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Friday, March 4, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 5th March 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s hardly worth mentioning the new iPad, is it? Not because I’m unimpressed – although I’d describe it as more of an upgrade than a brand-new product – but because everyone else has been talking about it so much. And we’ll be doing some more talking in Wednesday’s podcast, so let’s move on!

Until the launch of iPad 2, the hot topic in the UK involved the disappearance of Vodafone’s network in the south of England. A very literal disappearance; equipment was stolen from the company’s Basingstoke exchange after it was ram-raided. Voice and text services were back online around 12 hours later, which – depending on your perspective – was either pretty impressive or disappointingly slow.

Other bad news this week came from the Android Market, where more than 50 applications were waiting to steal your personal data. They’ve all gone now, thanks to prompt action from Google – although, as many have pointed out, it’s unlikely this would have ever happened in the Apple App Store.

In cheerier news, mobile ticket technology company Masabi says the mobile rail ticket application it developed for thetrainline.com now works on most smartphones and feature phones. The next step is the creation of on-screen tickets… just as soon as rail operators start supporting this feature. It seems the ‘mobile wallet’ really is getting closer.

That’s certainly the impression James and I gained at Mobile World Congress last month. In this week’s podcast we talked about the mobile payment and m-commerce products that were on show – and there’s an interview with Mary Carol Harris of Visa Europe.

From mobile-connected credit cards to mobile-connected air conditioning. A partnership between Vodafone and Bosch plans to make it easier for companies to deploy M2M (or ‘machine-to-machine’ connections, for those who prefer real words). Apparently lifts, escalators and air-con units could soon come with their own SIM card.

Other partnerships in the news included Motorola Mobility investing in mobile game developer Moblyng, Facebook acquiring mobile messaging service Beluga, Nokia and the Vietnamese government, Opera and INQ – and Qualcomm and Gameloft.

But perhaps I’m wasting my time telling you all this. After all, it’s the National Day of Unplugging on Saturday. Haven’t you switched off yet?


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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.

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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.

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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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