is your mobile in hot water
Or for that matter cold water – the WSJ reports on the trend of mobile phones getting damaged by accidental exposure to water, and some interesting remedial courses of action taken by users.
So what’s in the reckoning, 30m water resistant phones – certainly, hope floats.
When Debora Munczek’s BlackBerry slipped off her folded newspaper and into the toilet one morning, she suspected it wasn’t the first time in history that a cellphone got drenched. So she searched “cellphones and water” on the Internet and followed the advice that popped up: Remove the battery, wrap the device in a dry washcloth and aluminum foil, and bake it in the oven for several hours at a low setting.
The phone worked pretty well after that — until Ms. Munczek, a sleep-deprived clinical psychologist in New York City, dropped it twice more into the toilet. It then began dialing random phonebook entries, including the local police precinct. That was when she decided to call it quits and get a new phone.
the Storm has arrived
Touch, then gently push – that’s the statement RIM is making with the BlackBerry Storm, its first ever touch screen smartphone.
So how does it feel – unlike conventional smartphones, the Storm has an innovative haptic display that subtly responds like a physical keyboard – by letting the user push the screen down slightly till a “click” is heard.
Looking to appeal beyond its core business user base, it comes with integrated GPS, includes a host of multimedia capabilities, and comes pre-loaded with instant messaging clients (AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo Messenger, GTalk & ICQ) as well as popular social networking services (My Space, Facebook & Flickr).
Pretty and powerful, it’s a refreshing change and could help recast the BlackBerry.
the revival of Iridium
An idea that peaked (or rather hyped) too early, Iridium burnt through $5 billion in the late 90s before finally declaring bankruptcy. Forbes reports on how Iridium has come a long way since those harrowing times – today, grounded in reality, and by repositioning themselves as a communications service provider to businesses with workers in remote regions, it has become the world’s fastest growing mobile satellite services provider. A late resurgence seems to be in the offing, and more importantly a sensible one.
The new Iridium essentially reversed its thinking. “Rather than worry, ‘How can we give every executive a phone?’ they said, ‘We can communicate between any two points on the globe. Who needs this? Who will pay for it?’ “says Engel. “It’s a much more intelligent question.”
using sign language on mobile
A research group at the University of Washington has demonstrated a software that enables the hearing impaired to effectively communicate via sign language over mobile phones. Science Daily reports that the Mobile ASL project aims to develop a real time video compression scheme keeping in view existing mobile network bandwidth constraints. By facilitating the display of a person’s face and hands in high resolution, and the background in low resolution, it optimizes data transmission.
For mobile communication, deaf people now communicate by cell phone using text messages. “But the point is you want to be able to communicate in your native language,” Riskin said. “For deaf people that’s Sign Language.”
Video is much better than text-messaging because it’s faster and it’s better at conveying emotion, said Jessica DeWitt, a UW undergraduate in psychology who is deaf and is a collaborator on the MobileASL project. She says a large part of her communication is with facial expressions, which are transmitted over the video phones.
Olympics draw mobile Web newbies
The Olympics seem to be striking a deep chord with first-time mobile Web users. The Star Tribune reports that according to NBC, almost half the people accessing information on the Olympics via their mobile phones are new to the mobile Web – though the absolute number of users ranging around half a million is relatively small, compared to the average primetime viewership of over 30 million. A small yet significant trend that portends the mass adoption of the mobile Web.
The number of people requesting Olympic content over their phones is still relatively small — but NBC executives say they’re stunned at how many of those never used the phones for this purpose before.
NBC Universal has been using the Olympics as something of a research lab to track the adoption of new media technology.
“To some extent, the Olympics are beginning to influence how people use new technology,” said Alan Wurtzel, research president for NBC Universal.
honey, I shrunk the kids’ mobile bills
Give your teenager a mobile phone and don’t worry about losing your peace of mind or breaking the bank. Limit or rather control seems to be the operative word– the NYT reports that be it the number of calls, the numbers that can be dialed, the times during which calls can be made, the type of content that can be downloaded or the mobile websites that can be surfed – literally almost every key mobile activity can be restricted if one goes by the new plans being launched by major carriers. Maybe they should expand these plans to include corporate firms as well.
T-Mobile said it would announce a new service that will give parents a way to control almost every aspect of their children’s cellphone use, except what they say or write in a text message.
Verizon said it would soon offer similar services. AT&T Wireless was the first of the four major networks to introduce parental controls when it introduced the “Smart Limits” service last September. For $5 a month, parents can go online to set allowances for text messages, peak calling minutes and money spent on downloadable content.
iCatalyst
Will the iPhone be the tipping point for the mass adoption of the mobile Internet? Well, more than 10 million applications were downloaded from the App Store, in the week following the release of the 3G iPhone. Further, looking at the clamor among the likes of eBay, Facebook, Google, AOL, SalesForce to launch iPhone versions of their key products, it does look like the game is finally on, after many false starts.
Though the iPhone has brought down its pricing a bit, it’s still a niche phone – the mass market part of the game will be driven by traditional handset manufacturers, who have now scented a massive opportunity – and who would be soon flooding the market with handsets that offer similar browsing capabilities and features, which should spur the beginning of mainstream adoption and usage of mobile websites.
One thing’s for sure, the iPhone has been a catalyst unlike any other – it has demonstrated to all the naysayers that not only is browsing on mobile very much possible but it’s actually engaging. In all fairness, the naysayers were not far from the truth – to put it mildly, the experience was rather frustrating, if not downright torture. Now if only carriers would take the lead and do something about factoring data as a standard part of all tariff plans.
a tale of too many standards
The world might be becoming smaller and more integrated but the mobile world definitely isn’t – Windows Mobile vs Symbian vs Linux vs Android vs iPhone. GSM vs CDMA. DVB-H vs MediaFlo vs S-DMB vs STIMI vs ISDB-T vs T-DMB vs DAB-IP (that’s right, there are at least 7 Mobile TV formats) – be it operating systems, network technologies, mobile browsers or mobile TV formats, there are multiple mobile standards (and acronyms) in play across the globe.
Competition to establish standards is vital in any market but if allowed to drag too long without any clear winners, arrests innovation and development. Focused on self promotion and protecting turfs, players lose focus and severely restrict application development and adoption to niches – leading to a proliferation of small, regional players but hardly any mass players.
We could take a leaf out of the recently concluded DVD standard wars between Blu-ray and HD DVD – with the vote going in favor of Blu-ray, consumer electronics firms and content providers can focus on core strengths, instead of waiting by the sidelines to see which format will come out on top or trying to develop players and content for both the formats.
To an extent, it does not really matter which standard is adopted – each standard comes with its own set of advantages and issues. The industry or key players (and if necessary, governments) need to come together and throw its weight behind adoption of single or at best dual standards.
Once frozen, a standard can be the base for all efforts to evolve a core ecosystem – establish concrete business models, institute payment protocols and speed up application development, leading to mass adoption – which in turn will push down price points and further drive innovation en masse.
A monopoly in standards would not be all that bad, especially if it’s controlled by a consortium of players from across the mobile world representing all key interests. The ideas are out there but they can evolve and scale only if standards are in place. It’s inevitable standards will emerge, with or without the support of the industry - the only question that remains is, will the boost come from within or outside the industry, and when.
a ring of fraud
The crackdown has begun, and it’s about time – the BBC reports that the European Union (EU) will investigate over 80% of mobile websites offering downloadable mobile content like ringtones and wallpaper – for pricing misinformation and more serious fraud like misleading customers into subscribing for content.
A sweep of 500 websites – many of which targeted young people – took place across 27 EU member states, Norway and Iceland to check for breaches of European regulations.
“Far too many people are falling victim to costly surprises from mysterious charges, fees and ringtone subscriptions they learn about for the first time when they see their mobile phone bill,” according to the European Commissioner.
from dear to hello
The ink is apparently drying fast – The Times reports on the dying art of professional letter writing. With around two million phones sold every week and tariffs among the most competitive in the world, for Indians everything is just a call away.
This brings to mind the various doomsday scenarios propagated concerning writing in general. To herald the extinction of the written word in this scenario would be a bit presumptuous – after all it has survived the onslaught of movies, radio, television and the Internet.
In fact, the Web has given a huge boost to writing and self expression (actually quite an overdose, but the dust is bound to settle down) – any one, including this blogger can ‘publish’ now and lay claim to being a writer of sorts. From books to blogs to digital readers, the written word will evolve and be present in different forms, and co-exist if not rule as one of the most potent mediums of expression.
Though the same probably does not hold true when applied in the context of forms of written communication – with the emergence of SMS, email and instant messaging, it’s unlikely forms of communication like letter writing will be able to co-exist. Sad but true.
They have penned everything from the missives of Mogul emperors to the love letters of modern commoners. Now the rise of the mobile phone is set to consign one of India’s most distinctive vocations — the professional letter writer — to the great wastepaper basket of history.
For hundreds of years the subcontinent’s streets have served as al fresco offices for India’s writers — the men who, for a small fee (10 pence), transcribe letters for the country’s vast illiterate population.
