Posted by Tish Grier in News
July 29, 2010
Summit at Stanford 2010: What’s New in the Mobile Monetization World There’s a fascinating conference going on at Stanford on the mobile world. This post offers some key insights from the first session on Brazil, app monetization and revenue stream possibilities.
JIL’s slow progress doesn’t bode well for WAC The relationship between WAC and JIL sounds like a good idea. But could that relationship turn out to be not so great for WAC? Some interesting points raised in this article on how the whole idea of WAC might be a bit too late.
LG Launches App Store With No Android Apps How odd….and the store is available only in 23 European countries.
GNOME 3 not ready yet, release pushed back to 2011 GNOME is not ready for mass consumption just yet–as it was announced at the GUADEC conference this week.
New Mobile Network for Congo Nears Launch Equatur Telecom, a subsidiary of Bintel, will operate in Congo under the name Azur. Azur Congo will launch in Brazzaville and Point Noir, and will spread to other cities.
Vodafone brings solar power mobile phone to India One third of Indians don’t have regular or no electricity, but they have an appetite and need for mobile phones. What better device to get in their hands than a solar powered mobile handset! The new device will need 8 hours of sunlight to charge, can support 8 days of use on standby and four hours of constant talk time. It will also be able to act as a torch light and FM radio. Now that certainly is a multi-use handset.
Posted by Tish Grier in News
July 28, 2010
HTC launches first branded phones in China HTC is set to launch its first branded phones in China. Two phones will be made specially for China Mobile,. One will be a high-end device running Windows Mobile; the other a mid-priced Android model. Both will have touch screens. Up to now, HTC has been selling phones in China under the Dopod brand name. This marks two huge moves on the part of HTC: one to establish the Taiwanese handset maker as a global brand, the other is to break into the mid-price handset market in China. If HTC can keep up with demand, it stands to capture one of the biggest developing markets on the globe.
Vodafone cans tailor-made LiMo phone Things are not looking good for LiMo right now. Vodafone has decided to ditch plans on development of a group of phones tailored to its Vodafone 360 social media and apps platform. Vodafone’s pretty happy with the 100 or so handsets that support Vodafone 360 suite of services across several device platforms including Android. The 360 app store, which now offers around 7,000 apps, will be part of the international Wholesale Applications Community.
Nokia Asks Consumers To Choose Its Next Phone In a bold move, Nokia is “crowdsourcing” its customer base to help determine its “ultimate concept phone.” Since March, consumers have been putting forth their ideas and, currently, they would like to see a 4-inch capacitive display, open source operating system, unlimited multitasking, HDMI and 802.11 n/b/g WiFi connectivity, Dolby Surround Sound, an 8MP canera with 4x optical zoom and HD video recording. Can Nokia come up with a handset to meet consumer’s desires? We’ll see.
Center Stage: Real Mobile Innovation That Drives Real Results; Why Developing Markets are the Ones to Watch The U.S. might be the trendsetter for enterprise, but it’s user-centric design and user-centric services that will improve the livelihoods of all people across the globe. In this interview with Susan Dray, President of Dray & Associates, we get some insights into a user-centric mobile world where real change can happen in people’s lives.
The mobile chip ecosystem- an overview The appetite for multi-functionality in smartphone handsets makes the integrated circuits segment of the semiconductor market a hot place for innovation and development. Read this great overview for more insight.
Posted by Tish Grier in News
July 27, 2010
BlackBerry’s Era May Be Ending RIM’s influence may be waning as more U.S. Fortune 100 companies deploy iPhones and activate Android smartphones. RIM , however, is still holding its own globally for now.
Apple iPhone4 Ready for Global Expansion Beginning Friday, July 30, iPhone4 will be available in 14 European countries, and available for the first time in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Will this also mean more antenna problems? Or does the rest of the world get better working handsets than those that were available at the first launch?
Vodafone announces Mobile Clicks innovation competition for 2010 Lee Epting, Vodafone’s Director of Content Services says “Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market.” This year there will be a first and second place winner, with 100, 000 Eruos going to first and 50,000 Euros to second place.
LiMo Foundation partners with GNOME on open source We will have to wait to see if this merger will stimulate developer interest in the LiMo Platform. Right now, everyone seems to be most interested in the Top Five. Read more at Linux Groups Collaborate on Mobile Operating Systems.
Wholesale Applications Community Accelerates Delivery of Open Applications Platform The WAC announced its formation as a corporate entity as well as the new org’s leadership and board of directors. The company also announced an alliance with Joint Innovation Lab to speed up the development of WAC-enabled application stores. This could be a boon to developers when it comes to bringing their apps to market–and a boon to consumers by delivering greater choice and value. Look for more by September 2010.
Posted by Tish Grier in News
July 26, 2010
Ericsson Sales Dip, Profit Doubles Profits have more than doubled in the same period over last year, but sales fell by 8%. Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg blames the downturn on shortages of critical components for building wireless networks, especially 3G and LTE. Contributing to this is a hard hit from China in their telecom network equipment division. Despite this, Vestberg sees future revenue growth from mobile broadband.
Vodafone Greece targets consumers with 3G femtocell service With this move the femtocell provider adds Greece to Quatar, Spain, and the U.K., which makes it the femtocell leader in Europe.
Baidu Seeks Android Deal, China Listing The Bejing-based search giant is in talks with mobile handset providers that use the Android os about embedding a Baidu search box. The Symbian Foundation is already in talks with Baidu to integrate Baidu search functions into Symbian.
Behind BBC Trust’s Apps Decision: Paid Apps Are Screwed Anyway A market assessment that the BBC Trust commissioned from Mediatique came to the conclusion that the paid apps “goldrush” will be over in the next few years. But perhaps Mediatique is “stretching optimism” just a bit. Don’t count out paid apps yet. Meanwhile, BBC launches its new Mobile News app, but only for iPhone and iPad. The Beeb says that apps for Android and BlackBerry will follow shortly.
Code for America Recruiting Tech Talent Now The U.S. Federal Government is putting out an open call to all tech professionals to step up and help American cities and public sector organizations to improve efficiency. Check out the Code for America site to find out more.
HP pushes tablets, new version of webOS After saying that it might back off from tablet production, Todd Bradley, executive v.p. of the personal systems group at HP, announced at the Fortune Brainstorm Conference, that the company would release multiple table devices later this year. Palm also announced it plans to release webOS 2.0 later this year.
Posted by Tish Grier in News
July 23, 2010
Android’s ascent in China might not elevate Google Android stands to become the biggest mobile os in China. Not so fast. The Chinese mobile ecosystem is in the process of producing competitor OPhone, along with a whole host of other non-Android Android issues. Read more to find out what you’d be up against if you decide to develop for China. Also check out 3G: Craving cachet in China oh, if China could only get a good, cheap handset!
Ars reviews the Mortorola Droid X Sounds like a great new smartphone. If you can get one…
Mobile Arpu drop led to revenues decline by 7% in Japan Japan’s mobile market is one of the hottest, but it seems to be going through some tough times at the moment.
Flipboard launches ‘social magazine’ for Apple’s iPad This new ‘social magazine’ brings together news, photos, and other ephemera from the user’s Twitter and Facebook communities. Users can also create sections based on topics or people. Flipboard’s raised some good Series A funding from a number of marquee names.
Skype drops 3G call charges That’s all fine and dandy, but Don’t worry about saving minutes with Skype, think data use
Developer Workshop: Vlingo Great comments from Vlingo CEO Dave Grannan on developing voice-activated apps.
Microsoft Wants Employees to Develop Apps in Their Spare Time I guess they have to make up for all the money they lost on the Kin from somewhere. And why Microsoft is giving all their employees free Windows 7 devices.
Posted by Tish Grier in News
July 22, 2010
Global smartphone sales hit 60M, led by Nokia According to new figures from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments rose 43% annually, with a record 60M units in the second quarter. Nokia managed to capture 40% of the market share with its competitively priced smartphones. In Q2, smartphones accounted for half of Nokia’s total device revenues worldwide. Now is the time for Nokia to focus on the smartphone!
Nokia Q2 2010 results – profits down but smartphone sales up Nokia reports an operating profit of 295 million Euros, with net sales of 10 billion Euros. That’s a 31% fall in profits. Not to mention that while smartphones are up, they’re nowhere near Apple or RIM. Maybe it’s time for better, smartphone-focused leadership at Nokia.
Lenovo plans Android tablet PC in growth push Lenovo isn’t happy being the number 4 PC brand in the world–and is ready to get LePad out there. They might change that name, but not the use of the Android OS. Since HP’s pulling back on their plans for a tablet (for now) perhaps Lenovo can move up with their tablet.
How a 15-yo Kid Tricked Apple With a Disguised iPhone Tethering App What a clever lad! Inside the Handy Light app was a full-fledged tethering app, allowing owners to use that iPhone as a 3G modem. If you were lucky enough to download it, you can still use it (even though Apple has pulled the app.)
First look at Windows Phone 7 yields mixed reviews It doesn’t cut-and-paste. It doesn’t run multiple applications. “There’s practically no real innovation we can see with Windows Phone 7,” noted the Boy Genius Report. Overall, most say “meh” to the Windows Phone 7.
