Hehe! You think Symbian gonna be around Looooong?

I don't!
And this is part of the reason why....
Palm Puts Windows in Treo Smartphone
:P

The Attack of the Music Phones!

First it was the ..hmm... let me think... oh yeah.. the Nokia 3300..waaaay back!
then........a llllooooooong time after....Moto's E398(or ROKR... both seem the same to me :P)..Sony Ericsson's W800i..
and now?
Nokia's 3250

Did I like the look of it ? Naaaah! too freaking formal! and the swivel keypad is kinda wierd..especially with the camera sticking outta the side ! My favourite look-wise feature-packed music phone would be the W800 ;)
Then why am I writing about it? Because... it's just the phone I was talking about when I spoke about the Open Mobile Platform with Janne.
This phone comes with support for a 3.5mm audio jack... although it's through an included adapter. Then means..HEY! I can attach my phone to my audio system .. and blow the neighbours to BITS!@#!..with my phone :P
Then.. it comes with a micro SD card...FINALLY! After all those years of MMC cards which would only work with a specific model...Eucccccccck!
Now...if only they would come out with a video out slot... hmmmm....

Phone for (less than!)Rs.876 with AAA batteries!

WoW!
The ultimate dream!
But this, is a lot what my Open Mobile Platform idea is about!
Now, you would be able to pull out the batteries from your remote... and put them into your phone.
The juicy parts:
We have used the lowest bill of material for this sub-$20 chip and very few components,” he said. To make the chip even more accessible to the markets, for the first time in the industry, Infineon has used the AAA batteries.

And there will be more.....
;)

Open Mobile Platform

Excerpt from my conversation with Janne:

Q.how do we make the mobile phone a more open platform?

Think Lego.. the ability to create using basic blocks(software and hardware)... combine this with open interface standards(think bluetooth, USB2.0, Wi-Fi, IR)...

Then you will see the answer!Because trying to predict what people will want in a device is near impossible, the same way it is with a desktop!

)

--Hephail, 14-Sep-2005

---

On the other hand, quite a few people give up Lego when they grow up. Most people just want to have a phone that does a few simple things but does them well. They buy phones because their aim is to talk to their spouse while he's away, or something very simple but important. Just to connect to other people. How do you sell apps to them?

--JanneJalkanen, 15-Sep-2005

---

That is my point. Keep a phone good at doing what it does best... Connecting people. And expand this point of view to ...Connecting devices which these people use.

I wrote this article about why a phone will never replace a gaming device, digital camera etc. So think instead, of a device which is interfaceable with all the various devices which one uses (btw, ur N91 is something on that line, with support for a typical audio jack and USB 2.0). I mean, memory is not a problem anymore with phones reaching 5GB capacity. The question is, what do you do with the data which is present. Scenario: You get off from work, enter the car, attach it to the stereo system, and play the music you like. You take it home, attach it to your TV, and directly play the movie which you had bought on an memory(say SD) card. Then you are travelling, and find out that your digital camera has run out of memory. You take out the card(say SD), plug it into your mobile, and download all the pics onto the phone.Then you continue clicking.

How do you sell apps to them?The answer to this is simple. Keep a fully open software platform (like Linux)where users may choose and put what applications they want. I mean, why do I have to keep checking whether an application is a Symbian or Windows Mobile application?

--Hephail, 17-Sep-2005

---

Well, you could always use Java, but... I guess that from the point of an user a system is not open, if you need to check what kind of a Java app you need to install on what kind of a device. It's not uncommon to see long, long compatibility lists for a Java game ("Download Xyzzy! Works with Nokia 1234,2347, 3943, 23432, 24932, 43211123, 43242, 1245435, 64365437, 7654, 8756, 4356, 432, 43543, 3.1415, 4932, 4392, 5948, 7706, 7958, and 6584). That's not exactly transparent from an user's point of view.

--JanneJalkanen, 17-Sep-2005

---

hehe! Exactly my point! at least on the desktop, every application is available in Windows, Mac or Linux! But on the mobile, developers are constantly trying to figure out which will be the most popular mobile, forget about the most popular platform.
p.s. nice to see Pi as a possible model :P

--Hephail, 19-Sep-2005

Any ideas?.......... It's an open platform :p

Anti-Skype?

Hehe! Looks like the entry of the operator dictator!
Don't get me wrong ... I ain't saying that this software won't sell.. I am just saying the operators ain't gonna blow their horn about buying the sofware. I mean, even the Gulf countries never stopped Kazaa! And anyhow, the bandwidth which 3G will provide, is supposed to support video conferencing, so how much bandwidth is actually taken by Skype, IM and other P2P software.... is gonna be lil drops in the ocean.
The juicy parts:
"They're all telling me they hate Skype and they're telling me that they want to do something about Skype," said Bannerman in a telephone interview. "If you have something in your network that is costing you money and raiding your business model, I assure you you're going to do something about it."

Lets see!
:P

Games....

I play the games on most mobiles, and the one manufacturer who seems to have the pulse on what works ...is Sony Ericsson. Right from my low-end T630, to somebody else's (:P) high end K750i, the experience has been amazing.

Something on the lines of Oliver's post, these games would focus on the strength of the mobile, namely:

1.Vibrations: As in Vrally 2, u could actually feel every bump on the road, and every tree on the side, through the vibrations felt(also called Force Feedback in gaming jargon). I mean, on the PC, you would actually pay extra for a force-feedback joystick.
2.Bluetooth: There is nothing more thrilling than to see your opponent on your handset! Compare this to the exorbitant fees we use to pay, to go to a gaming cafe with network capabilities, to play Quake, or Counter Strike!
3.Integration with the inbuilt clock: In Honey Cave, the background changes, based on the clock. So if you play in the morning, you get the sun, if you play at night, you get the moon!
4.WAP: Everytime you get a high score, you can directly upload it to the sony ericsson site.

And these are the inbuilt games... so imagine the possibilities.

Nokia in comparison, had much better inbuilt games in it's legacy phones, with a massive overdose of the Snake game (not again...)in all it's avatars. To be fair, one game which I actually liked, was the Agent V game on the 3230, which uses the camera to create an augmented reality, where objects(Enemies, and Energy charges) are superimposed onto the actual camera view, to atleast enthrall you the first time.

On the K750i, there is a flight simulator (Flight simulator on a mobile :O)which totally blew me away with the unbelievable graphics, and response time.

If only there could be more games like this...
;)

Q.eBay's Skype?

The question after eBay's Skype acquisition, coming so fast after Skype showed interest in the mobile industry, is:
How will eBay leverage Skype in it's foray into mobile based applications? Will we now see Skype-based auctions, or selling, becoming the de-facto mobile based eBay usage?
This obviously plays on the idea that by converting eBay into a VOIP based application, they are able to focus on the mobile's strength, voice, rather than it's weaknesses, small screen and limited usage keypad!

Wondering,
:-?

Skype Auctioned to the Auctionneer!

Krazy !!
Can this world get any Krazier?
Just when we thought Skype was trying to build an empire over the mobile web, Skype has gone under the hammer for $2.6 Billion.
This deal could definitely go in the favour of India, for two reasons:

1. VOIP based auctioning means call centres...meaning.....;)
2. We Indians, are still cautious about dealing with computers, hence voice based auctioning...(on the top of our voices...hehe!) could be more comfortable

:P

Skype Hype?

From the renegade Kazaa, which continued the Napster legacy, Niklas Zennstrom and gang have come a long way.
As this article shows, Skype is single handedly driving the mobile VOIP , as well as the Wi-Fi phone revolution. First with the tie-up with handset manufacturer Motorola and now with the German operator E-plus.

What this would mean for the mobile world, is that VOIP or Wi-fi based telephony is here to stay, and is going to give network (CDMA, GSM....) based telephony, a scramble for its money.

First Serious Virus

Oops! Just when the W32.Welchia worm was irritating the heck outta my computer! Can you believe that the time has finally come when we are gonna have to protect our phones too? Not mine though. I still haven't picked up a smartphone :P
Wait till the smartphones start coming with antivirus, is what I say! ;)

The juicy parts from the article:

"This is the first time a mobile virus has infected an organization," Runald said. "It's a particularly nasty version of Commwarrior, as it just doesn't give up."

With Commwarrior.A, an infected phone will spend the period between 8 a.m. and midnight attempting to spread the infection to other phones. Between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m, it attempts to delete evidence of its activity.

Commwarrior.B, on the other hand, "will continuously try to send itself for 23 hours out of 24," Runald said. "It's nastier than CommWarrior.A."

One of the employees at the company in question apparently received Commwarrior.B via, and then activated it by opening the program. "The virus then sent itself to every address in the address book; it was opened by more employees, who activated it, and it spread," Runald said.

Norton, Stinger ...Somebody!! There's money to be made here... ;)