Japan's phones - the wonders of the world ?

Anytime when one looks at advanced phones, the market that most comes into mind. Top non-Japanese phones such as the iPhone, and Nokia's N series don't even come close to the advancement of the phones sold in Japan. It was many years ago that the NTT DoCoMo network had reached 3G capabilities and sold phones that amazed the rest of the world. However, such advancement comes with own problems; trying to pack in so many features and yet meeting goals of being able to make the phone very usable makes the task of designers very difficult. In the end, there is only so much that one can do with the limited number of keys and overall phone size, and the various combinations that Japanese phone makers have come up with to provide the range of applications available can confuse the most advanced of users. If you remember the old joke about not being able to set the time on the VCR, this is way beyond that. Get a glimpse of how things actually are:

Indeed, Japanese handsets have become prime examples of feature creep gone mad. In many cases, phones in Japan are far too complex for users to master. "There are tons of buttons, and different combinations or lengths of time yield different results,'" says Koh Aoki, an engineer who lives in Tokyo. Experimenting with different key combinations in search of new features is "good for killing time during a long commute," Aoki says, "but it's definitely not elegant."
Japan has long been famous for its advanced cellphones with sci-fi features like location tracking, mobile credit card payment and live TV. These handsets have been the envy of consumers in the United States, where cell technology has trailed an estimated five years or more. But while many phones would do Captain Kirk proud, most of the features are hard to use or not used at all. Japan is a culture of spec sheets. When consumers go to electronics stores to buy a cellphone, they frequently line up the specifications side by side to compare them before deciding which one to buy.

In contrast, phone makers such as Apple and Nokia have been behind on the feature list, but are seemingly way ahead on making phones look good and be very usable.

iPhone in Europe

After much hand-wringing and puzzlement over the US only release of the iPhone, Apple is slowly releasing the iPhone in European markets, although, not as attractive to users as it was for the US market. The plan is to release in the UK sometime in October 2007, and then go onto Germany on November 9, 2007. Although one can expects some amount of anticipation, there will not be the same buzz about the release as there was in the US market near its release. Many reasons for this lack of a buzz:
1. The industry to release a patched version of the iPhone that is not carrier restricted is in full swing, so a number of users would already have the iPhone in use with European networks.
2. Europe is far ahead of the US in terms of speed of telecom networks, with 3G being common, and the iPhone currently only supports EDGE which is a lot slower. For people already using 3G or planning to buy a phone to use 3G and get the high speed, the iPhone is a non-starter unless it gets a 3G version
3. Pricing is a major issue. The phone in the US sells for $399, and will sell for a converted value of around $540 in Europe which is a significant premium. Not sure how many people will buy the device at these prices.
4. Apple in the US has gone with a 2-year contract with AT&T for the service plan, but a long service plan is not par for the course in European countries. For customers used to paying on a regular basis and not getting locked into a contract, especially when the contract does not lead to a cheaper device, the iPhone will not seem so attractive.
will all these factors, one will just have to wait and see whether the buzz factor of the iPhone as a must have device is enough to overcome all these.

AT & T provides new service to give parents control

Nowadays a lot of parents feel that they have lost control on the internet and phone habits of their children, and feel distressed about this. However, it is difficult to act as a policeman at all points of time, so, to leverage on this demand, AT & T has come out with a new service that provides some sort of control facilities on the use of the wireless phone.
So AT & T's new Smart Limits for Wireless is a service that enables parents to set usage limits on the talk time, text messaging, instant messaging and downloading, and also setup filters for mobile web sites. The service provides for parents to control the total bill on their children's plans.

The new service, which is part of AT&T's Smart Limits program across multiple technologies, helps parents protect children from inappropriate calls, texts and Internet content by allowing them to block numbers they deem inappropriate and filter access to content on their child's phone.
The service also lets parents establish a maximum dollar amount that can be spent on download purchases such as ringtones and games, and control the time of day and days of the week that the phone can be used.
When a child nears the established usage limit for any wireless capability, he or she will receive a warning notice; once the limit is reached, the service will be restricted.

The service costs $ 4.99 per month, and given the number of parents worried about their kid misuse of the service, and also to protect them from harm, AT & T would expect this service to be a hit. However, this is not something that a lot of kids would appreciate, given the controls on overall text messaging and call when the total amount nears due.
The service also allows parents to go online and modify the limits that they have set up at any point of time. Of course, given that most parents are behind their kids in terms of technological understanding, it remains to be seen as to how many of them are able to figure out how to use this service effectively.

Nokia trying to get into mobile services

It appears that Nokia does not learn easily. Long ago, in the year 2000, when it tried to launch mobile services that included downloading of song snippets as ringtones, operators were not very happy since that would have eaten into a revenue source that they were eying themselves. It seems like Nokia would like to try this approach again. After all, being just a handset provider may not be enough in these times of touch competition from other handset providers, and a seemingly easy pot of gold sitting there waiting for them to just grab it. And why would they not think such a thing, with operators failing to get a strategy that would help them grab users for high-data plans; and Nokia having an incredible number of music enabled phones in the market today, and in the hands of users.

On Aug. 29, at a London press conference in a converted fish market alongside the Thames, Nokia's chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo unveiled plans to launch a slew of services for mobile users—initially in Europe and Asia, and perhaps later in the U.S. Called Ovi (Finnish for "door") the gateway to music, photos, maps, and other content will be available starting later this year.
This time around, mobile operators may be willing to join in. The scheme includes an online music store rivaling Apple's iTunes, aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at the 200 million music-capable Nokia mobile phones already on the market. It also features an interactive multiplayer game service accessible to the 40 million Nokia Nseries phones now in use. And early next year, Nokia will add a service that lets consumers swap personal photos, videos, and audio.

The plan is ambitious, but it has several pitfalls. For example, operators are not likely to be very happy because they see service revenue as something that belongs to them, and not to a lowly hardware maker. In addition, this is a very fickle market and Nokia needs to let this particular section be very creative if it wants to attract users, and one is not sure about whether Nokia is capable of that.

Gphone: Google Phone ?

There have been rumours of a Google phone (short form 'Gphone') for some time now. Now Google is a search company, or rather it is a company that is trying to do a lot of things, but which makes most of its money from search. It has tried to enter the mobile world through a tie-up with carriers about placing Google search in the mobile space. Now carriers are typically very hard creatures to work with; they don't allow much freedom.
And there was this revolution that happened. Apple released the iPhone in a tie up with AT & T, but shockingly for the telecom industry, it was Apple that called the shots. This was a new type of device with a lot of hype, and hence AT & T would have allowed this. But any such move does set a precedent that Google could easily try and copy:

The company, which has made billions of dollars in Web advertising on computers, is courting wireless operators to carry handsets customized to Google products, including its search engine, email and a new mobile Web browser, say people familiar with the plans. It wants to capture a big chunk of the fast-growing market for ads on cellphones.
Google has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the cellphone project, say people who have been briefed on it. It has developed prototype handsets, made overtures to operators such as T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, and talked over technical specifications with phone manufacturers. It hopes multiple manufacturers will make devices based on its specs and multiple carriers will offer them.

For Google, the mobile market is the hottest new emerging market, and must be the focus of a lot of strategy sessions at Google headquarters. Carriers have been not so easy to convince, but Google's might and the precedent of the iPhone could change things. If Google does come out with a cellphone, then one would expect more Wi-Fi integration and other methods of browsing, something uncomfortable to carriers since that is outside of their data plans.
The further advantage of having ads on cell phones is that they can be targeted better, and hence Google can ask for and earn more revenue per ad. One thing is sure, Google will do all they can to get an entry into this business, even if it means buying up spectrum and launching itself as a carrier.

Sprint network to use Google Search

Google is already a leader in the Internet Search market, is competing with Microsoft in the desktop search, and now has made an entry in the mobile search market. It has announced a tie-up with Sprint Nextel Corp that will add the Google search and mapping services to Sprint's high-speed wireless network. This is a good deal for Sprint in the sense that Google is a world-leader in the area of search and has an excellent brand name.
Sprint's plan is to create a high speed WiMax network that will be 5 times faster than today's networks, and will cover a city wide area. It can be used by devices other than mobile phones, given that it is actually a wireless network accessible by all devices that support this kind of connection. Once this network is rolled out, it is a service that Sprint will charge for, and Google will be available on the home page of this network.

The agreement gives Reston, Va.-based Sprint the prestige of working with the most popular search engine, along with a source of revenue, West said. For Google, the deal brings a way to extend its search engine into the mobile-device market.
West said Google will pay Sprint as part of the agreement, declining to be specific. Sprint and Craig McCaw's Clearwire Corp. said last week they would use a technology called WiMax to build a wireless network that's more than five times faster than today's standard.

This deal is a big deal for Google. Given the speed with which the mobile platform is proliferating and the increased tendency to build devices that allow for internet access, it is important for Google to be available on this platform. In addition, given that there is a class of devices that use Microsoft's Mobile platform, one can be sure that Google will not be the default search on those devices, so Google needs to network with all other providers and platforms.

iPhone causing denial of service attacks

Could it be too good to be true ? The iPhone is one of the tech marvels that happens once in a few years, and it has shown itself to be a revolution in the designing of phones, although the restriction on carriers and the relatively slow network are acting as hobble-stones.
Well, in the latest news on this area, the iPhones have been caught to be behaving very strangely on the Duke University campus, with around 150 iPhones (a fraction of what would be available once the students come back from holiday) bring several wireless access points to a halt, in an imitation of a Denial of Service attack, probably the last thing that Apple wants to hear at this point:

The iPhone is flooding wireless access points at the US Duke University with MAC address requests, resulting in a denial of service-like attack that is taking out 20 to 30 access points for 10 to 15 minutes at a time – weird! The iPhones are asking for an address that isn’t on Duke University’s network, and when the iPhones don’t get a response, they keep on sending out requests, flooding the available bandwidth.
Help has been sought from Cisco, the maker of the school’s networking equipment, and technical support has been sought from Apple, although there is only speculation online as to precisely what might have caused the problem – Apple isn’t saying anything yet as it no doubt investigates the problem. When the fix inevitably comes, either the iPhone, Cisco’s equipment, or both, will simply be patched with a software update to resolve the problem.

So even though it will probably be a short-lived problem, the fact that such a problem occurred reflects badly on Apple's quality regime. And it is good that it happened at a time when the university was thinly populated, otherwise at peak times and if happening in a number of places at the same time, the problem would have been magnified many times and probably resulted in a loss of face for Apple.

Some Democrats criticize carrier restriction for iPhone

This seems a bit funny. During a Congressional hearing on regulation in the wireless industry, some Democratic leaders lit up on Apple and the iPhone for restricting usage only to AT&T as an exclusive carrier for 5 years. It was sought to be portrayed as a limitation to customers who either had other providers or who were located in areas where AT&T did not provide coverage. Seems a bit strange to be objecting to something that seems so central to how the wireless industry works:

The iPhone "highlights both the promise and the problems of the wireless industry today," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecom and the Internet. "This cutting edge technology breaks new ground … [but] consumers can't use this service with other wireless carriers" and those in areas not reached by AT&T cannot use the iPhone at all, he said.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., was less concerned. "Competition spurs carriers to innovate and build a better mousetrap," he said. "The iPhone is the newest mousetrap and now other carriers will be working to top it." Members convened the hearing to debate whether wireless service agreement regulation should be transferred from state public utility commissions (PUCs) to the federal government. The wireless industry has long favored a more national approach, but state PUCs are hesitant to give up control.

This restriction to AT&T has long been sought as a major weakness for the iPhone, since there will be a number of customers who will not be able to switch over to AT&T because of existing contracts. However, the iPhone is not a device that has a major share of the market, and there will be more devices that will come out of a similar nature that will allow people to use these devices. It is not in the nature of an anti-trust deal that requires lawmakers to comment. It would be nice if there was no restriction, but this is a commercial contract.

iPhone: The hacking race begins

In the past, there was a great market for cracking the service linkages of phones. The concept being, SIM based GSM phones in many countries are locked to service providers. They are much cheaper than their cost because of the service conrtract, with a subsidy being provided by the telecom carrier such as AT&T, SPrint, etc. This subsidy is provided because the contract normally locks the user in for a 2 year conract, and the company can recover the subsidy during this period.
The iPhone is a somewhat different model. AT&T does not provide any subsidy for the iPhone, with the full cost of the phone being the amount charged ($499 for a 4 GB one, and $599 for a 8 GB one); but Apple, presumably in a bid to repay AT&T over the allowances allowed to Apple while designing the phone prevents another SIM from being used in the phone. In addition, no functionality of the device such as music playing, video, camera, etc can be used without activation (which can only happen with AT&T in the US - and not yet allowed outside the US).
Thus the cat and mouse game between a company and hackers has now begun. The iPhone is a prime target for hackers and crackers, many seeing it as a game / test; and many seeing it as something worth a great deal of money. When Apple would have designed the phone, it would have been a priority to set the security of the phone such that the protection would have difficult to crack:

Locked phones can only be used with cellular service from one carrier, a move designed to guarantee carriers recover the cost of subsidizing a handset through monthly service charges. But the cost of the iPhone, which is priced at either US$499 or $599 depending on the model, is not subsidized by AT&T. Users must pay full price for the handset and sign a two-year contract, which requires them to pay from $59.99 to $99.99 per month for cellular service.
Unlocking the iPhone will enable the handset to be used with any cellular provider with a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) or EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) network, not just AT&T's network. That's an attractive proposition for users who already have a cellular contract with another carrier, or users outside the U.S. who can't wait to get their hands on Apple's new handset.
Efforts to unlock the iPhone are being tracked on several Web sites, including Hackint0sh and the iPhone Dev Wiki.

This is also something that is a bit odd. If users are being made to pay the full amount for the phone, then they should be able to use the phone at their discretion. It is understandable if the iPhone was subsidized, in which case the service provider locks the phone until the subsidy has been paid. But to lock the phone till activation and prevent usage of other functions is very strange, and once could argue, an extra charge that a user has to bear for having the iPhone. Especially because the AT&T network has been shown to be a slow one, and limiting the speed of wireless browsing.
It is bound to happen sooner or later that the unlocking scheme will fail, and when that happens, it will be a pretty simple job to do this in mass. That will be time when the world proliferation of the iPhone begins.

The iPhone finally on sale

Finally, one of the most-awaited devices is on sale, and as expected, there are long queues waiting to buy the phone. But with prices of between $1,100 and $2,000 being quoted on Craiglist and eBay, it is an open question as to how many people are waiting to get it first and then immediately sell it, as opposed to those who are waiting to be one of the first to get their hands on it for personal use. Anyhow, the initial response would be good news for Apple. The iPhone is a major business milestone for Apple, and the success or failure (not meeting projected targets) would have a major impact on Apple.
If Apple can show the iPhone as a major success, they will be known as the company with a Midas touch, in tune with customer requirements and on the bleeding edge of design. If, however, there is a failure, then things will move the other way. The Apple stock, that has gone by more than 200% in the last couple of years will show the impact as well. Of course, as the example of the Playstation3 shows, it will only be with the passage of time that success or failure can be measured. Right now, it is the device fetching customers to shops:

Take San Francisco resident Jerry Taylor, 54, who was first to buy the iPhone from Apple's store near Union Square. After a brief moment in the media spotlight, he said he was selling the device, apparently to a mysterious man with a Scandanavian accent who stood next to Taylor, but who declined to give his name. In spending more than $650 for the gadget, including taxes, Taylor said he was "gambling with this month's rent."
In case you're one of the few who haven't heard, the iPhone is Apple's first attempt at a cell phone. Hyped for months - even years - the device is built around a large, touch sensitive screen, which takes the place of a physical keypad. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a coterie of analysts, consumers and enthusiasts have predicted that the device will change the cell phone industry as much as Apple's Macintosh computers and iPod MP3 players changed the PC and music businesses, respectively.

It could be similar to what the iPod has turned out to be. The iPod is more expensive than most other music players of its category, but yet is an incredible success, chiefly because it has an incredible reputation. It is known as having an excellent design, with a great brand value and with a complete service infra-structure including good integration with a music purchase and download process (iTunes and store).

T-mobile allows cheaper calls through Internet

T-mobile has come up with a new concept to allow reduction of call plans overall cost, by allowing the use of alternative calling networks. What does that mean ? For a T-mobile user, if they have bought one of the 2 new handsets, and are either in a home wireless network or a Wi-Fi hotspot, they can move to using that mode of Internet access for their phones. This will typically prove to be much cheaper than the costing of a regular call plan.
Another plus promised in this new service (T-Mobile HotSpotAtHome) is the ability to get a much better coverage inside homes, something that a lot of customers typically complain about:

The service is the first time a cell phone carrier is using Wi-Fi to make calls. That could lead to a shift in the cellular industry as more operators begin to build dual-mode technology into phones, allowing people to cut down the cost of voice minutes.
To get HotSpotAtHome, T-Mobile customers will need to buy one of two $49 phones that can switch between cellular and Wi-Fi calls. In addition to paying for broadband, they will need to pay for the calling service, which can be added to cell phone service initially at $9.99 a month for unlimited Wi-Fi calls. After mid-September, customers will pay $19.99 a month to add the Wi-Fi service.. Family plans for up to five phones are available now for $19.99, then go up to $29.99 in September.

The handset is new, but the wireless router at home can be an existing router. There is switching between when a customer is making the call in a Wi-Fi area and then moves outside this network and onto the regular cellular network. People who have tested this service have found that it works well.

1 in 10 users would be interested in the iPhone

In a study commissioned by M:Metrics of around 10,000 mobile phone users, around 9% stated that they were interested in purchasing an iPhone. The study was released on Friday. This study is important for Apple, as the users were informed of the iPhone's price points and the fact that the iPhone is exclusive to AT & T. Another interesting statistic was that out of the 9% who indicated that they were willing to purchase the phone, around 2/3rd were on other carriers, not on AT & T. This will be good news for AT & T, since even if a fraction of these intentions come true. they will get a number of conversions, and of people willing to purchase high end cell phones. Such people are also typically more willing to go in for higher cell phone usages and data services, both of which contribute real money to carriers.
The statistic also tells Apple that its Public Relations campaign to show-case the iPhone as the gadget to have seems to be working, given that there seems to be a number of people impressed enough with the device and ready to consider a change.

Poll results show about 9 percent of the 11,064 mobile phone users surveyed were inclined to purchase the highly touted iPhone, set for release June 29. That translates to about 19 million people when projected out, based on the U.S. Census, according to M:Metrics, a research company that tracks mobile phone use.
That's "an impressive figure, when you consider that the installed base of most high-end devices rarely approaches 1 million and respondents were informed of the price point as well as of the AT&T exclusive," M:Metrics senior analyst Mark Donovan said in a statement.
Of those who indicated a strong interest in buying an iPhone, 67 percent were customers of carriers other than AT&T. Often it was Sprint and T-Mobile customers who indicated they were willing to switch, an M:Metrics representative said.

As the iPhone comes closer to release day, only 12 days away from now, one can only expect more stories and articles to start appearing. If initial reviews turn out to be good, then one can expect a number of people to buy the iPhone out of the curiosity value, and the need to own a single device that does media (audio, video) playing and also is a good cellular phone.

Samsung enables 4GB storage on cell phone

We get a large number of mobile phones promising the earth in features. These phones play video, audio, store other files, and a lot of third party applications can be installed on them. However, the base memory available on the phone is almost always very limited, and users have to buy extra memory storage. In the rush to make mobile phones smaller, or to fit more features while keeping the same size, this storage slot takes up a fair amount of the space.
Now Samsung has managed to put 4 GB of storage on a mobile phone chip set that could free up the need for putting external storage, thus also freeing up the space needed for an extra memory slot. It also means that users may not have the option anymore to not buy the extra card; it also means that users do not have to do the double tasks of first buying a phone, and then discovering that unless they buy an external card, all the promise of storing a number of songs is going to fall flat. Refer this article:

Samsung Electronics Co. has squeezed 4GB of storage into a mobile phone chip set that the manufacturer believes could eliminate the need for external memory card slots.
The embedded multichip system, called moviMCP, packs several memory functions into one unit, removing the need for an external expansion slot and thus freeing up space in tightly packed mobile phones, the company said Wednesday. The package includes two 16Gbit NAND flash chips and a controller, a 1Gbit mobile DRAM chip to support the processor, and a 2Gbit NAND flash chip for general handset operations.
The new multichip package will allow handset manufacturers not only to design smaller phones with higher storage capacity but also to significantly reduce the time required to develop these products, Samsung said.

Even though this could take some time to come to the market, this is overall a pretty positive development, and maybe contribute to the march of the mobile phone as the one device to carry everything. Add much more space, and this could be the mobile computer, with display and typing being the only restrictions.

Using cell phones to lose weight

Cell phones have lots of uses nowadays; you use them for making and receiving calls (still number one use), for sending and receiving messages, for using as an alarm, for music and radio, for viewing movies, as a viewer for text books, for internet connectivity and browsing on the move, and so on. Well, add one more use to this list. You use a cell phone for losing weight ! Surprise, read this article:

Wondering how much of a diet-buster that banana cream pie on your plate is? Some Japanese have a novel way to find out: Photograph it with your cell phone and send the image to an expert.
With cell phones ubiquitous in Japan and rising concern over expanding waistlines, health care providers have put two and two together to allow the calorie-conscious to send photos of their meals to nutritionists for analysis and recommendations.
Nutritionists can work with photos from one day's meals to several weeks' worth, he said. Results come back in three days. Participants also can log onto a Web site to get further dietary information and upload photos from digital cameras.
"Patients used to fill out meal logs, but people tend to forget things or underestimate their portions," Kimura said. "Photographing meals and e-mailing them in is easier and gets more accurate results."

This seems like a very interesting use. You make full use of the data plans, you lock customers into an additional service that can provide a cut to the carrier, and has a peer pressure level. You see a friend or colleague doing this, and such a service will appeal to you as well.
Also, with obesity increasing, customers are more likely to use such a service, and if it can help reduce the obesity levels, then it will be a big boon for people.