Americans socially incompetent?

Just read a pretty powerful sentence by the Vice CEO of Nokia. He claimed "If you don't have full Internet in your pocket in 10 years time you will be socially incompetent!" What about the 72.5% of Americans who have decided against Internet use on their mobile phones?

According to a survey by IDC 72.5 percent of American cell phone subscribers have not accessed any content services on their handsets in 2006 other than SMS texting. The reason being appears to be that 47% thought data services were too expensive. In fact they thought they were overpaying. Currently Americans spend an average of $3.70 per month for data services. This is not a lot at all, considering that the cheapest mobile service provider in the UK is charging £1 per MB, but only as a package of 5MB and UK customers are happy to pay for it. This is more than three times as much as Americans are prepared to pay today.

Zagat on cellphones for those who will be stuffing their faces at Christmas time

What I like about Zagat is that restaurant reviews are based on impressions of ordinary folk, you and I.
I was therefore really happy to read that Zagat has launched a program that can be installed on handsets, But next I read that it'll be only available for Palm OS, BlackBerry, Motorola Q, other Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones. People at Zagat listen up, it cannot be that difficult to create a Java program that works on all phones, whatever your programer tells you.

Wireless to PC, Christmas present possibly?

The French company Orange has rolled out a service Called "Mon PC à distance"(even ole Bush could translate that), the service requires users to download a free software client onto their PCs. They can then use any mobile device with standard browsing and multimedia capabilities to view photos or videos and listen to music stored on their PCs. No special client software is needed on the mobile device.

Wireless to PC, Christmas present possibly?

The French company Orange has rolled out a service Called "Mon PC à distance"(even ole Bush could translate that), the service requires users to download a free software client onto their PCs. They can then use any mobile device with standard browsing and multimedia capabilities to view photos or videos and listen to music stored on their PCs. No special client software is needed on the mobile device.

How to get $70 mio funding for a cell phone project

The most interesting mobile phone news today is how the company MobiTV, who first launched in 2003, received funding to the tune of $70mio. Not bad for a few days work. Sprint Nextel was the first U.S. carrier to use their services.
(http://www.wirelessweek.com/toc-newsat2/2006/20060712.html)
"MobiTV will use these funds for a number of things, but generally to address the overwhelming demand for our mobile and PC television offerings," says MobiTV spokesman Jason Taylor. "We also plan to invest in development and research for new network technologies - further exploring DVB-H and WiMAX - among other solutions," he says.
MobiTV are not alone in investigating Wimax's potential. Sprint Nextel announced in mid-2006 that it will be investing about US$ 3 billion in a WiMAX technology buildout over the next few years.

mobile phones and cancer

Yippie, now and forever the myth will be laid to rest that cancer is in any way caused by mobile phone use. 420.000 Danish mobile phone users were followed from 1982 -1995 and the results presented by the Danish Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, show that mobile phone users have the same chance of developing the disease as the general population. The results are published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute

No luck with my mobile Google mail account

If you don't have a Google mail account already, you can't get one through the back door by signing up for Google's Mobile mail account. Unfortunately this is the reason I cannot test their mobile mail solution at the moment. I am interested to hear what others have to say. But hey onwards and upwards, am looking forward to review other mobile mail solutions.

Google mobile mail

What is ROI going to do with their Blackberies now that Google is offering mobile email? If I were the CEO of Research in Motion I'd take a long long holiday. But hey they didn't do badly for a number of years.

Read on to find out how Google mail works on mobile phones.

Installing the program is pretty easy, a simple text message request to Google is returned within seconds and includes a search option and a link to Google mail.
Consider this for a moment, millions of people are going to want this program on their mobile phones ,and these wap push messages are being sent out free of charge by Google. Googles money coffers must be bottomless, but as the only way mobile use is going to go is 'Up', they are undoubtedly on the right track.

I have four phones on which I can run tests. My old an trusted workhorse the Nokia 6600, the rather more sensitive Nokia 6680, the sleek Ericsson K800i and the quite reliable Nokia 6230i.
As of now the Google Mail option doesn't work on my Nokia 6600, the Google search option is bundled into the program they just sent to me and that works fine; it therefore is not my Internet connection that is causing the problem, but probably a technical issue at Google's end. I guess they will have that fixed shortly, and I'll tell you more later.

Yahoo mobile email

Nokia and Yahoo announced that a range of Yahoo services will be made available on a select range of Nokia's Series 40 non-smartphones. Initially, Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail will be mounted on Nokia's 5300 and 5200 youth orientated handsets, as well as the new 6300 slim handset announced yesterday.
I find it odd that Yahoo doesn't make a downloadable client available to all handsets that were manufactured post Nov 2002.

Windows mobile beta out

I've yet to put Windows mobile beta to the test. On their website http://ideas.live.com it says: 'Easily access your Windows Live Mail inbox and your other mobile services (like instant messaging and blogging)'. Sounds very good to me. The big mobile email competitor will of course be Google. Unfortunately they haven't rolled out their service to the UK yet.

Intel, Sony Ericsson and broadband

It looks as if Intel and Ericssone are intensifying their acquaintance by joining efforts to accelerate the market uptake of mobile broadband. Accelerate? Is there a company offering mobile broadband already. Enlighten me please. I remember T-Mobile and Nokia talking about High-Speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA for mobile phones a couple of years back. Having a server manufacturer on board like Intel could put enterprises in the driving position, and that in turn could force mobile service providers to speed up their efforts in offering 'true mobile broadband' to their users.

Go moonline as Yahoo launches Mixd

In the spirit of Web2, Yahoo has today launched a new mobile phone software called Mixd, http://mixd.yahoo.com/ . The idea is to add a mobile social networking option to the plethora of computer based ones. Why not, I say, it'll work as long as it is cheap is my guess, although mobile instant messaging solutions just haven't taken off on cell phones to the surprise of many insiders. I have not been able to test Mixd, I'm afraid, as, according to Informationweek, it is only being rolled out to a handful of campuses in the US. A look at the info on their website clarifies the Mixd business model, which is based around SMS texting. When asked to add other Mixd members to a 'Mixer' or moonline meeting (hohoho gettit mobileonline=moonline), one is required to send SMS text messages to the Yahoo server, which are then sent to the other Mixd member. Every SMS message should be costing the Mixd member a few cents. I'd be grateful if someone could confirm the price per sent text. The costs of sending a text will be the decisive factor if this new Yahoo project will be here to stay or not.

Mini Opera

Just tested the newly launched Mini Opera browser. I am quite impressed that Opera sent the intallation URL to my phone. I had to input my mobile phone details and shooops a few sec later I had an SMS in my inbox. This alone must be costing Opera £££££ and even more $$$$$. I tested the application on a normal website and unfortunately it is still not the pixel perfect rendition I'd like to see in a mobile browser. Well, I can't code it therefore I can talk, but I wouldn't mind seeing an entire home page at a glance and then getting the option to zoom into certain areas of the site via a soft key. Perhaps one day. In the meantime check out http://www.miniopera.com, it's free.

Email and IM to low cost handsets

A new company by the name of Berggi is squarely aiming at users of low cost handsets in the US to sign up for their services. On offer is a program that allows users to send and receive emails, and in addition to this users will be able to send free text messages to other Berggi members through the service. The service is priced at $9.99 per month. Check it out.

Some Sensational mobile phone news

Watch this space. I will be delivering news to you about software development on mobile phones. This is not going to be a site that is reviewing the latest phones, there are others who can do that much better than I can, but a site that shows you how to have fun with your little gadget.