Wireless – Page 45 – Digital-Lifestyles

UK Digital Radio Figures Up Again

The latest digital radio listening figures have come out in the UK. Everyone involved in the DAB radio business as they’ve all gone up.

The digital reach is up 17% from the previous year and the number of hours listened to has gone up 15% from last year.

Something rather pretentiously called the “Digitally Enabled Universe,” ie the number people who fall within the DAB radio reception, has stayed at 54% of the UK population.

The percentage of adults who own a DAB set at home remains at 15.3%.

DRDB chief executive, Ian Dickens, says: “This is great news and proves that digital radio continues to grow in popularity with listeners. Rajar’s research bears out our own findings which show that people who buy a DAB digital radio enjoy the new stations it offers and value the added choice that comes with digital listening.”

The BBC has five national DAB radio station, four of which have increased their listenership. The most popular commercial radio station is Emap’s The Hits with 1.182 million listeners.

Rajar

Happy ‘Birthday TV’ To Me

No it’s not the time for you to throw me a lavish surprise celebration ‘do’ (mark 9th August in your diaries for that one), it is time to tell you about the gift for those who have nearly everything … or nothing.

Hidden away in the schedules of the Wrestling Channel (where else?) is another sign of the converging of old and new medias .. Birthday TV.

As they say in their schedules.

Birthday TV is the brand new, magical TV channel that lets you celebrate your friends’ and family’s birthday by broadcasting your special messages to them on live TV.

The Wrestling Channel has identified that the User Generated Content (UGC) so successful for the guys behind YouTube, is the key to getting their cash registers ringing. As well as inviting viewers to submit (legal) wrestling-related material for ‘my TWC,’ it’s decided to sell off some of its airtime for celebratory purposes.

The intention is that this new programming will start with Birthdays and then open up into other anniversary days to help it fit its ongoing remit ‘as your big day tv’ and it’ll also put the content on the Web for further targeted enjoyment. Merry Christmas TV and Happy New Year TV are already in planning.

There’s been a market in TV airtime for quite a while but buyers have generally used their slots for TV Infomercials. Channels like Open Access on Sky Digital have also experimented with making time available to purchase in their schedules, as channels look at alternative revenue streams expect to see more of this type of programming.

BirthdayTV prices start at the pretty reasonable level of £30 for 15 seconds, with a minute coming it at £100. Booking is via an online form, with video being sent in by post, at least ten days before broadcast.

Birthday TV

T-Mobile HotSpot Phone Merges WiFi/Cellular Services

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.

T-Mobile HotSpot Phone Merges WiFi/Cellular Services

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 HotSpot Phone Merges WiFi/Cellular Services 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

Mobile Phone Sales Set To Hit One Billion For 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.

Mobile Phone Sales Set To Hit One Billion For 2006 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

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million

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.

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million 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.

Microsoft Smartphone Userbase Hits Six Million 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.

EW-700 WiFiFone Announced By Samsung

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 Announced 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.

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 Announced 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.

Samsung WiFiFone EW-700 Announced 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]

Mobile J/Speedy: NFC Payments Hits Amsterdam

Mobile J/Speedy: NFC Payments Hits Amsterdam An NFC payment system is on trial in Amsterdam allowing people taking part to make purchases using their mobile phone.

We’re massive fans of NFC (Near Field Communications) and have been for close to two years. We see it as a significant way to enhance the function of your mobile phone (primarily), as well as a new way of getting content to your phone.

Eight companies are getting together for the latest trial, this time lead by Japanese credit card giant JCB and marks Europe’s first contactless international credit payment scheme using a Nokia 3220 with an NFC chip.

Selected JCB cardholders are provided with a mobile phone by Nokia, which are equipped with an NFC chip, developed by NXP and loaded with the JCB payment application developed by Gemalto.

The first transaction of the pilot was conducted at Sushi Time, the Japanese sushi restaurant in the World Trade Center in Amsterdam.

At selected PaySquare merchants, cardholders can securely purchase items by just holding their mobile phone close to ViVOtech’s contactless NFC reader/writer, which is attached to the payment terminal of CCV.

Mobile J/Speedy: NFC Payments Hits Amsterdam Approximately 100 selected JCB cardholders are now enjoying fast, easy, and convenient payments with Mobile J/Speedy at selected merchants, where they used to pay by cash.

Although it has only been one month since the trial was launched, the increasing number of repeat usage indicates a strong acceptance of the technology and a very successful pilot.

“Feedback from the first users of Mobile J/Speedy has been very encouraging and we are pleased to now be able to involve a wider group of customers,” said Hajime Matsuura, branch manager of JCB International’s Amsterdam branch.

The first European NFC-based public transport ticketing trials took place within the local bus network in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany in 2005.

Expect plenty more news on NFC trials.

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

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.

Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge Winners Announced 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.

Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge Winners Announced 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

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.”