mobile

The Progress Project: Nokia and Lonely Planet document mobile innoviation around the globe

September 3, 2009

The Progress Project is a joint venture between Nokia and Lonely Planet designed to highlight the amazing and diverse ways that mobile technology can impact ordinary people’s lives. It’s a grand vision of mobility, ranging from the ways that mobile devices can be used in urban settings to predict traffic flows or environmental impact, to [...]

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Mark Goldberg sets me straight on Canadian rates

August 27, 2009

I was feeling my oats yesterday when I twittered a CBC piece on the high cost of mobile service in Canada.  The CBC piece struck a nerve, as I had just read Andy Abramson’s comparison of US and European mobile operators approach to service.  I have to say, I had no experience like Andy’s last [...]

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RIM and Nokia need a Manhattan… project, that is.

July 1, 2009

The Boy Genius has published an angst filled missive directed at RIM on the future of BlackBerry OS.  Here are a few choice quotes: “RIM’s OS is more than antiquated, it’s borderline laughable.” “There’s so many limitations to RIM’s OS, and even RIM’s data network that it offsets all the wonderful things they’ve managed to [...]

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Truphone Local Anywhere designed to eliminate roaming charges

February 23, 2009

Truphone’s announcement last week of Truphone Local Anywhere was the formal unveiling of their strategy to become a force in the mobile operator world.  Truphone Local Anywhere will not launch for some months yet, but the essence of it is that Truphone will deliver customers a GSM SIM that can operate locally in multiple countries.  [...]

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Mobile Darwinism at work.

January 26, 2009

Is there a trend underway?  Mobile startups everywhere are looking beyond cheap voice calls as generous minute packages have niched these players into providing cheap international long distance and not much more.  Om Malik profiles several this morning, including the newly “rebooted” iSkoot. The conditions are right for these companies.  As first Apple, then Google, [...]

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Will mobile rebels suffer the same fate?

November 16, 2008

Doug Mohney’s The Fallen – Crashed and struggling VoIP companies is worth a read, if for no other reason than to learn the fates of some of the companies we have all known in the VoIP industry.  One could summarize what he has written as: the carrier competitors,  excepting Vonage, ran out of money.  Vonage [...]

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Comrade Rogers’ Soviet contracts

November 4, 2008

It goes without saying that cellular contracts are consumer unfriendly with their myriads of coercive clauses designed to lock customers into long term relationships. Every so often the byzantine array of rules they ask  you to sign up for, however, reaches new heights of absurdity. Case in point: This weekend I took my 18 year [...]

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BlackBerry finally gets Truphone

October 29, 2008

Great news for the travelling BlackBerry user yesterday came in the form of an announcement from Truphone that Truphone is beta-testing software for the BlackBerry. Users of Nokia devices and the Apple iPhone have had Truphone for some time, and are already accustomed to Truphone’s low low international calling rates.  Best of all, early reports [...]

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Squawk Box October 17: Mobile Botnets, Security and Android

October 17, 2008

This morning one of the hot stories is about cell phone botnets, and the cybercrime economy. The theory is that bots invading cell phone handsets could be used to perpetrate massive denial of service attacks. Should we be worried, or is just science fiction? Another security story is about several state-level legislatures passing laws requiring [...]

Squawk Box October 17 [ 38:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
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YouGetItBack updated to include location.

September 30, 2008

There are several interesting startups solving the problem of cell phone loss.  Both YouGetItBack, launched last June, and Maverick Mobile, launched at DEMO, back up your data, and let you lock down your mobile in the event of loss pointing out that with smart phones the most costly loss to the user is likely not [...]

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