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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

WAC, Opera and Android

James Rosewell writes:

Just in time to make it into 2010, the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) has gained some important but relatively unreported publicity courtesy of Opera. It’s a slightly early Christmas present for Peters Suh, WAC CEO and a man keen to ensure the industry is presented with a story showing WAC meeting its targets.

Yesterday Opera announced that its new widget runtime for Google Android will support the WAC 1.0 Specification. This runtime enables developers seeking to launch apps with the WAC on day 1 to start development and testing on the Opera platform. It also provides some assurance that a significant and major vendor is going to support WAC technically on the fastest-growing mobile Operating System (OS). The announcement should go some way to eliminating doubts concerning the technical credibility of the project. After all, Opera has a reputation for supporting a wide range of mobile devices and this announcement means all the Android ones will support WAC applications. Expect more Opera platforms to follow in 2011.

However WAC 1.0 and Opera’s new runtime are both Alpha status, so I’m anticipating some fairly major technical changes before version 2.0 is agreed and the whole thing moves to Beta late Q1 or Q2 2011. So don’t rush out and start creating WAC applications unless you’re prepared to make some changes in a few months.

Considering Opera is widely used by many network operators who are members of the WAC to reduce demand on their networks via proxy server technology, it makes sense for Opera to be among the first companies to announce support. The question now is “when will other browser vendors follow?”  Expect to see many more announcing support in the run up to MWC11. After all, building on HTML5 makes it relatively easy and cheap to support and there’s little to lose at this stage.

So the technical credibility of the WAC seems rosy. However, commercial credibility remains in doubt and will be a matter for 2011. I’ll have much more to say next year!

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Opinion Articles

Last week at The Fonecast: 24th June 2013

More of the same

Mark Bridge writes:

Another week, another couple of product announcements from Samsung. There appears to be no stopping them, despite a recent drop in the company’s share price.

This time it’s a couple of tablets – one of which runs both Android and Windows 8 – and a 20 megapixel camera that’s got a 4G-enabled Android device built in.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 17th June 2013

Making the network truly mobile

Mark Bridge writes:

The telecommunications industry was making plenty of headlines last week – but much of it wasn’t particularly upbeat.

The debate about privacy and security continued in the wake of allegations about US agents intercepting internet traffic. Meanwhile, Nokia prepared to make its last Symbian smartphones and Tradedoubler warned that mobile devices were having a negative effect on high-street consumer loyalty.

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How to shield from internet snooping

George Putic of voanews.com writes:

When news broke about U.S. government agencies collecting metadata about its citizens’ Internet and phone communications, many were surprised by its scope. The surveillance covered a vast number of Internet messages and phone calls. The government did not deny the action but pointed out that the collected data contained, not the substance of the communication, but the so-called metadata.

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Giving it all away

Paying with our privacy

Mark Bridge writes:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about PRISM, which may allow the US National Security Agency - and anyone they choose - to access some of our personal online information if it passes through the USA. It’s unclear exactly what (if anything) is being shared with whom… and given the nature of national security, we may never know.

However, alongside the possibility of governments seeing information we thought was secure, it’s also worth pointing out that we choose to share plenty of online information ourselves.

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6 things you need to know about mobile research, smartphone rumours and imaginary new products

Mark Bridge writes:

Where did it all go wrong?  When did the mainstream mobile industry start to slide away from innovation and into repetitive nonsense?  For a while I suspected the downloadable ringtone was to blame. Just days after hearing 'Barbie Girl' on the mobile phone of a man from Vodafone Value Added Services in the late 1990s, I'd downloaded a poptastic tune to my own Nokia 2110. Soon, the entire mobile world was focussed on 30-second instrumentals instead of technical innovation. It was the beginning of the end.

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