mobile

Book Review: the Impulse Economy

Nevermind the hype, the ongoing explosion of mobile could either be the best or worst thing to hit ordinary retail business since the internet. Imagine you are in the business of selling things at retail. What does it mean when you see your customers predaciously roaming the aisles armed with smartphones and suddenly better informed [...]

Is this the future look of augmented reality?

I have this vision of nerds everywhere staggering around the city with big slates in front of their faces only seeing the world through shared web tablet camera experiences. I’m guilty of looking something like this in public myself, even hoisting a tablet onto my shoulder boombox-style to make skype calls. And that’s a part [...]

Pizza Libretto as transformative mobile business model

Pizza Libretto doesn’t take reservations. What they do do is make some of the most delicious Neopolitan style pizza in the city. Libretto finds themselves smack in the middle of the (for the moment) uber-trendy Ossington strip of hipster bars, restaurants and galleries in the west end of downtown Toronto. As a result, demand for [...]

The dawn of mobile in retail

One big idea I’ve been focused on a fair bit lately is what I call “Augmented Retail”. Augmented retail is about the potentially disruptive outcome of the inevitable convergence of mobile technology, ubiquitous connectivity and retail. Mobile technology is not necessarily good news for your average retailer. I’m sure by now almost all of you [...]

Canadian Wireless Spectrum Announcement

The rumours are buzzing that a major announcement is due after 4pm this afternoon regarding Canada’s wireless spectrum allocation. Watch this post for ongoing coverage. And look for full coverage at StartupNorth.ca later today -and- another highly-related announcement I can’t wait to tell you about. more to come… The news is out! And the media [...]

Why do wireless devices need to be phones?

Wow, Verizon has just made a very important announcement today: “Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network, wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company. Verizon Wireless plans to have this new choice available to customers throughout the country by the end [...]

Do androids dream of electric pants?

Thanks to Open Gardens for pointing this out. Two good vids on youtube demoing googles new mobile phone operating system/software platform called android. The first video features Sergey Brin himself introducing some of the things android can do. (which are pretty cool) As for the second video, I don’t even know what’s more interesting, the [...]

“Go, and never darken my towels again.” -Groucho Marx

That being said, Nokia is being handed a sharp lesson in business basics: don’t compete with your biggest customers. In August, the Finnish phone giant announced it was going “beyond the phone” and creating an online portal called Ovi in a bid to become a major service company. This would offer music, maps and games [...]

The G-phone stirreth

Google said to be shipping 50,000 Gphones by year’s end. A UBS analyst is rumored to have information that HTC, a Taiwanese handset manufacturer, will ship about 50,000 cell phones made for Google by the end of the year. “These initial phones are not going to be for sale, says Benjamin Schachter, at UBS. “These [...]

Pierre Karl Peladeau on Wireless Competition

To set the scene for you yesterday at the Empire Club luncheon: Perre Karl Peladeau, CEO of Quebecor and would-be new entrant in the Canadian mobile industry, 200 investment bankers in serious suits, former prime minister Brian Mulroney of Canada sharing the rubber chicken, and one blogger/web2.0 troublemaker. Pierre: : I am here to talk [...]

And if that doesn’t do it, WiMax is coming

From Intel’s developer forum today: “Intel is developing a Wimax enabled CPU [chipset?] called Echo Creek in the middle of next year, with a number of vendors committing to producing notebooks that use the chip. By 2012, over a billion people will be covered by Wimax and 150 million by 2008. .. in mid 2008, [...]

Updates on data rates.

# the iPhone launches in London today. The kicker: *cough* Unlimited data on all plans. Starting at 35£. There were two iphones and democamp last night, you can unlock them and work them in Canada, though Jevon had smartly turned off EDGE at the border. # Bell has a new data plan for PC cards, [...]

The definition of mobile devices just got more interesting

“the much-anticipated iPod touch with WiFi, Safari, and a touch-screen interface—an iPhone without the phone and e-mail capabilities—for $299 and $399. The iPod touch will be able to purchase music directly from the iTunes Store via WiFi. Apple also had a major bit of news with regards to the iPhone, dropping the price for the [...]

RIM Slams Canadian Carriers for Data Rates

BunnyHero (wayne a. lee) says: Rim blasts Telcos for high cost of wireless: “Research In Motion Ltd., riding high after finally gaining entry into China’s lucrative wireless market, blasted Canadian cellphone companies yesterday for their high data rates and for not competing against each other strongly enough.” michael geist writes about the article: -From BunnyHero [...]

Wonderful Wireless UK

# The UK is one of the world’s most competitive wireless markets # Read it and weep. Orange here offers the blackberry 8800 for only 79 pounds with plan. The Pearl is free. Compare with Rogers here. ahem, not free. # There’s wifi networks everywhere, mostly these are not free but they do explicitly offer [...]

Open Data more than Open Source Debates is What Matters Now

There’s a battle for openess going on these days, but it’s not the same as the old open source debate. The ability/openess to modify software is just not that important to most people. Statistically speaking, almost nobody modifies their software (though the few that do can sometimes create enormous value for everyone else – that much is still true).

What I worry about is the battle for open connectivity. The media and telecoms landscape is shifting and the connection providers are the new gatekeepers…. Much more after the jump.

 

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