Archive for February, 2008
StrategyEye reports that …
US mobile phone sales reached USD11.5bn in 2007, when 147m devices were sold, according to research firm NPD. The percentage of smartphone sales doubled in Q4 2007 from the same period the year before, the study says. Smartphones accounted for 12% of sold handsets in the last quarter of last year, up [...]
As a registered (and enforced) BBC television license payer, it’s been a really annoyance sitting in the States watching everyone back in the UK enjoy the launch of the iPlayer. The BBC’s rigorous IP blocking technology has made it impossible for me to use the service from an American internet connection. I could, [...]
Continue ReadingI’m heading back to London this week. San Francisco and the Bay Area has been super. I’m going to be back for CTIA later in March. Meantime, I’m on the hunt for some people and companies to profile for the site back in the UK.
My schedule is reasonably clear so knock [...]
Good to see, via Engadget, that the iPhone had a bit-part in the Oscars this year. It’s hard to imagine a Motorola RAZR getting the same treatment.
It’ll definitely boost attention. The price is still far too wrong for mass market adoption. Not that this was ever Apple’s plan. I’m still a [...]
This week’s BlykWatch from Ricky Chotai covers a lot of ground. Let’s jump right in (I’m going to comment inline):
- - -
Monday 18th February 2008
No brand messages today, so I thought I would try something new, twitter. I saw that the blog had an item about it so I signed up with my [...]
You can now officially get your hands on the new ultra sexy Liscio handset, from Onyx. Sim free at £129.99, the Liscio is drop-dead ‘ohhhhh’ — and at only 90×35×17.8mm it’s very nicely formed too. I’m going to try one out shortly and see what it’s like — I reckon it could be [...]
Continue Reading
The chaps at Moovera have been busy. Very busy. Fresh from kitting out services for both Stagecoach (Oxford to London) and National Express (Cambridge to London) with WiFi, they’ve just gone live with free WiFi on the First Cymru Shuttle100 bus service between Swansea and Cardiff.
Kudos to First Group, the owners of First [...]
Research outfit Gartner has found that while consumers are still more likely to browse than to buy using their mobile phones (no surprise there), they are comfortable with checking the price of an item or finding a store on their handset. According to a survey by the company, US shoppers are twice as likely to [...]
Continue ReadingIt seems that while there’s no let up in people’s enthusiasm for mobile gaming, the amount of individuals downloading a new game has plateaued, according to new research from M:Metrics, with people preferring to play the software that comes with their device.
M:Metrics says that 98.4 million people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom [...]
According to the Sunday Mail the mobile phone of controversial Scottish has been traced to a swingers club in that he says he’s never been to.
The paper reports that detectives have used cell site analysis, which shows Sheridan was in the vicinity of Cupids sex club, and quotes a source as saying: “The police strongly [...]
Research In Motion, the company that brings you the Blackberry (and lets the service go down periodically) recently upped its estimates for new subscriber growth for their fiscal quarter which ends on the first of March. The company raised its forecast by 15-20%, bringing the total forecast to around 2.1 million new subscribers. This strong [...]
Continue ReadingHonestly, this is one of the many reasons I’m on a GSM network in the United States. A big limitation of the U.S. CDMA carriers is the roaming issue. In many instances, while you may not be charged extra for roaming all the time, data services aren’t usually available when roaming. This is completely inconvenient, [...]
Continue ReadingEven while battling to save its mobile phones division, Motorola has brought in a new CFO, and oddly enough, CEO Greg Brown chose to look outside the company’s current ranks for the position. Paul Liska, who previously held the title of CFO at Sears, Roebuck, and Co, will step in on March 1 as the [...]
Continue ReadingA team of 27 researchers and students at the Melbourne University recently unveiled their new GiFi chip, which they hope will be ready for market in 2009. The chip, which measures 5mm on either side, only uses 2 watts of power and sports a tiny 1mm antenna. Since this little chip is manufactured using CMOS [...]
Continue ReadingJames Whatley, of Whatley on Wednesdays fame, shared this video with me over IM this morning, and I thought it was rather interesting. The video is of Justin, who apparently is one of the ‘newer’ recruits over at Mippin, which we’ve covered here before. Justin’s playing with a new Motorola Z8, and having a beast [...]
Continue ReadingIf you’re reading in London at the moment, get the next flight from LHR to SFO and, theoretically, I’ll see you at Unlimited Drinks San Francisco this evening.
I’m looking forward to meeting everyone — there are more details about tonight’s event here. If you’d like to come along, email me and I’ll send you [...]
Wow. It seems China Mobile is not content with adding 7.3 million new customers in its latest set of quarterly results - a record gain - it’s got its eyes on European expansion too. The Financial Times says the operator has opened a London office and its now planning to sell services to Chinese users [...]
Continue ReadingDoes anyone remember Leisure Suit Larry? (Here’s the Wikipedia briefing). A hugely successful series of games on the radar of most people who played the likes of The Secret of Monkey Island and whatnot, Leisure Suit Larry has now been digitally remastered for the mobile generation.
Vivendi Games Mobile has just released ‘Leisure [...]
Oh dear. According to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, graduates are using text-speak when they’re writing applications, with the problem particularly widespread among those who have studied technical courses, like engineering.
Shirley Alexander, a deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Technology, Sydney, said recent years had seen an increase in students writing assignments in leetspeak - [...]
After entering an unlimited voice price war with AT&T and Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile has pulled off another interesting move and decided to getting into the home phone game with VoIP.
It will be offering subscribers a router to connect to their home phone - it’s around $50 - and once the box is up and running, [...]
1-800-FREE-411, from Jingle Networks, has announced a new partnership with Dial Directions that will allow their users to simply call in, give their current address and the destination, and receive an SMS with directions to their destination. The service is, as you might have guessed, free of charge, and will launch on March 1st in [...]
Continue ReadingMuseum On The Go is a content portal for mobile devices that serves up images and videos of museum objects. There are roughly 30 short video clips which have been specially formatted for mobile devices and show objects and fashion from ‘back in the day.’ The image collection includes images which can be downloaded to [...]
Continue ReadingThe clan over at VITO Technology have put together plenty of great smartphone apps, for all OS’s. Their Windows Mobile hits include VITO Button Mapper, VITO Voice2Go, and VITO Zoomboard, while the Symbian side was blessed with VITO QuickContact and VITO Metronome. They’ve been doing their thing for 7 years, and decided to celebrate by [...]
Continue ReadingThe S60 Blogs are a source of all types of information, from application betas to marketing thoughts, and every now and again, a gem such as this post from Peter Harbeson. As a bit of an experiment, using his S60 handset, he wanted to see just how much he could do with his phone using [...]
Continue ReadingRelevantis, a Washington-based mobile advertising company, has unveiled its newest product, offering on-map icons for advertisers. The technology will work on both mobile phone based and stand-alone GPS systems, but could also make an appearance on desktop or online mapping services, as well. Advertisers pay a little extra to have a pretty icon show up [...]
Continue Reading
Whatleydude on 