Archive for April 12th, 2008
Hong Kong based HKC (no it's not a typo) launched the world's first Windows Mobile smartphone with two SIM card slots, allowing savvy users to make and receive phone calls on two networks while doing their usual “Exchange thing.” Two models were announced — W1000 which is equipped with one GSM and one CDMA SIM slot, and G1000 that comes with to GSM slots.
Aside from boasting two SIM slots, the both devices also sport 200MHz Qualcomm CPU, 256MB ROM and 64MB RAM, 2.8 inch QVGA touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth support, and a standard microSD slot. On the down side, the lack of 3G radio and WiFi is a dealbreaker for many people, myself included. In addition, faster CPU and more RAM are a must these days, especially for the resource hungry Windows Mobile. Not to mention, 3 megapixel camera and a VGA screen are also cool to have on board, but something's gotta give, I guess. Let's hope HKC's next smartphone will include all the things I just mentioned. Then we might have a true winner! In the meantime, check out the short demo video after the jump.
[Via: SlashPhone]
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Goldstriker keeps pushing various luxury versions of Apple's handset. Lately we've spotted the gorgeous red grain leather version, made by their chief designer Stuart Hughes. Only 250 of these will be made, so it's wise to take your place on time. The red grain iPhones will begin selling from the end of this months for $1,800. Not cheap, and not for everyone.
Finally, if you don't dig the red leather, Goldstriker stated they'll also release the device in other colors like ivory, black and more…
[Via: textually.org]
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Goldstriker keeps pushing various luxury versions of Apple's handset. Lately we've spotted the gorgeous red grain leather version, made by their chief designer Stuart Hughes. Only 250 of these will be made, so it's wise to take your place on time. The red grain iPhones will start selling from the end of this months for $1,800. Not cheap, and not for everyone.
Finally, if you don't dig the red leather, Goldstriker said they'll also release the device in other colors like ivory, black and more…
[Via: textually.org]
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UK: Tesco, the (primarily) food-retailing superstore, which also happens to run an MVNP, has been trialling a WAP advertising portal since Might 2007 - Tesco states access to the portal has been growing, resulting in 300,000 unique visitors in December 07.
The Ads were delivered as “traditional” banner Ads with a click-through, and included brands such as ITV, Nivea and Teletext.
Interestingly, Tesco stated it's demographics include a big segment of female household “budget owners”, with an average age of 36 - this apparently means that for advertisers with products that are “fast-moving consumer goods such as toiletries and cleaning products”, it is a good target audience.
The survey that Tesco commissioned apparently showed that “more than half (60 per cent) of portal users are female and the same percentage said they visit the portal at least once a month, while 69 per cent claimed they would click on a relevant advert.”
These stats seem to fly in the face of typical Mobile World wide web access - either Tesco know something we don't, or they have the most M-Internet-savvy user-base I've seen in some time!
[Via: Silicon.com]
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UK: Tesco, the (primarily) food-retailing superstore, which also happens to run an MVNP, has been trialling a WAP advertising portal since May 2007 - Tesco states access to the portal has been growing, resulting in 300,000 very special visitors in December 07.
The Ads were delivered as “traditional” banner Ads with a click-through, and included brands such as ITV, Nivea and Teletext.
Interestingly, Tesco stated it's demographics include a huge segment of female household “budget owners”, with an average age of 36 - this apparently means that for advertisers with products that are “fast-moving consumer goods such as toiletries and cleaning products”, it is a good target audience.
The survey that Tesco commissioned apparently showed that “more than half (60 per cent) of portal users are female and the same percentage said they visit the portal at least once a month, while 69 per cent claimed they would click on a relevant advert.”
These stats seem to fly in the face of typical Mobile World wide web access - either Tesco know something we don't, or they have the most M-Internet-savvy user-base I've seen in some time!
[Via: Silicon.com]
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Virgin Trains is working with Vodafone to add retransmitters for 2G/3G to 52 of the trains on their fleet - boosting signal strengths for customers. The project, which is due to complete in November, has apparently seen a 60% increase in successfully completed calls.
At the same time the carrier is also urging business users to be careful in using the train as a easy extension of their office and discussing confidential matters - apparently 70% of those in 2000 person survey stated they’d discussed business in public carriages, 20% stated they’d talked about business-critical subjects, and 15% stated they’d mentioned confidential information.
However the most worrying stat of all was that 26% of people admitted to following up on business leads overheard in other people's conversations!!
[Via: SlashPhone]
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Singapore: Motorola recently demonstrated the first handoffs between public WiMAX access points (at the WiMAX Forum Congress Asia 2008).
The demo was enabled through a mobile WiMAX network set up at Motorola's facility in Ang Mo Kio, Singapore. Attendees were able to experience various mobile applications including video conferencing, web browsing and mobile streaming while moving past access point sites along the bus route.
This really shows Moto's commitment to WiMAX, a technology that is competing with 4G-LTE, and to some extent, HSPA - ultimately the battle won't be a technological one alone, but also coverage, and cost. Motorola seem to be well-positioned, as the PR states:
Mobile WiMAX solutions will enable operators in Asia Pacific to provide cost-effective, fast and easy-to-deploy broadband services to fixed, portable and mobile users. Motorola has won numerous commercial contracts and conducted trials across Asia Pacific including the first trial in Thailand with United Information Highway. The demonstration builds on Motorola's leadership in developing wireless broadband technology. Motorola now has 19 contracts for commercial WiMAX networks in 18 countries around the world. For more information about Motorola wi4 WiMAX solutions, please visit: http://www.motorola.com/wimax.
[Via: BetaNews.com]
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Hong Kong: Ericsson has been selected as sole supplier for mutimedia service network upgrades by SmarTone-Vodafone. Ericsson will supply a HSPA-enabled radio access network, including MBMS, and a fully IP-based core network (including IMS). The deal will also include all related Professional Services (PS) work.
Ericsson is already the sole supplier of SmarTone-Vodafone’s core and radio networks, including GPRS and WCDMA, so this is in effect a build-out of existing relations.
What I find interesting here’s that in this deal, SmarTone-VF are effectively throwing the dice as to how for example they want to deliver Mobile Television. I was lucky enough to be sat in an MBMS-like presentation by a company the other day, and I think IP-broadcast of Television has some serious benefits.
HSPA is a bit of an implicit buzzword now, what with the big surge in use of 3G USB Modems (finally 3G fast-data networks found their killer “app”!) - deploying it arguably kills WiFi and potentially even WiMAX stone-dead. True 4G networks need to be substantially faster than HSPA services, so SmarTone's choice of rolling out infrastructure to support key IP services looks be a really “SmarT-one” (if you'll pardon the pun!)
[Via: WebWire]
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MobiAD News has conducted an interview with Pascal Thomas, mobile visionary and VP of Orange NExT (the mobile media division of France Telecom Orange), on advertising through social networks. You can read the full interview here, but here are some of the highlights:
- Segmentation - the traditional view is that all subs fit in to 6 or 7 categories - new thinking states that segmentation should be dynamic and that subs can fit in to one or more categories at the same time, and that over the course of say a week, these categories might change - either by the day, or even the hour!
- Collecting data - to identify these transient segments, data can be collected through the multiple social networks which people sign up for. Orange for example has been trialling a social network aggregator that connects subs to multiple social networks. Pascal says “This is something we will introduce as ‘Mobile Open Communities’”. Obviously the app is collecting usage data on you at the same time…
- Multi-play operator - because Orange is a multi-play operators, it should be possible to gather data across the various “channels” (bearers) people use to consume media. However, this is apparently not so easy to do. Pascal explains that the issue with identifying not with Mobile, but with who is sat in front of the Computer or TV, which are often shared devices.
- “Rewind-TV”- the central thread here’s tha Orange have chosen a strategy to record everything they broadcast, because then a user can pick the channel on which they access the content, at their leisure (often called “on-demand”). What’s means for advertising is dynamic ad-insertion, because you always want the most up-to-date and targeted Ad, irrespective of when the content was from.
- New Metrics for consumer engagement - essentially, how do you correctly measure the effect of this new wave of advertising? There’s a very interesting quote from Pascal here:
“What we want to do is to build a bubble, and have our customers sit within the bubble. We will bring outside services into the bubble so they get what they want. It’s the time spent by people on a service that’s important, that’s where the value will come.”
Obviously some interesting stuf here, and a glimpse in to how one of the big Tier 1 OpCos in Europe in facing up to the challenge of next-gen Advertising…
[Via: MobiAD News]
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There's a nice piece by BBC News columnist Bill Thompson which speaks about how the internet is changing the way that journalism works - you can find it here - and which I thought I would pick up on.
The central thread of the piece is that the internet has had a big effect on the way that news is generated, delivered, and most importantly, consumed. It has led to the re-invention of things like Radio, for example, in to audio “streams”, and podcasts. It has changed TV from minority channel broadcast, to long-tail “channels on-demand”. And over all of these bearers (and more), “news” comes closer each day to being more “real” - because the web empowers us to connect with the news source, rather than receiving it through a broker (and editor) such as the major news corps.
What I would add to Bill's article is that where the Interweb changed the game in one dimension, Mobile is having as huge an effect, if not greater, and will ADD another dimension altogether. What happens when you change the delivery channels and formats from the ground up (web), and then on top of that, Mobilize all the tools you need (camera, video, blog, audio, text) in to a device that can run for days, and get on the internet anywhere?
I believe we are on the cusp of a seed change to the way media is created and consumed - readers of this site are amongst the “first wave” who are trying things out, seeing what works, and deriving the best-fit models which are feeding through to the critical-mass - that’s, the point at which media creation and consumption is in the hands of the masses.
For Bill's well-written article on the effects of the web from his perspective, check it out here. For the Mobile side of things, we here at IntoMobile would love to hear your thoughts…
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