Planet Mobile Web - W3C

Relationship Between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility (WCAG) Note published [W3C MWI]

2009-07-10T09:20:29+00:00

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group and the WAI Education and Outreach Working Group have published Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a final W3C Working Group Note.

The groups encourage people to start by reading Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices, which shows how design goals for accessibility and mobile access overlap. A third document, Shared Web Experiences: Barriers Common to Mobile Device Users and People with Disabilities, provides examples of barriers that people (without disabilities) face when interacting with Web content via mobile devices, and similar barriers for people with disabilities using desktop computers.

LTE and HSPA Uplink Power Control in Comparison [Martin]

2009-07-10T09:03:35+00:00

And here's my LTE thought of the day:

One of the fascinating things about the 3G/WCDMA/HSPA uplink is the 1500 power control commands per second to ensure all devices transmitting at the same time are received with a similar power level. This is necessary as only this way the base stations can retrieve the individual data streams that are stacked on each other in the code/power domain.

With LTE, however, such a fast power control is no longer required as each mobile sends at a different time or uses different subcarriers (i.e. different time / frequency domains). While it is still necessary that all transmitting devices are received by the base station with "more or less" the same power in order not to overload the A/D converters it is by no means as essential as before. A lot less work and signaling involved that way.

Get More From Your BlackBerry with Opera Mini [Wap Review]

2009-07-10T04:35:00+00:00

If you have a BlackBerry and aren’t using Opera Mini 4.2 you are missing out on what is in my opinion, the best BlackBerry application. Mini is a small (under 170KB) application that implements a full html web browser that rivals and in many cases exceeds the performance of the best smartphone browsers. And yes that includes Safari on the iPhone. Compared with the built-in BlackBerry browser, especially on older models like my 7100i, Mini is so overwhelmingly superior that since installing Opera Mini on the phone I have completely stopped using the BlackBerry Browser.

What makes Opera Mini such a great browser on BlackBerries?

Speed – Mini talks to the Internet through a very sophisticated proxy provided by Opera. The proxy does all the hard work – parsing tag soup, re-flowing pages, resizing images and interpreting JavaScript. What gets sent to Mini after the proxy has done it’s magic is a compressed binary that requires relatively little processing power to render on the handset. This means that web pages, especially large complex pages with many images, load and render much faster than they would using the phone’s built-in browser.
Website Compatibility – The BlackBerry browser has trouble rendering many desktop Web pages; hangs, errors and rendering issues are common. With the BlackBerry browser you are pretty much limited to made for mobile sites and simple desktop ones. Opera Mini can quickly load almost any site.
Mobile View – Opera Mini has two different viewing modes. The default is “Desktop View” which shows a miniaturized version of a full sized web page (image, top). You move around to find an interesting section and then zoom in to view just that section full sized. This mode is good for viewing wide content like tables and the detail in images. The other mode is “Mobile View” which resizes images and reformats text into a single column so that horizontal scrolling is never needed. Mobile view may not be as pretty as desktop view, but it sure is efficient, especially for pages with lots of text. Desktop View does try to minimize horizontal scrolling by resizing individual columns to page width, but you still need to scroll horizontally as text flows around images and continues in a different column. Horizontal scrolling is a time waster, as is navigating the zoomed out view to find the main content of a page. With Mobile View reading long articles is very efficient, no scrolling is needed, just an occasional tap of the space bar or “8′ key to scroll to the next page.

Keyboard Shortcuts – Opera Mini which has a huge list of 1 and 2 key shortcuts like # plus 0 to refresh the page and # plus 7 to bookmark the current page. And then there is Speed Dial gives you quick access to your 9 favorite bookmarks by pressing * plus 1-9 (image – above, left). Plus there are a bunch of 1 key shortcuts in desktop view; 2 = page up, 8 = page down, 4 = column left, 6 = column right.
Offline Browsing – Opera can load very large pages. I routinely open web pages over 500 KB in size. With BlackBerries using OS 4.2 or latter Mini can save pages in non-volatile storage on the phone’s memory card or main memory. Saved pages can be viewed anytime even in no service areas like deep underground. Actually you don’t even need to save pages to browse offline in Opera Mini thanks to its enormous and very efficient cache. You can have 20-30 big web pages with lots of images in the cache and jump instantly back and forth through them using the history menu, even in areas of no connectivity. I used to do an hour long rail commute, much of it in areas with no reception, and used Opera Mini and Bloglines Mobile to keep up with the hundreds of RSS feeds that I follow. Before I got on my bike for the ride to the train station, I’d fire up Opera Mini, launch Bloglines and choose the “nn Updated Feeds” which loads all the unread items from all my feeds as a single huge web page. When I got to the train station the huge page was fully loaded with dozens of items – about 30 minutes worth of reading. The tunnels are in the first part of the trip so by the time I finished that first page I was back in an area of connectivity.
Bookmarklet Support- Bookmarklets, snippets of JavaScript stored in a browser bookmark, are an extremely powerful tool for making your mobile surfing faster and easier. With two key presses you can subscribe to a feed in your favorite RSS reader, save a link to the current page on over a dozen different bookmarking services , translate the current page to a different language, display the current page’s HTTP headers, source code or Google Page rank and much more.
Opera Link – Opera Mini and desktop Opera 9.5 and have Opera Link which synchronizes your Opera Mini bookmarks with the desktop for easy editing and as a backup. If you switch to a new phone or have to reinstall your BlackBerry OS, as soon as you log into Opera Link all your bookmarks and Speed Dial shortcuts magically appear on your phone.
Support – Opera provides the best support I’ve ever experienced for a free product from a large company. On the Opera Mini User Forum, Opera employees promptly answer questions and solicit suggestions for future enhancements. When problems are reported with specific phones, Opera often finds a fix in a few days and puts up a new release to solve the issue.

Anoyances and Workarounds – Like every other piece of software ever made, Opera Mini is not perfect. It has a few quirks and outright bugs, some of which are specific to the Blackberry. Here are the top annoyances in Opera Mini and how to work around them.

Missing Images – With large pages, over 100 KB, Mini runs low on Java stack space. Which this happens it starts to skip images. The text all loads but graphics and photos are replaced by gray rectangular pace holders. There is no real fix for this but you can load more images by selecting “Low” image quality in the Settings menu and by turning off “Visual effects” and using Mobile View. You can also use Opera Mini 3.1, an older version that splits large pages into multiple segments and is able to display all images. Another issue with images is that in Mobile View, Opera Mini doesn’t display images that are less than about 20 px wide. Usually these small images are relatively unimportant spacing elements but sometimes they impart critical information like star ratings on review sites. The workaround is to switch to desktop view or to use Opera Mini 3.1 which doesn’t have this issue. Note that Opera Mini 3.1, while it avoids these and some other issues, is no longer supported by Opera and is a much more primitive browser lacking many of 4.2’s features like Opera Link, Desktop View and the ability to save pages.
Mobile View Sometimes Isn’t – On some pages, especially Blogger Blogs and mobile versions of sites, the Mobile View setting is ignored and horizontal scrolling is necessary. The only workaround is to use Opera Mini 3.1 which doesn’t have this bug.
Mobile View Page Scrolling Bug – I think this only effects the older BlackBerry models that have a scroll wheel on the side. On these phones, scrolling up and down with the “2″,”8″ and space keys sometimes jumps two pages up or down instead of one. Workarounds are using Alt plus scroll wheel to scroll a page at a tine or switching to Desktop View.
Connectivity Issue – Occasionally Opera Mini 4.2 gets into a state where it can’t connect. When this happens the error log (Alt + “LGLG”) sometimes shows “DNS failure” or “Too Many Open Connections”. Other data aware applications like Gmail, the Bolt and BlackBerry browsers and even Opera Mini 3.1 continue to work without error. Toggling the phone’s radio on and off and even power cycling do not resolve the issue. The only thing that seems to work is a complete reboot with Alt + Caps + Del on QWERTY models or a battery pull on SureType phones. Unfortunately, as every BlackBerry user knows, a reboot takes a couple of minutes. Fortunately this bug seems to occur fairly infrequently.

Opera mini is so much better than any other Blackberry browser that in spite of these minor annoyances I use it exclusively. It’s light years ahead of the BlackBerry Browser in terms of speed, usability and site compatibility. Bolt comes close, but Mini still slightly edges it in speed. Plus Opera Mini’s usability is much better thanks to features like Mobile View, Speed Dial, Opera Link, bookmarklet support and a more extensive set of shortcut keys.

The best way to install Opera Mini on a Blackberry is with the built in BlackBerry Browser. Navigate to mini.opera.com and choose the first link labeled “Download Opera Mini!”. Note, you will only get the download page if your BlackBerry Browser is in BlackBery Emulation Mode (Browser Menu > Options > Browser Configuration > Emulation Mode = “BlackBerry”) (image, bottom). If you would rather install Opera Mini using Desktop Manager you also download a zip file containing the necessary .alx and .cod files from .opera.com/mini/download/blackberry/

Blue Flavor joining forces with Pondry [Brian Fling]

2009-07-09T23:46:56+00:00

Some of our readers may have noticed we have been really quiet for some time now both on the blog, Twitter and other places. This is all for good reason. There’s something that has kept our heads down, fleshing out the details, crossing T’s, dotting I’s and such. We are very close to bringing this development to completion and feel today is the day to share the news with you…

The Blue Flavor family is proud to announce that we are joining forces with our long time strategic business partner Pondry. Pondry is a web agency that focuses on developing cloud-based solutions. Much like Blue Flavor, Pondry believes in open and honest transparency, a high level of quality in the work they do including an adherence to web and mobile standards, good experiences that put the user’s needs first, and creating optimal solutions only once the problems and challenges are fully identified.

Through this, we will be able to continue to provide our customers with the quality and expertise expected of the Blue Flavor team. With the addition of Pondry’s resources, proficiency and knowledge of custom web application development, we are excited for the new level of end-to-end, robust solutions we will be able to offer.

Over the course of the next few months you may see some changes around Blue Flavor. As with any transition, some employees will choose to move on for a number of reasons (some not related to this announcement) and they will be missed. There will also be changes regarding our brand and web presence to better communicate our newly establish position. We will keep you updated as these developments progress and materialize.

This will be a long process, but we feel that once everything is done we will be a stronger, more effective organization to serve our customers. We look forward to this future together with Pondry and we are happy to have such a talented group of professionals join forces with us. We hope to win your business and prove our expertise and effectiveness to you. If you have a web, mobile, software or system project, please get in touch.

Layar opens up their platform to developers [Open Gardens]

2009-07-09T20:23:43+00:00

I have covered layar the new augmented reality browser before and they have a new announcement that they will open up their platform for developers.

Adapted from their press release below:

This month Layar will provide 50 developer keys to interested companies across the globe. With a key it will be possible to create and publish digital layers within the Layar mobile application. Any database with location coordinates can be transformed into an augmented reality layer.

First 50 keys Starting today companies and organizations can apply for a developer key via http://layar.com/API and fill in the request form.

Layar will provide tools such as API documentation, publication process and a test environment for new layers.

To begin with 50 keys will be handed out, with more keys being released in the future.

Development opportunities with Layar The Layar API gives developers the opportunity to completely customize the look and feel of their own augmented reality layer, which may include: branding possibilities such as color scheme and custom icons for the layer, exposing the database with Points of Interest (POIs), custom indicators for various types of POI and assigning custom actions to each POI (go to mobile URL, call number, make route, etc).

The link is: Layar API

How can the phones of upto 3000 people be hacked but Operators not know anything of it? [Open Gardens]

2009-07-09T15:57:49+00:00

This article makes for disturbing reading. So much for the reputation of privacy, security etc for phone conversations. How could this happen and no one knows? Good on the Guardian for finding this story!

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8141884.stm BBC

Q&A: Phone hacking row

As police prepare to examine claims of widespread mobile phone hacking by the News of the World, we look at some of the key questions surrounding the story.

What is the row all about?

The Guardian newspaper's front page is claiming journalists on the tabloid News of the World were involved in widespread phone-hacking of several thousand celebrities, sports stars and politicians.

The paper says it has evidence that News Group Newspapers - owner of The News of the World, the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times - paid £1m to settle legal cases that might have revealed evidence of the journalists' illegal activities.

If that evidence had been made available, then victims of phone hacking may have been able take action against the News of the World.

The Guardian says the News of the World made a £700,000 payout to Gordon Taylor, head of the Professional Footballers' Association - but only on condition that details of his case were not made public, the paper said.

News Group's lawyers are then accused by the paper of persuading the court to "seal the file" on Mr Taylor's case to prevent all public access.

The allegations have not only caused deep concern for those who were apparently targeted but also raised questions over who knew the extent of the illegal activity and why more was not done to tackle it.

As well as the News of the World, those in the spotlight include the Crown Prosecution Service which allegedly agreed to seal the file, and the Metropolitan Police who failed to alert the alleged victims.

Fingers are also being pointed at Andy Coulson, News of the World editor when the allegations were made, and now a key figure in the Conservative party.

Former deputy PM John Prescott, one of the alleged targets, has called for police to investigate. Other including Lord Mandelson and former Home Secretary Charles Clarke have also waded into the row.

Why has it now come to light?

The story stems from the jailing of News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman in 2007 for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff. At the time, News International said Goodman had been acting without their knowledge.

During that case it emerged private investigator Glenn Mulcaire tapped into the phones of Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, and four other prominent figures.

A year later Gordon Taylor sued News Group, which owns the News of the World, on the basis that its senior executives must have known about the alleged operation.

An out-of-court settlement was reached on condition that details of the case were not made public.

The Guardian claims the information from the case - which would have exposed allegations of widespread phone hacking by News of the World journalists - was then suppressed by the police and the High Court.

And it is some of that information that they disclosed in their newspaper on Thursday.

Whose phone was hacked into?

Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars are all said to have been bugged.

On the Guardian's list are former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, celebrity cook Nigella Lawson, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, London Mayor Boris Johnson, comedian Lenny Henry, singer George Michael and the late Jade Goody.

The Guardian quotes one source as saying between "2,000 and 3,000" public figures had been bugged.

Who is Andy Coulson?

Andy Coulson was editor of the News of the World at the time when his journalists were allegedly involved in phone hacking into thousands of mobiles. Now he is director of communications for the Conservative party.

He started his journalism career on regional papers, before rising rapidly through the ranks to become News of the World editor by his mid 30s.

He oversaw a string of tabloid exclusives on the private lives of David Beckham, David Blunkett and Sven Goran Eriksson.

But he resigned in January 2007 on the day Clive Goodman was jailed for four months for illegal phone hacking.

He denied knowledge of events, but said he would take the ultimate responsibility for them. A Press Complaints Commission investigation found no evidence that he or anyone else at the paper was aware of Goodman's illegal activities.

Less than six months later though he was back in a job, hired by David Cameron to be his director of communications and planning.

What have the Tories said?

Conservative leader David Cameron is standing by his communications director, insisting his job is safe.

"He does an excellent job for the Conservatives, in a proper, upright way at all times," he said.

"It's wrong for newspapers to breach people's privacy with no justification.

"That is why Andy Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World two-and-a-half years ago. Of course I knew about that resignation before offering him the job. But I believe in giving people a second chance."

Why didn't the police investigate?

It is unclear yet how far any police investigation has gone. What is known is that the alleged targets of the phone hacking were not informed when the information about the hack operation first came to light.

On Thursday, Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson announced a senior officer had been ordered to "establish the facts" on the case.

Legal experts say even if the police had been aware of other phone hacking targets, unless there were complainants, they would not necessarily have investigated further.

However, John Prescott has said that if the victims were kept in the dark in the first place, they were unlikely to been able to complain.

Legal analyst Joshua Rozenberg said there was no obligation on the police to inform the alleged targets of the phone tapping.

"I think the police would say they don't go around publishing information like this," he said.

"It's their job to investigate crimes and pass information onto the Crown Prosecution Service. And if the CPS chose not to prosecute, or even to tell the people involved, that's their decision."

How can a mobile phone be hacked?

Security expert Mark Cooper says there are three methods by which a mobile telephone calls can be intercepted.

This can be done either at the handset, or during the conversation - which is illegal and very expensive - or through the mobile phone company which connects the device.

Are there laws preventing people from hacking into phones?

It is illegal to gain access to another person's telephone under Section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

Legal affairs analyst Jon Silverman said the only exception is if the hacking is being done by the authorities, who will have gained legal clearance.

He said: "The RIPA act was a controversial one. The government wanted to put on a statutory footing the activities of bodies like the police, MI5 and security agencies generally.

"It raises the question of the very buoyant market for confidential information in this country and the biggest buyers are the media."

What are the penalties for breaking the law in this way?

The maximum sentence is two years in prison, or a fine, or possibly both.

YAPPA Rolls MagaStore iPhone App [Wirless Watch Japan]

2009-07-09T09:33:37+00:00

The good folks over at YAPPA have launched an interesting platform, in conjunction with Dentsu, for browsing and purchasing magazines. The MagaStore, initially targeting the iPhone but eventually available for other mobile platforms, debuts with 30 titles provided by 20 mainstream publishers including Asahi Shimbun, ALBA, Kodansha, Shogakukan, Shinchosha, SONY, Hankyu and Fuso.

Nokia N97 Review Part 3 - Text Input and the Bluetooth Keyboard [Martin]

2009-07-09T05:41:05+00:00

In part three of my N97 review I'll focus on how the various text input methods work for me.

Both the on-screen and built-in keyboard work great for me. I am a quick T9 user and the virtual keyboard on the touch screen works very nicely. I can type almost as fast as on the real keyboard of an N95 for example and the haptic feedback helps a lot with the experience (the phone vibrates when pressing a key). In silent mode there is no haptic feedback which is also great in some situations where even a short vibration for every key press would disturb. In that respect, it's better than the N95 which makes a mechanical sound when a button is pressed. And: T9 can be used with a single hand on the N97 just like on the N95, another important feature for me!

Typing in usernames and passwords with T9 is often a bit difficult as especially passwords are usually just a combination of characters and letters so it is necessary to deactivate T9 first. That's where the three-row hardware keyboard comes in for me. It works great for usernames and passwords! For longer texts, however, I prefer the T9 input especially when I can't use my Bluetooth keyboard, e.g. while standing in line or with very restricted space like in the metro.

One of the most important features of Nokia S60 phones is the support of Bluetooth keyboards as I sometimes write lengthy e-mails or blog entries. For The N97, there is currently no supported driver for Nokia's SU-8W keyboard. However, the S60 3rd edition driver works on the N97 and installation is quick and smooth. After updating the device's firmware from version 10.x to 11.x, however, the driver always crashed and I had to re-install it to get it working again. It would be nice to get an officially supported driver where these things don't happen.

So much for today. Next stop: e-mail

VOLGA Forum Publishes Stage 2 Specification For Voice Over LTE [Martin]

2009-07-09T05:38:28+00:00

Regular readers of this blog probably remember that I'm a fan of Voice over LTE via GAN (VOLGA). For those who don't, have a look here on more details on why I think it has a good chance of becoming THE voice solution for LTE. It's amazing how fast the Volga-Forum is pushing out the specifications. In May, they published the stage 1 specification document, which contains a high level architecture and the requirements. Now only a month later, a first version of the stage 2 specification is available. Stage 2 specifications as per 3GPP contain a detailed architecture description and all procedures required from connecting to the network, originating and terminating calls, doing handovers, etc.

While their speed is incredible, maybe it should not be that surprising, because VOLGA is based on the already existing 3GPP GAN (Generic Access Network, i.e. GSM over Wi-Fi) specification. That's a good thing because that means that VOLGA could thus be developed quite quickly as it's likely that existing products can be modified instead of being designed from scratch. In addition, this should also mean that the first version of the standard is already quite mature as many areas were already verified during implementation and rollout of GAN in current networks.

I did a quick comparison between the two stage 2 specs and as I expected, many parts are very similar. While the GAN stage 2 specification has 126 pages, the current VOLGA stage 2 specification has 87 pages. This is probably because VOLGA is simpler than GAN. There are fewer handover procedures and most of the handover details are part of the 3GPP Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SR-VCC) specification (for IMS) so they don't have to be included in the VOLGA spec. In addition to fewer handover scenarios, handovers are a bit more simple with LTE from a VOLGA perspective, as the network takes care of it unlike with GAN, where the mobile has to force the network into a handover. Also, there's no need to support the packet switched part of the network which also significantly lowers the complexity.

Well done, I am looking forward to the stage 3 specification which will contain the details on all messages and information elements used.

DeviceAtlas Personal - Device Detection in the Cloud (PHP) [mobiForge]

2009-07-08T18:26:50+00:00

After a brief mention of DeviceAtlas Personal in our June newsletter, we're now following up with a full tutorial on how to use the preview release of the service. So what is DA Personal?

Nokia, Go Green and UCLA’s New App Tracks Personal Environmental Impact [Wap Review]

2009-07-08T18:19:28+00:00

This morning I participated in a Q&A secssion with Martin Gutierrez from the Go Green Foundation, John Shen from Nokia Labs, and Jeff Burke and Mark Hansen from UCLA about PEIR (Personal Environmental Impact Report), an environmental initiative by UCLA researchers that Nokia and Go Green are funding.

PEIR is an application for Symbian OS 3rd Ed, Windows Mobile 6 and soon Android handsets. It measures your impact on the environment by using location data uploaded from your phone to create a personalized report about your environmental impact and exposure. In Southern California PEIR is able to correlate your location with particulate matter creation and exposure, fast food exposure and transportation-related C02 creation. Elsewhere PEIR is limited to tracking transportation related carbon impact.

Users can view logs of their trips on the PEIR website. The logs show your route on a map with detailed statistics on freeway usage and the C02 and particulate matter emissions you generated including the portion of your emissions that were generated in the vicinity of “sensitive” sites like schools, and hospitals. Facebook users can add a PEIR Facebook app to their profiles which shows their environmental impact and exposure and how they rank in comparison with their friends (image, above).

PEIR is currently in closed Beta. If you are interested in trying it there is a form where you can register to be notified when the Beta opens to new Beta users. The PEIR Facebook application (which requires the phone app to work) is available here.

PEIR seems like a good way to raise environmental awareness and encourage individuals to think about the environmental impact of their behavior. Nokia is among the “greenest” big companies and has done a lot to reduce the environmental impact of their production facilities and to remove toxic materials from their products, efforts that won them top ranking in Greenpeace’s “Guide to Greener Electronics“. The company has also led the way in making mobile chargers more energy efficent. Kudos to Nokia for adding to their environmental contribution with support for PEIR.

Microsoft Azure, Facebook and Twitter could be more significant than Google Chrome OS for both Web and Mobile because Data is the real issue ... [Open Gardens]

2009-07-08T18:16:28+00:00

Note:

Here, I am arguing that Data is more important that software/access. Google controls 'search' data - but not enterprise data and also not social data.

The Google Chrome OS announcement does not change that

The trend towards the Cloud has been there for some time - for mobile , as early as 2003 with SoonR) but it is all catching up now. However, for local storage, you need a client footprint(and thats what I mean by the browser needed some form of 'client' and best bet was HTML5 which google functionally implements through Chrome as best as it can - and (wisely) does not wait for standardization!)

Thus, the arguement shifts away from PC vs Mobile and also from Operting systems/Browsers etc to 'the classes of data' (consumer / enterprise etc) and where they are captured, stored and edited - and how they are valued

As I discussed in The dark side of open: (lack of) Privacy - expect to see talk of empowering the customer, freeing ourselves from old corporate models etc - but the end game is always about DATA! and in that sense, apart from search - Google remains unproven

On my previous blog Winners and losers for Google Chrome OS , there were two questions (comments/twitter feedback)

a) Microsoft Azure is not covered in all this talk of Google Chrome OS and

b) What is the impact on mobile?

On forumoxford, we also debate the PC/Sub netbook/mobile argument ..

The two questions made me think of the following chain of thought

a) The PC/Sub note book/Mobile argument is irrelevant because ..

b) All data is ultimately going to the Cloud(i.e. becoming device agnostic)

c) In that sense, whoever manages the data will be most relevant not where the data is accessed from

The Value of data will be determined by

1) How commercially valuable it is(enterprise data)

2) How personally valuable it is(personal data like photos etc)

3) How easily can the data be accessed across platforms(Web Mobile etc)

4) Who knows the consumer(Identity)

5) How much metadata does it have(links, comments, tags etc)

6) Who the consumer trusts(privacy)

7) How socially available is the consumer data
(happy to add to this list!)

Now, I have always said that we need a client for the Cloud else the Chrome architecure is a sledge hammer to the browser . In that sense, I am a fan of Software plus services (as opposed to software as a service) and to me Chrome is an admission that we need software plus services

The enterprise data will likely stay with Azure(for all Google's talk - it has not really made an impact on anything other than advertising(commercially) and the jury is out on many things including Android and Chrome)

That leaves personal data.

Capturing data is all fine and very much web 2.0. Storing data can happen in the cloud. But what about editing (ex photos etc)?

So, you need a PC for that - for sure. And it's a long time that you can use a BROWSER to do some of the tasks

Also, Google now gets into PAID apps - which was indicated by a post from techcrunch last week (what the hell happened to the free version of Google apps)

And there are questions about open source .. Does "open source" mean Google expects the community to maintain the code?

The above implies that:

a) If data sits in the cloud, then the access mechanism is agnostic. So, Cloud prevails over web(as we know it) and mobile

b) If a client is needed, then Google Chrome OS and Azure are conceptually the same(software plus services model)

c) If editing is needed(and it is!) then the PC is still dominant

d) Mobile continues to play an important role but within the context of the Cloud(which spans web and mobile)

e) Whose Cloud do you orbit? Enterprises will continue to be with Azure, Consumer data may rest with one of many clouds(Operator, Google, Azure, Amazon etc etc)

f) And by extension: Which social network do you orbit?. That's the real consumer question(irrespective of access mechanisms). That could make either facebook or twitter a winner in the consumer space or even the home gateway(the anti cloud - femtocells argument)

This sounds counter intuitive until you think that:

1) Google does not have a social networking presence

2) Facebook and Twitter have strong consumer identity plays The Web just moved and Telecoms just lost another control point

3) The social layer (like the cloud) also spans the Web and Mobile - so mobile becomes an access mechanism to social layer

So, to conclude - Azure for the enterprise and (Twitter/facebook) for the social layer will be the most significant players as I see it now. There is a possibility that a network Operator led cloud could also be a major player

Ultimately it comes down to:

a) Who people will trust

b) Who enterprises will trust

c) Who knows the customer

d) Privacy concerns

e) Who is more open (from a social graph perspective)

All these are DATA related concepts - which is the real issue. Hence, the belief that Azure, facebook and twitter(which relate to the data/social layer) are more significant than Chrome OS or even mobile.

Google controls 'search' data - but not enterprise data and also not social data. The Google Chrome OS announcement does not change that

Google Chrome OS - 12 winners and losers [Open Gardens]

2009-07-08T09:39:35+00:00

I don't do analysis on breaking news .. but this one is too big

Google Chrome OS is one of the most significant announcements and I am wondering how it will impact many players

a) Microsoft - Direct competitor. Impacted. Will be on the defensive

b) Linux - Bad news. Becoming less relevant

c) Opera, Mozilla - bad news. Google gains traction at a much higher pace - (albeit not usage as a browser yet)

d) Nokia - Needs to accelerate. Will be forced to react. No longer driving agenda

e) Standardization .. Interesting .. does w3c have anything to say? Google drives Web agenda at a much faster rate

f) Webkit on Android - bad. Chrome will be dominant within Android at expense of webkit ( UPDATE: amended to Webkit on android. Thanks Peter Vesterbacka!)

g) Web - good news. Web takes centre stage

h) Advertising? Remember Google is not in the software game(that's why it makes 'software' free. It is in the DATA game and by extension advertising). Google keeps getting better

i) Netbooks, Desktop and Cloud - Netbooks - positive. Probably the real target market of the OS; Desktop - no initial impact; Cloud - Potentially significant impact but too early to say

Note:
Increasingly, the PC may be a narrow definition ie you may use the PC to access most of your info from the Cloud. Thats why Google Chrome OS is significant since it impacts the cloud and hence affects the PC. I described Chrome as the client for the Cloud and increasingly thats where its heading. Cloud or Fog? The battle for supremacy in the cloud is not a dogfight but will be fought in the trenches.

In that sense, this announcement is interesting but Azure(Microsoft) will have greater commercial impact!

Update:

Microsoft Azure, Facebook and Twitter could be more significant than Google Chrome OS for both Web and Mobile because Data is the real issue ...

j) OEMs - good. They have a choice. BUT also NEW OEMS will enter the market

k) Alliance? Not like OHA. The GOVERNANCE model for Chrome is strictly with Google(see previous blogs about governance models vs. licensing model

l) HTML5 - Good for HTML5. Google will run with it. And by extension it's good for the web

Any more?

Layar Augmented Reality-Now Open for Developers [Ric Ferraro]

2009-07-08T09:32:31+00:00

I first came across Layar at Mobile 2.0 Europe when I met Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald (aka DutchCowboy to Twitterers) and he demo'd the latest version of his augmented reality software on a G1 Android device.

I had previously taken a look at all the companies entered into the Mobile 2.0 start-up competition and, out of all of them, it was Layar that had really captured my imagination.

Why? Firstly, because it was something new (though not the first of its concept, it is certainly the best marketed augmented reality mobile software to date) that immediately brought to mind the famous Terminator movie, where Arnold Schwarzenegger, as The Terminator, scans the street and an overlay of information about the height and weight of people ahead of him is projected onto his vision.

Secondly, because I believe that the future of mobile is all about interacting intelligently with the surrounding environment (or location) and information overlays on street-view maps point in the right direction of this.

Today, Layar announced that it is opening up for business with developers, allowing access to its platform to a new wave of digital map layer pioneers. 50 developer keys are to be provided to interested companies from around the world.

You can see the full press release about this here: http://bit.ly/RgwTP

7/7 memorial [Open Gardens]

2009-07-08T07:19:13+00:00

A woman walks around a new permanent memorial to honour the victims of the July 7 2005 London bombings in Hyde Park on July 6, 2009 in London, England. The memorial consists of 52 single columns representing the lives lost. (Getty)

More HERE

Unlocked 3G Dongles in the Supermarket [Martin]

2009-07-08T05:13:18+00:00

Recently, Aldi supermarkets in Germany have started selling unlocked 3G USB dongles for €59. Yes, unlocked, which means that the buyer is free to either use them with a SIM card that can also be bought in the supermarket or with a SIM card of a different operator. For the details see here (while the link leads somewhere).

The SIM card offered by Aldi is for the German E-Plus network, which unfortunately is quite patchy and not upgraded to HSPA yet. I wonder if it might be the last non-HSPA 3G network left in Europe!? Prices for daily use are €1.99 with a traffic limit of 1 GB or €15 for 30 days with a traffic limit of 5 GB. Stunning prices but don't ask for high speeds.

I am glad to finally see this happening in Germany, after it has pretty much become common practice in Austria for a year or two now already. To my knowledge, Germany is only the second country so far where unlocked 3G dongles can be bought in supermarkets. If you are aware of any other countries except Austria, please let me know.

Let's hope that similarly as in Austria this move will stimulate competition around pre-paid offers where the SIM card for Internet access can be bought independently from the 3G dongle. After all, I feel a bit silly to buy a locked dongle in countries I travel to just to get the SIM card.

Some prepaid offers without a dongle are already available in Germany for some time now and you can find out more on the Prepaid Wireless Internet Access Wiki here. There's information about lots of other countries there as well in case you want to find out what's going on in your country. Have fun!

Who Has the Best Live Mobile Tour de France Coverage? [Wap Review]

2009-07-07T17:27:20+00:00

This year’s Tour de France is off to an exciting start. The biggest news is seven time winner Lance Armstrong’s coming out of a four year retirement at age 37 to ride his 12th Tour. Armstrong claims he isn’t riding to win this year but to support Alberto Contador, his Astana team’s leader. However yesterday Lance managed to join a late stage breakaway engineered by team Columbia-HTC. The 28 man breakaway finished 41 seconds ahead of the pack and Contador. Going into today’s stage Lance was sitting in third place, just ahead of his team leader. A strong performance by Astana in today’s team time trial has moved Armstong into second place less than a second behind leader Fabian Cancellara with Contador in third, 19 seconds back.

Cable TV channel Versus, which provides live Tour coverage in the US, has really screwed it up this year. The actually commentary, sourced from the U.K’s ITV, is by the legendary Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin and is fine. The ITV broadcast has well defined commercial breaks. But that’s apparently not enough for Versus who is interrupting the ITV feed mid sentence, sometime at critical points in the coverage to interject even more ads. When coverage resumes it does so with 30 seconds or more of commentary lost!

If you can’t watch the tour on TV or want to find out what you missed due to an ill-timed Versus commercial interruption there are a number of mobile web sites offering live text coverage of the Tour.

Velonews ( mobile.velonews.com ) The U.S. based print cycling newspaper has live coverage on their mobile site. In prior years Velonews’ coverage has been first rate in terms of commentary but the site had problems keeping up with the huge traffic the Tour generates. This year they are using a new platform from coveritlive.com which seems fast and robust and includes photos. The table based layout makes horizontal scrolling necessary on screens that are less than 320 px wide, though (image, top). Rating: Content Usability

Eurosport (m.eurosport.com/cycling/) The big European sports TV network has added live mobile coverage this year. Unfortunately, the mobile version truncates the coverage, cutting off all but the last 20 minutes or so’s comments. Not good if you can only steal a glance at the Tour occasionally, like at work, and want go back and see what happened earlier. The site loads very slowly at times and the updates are rather cryptic and lack niceties like a tabular leader-board found on the other sites. Rating: Content Usability

BBC Mobile (news.bbc.co.uk/mobile/bbc_sport/cycling/ ) The BBC provides the full text of their live coverage from the the beginning of the race to the end. The BBC commentary was a bit sparse in prior years but this year I think it’s the best of the bunch with frequent factual reports that seem to catch the critical moves. This is light weight version that should work on all phones. Rating: Content Usability

BBC PDA (news.bbc.co.uk/solpda/ukfs_sport/hi/other_sports/cycling/) This is the BBC Mobile live text stream enhanced with photos, bits pulled out of Twitter, including one today by Lance himself, and user comments. If you are in the U.K. you can text a comment to 81111 or call 606 to leave a voice message. There is moderation with only selected comments being used, probably a good thing. The comments add a lot to the experience making this my favorite mobile site for live Tour coverage. Rating: Content Usability

What about CyclingNews.com? The number one cycling website isn’t offering any live mobile Tour coverage this year! The old live.cyclingnews.com/wap/ link returns a 404 “Not Found” error. That’s pretty strange as CyclingNew’s live commentary is by far the most extensive on the web and is very popular with cycling fans around the world. Actually, you can easily view the desktop live coverage with Opera Mini and probably other full-web mobile browsers. To try it start at http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/96th-tour-de-france-gt/stages/, scroll down to the current stage and click the Live link. I don’t know who dropped the ball on the CyclingNews mobile site this year. It’s probably related to CyclingNews’ just completed and much needed total redesign of their desktop site. Perhaps integrating a mobile version with the new content management system is delayed and the mobile version will appear eventually. But not having it up for the biggest race of the year is really bad form.

Mobile Machine Tweets [Betavine]

2009-07-07T09:21:48+00:00

The Tour De France has had a cracking start, and office cycling fans have been well-served by the excellent feed fromEurosport/Yahoo! as well as top Tweets from the ITV team.

A good question came into the Eurosport TV coverage: since cycling fans are obsessed with individual rider metrics (speed, cadence, gear ratio, power, heartrate as %age of peak heartrate, downward/upward force on the cleated pedals etc.) then why can these stats not be onscreen? The answer from Eurosport was that they would love to do so but that the TV feed comes from a single French provider and is the same across the world. For any one broadcaster to attempt to wire up every bike and cyclist would be very costly.

So here's an idea for next year: wire up every bike and cyclist in one of the minor tours. This shouldn't cause problems to the riders as they train with such devices on their spokes and handlebars, and if they all have them there is a tiny loss of aerodynamics for everyone. Gather the data and broadcast it via Twitter, or preferably via a structured RSS feed, so that people can read it direct or mash-it up into other services. If this works well introduce it to the next Tour de France, including it in the animated status sccreens. And of course there shouldn't be a problem with battery life as the riders are generating around 650 watts which can recharge the batteries...

Quick.as – New Mobile Start Page [Wap Review]

2009-07-06T22:13:05+00:00

Quick.as is a new web and mobile portal or start page. It offers a single search box that lets you search with a dozen different search engines on basic phones and over a hundred different search engines ranging form Google and Yahoo to the Shenzen Stock Exchange and The Pirate Bay on the desktop and phones that support JavaScript Quick.as is not a meta-search engine, you have to choose a single search engine for each query,

Quick.as claims to detect your phone type and location and deliver appropriately formatted pages and locally relevant results. I found that both features generally worked as advertised. On an N95 and an Android phone I got Google’s mobile web search and Yelp searches defaulted to San Francisco. However a Yellow Pages search for “sushi” dumped me on the Yellow Pages mobile homepage where I was prompted for both “Search Term” and “City/State or ZIP”!

Quick.as has a small link directory of popular news, sports, social network, email and online banking sites. These links point at non-mobile sites even on the mobile edition of Quick.as. If you set up an account on the Quick.as desktop site you can delete and edit the quick links and add your own.

I think that the concept of Quick.as is good but I’m a little disappointed in the mobile integration. Login is by email address and a 7 character password. Login is persistent for only 2 weeks. Email addresses are a pain to type on mobile because of their length and the “@” sign. The relatively long password and short login retention are both mobile unfriendly and unnecessarily paranoid for a site that stores a simple list of links. Mobile usability would be improved by allowing users to pick a short ID and password and by persisting logins until explicit logout.

Another mobile usability issue is that Quick Links are the same across desktop and mobile and require a PC to setup and edit. This excludes the huge and growing number of mobile-only users, especially in the developing world. Also I believe that most users will want a different set of bookmarks on mobile than on the desktop. Either links to mobile vs. desktop versions of sites or to different sites entirely.

Quick.as was submitted for review by @andrewjb44 Thanks, Andrew.

Filed in: Wap Review Directory – Portals/WAP

Ratings: Content Usability

Ready.mobi Score: 1 “Bad”

Mobile Link: m.quick.as

carnival #181 [Little Springs Design]

2009-07-06T17:14:55+00:00

The Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted this week by Andrew Grill at London Calling. The Carnival is a weekly collection of the Web’s best writing on mobile and wireless, hosted and collected by a different site each week. If you are already reading our blog, you should add this collection to your subscription list as well.

Especially be sure to check out Barbara’s entry How Many Webs?. As Andrew summarizes it:

Barbara Ballard submitted a really interesting piece [and my post of the week] that promoted her thinking after she saw a Razorfish presentation on the differences between the internet and the mobile web. As Barbara’s post suggests “the mobile experience should be appropriate to the mobile context. It might have fewer, more, or the same features. Let’s just make sure they are the right features whether they are on the desktop or not“. I for one fully agree.

As you can see, it must be worth it since it made post of the week!

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