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Pico projectors, as they’re called, promise to bring the convenience of projector technology into the mobile space. With miniaturization advances allowing projectors sizes to scale down to fit in cellphones, it won’t be long before we can all start projecting our most obnoxious images and videos across our co-worker’s cubicle wall. And, to make the prospect of pico projectors in mobile phones that much more solid, John Van Scoter, the senior vice president of Texas Instruments (TI) has confirmed that mobile phones will hit market with pico projectors in tow later this year – mirroring other pico-projector manufacturers. That’s right, before 2008 comes to a close, we’ll be seeing real-deal projectors inside cellphones on the consumer market.
[Via: Unwired View] —
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Alltel looking to launch LTE network Posted: 15 May 2008 07:09 PM CDT
To that end, Alltel, the No. 5 US carrier, has announced that it has committed itself to rolling out a 4G LTE network in three to five years. “We do currently plan to move towards LTE in the three-to-five year timeframe versus WiMAX, but we’re still early in that,” according to Alltel President and CEO Scott Ford. The move to the 4G LTE technology makes Alltel the second CDMA carrier (Verizon Wireless being the first) to adopt the GSM-based LTE network evolution path as its future wireless communications standard. The announcement of Alltel’s intention to go with LTE comes on the heels of 380,000 new subscribers last quarter. Given the substantial infrastructure and network deployment costs that will undoubtedly be racked up by Alltel in the next few years, an increase in subscriber sign-ups will definitely help fund the adoption of LTE. It’s looking like LTE is the way to go for the long-term. So, with WiMAX hitting the stage earlier than any LTE technology, can Sprint win over and keep mobile broadband users’ hearts? Or will LTE prevail? Sound off in the comments section. [Via: RCRNews] —
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Ericsson chief expects 6.5 bn mobile subscriptions by 2013 Posted: 15 May 2008 03:09 PM CDT
Chief Exec of Ericsson, Carl-Henric Svanberg, has said he expects the number of mobile subscriptions to hit 6.5bn by 2013. He has also said that he is expecting internet broadband usage to hit about 2.5bn, of which two-thirds would be “mobile broadband”. Of course, there is a link from his predictions to where his company comes in – all that extra capacity that is going to be needed on the Mobile Networks could come from Ericsson. To that end he also stated that Ericsson would be spending about $25bn USD over the next 5 years on R&D – presumably to deliver the kind of next-gen solutions that will manage both the capacity and QoS that are going to be demanded. Personally, I can see the mobile broadband usage stats hitting these dizzy heights, IF the current rate of sales continues. Of course, “mobile broadband” will mean something entirely different in 5 years time – that is to say, the technology underlying it will have changed. Will it be LTE, or some other next-gen bearer? Only time will tell. [Via: International Herald Tribune] —
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UK: Vodafone outreaches mobile broadband network Posted: 15 May 2008 02:57 PM CDT
Vodafone UK is extending it’s HSPA coverage for mobile broadband to 6 new cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading. This will give users downlink speeds of up to 7.2 Mb/s, with up to 1.8 Mb/s on the uplink. Right now, HSPA is only available in London and major UK airports, so it’s a big step forward in the always-tricky coverage equation. Right now, the mobile broadband market (and by that I mean the market segment served by those USB 3G dongles, attached to Laptops) is extremely competitive – all the Operators now have an offering, with the dongles selling like proverbial “hot-cakes”. So it’s going to be interesting to see in the next few months, how the marketing battle play out in the media for download speed, cost, and coverage! [Via: silicon.com] —
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Taiwanese want GPS as #1 feature in phones Posted: 15 May 2008 02:48 PM CDT
A survey by Canalsys has found very high awareness of satellite navigation (“Sat Nav”) amongst consumers, with more than 80% being aware of what it does. 60% of those surveyed said they used the web to search for directions and then print them. So when asked which services they were interested in having on a mobile device, maps and navigation, unsurprisingly perhaps, came out top. This was apparently much more popular than either TV or music on a mobile. Canalsys say this reflects a common trend in results from other countries where GPS/Sat Nav always scores highly. As a utility service, I think GPS/Sat Nav is great – however, I believe, as do many others in the industy, that the real power of it is harnessed when it is twinned with other mobile-unique services to create service-mashups such as geotagging photos (and other media). [Via: cellular-news.com] —
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UK: leading mobile social networking! Posted: 15 May 2008 02:37 PM CDT
Nielsen Mobile has just released stats showing that the UK leads Europe in mobile social networking – apparently 810,000 subscribers visited social networking sites on their handsets in Q1 2008! Facebook was the most popular SN site in the UK, with myspace in second place – which is the opposite to what was found in the US, interestingly? Could it be the often reported “cool” factor, or some other reason, such as the suggested fickle nature of mobile users? Certainly the two leading SN providers have different strategies – myspace have signed a number of deals with Network Operators to re-provide their services, whereas Facebook seem to have a somewhat Operator-agnostic strategy. Whatever the strategy, both sites are now being accessed regularly by a growing number of Mobile users – driving the usage of the Mobile Web, and Mobile “data” generally. [Via: vnunet.com] —
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Posted: 15 May 2008 02:24 PM CDT
dotMobi, the mobile domain name consortium, has hoovered up the IP and site, of Mowser, a service that has been publicly EOL’d (End-of-lifed) only recently. General opinion is that the buy-out is a good thing, with both parties (here and here) blogging that they are very happy with the end result. For those of you that don’t know, Mowser is short for “Mobile Browser”, and the website (here) offers you the ability to use it as a kind of “proxy portal”, which reformats web content to work on a mobile browser. There are lots of these kinds of services about, but this one seems to work pretty well. dotMobi will integrate Mowser in to it’s newly-announced find.Mobi service – which is a mobile search engine that you can reach by typing http://find.mobi/ (surprisingly enough!) [Via: TechCrunch] —
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Samsung overtakes Motorola in India Posted: 15 May 2008 02:10 PM CDT
Q1 2008 has delivered a shake-up in the rankings of Mobile Handset Vendors in India. Nokia continues to dominate, follow by Sony Ericsson. However, Samsung have now passed Motorola to take 3rd position (echoing changes that we have seen occurring in other countries). If you want some stats, and I’m sure you do, Nokia are around the 70% (!) mark, whereas SEM is at about 8%, and Samsung at 7%. Motorola are now around the 6% mark. Samsung, which according to some sources is the world’s second largest handset vendor, is planning to double it’s market share in India by end of year (remember above is only Q1 stats) – you can expect a slew of new devices covering across all the tiers/segments of the market. Motorola on the other hand will need to ship high volumes of handsets over the next few months to reverse the trend above – something that no doubt many industry commentators will be watching closely. [Via: telecomtiger.com] —
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MTNL launching mobile TV in June Posted: 15 May 2008 02:02 PM CDT
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) is poised to launch Mobile TV next month, signalling just how far the pervading influence of this service is spreading globally. MTNL will initially have 21 channels on their platform. With Mobile TV, slowly but surely, we are witnessing the mobilization of what was a “lean-back”, in-home service, in to a “watch anywhere, anytime” on-demand service. In some countries, as has been the case with simple voice calls, we may well even see the consumption of TV primarily via the mobile (data) medium, rather than via a cable/satellite system. Will the day ever come when broadcast is dead? [Via: IndianTelevision.com] —
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SpinVox: The Future of Voice, continued Posted: 15 May 2008 01:47 PM CDT
No doubt you read my previous post on the future of voice, and had your thoughts provoked – however, since then, SpinVox have hosted a session on the future of voice. Their chief of “Interweb bloggery”, James Whatley, was present, along with their VP of consumer business, James Scroggs. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, due to being “logistically challenged” – however, by all accounts it was a great session, with some excellent points raised. I draw your attention to the lead-in statement made by James Scroggs: “I’ve long held that people have lost their voice – call it the stuttering of the democratic process, not in having a right to vote or the mechanic to do so, but the real sense that a person’s voice can count for something, be purposeful, weighty, and heard amongst the din of Rice Crispy culture and politics. I spent five years at MTV striving to have a 25 year old brand continue to earn its place as a platform for young people to have a voice in a formalised broadcast environment, while YouTube and the new social nooks and crannies became the new playground. Now I find myself in the realms of a brilliant system, SpinVox, that can make the human voice matter again. How? Because SpinVox takes a voice – literally the energy in motion of particles in the air – and converts it into text data. That data can then be posted as content into the digital world. It’s a revolution: for me, voice is the last human faculty that has not been obfuscated or complicated by the advances of science. It remains entirely naked, and therefore a pure expression of your ID, your self. If only 30% of the language processed by our system is Dictionary-documented, then the complexities and personalities contained in the spoken language and vernacular suggest that the voice continues to be an immensely powerful tool for us all to emotional connect with each other, create and find social order. So what is the future of voice? It raises some questions, I’m sure you’ll agree. For more detail on the session, hop on over to the SpinVox site, and check out the blog write-up. Whilst you are there, check out the SpinVox service too – if your country is covered, I recommend signing up – voice-to-text (in my opinion) is a killer app for the mass-market! Ben —
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AT&T limiting iPhone sales to one per person, credit card required Posted: 15 May 2008 01:45 PM CDT With iPhone stock dwindling to near-bare levels and completely unavailable in some places, AT&T has started to cut back on bulk iPhone purchases. AT&T has announced that customers can purchase a maximum of one iPhone per person – and all transactions will require a credit or debit card. According to an internal AT&T memo, “Effective May 14, 2008, customers can only purchase one iPhone at AT&T stores. The prior limit of three iPhones is no longer in effect.”
So, if you’re in the market for a handful of iPhones, you will have to make do with buying them up one at a time and with a pre-paid debit card. But, with most of us waiting for the 3G iPhone to drop, we can’t imagine many people are too miffed at the prospect of and iPhone buying-limit. [Via: Apple Insider] —
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If things go well for the pico-projector market, TI expects to see the prevalence of projectors in mobile phones start to rival that of cameras in cellphones. TI 
While Sprint is banking on WiMAX as the next-generation wireless data network of choice in the US, all other carriers are looking to bring on 4G LTE technology in the coming years. With 
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