Today, my colleague in Paris is delivering a presentation entitled “Embracing Device Diversity” as part of the W3C’s MWI seminar. It shows how having device descriptions can make it possible to build adaptation solutions that will enable content work on mobile devices.
People will wonder why this hasn’t already been done. The simple fact is that nobody thought of it before. Sure, the OMA (evolved from the WAP Forum) have ways to represent some device properties, but no single place to access them when you need them. The WURFL community has a collection of device information of varying quality/origin, but also available only as a big document you download and refresh on occassions.
When I first got involved in this [click title to read more…]
The Blackberry continues to be under threat. People are now beginning to speculate if the devices will have to be recalled because of the patent infringement. Not only would that be a blow to RIM, but it would be a significant blow to 1000s of businesses that now depend on the immediacy afforded them through the devices. Even if RIM eventually succeed in court, this little upset is going to make senior execs and IT managers look around for alternatives. Diversification would give them a bit of security, but device diversity itself introduces problems. Of course, I know a company that deals with device diversity all the time :)
In the UK, Orange is to roll out a mobile television service called Orange TV. Hutchinson are also in this mobile television business (as per announcements last year), and no doubt there will be plenty more operators joining the bandwagon. But honestly, does it make sense? It will be a fad. Quality will be questionable, battery life will be a problem, finding places to use it could be tricky: while driving, while walking in busy streets, while doing anything that requires you to watch what you’re doing. There might also be some question about licensing. In my country, television is licensed to the place where the television is located. So, what if the television is [click title to read more…]
I won’t be using the Google Local Mobile service any time soon, or at least until my next trip to the USA. Around the rest of the world this service has little use. The interface is minimalist, which is perfect for mobile devices. However, I don’t think the search is tailored for people who are “on the move”. One should be able to infer that the users of this service are probably in a mobile context, and are looking for something specific nearby. Of course, that would require a tie-in with location services and I don’t see Google doing that any time soon.
Virgin are to make Virgin Radio available via 3G. One of my previous handsets, a Nokia, had an FM radio built in, and using the radio would seriously affect the battery life. The Virgin Radio service requires software to be installed on the handset, so the device will be doing data processing in addition to constant network comms. I can’t imagine the batteries lasting very long.