Industry analyst Juniper Research reckons Mobile Web 2.0 will generate $22.4 billion of revenues in 2013, up from $5.5 billion this year. What’s Mobile Web 2.0 when it’s at home, though? You might think the term covers social networking and user-generated content stuff, which it does, but Juniper has thrown mobile search and mobile instant messaging into the mix too. Apparently, us mobile users are going to be ‘prosumers’ by 2013, creating content as well as consuming it. Juniper reckons that just the social networking and UGC side of things will be worth $11.2 billion in 2013, with growth as fast (if not faster) in developing countries as in the West. ”Combining the power of the social network map - namely: ‘who I know, how I know and where I know’ - with that of mobility, presents the greatest opportunity for revenue generation of any of the applications as defined within Juniper’s Mobile Web 2.0 framework,” says the report’s author Ian Chard. In other words, some of the many mobile social networking companies touting their wares now are going to be rich. Although many aren’t. Place your bets now…
Archive for May, 2008 Page 2 of 7
Nokia’s Sports Tracker is fine if you are into jogging about all over the place and want to build up to a marathon or something, but what if you prefer your exercise to a bit less high-impact? A pleasant walk in the country, for example.
Nokia Step Counter is fresh out of the Beta Labs and uses the same accelerometer technology as Sports Tracker. Rather than pushing you onwards and upwards like a digital, pocket-sized Nike advert, Step Counter just works like a pedometer and eschews GPS tomfoolery in favour of a bevy of stats about how far and fast you have been walking.
Using that data, plus info about your height and weight, Step Counter can tell you how many calories you have burnt off during your last promenade. Quite wht this isn’t just another version of Sports Tracker is unclear, but it could be that Nokia just want feedback on certain aspects of this kind of app.
Beta Labs have gone to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the accelerometer reeadings and reckon that the app should be able to accurately report your pace regardless of how you carry your ophone. Nevertheless they would still appreciate feedback from users, particularly women.
If you are a T-Mobile customer just itching to consign your current handset to the sock drawer in favour of something a little more new and shiny, then be prepared for a letdown.
According to Unwired View, an insider has confirmed (not our idea of confirmation but hey it’s late in the day so let’s roll with it) that the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic and the underwhelming Motorola Z6w are all going to be late. The Nokia handsets have been given new release dates a couple of weeks later than expected whereas the Motorola Z6w is going to be really late, as in it’s never going to launch with T-Mobile.
Apparently the device has been canceled outright due to ‘early testing issues’ which sounds a little heavy handed to us and could just be a nice way of saying the phone was rubbish and not likely to sell well. While Nokia’s bosses are probably still sleeping soundly at night, this is the last thing that the faltering Motorola needs just now. Still, it’s probably best to think of this as a rumour until T-Mobile comes clean with the details.
Nokia design contractor Provoke Design has unveiled a few new concept designs it has put together for the ‘HARDCORE New Finnish Design‘ exhibition in New York later this month.
The Express will allow the user to ‘enhance his/her mindset instantly’ (it says here) by changing the colour of the handset electronically.
The Share “enables communication and sharing of information through personalized codes formed in subgroups of likeminded individuals” which is as perfect a rendering of purest marketing drivel as I have yet encountered. It just needs the word ‘paradigm’ as a sort of metaphorical cherry on the top of the nonsense cake. It’s something to do with skateboarding and geotagging, according to the press release.
The Feel is intended for use by couples - a bit like a phone version of one of those heart-shaped pendants in two halves. It features a tactile, haptic feedback system that lets two people communicate through simulated touch and achieve ‘deep communication’. Oo-er.
via Engadget.
It seems that RIM really has something of a macho complex just now. Just yesterday we heard about the Blackberry Bold and today news of the touchscreen only Blackberry Thunder has surfaced. Expect to hear about the Blackberry Brave and the Blackberry Red Red Meat in due course.
In any case, The Boy Genious Report is claiming the scoop on the device with a bunch of details and is reporting that it will be a full touchscreen effort launching in late summer this year. Interestingly, the Thunder will launch as a worldwide lifetime exclusive on Verizon and Vodafone as opposed to being shipped out to any carrier who wants it.
As for the form factor, besides the touchscreen the Thunder is said to have only 4 physical keys; the send / end phone keys, the BlackBerry menu key, and the back key. The Thunder is also mooted to include GSM HSPA for traveling internationally as well as potentially some 4G guts (probably LTE), though whether the network support for that will be ready in time for its release is another matter.
And that’s about it for now, obviously this is all subject to change until we get our hands on a press release but for any crackberry addicts who have been feeling jealous of the iPhone’s elegant interface, this could be the handset highlight of the year. More on this as soon as we have it.
Nokia Beta Labs isn’t just there for the Symbian things in life. As well as pumping out bleeding edge S60 apps at what seems like a rate of twenty or so a day, Nokia have also released experimental PC software - usually novel takes on their synching apps or ways of controlling you phone from the desktop.
Nokias Music is at first glance a bit of a departure, given that it is an iTunes-like music player and organiser that lets you manage your digital music collection and hook up to a wide range of MP3 players. You can knock together playlists and rip CDs directly to connected devices.
Obviously, this primarily intended to e used with Nokia phones like the N81 and N95 but perhaps leaving things open will convince a few people to give a music-oriented smartphone a try - particularly when Nokia rolls out more phone-oriented features like Nokia Music Store integration.
Nokia Music PC Client is a 63MB download for Windows Vista and XP with service pack 2, available here.
Opera have released version 4.51 4.1 of their slimline Opera Mini web browser.
Among a few new features and bug fixes, the big news on the new version is a promised speed increase of up to 50%.
Yes, we know, ‘Up to’. Still, it does *seem* a bit faster. The code itself feels like it has been tightened up a bit and is more responsive and the autocompleting URLs are a definite improvement on slowly tapping out addresses.
Most importantly, Opera have increased the speed of the proxy servers that cache webpages to improve access times. This make a huge difference compared to the native browser on most phones.
Other new features include the ability to upload and download files from within Opera Mini itself (previous versions have had to launch the native browser to achieve this), inline searching of web pages and the ability to save pages for offline reading.
The latter is a great addition to the app and makes it possible to take reading material with you to mobile deadspots (e.g. on a plane) without having to faff about with ebook formats and the like.
Opera Mini is a free Java app, available here.
Good news, people of Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading. The six cities are due to get Vodafone’s high-speed mobile broadband network by this Autumn, as the operator continues to roll out HSDPA across the UK. They join London and the major British airports, which were the first to get it last year. Vodafone is also making a step up in the way it sells mobile broadband contracts to customers, offering more easily understandable information at the point of purchase - for example, explaining how many emails and web pages your tariff allows you to download, and how long it’ll take you to download files, films and music over the network. Films? They’re encouraging people to download films over a mobile broadband connection? There better be generous data limits on those tariffs!
If you’re a heavy user of the Google Reader RSS site on your computer, you’ll probably know there’s an iPhone version already available. However, Google has just revamped it to make it easier to use, bringing the look and feel into line with its existing (and excellent) Gmail iPhone site.The star feature to highlight stories for later reading has been made more prominent (i.e. easier to jab with your thumb), and the new site also supports the new ‘Notes’ feature for Google Reader. It’s also much, much faster to use according to VentureBeat.Want to have a go? You’ll need to follow this link to go directly to the site. As ever with these things, it’s in beta…
Hurrah for phones named after washing powder brands. It’s surely only a matter of time before we see the Samsung Daz Ultra and LG Ariel, but until then we’ll have to make do with the BlackBerry Bold. It’s a new business-focused BlackBerry aimed at ‘power users’ (i.e. the sort of people who’d be unhappy if they weren’t answering emails from their boss at 3am). So, you get HSDPA for fast data speeds, GPS with built-in geotagging for photos, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an impressive 480×320-pixel display. The Bold is expected to go on sale this Summer, although maker Research In Motion hasn’t given any details of pricing yet. Rest assured, with a fat business tariff, it should be fairly affordable.
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