CeBIT: Unless Vendors Work Together, Push-to-Talk is Dead in the Water

Push to Talk Over Cellular (PoC) has exciting implications for phone and network providers: the technology allows subscribers to send a voice message to someone in their address book. The message travels over the network’s data service, so doesn’t require real-time processing and is obviously not interactive – it’s a bit like a walkie-talkie.

Network providers are already enthusiastic about the new services they will be able to create around this service – and the new revenue streams it will bring them. However, there is already some disagreement over what standards will be adopted and how network providers will exchange PoC messages between networks.

Herman Weiffenbach, vice president of Motorola highlights the problem in CeBIT News: “We now have eight launches in prospect, with 18 active trials under way, 12 of which are in Europe. We also expect a further 16 in the first half of the year. It is all looking very promising, but without standardisation, it won’t fly.”

One of the things that will kill PoC for sure if it’s not sorted out quickly is the current lack of cross-network service. For the time being, you can only use PoC services with recipients on your own network. Nokia, Sony, Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens signed an agreement to enable cross-vendor operability, but this seems to be all they’ve done – there’s been no progress since.

One of the great things about standards is that there’s just so many to choose from: Nokia is not taking part in trials with Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens – because they believe their solution is already the best. The three other companies probably have “En usko” to say to that.

Nokia Push to Talk at 3g

Siemens’ attempt to get into the lead

T-Mobile Introduce Mobile Jukebox, Unleashes New Music Format on Unsuspecting World

T-Mobile have partnered with Sony Music and Unversal Music to provide a somewhat unique entry to the mobile music market. Called “Mobile Jukebox”, the service allows subscribers to download music clips to their mobile phones.

So far, there are 200 tracks available to choose from – but the real killer is that those tracks are between only 90 and 120 seconds long.

We think this one might have launched a bit early – with only tiny number of tracks currently available, and even those are brutally short, this has an air of “So what?” about it. T-Mobile intend to offer more tracks later in the year, and full length ones too – but will that be enough?

Thomas Gewecke, Senior Vice President of Sony Music Digital Services explained: “Mobile Mix enables music fans to download a 90 to 120 second excerpt of a song in just a couple of minutes, allowing them to get a feel for the music almost instantaneously, and takes the mobile music entertainment experience to an entirely new level.”

Mobile phone users tend to be young and demanding, and require quite high standards form their entertainment, so surely they want considerably more than just to listen to a music clip? It maybe that T-Mobile have misjudged their market here, or were just keen to get some sort of music product out as soon as possible.

T-Mobile on Mobile Mix

CeBIT: Philips’ Liquid Lens

Philips Research are demonstrating a new lens at CeBIT – interestingly, this breakthrough in optics might have one of the biggest impacts on digital lifestyles devices of any component at the show.

The new lens, built on Philips’ FluidFocus technology, is based on two fluids with different refractive indices – applying a tiny voltage across then alters the boundary between the fluids and bends the surface, thus changing the way light travels through them. The focal length can be changed very quickly, with response speeds of less than 10ms.

There are several factors that make this lens exciting for digital lifestyles devices – the lens is very small – 3mm in diameter, has a focal length of just 5cm to infinity, and can be mass produced cheaply. It is also very hard wearing: Philips have tested lenses to more than one million focussing operations with no loss of optical performance.

The lens is ideal for many applications – mobile phones, PDAs, digital cameras, sensors, home security, medical imaging … we’re sure you’ve already thought of some good ones too. Image quality in mobile phones and other small cameras should increase too – currently, many lenses are made of plastic with poor optical properties.

So, what’s the catch? Varioptic claim the Philips lens infringes one of their patents, and Philips are contesting their allegation.

Digital Photography Review on the new lens

CeBIT: DVD Burners Maturing, New Products on the Way

More manufacturers are producing multi-format DVD burners than ever before and prices for the hardware are falling rapidly. Some of the uncertainty has been taken out of the format as Sony and Pioneer make drives that support both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW disk creation and reading.

However, 16x drives (rotating at 10,800 revolutions per second!) are near the maximum speed possible for DVD, so since we can spin the disk much faster, the next battle is to fit more on the disk. Storing data more densely on the layer will allow faster read times (the laser doesn’t have to travel so far) and higher capacities (smaller pits mean more data in the same area).

Double-sided, double-layer disks are possible (DVD-18) but are currently expensive to produce – though DVD mastering techniques (both home burning and commercial production, though these use completely different techniques) are improving all the time. Dual-layer disks used to be much more expensive to produce than they are now – remember the first DVDs you bought where you had to flip the disk over half way through the film? Cheaper mastering techniques were so that Warner Brothers could sell yo that disk for £25 and still make a profit – never mind you had to get out of your seat half way through Goodfellas.

The next format up will be Blu-ray, from the Blu-ray Disk Founders (BDF – including Dell, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, LG, Philips, Pioneer and Sony amongst others). As the name suggests, Blu-ray uses a blue laser to read data. Blue light has a shorter wavelength, so can read smaller pits – and tha means denser data: a dual-layer disk will store 50gb. As the data pattern is s intricate, this makes them more vulnerable to data destroying scratches. The format is currently available in Japan and the USA, but the disks are cartridge based – the next iteration of the format will not use a cartridge as it will have a coating supplied by TDK.

Naturally, the step to the next level will not be that simple: NEC and Toshiba are promoting HD DVD at CeBIT. This new format uses the same optical head as a conventional DVD player, and a dual-layer disk will store 30gb. Look forward to seeing HD DVD burners on the market in 2005.

We hope that backwards compatibility is high on each one of these manufacturers’ lists.

Sony’s domestic Blu-ray recorder

DVD Demystified on the five (no, six! Isn’t it seven?) proposed for high density disks

CeBIT: First Look at ExpressCard

PCMCIA, the expansion card format that was hard enough to spell, never mind configure, has a successor and it’s being shown at CeBIT.

PCMCIA was good for a while, but is showing its age – it’s pre USB, pre-Firewire and harks back to the days before even Windows 95. A replacement is on the way: the ExpressCard. It’s smaller, has a faster bus, uses less power and supports plug-and-play auto-configuration. Their bus is based on PCI Express and USB2.0 architecture – hence the hot-swap feature.

The new modules are half the size of their predecessors – they come in 34mm and 54mm formats and are a mere 5mm thick.

Look out for ExpressCards appearing towards the end of 2004 – compliant cards will feature an orange rabbit (obviously representing mobility and speed).The Express Card standard

Game Developers Conference

At GDC Mobile, network operators, content aggregators, technology and infrastructure providers and leading game developers together determine the future of mobile game development and develop effective content strategies to engage billions of consumers worldwide. The focus of GDC Mobile 2004 is on evolving mobile platforms and made for the medium content: how successful games work and why, and creating content that will succeed in the mobile market over the next several years. San Jose Convention Centre, CA http://www.gdcmobile.com

Saturday CeBIT: Manufacturers Recognise Importance of Consumers’ Digital Lifestyles

Many big exhibitors are pushing devices, components and software designed to enhance consumer’s digital lifestyles, in answer to the rapidly growing demand for smart devices capable of sharing content. Traditionally a business conference, this year has seen a pronounced shift at CeBIT towards the needs of the consumer.

Many consumer mobile phones contain applications and features purely seen as business tools a few years ago, such as scheduling software, email and connectivity with PCs and other devices.

Many exhibitors, such as Sony and Microsoft are displaying devices intended to introduce home users to a world where they can download and share content easily anywhere in the house. Microsoft is promoting this vision through its Windows XP Media Centre PC and has now developed the Windows Media Centre Extender which will allow users to access their Media Centre PC from anywhere in the house. We reported on Microsoft’s “iPod killer”, the Portable Media Centre yesterday, and this new device will be fully compatible with home Media Centre PCs.

Sony’s answer to all this, the hotly-awaited PSX, is on display at CeBIT. The games playing aspect of the PSX is almost secondary to its other functions: PVR, music, electronic programme guide, photograph and home video album … and all compatible with other Sony devices such as cameras, PDAs and even the PSP when it appears. The feature list for the European PSX has yet to be finalised, so we’re afraid that the model on display at CeBIT today is the Japanese box. A shame really, because those people who would be most interested in the PSX will already either seen the Japanese edition, or even had one imported by now.

CeBIT 2004 has shown how important digital lifestyles are to both manufacturers and consumers – there is a huge range of devices available with more coming soon. Sadly, for true interoperability, manufacturers would like to lock their customers into one brand – which is likely to lead to frustration. The Sony music online shop will only work with Sony software on Sony devices, Microsoft won’t let you play Windows Media files on a Linux PVR.

We hope that consumers will campaign for open standards and better interoperability before companies lock down the entire chain, from software to hardware to media.

CeBIT News Site

UK’s Voice Over IP Sector Sets Up Trade Association

Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony is growing rapidly in the UK, but has yet to reach mass market – currently six million people worldwide make VoIP calls, mostly in the USA and Japan. In years to come this could be the number of people making VoIP calls in Britain alone. Ofcom have reports and suggestions on how the sector should be managed – including setting aside a block of non-geographic numbers for VoIP services.

To promote the sector and effectively lobby Parliament, thirteen UK companies have grouped together to form the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA). The thirteen founder members are Call UK, ET Phones, Gossiptel, Gradwell.com, Idesk, Imass Telecom, Intervivo, Magrathea, Mistral Internet, Speak2World, Telappliant, Telco Global and T-Strategy. It is not yet known if BT will be permitted to join the group.

The ITSPA hopes for a self-regulating sector, known for innovation: spokesman Kim Thesiger said “Internet Telephony providers now offer a serious alternative to the existing telephone companies, and we need to look at the levels of regulation and encouragement that this industry needs. This technology will revolutionise the way in which consumers and businesses make voice calls over the next few years ushering in far cheaper prices for phone calls and offering a wealth of new products and services that were only available to the biggest corporations until now.”

E-Consultancy’s Guide to VoIP

The state of VoIP worldwide

Microsoft’s’ iPod Killer – Bigger, More Expensive

It had to happen – although Microsoft have had mixed fortunes in the hardware market, it was inevitable that they would release a competitor to the iPod and other personal media players out there.

This new gadget will have functionality not seen in iPods so far: video playback and picture display, and it will run MS’s Portable Media Centre (PMC) OS. “We think this is going to be one of the hot devices for Christmas 2004,” said James Bernard, product manager for PMC. The hardware itself is basically a Creative player with a 20 or 40 gb hard drive. Sizewise, it’s about three times the thickness of an iPod and twice as long.

The device will play MP3s, so won’t be completely tied to Microsoft’s own Windows Media Format. As previously reported, MS have content deals in place with Napster and EMI.

Pricing in the in relevant markets varies, but is estimated to be US$750, €550 (Denmark, Sweden) and UK£399.

The impeding release can only increase speculation that Apple will retort with a video iPod at some point next year.

Slashdot — “LOTS OF SHOUTING”

Reuters

CeBIT: The Future is in Integration, Not Technology

“There is not going to be one Next Big Thing – it’s going to be many things working together, combined to work seamlessly” said Motorola’s president and COO, Michael Zafirovski in his speech at CeBIT yesterday. This seems to be a common theme emerging from CeBIT, and is reflected in the nature of the mobile devices coming into the market.

It’s almost impossible to buy a mobile phone that is just a phone. Even the most basic phone available has a some sort of PDA functionality, games and a simple WAP browser. Many phones appearing now are in fact more sophisticated than the people you see chatting into them – and the phones at least will continue to get more sophisticated and useful.

Where the challenge for network providers and mobile phone manufacturers lies now is bringing several channels of communication together: many consumers have a fixed line at home (often more than one), a mobile for each person, a mobile in the car, a phone in the office, email on some devices not others … it goes on. Although solutions have been banded around for years (Wildfire, anyone?) the scale of the problem is now far greater than was anticipated before the rapid growth of mobile communications and internet usage began ten years ago.

The current situation does not allow for simplicity and will begin to turn users away unless investment into the seamless integration of devices and services begins to rival the effort put into getting the latest megapixel camera into the smallest form factor.

Opening remarks presented by Simon Perry at the Digital-Lifestyles theme day at IBC September 2003 (PDF).