Nokia widgets to charm

Woohy, woohaa, widgets. Hijack !

Andrew Orlowski hits Nokia for its widgets business strategy.
I have to disagree this time with him.

I belive he had mistaken Nokia's Web 2.0 marketing thingie-lingie language and the real reasons coming from the fact that UI concepts tend toward data-centric intefraces ( instead of list-based, now they are becoming more richer ).

I don't like Web 2.0 fancy schmency either, so I agree with him only on the part Nokia hadn't had to mentioned Web 2.0 at all.
But this time, Orlowski in the name of IT security whispers PC bloatware is coming...
We'll see.
I never liked or used widgets on my desktop, but mobile has much more sense, IMHO.

To me, there's real business logic to give web community tools to mobilise more easily their properties etc.

S60 will be software platform that enables the creation of widgets using familiar standards-based Web technologies.
Why uploading html pages ( sometimes ) when you can streamline those data more conveniently, faster and cheaper ?

Widgets will be distributed to users through several channels, one of which is WidSets, a popular consumer Internet service launched by Nokia, which allows users to personalize their mobile Internet experience.

FOLLOW UP:
Microsfot ZenZui bets on widgets
uLocate GPS widgets
GetMobio lifestyle portal
Properazzi widget for real estate

The conclusion:
Enticing vision of what the mobile deck could be if carriers opened their minds to the possibilities of a truly customizable interface. Even if this ether of floating widgets were just the front end to the content portion of a deck, it would be a vast improvement over what we have from any carrier now. First, it lowers the personalization bar so low that almost anyone with a Web connection could be enticed to manage his or her decks from a Web site.

Croatia ready for 3rd party mobile services

The point of saturation.

Puls, a croatian market research agency, presented findings 2 months ago about croatian mobile habits and use.
I almost forgot about these findings.

They conducted interviews with croatian households ( n= 1.000 people, time frame- January 2007., people over 14 years old, national representative sample ).



Key findings:

- Penetration : 101 % ,

- Usage: 37 % photography, 25 % games, 21 % mp3, 16 % video clips, 13 % radio, 12 % content dowloading, 7 % web browsing, 7 % mobile e-mail

- Males and under 25 years old are using more actively multimedia, music, games and web browsing

For example, T-Mobile Croatia has ARPU of € 27 ( In Germany it has about 21 € ).
Tele2 has the biggest subsciber growth. Vipnet provides videocalling, HSDPA network with 7,2 downlink ( HSPU upgrade ) and is actively making inroads in fixed-mobile convergence with its VIP Homebox service.

Open Source Car

Ugly.

But still, you can modify as you wish but share it with other. ;))

Social signs in your hand

What your mobile phone says about you:

Nokia

Family-minded
Middle aged managers
Balance seekers
Health conscious

Motorola

Fashion conscious
Under 24
Fun seekers
Individualistic

Sony Ericsson

Ambitious young men
Professionals
Success driven
Individualistic

LG

Favourite of mums
Stay-at-home parents
Success driven
Harmony seekers

Samsung

Young women
Career focused
Success driven
Fun seekers

Via: WirelessDuniya and Stuff.co.nz

Buddy Calls

Mobile VOIP. Again.

Nokia Nseries or Eseries WiFi handsets and calls with WiFiMobile software ( S60 3rd ).
Buddy lists will sprung up.
All that even before Skype made any significant inroads in mobile space :))

Mobile Web Certification

Excellence

The folks at dotMobi are partnering with Prometric for Mobile Web Development certification.
Their initiatives are heading toward more attention for ''Mobile Web'' or whatever we might call it.

Bedroom full of laptops

Love and marriage, love and marriage

Woman deserves more attention ( FULL ) than laptop.
Indians are learning this hard way.

Motofone

Easy mobile. 1,2,3...Around 1998.

What if Motorola did have released Motofone in 1998 ?
It would be trendsetter and the best mobile UI of its time.
The growth of mobile telecommunications would be tremendeous ( it was, anyway ).
Just imagine.
Slick, low-cost, simple, big buttons, wide display, call, SMS...

3G Stimulation

Finns did it ! Again !

Change the law and adoption goes up.
That's how Finns did for 3G adoption. The results are:

- almost half (40%) already use 3G services and every fourth (25%) is considering their adoption

- the most wanted 3G services are email (60%), map and route services (49%), and Internet (40% )

- According to comparative questionnaire studies, the use of 3G has increased more than six-fold from the previous year's 6 per cent to 40 per cent. Currently, there are more than 700,000 3G phones in use in Finland. A year ago, the number was only 50,000.

- the most wanted were email (60%), map and route services (49%), and Internet (40%). Next most popular were the news (39%), bank (37%), weather (33%), search (27%), music (21%) and television (19%).

From Nokia's mouths

Those bluddy amateurs :)

An interview with Nokia's vice president of Nseries Computers Pekka Pohjakallio about iPhone.

Rare opportunties to hear about iPhone.
He admits Apple implemented some things differently.

"We have been preaching the message of converged multimedia in one device, with lots of use cases and a good experience for the whole life of Nseries. And now Apple have come and said basically the same thing, even if they have implemented some things differently.

And

"They had music, internet, an email deal with Yahoo and a deal with Google, but it is a 2G device, not 3G, which was a surprise to me," he says. "And it's coming first to the US market with Cingular, so let's see. But overall, it's very exciting for us."

But my biggest question for Apple about iPhone is why Apple created a "internet device" running on ISDN speeds ?
How will they connect iTunes library and multimedia rich iPhone without high-speed wirelles tech ?

Nokia 5700

Music phone. Four important buttons.

Mobility thoughts of day

Recent thoughts and question about mobility:

- How will upcoming Apple iPhone handle clicking web links when browsing on tiny device only with a thumb? If there is a list of links, how will screen respond to clicking links and fully precise doing so ?

- Mobile operators want fewer mobile OS. So, is there a space for LiMo, Apple OS and in the future some Google OS ? Basic smartphone OS's are enough or not ? Fast device-to-market is important to them. Third party developers can also benefit from few basic mobile OS's

- javascript:void(0)
Publish

Local production in a globalised world

Reverse-engineered globalisation

Motorola to launch in 2007. a new cell phone fully developed in Brazil.
Why ?
Support of local economy ? Nice try, I guess.
It's interesting development in the global economy.
More of:

Motorola will draw on the technology and software of 600 partners spread throughout Brazil, according to the spokesperson.

Man, it's 600 partners ! Local business and politician dream.
Hard & Soft will be produced in Brazil.

Sonopia

Put your logo on the mobile handset

With Sonopia become MVNO under 10 minutes. Resell mobile phone service to your group/community/users.
Sonopia headquarters are in Kyev and Menlo Park.

World's best overall Flash Lite application: Tube

Developers and experts from User Group gave the votes.

Croatian Flash Lite developer Alen Alebic won again most respected award among Flash Lite developers with Tube – interactive mobile guide for London's subway system ( Nokia s60 3rd edition ) .

Alebic is the head of Gideon Mobile development studio from Split, Croatia ( Split is 3,5 hours of normal flight away from Britain's capitol ).
I wrote many times before about my excitement with Adobe's tool for interactive mobile user interface .

Congrats to Alen and his Gideon Mobile team which again showed how small company with creative muscle, specialisation and orientation for global markets delivers brilliant product.
Gideon Mobile already released few Flash Lite apps ; FIFA World Cup 2006 guide, Woman's guide for ''those'' things ;)) etc.

Currently, they are developing complete mobile guides for Croatia and Slowenia.
Hope to hear more good news about them.

Related :
Flash Lite case study
LG Prada phone and its Flash Lite UI
Adobe's Mobile User Group of Boston

Japanese ''Terminals'' search for identity

Softbank's example and South-Korean innovation :)

I read over weekend NTT DoCoMo's Annual Report 2006. and familiarised myself more with Japanese mobile market. I am trying to put LG's Prada phone UI ( not Apple's ) inovation more into combined perspective .

I notice long ago that FOMA/mova handsets ( and those of other operators ) are not design's cutting edge but they are successful and selling well in Japan.
Above all , 3G usage penetration is almost 70 % in Japan and all that with handsets that are good-all clamshells and candybars.
Japan's market is by all means unique.

If we assume, there's wider shift in the user interface which will be supported by software (touchscreens and fluid/software Uis instead of buttons ) which will make easier using all these multimedia features and advanced mobile services ( payments, keys ), how will ''iphonish'' avantgarde concept make inroads into Japanese market ?
Is it relevant at all since usage of 3G service is not hampered by current generations of japanese handsets ?

I know there were some rumors about possible SoftBank's distribution of iPhone in Japan( SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son attended MacExpo in SF and Steve Jobs is his friend ) .
If true, whether that would have any sense since iPhone is not build and designed under control of mobile network operator and therefore hadn't had a chance to be adopted to operator's business goals ?

So, I am not talking about features of these future japanese handsets, but of design principle. Will they move building with their partners ( Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu ) those sort of touchscreen models with radical UI design proposition ?

I like Toronto Star's article and opinion from last January putting into perspective iPhone and more advanced mobile markets like japanese.

Call your favourite plant

Plants and humans finally talk

Botanicalls is a project of a team of four students at the ITP program at NYU.

Background notes :

The Botanicalls project is fundamentally about communication between plants and people. We are empowering both by inventing new avenues of interaction. Plants that might otherwise be neglected are given the ability to call people and request assistance. People who are unsure of their ability to effectively care for growing things are given visual and aural clues.

When a plant on the botanicalls network needs a little water, it can call a human and ask for exactly what it needs.

Brilliant.

On ot the stated goals is to keep the plants alive by translating the communication protocols of the plants (leaf habit, color of foliage, droop, etc) to more common human communication protocols (email, voice phone calls, digital visualizations, etc).

Brilliant.
Something not meant to be communicating is doing just that. I wonder, how many systems we can setup on top of Botanicalls idea ?

Related:
Botanicalls video
Botanicalls photos

Showcasing LG Prada phone

Touchscreen experience counts or not ?

Why LG Prada phone is interesting right now ?
It shows path toward touchscreen interface and its practical use.
It's a testing ground for ''iphonish'' interface.

Exclusive video over at Litechannel:



Lately, I've been reconsidering my thoughts about iPhone.
( earlier posts : 1, 2, 3, 4 )
At first, I thought it will be failure. I am skeptical about 1st generation of iPhone, but the 2nd generation will be most certainly standard for new multimedia phones ( Apple will learn mobility ).
There's for sure shift from ''brick'' to fluid interfaces in mobile handsets.
We are now at an early stage.

On top of that, LG Prada phone has Flash Lite UI.
Adobe has a chance to rule mobile ;)

Today's Relaxation : Lake Cambina

Croatian northeastern countryside near Hungarian border

Enough a bit about mobile.
Today was all for relaxation. My girl and I went to croatian-hungarian border on the Lake Cambina. It's a beautiful and peaceful landscape.
Some pics I took today in the Protected Landscape of Čambina.



Above: The road to Cambina Lake.



Above: Cambina Lake in front of hunting lodge



Above: Cambina hunting lodge



Above: We moved closer but they didn't care.



Above: Backwaters of Drava river

Faster Mobile Broadband in Croatia

Downlink of 7,2 ( magnitude ) Mbps

The word is out in the press that croatian mobile operator VIPNET will enable faster mobile broadband with 7,2 Mbit/s for his Vodafone Mobile Connect service ( HSDPA tech , PCMCIA card ).
Current offerings are here with three data plans.

The first HSDPA network in Croatia was launched by VIPNET ten months ago ( April 2006 ). At that time, Croatia was 8th country in Europe with 3,5 G technology in the air.

I don't have information for VIPNET coverage ( some say it is 35 % ) , but I know T-Mobile ( 3,5 G from December 2006 ) says their HSDPA network already covers 55 % croatian territory.