Turning Japanese

I’ve been reading about Japan, the world’s biggest market for the mobile internet where, out of a population of 127 million, more than 100 million are mobile internet subscribers. The prediction is that what Japan does today, other countries and regions will be doing tomorrow.

Eighty per cent of Japanese phone users access email on their mobiles; 80 per cent have tried downloading music and something like 50 million people download TV shows onto mobiles regularly. Mobiles routinely have GPS and can even be used as electronic wallets which pay with a swipe in shops. The Japanese can pay bills and check into hotel rooms with their mobiles. Soon they’ll be using e-tickets on their phones instead of boarding passes at airports.

The Japanese’ willingness to use the range of services offered to them, as well as some of the world’s coolest handsets, has meant millions reaching for their mobiles instead of the fixed internet. The secret of the Japanese success lies in the fact that their technology makes it easy for people: its intuitive, attractive and high quality. When we have access to the same in the UK, the mobile internet here will go the same way as in Japan.

Motorola unveils new mobile internet technology

Motorola, one of the big names in handset manufacture, has this week unveiled a new WiMAX Chipset modem solution which they are claiming gives ultra-high-speed functionality to its phones.

This technology is part of what Motorola is calling ‘application centric’ modem architecture. It supports ultra-high-speed functionality for 3G and 4G thin mobile devices and is optimized for low power use and small devices. The developers claim it will outperform any other existing 3G technology. As a result it is being billed as powering “the true wireless internet to a consumer’s hand.”

This new modem solution is due to be launched with a range of new Motorola mobile devices at the beginning of next year. It reflects how the whole telecoms industry is adapting to the possibilities of WiMAX technology to achieve what people want, which is the ability to connect and interact with information and entertainment wherever they are.

The promise is that WiMAX technology will continue to deliver data networks that work faster, are more convenient and offer much enhanced multimedia quality. It looks like it’s an exciting time to be involved in mobile internet technology.

MySpace moves into the mobile internet

The social networking site MySpace has this week announced it’s launching a mobile web service. I looked in up, and according to Wikipedia, MySpace is the 6th most popular website in the world.

As an incentive to use it, the mobile MySpace will give users a significant amount of free content and tools that have only been available to paying subscribers up to now. Users will, for free, be able to send and receive MySpace messages and requests from friends. They can comment on profiles and images, put up bulletins, update blogs, and look for friends.

The owners of MySpace, Fox Interactive Media, expect above 80 million visitors a month in the US market alone. They want users to be able to access their profiles on-the-go and are predicting that accessing the Internet from mobile phones will soon be done as easily and frequently as we all currently makes phone calls and text.

I can’t disagree with that. It seems to me that a service like this from MySpace is going to exert a huge push towards making the mobile internet something we’ll all use every day.

More mobile internet kit coming soon

These days I’m getting more and more excited about the growing range of kit available giving people access to the mobile internet.

In the last week two new devices have been announced. One is an Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) from Asus, called the R3. The other is a device called EB, or Elecktrobit, which is being called a ‘MIMD’ – that’s a Mobile Internet Multimedia Device.

Tech-heads among you might be more familiar with MIMD standing for Multiple Instruction stream, Multiple Data stream - so I’m not too convinced about the name and it doesn’t even roll off the tongue!

Nevertheless, the point is there is a now a vast amount of investment underway on getting these kinds of devices out to market - like the Medion UMPC, the WiBrain B1 UMPC and the Packard Bell EasyNote XS which are all being launched in 2007.

At the same time, CPU makers are at work to create new processors that will use up to 10 times less power than today’s average laptop. All of which will make the mobile internet much more accessible for everyone.

MID ownership set to rocket

More good news for the mobile internet. ABI Research, which specializes in research and analysis of the tech market, is this week predicting an explosion in mobile internet device (MID) ownership, claiming the iPhone is only the beginning.

Their latest study estimates that 90 million MIDs and 5 million UMPCs (that’s Ultramobile Personal Computers) will have been purchased by 2012. The MIDs will be used to browse the web, to send texts, to shoot photos and video and to listen to music, and will have larger screens than the iPhone.

The prediction is that they will be like the Swiss Army knife of the future, according to a leading commentator at ABI. For instance people going on holiday would take the MID along to watch movies and play internet games while they’re away.

Another prediction is that devices will be developed which cater for specific market segments. Social networkers would have highly stylised MIDs with webcams, which enable them to connect via video, text and voice all the time. Or a remote worker, like a petroleum engineer, might have a very specific Internet connection need to perform certain tasks.

Another area for the MIDs is in medicine, where devices could monitor and communicate health indicators through a wireless signal.

All in all, this is just the kind of research I’ve been expecting to confirm where we’re going with the mobile internet.

Ofcom says mobile internet set to boom

Content providers take note, the Communications Regulator Ofcom’s latest report is predicting that the mobile internet is set to take off.

The annual UK Communications Market Report 2007 noted that despite the fact that non-SMS data income made up only 5% of mobile operators’ revenue in 2006, “there are indications that the mobile internet may finally begin to deliver on some of its promises in the near future”.

A key reason given was the rate of 3G take up, which rose to 7.8m connections by December last year. Another signpost is the growing number of internet-enabled handsets: the report records that 80% of handsets sold in the first quarter of last year had the XHTML capability required to make web pages legible on mobile phones.

The report also noted that most network operators are now offering unrestricted data tariffs for as little as £5 per month and finally that content providers are now offering a level of customer experience which is nearly on a par with what you’d expect from your home computer.

All in all it looks as though there’s never been a better time for organizations to launch their sites on the mobile internet.

Pay as you go mobile on the net

It seems that nearly every day some new technology comes along which makes the mobile internet better. This week I’m hearing about a phone technology company which is trialing some patented technology which enables you to shop online using your mobile phone.

The company, which is called 2ergo is working with a bunch of online ticketing companies before going for a formal launch of the technology later in 2007.

They’ve developed something which they’re calling 2safeguard. This makes searching, buying and paying for things via your mobile phone secure, and because it’s technology which is independent of any mobile network, it can be used worldwide.

At the moment, people trialling the software can purchase tickets, ringtones, downloaded music and other music-related merchandise like posters via their mobiles.

The company claim that they have created technology which will let you surf the internet, do your shopping and then pay for it securely. They predict a huge growth in the next few years in people paying for things via the mobile internet.

eBay alerts go mobile

News this week that eBay, the world’s biggest online auction site, has just launched a text service to keep you up to date on your auction bids while you’re on the move.

People in the UK can now make a bid online, and then sign up to a text messaging service which sends an alert as soon as you are outbid or when the auction is about to close.

The service claims to go one better than accessing the site on the mobile internet because it’s automatic, fast and direct. In fact I see it as highly complementary to accessing eBay on the mobile internet in the first place.

There’s a price to pay for this service, of course. It will cost 25p for each message and only works with WAP and GPRS enabled handsets, except for those of the 3 network.

The service is actually a continuation of eBay’s foray into the mobile communications market, after having done well with their VoIP service, Skype.

I’m interested to see how well the service does. For me it sort of reflects eBay’s recognition that mobile is increasingly the way to go.

Nokia bids for slice of the mobile internet

Finnish phone company Nokia looks to be moving into the mobile internet. Last week it launched Ovi (which is Finnish for “door”) to provide music, game, map and other download services.

Nokia, which traditionally manufactures handsets, clearly sees a healthy revenue stream opening up from the sale of music and games over the mobile internet.

In addition, the company has also launched several new phones including what they are calling a ‘flagship’ music phone, called the N81, which will compete with the Apple iPhone. Both phones are due to be launched in December, just in time for Christmas.

Next year Nokia is due to launch touch screen handsets, apparently happy to copy one of the key design features of the iPhone.

In response to the growing demand for the mobile internet, Nokia is predicting that global sales of multimedia phones, with functionality such as cameras and music players, is going to rise from 80m in 2006 to 120m in 2007.

Video searching getting better

It looks like searching for video on the internet is likely to get a lot easier with the news that an American company called Veveo is about to launch a slick mobile video search engine called ‘vTap’.

According to Veveo, they’ve indexed more than 100,000 video web sites on the Internet. All you do is tap in the first few letters of a search and the technology will bring up a shortlist of relevant videos which are there for you to watch instantly.

Veveo say they’ve been working on this system in secret for the past two years and that the service will be available for phones running Windows Mobile from September 10th.

A couple of mobile search services are already available, of course, but they can be a bit clunky and limited. 4INFO’s mobile search focuses on sports, news, weather, business, travel and local information.

Another US service called MyWaves, asks you to set up on your computer the videos you want to watch ahead of when you want to see them on your phone.

The new vTap claims to let subscribers search intuitively without planning ahead. I wish them well because this really sounds like quite a big step forward.