Mobile Bliss

I was reading a post by Fred Wilson on AVC.

From today's front page story in the New York Times about Google's $4.6bn wireless bid.

In the Internet giant’s view of the future, consumers would buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific carrier, they would be free to pick any carrier they wanted. Instead of wireless carriers choosing what software goes on their phones, users would be free to put any software they want on them.

Hell yeah! This is the way it must be. Open devices, open services, open spectrum.

What would be really cool is if Google paid $4.6bn for the spectrum and then opened it up for the world to use as we see fit, just like Facebook opened up their platform.

The good part is that we already have this in India. It's strange that we don't realize the importance of things that come free to us - I can go any buy a phone, choose whatever carrier I want, and put whatever software on that, TODAY!

Mobile scratch-proof glass, and the road ahead

I have recently moved from a vanilla-Nokia-phone to some sort of a smart phone. My new Nokia N73 is pretty smart. One thing that constantly worries me, to the extent that I was thinking of not using this phone is the delicateness of this phone. This is a very nice phone, however the screen is so delicate, and it’s so costly that I can’t use it the way I used to use my old phone. I used to throw my old phone on my desk, on my car seat, treated it pretty badly – and it worked GREAT. However, the N73, with a 3.2 megapizels Carl Ziess lens, cannot be thrown around, with it’s delicate screen I can’t even keep my keys or coins in the same pocket I keep my phone.

I interestingly I see Judi Sohn concerned about iPhone:

there is no way I’m buying a glass-covered cell phone for $500 without accidental protection or some assurance that this thing can take everyday bumps and bruises without a problem. I want to use this thing…not display it on my wall for goodness sakes.

I also see iPhone addressing this problem by making a scratch proof glass. I wonder why Nokia doesn't make scratch proof glass? Is it because they want people to throw away their phone after a few months of usage and buy the latest models?

I am wondering what are the other major mobile innovations I am going to see in the next 12 months?

India is 4th largest in mobile web access

ContentSutra reports:

The number of people entering Cyberspace via their cellphones has more than doubled in India in the past year, making the country home to the fourth largest population—behind the U.K., the U.S. and South Africa—browsing the Internet through mobile handsets, according to a study reported by the PTI.

I have to tell that I have "converted" after purchasing my Nokia N73. This is a superb machine, which I have fallen in love with. What I am amazed about is the GPRS speed and the ease of web-surfing. I can get my company email, Yahoo!Mail and Gmail all on this device, and pretty quickly. The speed is great, and the UI is great. This phone has an amazing history feature, where is displays miniaturized versions of the pages that I visited in the past - very cool feature.

I watched a video on this phone, with headphones - and thats Amazing - clarity, quality and speed. I have to agree that very soon people will actually watch TV and movies of their phones. That's your own personal space; no more fighting for the remote - and with equal or better video and sound quality.

To top it, it takes great pictures and videos.

BTW - You can find a good review of N73 here.

You can't get better than this, in the given cost - at least for the next week :-)

Ubuntu Mobile Announced

Posted on Slashdot, posted by Zonk on Tuesday May 08, @09:58AM

"The BBC has up an article detailing the 'Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded' project which was announced by Matt Zimmerman, Ubuntu's CTO, on the Ubuntu developers mailing list. Zimmerman stated that 'These devices place new demands on open-source software and require innovative graphical interfaces, improved power management and better responsiveness.' According to the article, Intel will have their finger in the pie too, as they've recently announced a prototype device running Ubuntu. Part of the project's goal is to maximise the power saving abilities of a planned low-energy chip codenamed Silverthorn. The chip will be just one-seventh the size of normal chips, and consume only 10% of the power of existing processor. What does this mean for projects such as OpenMoko? Healthy competition, or the beginning of the end?"

iPhone is Real…Macworld Keynote Live

WOW.




























Gigaom has an excellent coverage of the Keynote speech at Macworld, and the announcement of iphone. Here is a pointwise excerpt:

• Dropping Computer from company name, now just APPLE
• Will try and sell 10 million in 2008. 1% market share in the mobile phone business.
• Multiyear agreement exclusive with Cingular
• Shipping exclusively on Cingular in the US
• Available in June 2007
• $499 for 4GB model, $599 for 8GB
• 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone. Now getting to pricing finally.
• 5 hours battery life, 16 hours audio playback.
• Google Maps, search built into the device. Jerry Yang does a cameo too, Yahoo providing free push IMAP email accounts for all iPhone customers.
• they’ve been working on this for 2.5 years
• wifi and bluetooth,quadband gsm + edge
• has random access voicemail
• runs on osx
• the thing is one giant screen
• revolutionary interface. motorola q, black berry, treo, nokia e62 … every program wants its own buttons and controls, but they can’t change… we solved it in computers 20 years ago with bitmap screen and pointing device, mouse. getting rid of all buttons
• the place is going wild.
• iPhone is announced. it’s called the iphone
• 2 billion songs sold on iTunes. 5 million a day

See also this slideshow at flickr.

A video Pico Projector for cellphones

Textually.org reports:
At the upcoming CES, Microvision will showcase the Pico Projector, a tiny tiny projector capable of projecting a full color notebook-sized screen onto any surface and at any distance, reports OhGizmo. It would be interesting to check its characteristics. The Germany Fraunhofer Institute has been working on a similar device but said it hasn't found yet a way to shrink a red-blue-green video projector into cellphones.

First short movie to premiere on the mobile phones in India

Contentsutra reports:

Phonethics Mobile Media has tied up with Reliance Communications to make available on Reliance Web World, their short film Ctrl+Alt+Del, starring actor Rahul Bose. As per the release, this is the first short movie to premiere on the mobile phones in India. I wouldn’t call it a premiere, since it has been screened at film festivals, and on NDTVs Indie Film Club. Phonethics will also be developing 30-60 second and 3-5 minute long content for the mobile. A trailor can be viewed here.

SMS and other mobile applications -

Very interesting news from around the world:

IDT Internet Mobile Group's market research firm reports that -

"the worldwide mobile content market will grow from $16.7B in 2003 to $78B by 2007."

Textually.com reports "Using text message to send cash" in Phillipines:

Smart Communications, the system of using text messages to transfer cash now delivers at least $50 million a month to families in the Philippines, according to Washington-based lender International Finance Corp , reports The Mercury News

"The Philippines was an obvious place for the evolution to occur, given the huge popularity of text messaging there and the large numbers of people who receive regular remittances from abroad. According to bank data, nearly 8 million Filipinos in more than 100 countries sent nearly $100 billion home over the past 30 years.

NDTV.com reports -

"A Bangalore based company has launched a unique service where a short message service (SMS) will now give you the number of the nearest taxi service." "We would like to support by providing information as to how you can get transport and that facilitation is important when people tend to enjoy in this festive mood," said Vijay Rekhi, President and MD, United Spirits.

Itnewsonline.com reports -

Reliance Communications Ltd. has launched the 'Free Group Term Life Cover' (TLC) offer for the more than 25 million CDMA subscribers of Reliance Mobile and Reliance Hello. The scheme offers Reliance Communications' customers an insurance cover of up to Rs. 50,000 merely through an SMS without paying any premium.

India's GSM user base crosses the 100 mn landmark

Economictimes reports:

Riding on the cellular boom and the aggressive strategy by operators to add new users, the GSM subscriber base in the country has crossed the 100-million landmark. India has now become the third-largest GSM market in the world behind China (401.7 million subscribers) and Russia (152.2 million). Five million new GSM subscribers were added in November, which is the largest since cellular services began in India in 1995. During October, India had created a global record by adding 6.5 million new wireless (including both CDMA and GSM) subscribers.

GSM market share stands like this:
Bharti Airtel - 30.3% with total subscriber base at 30,262,269
BSNL - 22.80% with total subscriber base at 22,975,201
Hutchison Essar - 22.10% with total subscriber base at 22,274,580