Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Telcos set up as easily as WordPress and Drupal sites using software and hardware from projects like OpenBTS! Now this would be the end of "telco business as usual". Go open go!

QUOTE [From Using Constraint to Design for Innovation at Many Possibilities] (via Ethan Zuckerman)

2. Make a telco as simple to set up as a wordpress blog. Wireless meshes, least-cost-routing, etc. Let’s make as much of that complexity disappear into default behaviours that can be tweaked as the owner/entrepreneur becomes more comfortable with the product.

3. Be as open as possible. This is more of a philosophical than a practical constraint. We believe we can attract maximum participation by making software and hardware as open as possible. We believe that Open Hardware strategies devices like the Mesh Potato can change the way people think about hardware.

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It's about a time! Fingers crossed it's 3G with a decent camera and video!

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In a statement released this morning about the iPhone, Rogers has announced that it has reached an agreement with Apple to launch later this year.

Ted Rogers is quoted in the very brief statement, saying:

We're thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can't tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.

As I wrote recently, there appears to be imminent plans to release an upgrade to the current iPhone.

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Wow 11 phones per second, wonder what's next for Nokia after mobile phones!

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The significance of the numbers? According to this recent InterBrand/BusinessWeek survey the 5th most valuable brand in the world with industry peers such as Microsoft at #2, Samsung at #21, Apple at #33 and Motorola at #77. 11 phones sold per second, which equates to a 39% market share in a (roughly) 1 billion sold per year industry. And lastly 70+ languages supported on our entry level products.

Tires and toilet paper? Mentioned because the company has a history of re-inventing itself from its fairly recent focus that included these two products, and that the design research which the Tokyo team is engaged in has a scope very much broader than simply mobile phones.

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I've asked for this before from ShoZu but nobody is listening :-) ! In the wrap up meeting today of the mobile rich media research study at SFU at that I was part of the last two months, I expressed my frustration at not being able to fluidly upload videos (sorry but email, FTP or Bluetooth or USB just don't cut it from a mobile device) to my favourite video sites like I can easily do with photos. I know videos are much much bigger but we have phones that support WiFi. so LazyWeb let's do it. And I'll pay! The USB / Bluetooth chain of pain doesn't work if you take as many videos as I do and if you use a phone like the N93 which takes gorgeous videos that have huge files which easily exceed the limits of today's mobile uploaders (the biggest I know is Vox which supports video uploads up to 50MB; unfortunately this doesn't work since the N93 videos can easily be well over 100MB).

UPDATE: The SIM functionality (there appears to be no user replaceable SIM) appears to be controlled through the iTunes store. Very interesting. 

I am not a cellphone hardware engineer but it seems ridiculous to support EDGE and support CDMA which is what Boris is implying ("If the iPhone is, indeed, a CDMA phone, then the whole will the iPhone be locked to Cingular question is a bit moot: without SIM cards, you can't take it to another network.") but hey we could both be wrong. More likely, the iPhone is GSM and uses EDGE data and the SIM instead of being user replaceable is hardwired in the first version of the iPhone. The soap opera continues :-) !

FROM The Mossberg Solution - WSJ.com:

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But the iPhone has a major drawback: the cellphone network it uses. It only works with AT&T (formerly Cingular), won't come in models that use Verizon or Sprint and can't use the digital cards (called SIM cards) that would allow it to run on T-Mobile's network. So, the phone can be a poor choice unless you are in areas where AT&T's coverage is good. It does work overseas, but only via an AT&T roaming plan.

In addition, even when you have great AT&T coverage, the iPhone can't run on AT&T's fastest cellular data network. Instead, it uses a pokey network called EDGE, which is far slower than the fastest networks from Verizon or Sprint that power many other smart phones. And the initial iPhone model cannot be upgraded to use the faster networks.

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Awesome vision (I am not a fan of Lifeblog (his previous vision) but I am fan of Christian! And of course I am a fan of Series 60 which was one of Christian's first visions!). Go Christian go! Wouldn't it be cool if Christian Lindholm built this OS at a startup around an open source core like Linux and wouldn't it be cool if Nokia bought that OS and used it on future phones? This would blow the iPhone out of the water. In the long run, this is what has to be done if the iPod-ization of mobile phones is to be avoided IMHO (but hey I could be wrong :-) !)

FROM ChristianLindholm.com: My speech at MEX, The SW Transformer A Vision for a mobile OS:

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I was asked by Marek Pawlowski from PMM to give a keynote at the MEX conference, a small mobile user experience conference. It is great small conference with key people in mobile user experience.

My brief for the talk was this manifesto:

"Manifesto point #4:

Handsets, applications and services should be more aware of the user's physical environment and adapt to provide the most appropriate interface for sound and visual conditions. We think multi-modal interfaces should be supported on many more mobile devices and can dramatically improve the user experience."

Summary:

We are at a stage where a new mobile operating system should be created. One that enables the creation of a cheap monoblock enabling best of breed convergence of mobility and computing. I envision an OS that morphs to accommodate both moving use and mobile use. Focused use and multi-tasking. I call it a Transformer OS.

One way to think of this is to think of RSS in terms of comand. Each command or feature in the user experience is wrapped into a meta language of context. This language of context will drive the use cases and the rendering. We do not only separate funtion and presentation we make function and context interdependant.

With such an operating system we would tear down classic application boundaries: like calling, camera, idle, and calendar into a fluid dynamic environment. The operating system is broader than the footprint of the silicon. It extends into the environment and the network.

I think this kind of device and system could be a massive hit in emerging markets where they choose a mobile before they buy a computer.

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