Carlo Longino writing in TheFeature has drawn similar conclusions about music enabled mobile phones to mine a year ago.
Writing about the differences between cellpods and iPods, he notes:
There’s only one real significant remaining difference between iPods and music phones, and it’s significant, but certainly not insurmountable
The diff? Usability, especially the UI. I agree with Carlo when he suggests:
Vendors should…offer users full-featured media players where users can manipulate files and playlists and do other functions, but the primary interface should be a simple play button that quickly fires up the tunes
Cellpods need simple external controls a la iPod Shuffle. If they add that, comparable storage capacity (at least 1-2GB), and reasonable music fidelity, they’d finally be getting into the ballpark of iPod.
Maybe Apple’s seen this writing on the wall, too, and that’s why they licensed iPod tech to Moto to begin with? Should be interesting to watch as more interesting cellpods are announced and come on the market this year.
Watch this space for more info on upcoming models.
Interesting insight into the IEEE 802.11 Task Group N whose work will be coming in 2006 or thereabouts to an 802.11n WiFi product near you.
Nathan Torkington provides a nice rundown on some of the (relatively new) local search engine interfaces in “Comparing Local Searches“.
My favorite: Yahoo! Local. Though I prefer Google for most searching, Yahoo’s local service consistently returns more pertinent locale specific results, and I love Yahoo’s link to “Send to Phone” (directions via SMS) and its seemless marriage with Yahoo! Maps (with its option to find nearby WiFi hotspots, my clear fav for map service).
I’ve written about my burning hatred for comment spam before.
One reader is doing something about it. Read about Netaloid’s dissection of the worst of the casino spammers and how you can sign the petition to the Interactive Gaming Council to help reel this creep in.
If you hate casino-pharmaceutical-porn spam bombing, please add your name to the petition.
The March 24th PSP NA launch is closing in, but there’s still time for yet another gaming hack.
Popular Science provides some retro console mod ideas via “Handcrafted Handhelds“. Or rather, they link to Benjamin Heckendorn‘s ideas as detailed in his recent book “Hacking Video Game Consoles“. Check out the free chapter on SNES hacking by clicking here.
Following up on yesterday’s Cabir post, Reuters/Yahoo reports on the growth in mobile phone targeted viruses. The latest stats: There are 30 known mobile viruses today versus 112,000 known PC viruses.
The best part of the article, however, is this quote from mobile security software maker F-Secure:
“Previously, it had been a little like selling refrigerators to Eskimos,” Vihavainen said about attempts to sell the software to mobile operators. “Now we are actually getting calls from major operators asking us what to do.”
That’s a metaphor only someone from a northern country would come up with! 🙂
Reuters reports on the appearance of the Cabir mobile phone worm “in the wild” in the US.
Cabir isn’t a big deal because it only spreads from Bluetooth-enabled phone to BT-enabled phone and carries no payload other than the worm itself. The only damage it does is to run down the battery of any infected handset as it repeatedly polls for other BT devices to infect.
Nonetheless, it does prove the potential of a worm with a more dangerous payload to do real damage, especially as larger numbers of handsets have BT support and users leave it on by default. The usual advice applies:
- Only turn on BT when you need to use it
- Set BT visibility to “hidden” so it can’t be scanned
- Don’t pair devices if you can avoid it
- If you must pair, set pairing to “Unauthorized” so you’ll be prompted for interaction
- Never accept applications from unknown sources
For more information, refer to the Symantec Security Response Cabir page.
I’ve been reading the deluge of reports and press releases from the 3GSM World Congress 2005 which wrapped up yesterday in Cannes. Expanding upon last year’s limited Sun and Intel & Nokia 3GSM posts, I thought this year I’d summarize the major wireless developments via links to various 3GSM bits from around the Web.
Starting with the official site and then jumping around per my whimsy:
- Official 3GSM news page (aka press release central)
- CommsDesign’s links to important 3GSM news
- Everybody made cellpod announcements: Nokia and Microsoft (Russ isn’t surprised), Motorola and Apple (well, sort of), Sony Ericsson, even Sendo (plus read Business 2.0’s take here)
- Motorola is working with Skype to build VoIP-over-WiFi capable mobile phones (thanks for listening, Moto!)
- Nokia’s 3GSM key themes (is it just me or are these a bit, well, obvious?) plus newly announced 6101, 6102, 6680 (WCDMA/GSM, Series 60 2nd Ed FP2, dual camera including 1.3MPix on back, but where’s the WiFi?), and 6681 cellcams
- Moto’s 3GSM 2005 site including link to the Moto 3GSM flip book (PDF) which provides a good overview of their handsets and other wireless products
- GSM Association Awards (best enterprise app, best mobile handset, etc.)
- Info on the Pocket 3GSM mobile service (you knew they had to have this, right?)
- Google search for 3GSM Congress
Please let me know what I’ve missed via the Comments link.
Harvard Business School’s site has an interesting interview with the author of “Just Work” (double meaning intentional).
Particularly timely for me right about now.
BillDay.com 