Tom Hume links us to the news that Orange are opening up their MMSCs to third parties. And like Tom,
"I've no idea why this hasn't happened already: surely content-based (i.e. third party) MMS services would have been a great introduction to MMS in the days before you had enough MMS handsets out there to make it worthwhile person-to-person?"
With each new 'world news' event it seems that there is a upsurge in the amount of moblogged coverage of it. Only a short time ago we had the big blackout in the USA and Canada and now we have large scale camphone coverage of Hurricane Isabel -
"As Hurricane Isabel rips through the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and leaves countless victims in its wake, an army of writers and photojournalists are covering the storm's impact -- far greater in numbers than have ever covered a hurricane before.
It's not that the journalism profession has seen an upswell in employment. Rather, it's because a growing number of citizens -- often, victims of the storm's wrath -- are serving as volunteer journalists for this major news story, their work being published by professional news organizations as a supplement to the reporting and photography of professional journalists. "
3 cheers for people journalism! See also picturephoning.com coverage of this phenomenon.
Getting back to the location-based technologies side of moblogging I read with interest in yesterday's FT.com that -
China is to invest in Galileo, the European Union's rival to the Pentagon-controlled Global Positioning System, boosting Europe's hopes of competing with the US in navigation satellite technology.
The investment, which according to senior Commission officials could total more than €230m ($259m), could lead to closer defence co-operation between Beijing and Brussels - a prospect likely to alarm the Pentagon and the US defence industry.
It's interesting to read in the same article that the Pentagon is opposed to the EU developing its own satellite system, apparently on the grounds that it will lead to duplication. Hmmm, isn't that what the open market and competition is all about? Why should it be okay for soft drinks and sneakers but not satellites?
Anyway, politics is not what this blog is about but I look forward to the day when you can switch GPS network just like you can switch mobile network if you're not pleased with the quality of service. Yes, I know that GPS is essentially free but still, choice is always a good thing!
"So the fact that 7.0s includes support for W-CDMA is no surprise. However, the other new features in this release include support for : - multi-threaded Multimedia Framework; multiple PDP contexts; Java J2ME MIDP2.0; Bluetooth 1.1 and a Wireless Messaging 1.0 profile.
The most mysterious comment from Mr Patel is that "Microsoft's Visual Studio can currently be used [to develop Symbian apps], though future support is not guaranteed." We wonder why such an obvious tool should be dropped?"
Boing Boing carries a fascinating link to a collective kid moblog from Paris -
The children have done a report of their (school's) sportive outdoor centre by moblogging themselves the pics during all the day (this wednesday) from 9.00 al to 5.00 pm. they have been equiped of Nokia 3650s and all the pics have been moblogged by the children and I have helped them to configure and use the phonecams. they had not any problem in term of usability to use the phonecams. it seems to be very natural for them and they have a great dexterity with using their thumbs.
I love this post because it just goes to show how simple moblogging is with Nokia 3650s. Every time I whip out my own phone my nephews and niece want to swipe it from me and play with it too. These phones are just too much damn fun ;-)
Microsoft’s Pocket PC has overtaken Palm as the leading operating system (OS) for pen-based handheld devices, according to Q2 figures released by market analyst IDC.
The Pocket PC OS accounted for 52.1 per cent of all pen-based shipments. Palm recorded a 46.6 per cent market share and the remaining 1.3 per cent was split between Linux and Windows CE.
Ah yes, but -
“Converged devices are definitely where we are headed and the vendors know that,” Ali said. “Traditional PDA vendors like Palm and HP will have to compete directly with the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson. It’s going to be a battle of the operating systems.”
Symbian OS currently holds an 80.1 per cent share of the converged device market, due largely to the strength of leading handset vendor, Nokia. The Pocket PC/Smartphone platform holds a 14.9 per cent share.
Russell Beattie posts a very nice overview of all the amazing Symbian OS / Series 60 apps that when installed on your 3650 make it a most capable portable office. I agree with most of his reviews but would be a little kinder to Opera. I find it invaluable because I manage a website through a web-based console and when I need to check things out remotely Opera is the ticket. I don't use it to surf around so I never see the memory problems that Russell and others report.
Octane Mobile's latest MMS project, which is online at www.nachtagenten.de, was launched on August 27th in Germany with Nachtagenten, an event promoter and content provider. Nachtagenten is the market leader in Germany for promoting exclusive parties, currently active in Frankfurt and Munich (later this year Hamburg, Berlin and Dusseldorf will follow) with over 30 million hits/month.
During the parties, Nachtagenten's photographers take pictures of party-goers. These pictures are posted to the community website and made available as a pull service to mobile phones via MMS. After the party is over, attendees log on to Nachtagenten.de, find pictures of themselves and friends, and purchase the pictures for viewing on their phone. On the website, each picture includes an MMS link below it, which provides the exact directions for getting the picture. This includes sending an SMS to a short code with a number identifying the picture. The pictures are currently priced at the promotional rate of .99 Euro through the end of October and will cost 1.49 Euros each starting in November. Anyone with an MMS-capable phone in Germany can receive the messages.
"In an entry today, Steve Outing for E-Media Tidbits writes about journalist Louie Villalobos of The Sun in Yuma, Arizona, writing and photographing for a "moblog" while covering a story on a portion of the Arizona border with Mexico."
This helps to prove the point that moblogging 'out there' now. We don't have to wait 'till 3G or 1 megapixel camera phones. The existing technology can be put to amazing uses right now.
"In the words of a very senior member of the Vodafone Ireland board, the wireless space in Ireland today is 'nothing less than a revolution'.
The Irish market, with 8m texts a day - a lot more per head than in the UK - has adopted common shortcodes from day one, and we've adopted a common operator approach to interconnection, with the blessing of ComReg, the regulator for telecommunications in Ireland."
Maybe that explains why we were one of the last countries in Europe to have the Nokia 3650 made available to us. Why be in a rush to launch new revenue generating products when you can milk an existing one :(
