Mark Bridge writes:

When it came to telephones, my granny was an early adopter. She had a landline phone for as long as I can remember - and that’s quite a while when you consider the town only got an automatic telephone exchange two years after I was born. Recent research has now suggested that my granny was also well ahead of the game when it came to consumer behaviour.

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m reminded of a sketch from BBC TV’s ‘The Young Ones’ in 1982. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are waiting around.

“What’s new?”, asks Pestilence. “Microchip technology”, replies one of the others. “That’s quite a new thing, isn’t it?”

Quite new. It’s probably the best description for much of last week’s mobile industry news.

Mark Bridge writes:

Security is often a balancing act - and security on mobile devices is no exception. If procedures and processes aren't tough enough, you'll compromise the security of the information you're protecting. But if your security is too tight or if it seems too complicated to an end user, that user is likely to find a way round your security by doing something else instead.

Mark Bridge writes:

Atria Books, part of the Simon & Schuster publishing family, has released what it’s calling the first-ever smart book. A thousand copies of ‘The Impulse Economy’ by Gary Schwartz will have an NFC sticker attached, providing a web link to book-related content.

Hmmm. That’s not really a smart book, is it?  The same kind of logic means my NFC credit card turns my wallet into a ‘smart wallet’ and transforms the pocket of my jeans into ‘smart jeans’. It means my NFC-equipped smartphone is a smart smartphone.

Mark Bridge writes:

In the world of retail, you can’t move for Hallowe’en puns at the moment. You know the kind of thing. Spooky offers. Frighteningly low prices. Missing our deals will haunt you. There’s not the ghost of a chance we’ll shift these PlayBooks unless we cut the price.