Quote of the day…..
September 14, 2005
Ebay buys Skype.
September 13, 2005
According to CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, “Communications is at the heart of ecommerce and community” and with these words it is now official that the global online auction behemoth has purchased Skype for $2.1 billion Euros in cash + shares (a further $US1.5 Billion to 2008 based on performance goals of Skype).
eBay is further entrenching their leadership in group-forming networks and digital identity management with their Skype purchase, making it a powerful online e-commerce & m-commerce entity moving forward.
HTC Universal = O2 XDA Exec
September 12, 2005
The HTC Universal is coming out in many different variants and one of them is called the O2 XDA Exec. ZDNET UK has a great review on it here.
I wonder if this is the version we will see here in Australia.
3G what?
September 12, 2005
Computerworld Australia has this article on a recent report from Warren Chaisatien of IDC and states that "….IDC’s latest findings are discouraging but hardly come as a surprise considering 3G has been strongly associated with cheap voice calls in the past 12 months".
Unfortunately for Australia this has been very true as the first 3G carrier in Australia, Hutchison 3G Australia, has led the battle for subscribers with voice capped plans. Although this stratgey has done a good job of dropping overall mobile costs, it has brought in a large group of subscribers that do not understand how to use the 3G components of the devices.
The failure to entice people to engage with 3G services early in their usage cycle will cause major churn once the other carriers release their 3G networks. This Christmas in Australia will be a huge opportunity for consumers, but a blood bath for the carriers as they drop prices to attract new & keep existing subscribers.
Another interesting finding from the report is that at the end of 2004 there was an estimated 11.64 million mobile users in the Australian market with 90% belonging to the top 4 carriers (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone & Hutchison).
100 megabits per second to a mobile device on the move
September 7, 2005
That got your attention? Well New Scientist.com has an interesting insight into where mobile data speeds are heading too. Whilst I don’t think this will be a 4G type standard we will see these speeds in commercial reality within 10 years.
NTT DoCoMo is currently experimenting with prototype phones that are able to view 32 high definition video streams whilst traveling at 20 km/h. The technology they are playing with is called Variable-Spreading-Factor Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (VSF-Spread-OFDM). Even the acronym is taking things to new levels.
Basically this technology is using multiple radio frequencies to send the same data stream.
The data speeds achieved in the testing are 100 megabits per second moving and 1 gigabits per second stationary.
That’s a lot of bits in anyone’s language……
Thanks to David Martin for the pointer 
Telstra releases 3G today in Australia
September 5, 2005
Interesting that Telstra isn’t doing a big song and dance around their 3G launch in Australia today. The front page of their site has nothing on it. There is a low key 3G site that talks about "Video services on your 3G mobile".
As Telstra has bought 50:50 into the Hutchison 3G network, they will not have the immature network issues of instability and poor coverage that Vodafone & Optus will have (as did Hutchison) with rolling out their new 3G services.
Telstra are launching with 5 low end "video mobiles":
- Samsung Z500
- Motorola V975
- NEC 600i (i-mode enabled)
- Sony Ericsson K600i
It’s a quiet consumer centric launch so far. I guess they are saving their marketing moola for the Christmas bonanza.
Blog, go measure thyself.
August 30, 2005
Pubsub has a great feature on their site to track "linkcounts" to and from your blog. The report is well set out with charts showing 30 day history.
Great way to get an idea of what is being linked from your blog on other blogs.
PubSub Stats = http://www.pubsub.com/stats.php
MobileTV with widescreen anyone?
August 26, 2005
Now this is what you need for a great MobileTV experience. 
The Samsung SCH-B250 is a new Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) mobile device initially for the Korean market. The swivel screen to a horizontal viewing position is becoming a big thing over there.
Some specs…..
- Swivel Widescreen LCD
- CDMA2000 1x EV-DO
- 2 Megapixel camera
- TV-OUT connector
- 128Mb on device memory
- Transflash memory
- Picsel document reader (Word, Excel , PDF files etc)
&
Mobile gaming to drive the mobile market?
August 25, 2005
According to SmartMobs pointer to the Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society on "Gaming Goes Mobile: Issues and Implications" they believe so.
I say no it won’t…..well not a complete no, just partly. Mobile Gaming will be a big revenue earner, but it won’t be the biggest. I don’t think the guys in the post have seen the user experience with MobileTV. 🙂
With the advances in IPTV technologies & the convergence with mobile devices, interactive MobileTV will drive the mobile market in the future. With the many types of mobile services that will spawn from IPTV services, they will contribute to a large majority of the mobile market revenue.
Why? Well there are some components that are necessary for this to succeed,
- Entry level – unfettered access to existing free to air content.
- Time shifted media – the ability to record and access recorded shows.
- Datacasting – Ability to transmit complimentary data to the device from the datacasting channels.
- Interactivity – User ability to change the view, vote, poll, interact live with other viewers.
- Personalised – Use of the back channel from carrier to transmit live user demographic data and usage statistics to the broadcaster. Enabling personalised advertising, broadcasts, live presentation adaptation to audience participation.
MobileTV is not about watching TV on the small screened mobile you have in your hand now, it’s about larger screen mobiles with a "widescreen experience" and stereo sound. It is access to relevant information & entertainment wherever, whenever you want it.
HTC Universal – more positive reviews
August 22, 2005
The HTC Universal just keeps getting better with age and it’s not even released yet 🙂
Looks like a lot of Microsoft guys in the US got their hands on some and the news is "hmmmmmmmm goood"!
Jason Langridge’s blog has a recent personal observation.
Some other previous insights…..
Universal Convergence 