November 10, 2006
Nokia: Growth opps in China
[from FierceWireless]
Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, said China provides the biggest growth opportunities for the company and the wireless industry in the years ahead, which is a sentiment in keeping with the company's strategy as outlined last month. China added nearly 49.7 million new mobile subscribers in the first nine months of 2006, bringing the country's subscriber base up to 443.2 million. Over the next three years, Nokia expects 160 million more subs in China. Current subscribers are going to want to replace their handsets: 55 percent of subs will do so this year and 80 percent will look for a replacement phone come 2010, according to Nokia.
"In China, the mobile phone is very much a substitute for a PC, meaning that people get their first Internet experience via mobile phones instead of PCs," Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasuvuo said. "I think we can take value from the PC market in this domain--maybe more easily than in the markets that are dominated by traditional PCs."
Posted by richard ting at November 10, 2006, 11:50 AM
November 09, 2006
Nokia preinstalls Yandex search engine on phones for Russia
Finnish telecommunications equipment and mobile handset producer Nokia has started offering users of its smartphones a search engine provided by Russian major Internet portal Yandex, Nokia said in a press release Thursday.
Nokia's smartphones have an application called Mobile Search, which provides users direct access to search engines. A spokesperson with Nokia's Russian representative office told Prime-Tass that initially Mobile Search had access only to Yahoo's search engine, while now users would have an option to choose between the two engines.
The Yandex engine will be preinstalled in Nokia N80 Internet Edition smartphones, which is scheduled for sale in Russia sometime in January-March 2007, while users of Nokia's other smartphones can download Mobile Search with Yandex support from the company's Web site, Nokia said.
Nokia accounted for 26.5% of the Russian market's sales in physical terms in January-June, Russia's largest mobile handset retailer Euroset reported earlier.
Posted by richard ting at November 09, 2006, 05:50 AM
August 29, 2006
The Mobile Internet: Are we there yet?
[from c|net]
After years of hype, wireless users in the United States are waiting for all the technology pieces to come together to make surfing the Internet from their handsets as easy as it is on their PCs at home.
So how close are we to simple and robust Web surfing from a cell phone?The answer depends on whom you ask. Some experts say the mobile Internet is already here. Millions of people throughout the world are accessing wireless application protocol, or WAP, Web sites--stripped-down sites specially designed for mobile handsets. But other experts argue that WAP sites are too limited. Some people say an entirely new domain name, called "dot-mobi," should be used for Web sites that are optimized for mobile surfing. Still others propose using intelligent browsers to turn traditional Web sites into something that can be viewed on a small handset.
Posted by richard ting at August 29, 2006, 07:39 AM
August 16, 2006
Mobile Marketing Gets Creative
[via mediapost]
Off the Hook!
by Steve Smith, August 2006 issue
Mobile Marketing Gets Creative
Remember all those crappy banner ads in the 1990s, when it seemed that any intern with html skills could become an interactive account executive?
You're not likely to see the same mistake with the emerging mobile platform. Even at this nascent stage, the creative juices are gushing from seasoned teams that are thinking hard about the unique interactive aspects of this platform.
The industry's best minds know the world doesn't need another ringtone, wallpaper, or short-code sweepstakes. The most creative mobile executions these days aggressively explore the wireless device itself what the technology does, where it does it, and how marketing messages can be integrated into our most intimate communications habits.
Read more.
Posted by richard ting at August 16, 2006, 02:36 AM
June 16, 2006
Cell phone cinematographers make feature debut
[from CNN]
ROME, Italy (AP) -- The theme may be familiar but the technique is new: A standard cell phone camera to shoot an entire feature-length documentary on love and sex.
Italian filmmakers used a Nokia N90, a higher-end cell phone sold around the world, to produce the 93-minute "New Love Meetings," which they say is the first feature film to be entirely shot with such a tool.
The technique underscores what has become a fixture in today's world: The use of amateur video and cell phone cameras to immortalize moments in people's lives.
"With the widespread availability of cell phones equipped with cameras, anybody could do this," documentary co-director Marcello Mencarini said in a telephone interview from Milan. "If you want to say something nowadays, thanks to the new media, you can."
Posted by richard ting at June 16, 2006, 05:43 AM
June 04, 2006
Lace Sneakers Magazine #6
The new issue of the Lace sneakers magazine is out now. Lace#6 is available in Germany, in selected stores worldwide or can easily be ordered on the website www.lace-mag.com. In this issue, the focus is on the new Adicolor-series, Nike's History of Cushioning, and an overview of Jordan styles. Interviews with Jason Bass, The Ones from Run Athletics, and Gabriel Urist are also on the list.
Posted by richard ting at June 04, 2006, 12:38 AM
January 17, 2006
Nike Archive Needs Your Help
Nike wants to build an archive containing a pair of shoes from every model it's ever made. The company is asking the public to contact Nike if they have one of the models on Nike's wish list.
Posted by richard ting at January 17, 2006, 01:37 PM
January 11, 2006
Weeklydrop Episode 4 is now online
Weeklydrop Episode 4 is now online featuring an interview with renown painter Dave White from Liverpool. Dave discussed his work on the Nike AM95 10 Year Anniversay Party, Star Wars, world sneaker culture, future hits, and much more. The podcast runs about 19min on this one.
Posted by richard ting at January 11, 2006, 08:11 PM
January 06, 2006
Yahoo Goes Mobile
Yahoo's e-mail, instant messaging, photo and other services are now available on mobile phones and PC-connected TVs, as well as on personal computers without using a browser.
Yahoo Go, which the Internet company launched Friday, is a set of communications and media applications, including Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Photos, calendar, address book, Web and image search, news, sports and finance.
The services will be preloaded on Nokia Series 60 mobile phones and available in 10 countries worldwide. They will also be available to Cingular and AT&T customers in the United States, Yahoo said. Additions and updates to the information in the applications will be automatically synched between the mobile phone and the user account on Yahoo servers.
Posted by richard ting at January 06, 2006, 02:21 AM
Motorola adds Google to Mobiles
[via the BBC]
Motorola has announced plans to enable users of its mobile phones to access Google's internet search engine at the touch of a single handset button.
The US mobile phone maker said it would introduce Google's software technology to many of its new handsets. The companies said they wanted to encourage more mobile users to access the internet using their phones.
Posted by richard ting at January 06, 2006, 02:16 AM
December 31, 2005
No Mas - Fall Classic NYC
The Fall Classic is a collaborative, sports-themed gallery show betwen Michey Duzyj and Chris Isenberg of No Mas. It focuses on our generation's dissapointing sports role models, and on the various fixes that did each of them in.
Posted by richard ting at December 31, 2005, 04:11 PM
December 22, 2005
Weeklydrop Episode 3 is now online
Weeklydrop Episode 3 is now online featuring an interview with Gabriel
Urist, the NYC sneaker jeweler, discussion on DMC, Le Coq Sportif and
much more.
Posted by richard ting at December 22, 2005, 12:00 AM
November 24, 2005
Weeklydrop Sneaker Podcast
Here's a new audio show/podcast experiment coming out of Boston called Weeklydrop. It's done by the guys at Dropform. Check out their Flickr photostream. Nice photos in there.
These guys are producing a weekly podcast that looks into current sneaker news. They also spend some time interviewing designers and artists in the sneaker world and listening to their first hand experiences on the creative processes that went into some of the kicks we wear and love.
Though the focus is sneaker centric, these guys are by no means limited to them, they also explore urban art, fashion and more.
Posted by richard ting at November 24, 2005, 02:46 AM
November 18, 2005
AF1 Business Week Article
Here's an interesting AF1 Business Week article from this past summer. Thanks to Omid Fatemi for the link.
Posted by richard ting at November 18, 2005, 07:06 PM
July 29, 2005
Borf Arrested in D.C.
The mysterious, ubiquitous and eminently destructive graffiti artist known as Borf was arrested yesterday after waging a months-long campaign that may have been intended to enlighten Washington, but mostly just confused us.
The man primarily responsible for Borf is, it turns out, an 18-year-old art student from Great Falls named John Tsombikos, according to D.C. police inspector Diane Groomes. He was arrested along with two other young men in the wee hours of yesterday morning after officers received a tip that graffiti artists were spray-painting at Seventh and V streets NW.
Posted by richard ting at July 29, 2005, 11:37 AM
June 29, 2005
Ultimate Sneaker Bracket on ESPN.com
ESPN is running now sneaker culture programs on it's site as well as on-air. All summer on ESPN2, it's running the program, "It's the Shoes" hosted by Bobbito Garcia. It's the Shoes will visit the sneaker collections of Allen Iverson, Nelly, Michael Vick and others throughout the summer. The show airs as part of ESPN2's "Block Party" each Tuesday night (Wednesday morning) at 1:30 a.m.
Also, Page 2 on ESPN.com is running a campaign to find the greatest sneaker of all time. Page 2's panel of sneaker freaks selected 48 classic athletic shoes and seeded three regions: the Old School Hoops Region, New School Hoops Region, and Non-Hoops Region. Visitors to the site are invited to place their votes.
Posted by richard ting at June 29, 2005, 03:42 AM
June 01, 2005
Just Do It Yourself
Brooklyn based blogger, Set Speed, was kind enough to forward over this article from this past Sunday's NYTimes Magazine. Eventhough, Nike's new NIKEiD.com advertising campaign seems to have reached critical mass across the media waves the last few weeks, this article gives some nice insight into the 'influencer-centric' design studio that they have set up at the 255 Elizabeth space in NYC. Give it a read.
[from NYTimes Magazine]
By HORACIO SILVA
A store is born in New York about as often as a Broadway hopeful arrives at the Port Authority. These days, however, jaded consumers expect more boogie-woogie than the retail equivalent of a matinee for the blue-rinse set. Temporary guerrilla stores, traveling boutiques and hybrid emporiums, selling everything from Belgian fashion experimentalia to limited-edition Japanese toys, are just some of the novelties setting the stage for a serious denouement at the cash register.
So it should surprise exactly no one that the fad for members-only clubs now extends into the shopping arena. In the wake of exclusionary stores like Celux, the LVMH-owned retail club in Tokyo, Nike has opened the NIKE iD lab, a private design studio on Elizabeth Street complete with security guards to keep out the celebrity seekers and sneaker freakers who memorize bar codes and shrink-wrap their shoes for safekeeping.
Read more.
Posted by richard ting at June 01, 2005, 12:27 PM
May 05, 2005
Nike Decides Not to Do Business With Sears
[from nytimes.com]
By NAT IVES
Published: May 5, 2005
NIKE'S decision to stop selling its sneakers and clothes at Sears is shining a spotlight on the impact retail environments have on marketers' brands.
Though the companies themselves have said little about the move, retail analysts quickly pronounced it a result of the Kmart Holding Corporation's $12 billion acquisition of Sears, Roebuck & Company in March.
Nike may have feared that its products would wind up for sale at Kmart, a discount chain, analysts said. If not, Nike may still have worried that Sears Holdings, the company that resulted from the Kmart-Sears combination, would undermine Nike's image.
When Sears Holdings was formed, its chief executive, Alan J. Lacy, said that the new company would offer a complete shopping solution. "Shoppers will have greater access to the leading proprietary brands of both Kmart and Sears," Mr. Lacy said. Kmart stores, for example, would be able to sell products once exclusive to Sears, like Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances.
The cross-pollination, however, has yet to significantly improve the image of either chain.
At the same time, Nike has continued to pursue high-gloss ad campaigns. It is spending an estimated $20 million to $30 million, for example, on its warriors campaign that shows professional athletes donning masks.
In sum, Nike spent an estimated $220 million last year to advertise in major United States media, according to TNS Media Intelligence. It is also the runaway sales leader in its chief category. With about $3.2 billion in wholesale footwear sales last year, Nike represented 36.3 percent of the nation's $8.9 billion branded athletic shoe market, according to Sporting Goods Intelligence. Its next closest competitor, Reebok, had 12.2 percent of that market.
Read more.
Posted by richard ting at May 05, 2005, 01:02 PM
May 02, 2005
NIKEiD in Times Square, NYC
[from nypost.com]
For six years, Nike's iD division has let sneaker enthusiasts design their own shoes online with a few mouse clicks. Now the athletic apparel giant is taking the customization craze a step further through new technology and savvy marketing. Using their cellphones, Nike fans will be able to customize a pair of shoes displayed on a 22-story digital screen in the heart of Times Square. After their 60-second session, they can either download their design as mobile phone wallpaper or go online and buy the product.
The interactive experience — a blend of mobile marketing, online shopping and video gaming — underscores the challenge for Nike to innovate on both the design and technology fronts. "We've integrated different components of this from time to time but this is the first time we've brought it all together," said John Mayo-Smith, vice president of technology for R/GA, Nike's interactive ad agency.
Beyond that, Nike sees this as a way to experiment with new kinds of marketing. While it expects a lot of people will try their hand at designing, it hopes to capture the attention of millions. Nike is relaunching the iD program with a redesigned Web site and a marketing campaign that also involves TV spots, online ads and "wild postings" outdoors.
Read more.
More press from ClickZ.
Posted by richard ting at May 02, 2005, 01:49 PM
April 25, 2005
Color QR codes
Developed by Color Zip Media, ColorCode is the world's first general-purpose image code that uses color. It is recognition technology designed with a new concept, in which index codes are recognized by a camera and linked to data.
Read more.
Posted by richard ting at April 25, 2005, 12:51 PM
April 22, 2005
Motorola still plans to launch iTunes phone
According to Motorola CEO Ed Zander, the company still plans to launch its much-hyped iTunes mobile phone. Zander this week re-iterated his company's commitment to delivering the device, saying that the phone should hit the market in the next few months.Motorola was scheduled to debut the iTunes phone at 3GSM in Cannes, but delayed the launch at the last minute. Insiders claimed that phone's launch was delayed due to carriers who were unwilling to offer the handset. According to the insider rumors, carriers are not interested in giving Apple access to the emerging downloadable mobile music market.
For more on the latest iTunes phone news:
- read this report from vnunet.com
Posted by richard ting at April 22, 2005, 02:54 AM
April 20, 2005
A Graffiti Legend Is Back on the Street
|
|
[from nytimes.com]
He arrived on foot, and on time, wearing heavily grease-stained beige overalls and boots. He seemed to be in his late 30's or early 40's, with thinning light brown hair. He had the windburned eyes and blackened fingernails of an ironworker, along with the vaguely feral intensity of someone on the lam.
But he hardly looked like the kind of shadowy revolutionary figure who had once declared that his goal was to "tear the city to pieces and rebuild it." Now, he says, smiling weakly, "I stop at stop signs; I pay taxes; I get up and go to work and get a paycheck."
In the New York graffiti world of the early 1990's, he was everywhere and larger than life, sometimes literally: the name Revs, usually accompanied by that of his partner in crime, Cost, could be found scrawled, wheat-pasted or painted in gargantuan white letters on overpasses, walls and roofs from SoHo to northern New Jersey. The work upended many traditional notions of graffiti and helped inspire a new generation of so-called street artists.
Then in late 1994 Cost was arrested for vandalism. Revs went underground and left the city for Alaska. And when he returned, his work went mostly underground, too - into the subway, where he painted long, feverish diary entries worthy of a Dostoyevsky character on dozens of walls hidden deep inside the tunnels. (He called this a personal mission and said he did not care if anybody else saw them.)
But over the last few years, he has re-emerged into public view and reincarnated himself in a way few of his fans ever expected, as a legitimate and (mostly) law-abiding sculptor. He has made dozens of works using construction-grade steel and other metal parts and has sought the permission of building owners to weld and bolt them to the outsides of buildings in the meatpacking district, the East Village, the Gowanus Canal area and Dumbo, where the gentrifying but still half-deserted streets have become a veritable Revs gallery.
Yet unlike many former graffiti artists who have turned their street credibility into successful careers as graphic designers or youth-market branding gurus, Revs has continued to shun, angrily, the worlds of conventional art and commerce. He makes his living about as far from the art world as possible, as a union ironworker, surrounded by co-workers who mostly have no idea of his reputation as a near-mythical deity of the graffiti world. His only gallery show, in Philadelphia in 2000, was to raise money so he could pay a lawyer after he was arrested for the subway graffiti. Otherwise, he has refused to sell his work or take commissions for it.
Posted by richard ting at April 20, 2005, 12:44 PM
March 30, 2005
Television goes wireless in May - in Korea
The government allocated six licenses for land-based mobile television services that are expected to go live in May, with the country's three major television stations allowed to extend programs to handsets.
However, policymakers failed to reach a decision on whether to allow land-based television programs to air on satellite-based digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) services, a separate mobile television standard backed by SK Telecom Co.
The Korean Broadcasting Commission, the country's broadcasting regulator, announced the results of the licensing competition for the upcoming land-based mobile television services.
The country's three major land-based television stations - KBS, MBC and SBS - secured spots for the nascent market. That excluded the fourth-largest broadcaster, EBS, out of the picture. Three remaining licenses, saved for non-terrstrial broadcasters, were allocated to consortiums led by cable news broadcaster YTN, radio braodaster CBS and a group led by electronics equipment makers PSK Tech Inc., Homecast Co. and digital content developer Sigong Tech Co.
The television stations have given themselves a May deadline for brining television to mobile handsets in Seoul and other neighboring cities. The non-terrestrial broadcasters expect to start commercial services during the second-half of the year.
Posted by richard ting at March 30, 2005, 07:10 AM
March 20, 2005
For Kicks - From NYTimes Magazine
By ROB WALKER
Mark Ong was a sneakerhead -- that is, one of the thousands of people all over the world who talk and think about sneakers the way that Paul Giamatti's character in the movie ''Sideways'' talks and thinks about wine (only without chemical dependency or pointy-head metaphors about the meaning of life). Then, about a year and a half ago, a Web site called Niketalk held a contest, inviting readers to submit photographs of sneakers they had ''customized'' -- given new, hand-painted designs. Ong, a graphic designer, reworked a pair of white Air Force 1's with a safari-print graphic treatment adapted from a different Nike model, and he won. There was no prize, but it was the beginning of a new career. Now known as SBTG(pronounced ''sabotage''), Ong sells his customized Nikes for $350 a pair.
SBTG is not the first sneakerhead to, in effect, go pro. The most famous customizer is probably the Los Angeles-based artist who works under the name Methamphibian, whose shoes (or kicks, as they say) can go for $900 a pair and who is now designing sneakers that are scheduled to be produced by DC Shoes, which makes skateboarding shoes and apparel. But the story of SBTG affords a look at one facet of the sneaker phenomenon -- that is, the way that fashion and brand loyalty can come together in what might be considered the folk art of a consumer culture.
Ong works out of his apartment in Singapore, but his projects are transnational. After winning the Niketalk competition, he made a set of 72 pairs of sneakers for a store in Tokyo. He has since released sets with the Hong Kong toymaker adFunture and a London D.J. called Unkle. For Sneaker Freaker magazine, based in Melbourne, Australia, he contributed a step-by-step customizing guide and executed a custom Nike Dunk co-branded with the sponsor Tiger Beer. His shoes are included in the world-traveling sneaker gallery show Sneaker Pimps (sponsored in part by the Finish Line retail chain), and he is starting an apparel line, Royalefam, with Ambush, a Singapore boutique. ''Right up to this day, I still think that it feels kind of surreal,'' SBTG told me recently of his transition from fan to brand.
SBTG's first official U.S. sneaker release last year was at Packer Shoes in Teaneck, N.J. A boutique-style shop that looks as if it belongs in Lower Manhattan, Packer is a spinoff of a family-owned Yonkers store; Michael Packer, who runs the Teaneck store, explained that his father had one of the first Nike accounts in New York. On the night the shoes were released, a couple dozen sneakerheads journeyed to Teaneck and bought most of the 24 pairs of the SBTG X Packer Desert Mayhems.
Sneaker enthusiasm has a long history. Consumers have blurred the lines between athletic gear and stylish streetwear. Sneaker makers have responded by stoking the market for status-giving scarcity by producing limited-edition models that can draw small mobs (although it's likely that the mobs are mostly sneakerpreneurs who then flip their purchases on eBay for huge markups). Perhaps customizing, the popularity of which is growing, gives consumers more control over what makes a product special.
Maybe the strangest thing about the sneaker subculture is that Nike, a mainstream megabrand, is not shunned like mainstream merlot in ''Sideways'' but is at the center of the action. Niketalk.com was not founded by and is not moderated by the company but rather by a handful of dedicated sneaker fanatics who swap news, gossip and opinions about Nike products. Alex Wang, better known in the sneaker community as Retrokid, is an administrator of the site and is another sneaker enthusiast who has gone pro, as the creative director of the magazine Sole Collector. He says Nike is not directly involved in the site, though people at the company read it, and it's widely believed that some of them post. (Nike declined to comment for this column.) Nevertheless, it's essentially a community of brand fans, with more than 35,000 registered users. It's as if a computer-hacker subculture developed around a devotion to Microsoft products. SBTG says he has had only limited contact with Nike, but so far it is the only brand of sneaker he has worked on. ''It's got nice lines, nice space, it looks right; it sort of motivates me,'' he says. ''It's the perfect canvas.''
Posted by richard ting at March 20, 2005, 12:54 PM
March 09, 2005
Nokia, others launch wireless TV trials
Nokia today launched a wireless project bringing live television to mobile phones and handhelds. The project will test wireless TV services with 500 users in Helsinki. Nokia is working with Finland's largest broadcaster, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), leading commercial TV channels, and carriers TeliaSonera and Elisa. Trial users are able to view real-time TV and radio programs on the Nokia 7710 smartphone equipped with a special accessory to receive wireless TV broadcasts.
In other mobile TV news, both Orange and SFR said they plan to launch mobile TV trials in France. Orange and Bouygues Telecom said they plan to form a partnership with Television France 1 and satellite-television company TP to launch a test service with 200 of each of the carriers subscribers. SFR, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, said it also plans launch a similar venture with Vivendi pay-TV broadcaster Canal Plus.
Posted by richard ting at March 09, 2005, 11:24 AM
Microsoft opens S.Korea mobile devices lab
MAR. 7 4:57 A.M. ET
U.S. software company Microsoft Corp. opened its first mobile communications research laboratory in South Korea Monday, aiming to boost its presence in this Asian nation -- a leader in developing mobile phone technology and other wireless services.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will spend US$30 million (euro22.6 million) over the next three years on a lab and hire about 30 engineers, including Microsoft employees and local staff, Microsoft said.
The laboratory will work with South Korean mobile phone companies to develop services and technology aimed at integrating its mobile operating system into "smartphones," which combine the features of traditional mobile phones and portable digital assistants.
Posted by richard ting at March 09, 2005, 11:10 AM
March 04, 2005
Trend: Motorola growing whille Nokia fights back
[from FierceWireless]
According to a number of recent studies, Motorola has soundly recaptured its title as the No. 2 handset vendor in the world, beating back the challenge from Samsung and gaining market share against long-time rival Nokia. Motorola's recent success has been due in large part to its Razr phone. Industry insiders are eager to see Motorola's new iTunes phone, which promises to combine the slick design of the Razr with the popularity of Apple's downloadable iTunes music service. Motorola rival Sony Ericsson launched its Walkman phone this week, a device designed to head off the iTunes phone before it even hits the market. Nokia this week also showed off a phone than can run music tracks saved in the iTunes file format.
Nokia, on the other hand, is fighting hard to reverse the slide it experienced early last year. According to recent findings from Gartner, Nokia lost 4 percent of its global market share in 2004. The company's shortage of lower-priced phones helped Motorola, Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson gain market share. Nokia rebounded strongly and fought its way back to over 30 percent share by year's end. Motorola claims a 15.4 percent share while Samsung has 12.6 percent.
Posted by richard ting at March 04, 2005, 04:56 AM
February 23, 2005
Sneaker Riot
[from the NYPost]
Talk about sneaker wars. Customers on the Lower East Side were duking it out in the street yesterday over a limited-edition Nike Pigeon (NYC) Dunk skateboarding shoe.
Not even Big 'Twoine — the 300-pound bouncer hired to keep order — was able to control the dozens of "sneakerheads" who rushed the door at The Reed Space store at 10:30 a.m. yesterday.
When tempers flared, cops were called to restore order. It was all in the name of target marketing and the desire to be the first.
"It was kind of crazy," said Nico Reyes, a store manager. Reyes said a fight broke out after a bunch of people tried to skip the line that snaked outside the Orchard Street store.
Posted by richard ting at February 23, 2005, 12:10 AM
February 18, 2005
Nokia, TIM plan video sharing service
TIM, Nokia to launch video sharing in Italy
Mobile operator Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) and mobile handset maker Nokia are planning a mass-market launch of the video sharing service in Italy in the second quarter of 2005. Video sharing is to be initially available to TIM customers with the Nokia 6680 3G imaging smart-phone. Video sharing is a multimedia service that allows people to view a live video or a video clip in real time during a normal voice call on their mobile phone. Sent from one phone to the other, both speakers can see the same video and discuss it, and then end the video sharing without ending the voice call. Video sharing is based on standardised 3GPP and IETF technologies. TIM and Nokia have been working together to commercialise the solution on the Nokia 6630 terminal. TIM offers the video sharing service under the TIM Turbo Call service brand.
The video sharing concept is based on the 3GPP IP multimedia subsystem. The Nokia IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) core network infrastructure, in use in TIM's network, is to be complemented by IMS network provisioning and OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) device settings management systems, so that video sharing can be deployed to the TIM customer base, together with other IMS peer-to-peer applications.
Posted by richard ting at February 18, 2005, 04:21 AM
February 14, 2005
Microsoft, Nokia Ink Music Deal
Phonemaker to use Microsoft products in digital music headsets; Microsoft agrees to open standards.
HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music online and play it back on their handsets.
In a comprehensive agreement, involving a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets. In return, Microsoft, will introduce open standards for digital music compression and piracy protection in its Media Players for personal computers.
"Some big 'religious' positions have changed at a high level at Nokia to make this happen," said industry analyst Ben Wood at Gartner market research. For many years, handset vendors have allied against Microsoft because of its market dominance. But Nokia's chief executive of multimedia devices, Anssi Vanjoki, said at the 3GSM mobile communications trade show it would be hard to find a better partner than "The King of PCs."
Consumers keep a lot of digital music in personal computers and will be able to simply transfer those tracks to their phone. "This agreement makes it easier for consumers to download music they want to listen to, without having to worry about whether or not the file format is supported," Vanjoki said, in an interview, adding that the mobile world was simply taking a lead from the success of music download services on the Web.
The deal brings together two long-time rivals, with Nokia previously using either in-house or RealNetworksmusic and video software. The Finnish firm sold 10 million phones in 2004 with an integrated music player, and a spokesman told Reuters Nokia would launch a phone in 2005 that would support Windows Audio.
Posted by richard ting at February 14, 2005, 11:57 AM
January 29, 2005
New Yahoo Tool Sends Business Info to Mobile Phones
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) began offering on Thursday a new tool that allows users of its local search service to send restaurant or business information in the form of a text message from a computer to a mobile phone.
Yahoo said its new service is available across all the major wireless carriers at no charge for consumers. However, wireless carriers may charge fees for receiving text messages on a mobile handset.
For example, a user could search for information about San Francisco's Slanted Door restaurant on a PC and then click on a link to send the address and telephone number to a mobile phone. The message goes via SMS -- or short message services, a form of text messaging offered by all major mobile phone carriers in the United States and in most other countries .
The move comes amid intense competition in the Web search market.
Google in October rolled out a test service that allows people to use mobile phones or handheld devices to tap Google's Web search via SMS.
Also, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) late on Wednesday announced a local search service that uses voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, to directly connect users to businesses they have located via Amazon's A9 Web search service.
Posted by richard ting at January 29, 2005, 06:13 AM
January 21, 2005
Samsung Phones To Include Macromedia Flash
Macromedia announced a licensing agreement with Samsung Electronics to provide Flash Lite 1.1. A variation of Macromedia Flash Player, Flash Lite 1.1 is specifically designed for mobile devices, giving the ability to view interactive Flash content.
Samsung plans on using Flash Lite to deliver graphical user interfaces and rich interactive experiences on new mobile handsets worldwide. "We are very proud to be working with Samsung who has become a global leader in mobile because of their focus on excellence in design," said Stephen Elop, Macromedia CEO. "As Samsung mobile phones enter the marketplace with Flash Lite we look forward to working together to bring incredible new experiences to consumers around the world."
Posted by richard ting at January 21, 2005, 09:57 AM
January 19, 2005
LeBron Campaign and QR Codes in Japan
 | |
 |  |
This posting could have easily been posted within the mobility, design, and advertising sections of this site. It's the Asian print campaign for Lebron James' Chamber of Fear. The main difference between the U.S. prints ads and the Japan print ads is that in Japan the user can link to a i-Mode site from the QR Code. All the user needs to do is photograph the QR Code using his/her compatible mobile phone. Once the QR Code is photographed, the user's i-Mode (WAP) browser is launched and the user is taken directly to the nikebasketball.com site on his/her phone. It's a cool idea, but let's not hold our breath about QR codes popping up in U.S. advertisements anytime soon. Most U.S. mobile phones are still not QR code compatible and WAP penetration amongst users still stands at a lowly 15%.
Check out Lebron James in the Chamber of Fear.
Posted by richard ting at January 19, 2005, 11:31 AM
December 21, 2004
Nokia Lifeblog 1.5 released
|
Nokia Lifeblog is a PC and mobile phone software combination that effortlessly keeps a multimedia diary of the items you collect with your mobile phone. Lifeblog automatically organizes your photos, videos, text messages, and multimedia messages into a clear chronology you can easily browse, search, edit, and save. Nokia Lifeblog does the work of organizing the items you create and receive, and you can also add notes throughout the day, or tag and update your favorites so they're always on your phone. |
 | |
Posted by richard ting at December 21, 2004, 11:35 AM
December 16, 2004
Mobile.Seed. The first one?
[from we-make-money-not-art]
Last week or so, the story that researchers at the University of Warwick, in association with PVAXX and Motorola, had devised a new way to recycle discarded mobile telephones - bury them and watch them transform into the flower of your choice - was all over the blogosphere.
It reminded me of something. Couldn't place it though. Then it came back to me (with a little help), I had heard of a similar project nearly one year ago!
Belmer Negrillo had investigated the consumption of electronic objects (ex.: a bread-lamp - Paneluce and DolceRadio, a radio with an edible shell and buttons made of chocolate) and, in particular, a project-scenario where a mobile phone could be planted as an alternative discard method and become a flower (Mobile.Seed).
Posted by richard ting at December 16, 2004, 03:23 AM
December 14, 2004
Mobile Music in Japan - Japan's reality is our future
This article takes a close look at the world leading Japanese mobile data market which is all about migrating users to 3G (thrid generation of mobile communication technology) and offering new cutting-edge services driven by more powerful 3G networks and devices. A special focus is on the mobile music market which generates 50% of mobile content premium revenues. Learning from Japan makes sense as there are basically no differences between end user cultures in Japan and other countries, but there still are many differences between management cultures.
Mobile Kaizen management is good for Japanese consumers
Next to South Korea which enjoys the highest fixed and mobile broadband penetration - counting relative DSL connections and 3G-enabled mobile phones - Japan continues to be the leading mobile data market in the world. Having analysed the Japanese mobile market since 2000 I do believe that Japan is still far ahead when it comes to managing the mobile economy and maximizing value for consumers. I like to call the Japanese management approach “Mobile Kaizen” – the art of continuously improving the mobile economy which the Japanese mobile companies master so well.
In Japan, there are 3 mobile network operators that all launched their first mobile Internet services back in 1999 and, since then, have heavily competed among each other for the mobile communications budget of Japanese consumers and businesses. The Japanese market is driven by consumer demand and managed in a carrier-centric way. The carriers control the market and specify all the functionality of the mobile handsets that are built to their orders mainly by Japanese handset makers (only now Vodafone tries to sell devices made by Nokia and Motorola in Japan).
Posted by richard ting at December 14, 2004, 12:33 PM
December 09, 2004
China hates them, but download the NYC Chamber of Fear giveaways here
China bans controversial Nike advertisement
China has banned a Nike television commercial showing U.S. basketball star LeBron James in a battle with animated cartoon kung fu masters and two dragons, saying the advertisement insults Chinese national dignity. The State Advertisement Administration for Radio, Film and Television posted a statement on its website Monday, saying the advertisement violates regulations that mandate that all advertisements in China should uphold national dignity and interest and respect national culture.
It also goes against rules that require advertisements not to contain content that insults national practices and cultures. The advertisement has received an indignant response from Chinese viewers. Nike spokesman Maurice Zhou says the company has no response except to say that it will respect the government's decision.
The commercial, titled "Chamber of Fear," was broadcast on local Chinese stations and on state television's national sports channel before being pulled last month. The commercial shows James in a video game-style setting defeating the kung fu master, two women in traditional Chinese attire and a pair of dragons, considered a sacred symbol in traditional Chinese culture.
DOWNLOAD THE GIVEAWAYS HERE.
Download the PC Screensaver.
Download the MAC OS 9 Screensaver.
Download the MAC OS X Screensaver.
MANHATTAN
Download the Buddy Icon.
Download the Wallpaper.
STATEN ISLAND
Download the Buddy Icon.
Download the Wallpaper.
BRONX
Download the Buddy Icon.
Download the Wallpaper.
BROOKLYN
Download the Buddy Icon.
Download the Wallpaper.
QUEENS
Download the Buddy Icon.
Download the Wallpaper.
Posted by richard ting at December 09, 2004, 12:25 PM
December 01, 2004
Hamburg city pushes mobile phone ticketing
Hamburg, one of Germany's largest cities, is showing consumers how they can check into soccer games, museum exhibitions, musicals and more with their mobile phones as part of a two-day mobile phone ticketing initiative beginning Friday.
Soccer fans attending the Friday evening match between FC St. Pauli and Hertha BSC Amateure will be able to avoid long lines at ticket booths by displaying their mobile phones with a message containing a bar code, which is scanned at the gate. The same service will be available on Saturday to those attending the musical "Dance of the Vampire," or live music performances in several bars in Hamburg's famous Reeperbahn district.
Mobile Ticketing Days is an initiative of the City of Hamburg in collaboration with several technology partners, including T-Mobile International AG, Matrix Solutions GmbH and Teltix GmbH. The two-day program is being managed by Hamburg@work, a public-private organization involving the Hamburg city economic development agency and a group of local multimedia technology companies.
"Earlier this year, we conducted a survey of local business people and consumers and asked them what they view as the key technology trends in 2004 and 2005," said a spokesman from Hamburg@work. "Many of them viewed mobile phone applications as an important trend. That's what prompted this two-day mobile application event and others to follow next year."
Matrix has developed a mobile ticketing system, called PicTicket. Customers can either purchase their ticket online by going to the PicTicket Web site or calling the automated PicTicket call center. They must provide both their mobile phone number and the type of phone they use.
Posted by richard ting at December 01, 2004, 04:24 AM
'Ringback' Tones May Be Next Big Thing
By Bruce Meyerson, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP)—Ring tones are so yesterday. If wireless companies have their way, the next multibillion-dollar surprise in the cellular business will be "Ringback" tones. Instead of the usual dialing noise which people hear when phoning someone, callers to Verizon Wireless subscribers may soon find themselves listening to a song until the phone is answered.
The service, pioneered by SK Telecom of Korea, is now debuting in California and is slated to be available nationally by mid-2005.
Verizon Wireless, a partnership between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, is charging 99 cents per month plus an annual fee of $1.99 for each Ringback Tone chosen. Other U.S. carriers are said to be mulling a similar service.
Verizon's subscribers can assign specific tunes for different callers to hear, choosing among 2,200 songs from 13 music genres provided by Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
Posted by richard ting at December 01, 2004, 03:15 AM
ESPN to Launch Mobile Phone Service in Sprint Deal
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co.'s (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) ESPN sports television network is launching its own brand of mobile phone service in a deal with Sprint Corp. (FON.N: Quote, Profile, Research) intended to lure new users with sports news sent over a next-generation network, the companies said on Wednesday.
Sprint would effectively rent out space on its network to ESPN, which would become a pioneer among U.S. media companies aiming to take their wares to the smallest screen.
ESPN Mobile will start U.S. service in 2005 with access to streaming sports audio and video as well as graphics and news, ESPN and Sprint said in a statement. They did not disclose financial terms.
Posted by richard ting at December 01, 2004, 01:51 AM
November 26, 2004
Nike Hijacks Clear Channel’s Ad Panels in Singapore
On the morning of 8 Nov, the phone at Clear Channel’s head office rang non stop. Concerned advertisers, agencies and business partners called to inform us of the messy pasting of A2 size posters on many ad panels all over the island. This massive vandalism of the bus shelter panels is believed to be the work of fanatic basketball fans.
Instead of causing distraught, these calls actually brought smiles to our faces. Clear Channel had actually “colluded” with these “vandals” over the weekend. 700 ad panels across the island were “hijacked” – instead of having a poster sit nicely inside the glass panel, film posters with LeBron James were slapped haphazardly onto the surface of the panels.
The LeBron James (who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers) film posters were “wild-posted” to make it appear as if some mad basketball fans have hijacked the frames overnight. The idea is to do something naughty like wild-postings to disrupt the neat environment of Singapore and to impress the kids.
This “vandalism” campaign is a collaboration between Clear Channel and Nike to dominate the island by wild-posting 700 bus shelter ads, the first time a campaign of such magnitude and nature was executed in Singapore. The attention and concern the campaign brought pointed to its success. A new wave of vandalism with new film posters will hit town on 13 Nov.
The LeBron James “Chamber of Fear” campaign was a recent launch by Nike which features LeBron as the Newest Action Hero. The strategy is to establish LeBron as the “King” of the game and get the kids in Singapore to know about him. The creative inspiration came from the 1970s Hong Kong kung-fu movies and Japanese Anime films and pays homage to Asian-style film posters. Nike had a challenging task of using traditional outdoor media to execute the highly stylized campaign with deep connections to Asian roots.
Clear Channel was thus selected to deliver a high-impact, massive reach to their target audience – Singapore basketballers aged 13 to 20 years old. “The idea is to do something naughty like wild-postings to disrupt the neat environment of Singapore and stay in line with the street-feel of this LeBron James basketball campaign. This wild-posting execution was possible through collaboration with Clear Channel, who was willing to ‘risk the status quo’ and try out this new domination tactic with Nike,” said Ann Kositchotitana, Marketing Communications Manager of Nike Singapore. The two weeks campaign on Clear Channel ad panels ran from 6 Nov to 19 Nov. The LeBron James Chamber of Fear film posters were created by Wienden + Kennedy. Mindshare Singapore handled the media buying & the wild-posting outdoor strategy originated from Ogilvy RedCard. Other mediums that the campaign went on include TV, print, online (nikebasketball.com.sg) as well as film posters that are distributed at Nike retail stores.
Posted by richard ting at November 26, 2004, 07:19 PM
November 23, 2004
Amazon Japan Cell Phone Service
[via Gizmodo]
Keitai Watch reports that as part of a renewal of their site, Amazon Japan has introduced a flattering new feature called "Amazon Scan Search." After users download an application to their cell phone free of charge, they can scan barcodes of ordinary products, which in turn enables them to search the cell phone version of Amazon.co.jp for the respective product. Once they get a result on their search, they can then choose to purchase the item right from their phone. Obviously, there's quite a bit of overhead associated with this — like needing a phone with a camera, needing to use i-Mode, and needing to, you know, be in Japan — but I'm willing to ignore that for now.
Amazon Japan of course intends the service be used for on-the-spot price comparisons, as well as "finding out what sort of products are sold should you want something that your friend has." I'd say I await Amazon in America to introduce a similar service, but I will probably be waiting for all eternity.
Posted by richard ting at November 23, 2004, 10:59 AM
November 15, 2004
New Adidas Campaign
This is a pretty cool campaign on the Adidas site celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Superstar.
Posted by richard ting at November 15, 2004, 11:57 PM
November 14, 2004
Playstation Gran Turismo and Nike
|
|
Posted by richard ting at November 14, 2004, 11:45 PM
November 01, 2004
How Nike Figured Out China
The China market is finally for real. To the country's new consumers, Western products mean one thing: status. They can't get enough of those Air Jordans
By MATTHEW FORNEY
Nike swung into action even before most Chinese knew they had a new hero. The moment hurdler Liu Xiang became the country's first Olympic medalist in a short-distance speed event — he claimed the gold with a new Olympic record in the 110-m hurdles on Aug. 28--Nike launched a television advertisement in China showing Liu destroying the field and superimposed a series of questions designed to set nationalistic teeth on edge. "Asians lack muscle?" asked one. "Asians lack the will to win?" Then came the kicker, as Liu raised his arms above the trademark Swoosh on his shoulder: "Stereotypes are made to be broken." It was an instant success. "Nike understands why Chinese are proud," says Li Yao, a weekend player at Swoosh-bedecked basketball courts near Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Such clever marketing tactics have helped make Nike the icon for the new China. According to a recent Hill & Knowlton survey, Chinese consider Nike the Middle Kingdom's "coolest brand." Just as a new Flying Pigeon bicycle defined success when reforms began in the 1980s and a washing machine that could also scrub potatoes became the status symbol a decade later, so the Air Jordan — or any number of Nike products turned out in factories across Asia — has become the symbol of success for China's new middle class. Sales rose 66% last year, to an estimated $300 million, and Nike is opening an average of 1.5 new stores a day in China. Yes, a day. The goal is to migrate inland from China's richer east-coast towns in time for the outpouring of interest in sports that will accompany the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. How did Nike build such a booming business? For starters, the company promoted the right sports and launched a series of inspired ad campaigns. But the story of how Nike cracked the China code has as much to do with the rise of China's new middle class, which is hungry for Western gear and individualism, and Nike's ability to tap into that hunger.
Posted by richard ting at November 01, 2004, 04:49 PM
October 25, 2004
Do-It-Yourself Design: Just Point and Click
[from nytimes.com]
MARSHA BRONFMAN looked out on a gray day in Aventura, Fla., last year. She wanted a present for her daughter Lisa's bridal shower, but did not want to fight the traffic to the mall in the rain. So she sat down at her computer to surf the Internet. She typed in "lingerie," thinking of something lacy, even racy. What she found was a way to custom design the perfect gift.
"I saw Daniella Simon's site and the word `personalized,' " Ms. Bronfman, 52, said from Toronto, where she and her husband, the philanthropist Edward Bronfman have a home, "so I clicked."
The Web site, Daniellasimon.com, displayed three styles: bikini, thong and hipster, ranging from $24 to $115. After deciding on bikinis, she used drop-down menus to choose size, fabric color and then which of 10 colors of crystals should be used for a hand-encrusted personalized message.
"It was fun," Ms. Bronfman said. "I could use my own creativity to make something with my daughter's style in mind." But the real pleasure, she said, was in the reaction at the shower on Long Island a few months later.
Lisa's friends and family had oooh-ed and ahh-ed over the usual gifts and housewares. But they burst into laughter as she unwrapped the bikini underwear with sparkly letters spelling out her name-to-be, "Mrs. Genser," across the rear.
On-line customization was a slow starter in the 1990's. But as technology has improved, so has the variety. "Anything that can be digitized, can be customized," said B. Joseph Pine, the author of "Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition."
There is usually a small premium for the service. But for little more than retail, and a little patience for delivery, customers can build an item that is a perfect fit, a reality rarely experienced off the rack.
Nikeid.com, or Nike Individual Design, started online in 1999 with two running shoes. Revamped this year, the site is like a child's paint-by-numbers canvas on steroids. There are roughly 40 items to choose from, 38 types of shoes alone.
Posted by richard ting at October 25, 2004, 07:56 PM
October 18, 2004
Mobile Phone Market
[from trendcentral]
Meal Planner: Consumers with Verizon Wireless Mobile Web 2.0 service now have access to dinner and directions. Vindigo Studios created a restaurant guide utilizing Gayot.com information, such as locations, phone numbers, menus, pricing and ratings. MapQuest supplies the corresponding driving directions and maps.
Mobile Karaoke: KTF, a Korean wireless service provider, is planning to offer a handset which allows users to download music videos complete with captions for on-the-go karaoke.
Posted by richard ting at October 18, 2004, 11:01 AM
October 14, 2004
Our Cell Phones, Ourselves
[by Christine Rosen]
Hell is other people,” Sartre observed, but you need not be a misanthrope or a diminutive French existentialist to have experienced similar feelings during the course of a day. No matter where you live or what you do, in all likelihood you will eventually find yourself participating in that most familiar and exasperating of modern rituals: unwillingly listening to someone else’s cell phone conversation. Like the switchboard operators of times past, we are now all privy to calls being put through, to the details of loved ones contacted, appointments made, arguments aired, and gossip exchanged.
Today, more people have cell phones than fixed telephone lines, both in the United States and internationally. There are more than one billion cell phone users worldwide, and as one wireless industry analyst recently told Slate, “some time between 2010 and 2020, everyone who wants and can afford a cell phone will have one.” Americans spend, on average, about seven hours a month talking on their cell phones. Wireless phones have become such an important part of our everyday lives that in July, the country’s major wireless industry organization featured the following “quick poll” on its website: “If you were stranded on a desert island and could have one thing with you, what would it be?” The choices: “Matches/Lighter,” “Food/Water,” “Another Person,” “Wireless Phone.” The World Health Organization has even launched an “International EMF Project” to study the possible health effects of the electromagnetic fields created by wireless technologies.
But if this ubiquitous technology is now a normal part of life, our adjustment to it has not been without consequences. Especially in the United States, where cell phone use still remains low compared to other countries, we are rapidly approaching a tipping point with this technology. How has it changed our behavior, and how might it continue to do so? What new rules ought we to impose on its use? Most importantly, how has the wireless telephone encouraged us to connect individually but disconnect socially, ceding, in the process, much that was civil and civilized about the use of public space?
Posted by richard ting at October 14, 2004, 11:15 AM
October 09, 2004
Mobile Content Boom
The mobile content market will grow up to nearly $78 billion in revenues worldwide by 2007, up from $16.7 billion last year. The majority of the revenues will go to operators, but third-party content providers will bring in approximately 40% of the total. The information comes out of a new report presented yesterday by Research and Markets.
Posted by richard ting at October 09, 2004, 02:18 AM
September 21, 2004
Pony's new street advertising
Spotted in Soho and in Williamsburg.
Posted by richard ting at September 21, 2004, 10:32 AM
September 11, 2004
File Sharing Goes Mobile
With all these different music download stores and file sharing apps, it was only a matter of time before everything started to go mobile. I recently wrote up an article at TheFeature about all the various music download offerings for mobile phones, but it looks like some are already going beyond that to offer some form of "file sharing" as well. EMI has talked about mobile file sharing in the past, but it seemed pretty watered down. Recently, Wippit, makers of an increasingly popular DRM technology that encourages limited file sharing announced plans to offer mobile file sharing by letting users get around many wireless carriers by sending the file in response to an SMS message. The latest, though, is that SK Telecom is showing off a mobile file sharing system in Korea that will let users swap music files, ringtones, videos and more via their 3G network. They admit that it has no copy protection at all, and even say, "we're not thinking about that type of problem." It's not clear if that's because they never plan to actually launch it, or they just don't care. Given that the recording industry in Korea wanted to sue wireless carriers for offering MP3 playing phones (even after they agreed to forcibly degrade the sound quality), you have to wonder how long such an application would remain on the market. Still, it's been said many times before: it's only a matter of time until a real Napster-style file sharing app is written for mobile phones, whether by the carriers themselves or (more likely) independently. And still, everyone in the wireless and music industry seems to ignore this potential problem and insist that overpriced ringtone revenue will be around forever.
Posted by richard ting at September 11, 2004, 07:05 AM
September 10, 2004
The New Nike
No longer the brat of sports marketing, it has a higher level of discipline and performance
In many ways, the sleek, four-story building that houses Nike Inc.'s (NKE ) Innovation Kitchen is a throwback to the company's earliest days. Located on the ground floor of the Mia Hamm building on Nike's 175-acre headquarters campus in Beaverton, Ore., the Kitchen is where Nike cooked up the shoes that made it the star of the $35 billion athletic footwear industry. In this think tank for sneakers, designers find inspiration in everything from Irish architecture to the curving lines of a Stradivarius violin. One wall displays models of every Air Jordan ever made, while low-rise cubicles are littered with sketches of new shoes. The Kitchen is off limits to most visitors and even to most Nike employees. The sign on the door says, only half in jest: "Nobody gets in to see the cooks. Not nobody. Not no how."
This is where, nearly 20 years ago, Nike star designer Tinker Hatfield came up with the Air Jordan -- the best-selling sports shoe of all time. Right now, Hatfield and his team are tallying the results of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. Hatfield and his design geeks produced an array of superfast sneakers for the Games, including the sleek track spike called Monsterfly for sprinters and the Air Zoom Miler for distance runners. As befits a global company, Nike's sponsored athletes hailed from all over the world. They took home a lot of hardware from Athens, including 50 gold medals and dozens more silver and bronze. In the men's 1,500-meter run, for instance, Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco grabbed gold, Bernard Lagat of Kenya took the silver, and Rui Silva of Portugal won the bronze. All wore the Air Zoom Miler, while U.S. sprinter Shawn Crawford won the 200-meter gold in a pair of Monsterflys. And Nike apparel had its day in the sun, too. The top four finishers in the men's 100-meter race all wore the sign of the Swoosh.
Posted by richard ting at September 10, 2004, 05:26 PM
September 09, 2004
Mobile gaming for masses
Another report, this time by Instat/MDR confirms gaming is going to be key contributor to wireless data usage and revenues. A couple of days ago the same indication was provided by Strategy Analytics.
According to Instat by 2009, mobile gaming services in the US will generate $1.8 billion annually, or approximately 4.4% of total wireless data revenues. The report "Mobile Gaming Services in the US, 2004-2009" also found out that, unlike with other emerging mobile multimedia services, such as video and music, consumers interested in mobile gaming do not necessarily match the classic early adopter profile.
Posted by richard ting at September 09, 2004, 02:02 AM
T-Mobile blocked TXTmob messages during a portion of the RNC
[from Shibuya Epiphany]
Registered users of TxMob received the following e-mail from the admistration of TxtMob. It seems that wireless carrier T-Mobile blocked SMS messages during a portion of the RNC. [via Unwired.cc]
As many of you are aware, T-Mobile blocked TXTmob messages during a portion of the RNC. While we won't speculate on the reasons for this action, it would be extremely helpful if the hundreds of customers who were unable to receive TXTMob messages called T-Mobile to complain. Be sure to explain that TXTMob is an opt-in service that you have chosen to join, and to encourage their representatives to contact admin@txtmob.com if they have any questions".
Posted by richard ting at September 09, 2004, 01:55 AM
August 30, 2004
Who's on the (Mobile) Phone?
Enpocket estimates that there are currently 128 million mobile phone users in the US.
In a study released this week, mobile marketing solutions provider Enpocket examines mobile phone use in the US, including a comparison of mobile phone penetration among a number of demographic groups. Its findings are based on 1,000 telephone interviews conducted by NOP World in late July 2004. Overall, 61% of the country uses a mobile phone. But by breaking the population down into gender, age and income groups, Enpocket finds that penetration percentages vary greatly.
For example, at 63%, males are slightly more likely to use mobile phones than the average US adult. Men are also more likely to use mobiles than females, 59% of whom use mobile phones. Breaking things down by age shows wider variation in penetration rates. While younger age groups, like 18 to 24 year-olds and 25 to 34 year-olds use mobile phones at a rate a bit higher than the average, it's the 35 to 49 year-old group that represents the most avid users, with a penetration rate of 71%.
Balancing things out are 50 to 54 year-olds and those over 55, where usage is less than average, especially among the eldest group. What's surprising about these findings is that younger adults are thought of as being the most likely to use newer technology, but penetration rates peak among middle aged adults.
Read more.
Posted by richard ting at August 30, 2004, 02:06 AM
August 25, 2004
Sneaker Pimps NYC
Posted by richard ting at August 25, 2004, 12:18 PM
August 10, 2004
Sneaker vending machine
The Daily News tries their hand, er, foot at a new sneaker vending machine at New York’s swank SoHo store Michael K. Originally debuted in Japan (of course), the Sneaker Vending Machine takes cash and dispenses a refrigerated Reebok Travel shoe in the size and color of your choosing for $60. We just want to know what happens if the shoes get stuck in the coil that drops the food into the bin.
[from engadget]
Also posted on Josh Rubin's Cool Hunting site.
Posted by richard ting at August 10, 2004, 08:35 PM
July 23, 2004
Japanese Carrier Makes Cell Phone Wallet
By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer
TOKYO - As it is, you don't leave home without it. In a world of cashless payment, why not simply make your cell phone a wallet? Japan has long been phasing out the hassle of coins and bills with microchip-laden "smart cards," which let people make electronic payments for everything from lunch to the daily commute.
But even smart cards could be on their way out, their plastic presence overtaken by virtual-wallet technology now available in the everyday cell phone.
Other nations, led by South Korea (news - web sites), already have so-called mobile commerce payment schemes in place that let people punch keys on their cell phones so that the devices trigger transactions. But a series of phones going on sale this summer in Japan, for use on NTT DoCoMo (news - web sites)'s wireless network, are the world's first with an embedded computer chip that you can fill up with electronic cash.
The wireless company loaned me a P506iC handset from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and I was in business. Well, almost.
First I had to find a machine that's used to stoke smart cards with cash. They can be found in some convenience stores and offices in Japan. You place the phone in a special slot and slip bills into the machine. The phones have a 50,000-yen ($450) limit. Now you can spend.
To pay you simply wave your cell phone within a few inches of a special display found in stores, restaurants and vending machines around Japan. A fairy-like tinkling sound means your purchase is being deducted from the embedded chip using radio-frequency ID technology.
It's instantaneous.
Posted by richard ting at July 23, 2004, 12:49 PM
July 16, 2004
NTT DoCoMo has formally announced its 3G/WLAN phone
NTT DoCoMo has formally announced its 3G/WLAN phone -- and has made it impossible to use on public hotspots.
The carrier first broke its plans in June, but held a press conference touting the handset, the N900iL, in Tokyo on Tuesday. The handset, made by NEC, also requires a particular NEC IP telephony server, which presumably hooks up to a network sold by DoCoMo or its parent NTT.
The phone can make voice calls over Wi-Fi inside offices, essentially acting as a wireless PBX extension, and also features an instant-messaging application with a presence function letting users check co-workers' availability. But not surprisingly, DoCoMo's made the phone somehow incompatible with any other Wi-Fi networks than those installed expressly for the device, though it said it was considering adding support for its M-Zone public hotspots.
The way the carrier's approaching Wi-Fi shows how operators perceive the technology at this point: as more of a menace than an ally. Even carriers that are building huge hotspot networks, like T-Mobile, are wary of Wi-Fi being used in any way that will erode their bread-and-butter mobile voice revenues -- or, at least, until they can find a way to adequately charge and bill for it.
DoCoMo is the only carrier to announce VoWi-Fi plans, and most every handset that's been announced as including Wi-Fi doesn't have built-in VOIP support (though it probably won't take outside developers, or somebody like Skype, to come up with software for it), since the motivation for it -- cheap, or even free, voice calls -- runs counter to carriers' desire for revenues.
Operators are going along with Wi-Fi data in handsets because not doing so would risk ceding the wireless data market to Wi-Fi only devices. Having Wi-Fi handsets offers carriers an opportunity to not only collect Wi-Fi charges from users, but also encourages their use of mobile data networks. It's not a question of Wi-Fi or 3G (or GPRS or EDGE), it's a question of getting the technologies to work in tandem, and carriers are beginning to recognize that, at least for data.
But voice is a trickier proposition, and until they can figure out a way to integrate VoWi-Fi with their cellular voice networks, carriers will follow DoCoMo and do their damndest (likely with the help of device manufacturers) to keep VOIP out of Wi-Fi handsets.
Posted by richard ting at July 16, 2004, 12:49 PM
July 15, 2004
The Rebirth of the New York Sneakerhead
By RICHARD A. MARTIN
It didn't take long for Jon Roy, a Boston native, to discover the passion of New York City sneaker collectors. This spring, Mr. Roy opened a skateboard shop called Rival at 225 Hudson Street, near Canal Street, and a few weeks later showed up for work to find 40 young men and women lined up on the usually empty block on SoHo's western fringe. They were waiting for the latest limited-edition Nike sneaker, the Air Force One HTM. "The kids knew we were getting the shoes,'' he said. "They knew more than we did.'' Still, the actual sneakers were not in his store, much to Mr. Roy's chagrin. "We were like, there's gonna be a riot if we don't get these shoes,'' he said. Fortunately, a delivery of 60 pairs arrived at noon, and customers were allowed in two at a time to make their purchases.
A riot might not have been out of the question, for a sneaker hysteria has gripped New York of late. Two new stores, Dave's Quality Meats and Clientele, have opened in the last year, near a skate and sneaker boutique in SoHo named Supreme. Along with other emporiums like Nort and Alife Rivington Club on the Lower East Side, and the Puma and Adidas Originals stores in SoHo, they cater to the new subculture of devotees known as sneakerheads.
Although the new wave of sneakers involves elements like style, exclusivity, art and commerce that are dear to the hearts of New Yorkers, one wonders: Why New York and not Los Angeles? "Because it's part of the New York way of life,'' said Udi Avshalomov, who began selling sneakers at his parents' store, Broadway Sneakers, in the 80's, when he was 14. "L.A. is never going to understand the New York sneaker game. New York is not as trendy as the rest of America and the world. It's authentic, part of the history and heritage of the New York culture.''
The city's infatuation with the sneaker began in the 70's and early 80's. Basketball, hip-hop and the desire to be the first on the block to wear (or "rock'') a new sneaker drove city youths into a frenzy - think of Run-DMC in shelltoes or the Ramones in Converse high tops. That culture waned in the late 80's and the 90's - remember Jerry Seinfeld in his clunky, generic white sneakers - but now the sneakerhead is back. Part of the reason is Nike, which emphasizes design and has overtaken Reebok and Adidas to become by far the largest shoe and athletic company. Thanks also go to hip-hop and skateboarding, subcultures that judge a guy by his sneakers, and to that global fashion phenomenon, the youth uniform, that has its roots in the trendsetting stores of Lower Manhattan.
"Jeans and sneakers have become this completely ubiquitous look, so how do you distinguish yourself within that?'' asked Abby Guyer, head of lifestyle trend marketing for Adidas. "In New York City, that's always existed: everyone wants to have something special.'' James Jebbia, owner of Supreme, at 274 Lafayette Street, added: "Before maybe you'd have two or three pairs of sneakers. Now it's nothing to have 20 or 30 pairs.''
Mr. Jebbia, who has collaborated with Nike on models of Dunks and other sneakers that carry the Supreme name, is a forefather of the skate-clothing-and-sneaker business; Supreme opened 10 years ago and has expanded to Japan, with a Los Angeles store on the way later this summer. But while Mr. Jebbia's Supreme clothes and exclusive Nike sneakers were the first to attract lines in New York during this new sneakerhead era, he is not thrilled with the current level of hype. "Nowadays it doesn't necessarily need to be special,'' he said. "As long as it's limited, people will wait in line.''
But what constitutes limited? According to Ms. Guyer, Adidas usually restricts such runs to 300 pairs. Nike doesn't release numbers, but Niketalk, the independent online forum where most leaks of sneaker release dates are posted, is rife with speculation: The Lucky 7 Dunk Hi Pro SB, the current hot sneaker, is supposedly limited to a run of 777. A recent Nike collaboration with the underground New York artist Futura resulted in only 24 pairs of a shoe decorated with prints of foreign currency; the rare sneaker is now reportedly worth about $5,000.
Posted by richard ting at July 15, 2004, 12:42 PM
The Japanese Mobile Market - Ten Trends
1. 16.69M 3G users prove Japan to be number 1
2. Mobile email is the killer app - and emoji enhance it
3. First experience with video telephony
4. Realtune downloads are driving the early 3G market
5. Operators take the lead in mobile marketing in Japan
6. Watching analog TV on the keitai
7. Sharp handsets from Sharp
8. Wireless wisdom from Qualcomm Japan's Ted Matsumoto
9. Edy or how mobile payment empowers the next big wave
10. Mobile flat rates for heavy users in Japan
Posted by richard ting at July 15, 2004, 12:22 PM
Viewpoint: DoCoMo Launches Mobile Wallet Services
DoCoMo has launched mobile wallet services on its new 506i-series i-mode phones, which are equipped with a contact-less IC-card called Felica, a technology provided by Sony. Felica technology is already used in Suica debit cards that allow commuters on Japan Railways trains to pass through the ticket-gates by simply sliding the card over a reader to pay. Suica cards can be charged at ticket-vending machines at stations. A different application is through EDY (which stands for Euro-Dollar-Yen) cards that can be used to pay at shops like convenience and drug stores. About 9 million Suica and EDY cards have been issued thus far. We are frequent and satisfied users of both cards, having never experienced technical problems with either one.
The Felica i-mode phones will have EDY pre-integrated, enabling easy mobile payments. Charging the mobile EDY card is possible at shops around Japan. Bitwallet Inc. provides the settlement system for EDY. The major shareholders of Bitwallet are Sony, DoCoMo, KDDI, Toyota and large banks. With Java applications downloaded from trusted member sites, the Felica chip is accessed to check user data and purchasing history. When browsing a mobile web site, and after agreeing to pay, the user's payment information is transferred to the Java application and the payment is settled through the mobile Internet.
PIA, a large ticketing agency, provides E-tickets that can be bought and stored on the Felica chip through the mobile network. Customer loyalty programs are also an interesting application for Felica i-mode.
Users can use their mobile handsets to add points to their card, check how many points they have and make purchases using their points. A newly opened entertainment complex in Tokyo's Ebisu now accepts mobile wallet payments through EDY, and ANA airline's frequent flyers with e-tickets can check-in with their i-modes prior to arrival at the airport. Travelers receive their boarding passes at the airport by sliding their phones over a reader. It has been a while since DoCoMo introduced a revolutionary new service -- but this time, they are well ahead of KDDI and Vodafone. KDDI will launch mobile Felica next year; Vodafone K.K. has not made any official announcements ... yet.
Debit card payments are already widely used in Japan, mainly through Japan Railways. We expect that once mobile Felica takes off on Japan Railways, with its huge customer base, the company will start offering mobile Suica services. After i-mode and 3G, the foreign mobile industry now has a new reason to travel to Japan: mobile payments. Watch this space.
-- Arjen van Blokland
Posted by richard ting at July 15, 2004, 02:09 AM
May 17, 2004
Verizon Wireless Makes Move Into Nascent M-Commerce Market Via Netpace Alliance
Verizon Wireless has aligned with mobile marketing company Netpace to enable consumers to make purchases directly through their cell phones. While the few premium wireless services aimed at the U.S. market thus far have involved content offerings and the occasional real-time voting promotion (think American Idol), the agreement represents the next step toward closing the mobile marketing loop.
According to the agreement, Netpace's premium SMS (Short Messaging Service) text messaging platform and marketing services will be made available to advertisers looking to target Verizon Wireless SMS subscribers. Netpace's ReadySet two-way messaging platform will be integrated with the Verizon Wireless network and billing system, allowing mobile phone users to buy items by dialing a four- or five-digit code and have those charges added to their phone bill. The platform also enables dynamic results tracking to track campaigns in real-time through application service provider (ASP) software.
Posted by richard ting at May 17, 2004, 05:24 AM
March 18, 2004
RSS To Mobile Services
WINKsite (http://winksite.com) now supports Creative Commons including the recently added Japanese versions within their mobile site building and RSS-To-Mobile services.
Read about it here:
http://winksite.com/site/help_bl_view.cfm?blog_id=1208
Posted by richard ting at March 18, 2004, 03:08 AM
Viewpoint: Does EV-DO REALLY have scalability problems?
The 3GSM Congress in Cannes gave us an excellent opportunity to talk to industry insiders and hear the latest stories and rumors in the mobile biz. While the rollout of the 3G W-CDMA networks in Europe was one of this year's hot topics, not much was said about the success of cdma in Asia and the Americas. Among the rumors we heard were: cdma's EV-DO experiences scalability problems, and Korean carriers are introducing problem-proof W-CDMA networks -- in the future.
Eh? Did we miss something?
Despite the large number of EV-DO subscribers, Korean carriers SK Telecom and KT Freetel are now testing the W-CDMA service on a limited scale with 30,000 subscribers. According to Qualcomm's Korea president S.W. Kim, this test-bed is the result of Korea's industrial policy to stimulate Korean handset manufacturers to develop and test their 3G devices for export, and has nothing to do with technology problems.
Video telephony is declared to be a killer-service for 3G. DoCoMo is providing video telephony as one of its FOMA services, using a circuit-switched 64 kbps network. To establish and maintain a real-time video connection between peers, EV-DO technology was enhanced to support QoS (Quality-of-Service).
"The QoS feature improves the user's experience by enabling the network to manage capacity at base station level and prioritizing traffic to users that require higher speeds," says Sanjeev Verma, co-founder and vice president of marketing at Airvana, a company providing EV-DO technology. The service will soon be available in Korea. "We trialed video telephony with the QoS enhancement with SK Telecom and it worked well. There were no scalabilty problems at all," adds Qualcomm's Kim.
But is video really the killer-application for 3G? A recent survey of 300 Japanese by marketing agency and Internet research company iBridge showed that 60 percent of users with a video-enabled phone almost never use video applications such as downloading, streaming, video- mail or video-calls. Poor image quality, high traffic fees, a limited number of friends to talk to and short duration of videos were given as main reasons for not using video. This trend was confirmed by Kim, who told us that music downloads in Korea are the most popular service now.
For the time being, Japanese 3G users don't experience any scalability problems with KDDI’s network, though the company will not disclose the numbers for its EV-DO WIN-service. KDDI outnumbered DoCoMo in February for the fourth month in a row by adding more net subscribers. Even the introduction of the new 900i FOMA phones from Fujitsu and NEC cannot stop KDDI -- at least for now.
The rumors we heard in Cannes appear to be an attempt to downplay EV-DO's striking successes in the Far East.
Posted by richard ting at March 18, 2004, 03:06 AM
March 15, 2004
SounderCover
Simeda, a Munich based Company created a software for series 60 phones that can add a background sound to any incoming or outgoing call, giving the impression that you really are in the environment where the background sound is normally heard.
http://www.simeda.com/soundercover.html
Posted by richard ting at March 15, 2004, 08:55 AM
March 12, 2004
Seven mile boots
The project SEVEN MILE BOOTS is a pair of interactive shoes with audio. One can wear the boots, walk around as a flaneur simultaneousy in the physical world and in the literal world of the internet. By walking in the physical world one may suddenly encounter a group of people chatting in real time in the virtual world. The chats are heard as a spoken text coming from the boots. Wherever you are with the boots, the physical and the virtual worlds will merge together. (via Anne Galloway)
Posted by richard ting at March 12, 2004, 01:52 AM
The Register: Industry unites for .mob?
Microsoft, Vodafone and Nokia have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a top level domain (TLD) name, like .com, for mobile devices.
The group has applied to ICANN to grant the new TLD and let them manage it. Other members of the consortium include 3, the GSM Association, HP, Orange, Samsung and Sun Microsystems.
Posted by richard ting at March 12, 2004, 01:44 AM
February 26, 2004
i-mode: 2 million subscribers outside Japan
@@ Viewpoint: Breaking News Live from France! -- A new milestone for i-mode: 2 million subscribers outside Japan
Big news from the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes. The number of i-mode subscribers outside Japan exceeded 2 million at the end of January. This was a blast of sunlight for DoCoMo under the cloudy skies of the Cote d’Azur. I-mode is currently available through seven operators: KPN Mobile (in the Netherlands), E-Plus (Germany), BASE (Belgium), Far East Tone (Taiwan), Bouygues Telecom (France), Telefonica Moviles (Spain) and WIND (Italy). Greek operator Cosmote will launch i-mode prior to the upcoming Athens Olympics. It was important for the European i-mode operators to convince local content parties to provide i-mode content. The i-mode revenue share is more attractive for content providers than for other carriers. T-Mobile and Vodafone sell ringtones, wallpapers and games under their own brand, thereby directly competing with other content providers, something KPN and Bouygues don’t do.
Bouygues and KPN provide i-mode premium subscriptions -- not pay-per- downloads. As in Japan, subscriptions do not expire by the end of the month but are automatically extended until the customer cancels the subscription. According to Bouygues's i-mode roadmap manager, Cedric Nicolas, half of the i-mode users subscribe to three premium services, and the average subscription period is 6 months.
Among the i-mode operators outside Japan, we are most impressed by Bouygues Telecom, who have signed up more than 500,000 subscribers. Their i-mode approach is closest to what DoCoMo has done in Japan. A major difference between Bouygues and KPN and Telefonica is that Bouygues fully committed itself to i-mode. Telefonica -- which does not carry the i-mode brand -- promotes WAP- and MMS-services as well.
The KPN Group provides i-mode services for handsets, like Nokia and Siemens, that are not completely i-mode compliant. This makes it difficult and more costly for content providers to render content for
all phones. Bouygues, to the contrary, only supports i-mode phones that are 100 percent i-mode compliant, like the NEC, Toshiba and Mitsubishi phones. This year, Bouygues will face stiff competition from French operator SFR, who recently introduced mobile Internet services based on Vodafone Live!. I-mode subscriber growth in the Netherlands and Germany suffered from the launch of the Vodafone Live! services. Only after introducing i-mode for prepaid users did KPN see a dramatic growth in i-mode.
European i-mode market growth must mainly come from existing i-mode operators, as KPN’s offer to acquire English mmO2 was rebuffed last week. There were rumors in Cannes that DoCoMo had an interest in developing closer ties with mmO2. Will they singe their fingers again after their disastrous investment in KPN? Stay tuned.
-- Arjen van Blokland, reporting from France
Posted by richard ting at February 26, 2004, 01:40 AM
February 25, 2004
Sun Java Verified Program For J2ME Apps
Sun, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and Nokia launched an initiative to verify and test J2ME applications to ensure that they run on most mobile appliances.
Posted by richard ting at February 25, 2004, 11:54 AM
January 15, 2004
2004 wireless predictions - Part 1
8 Jan 2004
It’s that time of year again when we pull out the tarot cards to see what the future holds for our industry. Towards the tail end of last year we surveyed ARCchart’s analysts for their views on the major wireless communications developments expected over the coming year. In a two part series, split between this week and next, we present ARCchart’s top ten 2004 predictions for the wireless world. No doubt this will generate some topical debate, so email your comments to the usual address. Here is Part I:
1. The first commercial cellular handsets with fully integrated Wi-Fi capability will appear on the market.
2. While 3G (W-CDMA) will see increasing deployment around the world, it will not be the boom year many are expecting.
3. This will be Bluetooth’s year. Bluetooth chips have not only hit the $5 target, they have recently dropped below it.
4. Pre-standard 802.11n silicon will hit the market and this may see the Wi-Fi Alliance expand its role in the standardization process.
5. Nokia will become more aggressive with its Symbian strategy.
Posted by richard ting at January 15, 2004, 12:10 PM
January 07, 2004
Macromedia hires former Microsoft VP | CNET News.com
Software maker Macromedia announced Tuesday that it has hired the former head of Microsoft's mobile phone division.
Juha Christensen, who announced his plans to leave Microsoft late last year, will serve as president of Macromedia's new mobile and devices business unit, which is primarily focused on expanding use of Macromedia's Flash format by cell phone makers and carriers.
Christensen, one of the founding figures behind the Symbian operating system for mobile devices, joined Microsoft in 2000 to drive the software giant's push into mobile phones. He most recently served as corporate vice president of Microsoft's Mobile Devices Marketing Group.
Posted by richard ting at January 07, 2004, 10:42 AM
Report: More want less in a handheld | CNET News.com
Less is more when it comes to handheld devices, a report by Jupiter Research has found.
According to the study, released Tuesday, consumers and business users are more apt to use handhelds that offer voice and personal information management (PIM) capabilities--or a combination of the two--rather than devices that also include a host of other integrated functions.
'Too many features are being integrated into the devices, at the expense of the sum being less than all of its parts,' said Michael Gartenberg, Jupiter vice president and research director.
Posted by richard ting at January 07, 2004, 10:22 AM
I-Mode Brand Lacks Punch in Europe: Sony Ericsson Director
December 18, 2003 (LONDON) -- UK-based firm Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (Sony Ericsson) is one of the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers. Several major European operators of phone networks are gearing up to start offering their customers advanced third-generation (3G) services towards the end of 2004, but Sony Ericsson already has supplied the operators with prototype handsets to try out.
Nikkei Communications talked to Steve Walker, Sony Ericsson's product marketing director, at the firm's London headquarters, and asked him about the allure of 3G and the way the market is expected to develop.
Posted by richard ting at January 07, 2004, 09:53 AM
January 06, 2004
Smart Radios: How the radio changed its spots
Smart radios: Radios capable of switching from one wireless standard to another, with nothing more than a dose of new software, are at last emerging from the laboratory
WHEN is a radio not a radio? When it's a computer program. Whether in a mobile phone, a fireman's walkie-talkie or a laptop's Wi-Fi card, a radio plucks a raw signal from the air and translates it into a useful stream of information (and vice versa). This translation involves several steps, most of which are normally done by dedicated signal-processing chips. But given enough processing power, the same job can also be done using software, rather than hardware. The result is a “software-defined radio” (SDR), also known as a “reconfigurable” or “smart” radio. As these names suggest, such a device can switch from being one kind of radio to another simply by loading some new software.
This chameleon-like ability is useful for a number of reasons. A mobile phone based on smart-radio technology might, for example, be able to switch between cellular standards used in different parts of the world. Mobile-phone base stations could be quickly and easily reconfigured to support new wireless standards. Smart radios could also ensure compatibility between the various radio standards used by different emergency services in a disaster-recovery situation, or link up soldiers in a multinational force whose radios might otherwise be incompatible
Posted by richard ting at January 06, 2004, 02:15 AM
December 12, 2003
From slashdot.org: Yahoo! News is
From slashdot.org: Yahoo! News is reporting that Aiirnet will begin installing, next month, the largest single Wi-Fi deployment in the nation in the city of Cerritos in Southern California. Ultimately, anyone with a laptop or wireless device will be able to surf the Web from virtually anywhere in the city's 8.6-square-mile area. Scores of wireless networking transmitters are being placed atop public buildings, traffic lights and other structures to blanket the city. The 51,000 residents of Cerritos have not had DSL broadband access to the Internet because the city is too far from the telephone company's central office and Cable Internet access has not been an option either.
Read full story.
Posted by richard ting at December 12, 2003, 10:47 AM
December 10, 2003
Nokia market share takes a hit
Analyst firm Gartner says mobile device sales are up 22 percent in the third quarter as market leader Nokia's market share dips in the face of strong competition.
The mobile terminal industry exceeded expectations in the third quarter of 2003, as worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 132.8 million units, a 22 percent increase from the same period last year, according to analyst firm Gartner. "The mobile terminals market is exhibiting extraordinarily strong growth in 2003, and we believe it could reach half a billion units this year," said Ben Wood, principal analyst with the mobile communications group for Gartner in Europe.
The competition among the top tier vendors is heating up, and industry leader Nokia's market share saw a decrease in the third quarter as it faced strong competition from Siemens and Samsung. LG moved into the top five, narrowly pushing Sony Ericsson into the sixth position. "The market is growing on two fronts - we've hit a sweet spot for replacement sales in mature markets while emerging markets such as Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe continue to sign up new subscribers at a phenomenal pace," Wood said.
In the mature markets, color mobile terminals are a growing proportion of total sales, with the volume of camera phones also increasing. Gartner analysts said demand for low-cost terminals has also continued, and that all regions of the world experienced at least 18 percent growth in the third quarter of 2003.
The North America market was driven by replacement sales, as users replaced their handsets in favor of new smaller and in many cases, color terminals. With the introduction of mobile number portability on November 24, Gartner analysts believe this will further drive replacement sales for the region. "The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region accounted for 35.5 percent of the world's mobile phone sales, fueled by strong replacement buying in Western Europe," said Carolina Milanesi, industry analyst for the EMEA mobile communications group for Gartner. "This was combined with strong sales in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, in particular Russia, which saw sales reach 5 million units."
"The Asia/Pacific region bounced back from SARS and was further buoyed by phenomenal growth in India," said Ann Liang, industry analyst with the mobile communications group for Gartner in Asia/Pacific. "Success in China remains crucial in the region with Motorola holding onto the top spot in the face of strong competition from Nokia."
Posted by richard ting at December 10, 2003, 01:48 AM
December 03, 2003
Viewpoint: Keitais Will Rock the Record Industry
Downloads of 15- to 30-second MP3 files are very popular among KDDI's young Japanese customers. The carrier was able to introduce the service ahead of its competitors because its network capacity and
phones could handle the larger downloads. But soon, KDDI will face some stiff competition.
On December 1, Vodafone will launch the so-called "chaku-uta" service for its new 3G phones from Sanyo, and DoCoMo is expected to start the service in the first quarter next year.
To clear the rights for chaku-uta, content providers must make licensing deals with the collector's society -- JASRAC in Japan -- the record labels and artists. This is a costly and time consuming affair. In Europe, for example, ringtone providers are even now forced by record labels to pay for the use of artists' names on
their mobile sites. Content providers try to prevent this by displaying only song titles.
Cross-border licensing deals are even more difficult to make nowadays. Japanese ringtone providers encountered this challenge while planning to launch their European i-mode services. By last year, JASRAC had not made agreements with its sister organizations in time.
A few new initiatives aim to provide a "one-stop license" service for Internet and mobile outlets. IFPI, the international body representing the recording industry, announced last week the creation of a one-stop
shop for webcasters to stream music programs to consumers. Through this service, cross-border webcasts will be easier to establish. European providers in particular will benefit from this.
Another and more interesting initiative is offered by Toryumon, a Japanese spin-off of Sony Corporation that is targeting the mobile industry. According to Nobuhiro Tone, CEO of Toryumon, there is a lot
of interest in chaku-uta from foreign music performers because they can immediately generate revenue through the service.
"We have exclusively licensed more than 1,500 tracks," Tone says, "80 percent of which is UK club music. We also license other genres such as jazz, rock, and classical music. Our library is growing by a
few hundred songs per month," he adds.
Toryumon is wisely using Japanese DJs to get the tunes out. For simply promoting Toryumon music in their clubs, Japanese DJs get part of the revenue share.
The coming year, Toryumon will be quite busy in Japan. Once MP3 downloads on mobile devices become more popular in Europe and the US, the company will be ready to offer its expanding portfolio of exclusive music tracks to music service providers. If the recording industry does not act soon to embrace the new
technology and provide more flexible licensing agreements, smaller companies like Toryumon might take away an even bigger part of their pie.
Posted by richard ting at December 03, 2003, 06:01 AM
Viewpoint: Mobile Payment Killer Apps from DoCoMo and KDDI
Mobile payments are believed to be the next killer application for the mobile Internet. KDDI and DoCoMo will roll out their new services next year. Both companies are currently evaluating customer responses
and their newest technologies to see how best to convey and receive cash.
In cooperation with large Japanese credit card companies -- JCB-VISA, Mitsui-Sumitomo Card, UC Card and Toyota Finance -- KDDI has tested its technology over a period of five months. Approximately 2,300 users received a Hitachi-made handset with a UIM-card (a next generation SIM-card) containing each individual's credit card information.
Two different methods were used for shopping. Through KDDIfs mobile portal EZweb, users could enter virtual shops to select and purchase goods. It was also possible for users to pay at the cashier's counter
in conventional bricks and mortar shops. About 400 real shops and 23 virtuals participated.
For online shopping, the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) method was applied to guarantee confidential transactions, authenticate the user and the shop, verify data integrity and authorize the transaction
via digital signature.
Here's how it works:
After selecting the product(s), the user selects his credit card company and sends the information to the shop. The user then accepts the transaction by entering a PIN code and a digital signature.
Finally, the signed transaction is sent to the credit card company for payment authorization.
The other method employed IR-communication to exchange credit card and user information between the phone and the cashier in a real shop. The user inputs a PIN code for accepting the transaction and the credit card details are sent to the cashier, who then contacts the credit card company for authorization.
During the 5-month trial, 2,300 participants made 1,900 mobile payments totalling 9 million yen.
Not terribly impressive figures.
Those who made mobile payments in real shops did so more frequently and paid larger sums. CDs, DVDs, magazines and books were the most popular online shopping items, while most real shop payments were made in restaurants, food and fashion stores.
DoCoMo has set up a joint venture with Sony to promote a contact-less IC card based on the Suica debit card that was introduced by Japan Rail-ways (JR) East. The IC card will be integrated into your mobile phone and will function as a debit card that can be charged on the mobile network. Payments can be made even when your phone is switched off.
The competing IR method requires that the phone be switched on with an application running to process payments. A trial run with 6,000 customers will start later this month to prove if this concept is indeed as easy to use as DoCoMo claims -- and as secure.
Posted by richard ting at December 03, 2003, 05:00 AM
November 17, 2003
Pardon me while I take a call
Found on b3ta.com
Posted by richard ting at November 17, 2003, 07:27 AM
November 13, 2003
T-Mobile and Boingo: A match made in heaven?
T-Mobile and Boingo: A match made in heaven? | CNET News.com
T-Mobile USA is looking for service provider partners, and Boingo Wireless has got to be at the top of the cellular carrier's list.
T-Mobile USA's vice president and general manager of its hot-spot service, Joe Sims, told CNET News.com that the carrier was engaged in talks with service providers about roaming relationships. This was noteworthy because in the hot-spot market all the players have been making deals with one another, except T-Mobile USA.
Posted by richard ting at November 13, 2003, 10:57 AM
November 06, 2003
Mobile operators as content providers
Analysis We are all now familiar with the dilemma faced by the mobile operators – revenue from traditional cellphone services is slowing, despite the boost from camera phones and mobile email, just as carriers are trying to pay off the huge capital investment in 3G.
And to make matters worse, software houses, content owners and handset makers are all biting into the mobile value chain. New research from Booz, Allen Hamilton argues that, with mobile data the main driver of new revenue streams, carriers should cash in through integration – offering not just the network and handset but their own content too. But transforming into a content provider is a strategy beset by risk, in terms of timing, user demand, carrier competency and competition from Nokia and Microsoft.
Posted by richard ting at November 06, 2003, 08:09 AM
Swallow this phone
IHT: The end user: Swallow this phone
Posted by richard ting at November 06, 2003, 07:53 AM
Mobile Marketing Strategies Proves As Transient As Their Consumer Targets
Mobile marketing strategists, software developers, and mobile-savvy ad agency execs Tuesday debated best practices, methods and scope of the emerging wireless advertising sector and concluded that different strategies are required for reaching different types of consumers at different times and in different locations.
Text messaging, in particular, is largely a teenage phenomenon, noted Nihal Mehta, founder of San Francisco-based mobile marketing strategies firm ipsh, who opened the discussion during a mobile marketing panel at the Ad:Tech New York conference.
Posted by richard ting at November 06, 2003, 03:21 AM
October 16, 2003
Alife Sneaker Sale
What: Alife Rivington Club
When: 10/18-10/26; Mon.-Sun. noon-7 p.m.
Where: 158 Rivington Street, between Suffolk and Clinton Streets
(212-375-8128).
Why: Limited-edition sneakers from Nike, Asics, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Ellesse, and others are 50 to 80 percent off retail. Yohji Yamamoto for Adidas, were $325, now $115; Nike Dunks, were $80, now $40; Eley Kishimoto shoes, were $160-$300, now $40-$125.
Posted by richard ting at October 16, 2003, 12:08 PM
J-Phone becomes Vodaphone
This week in Japan was marked by a number of milestones in the wireless industry. Vodafone K.K. officially underwent its name change from J-phone while simultaneously launching a number of services aimed at capturing a larger market share. NTT DoCoMo hit a major milestone in its 3G service reaching 1 million subscribers. And finally, KDDI reported that, due to higher than expected Average Revenue Per User(ARPU) from their mobile au business, it was forecasting an annual windfall of 95 billion yen ($856 million) profit in comparison with its May forecast of 71 billion yen.
Vodafone says goodbye to J-phone / DoCoMo 3G hits 1 millions subscribers / KDDI ups earning forecast
Posted by richard ting at October 16, 2003, 11:53 AM
October 08, 2003
Finnish-Japanese Information Society Conference
Viewpoint: The Finnish-Japanese Information Society Conference in Tokyo -- Views from two advanced mobile cultures
This week, we at Wireless Watch participated in a panel discussion titled, "New Everyday Life and Mobile Communication Cultures," held at the Finnish-Japanese Information Society Conference in Tokyo.
Both countries are highly receptive to new Internet Technologies and are therefore used as launching platforms for new mobile technologies (e.g. DoCoMo in Japan and Nokia in Finland).
Sachiko Nakano from Japanese national broadcaster NHK presented
some fascinating research results:
Youngsters below the age of 25 are interested in mobile TV and are willing to pay for it. They don't want to be bound to their rooms at home anymore just to watch the tube, but prefer access to short
programs wherever they happen to be.
The most popular mobile TV contents are thought to be sports and five-minute drama programs broadcast on a daily basis.
During TV commercials, homebound television watchers tend to turn away from their TVs. But traffic on mobile networks actually increases during TV commercials.
Panel interviews conducted by NHK reveal that children are often watching in their own rooms the very same TV programs their parents are watching elsewhere.
"During TV commercials, they come out of their rooms to talk to their parents about the TV program they are both watching," according to Nakano.
Teppo Turki from Finnish telecommunication service provider, Elisa, highlighted his comparative research between the use of mobile services among young Finnish and Japanese.
According to Teppo, mobile communications fulfill the desires of the young to belong to a community. They are often afraid to be left alone, and the Use of mobile messaging is addictive --
like cigarettes.
Students cannot refrain from using their messaging devices for more than 15 minutes, and usage patterns show that mobile mail is sent and received throughout the day under all circumstances.
Research in Finland showed that kids see the mobile Internet as a walled space with special zones where they can spend their time. On the other hand, the fixed-line Internet is seen as a free world.
This might explain why the mobile and fixed-line Internet channels are considered two completely different domains by young people.
The Japanese Ministry of Home Affairs unveiled its July 2003 statistics for broadband. The number of broadband contracts totalled more than 11 million for broadband: 8.5 million for DSL, 2.3 million for CATV and 530,000 for FTTH.
The Ministry also claimed that Japanese broadband services are the world’s fastest and cheapest, superior even to current Korean offerings in terms of price and speed.
The main conclusion of the panel session was that there are more similarities than differences between the mobile cultures of Finland and Japan. What's crucial is the enabling technology and the devices
themselves, for these are the elements that have a real impact on customer usage of services and applications -- in whichever corner of the world you happen to call home.
-- Arjen van Blokland
Posted by richard ting at October 08, 2003, 11:06 AM
September 23, 2003
Viewpoint: The View from Japan -- Is Europe’s Mobile Market Catching Up?
The past two weeks we have been traveling through Europe looking at the progress of the mobile Internet in the "Old World." As many of our readers are based in Europe and the US, we would like to share some of our observations and make some stark comparisons with the Japanese market.
Color handset penetration in Europe is at almost 5 percent. As in Asia, the most popular services are chat, e-mail, downloads of ringtones, wallpapers and games. This proves once again that Japanese and Koreans are not as different from Western people as some marketers seem to believe.
MMS uptake is disappointing so far. Only a small fraction of those with an MMS handset send multimedia messages. Reasons for this include high prices for MMS, the lack of a critical mass of devices for peer-to-peer messaging, and limited interoperability between carriers. Once penetration rates surpass 15 percent, we expect MMS usage to start growing, just as it has in Japan with J-Phone%u2019s sha-mail and DoCoMo%u2019s i-shot services.
European business models for carrier-operated portals are less favorable for content providers than they are in Japan. Revenue share agreements of 50-50 percent are not uncommon in the market.
Big carrier groups like Vodafone and T-Mobile host a lot of content from their own platforms and are directly competing with the providers of ringtones and games that cannot have their content linked into the
portals.
Though the quality of GPRS browser phones is improving, we found
quite a number of software glitches that would have lead to an
immediate recall of all phones in Japan. A Vodafone live! Panasonic phone
crashed in our hands at regular intervals. Fortunately, the customer
service desk was willing to replace the phone.
We were impressed by the latest Alcatel and Sagem phones with Openwave
browsers. These low-priced phones have good color screens and are
equipped with a camera. While a year ago, one had to navigate through
a complicated menu structure to open a WAP/GPRS session, nowadays
more phones give WAP access through a single press of a button. GPRS
roaming worked remarkably well. Without missing a beat, we were able to
connect from the UK to the OrangeWorld portal in the Netherlands and
access all services.
Nokia has too strong a position in the European market. They cover
the whole value chain of the mobile industry. In addition to their
almost 40 percent handset market share in Europe, they also have
a solid presence with network infrastructure and content through
Club Nokia. This dominant position is hampering innovation in the
market.
Our overall impression is that the mobile Internet is finally taking
off in Europe -- but at a slower pace than everybody expected a year
ago.
-- Arjen van Blokland
Posted by richard ting at September 23, 2003, 01:53 AM
September 21, 2003
Contextualizing the Mobile Internet (PDF)
Richard Tee recently finished his M.A. degree at the University of Amsterdam, majoring in Information Science. Exchange programs at the University of Helsinki and Melbourne University instigated his interest in the area of mobile telephony and mobile internet services.
Research trips to Japan have resulted in an article published in a journal for IT professionals, as well as his final thesis entitled Contextualizing the mobile internet. A scholarship has enabled him to currently take part in a second M.A. programme that deals with the development of technological innovations in a European context.
For ECDC Richard is involved with cross-disciplinary research sponsored by the European Commission's IST programme, where he is focusing on mobile content and usage issues. He presently builds a nowledge base about this pressing issue. more
Posted by richard ting at September 21, 2003, 11:48 AM
September 09, 2003
KDDI -- Japan's Front-runner with 3G and a Host of New Services
Our recent newsletters focused on the advances of DoCoMo and Vodafone/ J-Phone, so this week we take a closer look at KDDI -- Japan's second largest carrier, with the fastest growing user base nationwide. While Vodafone is DoCoMo i-mode's big competitor abroad, KDDI is seriously challenging DoCoMo's business on the homefront.
Over the past two years, KDDI has transformed itself from a primarily tech-driven company into a powerful consumer marketing machine. It stopped its PDC (2G) network service this March to focus exclusively
on the development of its CDMA-services. The use of Qualcomm's CDMA technology has proven to be a smart move so far. All 3G (CDMA1X) handsets are backwards compatible with the 2G cdma2000 network, resulting in solid country-wide coverage. Thus far, results have been most impressive.
KDDI's subsribers growth topped that of DoCoMo in August. KDDI's market share of 3G handsets in Japan is 92.7 percent, and the company boasts an impressive subscriber base of 9.2 million. Because it operates only a single network, KDDI can keep costs lower than DoCoMo and J-Phone, both of whom have to maintain their PDC and W-CDMA networks. KDDI
passes on some of its cost reduction to customers by giving discounts and subsidies on handsets to attract new users.
After the start of its CDMA1X service, data ARPU was priced at 3,470 yen. More recently, this number has fallen to 2,290 yen, which is quite reasonable. Reduction of KDDI’s packet fees led to an increase in
traffic by a factor of three.
KDDI’s content providers may also benefit from the growing traffic. Total sales of KDDI’s official content partners grew by 9 percent to 437 million yen in three months to June. With these numbers, KDDI shows a slightly better performance than DoCoMo.
The most interesting service introduced by KDDI is "chaku-uta." Users can download high-quality real music files of 100kB and set the 20-second songs as "alarm bell" or "phone ringer." The higher bandwidth available for the CDMA1X phones enables this service by using the EZmovie format, KDDI’s video format.
At Mobidec2003 late last month, KDDI's content manager Makoto Takahashi showed off the success of the chaku-uta service. "There are about 5 million downloads per month," he proudly announced, "and in mid-August
we reached the 20 million download mark."
Suprisingly, KDDI’s statistics do not show any cannibalizing effect of "chaku-uta" on "chaku-mero" (the ring tones service). By the end of the year, Takahashi is planning to introduce some chaku-movies that will
make full use of the high bandwidth. Before Christmas, the Sannaklaus songs and video-clips will be playing away merrily on the phones of KDDI customers each time friends or family give them a call.
-- Arjen van Blokland
Posted by richard ting at September 09, 2003, 09:59 AM
August 27, 2003
Nike iD Tailors Shoes For Buckeye View
Nike iD Tailors Shoes For Buckeye View
Nike iD, the apparel company's online division, is selling an Ohio State University shoe that customers can detail the way they want - including several OSU-related messages such as "Horse Shoe." The $110 shoes are available in two styles and take three to four weeks to be made and delivered. Nike hopes the shoes connect with Buckeye fans who are hungry to flaunt the school's national football championship. Nike's also trying to break ground in the customizable footwear game. While it offers 35 models of customizable shoes, its two OSU styles are the first university-related shoes Nike has sold. According to John Tawney, director of Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike iD, the company is planning to include a dozen more schools in October. "The Buckeyes were national champions, so they got special treatment," Tawney said. "Our relationship with the school is very strong."
Posted by richard ting at August 27, 2003, 05:43 PM
August 25, 2003
J-PHONE to Launch Vodafone live! Services on 3G in October
Tokyo, August 18, 2003-J-PHONE Co., Ltd. announced today that it will
launch new Vodafone live! mobile internet services after early October
on Vodafone Global Standard (VGS), J-PHONE's 3G platform launched December
2002 that allows customers access to mobile services both in Japan and
abroad.
Main features of Vodafone live! for VGS are as follows:
-Sha-mail picture messaging, Movie Sha-mail video messaging and web
contents accessible to customers in exactly the same way abroad as in
Japan
-E-mails with attachments of up to a maximum 200 kilobytes can be sent
and received, making for even richer communications
-Sha-mails with even higher resolutions than before and Movie Sha-mails
of up to 40 seconds long can be sent and received
-Web functions that utilize fast data speeds, allowing for rich
contents such as high-resolution QVGA-size wallpaper downloads and video clip
files of 15 to 30 seconds in length
In addition, J-PHONE plans to launch a compatible handset, the V801SA
by Sanyo, in conjunction with these new services. With these offerings,
J-PHONE customers will be able to enjoy Vodafone live! on a 3GPP-based,
high-speed W-CDMA network (up to 384kbps downlink) in Japan and by
accessing the GPRS networks of roaming partners while overseas.
In conjunction with the launch of Vodafone live! services for VGS,
J-PHONE will lower videotelephony and 64K digital communication charges to the
same level as voice calls, down from the current rate of 1.8 times the price
of voice. With this rate reduction customers will be able to enjoy 3G
services at great value.
Posted by richard ting at August 25, 2003, 12:40 PM
NYC Sneaker stores looted during the Blackout
I spoke to the owner of Classic Kicks last week. Apparently, a bunch of vandals rode by the store on their bicycles and then smashed the front window. Soon after, a car pulled up to the front of the store and a number of kids bum rushed the store and cleared out all of the store's clothing merchandise. A good majority of the sneakers were left unscathed since only single sneakers were on display. It sounds like a coordinated effort amongst the thieves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/18/nyregion/18SHOE.html
Posted by richard ting at August 25, 2003, 12:37 PM
Viewpoint: NTT DoCoMo launches new music service next month;
Viewpoint: NTT DoCoMo launches new music service next month;
Will this mean competition for its ringtone providers?
Downloadable ringtones are a big money maker in the mobile industry. Several Japanese ringtone services have more than 1 million monthly subscribers.
In Korea, a new music service concept called "Ring Back Tone" was introduced last year by SK Telecom. Usually when you call someone, you hear the classic "ring ring" in your earpiece while waiting for that someone to answer the phone. But the Korean carrier has introduced a service whereby the subscriber can select a music clip that the caller hears until the call is answered.
"Ring Back Tone" differs from download services because it resides exclusively within the network. The service is now even more successful than downloadable ringtone sites. Within 10 months of
its launch, over 8 million people were using "Ring Back Tone" -- representing a 25 percent market penetration.
DoCoMo has adopted the "Ring Back Tone" service and will launch it next month (September 2003) as "Melody Call." For 200 yen per month, users can select three melodies from 3000 popular songs. The maximum duration of each music clip is 15 seconds. Subscribers to "Melody Call" need to register the phone numbers of callers who will have access to the clip(s). Up to 30 phone numbers can be registered -- but only other DoCoMo phone numbers are eligible.
DoCoMo expects to attract 2 million subscribers by the end of the year. They have established a Web site to promote the service on which users can search for available melodies and view a list of the most popular
songs.
Apparently DoCoMo wants to tap into the lucrative mobile music market, though the company has no plans, yet, to "open" the service for its ringtone download providers. Altough "Melody Call" does not directly
compete with these ringtone content providers, there is a chance that their users will spend less on downloadable ringtones.
There are also other concerns for "Melody Call." The majority of DoCoMo's customers are still using PDC. In comparison with GSM, the voice quality of PDC remains inferior. Since the melody will be played in "voice mode," the quality might be disappointing for those expecting HiFi sound. With FOMA, the sound quality will be better.
Another limitation is that the sevice is only accessible to DoCoMo subscribers. As the service resides in the network, cooperation with J-Phone and KDDI will be necessary to guarantee interoperability. As
we expect "Melody Call" to become very successful, watch for J-Phone and KDDI to rapidly deploy similar services that will ensure interoperability with "Melody Call."
-- Arjen van Blokland
Source:
http://www.nttdocomo.com/home.html
Link:
"Japan's Mobile Internet Roars Back" from our July issue
http://www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=1143
Posted by richard ting at August 25, 2003, 11:33 AM