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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

What difference will the Amazon and LOVEFiLM deal make to the mobile industry?

Mark Bridge writes:

If you’ve read any of the tech press today you’ll have seen that Amazon.com is buying LOVEFiLM. Yes, that really is how the company writes its name. Amazon already had quite a collection of LOVEFiLM shares, so it’s really just buying the remainder.

LOVEFiLM, in case you’ve missed the TV ads and online promotions, does DVD rental by post and also streams video over the internet. Oh, and it does games rental as well.

Needless to say, both companies have issued statements saying how great it is for them and their customers. “We look forward to a productive and innovative future”. “We can significantly enhance our members’ experience across Europe”.

But what does all this mean to the mobile industry?

Well, Pocket-Lint.com has interviewed LOVEFiLM CEO Simon Calver and Amazon VP of EU retail Greg Greeley in an article headlined “Lovefilm and Amazon to bring movies to your phone”. Although neither man explicitly says they’re planning this, it certainly seems an obvious next move for the online side of the business.

In fact, if you’ve been following the LOVEFiLM Twitter feed, you’ll know that just yesterday the company Tweeted “We have a number of exciting developments underway for mobile devices in 2011, more news available soon” in reply to a question.

However, the idea of streamed movies on smartphones – as opposed to downloads – raises the usual questions about data. LOVEFiLM (the novelty of that lower case i is starting to wear thin!) says an average video stream over your home broadband will transfer approximately 500MB of data for a 90 minute film. That’s your entire T-Mobile ‘fair usage’ allowance for a month.

Is that realistic for mobile devices?  Well, US-based video streaming service Netflix – arguably one of the reasons Amazon decided to snap up LOVEFiLM – has an iPhone and iPad application. A quick look at various online figures suggests the ‘500MB per film’ figure sits somewhere towards the higher end of individual mobile experiences.

It’s possible to adjust video quality (and therefore data usage) based on connection speed and type, so the cost of video streaming needn’t be quite as scary as it first seems.

Yet without higher or truly unlimited mobile data allowances, it’ll still be a luxury to download full-length movies to mobile phones.

Will the Amazon and LOVEFiLM deal affect the mobile industry?  Almost definitely, I’d say. Will it make a big difference?  It’s much harder to answer that one.

With current tariffs, I’d say no. But just imagine a colour-screen Kindle with the same kind of inclusive mobile data deal available on the company’s current eBook reader. Watch out, iPad – the LOVEFiLM tablet could be on the way!

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Opinion Articles

‘The Eyes Have It’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

DoCoMo are one of many network operators and handset manufacturers demonstrating innovative new products as Mobile World Congress. Our eye was caught by the employee demonstrating “Eye Controlled Earphones”. It’s a good job the ladies from the CBOSS stand weren’t walking past at the time.

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'Mobile Money Monday' at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Monday’s Mobile World Congress conference agenda dedicated one of 4 streams to Mobile Money - Transfers, Transactions and Technology allowing all stakeholders to share experiences and debate the future of Mobile and Money.

Two types of service dominated presentations and panel discussions; Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enabling payment at traditional Point of Sale (PoS), and the Mobile Wallet replacing plastic or cash.

Author: The Fonecast
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‘Innovation Corner’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Here’s my pick of the 3 most innovative companies I’ve uncovered at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.

Cootek.com win the prize for simplest innovation... an accurate touch screen keyboard. They’re a few months away from being ready to release the software to handset manufacturers, but the demo handsets worked very well. The keyboard assumes the user is not going to press the intended key, but in fact might miss and press another key in the same area. Based on this knowledge and an extensive dictionary of words and language context, it’s able to determine the intended word with surprising accuracy. I sincerely hope their technology will be made available for the Nexus One in the not too distant future.

Author: The Fonecast
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Google “Mobile First” from Eric Schmidt’s Key Note at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, presented a compelling vision of a mobile centric future. The phone has become the “high value end point” for Google services enabled by a combination of increasing handset power, mobile data networks and cloud computing. By far the scarcest resource is the bandwidth available through the mobile data networks. Google appear committed to work with Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to maximise bandwidth usage, although several audience questions suggested scepticism from the main stream mobile industry. Eric expressed a need to maintain a harmonious relationship with MNOs stating Google could not operate its service on mobile devices without their co-operation.

Author: The Fonecast
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The great Windows Mobile 7 conspiracy theory

Mark Bridge writes:

I like a good conspiracy theory. A good one, mind you. None of this “Funny thing happened on the way to Mars” nonsense. Oh no, not me. And, despite occasionally mirroring Jerry Fletcher by balancing a bottle on the door handle, I’ve never been inclined to publish such a theory. Until now.

You see, it’s Mobile World Congress in a fortnight’s time. Which is when the great and the good of the mobile industry – along with their mates and hangers-on – head for Barcelona. Microsoft will be there. They’re holding a press briefing on Monday afternoon. And there’s a lot of talk about Windows Mobile 7 being (unofficially) on the agenda. But where’s the evidence?

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