Your Phone As A Web Server… For Local Communications

Wireless

Nokia has come out with a sensor that will turn your mobile phone into a webserver of sorts. At first it might not be entirely clear why this makes sense, but they’re using it for local person-to-person communication. It’s a webserver over Bluetooth, basically. This way, if another Bluetooth phone connects with yours, it can see information presented in HTML that you’ve stored on your phone, such as personal information you want to share, or even an index of information available for them to look at on your phone. It’s a simple idea, but one that could be quite powerful.

CueCat, Version Two?

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the oddly-complicated dept

Remember the CueCat? The absolutely useless magazine barcode scanner that the magazine industry thought was the next killer app for the web? The product made sense from a magazine industry standpoint, but no one ever stopped to think why any actual magazine reader would ever want to go through the cumbersome process of hooking up a special scanner to a computer, reading their magazines next to the computer, being so interested in an advertisement that you wanted to scan it, and then happily looking at another ad for the same product online. Over at TheFeature I’ve written up a longer piece wondering if a new effort by the magazine industry in Europe is the second coming of the CueCat. It’s yet another long, unclear process to somehow get you to look at more magazine advertising — without ever explaining why anyone would want to do this. In this case, the convoluted process is that someone, somehow (they suggest via friend, radio or billboard) is given a keyword. For some, totally unclear reason, the person then takes that keyword and sends it via SMS to a special number. At the other end, that service (which, apparently you’ve already signed up for, because it has your email address), sees what keyword you’ve sent in, and sends you an email (not to your phone) with a special link to an online magazine, formatted using one of those funky online magazine products that lets you “flip” the pages like a paper magazine. So, you get a keyword, send in a text message, and the next time you’re at your computer you’ll have a random email message telling you to go a magazine’s website. And, in some cases, they expect you to pay for this as well. Did the people creating this ever stop to ask “why?” anyone would ever do this?

FCC Moves Up The Deadline For TVs To Go Digital

Surprises

from the small-steps dept

The FCC claims it’s serious about getting broadcasters to move to digital TV, and they’re trying to prove it. While politicians argue in Congress over the real date of a final move, the FCC has moved up the date by which all new mid-sized TVs need to be able received digital signals. The goal, of course, is to get more TVs in the hands of customers that can receive digital over the air signals so that fewer people are impacted by the eventual forced switch. This topic gets a lot of noise — and it’s a bit more complex than most make out. For people who have cable or satellite TV, this isn’t really much of an issue. It’s really for people who just get traditional over-the-air television — which is a small, but still vocal group. Congress has suggested even putting up $1 billion to help people transition, but to do that, the TVs really need to be there. While $1 billion may sound like quite a bit, the government will more than get that back (society too…) after the government then takes back some of the massive portions of spectrum the broadcasters own to auction it off and use it for much more useful purposes (such as wireless communications). Of course, at the same time, with the recent ruling saying that the FCC has no mandate over television equipment in the broadcast flag situation, it would be interesting to see some make the claim that they have no mandate over this issue as well. Of course, in this case, most people would flip sides. It’s the broadcasters (the big fans of the broadcast flag) who are against any speeding up of the transition to digital, because they want to keep that valuable spectrum (which was given to them for free) for as long as possible.

Will RIM Be Able To Wiggle Out Of The NTP Patent Payment?

Legal Issues

from the second-thoughts... dept

Back in March we were quite surprised that RIM decided to give in and pay NTP for its questionable patents on mobile email. After all, the only thing that had changed was that NTP had paid off RIM’s main competitor in order to get them to license the patents as well. In fact, not even a month after RIM gave in, one of the patents in question was rejected by the patent office, and the indication was that the others might not stand either. That’s why it’s interesting to hear RIM now saying that they can’t come to final terms with NTP over the agreement. It makes you wonder, just a bit, if RIM has had second thoughts and is trying to wiggle out of the agreement. However, from the details, it sounds like NTP is the one holding up the process. Given the shaky platform on which their patents stand, you would think that it’s in their best interest to get the deal done, get whatever money they can and to run away as quickly as possible.

Someone Notices Security Warnings Are Overhyped

Overhype

from the shocker dept

Almost all technology security warnings come from security companies who are trying to sell products that solve that particular security warning. That’s why most of them are severely overhyped. However, since there is rarely an independent analysis of the real threat, the press gobbles up the stories, and everyone believes that we’re all in grave danger. So, it’s nice to see a firm like Gartner stand up and point out that many security threats are vastly overhyped, including the threats against VoIP systems and WiFi networks. Gee, if only people had been pointing out that these things were overhyped all along, the company might not have needed to come out with so dramatic a report.

BellSouth's Not-New, Not-WiMax Trial Is Also Not-Naked DSL

Overhype

from the spin-spin-spin-spin dept

Wow. Does BellSouth ever have a talent for taking something and making it sound like something completely different. Earlier this week, BellSouth got some press for saying they were launching new WiMax trials in Georgia and Florida. There were two problems. The technology isn’t WiMax (not even close, actually) and it isn’t new (again, not even close). However, the press seemed to buy both claims. So, if they got away with both of those, why not go one step further and claim that these not-WiMax, not-new trials are “naked DSL.” You’ll recall that “naked DSL” is when a telco offers DSL service without also requiring a phone line. At one point, BellSouth was required to offer naked DSL, but not everyone agreed, and eventually the FCC said that BellSouth was fine not offering naked DSL at all. So, why does BellSouth claim that this not-WiMax is naked DSL (despite, obviously, not being DSL at all)? It’s because customers will be able to order this service without also ordering a phone line. Of course, that completely misses the point. The reason customers don’t have to order a phone line is because, unlike with real DSL, this wireless broadband technology doesn’t require phone wires to go into the house — so if they actually required phone service with it, it wouldn’t actually make sense. Yet, the company still has the gall to claim that this qualifies as them offering naked DSL… and, of course, the gullible News.com reporter eats it up.

Are We Addicted To Calling People Addicts?

Overhype

from the it's-an-epidemic! dept

Can someone please make it stop? Every month or so someone comes out with yet another fear mongering story about how we’re all “addicted” to some kind of technology. Last month, it was email. In the past it’s been things like web addiction, online porn, video games or the whole internet. Now, textually is pointing out another claim from someone saying that we’re all addicted to mobile phones. This is all based on the psychological assessment of an IT instructor who told his students not to use their mobile phones for three days. In his professional opinion, the were “truly afraid.” In fact, very few of them made it through the three days without using their phones. QED. They’re addicted, says the instructor. Of course, that seems to be a very loose definition of “addiction.” What if someone asked him to live outside for three days straight? Didn’t do it? He must be addicted to shelter. Can’t go naked for three days? Addicted to clothing! How about three days without talking? Nope? He must be addicted to communicating. Oh, the horror of it all! Mobile phones are useful tools that people use because they’re helpful to communicate. To call it an “addiction” implies that there’s a negative consequence, a la a drug or alcohol addiction. In fact, later on the article the reporter (who never goes looking for anyone to present the other side of the story) finds a psychologist who claims that people look to their phones for “psychological nurturing.” A little proof please? Also, according to the same guy, the mobile phone: “takes away a key component of happiness, the pleasure of total absorption of one activity to the exclusion of everything else.” First off, who said that was a key component of happiness — and who said that can’t happen when someone has a mobile phone? It’s beginning to look like we’re just addicted to people claiming we’re addicted to things.

Music In Your Car – Batch-Synced And Stored

Bleeding Edge

With satellite radio, DMB, DAB and other technologies, companies are continuing to seek a way to deliver subscription-paid content to people on the go. XM and Sirius have had some success with their satellite-based approaches, but there are alternatives to over-the-air delivery of such content. I’m at the iHollywood conference today, and just got a demonstration of Motorola’s iRadio solution – at least the current iteration of it. The setup I saw used a Linux-based smartphone with Bluetooth connectivity which interacts with the car stereo. Audio content is stored on the phone (up to 10 hours) and the phone delivers it to the car audio system through a car base. Motorola provides the car base that plugs into the CD-changer connection plugs of many car stereo head-ends, thereby allowing the head-end to control the music and to display the meta data about the song being played. Of course, the phone can also play the audio outside the car through speakers or through a headset. And while the content is “commercial-free radio”, it is NOT delivered to the phone OTA – it is batch-synced at night (over home broadband) while the phone is plugged into the USB charging stand (connected to a PC). The demonstration was seamless, and made it look like this solution might actually fly. Plus it seems promising that the solution only asks the user to routinely do what is already done: plug your phone in at night.

One Security Problem, And This Reporter Says No More

Overhype

from the ah,-there-it-is dept

It’s not entirely clear why reporters hate Bluetooth so damn much. The technology obviously isn’t perfect — but they seemed to declare it dead on arrival a few years back, and even though it’s been growing like gangbusters, they feel the need to keep stomping on it and declaring it dead, dead, dead every chance they get. Just a couple weeks ago, we pointed out how fast Bluetooth was growing these days, but predicted that someone would declare it dead fairly shortly. That didn’t take long at all. An eWeek reporter is declaring the technology dead because of a security hole that was found earlier this week. The reasoning in the article is simply classic. The guy doesn’t use Bluetooth at all because he tried it once and couldn’t get it to work. He doesn’t look at the actual numbers on Bluetooth adoption. He just announces that because there’s this one security problem, he was right and the technology is crap and he was right to never use it. I’m assuming, then, that he doesn’t use a computer either. Just about every platform out there has had some sort of security problems. And, just with Bluetooth, the early versions probably weren’t very robust. Yet we don’t see him writing columns about how he swore off Windows 1.0 because it wasn’t robust, and the latest security flaw in XP proves him right. He must not use WiFi either. There are tons of security problems with that too, and clearly, he was right in assuming it wasn’t “up to the job.” I’m surprised he uses any technology at all… Bluetooth has plenty of problems, but this security hole isn’t exactly the death knell for the technology.

Sierra Wireless Kills The Troubled Voq

Wireless

It was less than two years ago that Sierra Wireless, mostly known for its datacard solutions, jumped into the handset business with its Voq smartphone. At the time, we actually thought the design, with a flip out keyboard, seemed innovative. That was before we ever had a chance to handle it — and realized the design was ridiculously cumbersome and poorly thought out. It was so poorly thought out, in fact, that earlier this year the company’s shareholders started a class action suit against the company for making such a bad phone. As we noted at the time, that sounds like a case without any merit whatsoever (imagine shareholders suing every time a company had a dud product — no companies would ever be able to afford the liability risk of innovating). However, it appears that Sierra Wireless has finally had enough of the Voq and its quirky keyboard — and are killing the whole project.