A journey to the Levant
Google Japan is posting once in a while promotional videos on Youtube.
I really don’t like these Google Mobile videos. Maybe because of the annoying music and graphics, or the silly plot:
In the first one, the couple searches for a cinema screening “Super Dog 2″ movie:
Second one, “the business story”, our heroine searches for business manners: “Where should she sit in the Taxi?” followed by a search for a train station and directions.
Japanese Mobile operator NTT DoCoMo announced that “Push to Talk” services will stopped next year.
“Push Talk” services will not accept new application from end of September 2009, while the services will be halted completely end of September 2010.
As cell phone usage in Japan is mostly about data (emailing, browsing), “Push Talk” seems like a service that is unlikely to be popular. While I don’t have exact figures, I can’t imagine people standing in the street receiving a “Push Talk” message.
Published in Israeli The Marker [HE]: Israeli Start-Up Siano ’s chip SMS1130 is powering Softabank Mobile’s 1seg (Japanese： ワンセグ) iPhone adapter.
This iPhone adapter is both a 1seg (ISDB-T) TV Tuner and a battery pack, on sale for 9,840 ¥.
Apple iPhone’s lacked this important feature, which is now a standard in most Japanese cellular phones. About 100$ is a bit expensive in my opinion, but I am not watching TV anyway.
Some more information from the Japenese MIC (Internal affairs and Communications).
Share of Carriers in subscription for Cellular Phones and PHS:
Docomo still lead, while KDDI increase their market share.
As for LTE: KDDI, Docomo and Softbank already have LTE plans, so it seems the future competition in Japan will not be about Cellular Technology and Coverage, but for additional services (and marketing).
Softbank, while pursuing LTE technology and supposedly selected Huawei for trial, also prefers to deploy HSPA+ while waiting for the LTE market to mature and cost to be driven down.
Acca Networks was one of the operators who applied for the lucrative Japanese 2.5GHz WiMAX spectrum last year, but lost to UQ Communications and Willcom.
As it turns out Acca did not give up on their mobile broadband dreams, but instead of deploying their own Mobile WiMAX network, they are using NTT Docomo network for only data service.
Details are (in Japanese) in Acca Mobile website, offering two types of plan with 3 available devices:
1) USB type – from Anydata
2) CF type – from Nihon Denki (NEC)
3) USB type – from Huawei
I love the phone. Never had a blackberry, so I can’t compare, but the Nokia E71 rocks.
OSNews have finally reviewed the Nokia E71.
Quote from the Conclusion (who bothers reading the entire review?):
Nokia’s E71 is a great phone, but not for the users it was originally aimed at. As a business phone, the less-than-stellar Exchange support, as well as the missing BlackBerry support, will limit the phone’s use. However, as a normal phone “for the rest of us”, the excellent keyboard, sturdy design, and easy-to-use interface enables it to be a fine mobile phone.
Do you hate touch screens, like I do? Do you hate one person controlling what you can and can’t do with your phone, like I do? Would you still like a smartphone? The E71 is a decent choice.
It is reported (in Hebrew) that a tractor tore several optical fibers, causing communication problems in Jerusalem.
ALL Cellular services as well as Internet access are still affected.
These kind of “accidents” have a higher probability in Israel than US or Europe, but still make me think that wireless backhaul is a MUST, at least for redundancy purposes.
UQ selected Mformation to provide Device Management activation and provisioning. When considering UQ Communications business plan of being an access provider to several MVNO, this plan and press release make a lot of sense. UQ would like people to buy WiMAX Mobile Subscribers without a contract, and then activate it online.
Their selection of Mformation was probably quite easy, as Mformation are without doubt the market leaders of Mobile WiMAX Device Management.
Just go a Nokia E71 (white one), which people claim it has the “Oligarch look”. Extremely happy with it, as it connects very well to the internet, Browser is good and has a decent music player; Already synchronized to my Exchange Server,but still could not get the GPS to properly work, but I am sure it will.
So happy I didn’t fall into the iPhone trap, i.e. having something really cool, that doesn’t really fit my needs.
A quick search found a similar (more lengthy) review by Joel (Joel on Software). He also likes it – Link.
Played a bit with Google’s Android Mobile Platform.
Looks OK, seems to work, the eclipse Plugin is OK, the simulator actually works, though I experienced a few glitches.
BUT, Can Google really have success with this one? I doubt it, iPhone User interface is 10 times better, Symbian is out there for a long time, Windows Mobile is De-Facto operating system for Smart phones. I believe the answer is NO!
And one more funny thing, if you search for “Android” in Google, the first result is “Open Handset Alliance” web site. Did they tweak it, so it looks like it is really an alliance?
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