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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Last week at The Fonecast: 14th November 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

Flash is dead, HTML5 is the future. Okay, the next stage in the evolution of the mobile browser isn’t that clear – but a restructure at Adobe has pretty much marked the end of mobile Flash development.

Let’s get the rest of the week’s bad news out the way now. It seems Best Buy UK couldn’t convince enough people that its products were… well… best buys. That’s one suggestion after Best Buy Europe announced plans to close its eleven so-called ‘Big Box’ stores in the UK. Most staff are expected to be offered roles within The Carphone Warehouse – and we’ll see the Best Buy brand in some of those shops as well.

The Motorola Defy isn’t as tough as the company suggests, according to the Advertising Standards Authority. O2 UK isn’t selling the Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone handset in its shops. And applications from Apple’s App Store aren’t necessarily as safe as you might think.

Bad news also came for Nigel Cranswick, who was arrested after attempting the UK’s largest VAT fraud. Some might suggest that claiming a start-up turnover of almost £100 million per week was a bit of a giveaway.

Doing its best to give the UK an enthusiastic kick up the backside was eBay, which published a mobile manifesto in a bid to boost economic recovery. Equally enthusiastic about new technology was Bromley FC; it persuaded its footballers to have QR Codes shaved into their hair.

Huawei was another company coming high in the enthusiasm stakes, having announced plans for a European design centre in London – and Sir Richard Branson was announced as one of the new investors in mobile payment company Square Inc, although neither he nor Square has revealed the amount of investment involved.

I started by talking about HTML5 – and that’s where I’ll finish. Our feature report on Monday last week saw me talking to Carsten Mickeleit, the CEO of Cortado, about a new HTML5 client that offers desktop-type document access on a variety of mobile devices. Is HTML5 the future?  On the basis of what we’ve seen in the past few days, it’s certainly a big part of it.

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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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