Mobile social networking is a great idea, but using a keypad to navigate most social sites can be a bit of a chore.
Blabnote hopes to change that by offering a social networking service that is controlled entirely by speech.
It’s a closed beta at the moment, so all we have to go on is the contents of the promotional site, but essentially this is about calling a number and manipulating contacts and creating ‘events’ by saying things like ‘Invite Dave and Sue to Dinner’ or ‘Join the group called East Midlands Pigeon Fanciers’.
t’s a nice idea, but this kind of servic4 will stand or fall on the software’s ability to recognise your voice commands. Its no good launching a national service if it is going to be confounded by some of the more - ah - idiosyncratic regional accents and require power users to learn Received Pronunciation.
The other factor that might hinder uptake is the same one that means that texting is so popular - you can do it silently in public places and use a shorthand to communicate concisely. If people are going to actually have to say LOL and WTF things are going to get strange.
This may have been obvious from the amount of location-aware apps that have been gushing out of Nokia Beta Labs lately, but Nokia have decided that GPS is where it’s at (and they have the coordinates to prove it). Accordingly, by 2012 over 50% of its handsets will have GPS receivers built in.
Michael Halbherr, Nokia’s head of location-based activities, said in an interview with Reuters that “We are planning to ship 35 million GPS units this year and many more location-enabled phones that use cell-towers to orient themselves on the map. You will see few ‘E’ or ‘N’ Series phones without GPS.”
So, does this mean that in the next couple of years Nokia expects GPS to be cheap enough to stuff into lower-end handsets, or are they just being optimistic about their smartphones taking off in the mass market? Given that they are also putting a lot of development time and money into low-end ‘third world’ phones, it would seem to be the latter. Great news, unless they expect us all to pay smartphone prices.
Why are LCD screens invariably rectangular or square? Well, they don’t have to be any more, thanks to a bunch of boffins at LG. They’ve unveiled two new LCDs - a six-inch elliptical display, and a 1.4-inch circular one.The one that’s of interest to Pocket Picks readers is the latter, since it could be used in mobile phones (of which LG makes, ooh, a few). The image above shows another application, for watches - which could be made to have faces that change design at the flick of a switch.How could it be used in phones? Well, it could allow LG to break away from the standard candybar and clamshell form factors, and make even stranger-shaped handsets. Although good luck with convincing the legions of mobile video and games firms, and website designers to reformat their content to make full use of circular screens…
A new survey claims that 18% of workers have been told off for bad manners for inappropriate use of their BlackBerry or mobile phone. For example, answering emails at the dinner table, talking too loudly on the phone in public, or chatting to someone while sitting on the loo. Ew. The survey was commissioned by Yahoo HotJobs, whose managing editor Tom Musbach says poor mobile etiquette is almost as big a problem as dodgy table manners: ”These devices have become like leeches. People get into the habit of answering emails or calls instantaneously, but it may be a good idea to curb that and only answer when absolutely necessary. We’re seeing more and more major lapses in decorum.” Maybe someone should set up a mobile finishing school to nip this kind of behaviour in the bud!
Qualcomm has announced that it’s acquired 40MHz of L-Band radio spectrum in the UK, paying £8.3 million to communications regulator Ofcom for the privilege. Why should you care? Well, the company says it’ll be able to “bring a variety of innovative wireless technologies to the UK market” with its partners. The press release is carefully worded with no mention of what these technologies might be, but the natural assumption is that the company’s MediaFLO mobile TV platform may now be launched here. After all, Qualcomm ran a technical trial of MediaFLO with BSkyB in the UK last year (that’d be one possible partner). I contacted Qualcomm’s PR for clarification on whether it’s now set for a commercial launch, and here’s the response: “While L-Band is capable of supporting MediaFLO, Qualcomm is planning to test a number of services in conjunction with its partners. No definitive decision has been made on the use at this time.” So there you have it. I’m off to Qualcomm’s BREW 2008 conference in a couple of weeks, so will aim to find out more then about the company’s plans for us Brits.
If you are bored with the S60 interface of your Nokia there is a simple solution - get an iPhone! No, not really (although this can work) what you could do instead is swap it out in favour of RealVista Desktop Mobile.
For all the carping and pained grimaces usually associated with using Windows Vista, one thing that most users agree on is that the interface is rather pretty - slick, shiny and impressive to watch. While RealVista
can’t offer 3D task switching and transparent windows it does make a reasonable fist of an ‘Aero-like’ set of icons.
Applications and phone functions are split into categories and displayed with four large icons per ‘page. The developer is aware of some Nokia N95 and N81 devices that can’t manage to run all apps via these icons, but reckons this is a firmware issue that should be fixable via an upgrade.
RealVista requires Flash Lite 2.1 and is available for free here.
Blyk, the yoof-oriented MVNO, provides free voice minutes and texts to its 16-24 year old demographic in return for watching targeted adverts via their handsets. Once the free balance is used up, or if the user want to browse the web, the phone can be topped up like a regular pay-as-you-go SIM.
The UK Mobile blog SMS Text News has spotted a questionnaire on the Blyk website that suggests the company are considering extending their free service to include data.
Blyk want to know how important free data is to their customers, while making the point that other services might have to be sacrificed to fit the current advert/pricing model. They also want to know want kind of services are likely to be used the most - web access, social networking, chat etc.
Although Blyk are unlikely to be able to provide a huge amount of free data via advertising, this could still make a big difference to the amount their customers try to use and might even encourage some digital holdouts to give the mobile ‘net a try.
Here at Pocket Picks we are all far, far too old to be on the Blyk network and no amount of vitamins and moisturiser is going to change that. If you have given the service a whirl, why not take a break from drinking cheap cider and performing urban street dance and let us know what you think in the comments? Would the prospect of free data make putting up with adverts worthwhile?
Fancy a new Samsung double slider with some ultra hi-tech Bang & Olufsen audio muscle? Course you do, so it’s a good thing that the Korean manufacturer is obliging with the F400, a handset that does both of the above.
The music focussed device is packing ICEpower technology by Bang & Olufsen with Smart Bass and Smart Limiter to ensure no audio signal exceeds the amplitude of the threshold. The music controls are confined to a rather spiffy looking clicker wheel on the front while sliding the handset up will reveal a stylish brushed metal keypad and down, a pair of duel stereo speakers for annoying fellow commuters with when you are on the bus.
The F400 also has Shazam, a clever little software trick that can find out the name and artist of an unknown tune when you point your phone at the source of the music. There’s a 3-megapixel camera, AF/FM Radio and Bluetooth v 2.0 chucked in too as well as a 1GB SD memory card in the box and a microSD slot that supports up to 8GB.
Launching in France in May, the F400 is set to land elsewhere in Europe (hopefully the UK) shortly after.
You might think that Sony Ericsson, Samsung or maybe even an upstart like LG or Apple would be considered more direct competitors to the mobile behemoth that is Nokia, but the ever contrary Finnish company sees things differently, declaring Google as it’s main dueler.
It seems however that this is not a presumptive comment about the potential success of Android, but rather some mild chest beating about some of the inroads the company has been making on some of Google’s more established territory.
Specifically, mobile advertising is where Nokia believes it could step up to the plate as it has shipped over 35 million GPS-enabled mobile phones this year all capable of supporting location-based mobile advertising. Google is somewhat interested in this slice of the market as it already commands the lion’s share of online advertising and location-based mobile advertising is a particularly fertile economic pasture at the moment. It’s no surprise that Nokia is making an aggressive play in that area. Continue reading ‘Nokia going after Google…’
Several fashion brands have got into the mobile space in recent years, including Prada and Armani (albeit with partner manufacturers LG and Samsung). Now it seems Christian Dior could be jumping on the fashion phone bandwagon too. At least, that’s what Engadget Mobile says, based on a leaked spyshot.It appears to show a clamshell handset festooned with Swarovski crystals, with its own remote control. That’s right, a remote control for a mobile phone. Heaven knows what it’d be used for. Unless it’s actually some kind of detachable MP3 player? The mind boggles.Anyway, the blog suggests an announcement could be imminent this Friday, before the phone goes on sale by the end of the month. Presumably a handset manufacturer is involved. Watch this space…
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