Lessons from 2G life cycle relevant to 3G
This article written by Steve Jones, Head of Consultancy Services of The 3G Portal, comments on some basic lessons learnt from GSM rollout that are still very relevant today:
1. The basis for faster global success is co-operation
2. Help outsiders understand the business case better
3. Satisfy subscriber’s preferences even faster
4. The killer app is probably here now, look harder
5. Manage expectations with realistic promises
Steve’s comments about the Killer app is spot on, as I believe that the only way we recognise them is after the fact.
"3G: Building the Worlds Biggest Machine" is worth the read…
Movie Trivia with an invisible twist!
Now this has got to be one of the coolest movie trivia sites I’ve ever come across. They make the characters invisible in a scene and you have to guess what movie it was from.
For those movie buffs out there this is a great way to test the ol’ noodle. Now where is the 3G version……
Picasa ver. 2 released!
Picasa has grown up to version 2 and has introduced some cool new features. Picsel is great for finding pictures on your PC quickly and producing quick slideshows. The new editing features help digital camera aficionados with 1-button touch ups of classic digital photo problems.
My favourite additions to this version are:
- the ability to send pictures to people via your Gmail service
- Create a web page of your album.
- Burn to CD/DVD!!
Great update and as it is free how can you say no. 
Skype users now have an answering machine!
Cameron just called me on Skype to get me to call him back and try out a new app he discovered called SAM (Skype Answering Machine). I’m sure he’ll blog about it soon, but I got in early 
It’s bloody brilliant! Highly recommended.
First snaps of Titan from Huygen probe.
The ESA Huygens probe (named after the Dutch scientist who discovered the rings of Saturn) has landed intact onto the Titan surface. The Huygens probe separated from the main Cassini craft in December 2004. Sending back some interesting shots of this strange moon of Saturn.
The short lived probe only gets a few hours to gather information and return the data to the earth at the speed of light which takes about an hour to get here.
It has taken 7 years for the Cassini-Huygens craft to reach Saturn (launched Oct1997). Although Cassini will continue on with its mission, Huygens long journey and & short lifespan has ended, successfully.
Selling your head as advertising space!?!?!?
The guys at Major Geeks get kudos for this one.
Well this is impressive thinking outside the ol box-a-rooney! This 20 something year old american lad has sold his forehead for advertising space for a month on eBay for US$30K!
Already he’s getting press, so watch his site to see what he has to advertise for a month.
Bloody ingenious if you ask me.
Satellite view of Tsunami effect
This is a satellite composite of multiple images taken from satellite data after the fact of the recent Tsunami. You can see the intensity of the wave front is greater in some parts, hence the reason for the seemingly random intensity in some countries and not others.
The animated GIF shows how far the Tsunami travelled in 180 minutes.
Of course the real use of this is when a computer can recognise the patterns it is seeing real time and alert accordingly.
Online games intrude on real-world lives
An article on the Australian IT site today discusses the issue around MMPORG Widows, or more specifically how some people let it get out of hand.
One of my favorite MMPORG stories was when I frst got into Asheron’s Call…… I was on late one night (from Australia) and met up with in a remote little town, a player from the US, UK and one from France. We formed a merry little troop and stove off into the dark virtual forests of Dereth to hunt down adventure. We had to walk a long way to get to our first quest and spent the time chatting and getting to know a bit about each other. It was mind blowing to me that there was 4 people, from different backgrounds and different countries, all going off together to achieve a common goal. Of course, once the battle began our french player wasn’t that good in English and kept screaming out commands to us in french. So we kept having to remind him to speak English whilst we were laughing hysterically at him hopping around with french expletives issuing forth. In the end it worked out, but that moment will stick to me for life as it was a great virtual moment in international relations.
So, back to the problem stated in the article above, isn’t this yet another example of moderation? Like alcohol, sex, eating etc?
My wife has made some tongue in cheek comments about my overly zealous gaming habits, but compared to having a guy who comes home drunk and physically abuses his family or drives under the influence and killing someone.
I’ll stick to this hobbie thanks….. in moderation.
Watching TV or movies on your mobile device….
Mike Masnick of Techdirt makes a mute comment that people don’t want to watch full length movies on their mobile devices. I guess Mike isn’t travelling a lot on public transport.
This reminds me of the streaming TV channels to mobile devices debates that were bandied about early last year by those not doing it and now of course we see plans or serious discussions about deploying.
For a telco the main problem is, if they don’t do it and their competitors do, will they loose subscribers or new acquisitions? Secondly, the lack of forethought that the additional functionality deployed to stream the movies could be utilised for other services such as training systems, m-commerce etc.
I guess the biggest anchor with innovating 3G technology is that is run predominately by 2G telco people. Their mentality is to always run back to what they know the best, voice. Therefore the true differentiators of high speed data and video connectivity products are left behind.
3G has always been to me about convergence. Convergence of IT, Internet & Telco. See included picture.
So the big issue here, specifically Australia, is why we don’t see marriages of IT & Telco organisations to take advantage of this mature high-speed technology. The reason why so many mobile solutions failed on GPRS was the poor usability experience, 3G doesn’t suffer that fate.
In the end it’s about giving your mobile customers the mobility solutions they require in a seemless easy to use way.
Russell Beattie on “Crossing the Chasm in real time”
Russell makes a good point that blogging is Crossing the Chasm in real time.
Extending his comments, I think the major difference here is that people can now put a "face" to a review or referral for a product, service or reference.
We all feel more comfortable making a purchase from a salesperson that we emphasise with. Blogging has become a way to "reference check" sources.
Eventually we should see a new world medium of information retreival in real time were the Internet connects us through like minded individuals that factually cross reference themselves.
Bill Gates once wrote about "Business at the speed of thought" and slowly but surely it’s getting here.
In the mobile 3G world we have the speed, but the apps are greatly missing. In the end its all about seemless integration. I shouldnt have to look at my mobile device to get info, I should just need to talk to it.
Universal Convergence 