Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Friday 19 January 2007, 10:43 AM
Invention is not the mother of necessity
Yesterday the National Physical Laboratory played host to a conference on the subject of GPS (or any global navigation satellite system) in phones. Everyone from the chipset manufacturers to the operators was there, and perhaps some progress was made (see our FAQ on the subject here).
However, one thing that struck me (aside from the subject of a story I'm working on, which should go up later today or on Monday) was that nobody really has a clue about the so-called "killer app" that's going to make everyone get their act together and make it happen. Let's face it, at the end of the day it's all about the money, and right now no-one can see how to make enough of it out of GPS to justify the changes needed in phone design, business cases etc.
Probably the most sensible commentary was along the lines of that made by Scott Stonham of Openwave, which was basically that the term "Location-Based Services" is a bit of a red herring. Why? Because that's the wrong way round. If the killer app comes along then great, but in the meantime we should be talking about "Location Enhanced Services" - i.e. look at what people are using and see how GPS (or whatever) could make those services demonstrably better.
Good thinking, and worth keeping in mind for things like the "4G" debate - shouldn't we make the best of what we've got before racing to the next great thing, the case for which hasn't yet been made?
Speaking of operators, nul points to the chap from Orange who was complaining that customers have to learn "not to say excuse me to the person standing next to them" to ask directions, but rather increase their "trust relationship" with, er, their operator. "The location-based services industry needs to educate the customer away from alternative solutions," he added for good - and rather disturbing - measure.
Tech good. Loss of humanity/societal interaction bad. M'kay?
And while I'm on the subject, far too many people were sitting there bleating on about 9/11 and 7/7 like they were ad campaigns for location-based services ("it suddenly became clear that people wanted to find where their loved ones and employees were..."). Yes, we can see the point, but that doesn't stop it from being a spurious argument at best and a damn cheap exploitation of tragedy at worst.
Tuesday 16 January 2007, 3:13 PM
The scramble for online TV
The big buzz surrounding online TV has recently been hovering around The Venice Project, which was today rechristened Joost (as in Joost The Ticket, Joost In Time etc - any other crap puns spring to mind? Ah well, at least it isn't the Wii...). Not a bad service, IMHO. Been playing with it for a month or two and I reckon, once they've sorted out the content, it could prove a nail in tradTV's coffin. Sign up for beta testing here.
But wait, what's that coming over the hill? It's Babelgum, the rather confusingly named (who isn't these days?) new venture of Fastweb founder Silvio Scaglia. In fact, just today Scaglia sold off a bunch of his shares in the broadband group to fund his new toy. I've just registered for beta testing, and will be sure to give an update if and when they let me in.
Interesting times indeed. So far my money's on, er, Joost, partly because I've actually used it and partly because it comes from the stable of Kazaa and Skype. But who knows? One thing's for sure, though: TV as we know it is in deep doodoo.
Tuesday 16 January 2007, 11:52 AM
Recursive acronym alert
What, I ask, is the point of including an acronym within itself? This is not a new question - GNU means "GNU's Not Unix", after all - but now Symbian's at it. PIPS, we are told, means "PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian".
(The story, by the way, concerns the introduction of POSIX libraries on Symbian OS, which will "significantly reduce the effort required to migrate existing desktop and server components, and mobile applications from other platforms". There you go.)
Anyway, is that just to make people's heads spin Linda Blair-style, or does it betray a lack of imagination?
More recursive acronym fun here.
Monday 15 January 2007, 10:27 AM
HD movies + P2P = ISP pain
Tired of your ISP's bandwidth caps? Well, if you're a fan of both HDTV and P2P you could end up even less keen. Many thanks to James Enck for pointing out the reality of dodgily sending/receiving high definition movies. A reality of about 20 gigs a movie. Ack.
Enck's take is that ISPs are drastically underestimating the demand they'll be facing. It'll be interesting to see whether they'll crack down on the bandwidth-munching rapscallions or change the term "unlimited bandwidth" from its current implication ("limited bandwidth") to its literal meaning. Hmm.
Friday 12 January 2007, 4:23 PM
Carphone's jolly tidings
Carphone Warehouse's Q3 results were announced today, and it sure looks shiny for Dunstone et al. Well, sort of.
Revenue gained 32 percent (chiefly from CPW's fixed line business - the desired knock-on effect of "free" bundled broadband) in the Christmas quarter. The share price went up a wee bit today as a result, and someone sold 3.9 percent of the stock (not a company director, apparently).
Interestingly, it's now being claimed that CPW will have 1000 exchanges unbundled by the end of April, "slightly ahead" of schedule according to the FD. If memory serves correctly, that was pretty much always the target (and acquiring AOL's 52 unbundled exchanges certainly helped) but, either way, that'll be about 70 percent of the UK population covered.
TalkTalk broadband subs are up, but not nearly as much as the previous quarter when "free" broadband was first punted. However, out of 632k TalkTalk subscriptions, just 132k are connected through CPW's own exchanges. And, just to put things in perspective, the AOL purchase brought in about 1.5m further broadband customers.
Seeing as Dunstone's already having trouble keeping his customers happy, we do sincerely wish him luck.
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