Neomedia (for their Gravitec division) have a bunch of patents (all carefully listed on Neomedia's website) in the 2D Bar Code area. Fundamentally, their inability to capitalize on their (pretty weak) patents are holding up the market that has blossomed around QR Codes in Asia (where Denso / Toyoto have the patent, but aren't enforcing it).
There's a comment from StreetStylz (whose blog has lots of commentary on Neomedia) with an analysis of Neomedia patents in this area.
Too many Patent Experts and legal representatives have looked at the core patents (mainly the Huedtz patents) and have not figured out a way around them; Motorola, Symbol, Qualcomm, Digital Convergence's legal team, Cross Pen, etc.
USPTO has principally agreed with the EFF that all 95 of NEOMs claims in the patent need to be reexamined, not just a few of the claims. And this one patent is the core of the other patents. So if this patent is thrown out, the other patents that he claims NEOM holds are pretty much worthless as well, because they all use a similar process for their core operation.
On page 35 of Jan '08's Wired Magazine, Sprint has a full page ad called "The Captivating Future Of The Bar Code".
It uses ScanBuy's ScanLife mobile bar code reading application (so it's not QR Codes) for camera phones. (They are the first company to sign up a carrier, as reported by the Pondering Primate.)
Great to see this stuff coming to market outside of Japan & Korea etc.
I have a nagging doubt about Neomedia's patents in this area though. See my next post.
3 and T-Mobile intend to share their 3G cell towers. They expect to save GBP2 billion (USD4 billion) over ten years, by decommissioning over 5000 duplicate base stations.
Analysys, in this insightful report, applauds the decision. (Note: for some time after 3G licenses were sold in the UK, sharing of infrastructure was illegal. This requirement has since been relaxed.)
Voice remains the mainstay of ARPU with SMS being the primary source of non-voice ARPU. The demand for heavy data hasn't been apparent enough. AND that requirement is threatened by substitutes such as Wi-fi and Wi-Max, which means that operators need to invest in alternative technologies (examples below), which reduces the investment that they can make in their traditional cellular infrastructure.
fixed broadband ie triple plays and quadruple plays
Mobile TV
Femtocell - indoor base stations
Analysys also sees this as indicative of how operators will make future investments (such HSPA+ & LTE) - a strategy that led to the dominance of GSM.
Analysys calls this a 'major shift by mobile network operators' - and I agree.
I've had a Rebtel account for at least 18 months, but I have recently introduced my wife to the service.... and she's loving it.
Here's how it works:
Configure your account / telephone numbers / address book appropriately. (Yep, there's some set-up required at Rebtel's website.)
Then the Rebtel User (eg in US) calls their international contact (eg in Ireland) on a local (ie US) number.
Rebtel takes the incoming call and, matches it with the directory in your account, connects to your contact's number in Ireland (ie their ordinary landline).
Advantage: Given that local calls are free in the US, then the Rebel User only pays for the international portion of the call - which is priced at VoIP rates not International Mobile rates (ie 2 cents per minute rather than 50+ cents per minute!)
There is an additional twist in it for advanced users. After step 3 above, then if the international contact hangs up, and then immediately dials the last number received, then the call between the two people is re-established. Then Rebtel user is then not paying for the international portion at all! Very cute.
However this last step is usually way too fiddly to be bothered with. And I've had quality problems too with this advanced usage.
Another huge advantage is that my wife now has a number in Ireland. So if anyone rings it, the call will be patched through to her mobile phone or landline. So the initiator of the call pays for the cost of the local call (if applicable) and my wife pays for the international portion of the call. Very useful.
The company has raised $28.3 million to date over four rounds, including $9 million last February. The company had over 15 million users as of September 2006, and their recent integration into Google Open Social has led to a further growth spike.
Social networking site Plaxo has received an unsolicited acquisition offer of around $200 million.
Jeff Nolan evaluates Plaxo on the same basis as Facebook's price (ie per user):
The FB transaction valued each of the company’s 59 million users at $254, which when applied to Plaxo’s reported 15 million users nets the $3.8 billion valuation. So what is interesting about Plaxo reportedly hoping to fetch $100 million is that this valuation implies each user is worth $6.66 (hmmm 666…), which when applied to Facebook suggests not a valuation of $15b but rather $400 million.
Facebook senior platform manager Ami Vora posted a blog entry: (We) want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we'll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms." A developer page elaborates that "the 100,000 developers currently building Facebook applications can make their applications available on other social sites with no extra work.
BTW, Bebo, Friendster have released their own developer platform initiatives, as anticipated. (See previous blog entry)
LinkedIn has arrived that it's permitting third parties build applications for use within its community. (Article from Silicon)
For example, BusinessWeek will integrate LinkedIn onto its news website, allowing people to find out more about individuals or companies mentioned in articles. I can envisage a Snap-type hover over.
Mobile Content News reports that News International, the Sun’s owner, is watching the take-up of the service closely, and may roll it out across all of its titles if it proves successful. Naturally the Sun is looking at the advertising potential and have already signed up Ladbrokes, Sky and Twentieth Century Fox to the service.
Google has stated that Andriod will feature a basic, but functional “format agnostic” QR reader, to be preloaded on all devices shipping with the Android Open OS.
The same link also contains this:
many of the major US carriers are getting behind the technology, giving the downloadable readers some fairly prominent deck placement over the next few quarters (sources confidential).
Obviously, I still haven't researched how the legals in QR Codes outside of Japan have been overcome. Any pointers anyone??
Opera Mini 4, the newest version of the world's most popular mobile Web browser was released at the start of November. Overall, Opera Mini has already been embraced by more than 26 million cumulative users who view more than one billion Web pages every month.
O2 has launched the UK's first large scale pilot of NFC (Near Field Communications) technology on mobile phones reports MobileMonday.
500 users in London will be able to making purchases in retail outlets and travelling on London's public transport system.
Trialists will also be able to touch the NFC-enabled handset on selected smart posters at the launch and at other locations over the course of the trial. The smart posters contain embedded tags which serve as shortcuts for services enabled through the handset. Once the user taps the poster with the handset, they will automatically dial a number, send a text message or be sent a shortcut to a mobile internet site with more information about the subject on the poster e.g. an event taking place or downloading content.
The trial will also examine mobile payments using the Barclaycard payment application in the O2 Wallet for purchases under £10.
Nokia has announced 100 Mbps data transfer speeds using LTE. Story from MobileMonday.
LTE (or its official name 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) - definition at wikipeidia).
From the same article:
Verizon Wireless and Vodafone Group plc shocked some in the industry when the companies announced they were considering LTE as the 4G evolution path for their respective networks. However, neither company has yet fully committed to the technology.
Many still expect Vodafone partner company and CDMA operator Verizon Wireless to eventually select Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) technology, which stands on the CDMA evolution path, and is often touted as an alternative to LTE technology, which is the WCDMA evolution path.
Excellent summary of the state of the WiMAX implementations from Analysys.
Sprint Nextel revealed on Friday that it would not be following through with the previously announced plans to build a mobile WiMAX network with Clearwire; at least not within the timescales previously mentioned.
Both WiMAX and LTE (Long Term Evolution) are aiming to meet the ITU’s 4G requirement of 100Mbit/s data rates in a mobile environment.
Here's another summary of WiMAX's prospects (also from Analysys) from March '07. It poo-poos the opportunity in developing world, citing high Cap-Ex and the greater value placed on voice (rather than data) services.
In developed markets, head-to-head competition with DSL could be disastrous for WiMAX.
Here are Analysys' success criteria:
a WiMAX operator with a large existing customer base, strong brand and substantial marketing budget, to expedite the growth in customer numbers
strong demand for mobility, to enable a significant price premium over fixed broadband services
free spectrum available
low frequency of operation (2.5GHz), to minimise the number of WiMAX base stations required
strong leverage over terminal vendors, to drive substantial price declines
existing base station and transmission infrastructure, to minimise capital investment.
It displays your current location on Google Maps. It works with a GPS-enabled mobile phones - so no real surprises there.
What I like is that it works (using the same interface) on non-GPS phones using cell triangulation. You press '0' on your keypad to do the location look-up. Here's a YouTube explaining it.
Now, we all know that mobile operators charge for location look-ups using cell triangulation (eg about 7p in the UK (about 15 US cents)- I know because I experimented launching an LBS service in 2003).
Google's service is in beta - what happens on launch? Presumably, it will be funded by Google's giant advertising machine. I also assume that there will be a geo-location version of their advertising service to follow.
You swipe your loyalty card, so it knows your regular shopping list
Coupons and offers are presented, ALONG with the map of the store (nice!)
Eventual winner.
I envisage lots of implementation issues here, but Motorola's brand name will most probably mean this will become a familiar feature of shopping in the future.
Wi-fi VoIP - similar to a former client of mine, Barablu. The Presenter was Tom Carter, co-founder of BridgePort Networks (MobileVoIP + FMC) who presented last year at GadgetFest.
There's much more to this than meet the eye. I'd like to know more please!
Handheld device that gives the attendee at sports stadiums, arenas and concert halls more angles, more views, replay, stats to enhance the viewing experience.
Doc Searles, someone whose views I admire a lot, writes a great post on this blog about how it's time for US to write our own privacy rules.
Doc's passionate about VRM, Vendor Relationship Management. Here is the definition:
Create an ecosystem of tools, protocols, and services that help users manage vendor relationships.
Hmm, I agree, but see my previous post on privacy - people expect high standards and assume that this is the case. They don't read the privacy statements in depth (neither do I). So a much simpler rating system is needed.
Mighty rumbles across Facebook universe as it has implemented a new advertising technology, called Beacon, to make the online shopping experience that much more social ... and has now reversed out the most intrusive elements of the new functionality.
What's the fuss about?
When Facebook users shopped online, Beacon told friends what they looked at or bought. More than 40 websites, including Fandango.com, Overstock.com and Blockbuster, signed up to use Beacon software on their webpages and report what Facebook users did when they visited. Could be useful, yes?
YES, but naively Facebook launched Beacon as an "default opt out" system (ie everyone knew what you had bought, unless you specifically said 'Absolutely no way').
International Herald Tribune reports that there was a pop-up box alert to FB users that indicated that information was about to be shared with Facebook unless they click on "No Thanks." The pop-up disappears after about 20 seconds, after which consent is assumed. Admittedly, this pop-up appears on every partner site that has adopted Beacon.
Here's one the more harmless examples of where it went wrong, also from IHT:
"People should be given much more of a notice, much more of an alert," said Matthew Helfgott, 20, a college student who discovered his girlfriend just bought him black leather gloves from Overstock for Hanukkah. "She said she had no idea (information would be shared). She said it invaded her privacy."
At the other end of the scale:
"What if you bought a book on Amazon called 'Coping with AIDS' and that got published to every single one of your friends?"
Yukky, basically.
For users of social software, best practices in privacy are assumed - and those practices don't vary. Messing with these principles messes with the brand.
So guess what? Disgruntled Facebook users formed an online protest (more than 50,000 of them) and forced the mothership to rescind - Beacon is now 'default opt-in'.
The changes to Beacon may not be the last that Facebook has to make to the technology.
Two rights groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, are believed to be compiling a complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission about it.
UK Government's Customs and Revenue mailed 2 CDs for 7 million citizens who receive child benefits from one end of the country to the other. Unfortunately, the CDs become lost in the post. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown had to stand up in Parliament and apologize profusely for the department in question 'not following the proper procedures'.
Side note: For the opposition party, it was a wonderful opportunity to pour scorn on the Labour Party. It was a situation, delightfully described in the Guardian:
This wasn't just shooting fish in a barrel - it was harpooning a porpoise that's got into your bath.
Anyway, the real issue is that it raised further concerns about the controversial National ID card scheme. As Nick Robinson from the BBC writes in his blog:
What is clear to me is that the public would like to see the information they provide guarded like a dangerous virus in a lab. In reality, there is clearly a culture of casualness toward it which allows one man, apparently, to copy 25 million names and details onto two discs and chuck them in the post.
Clearly, the vulnerability in the system is most likely to be human or systematic. This ID card initiative has many, many tortuous turns to make before it becomes reality.
Much harder (ideologically) to implement in Europe than in the US and even harder in the UK, given its suspicion of centralization.
Cute quotes from John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian:
"mobile OS is a very specialised form of rocket science. It's not search rocket science. "
"Search and a mobile phone platform are completely different things."
"About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched. "It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round..."
Google make a huge foray into the mobile arena, by providing a phone operating system for free 'Android'. It has launched Open Handset Alliance as the vehicle to facilitate its penetration into the mobile market.
See Sergry Brin introduce it:
Four handset manufacturers are on board: Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG. Operators?? Sprint, Nextel, T-Mobile, China Mobile, Telefonica and Telecom Italia will sport the Google-powered phones - the first of them will be available late 2008.
This announcement is more than a poke in the eye with significant mobile OS providers such as Microsoft, Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian.
Clearly, everyone is feeling everyone else out with this new offering - 'of course, I'll participate, but I'm not going to jettison any of my existing partnerships that I have nurtured for years'.
I think this strategy is too early for Google - mobile internet isn't what 99% of users require out of a phone at the moment. Another desktop player, MS, took years to gain traction in the mobile sector. Admittedly, this strategy isn't home grown, it came from the acquisition of Android in 2005 - so it will have a better chance than MS, but still...
Google's behemoth is advertising - the mobile industry is a lot more sophisticated and VERY different to the internet. 'Free' isn't word that is trips off the tongue of mobile executives.
I reserve judgment. As I've said before, when people with lots of ammunition are wandering around the battlefield, be careful, they don't have to know too much about what they are doing to be very dangerous.
UPDATE: Here's a biting critique of Google's announcement from a report from Analysys:
As a strategy to bring fundamental change to the mobile industry, Android is way off target. In reality, a free OS will not be sufficient incentive for major players to write off investments in established software platforms and adopt a platform that offers nothing new from a development perspective. Manufacturers have a financial liability for their devices, and cannot contemplate the prospect of an open-source OS that could release a virus or trojan into the market. The required investment in OS security and stability would be high, as it has been for Android’s predecessors. They (members of the Open Handset Alliance) can exploit the publicity if the initiative is successful, and minimise their exposure (as one of several players participating in numerous initiatives) if it fails. In cash terms, partners will invest little in R&D to support this programme. Ultimately, Google’s primary strategic and revenue objective is to encourage the use of its search engine. If, by backing an OS alliance, Google can expand the scope of its search box placement by cementing relationships with established partners and developing deals with new partners, arguably Android will have done its job.
