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Friday, May 20, 2011

Apocalypse Nokia

Mark Bridge writes:

The phenomenon of ‘apocalypse sex’ is often seen in movies, comedy shows and advertisements. The end of the world’s just around the corner so… hey… what the heck?

I reckon it shares the same emotional basis as being ‘demob happy’ or having that ‘end of term feeling’ at school.

And that feeling seems to be in plentiful supply at Nokia HQ in Espoo.

In recent weeks there’s been an almost-overwhelming diversity of announcements from Nokia. Today we’ve been told about Invent With Nokia, a new scheme that encourages people to offer ideas for new products and services. If your idea gets patented, Nokia will pay you for it. (Curiously, this is the same Nokia that’s making staff redundant and then paying them to start new businesses).

We’ve had the Ovi brand put to sleep in favour of the bigger Nokia brand. Symbian’s being passed to Accenture. There’ve been leaked images of the MeeGo-powered N9. We have ‘watch this space’ hints. There’s a budget smartphone for the USA.  3D maps. You get the picture. All that’s missing is being allowed to play your copy of Sandinista! by The Clash as part of the social studies lesson.

It feels more like a clearance sale than a strategy.

I appreciate that Nokia wants to clear the (burning) decks before settling down with Microsoft... but this apparent frenzy of activity doesn’t look like an ordered transition to me. I can’t help but wonder how many of these recent announcements have been pinned to the school noticeboard by the students who’ll be leaving at the end of term.

Apocalypse?  Nokialypse?  Apocanokialypse?

Come on, Nokia - stop messing around. The world isn’t ending, just changing. Let’s get on with the important stuff.

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Opinion Articles

Why a mobile TV service is just like a zombie

Mark Bridge writes:

Here in the UK, we’re struggling a bit with mobile TV. Which made me wonder what the problem really was. Well, after a long evening with the finest stilton and the cheapest port, the answer came to me in a dream. A mobile TV service is just like the lurching, drooling nightmare creatures that appear in every zombie film. And once consumers understand zombies, they’ll understand the problems with mobile TV. Let me explain.

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Selling your way out of a recession? Of course you can!

Iain Graham writes:

Everybody these days (apart from a lucky few!) is suffering from a lack of business or reduced sales due to the current 'downturn in the economic climate'. In my opinion, this is the time when sales people should stand up and be counted!

No, I don't mean the hard nosed, foot in the door double-glazing, second-hand car or mobile phone types (no offence!), I mean EVERYONE! Selling is a concept as much as it is a profession.

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Mobile & Contactless Payments

James Rosewell offers his opinion on the current state of mobile and contactless payments.

The banking and mobile industries have big plans for Near Field Communication (NFC) as the mobile payment mechanism of the future. Barclaycard has been leading the way from the credit card sector forming a partnership with Orange, having previously worked with O2, and running a catchy TV advert prompting contactless cards using VISA’s paywave system.

However the reality of NFC payments appears a lot further away. The Point of Sale (POS) technology appears to be badly deployed by some of the first-phase retailers mainly made up of low-value high-volume businesses like coffee shops, fast food outlets and newsagents.

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Insecure Mobile Browsers

James Rosewell writes: I note with interest Barclays mobile on-line banking home page extolling the safety of mobile banking whilst claiming it’s as secure as their non-mobile equivalent. This is on the same page that recommends customers use Opera Mini to access Barclays mobile on-line banking.

Yet following the link to the operamini.com web site and looking at the help section we can read Opera’s answer to the question “Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?” and the answer is “No. If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full Web browser such as Opera Mobile.”

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