.
The US Court of Appeals has just ruled against them in a case brought by intellectual property holding company NTP Inc, that alleged RIM have violated patents owned by NTP that cover the transmission of email over a radio network.
The only slight cause for relief for RIM will come from the court ruling that they will be able to continue selling their products until final judgement is reached.
The history of the case goes back to 2000 when NTP first notified RIM of the alleged infringement. In a series of cases since then, the case has been batted between the two of them and over the period, the courts have ordered RIM to pay over $70m to NTP.
Back in November 2002, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ordered re-examinations of all NTP patents litigated in this matter.
Although this ruling only has jurisdiction in the USA, it is unclear if there will be any impact on RIM’s deals with non-US mobile operators. RIM has done deals with a number of operators around the world, the product of which have now made it to market. One example, being two months ago Vodafone UK launched the 7100v that has BlackBerry functionality built into a more compressed form.
Research In Motion
15 December, 2004
LG opens European RandD Centre in Paris
The march of LG continues West with them setting up an R&D office in Paris (Reg.Req.), France. The advantages to them are plentiful; a stronger understanding of the needs of the European market; the forging of closer relationships with European network operators; having the cellular standards bodies on their door steps – ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) are both based in Paris.
This will be their fifth R&D centre, following San Diego, Beijing, Bangalore, and Moscow.
LG profile has grown tremendously in recent years, and their handsets have been doing well. They hope the opening of this R&D centre takes them one step closer to being a ‘global top 3’ in handsets by 2006. On past performance it looks highly achievable – rival companies must be getting worried.
LG
13 December, 2004
i-mode UK Bound Via mmO2?
There has been some press speculation over the last day or so about mmO2 partnering with DoCoMo to bring their phone and content platform, i-mode, to the UK. Reuters reported that mmO2’s Chief Executive, Peter Erskine, had said last week that the company would decide by year-end on whether to introduce i-mode.
Things appear to have moved on, and this morning the Financial Times is more firm on the story, reporting that O2 will announce the deal next week. They say the service would start next year.
We spoke to mmO2 and their official comment was “the process is ongoing and we are still on schedule to announce before the end of the year”, so no big scoop for us there then. In conversation they did mentioned that the i-mode service has become more attractive over the years, since they last looked at it. Over that time the available range of handsets has increased significantly, it has driven up usage in the markets it has been deployed and the range of content available now for the platform has increased substantially.
[A brief interlude. Why is the company sometimes called mmO2 and other times O2? Let us clear up the confusion. mmO2 is the parent company that operates in a number of countries (UK, Ireland, etc). Its operating units in these countries are called O2. So, parent co=mmO2, local instance=O2.]
i-mode is a huge in Japan, where it has 42m users. Some even credit it with bringing the Internet to the youth of Japan. As home computer ownership previously wasn’t that large, the youth used their phone to get online.
It is already running in four European countries; Germany, France, Italy and Spain, although the take up figures haven’t been what you would call stunning, running at around 4m over the continent. The UK is a big gap in DoCoMo’s European coverage.
For content producers, the most interesting thing about i-mode is its content publishing model. Compared with other mobile platforms in the UK who can take as much as 50-60% of payments made by consumers, i-mode takes significantly less – in the low double digits.
It’s deals like this that are highly likely to draw content to mmO2 – it’s not wholly surprising that content producers will be inclined to get the most income from their wares as possible.
Given the current fashion among 3G watchers is to think that the winners in 3G will be those with the strongest content, a generous share of the income to draw in content owners could be a very smart move by mmO2.
DoCoMo
mm02
26 November, 2004
CNN News Free to Mobiles, Xerox Sponsored
CNN has launched a news service over Europe that delivers the top ten CNN headlines to mobile phones without a subscription charge.
The phone owner will receive the 10 top stories of the day as chosen by the CNN.com site editorial team. If the application is kept ‘live’, ie. running on the handset, it will continue to receive news updates. When the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is turned off, either by the user or because they drop out of range, the news items remain accessible, as they are stored on the handset.
The process of signing up for the service sounds simple. The phone user sends an SMS requesting the service and a returned WAP link takes the phone to a Java application that is automatically downloaded to the handset. The news is then delivered to it using the data-only GPRS otherwise know as 2.5G.
Consumers will not have to pay a subscription charge for this service, as Xerox will be sponsoring it. In return Xerox will have their logo displayed as the service starts, on the home page and on the individual news pages. Xerox is paying a fixed price for the deal, which doesn’t vary on the number of people who sign up for it. Although users of the service can click through to a page of information about Xerox, which they have editorial control over, the real driver for their involvement is the association with the CNN brand and a leading-edge application of technology.
CNN have been pretty adventurous in distributing their news product to many platforms. CNN mobile currently offers a breaking news service to mobiles via SMS, which it charges Euro 4.75/month. In Austrian, Finland, Italy and the Netherlands, mobile owners are able to watch CNN on their handsets via their GPRS video streaming service.
There will be those in the mobile content world who will find this type of deal a little disturbing. They are currently very pleased that consumers appear to associate mobile content with paying – in stark contrast to Internet based content. If the consumer starts being offered quality content for no money, they might get used to it.
Expect more deals like this from media owners, as Kevin Razvi, head of CNN International ad sales says, “Our expanding portfolio of wireless businesses exposes advertisers directly to a broad consumer base through a highly relevant service for an increasingly mobile and technically-savvy target audience.”
CNN
Xerox
26 November, 2004