Archive for May 3rd, 2008
Posted by: admin in Mobile
 File this under “we're so not sure about this,” but apparently T-Mobile (its parent company, actually) might pursue the acquisition of Sprint, which had certainly seen better times. According to German paper Der Spiegel, which doesn't cite sources, the German telecom giant may pursue the deal, which would include snagging Nextel as well — a kind of hard sell for any investment bank that eventually get a chance to lead the deal.
Nevertheless, if there's some merit to this story — and reportedly formal negotiations have already started — we may see T-Mobile emerging on a strong third position in the U.S. carrier market. On the other hand, their quest to unify the two companies (or that's three if you count Nextel) may be the one ending like other famous German-American marriage - DaimlerChrystler. We'll see where this goes…
[Via: Engadget Mobile]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
From previous posts, you might know that I’m always quite optimistic about Mobile TV - well a report from In-stat is a real humdinger in terms of good and bad news - the good being that the M-TV market could be worth $12bn in 2012, the bad being that the fragmented standards are here to stay. Here are some of the higlights:
- “DVB-H, ATSC-M/H, CMMB, ISDB-T, DVB-SH, T-DMB, and MediaFLO are just some of the most common standards currently in place or in development. And among these, there’s even further disunion between free, pay-as-you-go, and subscription-based services”
- “The study shows that although South Korea was the first country where mobile TV found a massive audience, it is actually the European Union's chosen standard DVB-H that has the most widely used in terms of operator coverage”
- In terms of popularity (i.e. number of users) “Japan's OneSeg had reached over 20 million users in less than two years, and some userbase estimates of South Korea's long running T-DMB standard exceed 10 million“
There are also of course other “Mobile TV” services that don't rely on broadcast technologies. MBMS for example is a 3G-multicast technology, and there’s 3G unicast in both industry standard and bespoke flavours - an example of the last of these is MobiTV, which…”just announced breaking 4 million subscribers (it reached the three million mark in October 2007 after just under four years with Sprint.)“
As with a number of recent reports I’ve read, the main “problem”, if you like, is monetization, or in other words, the “business case” - it seems most industry people just can't get it to work, especially when you factor in any kind of network build costs (all the broadcast scenarios require new hardware in the network, and in most cases, the handset).
The report goes on to state that handsets are a really huge issue too - for something to work mass-market, the large five handset vendors at least need to get behind it - whilst all of them are behind M-TV as a concept, they are divergent in their thinking about which technology they support to deliver it.
I am not so sure that the fragmented nature of the standards is the worst thing in the world - just as some trends, content, and ideas are region or culture-specific, so can the practical deployment of the technology be - for me, at the moment, the real issue is making Mobile Television pay….
[Via: betanews.com]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
Don't know about you, but I find the recently announced Nokia 6600 Fold to be the single ideal looking Nokia clamshell phone to date. The reason is obvious — Nokia isn't usually known for its good looking clamshell phones. Yeah, it's true and I'm sad that's the case, but so far I haven't seen a single clamshell device made by the Finnish giant that I would use. It's a matter of personal taste, so you may like some of the existing models, of course.
Anyway, what follows is the Nokia 6600 Fold design story. It's a 1:30 minute long clip and quite interesting. At least I find it so. Enjoy!
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
O2 UK has announced it is launching Business Broadband, along with making their home broadband truly nationwide.
As you might know, O2 were later to market with their BBand offering, but, I take that as a sign of making sure things were tested fully, and dare I state it, working consistently (unlike some other notable providers who shall remain nameless!)
The business-grade service will allow Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs, as they are known) access rates of up to 20Mbps. Now I know that “up to” is an oft-misued phrase with BBand providers, but O2 have been good about clarifying things:
Customers inside the the O2 LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) network will top out at 20Mbps (O2 are busy fitting out their hardware with ADSL2+ capability), and those outside the LLU area will get up to 8Mbps. Of course, there are the usual key factors here - your distance from the exchange, and the quality of the wire between you and the exchange.
There's been quite a fuss about BBand speeds in the UK press of late, with the media are suggesting customers are being ripped off - personally I don't subscribe to that view at all - you get what the infrastructure can provide - but it's good to see O2 going the extra mile and trying to make things as clear as possible.
Some other details:
“The new service will include a free connection, unlimited data usage, a free wireless router, five McAfee security licences, a static IP address and 24 hour UK-based business support.
O2's Home Broadband service is now available throughout the UK using BT's wholesale network to reach potential customers in areas where the local BT telephone exchange has not been unbundled.”
It's an interesting time for O2 as they roll out both Fixed and Mobile BBand - I've not had chance to try the O2 “Mobile BBand” USB 3G stick (hint, hint, O2 PR!!), but I would assume it's of equally good quality as their Fixed offering!
[Via: vnunet.com]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
From previous posts, you might know that I’m always quite optimistic about Mobile Television - well a report from In-stat is a real humdinger in terms of good and bad news - the good being that the M-TV market could be worth $12bn in 2012, the bad being that the fragmented standards are here to stay. Here are some of the higlights:
- “DVB-H, ATSC-M/H, CMMB, ISDB-T, DVB-SH, T-DMB, and MediaFLO are just some of the most common standards currently in place or in development. And among these, there’s even further disunion between free, pay-as-you-go, and subscription-based services”
- “The study shows that even though South Korea was the first country where mobile TV found a big audience, it is actually the European Union's chosen standard DVB-H that has the most widely used in terms of operator coverage”
- In terms of popularity (i.e. number of users) “Japan's OneSeg had reached over 20 million users in less than two years, and some userbase estimates of South Korea's long running T-DMB standard exceed 10 million“
There are also of course other “Mobile TV” services that don't rely on broadcast technologies. MBMS for example is a 3G-multicast technology, and there’s 3G unicast in both industry standard and bespoke flavours - an example of the last of these is MobiTV, which…”just announced breaking 4 million subscribers (it reached the three million mark in October 2007 after just under four years with Sprint.)“
As with a number of recent reports I’ve read, the main “problem”, if you like, is monetization, or in other words, the “business case” - it seems most industry people just can't get it to work, especially when you factor in any kind of network build costs (all the broadcast scenarios require new hardware in the network, and in most cases, the handset).
The report goes on to say that handsets are a really huge issue too - for something to work mass-market, the huge five handset vendors at least need to get behind it - whilst all of them are behind M-TV as a concept, they’re divergent in their thinking about which technology they support to deliver it.
I am not so sure that the fragmented nature of the standards is the worst thing in the world - just as some trends, content, and ideas are region or culture-specific, so can the practical deployment of the technology be - for me, at the moment, the real issue is making Mobile TV pay….
[Via: betanews.com]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
O2 UK has announced it is launching Business Broadband, along with making their home broadband truly nationwide.
As you might know, O2 were later to market with their BBand offering, but, I take that as a sign of making sure things were tested fully, and dare I state it, working consistently (unlike some other notable providers who shall remain nameless!)
The business-grade service will allow Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs, as they’re known) access rates of up to 20Mbps. Now I know that “up to” is an oft-misued phrase with BBand providers, but O2 have been good about clarifying things:
Customers inside the the O2 LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) network will top out at 20Mbps (O2 are busy fitting out their hardware with ADSL2+ capability), and those outside the LLU area will get up to 8Mbps. Of course, there are the usual key factors here - your distance from the exchange, and the quality of the wire between you and the exchange.
There's been quite a fuss about BBand speeds in the UK press of late, with the media are suggesting customers are being ripped off - personally I don't subscribe to that view at all - you get what the infrastructure can provide - but it's good to see O2 going the extra mile and trying to make things as clear as possible.
Some other details:
“The new service will include a free connection, unlimited data usage, a free wireless router, five McAfee security licences, a static IP address and 24 hour UK-based business support.
O2's Home Broadband service is now available throughout the UK using BT's wholesale network to reach potential customers in areas where the local BT telephone exchange has not been unbundled.”
It's an interesting time for O2 as they roll out both Fixed and Mobile BBand - I've not had opportunity to try the O2 “Mobile BBand” USB 3G stick (hint, hint, O2 PR!!), but I would assume it's of equally good quality as their Fixed offering!
[Via: vnunet.com]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
(BTW, the chap in the cup is a SpinVox “Mobster”….)
My favourite VTT (Voice-to-text) company, SpinVox, have raised an interesting thread for conversation in their blog (read it here). More accurately, James Whatley, their “chief of interweb wizardry and bloggery“, has written an inciteful and thought provoking piece on where “voice” (as in one of the ways we communicate) is headed - it had my two brain cells buzzing away for hours thinking about it - some thoughts below…
They say that people are predominantly either visual, aural, or kinaesthetic learners - that means, the way you best take in information is either by seeing, by hearing, or by feeling - so what happens when you can “see” your voice? As James neatly puts it, “I’m not talking about sound waves or pretty patterns on an oscilloscope, but your actual VOICE. The words you use to articulate your thoughts are similar and yet also completely different to those of the person sitting beside you.” Does someone who is an aural learner begin to change the ways in which they represent their world? Could intelligent conversion of some of the many “data feeds” which we experience cause a paradigm shift in our learning/understanding?
Another thought: the ways in which we are “authenticated” or “identified” in many areas of our lives is often visual (e.g. Photo). Occasionally, other techniques are used such as textual (e.g. signature). Where more security is required, some kind of psychometric information is sometimes used (e.g. a “fact” that only you might know). But with VTT, another form of authentication becomes possible - allowed, these sorts of advanced ID schemes are available, and have been for some time, to the likes of government agencies, but they’ve not been “mass-market” - with a good (or better still, excellent) voice conversion algorithm and pattern-matcher, you can search for phrases, quirks, or “tells”, that can ID someone - yes, that next-gen voice analyser in 24 could become real!
Searching your voice - no, this isn't you best deciding how you might hit that high “A” that Mariah can do in all her records, but you can't quite get to, it's about a new kind of search, using you voice pattern as metadata. Just like the recent advances in image searching (you don't type a text string, you supply image data), searching voice has the potential to be large - it unlocks another kind of content that’s plentiful, constantly being updated, and probably very valuable - essentially most of the things that make the interweb go round!
Wow, some deeper thoughts there on VTT - but, as James points out in his blog, “We’ve enabled the notion of ‘voice to content’ – now what does that empower you to do?“
Thoughts are most welcome!
(Note: on a less high-brow note, there are 10 IntoMobile points up for grabs for the best caption to the picture above - I’m going for “When Mobster was told for 100th time he was a really sweet guy, he decided to find out how sweet….”)
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
Update time for y'all - remember I spoke about the very very cool Moto Z10 competition that's happening? If not, read here. Well, I've just been informed that the YouTube channel, to submit videos to, is up and running - you can find it here:
http://www.youtube.com/motoroladirectorme
If you are stil none the wiser, check out my previous post here, and get yo' act together to win a Z10 and £10K!
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Posted by: admin in Video
The mabook air. The only reason it is so thin is it’s lack of features. Hardly practical
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 (Credit: Zune.net)
A reader of a site dedicated to Zune news has posted pics of what are claimed to be new features at Zune’s Marketplace, including flash animation and a new video section.
The photos were posted at Zunerama.com and are said to be of flash animation …
source Tech news blog
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