Damien Saunders

Apple has changed its tactics - a few weeks ago it launched Safari as a part of an update for iTunes users. Safari will now be changed from an update to new software not installed.

Many people rightly pointed out that this was a shady tactic to get software on peoples computers.

source: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/04/apple-appeases.html

Youppo at www.youppo.com is a new social space in Turkey to catch up with friends with free storage for your pics and talk about what’s happening.

Youppo has been in the planning since late last year and development for it is not stopping. While very much in a beta site, we are working to add new features each week to keep the site busy and fresh.

my page is www.youppo.com/web/damien

Summary: Location Based Services (LBS) were thought to be a killer app for 3G, next is the GPS chip in your phone. What mobile and location services are there right now?

Some of us still remember the early days when 3G business cases were built on the success of LBS’s - everyone was going to make a killing. By far the best ‘LBS’ service on any portal are:

1. live train timetables (is my train on time)
2. traffic cameras (where is that jam)
3. mobile operator concierge service (for those unusal location requests)

So does throwing a GPS chip in a phone help you? If I’m lost will I ask someone? want a map? or fiddle my way around on a small screen? Customers will always do what seems most natural - the path of least resistance.

Having tried Google Maps on the mobile (I knew I was on the right street but not which intersection) a small map can help you … the same can’t be said when you’re driving your car. W2Forum addict Graham Brown, comments that a specific solution for navigation in this case is the way to go.

There are several crossover location-based mobile products out in beta or publicly available:

1. Semacode or QR Codes - these are 2D barcodes geotagging on landmarks / points of historic interest which can link back to a wiki or website. Good idea for tourists wanting more information while out and about.

2. NFC / radio tags not only for micropayments like the London Tube Oyster Card or FOMA in Japan. Radio tags are being used to track luggage in Hong Kong Airport, food shipments in the UK and parcels. So why not use your mobile to check if that parcel got delivered?

3. Public WIFI networks - there has been talk for sometime about public free wifi. More a utopian’s dream than a possible reality allowing you to move around a city and use ’spare’ wifi capacity on peoples routers. Some examples are projects setup to provide streaming music over wifi to anyone who knows where to listen in to.

I’m sure there are many more projects in the LBS space - even a few years ago the idea of a cheap GPS box that was affordable to everyone was a pipedream .. so what will be tomorrows reality?

You might have begun to think I had dropped off the blogosphere. You might be right … a good blog has to be kept updated daily and have something new. I started this when I had a lot of spare time and was looking to go back to contracting. It’s proved very useful.

I’m actually off to Turkey for 6 months for work, but hope in between all of that to find the time to get this going again.  So keep in touch … Damien

Nokia holds fire on mobile gaming - vnunet.com: “Nokia is holding off on mobile gaming for a few years and will not be building new versions of the N-Gage gaming phone.”

Well that could be some good Christmas news for the rest of the gaming industry - one less platform to support and even the admission of it not being a success hasn’t come as a suprise for retailers.

What this means is Nokia refocusing its attention on areas it knows users and operators want developments - mobile music, tv and internet are all big contenders for 2006/07. Leave serious portable gaming right now to the bigger platforms players and develop better phones for us all.

Vodafone has announced the launch of its first Mobile Wallet phone - a terminal with the FeliCa chipset. Felica allows e-money, ticketing and transit payments (and some loyalty programmes) to be made by just holding the phone over a terminal reader. NTT Docomo launched the service less than 12 months ago.

This will be a welcomed by operators as it develops a basic cash management proposition and of course intergrates this with their terminal/consumer lifestyle propositions. Customers can also benefit by this development if everyday items can be purchased using the FeliCa chip or it is enabled for mass market ticketing (ie Oyster cards, electronic train ticketing, movie tickets).

703SHf Mobile Wallet 3G Handset Release

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT - cp.sonybmg.com/xcp

The announcements this week about the ROOTKIT have seemed endless - that it is trojanware, that it was safe, that there are ROOTKIT viruses, then Sony released a removal tool and then the news that you can swap the CD!

What this does for consumer confidence is boost doubt that the medium is ’safe’ and potentially affect the CD sales in record stores and we will be needing to watch how ‘quiet’ the Christmas trading period is to gather if there is negative affect.

We can expect legal download services from Napster to iTunes and even the mobile fulltrack download (FTMD) services to see some growth- or if this stay steady, we have to assume those customers buying music from retailers have either stopped buying or moved to other P2P services.

Mobile FTMD and PC interoperability is set to be the biggest hot topic for 05/06 as consumers push for easier file management within their chosen music library. IF only the operators would see this and make it open source so that users could switch between winamp, Windows Media player or iTunes — if they so choose.

It’s all a matter of wait and see

http://www.moconews.net/?p=4108

Orange internet advertising spots have taken a new turn, rather than pushing contract handsets or content in time for Xmas these are linked to their new interactive portal ‘talking point’.

This seems to be engaging with internet users - young and old on a specific topic (currently mobile music). Once you have selected your one word answer you can add your own comments and see what other people are saying.

Interesting point - if you click on previous topics, you can see a summary of what action Orange has taken from the feedback.

Try out Talking point.

BT Livetime is pushing ahead with its trial in Greater London using digitial (DAB) technology to send radio and TV to mobiles to Virgin mobile customers. There are 2 things to watch here - it’s not using the existing media streaming solutions and is actually a managed solution rather than being developed and trialled by a network operator.

Reading the presentation on BT Livetime you realise that radio and TV on your mobile can be connected to any operator … so long as the customer has a DAB chip in their mobile. This is a smart move by not limiting the launch market, but BT need to sell this product and solution in onr or more markets to get some scale (and ROI) going. With terminals from Samsung not launched in Europe and the large leadtimes to develop new terminals this still could be awhile before we actually get to see this on the shelf.

Read the presentation on BT Livetime