All things mobile

3G + Skype = Killer App?

2007-05-20T14:45:00.001-07:00

SKYPE ON MOBILE DEVICES HUTCHINSON 3 GROUP - Hutchison 3, a European mobile telecommunications company has formed an agreement with Skype to allow Skype communications on Hutch-3's 3G network. Mobile carriers have so far been reluctant to allow VoIP over their networks -- in the past, some wifi-enabled phones have had their VoIP capabilities disabled by carriers. From observing my European

Village phones?

2007-05-07T22:43:00.001-07:00

Nokia announced two new phones recently, the 1200 and 1208, designed specifically for the shared phone market. It is primarily geared towards low-income areas where mobile phone ownership is a challenge. These devices have a call-time tracking application and multiple phonebooks to facilitate sharing. "In order to help manage airtime costs, the call-time tracking feature allows consumers and

Is mobile VoIP finally here? n95

2007-04-18T19:02:00.001-07:00

Nokia's brought wi-fi capability with new phone releases. Nitzan mentioned that he expects a significant number of phones (upwards of 50m?) to have wi-fi by end of 2007. This seems like a game changing play but there might still be some obstacles. Mobile Business Magazine reports that VoIP functionality has been disabled on network-sold n95's in the UK. The phones are probably subsidized by the

Nitzan / IDG talks about the success of Skype, at MIT Sloan

2007-04-18T09:39:00.001-07:00

Skype was launched at a time when there were many IM networks and VOIP offerings, so how did it become the leading VoIP network? 1) Keep it simple (stupid!) While there were many possibilities for features and concepts, Skype focused a few key things, namely high quality voice calls and low price. 2) Target influencers Skype sought out early adopters who were also able to influence others.

Nokia's own Mobile Search

2007-04-01T19:02:00.001-07:00

While exploring Nokia's N series phones, I stumbled upon Nokia's Mobile Search service. You have to first download some software, which is available for free. It features local search, web and image search, as well as content search for the phone. It also supports "media roaming" -- where the search application switches search providers to give you localized content. Mobile Search & Maps -

Verizon launches Live Mobile TV

2007-03-01T18:04:00.001-08:00

Verizon Wireless launched a broadcast TV service today for mobile phones in about 20 markets. The pricing is between $15 to $25 a month for up to 8 channels (Mobile TV is available standalone or as a bundle). Markets: I found the selection of launch cities to be a bit strange. The VCast Mobile TV will not be available in many of the major cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco,

MS unveils Windows Mobile 6.0

2007-02-08T21:19:00.001-08:00

Microsoft is about to release the next version of Windows Mobile (6.0) on Monday at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. MS has certainly been busy with recent launches of Vista and Office 2007. According to the article on The Tech Chronicles, devices with the new OS will start to appear in three to four months. Apparently customers using T-mobile's Dash will also be able to upgrade from v5.0.

MoMIT event: PayPal Mobile comes to MIT

2007-02-07T09:56:00.001-08:00

Matt Weathers, PayPal Mobile's Group Product Manager, visited MIT Sloan today to discuss mobile paypments using PayPal, and PayPal's mobile launch strategy. It was interesting to hear about the questions that they tackled, including customer base, client UI (IVR -- interactive voice response, WAP, client, SMS) and geographies. PayPal mobile allows users to send money to each other, buy

Mobile Mondays Boston -- “Common problems facing mobile companies”

2007-02-05T17:39:00.001-08:00

Mobile Mondays Boston was hosted at Sloan today, with a panel on “Common problems facing mobile companies.” Moderator was Mark Newhall of Idealwave. The panel consisted of: John Simon is a co-founder and managing director of General Catalyst Randy Bogue is the founder and managing director of Venator Partners Rob Adler is currently the CEO of 80108 Ann Walsh, is the Director of Human

Could Telcos build a search engine to rival Google?

2007-02-04T10:42:00.001-08:00

Europe's biggest telcos, including Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia are apparently in talks to develop a search service for mobile phones. Cingular is the only American carrier that is involved. Why? It's no surprise that minutes are becoming cheaper, probably faster than the increase in minute consumption. Usage of mobile data services

Seagate launches storage device for phones

2007-02-02T12:20:00.000-08:00

Seagate's unveiled a new drive specifically designed for mobile phones. The concept is that the drive would host all the storage hungry media and relay it to the phone on demand using Bluetooth. Also, since the phone can be physically separate from the drive, it could be stored away while allowing the phone to be portable and slim.This reminds me of my IAP project a few weeks ago, experimenting

Motorola announces backup service for mobile phones

2007-02-01T13:28:00.000-08:00

Motorola has launched a new backup and recovery service for content and information stored on mobile phones and SIM cards. This is different from existing offerings because it does not require a PC for backup and recovery operations. This is yet another sign that we'll see more PC-like service offerings for the mobile phone. An article last week (The year for mobile finance) made me think about

Mobile commerce for BlackBerry

2007-01-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

Austin-TX based 30 Second Software announces the launch of "Digby", a mobile commerce service. It will allow BlackBerry users to make purchases on their phonesDave Sikora, President and CEO of 30 Second Software, was quoted in the press release: “With Digby, we have created a shopping service that offers an effortless yet rich buying experience on BlackBerry handsets, enabling users to easily buy

The year for mobile finance?

2007-01-24T18:35:00.001-08:00

Caught an article in the ComputerWeekly (a UK based publication) about the possibilities of banking and payment initiatives coming to fruition this year. Along with new initiatives come new avenues for improper uses, such as malware that could exploit the new capabilities. Here's a quote from the article: Bob Egan, an analyst atTowerGroup, said, "The success of mobile banking and payments,

China Mobile to take 89% stake in PakTel of Pakistan

2007-01-22T21:52:00.001-08:00

China Mobile currently has 300 million subscribers and is making its first foray into an emerging market. The deal is worth $284M. Apparently the Pakistani mobile market is still small with 46M users. China has 444M users. China Mobile is adding 5M users a month in the China market and this move seems to be in line with its current strategy. China Mobile's chairman was quoted in Businsess Week:

iPhone profits II

2007-01-22T12:11:00.001-08:00

Our friends at TeleClick have an article on the profitability of the iPhone ... more here: Apple iPhone Could Enjoy Profit Margins Over 50% » Telecommunications Industry News Blogged with Flock

IAP class: Breaking down phone components

2007-01-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

MIT's Independent Activities Period is a great time to try out new things, or work on things you've always wanted to but never got around to it. One of the classes I took was around product design, where you could develop prototypes using basic materials and then have users test the products (with a little bit of imagination).A dismembered phoneMy concept was a phone that was broken down into

LG and Prada to release iPhone like phone

2007-01-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

LG is going to release the KE850 phone in collaboration with Prada. Many are touting it as an iPhone copy but given that it was a partnership wtih Prada, my guess is that it was in development for a while. These so TrustedReviews - LG & Prada Make iPhone Look-a-Like Blogged with Flock

TheStreet.com reports on RIM vs. iPhone

2007-01-18T04:19:00.001-08:00

Just came across an article about how the iPhone might impact RIM. Some say it may not recover, even with two upcoming products in the pipeline, Indigo and Crimson. It's the first I've heard of these new models and the article mentions that these two models are not considered to be as much of a breakthrough than the Pearl. Here's a quote: "They are hitting the sweet spot of product cycle for

Sony Ericsson takes #3 spot in global mobile sales

2007-01-17T06:35:00.001-08:00

Sony Ericsson overtook Samsung in mobile sales in Q4 '06, with sales of €3.8bn last quarter, up 64% year on year. The top two players are Nokia and Motorola; Samsung's revenue had fallen 7 percent. Contributing factors: S/E sold 74.8M units in 2006, with 60M music enabled phones. 17 million of these were walkman phones. Average pre-tax profits are about €21.5 per phone. Strongest growth

Bollywood on the third screen

2007-01-16T21:43:00.001-08:00

Just read a Business Week article about the creation of three short movies from Bollywood, made specifically for mobile devices. With low levels of literacy in India, Bollywood movies probably constitute a significant portion of media consumption. It will be interesting to see the broader implications of this new move. Full Story: Bollywood on Your Mobile Screen technorati tags:tmobile, blackberry, pearl, phone

Spotted: Bio-monitoring phone from Korea

2007-01-15T07:58:00.001-08:00

Korea is no doubt one of the most advanced in terms of mobile technology. A team from Korea's Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology has developed a sensor that monitors Glutamine Oxaloacetic Transaminase and Glutamine Pyruvic Transaminase (indicators of liver function) and beams it off to a hospital or third party via the phone. I'm sure they'll figure out privacy/HIPAA related

Spotted: Sprint now offers their own version of the Motorola Q

2007-01-14T10:05:00.001-08:00

Sprint has just added the Q to its lineup of phones. Makes one wonder what the impact of the iPhone is going to be on other carriers and phones. No one wants to get locked in for two years only to see all your friends carry new iPhones in a couple months and your new Q become obsolete. Are you better off buying unlocked phones (I guess this only applies to TMobile and Cingular)?Should phone

Spotted: Cellswapper; no more long contracts?

2007-01-11T22:02:00.001-08:00

Spotted on techcrunch ... cellswapper enables people to swap contracts on their cellphones. Contracts are clearly a huge problem and this type of buyer lock-in is irritating customers. If only the pay-per-use voice guys also had unlimited data ... CellSwapper Solves A Very Annoying Problem New Jersey based CellSwapper is a cool service that came at just the right time. The site, which calls

2nd Flock founder leaves Flock

2007-01-11T21:42:00.001-08:00

Techcrunch confirms Geoffrey Arone is leaving flock to join Bessemer Ventures as an EIR. Yes, this post was blogged using Flock :) Update: This is now confirmed. Arone commented below, saying “I will be working closely with Flock, which is a Bessemer company. I have enjoyed working with Bessemer throughout and this opportunity presented itself. Flock is well-aligned with partners and is

Apple sued over iPhone name

2007-01-11T21:36:00.001-08:00

Apparently the iPhone name is not unique and was registered almost 10 years ago ... full story spotted on CNET ... Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in the year 2000 after it acquired a company called Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates back to March 20, 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, has

TeleNav's traffic offering unveiled at CES 2007

2007-01-11T21:16:00.001-08:00

A new service is "Traffic," a capability to detect the flow of traffic and, if necessary re-route the user around critical events, such as accidents and traffic jams. The service is supported by data that is collected from road sensors maintained by the Department of Transportation (DoT) as well as fleet data that is collected from the GPS systems commercial systems installed for example in

Company Visit: Vocera

2007-01-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

Healthcare facilities involve a mobile workforce that traditionally relies on a one-way paging system, which is often ineffective and can be a contributor to preventable deaths. Vocera's interactive messaging product enables healthcare staff to communicate with colleagues in a convenient and hands-free manner, compressing or eliminating several steps in their workflow. It also reduces the

California Trip -- TeleNav

2007-01-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

Traveled to Califiornia with the Sloan E&I crew to visit VC firms and venture-backed companies. The visit to TeleNav was one of the most anticipated. They provide the software and service that allow a mobile phone to double as a GPS navigation devices. Their flagship product, TeleNav GPS Navigator is offered on Cingular and Nextel/Sprint. Pretty cool stuff!technorati tags:mobile, gps, navigation,