Mobile World Congress 2010 (Chris Book Guest Blogger)

Since Paul was on Holiday last week I have agreed to write a post about my highlights from Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona.

The buzz at Barcelona 2010 was all about Apps. The theme, how can the rest of the world catch up with Apple when it comes to making money from Mobile Apps.


WAC

The result is that 24 of the largest mobile operators are joining vodafone in supporting the idea of widgets or Mobile Web Apps. 


The new initiative, snappily called Wholesale Application Community or "WAC" for short, is great news for WIN who already write apps for 8 Vodafone operators in Europe. Joining Vodafone are O2 Telefonica, T-Mobile and Orange in Europe and KT, NTT Docomo in Asia. 


BBC

Continuing the apps theme the BBC (one of WIN's strategic accounts) announced that they would be launching application for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms as soon as April this year.


They have 3 apps planned.

• BBC Sports
• BBC News
• BBC iPlayer 

These apps with take existing content from the BBC internet and mobile sites  and expose within an application. The news and sports applications will allow the user to view or listen to live sports and news events streamed to their phone. 


New Mobile Phones
"MWC - Mobile Wheres nokia Congress"
Noticeable by their absence were Nokia. Neither their Mobile Phone or Networks (Nokia Seimens Networks) businesses had any presence at the conference. They rented a building belonging to the Spanish Organisation for the Blind very close to the event and held demonstrations and meetings where only invited people were able to attend. Its the 1st in congress history that Nokia did not announce a new mobile device at 3GSM.


What they did announce is another new Mobile Operating System, they are merging their version of Linux called Maemo with Intel and are calling it MeeGo. With Android dominating the mobile Linux world it will be interesting to see how these two tech superpowers attack.


Samsung
Taking their place as largest mobile phone exhibitor was Samsung with a very impressive stand. They announced a new application development platform called Bada (which apparently means Ocean in Korean, you'll see why thats important in a minute.


Bada is a competitor to Apple iPhone OS and Google Android as a way of developing high performing apps for the Samsung Mobile Phone and also TV and MP3 player devices.


Everyone do the Wave
Samsung launched a new mobile phone called Wave (see what they did there with the Bada meaning Ocean thing?). Its a complete copy of the iPhone and they have done a great job of it. I think it will be a very popular phone in the market, especially for people who would not pay full price for the apple product.  The Samsung Wave will run both  widget type apps (WAC / W3C / Vodafone 360) and Bada apps. It also manages the contacts in the same way as Vodafone 360 people. 

Motorola 


Most people in the mobile industry already killed off Motorola, they have not released a good phone since the iconic RAZR V3. Desperation causes some drastic decisions to be made and Motorola decided that their future was based on Android, the google open source operating system. This was the focus of the motorola stand at MWC they demonstrated 4 android devices, Milestone, Backflip, Dext and Quench.


What I found interesting was a feature they are calling Motorola Blur which allows users to access services provided by web companies and social networks from the home screen of the phone. Its a social aggregation feature that Motorola have developed on top of Android. 

And Finally

From the Whackier end of products on display at Mobile World Congress was demonstrated on the NTT Docomo stand. There was a man using Eye Controlled headphones, these worked by moving your eyes left and right. If you want to skip a track then look to the left, rewind look right etc. We think that it was driven my measuring muscle movement, there was no extra equipment other than standard iPhone style headphones. Although not the easiest way of controlling media right now it shows some interesting user interface options coming in the very near future.

Off On Holiday? Take a map with you.

Well I am on holiday, but by the magic of the interweb the blog goes on.

So you need a map? Well there are lots of solutions, but here is one from Google, the inspiring name Google Maps! It is quite like its big web brother, but small enough for your Pocket. Let get it installed.

Installing Google Maps

  

First head over to http://www.google.com/ on your mobile (most makes are supported, this example is using a Nokia), top middle you will see a link to "More". Click on "More", and then on the next page choose maps from the full range of Google mobile applications. After click on maps, click install to start the download. The file is free from Google but is 1.6 Mb, so will cost around £2-4 to download if you are not on a data bundle, but if your phone can access WiFi then you can always connect via that, or better still opt for an unlimited data bundle for around £5 a month. Once its downloaded, click "Yes" to complete the install. If you are asked to choose a connection type then select "Internet" or similar on your device. 

  

Using Google Maps

Once you have Google Maps fired up you can use a series of short cuts, press 1 to zoom out, 2 to zoom in.

Google first uses network connection to get an approximate position, for this it uses base station information, but rather than use network look-up (a service WIN offers for a small charge per look up) Google have built a database of the cell locations themselves, a mammoth task! To go to your location just click "0"

As can be seen on the image (upper right) Google shows a circle, to indicate the level of accuracy of the fix on your location, in urban areas an accuracy of 50-100 meters can be achieved. If you have GPS, and you allow it, Google can use the GPS to get a better fix on your location. This can be seen in the second image (right).

Once there is a GPS fix the outer circle will reduce, and if your GPS has a compass it should also show which way you are heading.

If you want to switch to a satelite rather than map view click on "5" and you'll get a statelite image.

Well have a play around and try it out, its rather good and there are lots more features. It works golbally, so evey office can try it.

We'll have a look at location sensative search another time.

Free or Freemium... either way its Flirting!

With Valentines almost upon us I thought that this week I would take a look at one of the leading freemium sites in the UK (but accessible from most countries) and it might even help you find a valentine!

Flirtomatic is a dating and flirting site that is aimed (mainly) at mobile users, but can also be accessed on the web (left). But what is 'freemium'? Well the sites basic services are all free, but for some additional service you pay a premium.

So head over to www.flirtomatic.com on your mobile and you see see the intro page, from here, if you click on the links you will be invited to register.

The registration allows you to specify your sex and the sex (or sexes) of the people you like to flirt with, along with your age details. Once done this gets you a basic profile up and running. Later you can add pictures, and change your nickname which it allocates automatically.

The site uses PayForIt along side other billing mechanisms for the premium services. So if you click on "Find Flirts Near Me" you will be told that access for 24 hrs costs 75pts, and that you need to purchase points. When you choose to purchase points you will see that there are a variety of payment techniques, including PFI.

The site also uses the PayForIt API to identify returning customers.

So give it a go and get flirting for valentines.

Enabling Harlequins Rugby League

As I am sure everyone is aware WIN plc are the proud shirt sponsors of Harlequins Rugby League. As part of our commitment to the partnership we will be developing a number of innovative services for the club and these will launch through the season. To get the season going we have launched some core services for Quins RL.

Free News and Offers
To join this free service you simply text QUINSRL to 87222,  fans get a mix of news and offers. This service features in our match day program advert (left).

Score Updates
The advert also features our scores alerts services, we have launch a comprehensive service which has 4 updates per match, plus an away match only version. The away match version is aimed at fans who attend home games (and so don't need those alerts) but can't make away games and want to be kept informed during the match. This service costs 25p per message, and to join text the following commands to 87222:

QUINSRL AWAY - for the away match service.
QUINSRL MATCH - for alerts from all games.




Man Of The Match
We are also enabling fan participation, letting them choose the Quins RL MOTM. Live voting will be advertised pitch side, and also on screens around the stadium. The votes cost 25p each, and fans simply text MOTM followed by the shirt number of their nominated player. WIN also provides the prize for the successful player.