Mobile – Page 90 – Digital-Lifestyles

HomeChoice now Quad-play, Adding Phones

Video Networks Ltd. (VNL) is upping their game with their HomeChoice service. It has announced the addition of a home phone service to its already rather ample HomeChoice bundle of broadband Internet, digital TV and video-on-demand, making it a serious contender for both home entertainment and communications. The service will be delivered using Carrier Pre-Selection, and VNL also plans to offer line rental in 2005. Carrier Pre-Selection entails them using BT lines to carry the phone traffic to VNL networks for delivery.

Currently the service isn’t using VoIP, but we understand from them that they may move to this in the New Year. They certainly have the equipment and bandwidth available to provide it.

HomeChoice customers can opt for either ‘Free Evening and Weekend’ calls at no additional cost, or have the option to upgrade to the ‘Anytime’ talk plan from £5 (~$9) per month. Both offering lower rates to UK mobiles and overseas numbers than similar plans from BT, TalkTalk, One.Tel, NTL and Telewest.

The ‘Free Evenings and Weekends’ talk plan offers, the obvious, free evening and weekend calls to all local and national numbers starting with 01 & 02, and a daytime rate of 2.5p to those numbers.

‘Anytime’ talk plan includes calls to all local and national numbers starting 01 & 02. It costs £9 (~$16) per month for 512Kb broadband customers, £7 (~$12) per month for 1Mb broadband customers, and £5 (~$9) per month for 2Mb broadband customers.

You don’t need a special box or a prefix code. You can use your existing phone and phone number, and the existing standard BT line in your house, for which you will still pay rental. But you have to take VNL’s broadband and digital TV services to avail of the free calls.

The first to offer four services in the UK, VNL geared itself up for this expansion earlier in the year by appointing Vijay Sodiwala, former managing director at Broadsystem Ventures, a News Corporation company, to develop the home phone services.

The service faces stiff competition from rival fixed line offerings such as Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk brand, One.Tel, BT, NTL and Telewest, but no doubt the £1 million (~$1,841,100) marketing push will give it a kick start, and hopefully (pardon the pun) ringing endorsements.

HomeChoice

Premier 3G Concert Broadcast

U2 special edition iPods, ‘phone cast’ Rooster concerts on 3G mobile phones, Robbie Williams new video premiered on 3 mobile phones – is rock becoming virtual?

Avoid the crowds, the heat, the general mayhem, (but sadly also the atmosphere) and virtually experience live gigs on your 3G mobile phone wherever you are, and make as many calls as you want during the intermission.

Yesterday in London, rock band, Rooster played the first ever concert broadcast by 3G mobile phone. Rooster was chosen because 3 is already in partnership with their record label, BMG. The 45-minute gig was really a trial run by 3 to discover more about how people use their video phones. 3, which already provides 1.2 million customers with 3G services in the UK, has already planned a series of gigs to happen throughout 2005, and is hoping that the move will lure more people into buying video phones.

The broadcast was trailed on Rooster’s Web site and on 3’s own phone-based news and entertainment channel, and about 10,000 people signed up for a free pre-gig reminder. Ten minutes before start-up, these 10,000 users were sent an SMS inviting them to visit a “virtual box office” where they could pay £5 to view the gig, and the first 1,000 were admitted.

Another world first was the release of Robbie Williams’ new video ‘Misunderstood’, exclusive for a week on 3 video mobiles before being premiered on the TV or the Web. The deal between EMI and 3 allows fans to either stream or download the video straight to their mobiles. This is a clever choice since the video for ‘Misunderstood’ – which features in the Bridget Jones sequel, ‘The Edge of Reason’ – includes clips from the forthcoming film.

Staying in the digital arena, Robbie Williams also recently announced the release of his greatest hits album on memory-card format for mobile phones, which will be released this month.

Some commentators might say these developments let fans get closer to artists, and if you were selling the equipment you would say that, wouldn’t you?

“It sounds exactly as you would expect a live band playing down a telephone line to sound”, says Alexis Petridis today in his Guardian review of the Rooster event – “a Library Of Congress field recording from the 1930s.”

http://www.roosterofficial.com http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1342211,00.html

Nokia: New Products and Strategic Alliances Announced

It’s all about mobility and workstyle now as mobile devices move ever closer to ubiquitous cover.

On just the second day of Winter, Christmas came early in Monaco yesterday when a plethora of new products, technologies and strategic alliances were announced at the ninth Nokia Mobility Conference. In keeping with worldwide trends, the announcements addressed product diversity, cross-industry collaboration and evolution in network infrastructure. The new Nokia smart phone line up includes the 7710 widescreen multimedia smartphone, the 3230 megapixel smartphone and the business-oriented Nokia 6020 camera phone. Nokia outlined plans to expand the Series 60 smartphone platform to include more extensive multimedia capabilities, supporting widescreen resolutions (up to 640 x 320) and touch-screen, pen-based and traditional input methods. A big strategic announcement was the extension of the long-standing alliance between Nokia and Oracle to implement push e-mail capability for Oracle(R) Collaboration Suite on the Nokia 9500 Communicator and Nokia 9300 enterprise smartphone, among others. The push e-mail solution, designed by Oracle and Consilient will be the first based on the emerging Push-IMAP standard, and is expected to be available during first quarter 2005, furthering the march towards integrated communications across multiple mobile devices and platforms. Nokia’s strategy of continuously forging relationships with multiple companies to provide a broad range of e-mail options on Nokia business-optimised devices such as the Nokia 9500 Communicator and Nokia 9300 enterprise smartphone includes alliances with Good Technology, IBM, Research In Motion, and Visto. Nokia also continues to market and develop its own mobile e-mail platform, Nokia One Business Server, targeted at corporations who want to extend their mobile e-mail to legacy browser-based mobile devices. In fact, the Enterprise Solutions group announced their strategy to become the device of choice for mobile e-mail and messaging in the enterprise market. The strategy aims to provide enterprises with a range of business-optimised mobile devices that not only excel as voice devices, but can support the widest range of mobile e-mail clients and supporting technologies and can integrate with leading enterprise applications. For Nokia, this means being able to offer enterprises a mobile e-mail environment for their unique needs. www.nokia.com
www.oracle.com

Nokia: Crown Castle joins to pilot DVB-H technology

Yet another chapter is unfolding in the battle to bring the TV screen and its contents to the mobile masses. And it’s all being made possible with global digital technology, as the first US pilot of DVB-H takes place. DVB-H is a standard specified by the Digital Video Broadcasting Organization specifically for the transmission of TV-like content and data to handheld devices, such as mobile phones. Nokia and Crown Castle have joined ranks to pilot DVB-H technology in the United States. Crown Castle already offers significant wireless communications coverage to 68 of the top 100 United States markets, and owns, operates and manages over 10,600 wireless communication sites in the U.S. The whole point of the exercise is to bring TV-like services to mobile devices. The pilot commenced in October, and aims to prove and test the feasibility of DVB-H technology and related service systems in this market space. The next step will be to expand the pilot to test consumer experiences and acceptance of a mobile phone TV service. Spokespeople from Nokia and Crown Castle aired their views in yesterday’s press release. “We believe this may be an important new technology for our company and our industry. We look forward to partnering with content providers and wireless service providers to introduce commercial services utilising the nation-wide spectrum that we acquired in 2003 and our extensive portfolio of US towers”, said Michael Schueppert, Senior Vice President – Business Development for Crown Castle. On the Nokia side, Seppo Sutela, Director, Rich Media, Nokia said, “Piloting with Crown Castle is a major milestone for Nokia. It will expand mobile phone TV services to United States, giving DVB-H standard a truly global reach. Mobile phone TV, based on DVB-H, will provide new attractive consumer services as well as business opportunities for all parties in the business system. Our pilot with Crown Castle is an important step towards that.” www.nokia.com
www.crowncastle.com

Europeans don’t Get Portable Video Players Yet

A new survey has found that Europeans are not enamoured by the all singing, all dancing devices that play songs and films, play video games and have a video-playback feature. Only 5% are interested in buying a device that plays both music and video, while a mere 7% would like their device to play games and video. But almost a third are interested in listening to music on a portable player such as an iPod.

5,000 consumers from Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain and Italy were recently surveyed by Jupiter Research and the results were published yesterday.

Things might change, of course, if the multi-purpose gadgets could stay small, neat and inexpensive, and indeed Apple has managed to add photo display capabilities to the iPod without increasing its size.

It makes sense that 27% of European consumers would prefer to have music-only while on the move, since unlike movies, you really can listen and enjoy it whilst running or walking. As for the 13% who want to watch video while out and about, maybe they are the ones who have to wait the longest for buses and trains.

So, gadget makers sit up and take notice. Consumers want music, just music – 39% of French and 31% of British consumers were most interested in music players – and they want the sound quality to be top notch. That’s why lots of them have dedicated, digital music players. This is probably not really what Bill Gates wants to hear, with his Portable Media Center waiting in the wings.

Last months Jupiter Research report, ‘European Digital Music: Identifying Opportunity’, predicts that digital music revenue will reach €836 million(~$1,062m), or 8% of the total market, by 2009. While the growth of digital music players like Apple’s iPOD or the Creative Nomad Jukebox feature a lot in the news, CD’s still rule. So, it is sobering to remember that these statistics and reports are only referring to a tiny proportion of the music-listening public.

Qualcomm to Spend $800m on Video to Mobile Network

As if the cell phone was not already overburdened with cameras, music and video players and handheld computers, Qualcomm now want to add TV programs to the mix.

Qualcomm, the San Diego developer of wireless technology and maker of computer chips for cell phones have spotted a gap in the market that might increase sales of their chips. They have just announced plans for a subsidiary, MediaFLO USA Inc to deploy and operate a nationwide “mediacast” network, delivering high-quality video and audio programming to third-generation mobile phones at mass market prices in co-operation with US cellular operators.

QUALCOMM intends to offer the network as a shared resource for US CDMA2000 and WCDMA (UMTS) cellular operators, enabling them to deliver mobile interactive multimedia to their wireless subscribers without the cost of network deployment and operation. Content will be delivered to mobile devices in the 700 MHz spectrum that will enable the network to serve the whole country. It will be based on QUALCOMM’s FLO (Forward Link Only) technology, and will use the MediaFLO media distribution system for content aggregation, delivery and viewing.

The chain of events happens like this – MediaFLO will deliver news, sports or entertainment programs over the new ‘mediacast’, high-speed cell phone network to US wireless companies, who will in turn pay for the service beginning in 2006.

Supporting 50-100 national and local content channels, including up to 15 live streaming channels, this system will give TV stations and networks, cable TV and satellite operators and networks a major new distribution channel, enabling them to reach their audiences when they are away from home and on the go. Content will be delivered in an easy-to-use and familiar format at quality levels that dramatically surpass current mobile multimedia offerings through the use of QVGA video at up to 30 frames per second and high-quality stereo audio.

Dr Paul E. Jacobs, president of QUALCOMM Wireless and Internet Group sees this move as “the logical next step in the evolution of the wireless industry.” The network will cost US$800 million over the next four to five years.

It may not take on in Europe though. Only yesterday we learned from Jupiter Research that Europeans are less taken with the multi-functional gadgets.

Qualcomm

Half UK Mobile Customers can Access the Web via their Mobile

The MDA was established in 1994 to increase awareness of mobile data amongst users and their advisers. The MDA acts as a focal point for its members, (vendors and users) and outside parties interested in knowing more about the industry.

MDA findings show that half of UK mobile customers can access the Web via their mobile. With a total active, mobile touting customer base of over 52 million, that means about 26 million are surfing the Web on the tiny screen, with GPRS active devices topping 24 million – a 46% penetration rate for GPRS devices for the total UK market. MMS active capable devices, on the other hand, reached 15 million as at 30th June 2004, with a penetration rate of 29% for the total UK market, showing an increase on the previous quarter of 36%.

Announced today, the figures as of 30th June 2004 from UK GSM network operators O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone show a rapid increase for both GPRS and MMS devices on the previous quarter.

GPRS technology provides “always on” capabilities and faster speeds for e-mail and Web browsing on the move, while MMS capable devices are defined as those with integrated camera phone, attached camera or “MMS capable” of sending / receiving without camera option.

The GPRS/MMS trend is expected to continue, while GPRS services have illustrated an increase in popularity in the last 12 months in both the consumer and corporate markets.

Popular applications predictably include, access to rail/air timetables, mobile chat, location services, mobile images and innovative music services as GPRS and MMS providers strive to suit every customer need.

The MDA announces the total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages and WAP page impression figures sent on behalf of the UK GSM Network operators on a monthly basis and figures are announced in the third week of the following month. You can keep yourself informed by accessing their Web site.

www.mda-mobiledata.org
www.text.it

Sony PSP Arrives on 12.Dec in Japan

After months of speculation that the Sony PlayStation Portable would not appear until 2005, Sony have just announced its release in Japan on 12 December, just ten days after Nintendo DS, and at a price that is much lower than expected.

The PSP, Sony’s entry into handheld games machine market will be available in two flavours. The normal edition PSP at $186, (~ £101, €145) will include the handheld itself, an AC adapter, and a battery pack. A value pack $232, (~£126, €181) will be the normal pack plus a 32MB Memory Stick Duo, a set of headphones with a remote control, and a carrying case.

The PSP is more than a mere games machine, it can also be used for watching movies and listening to music files – but not just yet. The standard for films is still under discussion with several movie studios, and a movie line-up and download service won’t be announced for several months. It’s a pity this last task was not completed before announcing the launch, as doubtless much of PSP’s success will depend on it, but we suspect it will be down to rights and DRM protection.

Sony denies that competition from Nintendo DS influenced the PSP price, offering several other plausible reasons. One being that the price was possible because about half of PSP’s parts, including the main computer chip, are produced internally by Sony. Another being that it was apparently set, based on an informal survey of Sony officials who were asked what they would pay for the PSP if they were going to buy it. Whatever the reason, Sony doesn’t expect to make a profit on PSP until well into next year, obviously being prepared to sacrifice it for strong PSP branding.

There will be 21 games available for the PSP launch, including high-profile third-party titles such as Electronic Arts’ “Need for Speed Underground” racing gaming and Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Konami’s “Metal Gear Acid”, and Sega Corporation’s Puyo Pop Fever – Puzzle

In Japan, Sony plans to sell 500,000 PSP machines by the end of this year, and 1 million by 31st March. Dates and prices for the United States and Europe have not yet been set, although overseas sales are being planned for the first quarter of 2005.

Sony

U2 iPod and Photo iPod Become Real

Apple’s much anticipated and predicted new iPod – iPod Photo, launched late yesterday, has moved into the multimedia realm, allowing users to view and share photos as well as the normal music play back. The new iPod Photo can hold up to 25,000 pictures and can be connected to a television to play video slide shows. The 40-gigabyte version is priced at $499 (~£272) and the 60-gigabyte model is priced at $599 (~£326).

The new iPod features two Apple patent pending features – Click Wheel and Auto-Sync technology that automatically downloads an entire digital music library onto iPod and keeps it up-to-date whenever it is plugged into a Mac or Windows computer using FireWire or USB.

Separately there is the special edition 20GB U2 iPod as predicted by Digital Lifestyles earlier this month, which is … shock, horror … black with a red wheel! Its is part of a larger agreement between U2 and Apple, whereby Apple will have exclusive rights to sell all the songs from the band’s new album online through its iTunes Music Store for at least the first few weeks following the release. U2 iPod The U2 iPod is expected to be available mid-November for a suggested retail price of £249 (~$456) through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers. IPod TV adverts showing U2 were shown on UK television this evening.

The timing of the U2 iPod release coincides with the immanent release of U2’s new album “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”, and “Vertigo,” a single from the album is available exclusively in the US through the iTunes Music Store.

A “Digital Box Set” offering from Apple called surprisingly, “The Complete U2”, apparently the first of its kind, will contain over 400 tracks including all of the band’s albums and over 25 rare and unreleased tracks. These can be downloaded from iTunes in the United States and Europe from late November for $140 (~£76).

There are challengers to iPod’s throne though. Would be kings include Dell Inc.’s new Pocket DJ, Virgin Electronics’ Player, Creative Labs Inc.’s Zen Micro, iRiver America Inc.’s H300, and Archos Inc.’s Gemini XS200.

Notwithstanding, analysts estimate the company could sell close to 3 million iPods this Christmas, so Apple can sing for this year anyway, “It’s good to be the king!”

Preminet: Nokia’s Mobile Content Move

Courtesy of Nokia, mobile content distribution and transaction will reside in a one-stop-shop, making life easier for mobile networks and perhaps more interesting for the owners of some 350 million Java-enabled handsets (at last count.)

Preminet is a hosted open service model that streamlines all the steps involved in delivering content for smart phones through a single channel.

As a result of an agreement announced yesterday between Nokia and Starcut, a Finland-based mobile media publisher, content from Universal Studios and Warner Music Group Content will be made available to operators and consumers through the one-stop content shop. Preminet and Starcut will provide operators with pre-certified content such as life-style and sports, ringtones, graphics, games and video that they can brand and offer over the Web, or via Java or Symbian OS enabled mobile phones.

Here’s how it works. Preminet sources premium Java and Symbian OS software from leading developers and content aggregators worldwide to give operators a master catalogue of certified applications, games and other mobile content. A chain supply experts dream system – the sequence includes the Preminet Master Catalogue, Preminet Service Delivery Platform and Preminet Purchasing Client, an innovative software application that make it easy for end-users to trial run mobile applications, content and services before buying. Operators can integrate Preminet content into their own download delivery systems or have Nokia provide a complete hosted solution.

Until now, each operator was responsible for maintaining hundreds of relationships with individual Java and Symbian OS developers as well as sourcing and testing each application before bringing them to the end-user. Now they have a single channel – the Preminet Master Catalogue containing a whole range of Java and Symbian OS software as well as a framework for delivering billing and distributing revenues.

In February, Nokia took one of its first steps towards Preminet when it joined with Sun Microsystems, Motorola, Siemens and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications to create the Java Verified Process for testing and certifying Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) applications for wireless handheld devices.

Preminet is not a new concept though, coming after the Brew development platform for mobile devices from Qualcomm. Preminet has been launched worldwide and Nokia expects a complete commercial deployment by the end of November.

Time will tell as to how the mobile and content industries will react to Nokia taking this role on, and taking a percentage for each transaction in the process.

Preminet
Starcut