Posted: 01/06/10 by Molly Kocour
David Pogue of the New York Times takes a look at the newest entrant in the handset market, the Nexus One.
"It's pretty sweet, it advances the state of the art, and it's a welcome addition to the catalog of great app phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid. You'll pay $529 without a two-year contract for service with T-Mobile, or $179 with one."
Posted: 01/05/10
Ever see a pothole or a tree that's fallen in the road and think, "Someone ought to fix that"?
Well, if you're in Washington, DC, you're in luck. All you need to do is snap a photo with your PDA and using the city's DC 311 mobile app, pair it with a GPS location. You then upload it into a local government database. This also works for graffiti, broken parking meters and any other public nuisance.
Other cities from New York to San Francisco have also moved to harness the power of mobile consumers. The practical result, as CNN reports is that:
[T]ech geeks transform banal local government spreadsheets about train schedules, complaint systems, potholes, street lamp repairs and city garbage into useful applications for mobile phones and the Web. The aim is to let citizens report problems to their governments more easily and accurately; and to put public information, which otherwise may be buried in file cabinets and Excel files, at the fingertips of taxpayers.
San Francisco and other cities are trying to develop a national standard for municipal government data. That way, a mobile app that tracks, say, bus service in San Francisco could also be used in any other city. That could enable cities that cannot afford to develop their own mobile apps to benefit.
Posted: 01/04/10 by Mobile Future Team
The Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota recently published an op-ed piece by Mobile Future Advisor Diane Smith. The piece details Diane’s success as an entrepreneur in rural America, and the many ways that technology helps small business and promotes economic opportunity.
The wireless sector employs nearly 2.7 million Americans - from applications developers to retail store workers to network engineers - and contributes $100 billion annually to our nation's economy. In the last year alone, wireless companies have invested more than $20 billion in networks that are expanding opportunities for the next generation of connected businesses.
You can read the rest of Diane’s op-ed here.
Posted: 12/18/09 by Mobile Future Team
This season, who isn't trying to cut costs? Fortunately, as Claire Cain Miller points out in The New York Times [Link 1], your PDA gives you an instant alternative to trudging through parking lots and malls:
"The mobile phone is quickly becoming Santa's biggest helper. Powerful software applications for [PDAs] are making it easy for bargain-hunting consumers to see if another retailer is offering a better deal on a big-screen HDTV or pair of shoes and to use it to haggle at the cash register.
"Online retailers are revamping the mobile versions of their sites so consumers can make purchases without tedious typing. And offline retailers, battling for every last dollar, are sending cellphone users electronic coupons to lure them away from competitors."
Incidentally, while shopping and browsing may be national pastimes this time of year, let's also remember the holiday spirit and help those in need. Yes, you guessed it - your mobile phone makes it easy to do that too. The folks at the Mobile Giving Foundation are leading the way in helping non-profit organizations leverage the mobile Internet to generate fast and easy options for mobile users to donate from their PDAs.
Posted: 10/15/09 by Chris Parandian
I had the opportunity to attend 3G Americas forum on wireless broadband in DC today. 3G Americas is an organization comprised of telecommunications service providers and manufacturers charged with promoting GSM around the world. They have hosted a few forums in the District of Communications, and I always find their briefings quite informative. Today was no different with FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker, T-Mobile's Neville Ray, Nokia-Siemens Networks Sue Spradley, and Ericsson's Erik Ekudden providing their perspectives on the mobile broadband evolution and revolution.
Comissioner Baker kicked off the conversation and set the tone for the forum as she proclaimed: "I'm here because wireless is so important." She discussed the meteoric rise of mobile and how it will be a key component of the overall broadband plan that will be submitted to Congress in February 2010. Commissioner Baker is excited about the explosion of wireless data but very concerned about "the spectrum pipeline drying up." She hopes that the Commission can identify additional spectrum for carriers but also do it in a timely fashion. She noted how long it took to free up spectrum for cellular, PCS, as well as the DTV spectrum. Overall, she wants to mitigate uncertainty in regulatory policies and acknowledged that such uncertainty can lead to higher prices for consumers - "this is something we can ill-afford in building a connected nation."
Nevile Ray, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Operations (T-Mobile), provided the carrier perspective. He echoed Ms. Baker's comments regarding the explosion of data and was emphatic that operators are "not standing still." In T-Mobile's case, they are evolving to HSPA+ as an interim step to LTE. Mr. Ray believes that increasing spectral efficiency, increasing cell site deployments, and more spectrum will be critical to meeting the mobile broadband explosion.
Sue Spradley, President, North America (Nokia Siemens Networks), talked about the business challenges. Ms. Spradley stated that "the real challenge as usuage goes up is revenue per user doesn't necessarily go up" and that the whole "ecosystem is under tremendous pressure." She cited that the time it to for GSM to evolve to HSPA was long and that the evolution to LTE will "happen quicker because the ecosystem demand is driving it." She also urged regulators to take a "balanced approach" with "no sweeping regulatory changes" because it will cause the industry to "stop and wait."
Erik Ekudden, Head of Technology and Industry (Ericsson), beat the drum for more spectrum and global harmonization in band allocations. Mr. Ekudden predicts "everyone on Earth is going to want mobile broadband" and the ITU states that industry will need a minimum of 1,280 MHz by the year 2020.
Overall, I believe the forum could best be summed up by the response to a question regarding cell site density and whether it could make up the difference for a lack of spectrum as consumers continue to utilize wireless broadband. The panel addressed it by saying that reuse would only mitigate the problem but Ms. Spradley quoted Wayne Gretzky and said "a good hockey player plays where the puck is and a great hockey player plays where the puck is going." Thus, industry and regulators in tackling these issues need to plan where the "puck is going."
Posted: 10/01/09 by Allison Remsen
Let's say you're headed to Starbucks and your friend asks you to get her a decaf grande, half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet.
Now, thanks to a new mobile app, you can not only remember the order but pay for it as well.
This is a great step forward for mobile commerce, as New York Times blogger Roy Furchgott writes:
"Some airlines have experimented with using similar barcodes as boarding passes. If the Starbucks test is successful, it may lead to other pay-by-phone services, like gift cards that could be sent directly to the phone, or perhaps phone-based debit cards".
And on that note, J.C. Penney has now joined Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza and other companies in offering mobile coupons. This month, the retailer began a pilot program at 16 stores in Houston allowing customers to redeem mobile discount coupons at the point of sale.
Sounds like a great option for folks like me who always forget my coupons, but never leave home without our phones.
Posted: 03/19/09 by Mobile Future Team
While the percentage of U.S. households that have "cut the cord" is nearing 20 percent, a different and more intriguing trend seems to be emerging with businesses. Specifically, as Cliff Edwards points out in the current Business Week, companies are increasingly opting for a "third way" for their phone systems.
The idea is for employees to get a single number for both desk and mobile phones. All calls from either source are routed through the corporate landline. This allows for greater efficiency and flexibility in calling plans, especially when the number of employees can fluctuate significantly.
Posted: 07/29/08 by Jo-Anne Basile
According to a report issued by the Nielsen company last week, American consumer interest in mobile Internet use remains as insatiable as ever. Of all the citizens around the globe polled in the Nielson report, U.S. cell phone users are the most active in wireless cyberspace. However, they still want more battery life, unlimited data packages, and even more new and innovative services.
The report found that 15.6% of Americans access the Internet on their cell phones, followed by the U.K. at 12.9%. Among wireless devices, a massive 82% of iPhone users were found to access the Internet with it, five times the average amount for mobile subscribers. Reviews of the new iPhone models express concern over whether the iPhone's difficult-to-change batteries can supply enough power to support extended web usage of AT&T's new and highly advanced 3G network. This unanticipated battery life demand is symptomatic of the general findings in the Nielsen report, which said that 38% of mobile Internet users cited battery life as their most preferred improvement, followed by larger screen size (22%), more memory (21%) and improved data input (20%).
Even following the arrival of enhanced service access, more efficient multimedia storage, and technological revamping, mobile Internet consumers are draining their batteries without satisfaction. The Nielsen report said the yearly Web access growth was up 28% with average subscribers, up almost 20% from the previous year-over-year statistic.
Mobile Internet users' yearning - despite such growth - for further technological improvement to meet their demands suggests that the mobile Internet market is capable of supporting waves of new innovation and capital investment. The report reads: "Mobile Internet is today at a point of sufficient mass to sustain a chain reaction of rapid growth in consumer adoption and, in turn, mobile Internet marketing...it has reached critical mass through a confluence of device availability, network speeds, content availability and, most importantly, consumer interest."
Mobile Internet usage has come a long way, and yet still offers possibilities for the future.
Posted: 02/29/08 by Hiram 'Art' Contreras
Thanks to Technology for All, 4,000 people in a low-income, inner city neighborhood in Houston have access to the internet in their homes for the first time. Whether the service was available is moot, because many residents of this neighborhood simply couldn’t afford the service. Thankfully, Technology for All in partnership with Rice University stepped in to build a state-of-the-art wireless Internet network that is free for residents of the Pecan Park neighborhood.
Based on the success of this program in this southeast Houston neighborhood, Technology for All plans to roll out additional wireless networks to 10 other communities throughout Houston. Ultimately 500,000 low-income residents will have access to free internet service.
Through a series of antennas, residents have access to internet service that can reach greater than 1 Mbps. The goal is to stimulate the economy in these areas, as well as to build a research test bed for Rice University students to use in writing their master thesis.
Check out the story on the local TV station’s web site to hear more about this new wireless network.
Not only can this wireless network create economic opportunities, but it can also help young students in these neighborhoods do better in school so that they can improve their economic opportunities later in life.
Having access to technology and the wealth of information available online will help these young students succeed in school. Inner city kids deserve to have the same opportunities that kids in affluent suburbs have.
Of course, the families need computers to even use the internet service and luckily Technology for All has “A Mouse in Every House” program that it runs in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to provide computers to low-income residents.
As a community, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is through the accessing of information and ultimately enhancing educational opportunity that is the key for our young people to reach their fullest potential.
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Tags: Mobile Applications, Mobile Phone, Smartphone, Wireless Innovation, Investment/Competition, Mobile Broadband Growth