Earthcam launches a moblog-like service to compliment their webcam registry service. EarthCam Mobile - Webcam Service for Mobile Phones - MyCam. Alan Reiter reports: "Subscribers need to download Earthcam's Broadcaster software in order to transmit webcam images from computers to their handsets. The software permits motion detection with SMS alerts."
I wonder how many people actually use their webcam service......
Reiter's Camera Phone Report blogs on Picostation - a mobile blogging client solution for mobile devices. The client is available for Symbian and J2ME and is compatible with Blogger.com, MovableType and LiveJournal.
What interests the most is the fact that PicoStation is founded by the Ramadan bothers (Mazin & Zeyad) - founders of 4thpass Inc. (a leading provider of mobile application provisioning solutions) , a company that Motorola acquired a few years ago. The 4thpass idea was quite innovative - I admit I might be a bit skeptical about PicoStation - especially considering that mobile device vendors like Nokia are already looking into Blog clients for their phones. I wish they had more info on the site. So far none of the clients are available for download.
Damient Stolarz had a presentation at the OReilly Emerging Tech conference in Feb on Carbot - GeoBlogging in cars.
Interesting to see people trying to enter niche markets. I wonder how long it would take to get something like geoblogging main stream. I understand there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved.... I guess thats why there are researchers like us working in this area.
Motorola announced a slew of new phones at the CTIA Wireless 2004.
The V710 is a sleek looking CDMA phone with megapixel camera, bluetooth, polyphonic speakers and running BREW.
The A845 and A840 are 3G phones with the A840 having the ability to work on GSM and CDMA - besides the usual set of features, the A845 comes with AGPS.
Personally I like the V710 and the A840 - the rest of the 3G phones could look better - although I'd like to get my hands on one of these before I really comment on them.
Forgot to post this post last week: ChristianLindholm.com: First Lifeblog compatible phone launched.
Also, this is Nokia's official site for LifeBlog
picturephoning.com: Nextel plans to introduce camera phones and MMS capabilities this year
I wish I could say more, but being Motorolan, would like to hold back. All I can say are these new iDEN phones are pretty cool ! :-)
Six Apart Announces NTT License of Type Pad for New Blogzine Weblogging Service. This is a blog service for NTT's Open Computer Network - a large-scale domestic Internet connection service provided by NTT Com.
With Joi Ito taking time off from his venture firm and closely working with Six Apart, I am sure we can expect a lot more from these guys real soon.
TypeKey is a new "free, open system providing a central identity that anyone can use to log in and post comments on blogs and other web sites."
Wonder if Six Apart plans to play the MS Passport/Sun Liberty Alliance game all over. I hope they manage to keep it free and open.
picturephoning.com reports on mensablogs.com: India's first moblogging consumer portal.
Users can publish text, picture and audio, video clips from their camera phones and share messages with others, create and share their online albums. Each user is provided with 3 MB space free and can make their post public or private.
textually.org reports a WSJ article stating that Viruses May Tie Up Cellphones. My surmise would be that since wireless carriers have a much greater control on the data being sent across their networks, this issue could more easily be kept under wraps as opposed to the traditional Internet. Besides companies such as 4thpass provide solutions to filter downloaded mobile phone software within the carrier infrastructure before they are downloaded to the mobile handset - similar to virus scanning/spam filters on mail server - but much more specialized.
Disclaimer: 4thpass is a Motorola subsidiary that I consult with.
picturephoning.com: Moblogs on stop-the-war protests.
I was driving in downtown Chicago when I noticed all the cops and riot squads in the area on Saturday afternoon. I wish I had a camera phone at the time to blog the action at the anti-war rally.
PicturePhoning.com reports via Moco News that O2 is launching an MMS chat service. One of the concerns cited is the lack of bandwidth on carrier networks. I've heard conflicting reports regarding this - working in the telecom industry, I hear from insiders that there is no dearth of bandwidth, but maybe a lack of investment in infrastructure (such as MMSc's) by carriers. The wireless bandwidth seems to be under-utilized otherwise.
How do carriers expect people to feel like using their wireless internet services unless they can provide a decent end user experience? The other day, I sent 20 MMS messages to my email account on the TMobile network. I know the phone does not have issues. The messages were sent out at noon on Thursday - I received the first message within 20 minutes - the rest of the messages, I received over an 8 hour period - the last one being at around 8pm !
How pathetic would the user experience be if this is the quality of service users get?!? I wonder if they can EVER set up an MMS based chat service - where does the 'I' in 'IM' (instant messaging) fit in here? A typical chicken and egg situation..... maybe these carriers should go ahead and buy the chicken and market it as being something really useful and easy to use....... Anyone from a wireless carrier reading this ?
Howard Rheingold's article in The Feature - 'Mobile Social Presence: Who Knows Who's Where Now?' is an interesting read. The comments are also ueful to understand what people perceive as uses and drawbacks of mobile social networking. All I hear as real use cases for mobile presence are dataing apps - aren't there any other compelling reasons for it? I find the concept rather cool, but the question I am trying to answer is - is there a real commercial advantage by implementing this? Would it make a difference if mobile handset manufacturers start incorporating this into their devices ?
Finally, Christian discusses more about Nokia's LifeBlog tool in this blog.
Excerpts:
* Nokia Lifeblog is not a blogging tool, it is a logging tool or as we prefer to call it a multimedia diary.
* Initially the Nokia Lifeblog will not be available for the Nokia 6620, but some other terminal.
* Nokia will show Lifeblog at the Cebit fair in Hannover starting in the middle of next week
* Why a logging tool or as Nokia prefer to call it a multimedia diary? Nokia feels that blogging is a subset of your electronic life, not the whole life, hence our focus on the PC initially. The first version will not have any features enabling blogging (you can send e-mail from PC version, but I do not call that blogging).
* Why does Nokia call it Lifeblog? A: We added the 'b' in front of the 'log' as we wanted the name signal a longer term intent. Nokia mission is conncet people and that is what blogs do.
According to this article from CNET News.com, RSS and ATOM feeds for blogs are set to merge to a unified standard under the auspices of te IETF.
More news on the Nokia LifeBlog application that Christian Lindholm had announced during the OReilley Conference in Feb'04. BBC's article mentions:
"The Lifeblog software automatically arranges all the messages, images, videos and sound clips people capture with their phones."
The LifeBlog tool is expected to be released in June'04.
Yahoo! News - The Canadian Press and Atlas Telecom team up on news via cellphones: Whats the big deal in this ?!? Hasn't Yahoo Mobile provided such services ?
And are people actually willing to pay 10 cents each to receive a news headline ? I am interested in seeing how this takes off.
Vodafone seems to have launched a moblogging service at: Vodablog.com ! Currently its free and according to the site:
"Vodablog is a demonstration service for Vodafone-Microsoft Mobile Web Services Contest. You can send SMS to 2385 and your post will appear on your blog.You can also get notified by SMS when your favorite blogs are updated."
Seems like they are just trying it out. From the details here, it seems to be a quick (14 month) hack on a MS Windows 2003 Server. Its says:
"
* The underlying software architecture is developed in 14 months.
* It is the most innovative and the only mobile blogging service that is built on Microsoft .NET Technologies.
* It embodies a state-of-the art scalable software platform that leverages "Static-File-Creation-Technology", that is, blogs are re-generated as static html files each time blog is updated. This scalable methodology is only used in Vodablog and Blogger(Google's desktop blooging company) in the world.
* Vodablog developed the first/only innovative features such as blog notifications, converting any content to MMS format and sending application-to-mobile MMS Messages.
* Vodablog is the only blogging service solution that leverages XML Web Services.
* Vodablog is the only blogging service that supports OMA Digital Rights Management Specifications "
Regarding it being the 'only mobile blogging service that is built on Microsoft .NET Technologies' - now is that a good thing or a bad thing ? ;-)
I am interested in noting that they try to scale using "Static-File-Creation-Technology", much like Movable type.
Check out the latest in the series of MTV inspired phones from MOTOROLA - SONICMOTO. These phones look hip - as in 'hip-hop'.
Microsoft Research's Social Computing Group Home page has two screen shots from their ellusive Wallop project. Their description:
In Wallop, you can share photos, blog, and interact with your friends. Wallop is a research project that explores how people share media and build conversations in the context of social networks. We are currently conducting a small, real world trial of Wallop with small friendship groups. Therefore, membership in Wallop http://mywallop.com is limited to study participants until the trial is over.
Anwar's random reading on topics related to mobile technology, mobile blogging, location based services and other things techie. (PS: The views expressed here are my own and NOT of my employer). I've stopped updating this blog. Used to update it when I worked at MOTorola and worked on MobILITY services - hence the name.
This is my blogchalk:
United States, Illinois, Streamwood, English, Hindi, Anwar, Male, 21-25.
