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

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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.

''Freshmen'' enters japanese mobile market

Fast and flat. No, it's not fat.

Japanese mobile market enters eMobile , a mobile arm of japanese ISP eAccess, with main points of its offer , aimed at business customers.

E-M ONE at the glance:

- mobile broadband plan - HSDPA ( all-you-can-eat ) for a fixed fee of 50 $ a month ,
- Sharp widescreen PDA / smartphone with Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system,

Also packed into the device is 802.11b/g wireless LAN, Bluetooth and a tuner for Japan’s mobile digital television broadcasts.

If eMobile can successfully attract customers in Japan through aspects such as price and speed, it may offer a breath of fresh air for the japanese mobile industry's stale phone and data pricing schemes.

Vodafone Marches Across India

An uneasy friendship

We know Vodafone recently bought Hutchinson's stake in Hutch Essar Limited, India's fourth biggest mobile operator, but we still don't know who and how this venture will be run.

Arun Sarin, India-born Vodafone's CEO, tours India in the private jet, and tries to convince Essar's representatives ''this is fair game''.
Shareholder agreement is still unsigned.

Vodafone has already committed to invest two billion dollars in a "couple of years" for expansion of Hutch-Essar in India as part of efforts to become the country's largest mobile operator with a target of 100 million subscribers.

Emerging market rings.

According to Hindustan Times and given Sarin's quote there:

"ROIC (Return on Investment Capital) test met in year five and Internal Risk of Return would be around 14 per cent,”

Boris Nemsic serves on the GSMA management board

Mobile Tszar Boris

Boris Nemsic, at the moment CEO of “Telekom Austria Group”, has been chosen to become a member of the Management Board of the World GSM Association with a two-year term of office.
Congratulations.
I would call him ''our man'' :)
Among other facts, his work left a huge mark here in Croatia and practically he was one of the most infuential people building ''mobile crazy'' nations in the Southeastern Europe.
In November 1998, he became CEO of Vipnet, the first private mobile communications operator in Croatia.
His official profile is here.

Tele2 Croatia loss of 300 million Kuna for 2006.

Sales of calls just not enough. How about data plans ? Chief, should we go or let it go ?

Tele2 Croatia, third mobile operator in Croatia, reported loss of about 300 millions Kuna ( about 40,8 million Euro ) for 2006 .
Wow.

I wasn't aware they are loosing so much money. Tele2 AB Group reported financial results for 2006., and croatian chapter contributes with 1/5 of overall losses.
At the end of last month, they had 300,000 subscribers.
They begun with operation in October 2005.
The main philosophy for Tele2 in Croatia is '' simple and cheap ''
( just like everywhere else ).

For such a bad financials, they blame roaming costs.
Tele2 is using VIPNET's infrastructure ( second biggest mobile operator in the country ).

Tele2 is my mobile operator and I own ''golden number'' ;)) I was among first users in Croatia of their network. I own SIMs of all operators, naturally. ;))

Via: Suvremena.hr

Mobile operator's cool shoulders

Party line

As much as iPhone didn't impress myself on the very first day it was showcased, another strong voice from mobile carrier community ( Australian Telstra Senior Executive Greg Winn ) thinks along the same line.

Sydney Morning Herald and The Age quoted Greg Winn:

“I think people overreacted to it”,

“There’s an old saying - stick to your knitting - and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that’s not their knitting”

“Cingular is not a global company,”

"You can pretty much be assured that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE and others will be coming out with devices that have similar functionality."

However, Winn did say that the iPhone would probably be a successful initially.
We shall see.

Smudge your iPhone

iPhone fans always kept their fingertips clean and their nails nicely clipped. Are they gay ?

Try iSmudgenator , a flash based iPhone simulator that was inspired by Jon Hicks post.
Smudge your iPhone. Over and over again  Fun. :))

Mobile phones should be clean just like a clean sunglasses, cause you know, now it's a lifestyle device.
You can't socialize with dirty phone screen. Could you ?
If I ever touch that iPhone... :)

I am still ''worried'' and want to hear woman's experience with iPhone ? Those with large nails ? Anybody ?
Nail-to-phone practice ? Doesn't seem to be looking like good experience.

Now, I must learn 101 simple strategies for dead iPhone.

State of the calling

Give me more, more and more.

Fresh data about telecom trends in Croatia become available in the media .
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics ( key facts for 2006., reference year 2005. ):

- 46,3 % more minutes in the mobile networks,
- 13,7 % less minutes in the fixed network ( 8,3 billion minutes ),
- 10,2 % less international calls for the fixed network ( 194 million minutes ),
- 47,3 % more domestic calls for the mobile networks ( 3,5 billion minutes ) ,
- 20,8 % more international calls for the mobile networks ( 128 million minutes )
- 5,1 % more SMS's send ( 2,5 billion )
- 43,2 % more MMS's send ( 14,5 million, but volume is only 0,6 % compared to SMS )

Domestic mobile calling and MMS is up, although, MMS's volume is minor.
About croatian telecom market, read more here.

Phone correspondent with SE W900i

Sakura-san reports

Croatian chapter of Sony Ericsson and Zagreb's local television Z1 made a deal for phone-reporting.
Z1's reporters will be given SE W900i phone which is capable of shooting video with 30 FPS ( 30 pics a second ) hence reproduction will be suitable for TV airing.
The reporters will stage live reporting from Zagreb's streets.
Nice deal for proactive croatian SE chapter and inovative TV project.

Mobile TV, but for offline viewing

Selling hand-potato lifestyle :)

Mobile TV, which was before some time beyond my comprehension, will most likely be success. Eventually it will be.
Add-on for normal TV viewing habit.
We are too early in the market, if we can say ''market'' at all. Tough to sell.

Who would want to look TV on a mobile phone ? Currently, the concept is not widely understood. I had a trouble for a long time and couldn't find much reason.

Well, just imagine if you have a situation where many handsets ( the time will come ) have an in-built tuner for DVB-H signal, and you get some cheap programming, you most certainly would be tempted to try it out.
At least for some porn or betting ? Don't you ? ;))

It happened to me today when I was discussing with my neighbour about digital TV ( DVB-T ).
He asked me whether I was looking to buy DVB-T reciver to get digital TV .

I wasn't much informed about DVB-T before, but indeed, we have this ability in about 60-70 % of croatian territory. You need to buy reciver and be lucky to live on the territory with signal coverage and you are good to go ( do not need to pay for any service ).

So, I felt, this can be very easy adopted for mobile phones.
The broadcasters could upgrade equipment with DVB-H specifications, and if mobile operators step in with 3G service, you need ''just'' to buy phone with DVB-H tuner ( and pay for the service, he, he ).

It'll take time to take off as a viable business, but if experience is smooth, and pricing structure done right, then we can watch in Croatia pretty soon mobile TV . Vipnet, actually, started the first croatian mobile TV with Vodafone Live .

But watching is different pair of shoes. What's the point to ''catch'' with TV programming and today's TV scheduling ?
If the ''time-shifting'' model is what we expect to be more in use these days, then why not watch it offline or watch it , at least, more conveniently ( mobile PVR ) ?
If we are watching it offline, then it's not mobile TV anymore, but on-demand content.

Maybe we could label our TV show just like we bookmark web sites with del.icio.us these days. Save it, and watch it when you have time to do so ( record, download ).

The digital standards are raging wars among providers, and handsets are still beyond mass market.
The key is user's experience and price. Attracting world class content providers will be important step as well.

Just some my messy thoughts about mobile TV.
More to learn as we go further down the mobile road.

Born in Texas

Wild , wild Wikipedia


Wikipedia missed the fact about Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus :)
Under the section ''Early life'', the unknown editor made a spoof:

He was born in Texas (or Velletri) on September 23, 63 BC with the name G-Money.

Wikipedia at its best.
Totally randomly I was looking for some fact about Roman Empire, and voila... Texas and G-Money. :)

Here's a right wikipedian ''mirror'' about him.