mobile

Opportunity to leave consumers to their own devices

We’re in a world where it’s increasingly assumed that you’re carrying a screen all the time – tablet, smart phone or laptop. Maybe you’ll even have Apple’s long rumored iWatch on your wrist.

Westjet, a Canadian bargain airline, is thinking about ripping out the entertainment systems from its planes, saving 500 kg in weight and who knows how much in upkeep, and replacing it with a WiFi-based system that streams video to passengers’ BYOD of choice.… More

Cellular sites have no impact on property values

Noise level does not equate to economic impact. Cellular tower opponents talk a lot (including on their mobile phones – go figure) and can be extremely disruptive at public meetings. Not to mention the damage they do to broadband improvement efforts. But their bark has no bite in the Silicon Valley real estate market.

Joint Venture Silicon Valley has completed a study of the impact of cellular sites on property values in Palo Alto, Redwood City, Saratoga and San Jose.… More

Oh, you mean a Maxwell Smart home

“Chaos is an opportunity for people like me,” said Tom Kadlec, one of the founders of The Homeworks Group. They do the hard work of integrating and managing home automation systems for about a thousand subscribers. Both he and his partner have electrical engineering degrees, which is great for them but not so good for the home handyman who majored in, say, political science.

Come quick, 99. I’m surrounded by ARMed phones.

Protocol agnostic and easy to use: home automation needs heavy helpings of both if it’s to ever find its secret sauce.… More

More mobile phones in use worldwide than toothbrushes

If what Paul Jacobs said is true, it’s probably a good thing people are communicating by phone and not face to face. The CEO of Qualcomm made the claim at a conference organized by the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley.

His point was that mobile phones are ubiquitous and, because of that, can do more for healthcare than the humble toothbrush. Qualcomm has an interest in promoting new uses for mobile phones that make good use of the increasingly powerful and sophisticated chipsets, devices and services on the market.… More

Mobile could claim half of online spending in 2013

“Fifty percent of e-commerce happens on mobile devices in 2013,” said Scott Raney, a partner at Redpoint Ventures, when asked to go out on a limb and predict next year’s big surprise in mobile telecoms at the annual Wireless Communications Alliance’s venture capital evening. His fellow panelist didn’t cut off the limb, though. Quite the contrary.

“A large e-commerce player will get to 50% in 2013,” said Kevin Talbot, co-founder and managing partner of Relay Ventures.… More

Not hot in 2013: mobile payments

“Mobile payments is like waiting for Godot,” said Omar Javaid, managing director of BBO Global, speaking at a recent What’s Hot (and What’s Not) in Mobility 2012 forum in Mountain View. “Every year is the year of NFC but it never happens.” The problem, he says, is that processing payments is a system play. It’s a space that’s controlled by a few big players and they’re not very interested.

Quinn Li, managing director of Qualcomm Ventures, agreed.… More

RIM ends the game with Zip

11 November 2012 by Steve Blum
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Remember the Iomega Zip drive? Back when laptops had 80 meg hard drives and a gig was just a dream, the 100 MB Zip super floppy was hot. But Iomega couldn’t push it beyond 750 MB.

ZipdriveI retired mine in 1997, and Iomega gradually moved it to the back of their catalog. Slowly. Even in the 2005 time frame, they still had Zip customers. Government agencies, mostly. Isolated from competitive pressures and soaked in a culture that often enshrines blame and ignores achievement, public sector IT life cycles are glacial.

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Qualcomm's consumer services business going to the dogs

Tagg is a mobile pet tracker and promising veterinary diagnostic tool, offered by Snaptracs, a Qualcomm subsidiary. The hardware costs $100, with ongoing service at $8 per month for the first pet and and $1 for each additional one.

Tagg on a not-so-lively dog

That eight bucks gets you a text message whenever your dog strays from home, with GPS feeds to help you find him. Or your cat, if it’s one of the few big enough to handle the weight and tolerant enough to wear it.… More

Gizmo updates from MobileCon

Escort’s macho Smokey and the Bandit-style crowd sourcing platform is finding its feminine side. Their flagship 9500 model is sporting a pearl white finish with pink trim, all in support of the Susan G. Koman Foundation. Carrie would approve.

A company spokesman wouldn’t divulge subscriber numbers except to say growth is “huge”, with some interesting channel partners in the pipeline.

DeviceAnywhere, which offers developers online test-bed access to a long list of mobile devices and operating systems, was acquired a year ago by Keynote.… More

We've got to get moving: FCC commissioner vs. DoD on freeing up government spectrum

12 October 2012 by Steve Blum
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FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai wants government agencies to clear spectrum and auction it off to the mobile telecoms industry. Now. That puts him on a collision course with federal agencies, particularly the Departments of Commerce and Defense.

In his MobileCon keynote, Robert Wheeler, a USAF major general and DoD information infrastructure honcho, said that the current goal of freeing up 300 MHz of government spectrum for civilian use by 2015 and 500 MHz by 2015 is “tougher than you think” and said the people working on it are shifting focus to sharing rather than just clearing spectrum and auctioning it.

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